It looks like Overwatch’s new social features have begun to fulfill their purpose of making the game a little less toxic, according to game director Jeff Kaplan.
Looking for Group and Endorsements were added to Overwatch on June 26. Both features aimed to provide players with more options in terms of teamwork and grouping up. And according to some new statistics from Kaplan, they’re doing their job.
For now, the stats have only been pulled from Overwatch in South Korea and the Americas. The number of competitive games that contain abusive chat is down 26.4 percent in the American servers and down 16.4 percent in Korea. The amount of daily players being abusive toward others is down 28.8 percent in the Americas and 21.6 percent in Korea.
“We’re really pleased with the community’s efforts to make Overwatch a better place,” Kaplan wrote on the game’s forum. “Thank you all!”
Kaplan also noted the team’s intentions to continue working on improving these features, as well as “exploring other systems to improve the gameplay environment.”
To catch you up to speed, Endorsements and Looking for Group both aim to encourage positive teamwork in Overwatch. Here’s how they work.
Endorsements are a way for players to reward each other for good in-game behavior. Players can get three Endorsements per match, but can only give out one per player. There are three Endorsement types to choose from: Shot Caller (for leaders), Good Teammate (for helpful and effective communication), and Sportsmanship (for positive and respectful players).
You also get experience points for Endorsing other players. With each Endorsement received, you’ll level up. There are five levels total, with colored rings indicating the types of Endorsements received.
Looking for Group helps fill teams with people that actually want to work and play together. The feature can be accessed from either the yellow box at the top-right of the Overwatch menu screen or through Overwatch’s “Play” screen. There are a few options available from there.
- Queue: You can choose a group depending on where you want to queue (Competitive, Quick Play, or Arcade)
- Endorsement Level: This will let you choose a minimum Endorsement level for players in your group
- Role Queue: This requires players to lock into roles, such as support or tank
- Hero Slots: If you’re only interested in playing a certain role, you can also create a filter that shows the roles you want to play
It’s encouraging to see that these new social features seem to be doing the trick in bringing out some positive light in the Overwatch community. Kaplan reminds players in his post that Blizzard is still working on these features and is always seeking ways to improve the game as well as the player experience.
“Some quality-of-life changes are coming very soon,” Kaplan wrote. “For example, in an upcoming patch, the Looking for Group system will persist your filters across logins.”