There have been a lot of issues surrounding the Overwatch reporting system that have already started ever since its official release. One of the prominent problems is the constant abuse of the reporting feature which led to numerous unintentional bans. This abuse greatly affected the "avoid player" option which, as you all could remember, was removed entirely from the game.
But until today, numerous players are still abusing the reporting system without any definitive reason or grounds behind it. One player even stated that he got tons of report for playing an unpopular hero (Sym) which eventually led to his account being completely silenced. He claims that this is another form of harassment that clearly crosses the line on Blizzard's core-values; which the company has been trying to instill on all of its communities.
Blizzard's Response
After numerous complaints about the abusive use of the reporting system, the Game Director of Overwatch, Jeff Kaplan has personally addressed the issue himself saying: "We're actively working on this right now. It's going to take some time for all of the changes we want to do to get implemented. But starting in Patch 1.5 you'll start to see the early beginnings of change to the reporting system. More changes will come in subsequent patches."
It appears that Blizzard has a new way to improve the current reporting system. But it's still unsure whether it will be an improvised reporting system, a filtering system or a total removal of the feature. It should be noted that it only took some time before Blizzard decisively scrapped out the "avoid player" option entirely.
The removal of the avoid player option was due to the fact that it lead to an unstable competitive environment for most as some of the top tiered players were eventually avoided by most of the community. Blizzard deemed it was ridiculously abusive and was therefore removed.
But let's say Blizzard will consider a filtering system to manage the current reporting feature. How will they properly assess the "filtration" process? There are a lot of things to consider when assessing a report. Let's say for example, a player refuses to play other heroes aside from a single character. This act of "stubbornness" can be seen as uncooperative by most and will therefore be subjected to a report. But what if the player contest Blizzard that he or she can only play a single hero?
This is just one of the complicated issues of the reporting system that Blizzard, particularly Jeff Kaplan has to take into consideration. Hopefully Blizzard will come up with yet another ingenious method to properly assess the reporting system.
What do you think of the current reporting system? Do you think it will be the next feature to be removed along with the "avoid player" option?
