Kaplan on discouraging bad players from Overwatch participation

There are some new policies in the works for Overwatch, addressing players that habitually leave matches. A player on the Overwatch forums noted that some games include red labels over players that indicate those players leave matches, and suggested Overwatch incorporate the same thing. Jeff Kaplan replied, and while he noted they would take that suggestion under consideration, he also pointed out there is a new policy in the works.

In addition, the subject of reviewing and banning players that habitually throw matches came up. Kaplan shared his thoughts on the matter, including what they were looking at internally, and how players could help when encountering troublesome teammates.

Overwatch in particular has always been pretty adamant about taking care of problematic players and keeping the game fun to play. Cheating has never been tolerated in the game, and it looks like leaving matches is slowly moving up that priority list as well. While Kaplan didn’t have any finalized information about when we’ll see that new policy released, it’s nice to know that it’s in the cards.

But the issue with reporting players is a little more interesting here, because it’s something that easily extends to all of Blizzard’s titles. Every game has a means of reporting players, but it’s never clear if the reporting is actually getting anything done. It’s not only discouraging, it also makes players question the point of doing it in the first place. I’m hoping we’ll see more on both topics soon — maybe in the next developer update.