Question Never played Overwatch before, should I get Standard Edition for PC? worth $20?

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EpicSurvivor

Golden Member
Aug 14, 2012
1,044
48
91
Hey guys, Merry Christmas! I know I am Kinda late to the party but I was wondering if it was worth getting Overwatch Standard Edition or not for PC? Never played it. Big fan of MW2, MW3, BO2 and Black Ops 4 Type of online Multiplayer Games, not sure if this kinda falls under somewhat same category. For some odd reason it reminds me from what I've watched on Youtube like League of Legends but First Person Shooter lol.

Anyway, appreciate y'alls input.
Thanks
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
Well, my opinion of Overwatch has gone down - having run into a number of very nasty players, with their automated reporting system, I just got a permanent ban on a nearly level 1400 account. There had been no indication of a risk of a permanent ban.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
Here's the quality of blizzard support:

I chatted to ask how long the ban was, and they said permanent, but you can appeal.

I went to appeal, and it said 'appeals will only be considered for accounts that have been compromised/.

So I opened a chat and asked, was the agent right I can appeal, or is the system right it's only compromised accounts?

Without any approval from me, she said let her check, and then she came back and said 'you had reports, so I can't reverse the ban'.

I said I didn't expect you to, I'm just asking if I can appeal. She basically said yes and I said thanks.

Then, I went and filed the appeal, very detailed, nearly 100 lines long, and waited.

A bit later, Blizzard just moved my appeal into the previous chat ticked asking it I could appeal, and said ''the penalty was already upheld, you cannot ask again, you will not get further replies'.

So they didn't even READ or consider the appeal!
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
Why were you reported?

For chat complaints, apparently mostly for the word "idiot" used for people who behaved badly in chat (never for their gameplay).

As an example, the last game I'll apparently every play on this account had a 3 person group of really jerky people, very insulting.

They hated that I played Bastion and were insulting. I blocked the worst and said I did. The other two kept a sort of Beavis and Butthead type laughing going in chat, I asked what was so funny, no answer. I then sort of mocked a laugh. Someone said they were laughing at the person I blocked, and that was about that, good for three reports.

Fairly typical of the reports I suspect. In another recent game, my player name is "Petoften" and someone thought they were very clever to over and over say 'you're a pedophile'. I told them they're an idiot and reported and blocked them. Probably got reported. I sometimes did say idiot, which was basically the only 'insult' I used, again, for bad behavior in chat.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
Here's an update. Blizzard has made a completely contradictory post, saying both that appeals are not done in live chat, only by ticket - yet that the decision by a live chat agent to say 'penalty upheld' without any input from me was the appeal and they won't discuss it further. Here's the entire post:

" Thanks for reaching out to us about the appeal process. I am sorry to hear the troubles this has put you through. Appeals are only done through tickets, we do not do live appeals, so when your question came up on whether you could appeal or not, the agents on the chat were just trying to get you to the correct channel for that appeal and any questions relating to it. That said, you can appeal for a penalty, but those are only available through regular tickets. To reiterate the outcome of that appeal though. This action has been taken in accordance with our Code of Conduct (https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/42673),,) which all players acknowledge and agree to prior to playing Overwatch. These policies and conditions allow us to maintain a fun and safe game environment for all our players. Our Battle.net Terms of Use can be found at http://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html. We now consider this matter closed and would not look to enter into further discussion on the subject. "
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,583
10,785
136
If you want to make an issue out of it publicly, I'd start your own thread. Consider posting to Reddit as well but beware, there be trolls.
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,583
10,785
136
Yeah it's been buried.

What appears to be the case here is that Overwatch has enough toxic players in it that if you don't tolerate the toxicity, they have ways to eliminate you using the reports system. Which is the opposite of what reports are for, but what else can you say? You probably should have kept some logs. Now you have no real way to defend yourself when people accuse you of being the toxic player.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
Yeah it's been buried.

What appears to be the case here is that Overwatch has enough toxic players in it that if you don't tolerate the toxicity, they have ways to eliminate you using the reports system. Which is the opposite of what reports are for, but what else can you say? You probably should have kept some logs. Now you have no real way to defend yourself when people accuse you of being the toxic player.

That does seem like the case on Overwatch, that's what happened. I can't tell how reddit does that stuff. Seems like a bad interface, everything quickly off the front.

