Overwatch Addresses False Reporting By Asking People Not To Do It

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Overwatch has its fair share of balance issues, but one issue outside of the metagame is its reporting system. Like many games with a reporting system, Overwatch has seen its fair share of people abusing said system, using it as means of vindication for perceived wrongdoing rather than a notification of actual wrongdoing.

The Overwatch team at Blizzard is actively aware of these issues with the reporting system. In fact, Game Director Jeff Kaplan insisted that Patch 1.5 would mark the beginnings of an overhaul to the reporting system that would be further improved in subsequent patches. Either that got pushed to the back burner, or Kaplan and Co. have made subtle changes that they neglected to tell us about. At any rate, the first changes that we can see will occur in Patch 1.10, currently tesing in the PTR, with more details now given in each area that someone can report you.

One of the main problems with the reporting system is that multiple reports usually always lead to some sort of punishment, regardless of whether or not that was legitimate. So, if you picked Widowmaker, and your whole team got mad at you for it and reported you, you'd likely face some sort of temporary ban or suspension, be it a communication ban or a temporary ban on playing.

So how has the Overwatch team addressed this problem? It appears by asking players not to do it. In the "poor teamwork" category of reporting a player, it now includes the text "Poor teamwork is not: playing a hero that is not considered optimal by the community or staying silent in team voice chat." See all the new category details in the gallery below:

But this seems to rely on the idea that people won't erroneously report someone if they're asked simply asked not to, relying on the goodness of their heart. If that sort of thing worked, they wouldn't be erroneously reporting someone in the first place.

What Overwatch needs to do with its reporting system is limit the amount of times someone can report, which would mean that people would want to save their reports for someone who actually deserves it. I would also suggest implementing actual punishment for false reporting. That is, if you overturn your punishment on appeal, the person who reported you should be punished.

All we have know is Uncle Jeff politely asking everyone to not abuse the reporting system. As someone who has played Sombra on more than one occasion, I can tell you that isn't going to happen.