Overwatch has been a little less toxic lately, according to game director Jeff Kaplan.
Two new social features were added to Overwatch on June 26, Looking for Group and Endorsements. Both are features designed to give players more options for grouping up and being good to each other. And apparently, they’re working. Kaplan posted a few statistics regarding Overwatch in South Korea and the Americas.
Related: Overwatch’s new Looking for Group feature is already in line for improvements
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 towards others is down 28.8 percent in the Americas and 21.6 percent in Korea. Statistics are only available for those two regions at this point, Kaplan said.
“We’re really pleased with the community’s efforts to make Overwatch a better place,” Kaplan wrote. “Thank you all.”
Endorsements work by encouraging teamwork and flexibility in all Overwatch games. Those who are deemed worthy by their fellow players will earn endorsements points, which are displayed on each player profile. Eventually, Overwatch players with top-tier endorsements will earn extra special gifts for being recommended Overwatch teammates. As for Looking for Group, it’s a way for players to find like-minded teammates. That, in turn, promotes less toxicity in games—a role queue encourages less friction when choosing roles.
Kaplan ended his post with a reminder that Blizzard is still iterating on these two features. “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.”
