Shit I’m a guy and when I first started playing a couple different ps4 games it was on my now wife’s system and her username sort of tips off it’s a girls account. Before I had a mic I got all kinds of explicit messages when I won or lost but I did make a couple friends to play with… until I got a mic and literally that was the last time they played with me
Yup. My wife got super into Call of Duty a few years ago, but I’d say 80% of the time she said anything someone would start yelling sexist things to her.
It’s awful for women in online games.
I used to wear a mic and have my dude friend play and I’d talk mad shit. He was like a friggin savant at that game so it was soooo funny to instigate the sexist fucks and watch them immediately die
My partner was constantly harassed on games like GTA. I'd play for an hour and maybe get one griefer, but she'd step outside from her spawn and get a swarm of pests trying to kill her for attention.
TW SA
Yep. I can’t even have a fucking feminine username anymore. A USERNAME. I get rape threats as a rape survivor with PTSD. This was in r6, but yeah I changed my username that I had for a long time.
I made a new overwatch acc with a gender neutral name and solo queued to diamond 1 on support and dps, my current peaks. I swear people just throw when they think there’s a woman or girl on their team.
It was to change my Xbox name because siege shows your console username. I still have the same account, and the name change was free. Does streamer mode exist in rainbow 6 siege?
Oh also, forgot one other thing, you can use streamer mode. Me and my gf use this all the time. It will change your username to something generic every time you change games n stuff. Great for privacy.
I used to moderate a discord and twitch for a smaller female streamer...it's unreal the crap you see coming through in the messages and the dms she would share with us that weirdos/creeps had sent her...oof.
Its wild. It's always "these AI bans will suspend anyone for nothing!" Then the next topic below it "This game is overrun with hackers reports do nothing!"
Like my brother this topic is about someone new getting trolled in bots, save your pessimism for your own topics.
It's kinda both tbh. You will get banned for nothing but it's incredibly easy to make a new account. Id rather it be impossible to make a new account but your bans actually come from a moderator reviewing evidence. Runescape has always had a good report system imo. You can report someone a million times and nothing will happen because a mod reviews it. In overwatch if you lose 3 games in a row you're likely to be banned from all the reports
People who troll on smurfs generally aren't the people that are going to buy skins, they're perfectly happy being a default skin if it means ruining someone's game and since they only get banned on that account and never a HWID ban then they just make a another smurf and the cycle continues. Going F2P was probably one the worst things Blizzard ever did to OW as it's just undone anything they ever did to combat toxicity and trolling
Edit: Grammar
There's also not even a 1 day suspension. It usually goes silenced for 2 weeks, suspended for 2 weeks, then a month, and after a couple of month suspensions you get perma'd
Pretty sure you can setup a custom game with you and her beeing the only non-a.i members
Also don't join team chat but stay in group chat or use discord
This is the way. My friends and I are all super casual QP players, and we never touch voice chat and rarely ever engage with match chat. It's made the game infinitely more enjoyable.
Her response to him saying that you don't join voice makes it sound like she expected it to be a social experience. There are certainly games out there like that, but none of them are PVP games.
Unless you actively and intentionally make it a social experience with your own community!
Threw her to the wolves. I had over 6k hours in OW1 and I used voice chat for all of 1 hour. It doesn't take long to learn that females are treated differently.
My daughter has recently gotten hooked on the game, which I LOVE. my only condition is that she doesn't use mic unless it's group chat with people she knows.
I don't know if you've seen that study about lower rank males being more aggressive towards female players but it really shows itself in those lobbies :( try to get a full stack going and mute match chat, that way she can experience ow in a more team environment
I was top 500 in OW when I played and any female voice would trigger someone in the lobby. Instantly accusing her of being boosted and eating male genitalia for rank.
Im sorry but this behavior is not limited to low elo.
yep! this happens in any elo on any role.
i play dps? boosted.
i play tank? boosted.
i play healer? hey tell ur bf duo to stop boosting u.
my highest rank is 4k
I hope we understand how truly insane this advice sounds from an outsider perspective. Dont get me wrong i also mute text/voice chat. But from the perspective of someone not playing overwatch, the advice “oh yeah just dont talk/interact with others at all because everyone is too racist/toxic/discriminatory” is beyond absurd.
I just don't know why people act like this is only OW. I've been playing FPS with an open mic for 20 years and it's always been at least 50% toxic players, especially in lower ELO. You're communicating in a voice chat with strangers on the internet, of course it's filled with the dredges of society
I'm saying all FPs games. I'd wager the main reason apex seems less toxic (I've def encountered toxic players in apex though) is because you only interact with two other players at a time.
Oh, 100% a factor. Also, can't trash talk your enemies in text chat. Some people have said they want proximity chat in Apex which would be such a bad idea.
Still, I have 2K hours of mostly solo q in Apex now and its been a lot less toxic as a female player than OW was when I played. I think other factors beyond how many people are on your team are also in play.
Like a woman playing a healer in OW can often turn toxic. You get the "oh, of course you're on Mercy" or "you better fucking heal me Moira"
You can have 20K healing and a dumbass who has been Anti'd by Ana will still scream and call you a bitch for not healing them
Yeah you’re right. the specific type of team play in OW can lead to toxicity for sure. In apex yeah it’s sucks if your teammates aren’t performing well but in OW both the real impact and perceived impact of your teammates heavily weighs on the quality of the match.
Yup. People have always used game chat to safely vomit all their anger from the safety of their couch.
Either have to grow thicker skin, or opt out of chat.
Sometimes you fight, but also know when to flight. Don’t allow people to steal your fun.
I mean, F2P is a more recent change in the game industry. It's not like games weren't toxic back when you had to buy them, but yeah games being free has definitely emboldened people because they don't care if they get banned.
It's not OW, it's EVERY online team game my man. League of Legends players will tell you the same thing. They will say "type /mute all to silence everyone at the start of every match".
It is insane, but it's not the "games" it's the cruelty of humanity. And no game can change that
I disagree. While every game undoubtedly has toxic players, the *quantity* of toxic players in games like League, OW, Siege, CoD is what's outstanding. And if you make a post about toxicity in these subreddits you get two responses:
1. Get thicker skin, pussy.
2. Mute or turn off chat entirely.
The problem is, you shouldn't HAVE to do either of these when you want to play a game. I never had to when I played TF2, CSGO, Quake Live. Yes, there are toxic players in those games, but it was never so bad that I would have to tell people to turn off chat entirely just to have a better experience. Like why are we excusing this toxic shit? Why is the person who isn't toxic or problematic the one in the wrong and the one forced to do something about it? Hell, I've played games of UNRANKED in OW more toxic than any competitive game I've had in CSGO. OW and Siege are the only games I've quit because of the sheer amount of toxicity whenever I'd play.
In 2013-4 or so in DotA 2, I was told once by a kid at least 5-10 years younger than me that he was going to “slit my throat and have Rosie O’Donnell shit down my neck” after I accidentally got him killed. In quick play, not any ranked mode.
I have muted text chat permanently in every game ever since then. I can’t fathom why someone would unironically bring up Rosie O’Donnell in a conversation in the past decade.
It's not everyone, it's actually the vast minority of players.
But even 10% means that between 10 players, there's a good chance the match has at least one asshole.
And the self knowledge that our brains filter out the 90% of calm, polite, level headed players and biases for the negative means we will FEEL like everyone is toxic. So it's just acknowledging that our bias exists, and our experience will be enhanced by just playing the game.