There really isn't any solution here. Even their system says 'only compromised systems will have appeals considered', though the agents say otherwise. There's no great way to save interactions from thousands of games, much less voice chat, you don't know when you've been reported, and there's no way they're going to wade through anything. It's about the cost of that for a $30 game.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
Text chat can be logged. Voice chat, not so much. I can't stand voice chat anyway (sorry, don't want to hear you).

I don't know how. If Blizzard doesn't have it logged, they didn't see it, and I don't think they would go through it anyway. They are totally flippant about the bans. Who cares that people can have thousands of hours in an account.
 

thestrangebrew1

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2011
3,430
382
126
So what's your recourse now if you wanted to play again? Create a whole new account and re-buy the game? That's seriously lame. What happens to the games you have on the banned acct?
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
They hated that I played Bastion and were insulting. I blocked the worst and said I did. The other two kept a sort of Beavis and Butthead type laughing going in chat, I asked what was so funny, no answer. I then sort of mocked a laugh. Someone said they were laughing at the person I blocked, and that was about that, good for three reports.

Fairly typical of the reports I suspect. In another recent game, my player name is "Petoften" and someone thought they were very clever to over and over say 'you're a pedophile'. I told them they're an idiot and reported and blocked them. Probably got reported. I sometimes did say idiot, which was basically the only 'insult' I used, again, for bad behavior in chat.

Here's the best advice you'll ever get... IGNORE TROLLS.

It's like... when I'm modding on Twitch and I ban someone, I don't sit there talking about the person or what they said. (Unless it needs to serve as a warning for others.) I just completely ignore it, and if chat starts trying to fixate on the negativity, I steer it away. I look at it this way... if I decided to ban the person, whether it's in Twitch chat or on Overwatch, that's me determining that their behavior means they aren't worth my time.

So what's your recourse now if you wanted to play again? Create a whole new account and re-buy the game? That's seriously lame. What happens to the games you have on the banned acct?

To my knowledge, you have to create a new account and buy the game again. No other game should be affected.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
So what's your recourse now if you wanted to play again? Create a whole new account and re-buy the game? That's seriously lame. What happens to the games you have on the banned acct?

Yes, if I wanted to play Overwatch again, I've have to make a new battle.net account and re-buy the game. I'd lose the nearly 1400 levels, the nearly 15 'golden guns', nearly all the cosmetics in the game from playing thousands of house. The other Blizzard games on the account still work. I actually have an extra Overwatch key from humble monthly I have not used.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
Here's the best advice you'll ever get... IGNORE TROLLS.

It's like... when I'm modding on Twitch and I ban someone, I don't sit there talking about the person or what they said. (Unless it needs to serve as a warning for others.) I just completely ignore it, and if chat starts trying to fixate on the negativity, I steer it away. I look at it this way... if I decided to ban the person, whether it's in Twitch chat or on Overwatch, that's me determining that their behavior means they aren't worth my time.

I'm happy to ignore a lot of trolls. But when I have people yelling the N word or gay slurs, people who are screaming insults at other players, people who are mistreating children in chat, I will confront them. I decided if the price is get banned for that, I'll get banned. But Blizzard is horribly negligent and flippant about how they ban people. Most don't run into a problem with that for a couple reasons - one is that few play as many games and shut down bad behavior as much, the other is that the character I played got the most hostility of any in the game adding to the 'reports'. (You might not know, I think I set a record for largest ignore list on this forum when I participated in the politics area).
 

thestrangebrew1

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2011
3,430
382
126
Yes, if I wanted to play Overwatch again, I've have to make a new battle.net account and re-buy the game. I'd lose the nearly 1400 levels, the nearly 15 'golden guns', nearly all the cosmetics in the game from playing thousands of house. The other Blizzard games on the account still work. I actually have an extra Overwatch key from humble monthly I have not used.

Ughh that sucks. It's been awhile since I played (a few mos) but I don't remember experiencing the toxicity.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
Ughh that sucks. It's been awhile since I played (a few mos) but I don't remember experiencing the toxicity.

Thanks. I have sympathy for the difficulty in dealing with toxic players. I don't have sympathy for the utterly careless, dishonest, flippant way Blizzard address the topic. They are very casual about a 'permanent' ban, to the point of officially saying they won't even consider an appeal of the automated system.

It really reminds me of the similar choice Amazon made when they had discussion forums, including a political one.

A gang of posters with opposite political views would mass flag people on the other side, anything they posted.