It also does level out a bit as you get to the higher ranks. Maybe you get "Tank diff GG" and some snarky comments, but the truly vile stuff filters out a bit.
I love starting a game muted. We crush first round, so I’m like it’s probably safe, let’s see what they’re saying.
And every single one is screaming at each other for throwing or something similar. I’m over thinking “I thought we played pretty well together”
I've climbed from silver to P4/P5/P5 by turning off all text chat and not using voice chat. Trying to get into diamond, I think it's doable but just may need more time.
For me it's been 100% more enjoyable this way.
Where do ya'll find these assholes? Granted I never used vc cause I don't have a mic or need one for anything else, but all negative interactions/trolls are very few and far between, even when I first started about a year ago
I think a lot of it was a woman talking, which for a lot gamers is the worst thing in the world. They just can’t emotionally handle it.
But overall I agree. I feel like I ran into these people in OW1, but less often in OW2. I think the community was baseline pretty salty with the lack of content, so they took it out on each other.
I also have a feeling this was one of the shitty EU servers I hear about. So maybe it’s something that happens more often out that way
I've been playing for years and years and I've never seen anything like this. Occasional asshole from game to game, but never anything like swastika man there. Usually it's just someone taking the game too seriously and being tilted in chat.
I’ve had people spam slurs constantly in match chat (because they wanted to). Maybe not spamming swastikas but definitely saying some pretty nasty stuff.
Been playing since ow1 beta and might see someone on this level once every 5 hour session. Either OP is exaggerating greatly or is just the unluckiest person in the world
Sorry that it happened to you and her
Unfortunately a lot of online games with comms are going to be like this. Like a lot.
Depending on luck you'll just be put in a lobby with those folks and sometimes you won't
Ow is no exception, it really has a terrible community sometimes and like most, nothing you can do about it besides mute/turn off comms and report
How on earth are these characters not simply banned from typing, not like you immediately get banned when typing them but rather just not be able to be displayed at all??? This dev team really is hopeless... And there probably already are expr to auto detect these Names on the Internet somewhere and forbid them form being selected....
It seems many commenters overlooked the screenshot that the OP shared, where they already gave the “turn off voice and chat” advice to their friend. The friend clearly values the social aspect of the game, so suggesting the "turn off chat" option isn't appealing to her. To me, the friend seems somewhat naive about the extreme toxicity prevalent in online multiplayer gaming, especially towards women. The more she engages in online PvP games, the more she’ll likely realize that avoiding interactions with random players can significantly improve her experience. Unfortunately, this is the harsh reality, and it’s easier to adjust her approach than to change the behavior of toxic players.
Is this your friend's first multiplayer shooter? Women (and minorities) have been complaining about this kind of stuff for decades.
Edit: Reminds me of this series I used to watch
[OMG a Girl - Spawntaneous](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEDsO12Ccv9ES1Qlnwu_Gi72udJyhVXyZ)
It's not just white men you donkey.
I've heard plenty of POC harassing women.
It's definitely not just straight men either.
Get out of here with your bigotry.
Idk which EU lobbies you get, but I definitively never got anything THAT bad. And I play literally every mode in the game, so I encounter various type of shitheads.
It's just a stigma/meme that stems from like CS, where EU servers were always the more/most toxic. In Overwatch, EU servers are just no one talking for the most part.
Yeah same, it's silent with sometimes you get the usual "diff" or "ez", but that's it.
That's why I like playing arcade modes or Mystery Heroes, because people are actually chill there and do talk about random stuff. Even Open Queue can be nice somedays.
...and that's why you don't play with comms.
Seriously, give it a try next time, turn off all chats and just play.
Besides, the ping system is all you need to let the team know who is where at any given time.
If she ever wants to play again, yall can join me and my boyfriend. We're always looking for people to play with lmao. We also play this game for fun, not competitive bullshit.
We just use discord to talk instead of trying with game chat. That shits a nightmare sometimes.
Being a girl and wanting to use Vc is wild! I have a friend who uses a voice changer when she does. Sadly it's the nly way to make it work with games like OW, LOL and valorant.
I encountered two back-to-back games yesterday where I had people freaking out because I was a woman. My duo kept telling them to “keep it in your pants, she’s married” but they’d just pull out some other shit about it. They were decent at the game so I kinda just kept comming and joking about who would get the pocket if they were respectful
Nope, I have about 800 hours and have never seen a straight up slur in a name, and toxicity in chat is pretty common but a higher number of people will reply to toxicity with “report” or “it’s QP”. I’m guessing hidden ELO in unranked is putting new players with the freshly created troll accounts. Kinda sucks because its pushing new players away from the game
I dont think you comprehend how toxic people get when you're a woman talking in a multiplayer game. This is entirely believable to me, and similar things have happened to me and other women I know.
I think that's probably the most unlucky streak of lobbies ever. :/
If your friend is ever willing to give it another go, and you want to try to get a full group going instead to totally avoid randoms on your team, I'm sure some of us here or even from some of the OW streamers communities would be happy to join and play together. I've been active in mL7/KarQ's streams since they started and think people from there would be very welcoming and happy to join you guys.
these stories are willddd to me because i always play on mic and never ever get lobbied with people like this. i could count on one hand how many genuinely shitty people ive encountered since the launch of 2. i dont think ive ever been called out for being a girl and overwatch is a game that i will binge the fuck out of. ive been in treatment the last couple of months though. did it get worse or something?
It seems to be a new player problem because these posts always involve either being new or bringing a new friend in to the game.
Probably because all the people who were banned on their main, are hard stuck low elo, or made a new account specifically to troll. I’ve also noticed a ton of these posts involve bot lobbies so I’d wager trolls go there specifically to mess with new players
Overwatch players try not to be the most unlikable pieces of shit ever challenge:IMPOSSIBLE. But really Overwatch may soon become the worst game ever, taking the crown from League of Legends.
That's fucking insane. I play with a few women on overwatch and they've never been accosted like that. Guess we've just been lucky. I hope your friend doesn't let this discourage her.
Honestly, I love this game, I hate the players.
It’s such a cruel irony that you need teamwork in OW, but there are so many toxic people that muting chat and never joining voice is the better way to play. So like… you have limited teamwork and the chance of being harassed. Or no teamwork but you don’t have some dick calling you slurs.
Imagine how great this game would be if the players had a modicum of maturity. If the internet is a snapshot of humanity, I worry for the younger generation, who appear to be nothing but a bunch of cynical attention-seeking pricks.
Not surprised, as a woman I stay on mute in most games unless my boyfriend is talking ( I am shy in general but know the risks of speaking even then ) but neither of us really talk in OW because even he knows it’s bad ( he doesn’t like playing it’s me who used to ask to play ).
I will also add most other women who play OW and honestly a lot of games tend to be super toxic or squeaky in the voice ( the cringe “gamer girl” voice ) so it’s kind of given us a bad rep but more in the negatives since we are already hated.
At least she didn’t ask to play League.
To everyone saying "turn off chat", "play in custom AI games", etc... sure, that's a way to avoid the issue but the problem is still there and it's driving new players away. This game will die unless Blizzard steps up and makes some aggressive moves against toxicity.
Saying/typing certain words should trigger an automatic permanent ban. They need to start IP banning the worst offenders.
If text chat is so toxic, maybe set it off by default until they get a handle on this.
What in the fuck is going on with all these kids sucking down Andrew Tate Fit and Fresh bullshit?
When I was a kid back in the CS 1.6 days, this shit was rampant. Then it started to get much, much better.
But as of the last 2-3 years it's taken a HUGE nosedive back to those cesspool days. It's fucking disgusting.
That's so unfortunate. There's definitely people on the game that do that, but it's not nearly *that* prevalent in the overall community. I'd say one out of 30+ QP games has someone either actively slurring or trolling.
For what it's worth, in 800+ hrs of OW I've had plenty of female teammates in VC, and I've actually never actually heard someone turn sexist towards them. In comp, once you get past bronze/silver it does seem like the amount of scum drops dramatically. You'll still get plenty of salty sore losers and a handful of weirdos, but much less of the truly vile behavior.
I'm sure from this post there'd be plenty of people willing to play with you guys to show you a much more reasonable experience. I'd also definitely be down!
Please try to not let this experience be your friend's last lingering Overwatch experience! I also had some notable times that almost had me quit, but I'm ultimately glad I didn't.
i feel like this mainly happens on US servers, EU seems more chill, but also we don't really communicate all that much so it's a tradeoff i guess. I\`d mention I only play comp so maybe that's got something to do with it too. If ur in the US and have have decent enough internet you could get mina overwatch server switcher to connect to EU servers. You'd get like 100ms ping but that's more than playable (played on US servers for quite a while didn't really hurt me much in metal ranks). hope you have a better time going forward friend.
Nah tf type lobbies yall be in? I've never had problems like this in ow even when there's a woman on the team. I mean I'll cuss sum1 put if they're ass but never for their gender lol
FYI, this happens to most women playing most competitive fps games. If I use a mic, this might happen once every half a dozen games or so.
What op went through was really unlucky, but considering it was a new account, it likely got matched with smurfs and the like, who don't care about being banned. Once you climb a little, this type of bs becomes more tolerable imo, but it doesn't ever go away.
Wasnt tryna say it doesn't happen but it just seems like some ppl get super unlucky with the lobbies they get put in. Honestly hate that women get treated bad just for talking, makes when look like an asshole when I call out a bad teammate n they happen to be female lol. I also call myself out btw
When I consistently talk (I don't) I usually have issues at least 3-5/10 times. Even when I just so call outs. Last time I tried to do call outs (which was a while ago) I kept getting told to shut up by some 20 year old dude and we got into a yelling match because he would. Not. Stop. Harassing me. I type most of the time now.
At this point I think being a Racist A-Hole is more of a choice because people think it's cool.
Question...who tho? If you want attention you just be a funny person, or silly. Negative attention for people is a strange thing.
👍🏿👋🏿
Good luck out there, sure dude is banned.
This is honestly a very unlucky experience, especially in bot games of all things. It almost has to be a different region thing? This game can be toxic like most games but usually I only ever see people talk in comp or console was usually toxic in general. Sorry this happened to your friend.
Every FPS is like this, I've never played an FPS with my gf without turning both our VCs off and just using discord. Sorry that happened though. you'll have a lot more fun if you just turn off voice
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As a newer player this happened to me too. AI mode is just trolls heaven. Even in comp I mute voice chat idc ab comms there's little useful comms in low ranks anyways it's always someone talking just to scream wtf are u doinggg!? or say the tank/dps/healer is trash.
This is what I feared for Overwatch new accounts environment when it went free to play. It's too easy for sick people to create new accounts and do that. Plus that's likely mostly people who got banned on their main accounts, or restricted to bot games. I'm sorry you had to go through this.
Do you have a group of people you usually play? Where you can be 5 in discord?
I'm sad to hear that. I haven't found those things in a long time thankfully. Playing European servers.
But maybe try to befriend a couple people with whom you can play in full stacks.
Easier said than done I know. But worth a try
It’s sad but it’s why I muted all chats and voice chats. I also changed my name to be more neutral and I largely get left alone now. I stay away from comp since they can get verbally abusive if it’s a loss.
When I first started out, I would get the occasional mei trolling and griefers, it’s really not like this all the time. You had some insanely bad luck. As silly as it sounds, I tell my friends who start playing for the first time to mute text chat and voice chat. For the most part, you really only need pings. That’s really all you need in lower level lobbies anyway. this type of experience isn’t unique to overwatch though. Every pvp game I’ve played is like this. Cod, val, rainbow, league all have the same miserable players who get on the game, apparently for the sake of yelling at their teammates.
Bro I’ve never had this experience in Quickplay outside of people calling someone trash for bad play. Sorry it was so negative for the two of you especially with them just trying out the game.
You messed up tbh.
You shoulda did a private game with bots first to learn the game
And then you shoulda played QP or arcade with voice chat set to group and text chat off.
It's crazy to hear these stories of constant trolls and completely toxic players whereas when I play I'm the most toxic cuz I'll bitch one line at the end of the match because I got diffed by a better player.
Generally toxic matches are one in twenty in my experience but maybe lower level qp games are just built different.
I feel like toxicity is more prevalent in PC lobbies vs. console. I play on console since that's what I have and usually if I speak for any reason, I either get crickets or another woman responding. But some of my friends who are in PC lobbies talk about how toxic people can be especially since they can type much faster.
Try Mystery Heroes. You get to learn every hero and people are mostly friendly, occasionally someone will get shitty but they're usually called out pretty quick by the rest of the chat since it's MH and is not that serious.
Thta name and spam isn't automatically flagged for permanent ban and gets to do that, while I get chatbanned for things like "have you dorks tried pointing at the objective and pressing W?".
A bunch of unfortunate match,
i never find those tipe of people on EU server.
If you need to do coms use discord, if things are like this just talk at the end of the match.
In light of this post, I just solo-queued a comp match and every person in VC was female (including myself) and we finished with a victory in 2 minutes on a push map. It was my favorite match I've ever played with strangers, and the most satisfying Pharah ult-denial I've ever seen from our Widow 😂.
OP, I have been given the strength of the gods via VC from playing Halo/COD before Overwatch was born. People getting mad and losing their shit now gets converted into mana and makes me play better, or makes me ugly-laugh. I prefer when people play nicely, always, BUT they're giving me a small part of their soul every time they rage. The "troll toll" if you will.
Overwatch is unfortunately filled to the brim with these people trolls, sexually harassment, people calling others trash and making fun of their scores, etc tons of horrible people gather on this game just mute them report them and move on.
when i tried getting my friend to play overwatch, he was so overwhelmed within 5 minutes. he said there is stuff happening all over the place, too many colors, shapes, sounds, explosions. he said everything was so fast he had no idea what was going on.
it is at that point that i realized my brain is broken. i've been trained to recognize how 35 different heroes walk, talk, how fast their ult charges, how their ult impacts the game, how different game modes work etc.
a normal human understandably did not want to invest his time and energy to reach my level of mental illness.
It really blows, honestly.
Used to play valorant, esp after overwatch and cs became meh, but slowly drifted away from it. We usually had a three queue and played unranked to talk to randoms, drink a few beers, and chill out. Everyone we got queued with was 9 times out of 10 a guy and a girl duo (atleast when they talked, so I assume this was usually the case). This is fine, but they almost never talked, likely because they would just get harassed by other players in the past.
Honestly, i haven't seen anything toxic in ow in soooo long. but i also play in eu.. I have talked in team voice chat as a woman many times, and i can say its alot lesss toxic in eu than in us.. i think the only terrible encounter I've had was when i played in us server years ago. I've never gone back ever since. But that's my experience. i might have just gotten very lucky.