Then mass bans would happen. Everyone would get the same form letter with the same odd phrasing. Worse, these wre first-offense permanent bans not only of future posted in the forums, but removing your previous Amazon product reviews and to this day I can't post any comment on Amazon product reviews, even with the forums long gone, and they wont discuss it. Now that's great service.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
I'm happy to ignore a lot of trolls. But when I have people yelling the N word or gay slurs, people who are screaming insults at other players, people who are mistreating children in chat, I will confront them. I decided if the price is get banned for that, I'll get banned. But Blizzard is horribly negligent and flippant about how they ban people. Most don't run into a problem with that for a couple reasons - one is that few play as many games and shut down bad behavior as much, the other is that the character I played got the most hostility of any in the game adding to the 'reports'. (You might not know, I think I set a record for largest ignore list on this forum when I participated in the politics area).

Here's the thing that gets me... you describe things as being far worse than I ever experienced, and even watching streamers, it's worse than what they see. I even moderate for a female streamer that uses voice chat, and there's far less toxicity than you're describing. Sure, people are sometimes mean to each other or blame each other, but it's almost never racist or homophobic. In other words, unless you're exaggerating, you seem to be trending well above average in toxicity.

Now, over the years, if there's one thing that I've learned, it's that if someone is seeing far more negativity than others in similar, there's a possibility that they're part of the problem. It's hard to really know because I only know what you've talked about, but you've provided two examples that you should have probably handled differently. To the hecklers, you should've just muted them on voice if their laughing was annoying, and well... probably shouldn't have called the person an idiot. Just report and move on.

So, I guess my question is... have you ever been banned from chat or voice chat? ...or even had a smaller full-game ban in the past? At least from what I've seen, it's rare for Blizzard to outright ban someone unless their actions are quite egregious, they're hacking, or they've had multiple offenses.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
Here's the thing that gets me... you describe things as being far worse than I ever experienced, and even watching streamers, it's worse than what they see. I even moderate for a female streamer that uses voice chat, and there's far less toxicity than you're describing. Sure, people are sometimes mean to each other or blame each other, but it's almost never racist or homophobic. In other words, unless you're exaggerating, you seem to be trending well above average in toxicity.

Now, over the years, if there's one thing that I've learned, it's that if someone is seeing far more negativity than others in similar, there's a possibility that they're part of the problem. It's hard to really know because I only know what you've talked about, but you've provided two examples that you should have probably handled differently. To the hecklers, you should've just muted them on voice if their laughing was annoying, and well... probably shouldn't have called the person an idiot. Just report and move on.

So, I guess my question is... have you ever been banned from chat or voice chat? ...or even had a smaller full-game ban in the past? At least from what I've seen, it's rare for Blizzard to outright ban someone unless their actions are quite egregious, they're hacking, or they've had multiple offenses.

Refrain from the 'blame the victim' instinct. Part of your post is valid - and the answer as far as I can tell is, two things.

One is that I played a lot more than most people. I was up gold player level, which I'd rarely see in my level (high bronze - maybe that's another factor). The other is the huge hostility against Bastion players, more than any other hero.

So, the toxicity I describe wasn't 'normal' - I could play 100 games and not have one like that - but even a small percent add up. Did you repeatedly have groups of enemies who recognized you at the start of the match and were already hostile, and then spend the match doing nothing but focusing on you, to the point of spawn camping you and making their team lose? Probably not. I did.

Yes, I had full game bans for chat reports in the past - it's just an ongoing situation, not much I could do about it but reduce the number of reports if I totally stayed out of chat, but I was the shot caller basically every game, so that wasn't much of an option. Enough with the 'it's your fault' stuff though - if you have more reasonable questions though feel free. It's a lot of toxic players.

But to your point as well - those are NOT exaggerated, they're just some of the worst cases. Probably more than half the time someone used the n word or a gay slur and I said "do not use slurs", they stopped - but a lot of times, they'd then explode with them where I might call them a bigot, an idiot if needed, and say I blocked and reported them. Not much doubt they'd report me.

The issue isn't so much that an automated system led to a ban, it's Blizzard's negligent, careless handling of the ban and any appeal, including simply lying. As I said, it's even their official statement that they wont even consider an appeal.

I don't know what to say about the fact that I think it was possibly thousands of times I reported people for using slurs, and not much question many thousands of times for excessive insults. Even if there could be long strings of 'nice' games between them.

I do understand that my experience wasn't typical, in terms of the numbers, and that it raises a question. I think an important thing is that I would not tolerate the toxic behavior, most did. So I'd get the reports from the guys mad I told them not to use slurs. And I'm fine with that.