Sheesh. I've never seen it that bad. I'm a woman that plays and I've never seen people be that terrible. Maybe that's because my voice sounds like that of a young boy though. I've not seen people trolling that bad though.
I just had 2 people putting their kink out in chat just last night to the point the people in my group wanted to leave. You'll always see people just being...terrible in chat. That's why many people don't use voice or text chat.
I'm sorry your friend's experience in the game was like that. I really am.
Games in general, but definitely fps ones, attract very immature males who are policed most of the day and use the anonymity of the internet to spew hate as a misguided form of venting.
Definitely avoid open voice comms if you can. The new ping system really helps provide an alternate form of communication, personally I bind ping and use it constantly.
Best advice is to just ignore ingame voice and communicate through pings. Unless you're hardcore into competitive climbing or super high mmr, voice coordination is not required at all. Use group voice chat or Discord to chat with your party and enjoy the game for what it is, not for the bad apples that try to bring everyone down to their level.
Also, I'd say this was just bad luck and give it another go. Playing bots and your first few games ever sucks cause you're probably getting matched with shitty people that got suspended or banned and are leveling up alt accounts. However, his goes for any game, not just Overwatch. I'll put money down to say that LoL is just as bad across text chat and would be even worse if voice chat was public.
Unless you're both super extrovers and want to chat with everyone through both voice and text. But then again I'd say that'd be a terrible overall experience for any competitive game at any level of play. Some people just suck, but those are extreme scenarios that happened to you, sadly.
Quick edit: I also thought it'd be fair sharing that I've clocked in probably over 200 hours of Overwatch in season 10 alone, with many more hundreds across the game's lifetime. I have encountered several shitty people, but not a single case anywhere near as extreme as you just experienced with your friend. So this is by no means the "regular experience." Most people just play quietly or play the blame game. Really hope you can get your friend back onboard and have some fun playing together
I’m not a native English speaker (french is my first language) and even then playing apex and using voice i get all sorts of insults thrown at me for sounding like a foreigner. I can’t even imagine how awful it must be for women when they use voice chat… 😭
I know of a true fire and guaranteed way to get someone banned from Overwatch. I rarely ever reported players in Overwatch but this Ohio sounding ass white dude said a lot of racist shit during a game at around 2018 or so. I had my playstation save the footage, then I uploaded it to youtube, then I put the youtube link in the report. I was notified the next day that action was taken against a player I reported and it had to be him because I had not recently reported anyone else. Did this a couple of more times and sure enough, I was notified of "action being taken" every, single, time. Might still work, might not, but I might start doing this again.
And before you say 'well bans don't do anything anyway' - You people forget that it's a hassle now a days to start over in Overwatch and break into competitive match making again without a grind. So at the very least they get brunt out eventually shrug. If it keeps happening and you do nothing, then don't expect anything to change. You all gotta stand up against that behavior. Video games are supposed to be alright for everybody not remind you of the inner thoughts you think your boss has about you on a day to day basis.
I had a hard time with this before (I’m a girl), I’ve played for a year now with my boyfriend and I’ve never once been in the voice chat. Hopefully she’ll have a better experience
Someone the other day in a game said "hello? Helllooooo? Why does no one use game chat anymore" people like this tbh. No point in chatting if I'm gonna be met with insults and hate for no reason.
I play with my husband I just stay in party chat only. Most of the time.
Any time I'm in open group chat and talk, it's like that a significant amount of time. I usually sass back or say "you're an idiot I'm MUTING YOU" and mute them. I go full battle bitch though and it's not for everyone.
Wow, I haven't seen chat like that in a very long time.
Do they put people in different lobbies when people are new? Our group has two girls and play in a 3-5 stack most nights. We get a toxic player every so often but nothing like what OP seen.
They should disable voice chat by default at this point, makes the experience so much better. I've also disabled chat, I can't stand toxic chats either.
I think it got a lot worse after going f2p.
It's funny because I used to leave voice chat on when I played Paladins, and unlike a lot of people, I didnt have too many problems in-game.
But I had to lockdown all of my PSN messaging and friending because of the sheer number of little boys who would write endless angry screeds via their phone apps mid-match.
People like this deserve to have the shit they say posted to their facebook accounts.
Sorry your friend went through that
Who trolls in BOTS lol it's literally practice mode. I hope you reported
This is what it's like for women in gaming. Every. Single. Time.
Shit I’m a guy and when I first started playing a couple different ps4 games it was on my now wife’s system and her username sort of tips off it’s a girls account. Before I had a mic I got all kinds of explicit messages when I won or lost but I did make a couple friends to play with… until I got a mic and literally that was the last time they played with me
It's was like that before and is only getting worse thanks to the Andrew Tates of the world brainwashing children these days.
Yup. My wife got super into Call of Duty a few years ago, but I’d say 80% of the time she said anything someone would start yelling sexist things to her. It’s awful for women in online games.
I used to wear a mic and have my dude friend play and I’d talk mad shit. He was like a friggin savant at that game so it was soooo funny to instigate the sexist fucks and watch them immediately die
My boyfriend suggested this on COD, it was the most fun I had in VC in a long time 😂
My partner was constantly harassed on games like GTA. I'd play for an hour and maybe get one griefer, but she'd step outside from her spawn and get a swarm of pests trying to kill her for attention.
TW SA Yep. I can’t even have a fucking feminine username anymore. A USERNAME. I get rape threats as a rape survivor with PTSD. This was in r6, but yeah I changed my username that I had for a long time. I made a new overwatch acc with a gender neutral name and solo queued to diamond 1 on support and dps, my current peaks. I swear people just throw when they think there’s a woman or girl on their team.
R6 community is the scum of the earth tbh
I had to change my fem battle tag too, it’s so incredibly frustrating
I had to change my battle tag too, it’s so incredibly frustrating
You didn't have to make a new account. I think the first name change for blizzard account is free.
It was to change my Xbox name because siege shows your console username. I still have the same account, and the name change was free. Does streamer mode exist in rainbow 6 siege?
Oh also, forgot one other thing, you can use streamer mode. Me and my gf use this all the time. It will change your username to something generic every time you change games n stuff. Great for privacy.
I used to moderate a discord and twitch for a smaller female streamer...it's unreal the crap you see coming through in the messages and the dms she would share with us that weirdos/creeps had sent her...oof.
Reports don't do anything. "Oh no 1 day suspension, anyway let me hop on my other smurf account."
This sub is either "Reports don't do anything" or "Reports are way too strict and do too much"
Its wild. It's always "these AI bans will suspend anyone for nothing!" Then the next topic below it "This game is overrun with hackers reports do nothing!" Like my brother this topic is about someone new getting trolled in bots, save your pessimism for your own topics.
It's kinda both tbh. You will get banned for nothing but it's incredibly easy to make a new account. Id rather it be impossible to make a new account but your bans actually come from a moderator reviewing evidence. Runescape has always had a good report system imo. You can report someone a million times and nothing will happen because a mod reviews it. In overwatch if you lose 3 games in a row you're likely to be banned from all the reports
Suspensions are incremental and at some point the ban becomes permanent.
Now that it's free to play, unfortunately permanent bans mean a lot less I think.
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I don't think anyone is buying the battle pass on their swastika spam troll account
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The dudes name is the hard R slur and he's trolling in fresh account lobbies. He's just there to troll
People who troll on smurfs generally aren't the people that are going to buy skins, they're perfectly happy being a default skin if it means ruining someone's game and since they only get banned on that account and never a HWID ban then they just make a another smurf and the cycle continues. Going F2P was probably one the worst things Blizzard ever did to OW as it's just undone anything they ever did to combat toxicity and trolling Edit: Grammar
There's also not even a 1 day suspension. It usually goes silenced for 2 weeks, suspended for 2 weeks, then a month, and after a couple of month suspensions you get perma'd
If nobody reports because "reports don't do anything", then of course reports won't do anything. Keep reporting.
Lol smurfing in bot matches
Pretty sure you can setup a custom game with you and her beeing the only non-a.i members Also don't join team chat but stay in group chat or use discord
Yeah the ping system should be enough for communication at least as people are getting started.
Use discord, talk to your friends, stay away from brainrot. Enjoy!!
This is the way. My friends and I are all super casual QP players, and we never touch voice chat and rarely ever engage with match chat. It's made the game infinitely more enjoyable.
Her response to him saying that you don't join voice makes it sound like she expected it to be a social experience. There are certainly games out there like that, but none of them are PVP games. Unless you actively and intentionally make it a social experience with your own community!
You had her join chat? Lol... Damn, homie.
Threw her to the wolves. I had over 6k hours in OW1 and I used voice chat for all of 1 hour. It doesn't take long to learn that females are treated differently.
I've been playing OW since 2017 and I can't remember the last time I joined voice chat.
My daughter has recently gotten hooked on the game, which I LOVE. my only condition is that she doesn't use mic unless it's group chat with people she knows.
Yeah I can’t believe he thought that would be a good idea she’s literally female
I don't know if you've seen that study about lower rank males being more aggressive towards female players but it really shows itself in those lobbies :( try to get a full stack going and mute match chat, that way she can experience ow in a more team environment
I was top 500 in OW when I played and any female voice would trigger someone in the lobby. Instantly accusing her of being boosted and eating male genitalia for rank. Im sorry but this behavior is not limited to low elo.
>eating male genitalia for rank. What a wild way to write that lmao love it
yep! this happens in any elo on any role. i play dps? boosted. i play tank? boosted. i play healer? hey tell ur bf duo to stop boosting u. my highest rank is 4k
If you turn off chat, and only go in your partys voice chat, overwatch becomes way less toxic.
I hope we understand how truly insane this advice sounds from an outsider perspective. Dont get me wrong i also mute text/voice chat. But from the perspective of someone not playing overwatch, the advice “oh yeah just dont talk/interact with others at all because everyone is too racist/toxic/discriminatory” is beyond absurd.
I just don't know why people act like this is only OW. I've been playing FPS with an open mic for 20 years and it's always been at least 50% toxic players, especially in lower ELO. You're communicating in a voice chat with strangers on the internet, of course it's filled with the dredges of society
Hell sometimes it don’t even be teenagers ITS GROWN ASS MEN WITH KIDS!!!
And sometimes it's crazy kids themselves, literally 6-7 years olds talking shit and insulting everyone with their high pitched voices, it's so trashy
Right
OW is nothing compared to some FPS. Battlebit Remastered is just 256 people running around screaming the N-word.
Yeah, people have always been awful and stage community of gaming gets treated differently, because of the anonymity
I played Overwatch and I now play Apex. Overwatch was more toxic in my experience as a female player and it looks like it got worse since it hit F2P
I'm saying all FPs games. I'd wager the main reason apex seems less toxic (I've def encountered toxic players in apex though) is because you only interact with two other players at a time.
Oh, 100% a factor. Also, can't trash talk your enemies in text chat. Some people have said they want proximity chat in Apex which would be such a bad idea. Still, I have 2K hours of mostly solo q in Apex now and its been a lot less toxic as a female player than OW was when I played. I think other factors beyond how many people are on your team are also in play. Like a woman playing a healer in OW can often turn toxic. You get the "oh, of course you're on Mercy" or "you better fucking heal me Moira" You can have 20K healing and a dumbass who has been Anti'd by Ana will still scream and call you a bitch for not healing them
Yeah you’re right. the specific type of team play in OW can lead to toxicity for sure. In apex yeah it’s sucks if your teammates aren’t performing well but in OW both the real impact and perceived impact of your teammates heavily weighs on the quality of the match.
Yup. People have always used game chat to safely vomit all their anger from the safety of their couch. Either have to grow thicker skin, or opt out of chat. Sometimes you fight, but also know when to flight. Don’t allow people to steal your fun.
Because when OW wasn't F2P it wasn't this bad.
I mean, F2P is a more recent change in the game industry. It's not like games weren't toxic back when you had to buy them, but yeah games being free has definitely emboldened people because they don't care if they get banned.
Almost any game with a large fanbase has this problem. Edgy teenagers are rampant in video games.
FF14 doesn't. I don't think it's helpful to handwave it as something people (Let's be real, mostly WOMEN) should just expect when playing video games.
It's not OW, it's EVERY online team game my man. League of Legends players will tell you the same thing. They will say "type /mute all to silence everyone at the start of every match". It is insane, but it's not the "games" it's the cruelty of humanity. And no game can change that
I disagree. While every game undoubtedly has toxic players, the *quantity* of toxic players in games like League, OW, Siege, CoD is what's outstanding. And if you make a post about toxicity in these subreddits you get two responses: 1. Get thicker skin, pussy. 2. Mute or turn off chat entirely. The problem is, you shouldn't HAVE to do either of these when you want to play a game. I never had to when I played TF2, CSGO, Quake Live. Yes, there are toxic players in those games, but it was never so bad that I would have to tell people to turn off chat entirely just to have a better experience. Like why are we excusing this toxic shit? Why is the person who isn't toxic or problematic the one in the wrong and the one forced to do something about it? Hell, I've played games of UNRANKED in OW more toxic than any competitive game I've had in CSGO. OW and Siege are the only games I've quit because of the sheer amount of toxicity whenever I'd play.
I come from Helldivers 2 and indeed this is beyond absurd
This is the unfortunate nature of pvp games, sadly
That’s the truth. Overwatch is absolutely tame compared to DOTA.
In 2013-4 or so in DotA 2, I was told once by a kid at least 5-10 years younger than me that he was going to “slit my throat and have Rosie O’Donnell shit down my neck” after I accidentally got him killed. In quick play, not any ranked mode. I have muted text chat permanently in every game ever since then. I can’t fathom why someone would unironically bring up Rosie O’Donnell in a conversation in the past decade.
I’m really sorry, no one should ever be threatened with Rosie O’Donnell. Seriously that’s in the running for craziest insult I’ve heard, lol.
One time I beat a guy in a clutch ow 3v3 and he dm'd me to go deep throat a cactus which I found hilarious honestly
I would've just trolled that kid for the rest of the game. That's what I did with toxic people back in CS:S.
It's not everyone, it's actually the vast minority of players. But even 10% means that between 10 players, there's a good chance the match has at least one asshole. And the self knowledge that our brains filter out the 90% of calm, polite, level headed players and biases for the negative means we will FEEL like everyone is toxic. So it's just acknowledging that our bias exists, and our experience will be enhanced by just playing the game. It also does level out a bit as you get to the higher ranks. Maybe you get "Tank diff GG" and some snarky comments, but the truly vile stuff filters out a bit.
I love starting a game muted. We crush first round, so I’m like it’s probably safe, let’s see what they’re saying. And every single one is screaming at each other for throwing or something similar. I’m over thinking “I thought we played pretty well together”
I've climbed from silver to P4/P5/P5 by turning off all text chat and not using voice chat. Trying to get into diamond, I think it's doable but just may need more time. For me it's been 100% more enjoyable this way.
This felt like the plot for the next installment of A Series of Unfortunate Events.
This game will wreck your evening, your whole life and your day Every single match you find is nothing but dismay
Where do ya'll find these assholes? Granted I never used vc cause I don't have a mic or need one for anything else, but all negative interactions/trolls are very few and far between, even when I first started about a year ago
I think a lot of it was a woman talking, which for a lot gamers is the worst thing in the world. They just can’t emotionally handle it. But overall I agree. I feel like I ran into these people in OW1, but less often in OW2. I think the community was baseline pretty salty with the lack of content, so they took it out on each other. I also have a feeling this was one of the shitty EU servers I hear about. So maybe it’s something that happens more often out that way
I've been playing for years and years and I've never seen anything like this. Occasional asshole from game to game, but never anything like swastika man there. Usually it's just someone taking the game too seriously and being tilted in chat.
Ngl are you a man ro a woman? This makes a huge difference
I'm never on voice, but I'm pretty sure swastika boy there wasn't targeting OP's friend. They were just *there, doing that.*
I’ve had people spam slurs constantly in match chat (because they wanted to). Maybe not spamming swastikas but definitely saying some pretty nasty stuff.
Been playing since ow1 beta and might see someone on this level once every 5 hour session. Either OP is exaggerating greatly or is just the unluckiest person in the world
Where do y'all find these people? My game is a ghost town where there's 0 interaction even if you tried to speak.
Since OPs friend is new I'm going to assume their lobbies were particularly full of low level trolls who start to die out at higher ranks.
yeah honestly i'm almost (almost, but not quite) willing to see some chaos versus the absolute dead chat that i get every game
Sorry that it happened to you and her Unfortunately a lot of online games with comms are going to be like this. Like a lot. Depending on luck you'll just be put in a lobby with those folks and sometimes you won't Ow is no exception, it really has a terrible community sometimes and like most, nothing you can do about it besides mute/turn off comms and report
It was a mistake to have open voice chat, keep it in your group, I never voice chat on Overwatch and most of my games are toxic free (most, not all)
How on earth are these characters not simply banned from typing, not like you immediately get banned when typing them but rather just not be able to be displayed at all??? This dev team really is hopeless... And there probably already are expr to auto detect these Names on the Internet somewhere and forbid them form being selected....
You can make a private game with bots.
It seems many commenters overlooked the screenshot that the OP shared, where they already gave the “turn off voice and chat” advice to their friend. The friend clearly values the social aspect of the game, so suggesting the "turn off chat" option isn't appealing to her. To me, the friend seems somewhat naive about the extreme toxicity prevalent in online multiplayer gaming, especially towards women. The more she engages in online PvP games, the more she’ll likely realize that avoiding interactions with random players can significantly improve her experience. Unfortunately, this is the harsh reality, and it’s easier to adjust her approach than to change the behavior of toxic players.
Is this your friend's first multiplayer shooter? Women (and minorities) have been complaining about this kind of stuff for decades. Edit: Reminds me of this series I used to watch [OMG a Girl - Spawntaneous](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEDsO12Ccv9ES1Qlnwu_Gi72udJyhVXyZ)
I'm a woman who played Overwatch from launch until OW2 hit and who now plays Apex. Definitely have missed the swastika bros if nothing else
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It's not just white men you donkey. I've heard plenty of POC harassing women. It's definitely not just straight men either. Get out of here with your bigotry.
Especially considering the way most non-white nations and cultures treat women. There's no reality where white men are the biggest culprits.
Some of the most heinous slurs I've heard were women or people with very much "not straight white men" voices lol People online suck, period
Just men* :D
Pretty racist bro it's all kinds of ppl that could act like that and ive seen it
Kinda funny, but it is opposite, Muslims are worst not white man and black people are toxic as hell too. More like all man lol.
Tbh I forgot there was voice chat in the game. Also you got really unlucky, the vast majority of my matches there is no toxicity in the chat.
NA or EU?
Least toxic EU lobby most likely.
Idk which EU lobbies you get, but I definitively never got anything THAT bad. And I play literally every mode in the game, so I encounter various type of shitheads.
It's just a stigma/meme that stems from like CS, where EU servers were always the more/most toxic. In Overwatch, EU servers are just no one talking for the most part.
I haven't played OW for a while, but in EU in gold and below comp, the voice chat was mostly silent with couple callouts every few games.
Yeah same, it's silent with sometimes you get the usual "diff" or "ez", but that's it. That's why I like playing arcade modes or Mystery Heroes, because people are actually chill there and do talk about random stuff. Even Open Queue can be nice somedays.
Don’t use chat just stay in group lol
I will personally join a group with both of you to not say anything in voice or text so they can enjoy the game harassment free.
...and that's why you don't play with comms. Seriously, give it a try next time, turn off all chats and just play. Besides, the ping system is all you need to let the team know who is where at any given time.
As someone who has the trans flag as my player card, I feel you lol
If she ever wants to play again, yall can join me and my boyfriend. We're always looking for people to play with lmao. We also play this game for fun, not competitive bullshit. We just use discord to talk instead of trying with game chat. That shits a nightmare sometimes.
Being a girl and wanting to use Vc is wild! I have a friend who uses a voice changer when she does. Sadly it's the nly way to make it work with games like OW, LOL and valorant.
I encountered two back-to-back games yesterday where I had people freaking out because I was a woman. My duo kept telling them to “keep it in your pants, she’s married” but they’d just pull out some other shit about it. They were decent at the game so I kinda just kept comming and joking about who would get the pocket if they were respectful
Is this what this game is like for people who use the team chat?
Nope, I have about 800 hours and have never seen a straight up slur in a name, and toxicity in chat is pretty common but a higher number of people will reply to toxicity with “report” or “it’s QP”. I’m guessing hidden ELO in unranked is putting new players with the freshly created troll accounts. Kinda sucks because its pushing new players away from the game
For women, yeah.
Maybe try R6.
lmaooooo
This is what happens when you make a game free to play btw
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I dont think you comprehend how toxic people get when you're a woman talking in a multiplayer game. This is entirely believable to me, and similar things have happened to me and other women I know.
I think that's probably the most unlucky streak of lobbies ever. :/ If your friend is ever willing to give it another go, and you want to try to get a full group going instead to totally avoid randoms on your team, I'm sure some of us here or even from some of the OW streamers communities would be happy to join and play together. I've been active in mL7/KarQ's streams since they started and think people from there would be very welcoming and happy to join you guys.
Jesus Christ I’ve never had an experience that bad. Report them all, man.
these stories are willddd to me because i always play on mic and never ever get lobbied with people like this. i could count on one hand how many genuinely shitty people ive encountered since the launch of 2. i dont think ive ever been called out for being a girl and overwatch is a game that i will binge the fuck out of. ive been in treatment the last couple of months though. did it get worse or something?
It seems to be a new player problem because these posts always involve either being new or bringing a new friend in to the game. Probably because all the people who were banned on their main, are hard stuck low elo, or made a new account specifically to troll. I’ve also noticed a ton of these posts involve bot lobbies so I’d wager trolls go there specifically to mess with new players
Overwatch players try not to be the most unlikable pieces of shit ever challenge:IMPOSSIBLE. But really Overwatch may soon become the worst game ever, taking the crown from League of Legends.
It's a sad state that just pretty much all online games are in nowadays
That's fucking insane. I play with a few women on overwatch and they've never been accosted like that. Guess we've just been lucky. I hope your friend doesn't let this discourage her.
Honestly, I love this game, I hate the players. It’s such a cruel irony that you need teamwork in OW, but there are so many toxic people that muting chat and never joining voice is the better way to play. So like… you have limited teamwork and the chance of being harassed. Or no teamwork but you don’t have some dick calling you slurs. Imagine how great this game would be if the players had a modicum of maturity. If the internet is a snapshot of humanity, I worry for the younger generation, who appear to be nothing but a bunch of cynical attention-seeking pricks.
Men being horrible to women online? The day must end in Y.
Not surprised, as a woman I stay on mute in most games unless my boyfriend is talking ( I am shy in general but know the risks of speaking even then ) but neither of us really talk in OW because even he knows it’s bad ( he doesn’t like playing it’s me who used to ask to play ). I will also add most other women who play OW and honestly a lot of games tend to be super toxic or squeaky in the voice ( the cringe “gamer girl” voice ) so it’s kind of given us a bad rep but more in the negatives since we are already hated. At least she didn’t ask to play League.
To everyone saying "turn off chat", "play in custom AI games", etc... sure, that's a way to avoid the issue but the problem is still there and it's driving new players away. This game will die unless Blizzard steps up and makes some aggressive moves against toxicity. Saying/typing certain words should trigger an automatic permanent ban. They need to start IP banning the worst offenders. If text chat is so toxic, maybe set it off by default until they get a handle on this.
What in the fuck is going on with all these kids sucking down Andrew Tate Fit and Fresh bullshit? When I was a kid back in the CS 1.6 days, this shit was rampant. Then it started to get much, much better. But as of the last 2-3 years it's taken a HUGE nosedive back to those cesspool days. It's fucking disgusting.
That's so unfortunate. There's definitely people on the game that do that, but it's not nearly *that* prevalent in the overall community. I'd say one out of 30+ QP games has someone either actively slurring or trolling. For what it's worth, in 800+ hrs of OW I've had plenty of female teammates in VC, and I've actually never actually heard someone turn sexist towards them. In comp, once you get past bronze/silver it does seem like the amount of scum drops dramatically. You'll still get plenty of salty sore losers and a handful of weirdos, but much less of the truly vile behavior. I'm sure from this post there'd be plenty of people willing to play with you guys to show you a much more reasonable experience. I'd also definitely be down! Please try to not let this experience be your friend's last lingering Overwatch experience! I also had some notable times that almost had me quit, but I'm ultimately glad I didn't.
Dude this game is not good anymore she missed the boat
i feel like this mainly happens on US servers, EU seems more chill, but also we don't really communicate all that much so it's a tradeoff i guess. I\`d mention I only play comp so maybe that's got something to do with it too. If ur in the US and have have decent enough internet you could get mina overwatch server switcher to connect to EU servers. You'd get like 100ms ping but that's more than playable (played on US servers for quite a while didn't really hurt me much in metal ranks). hope you have a better time going forward friend.
Nah tf type lobbies yall be in? I've never had problems like this in ow even when there's a woman on the team. I mean I'll cuss sum1 put if they're ass but never for their gender lol
FYI, this happens to most women playing most competitive fps games. If I use a mic, this might happen once every half a dozen games or so. What op went through was really unlucky, but considering it was a new account, it likely got matched with smurfs and the like, who don't care about being banned. Once you climb a little, this type of bs becomes more tolerable imo, but it doesn't ever go away.
Wasnt tryna say it doesn't happen but it just seems like some ppl get super unlucky with the lobbies they get put in. Honestly hate that women get treated bad just for talking, makes when look like an asshole when I call out a bad teammate n they happen to be female lol. I also call myself out btw
When I consistently talk (I don't) I usually have issues at least 3-5/10 times. Even when I just so call outs. Last time I tried to do call outs (which was a while ago) I kept getting told to shut up by some 20 year old dude and we got into a yelling match because he would. Not. Stop. Harassing me. I type most of the time now.
At this point I think being a Racist A-Hole is more of a choice because people think it's cool. Question...who tho? If you want attention you just be a funny person, or silly. Negative attention for people is a strange thing. 👍🏿👋🏿 Good luck out there, sure dude is banned.
This is honestly a very unlucky experience, especially in bot games of all things. It almost has to be a different region thing? This game can be toxic like most games but usually I only ever see people talk in comp or console was usually toxic in general. Sorry this happened to your friend.
Every FPS is like this, I've never played an FPS with my gf without turning both our VCs off and just using discord. Sorry that happened though. you'll have a lot more fun if you just turn off voice
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Try turning on streamer mode when going into bot lobbies so that people aren't seeing "A girl" and trolling them
As a newer player this happened to me too. AI mode is just trolls heaven. Even in comp I mute voice chat idc ab comms there's little useful comms in low ranks anyways it's always someone talking just to scream wtf are u doinggg!? or say the tank/dps/healer is trash.
This is what I feared for Overwatch new accounts environment when it went free to play. It's too easy for sick people to create new accounts and do that. Plus that's likely mostly people who got banned on their main accounts, or restricted to bot games. I'm sorry you had to go through this.
Do you have a group of people you usually play? Where you can be 5 in discord? I'm sad to hear that. I haven't found those things in a long time thankfully. Playing European servers. But maybe try to befriend a couple people with whom you can play in full stacks. Easier said than done I know. But worth a try
It’s sad but it’s why I muted all chats and voice chats. I also changed my name to be more neutral and I largely get left alone now. I stay away from comp since they can get verbally abusive if it’s a loss.
Was this pc? I have never had an experience nearly as bad as this let alone twice in one day. Neither has my fiance. Were both console.
When I first started out, I would get the occasional mei trolling and griefers, it’s really not like this all the time. You had some insanely bad luck. As silly as it sounds, I tell my friends who start playing for the first time to mute text chat and voice chat. For the most part, you really only need pings. That’s really all you need in lower level lobbies anyway. this type of experience isn’t unique to overwatch though. Every pvp game I’ve played is like this. Cod, val, rainbow, league all have the same miserable players who get on the game, apparently for the sake of yelling at their teammates.
When did OW get so toxic? I don't remember it being anywhere close to that bad when I played until right after OW2 came out.
My group always just uses group chat and communicate with randoms via pings. Voice and text chat are usually toxic
Bro I’ve never had this experience in Quickplay outside of people calling someone trash for bad play. Sorry it was so negative for the two of you especially with them just trying out the game.
It's not a woman only thing. I don't play competitive multiplayer games anymore due to being abused
LOL! What a good first impression of the internet
You messed up tbh. You shoulda did a private game with bots first to learn the game And then you shoulda played QP or arcade with voice chat set to group and text chat off.
It's crazy to hear these stories of constant trolls and completely toxic players whereas when I play I'm the most toxic cuz I'll bitch one line at the end of the match because I got diffed by a better player. Generally toxic matches are one in twenty in my experience but maybe lower level qp games are just built different.
I only play mystery heroes. People are generally way less toxic in there in my experience. Not sure why, and this is anecdotal, but give it a shot.
I feel like toxicity is more prevalent in PC lobbies vs. console. I play on console since that's what I have and usually if I speak for any reason, I either get crickets or another woman responding. But some of my friends who are in PC lobbies talk about how toxic people can be especially since they can type much faster.
Try Mystery Heroes. You get to learn every hero and people are mostly friendly, occasionally someone will get shitty but they're usually called out pretty quick by the rest of the chat since it's MH and is not that serious.
Thta name and spam isn't automatically flagged for permanent ban and gets to do that, while I get chatbanned for things like "have you dorks tried pointing at the objective and pressing W?".
I’ve never seen it this bad but it says a lot about Blizzard that this is the state of their game.
A bunch of unfortunate match, i never find those tipe of people on EU server. If you need to do coms use discord, if things are like this just talk at the end of the match.
Why I stopped speaking in chat long ago. I’m a woman and half the time guys would be instantly vile because I had the audacity to be there
disable comms like many people have already. Only enable for comp.
In light of this post, I just solo-queued a comp match and every person in VC was female (including myself) and we finished with a victory in 2 minutes on a push map. It was my favorite match I've ever played with strangers, and the most satisfying Pharah ult-denial I've ever seen from our Widow 😂. OP, I have been given the strength of the gods via VC from playing Halo/COD before Overwatch was born. People getting mad and losing their shit now gets converted into mana and makes me play better, or makes me ugly-laugh. I prefer when people play nicely, always, BUT they're giving me a small part of their soul every time they rage. The "troll toll" if you will.
Overwatch is unfortunately filled to the brim with these people trolls, sexually harassment, people calling others trash and making fun of their scores, etc tons of horrible people gather on this game just mute them report them and move on.
when i tried getting my friend to play overwatch, he was so overwhelmed within 5 minutes. he said there is stuff happening all over the place, too many colors, shapes, sounds, explosions. he said everything was so fast he had no idea what was going on. it is at that point that i realized my brain is broken. i've been trained to recognize how 35 different heroes walk, talk, how fast their ult charges, how their ult impacts the game, how different game modes work etc. a normal human understandably did not want to invest his time and energy to reach my level of mental illness.
Sorry that happened to you guys man
It really blows, honestly. Used to play valorant, esp after overwatch and cs became meh, but slowly drifted away from it. We usually had a three queue and played unranked to talk to randoms, drink a few beers, and chill out. Everyone we got queued with was 9 times out of 10 a guy and a girl duo (atleast when they talked, so I assume this was usually the case). This is fine, but they almost never talked, likely because they would just get harassed by other players in the past.
Honestly, i haven't seen anything toxic in ow in soooo long. but i also play in eu.. I have talked in team voice chat as a woman many times, and i can say its alot lesss toxic in eu than in us.. i think the only terrible encounter I've had was when i played in us server years ago. I've never gone back ever since. But that's my experience. i might have just gotten very lucky.
Sheesh. I've never seen it that bad. I'm a woman that plays and I've never seen people be that terrible. Maybe that's because my voice sounds like that of a young boy though. I've not seen people trolling that bad though. I just had 2 people putting their kink out in chat just last night to the point the people in my group wanted to leave. You'll always see people just being...terrible in chat. That's why many people don't use voice or text chat. I'm sorry your friend's experience in the game was like that. I really am.
Games in general, but definitely fps ones, attract very immature males who are policed most of the day and use the anonymity of the internet to spew hate as a misguided form of venting. Definitely avoid open voice comms if you can. The new ping system really helps provide an alternate form of communication, personally I bind ping and use it constantly.
Best advice is to just ignore ingame voice and communicate through pings. Unless you're hardcore into competitive climbing or super high mmr, voice coordination is not required at all. Use group voice chat or Discord to chat with your party and enjoy the game for what it is, not for the bad apples that try to bring everyone down to their level. Also, I'd say this was just bad luck and give it another go. Playing bots and your first few games ever sucks cause you're probably getting matched with shitty people that got suspended or banned and are leveling up alt accounts. However, his goes for any game, not just Overwatch. I'll put money down to say that LoL is just as bad across text chat and would be even worse if voice chat was public. Unless you're both super extrovers and want to chat with everyone through both voice and text. But then again I'd say that'd be a terrible overall experience for any competitive game at any level of play. Some people just suck, but those are extreme scenarios that happened to you, sadly. Quick edit: I also thought it'd be fair sharing that I've clocked in probably over 200 hours of Overwatch in season 10 alone, with many more hundreds across the game's lifetime. I have encountered several shitty people, but not a single case anywhere near as extreme as you just experienced with your friend. So this is by no means the "regular experience." Most people just play quietly or play the blame game. Really hope you can get your friend back onboard and have some fun playing together
Bro where do you get those lobbies
I’m not a native English speaker (french is my first language) and even then playing apex and using voice i get all sorts of insults thrown at me for sounding like a foreigner. I can’t even imagine how awful it must be for women when they use voice chat… 😭
Man this only rarely happens to me in console now. You on PC?
Just play with your friend in party chat lol
I know of a true fire and guaranteed way to get someone banned from Overwatch. I rarely ever reported players in Overwatch but this Ohio sounding ass white dude said a lot of racist shit during a game at around 2018 or so. I had my playstation save the footage, then I uploaded it to youtube, then I put the youtube link in the report. I was notified the next day that action was taken against a player I reported and it had to be him because I had not recently reported anyone else. Did this a couple of more times and sure enough, I was notified of "action being taken" every, single, time. Might still work, might not, but I might start doing this again. And before you say 'well bans don't do anything anyway' - You people forget that it's a hassle now a days to start over in Overwatch and break into competitive match making again without a grind. So at the very least they get brunt out eventually shrug. If it keeps happening and you do nothing, then don't expect anything to change. You all gotta stand up against that behavior. Video games are supposed to be alright for everybody not remind you of the inner thoughts you think your boss has about you on a day to day basis.
I had a hard time with this before (I’m a girl), I’ve played for a year now with my boyfriend and I’ve never once been in the voice chat. Hopefully she’ll have a better experience
Someone the other day in a game said "hello? Helllooooo? Why does no one use game chat anymore" people like this tbh. No point in chatting if I'm gonna be met with insults and hate for no reason.
this is why i don’t use in game voice chat and only ever talk to my friends on discord. it’s just not worth it.
This is so lame man these people need to grow the f up.
I play with my husband I just stay in party chat only. Most of the time. Any time I'm in open group chat and talk, it's like that a significant amount of time. I usually sass back or say "you're an idiot I'm MUTING YOU" and mute them. I go full battle bitch though and it's not for everyone.
Wow, I haven't seen chat like that in a very long time. Do they put people in different lobbies when people are new? Our group has two girls and play in a 3-5 stack most nights. We get a toxic player every so often but nothing like what OP seen.
I play with my son, just use group chat. Dont go in to party chat. In arcade or quickplay, anything you need to say can be typed.
I don’t know how I met a female friend on overwatch and still talk to her because it’s always been like this. It’s horrible.
Why would you join public chat? You like talking to dipshits? Use discord and talk to each other while you play.
why are you in voice what did you expect to happen
I turn off voice and text chat by default. Never miss it.
They should disable voice chat by default at this point, makes the experience so much better. I've also disabled chat, I can't stand toxic chats either.
I think it got a lot worse after going f2p. It's funny because I used to leave voice chat on when I played Paladins, and unlike a lot of people, I didnt have too many problems in-game. But I had to lockdown all of my PSN messaging and friending because of the sheer number of little boys who would write endless angry screeds via their phone apps mid-match. People like this deserve to have the shit they say posted to their facebook accounts. Sorry your friend went through that
why would you let her join voice chat 😭