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Overwatch's Endorsements are Making Players 'Fake Nice'
Is acting nice as good as actually being nice?
Overwatch opened its new Endorsements system to all players yesterday, and it's given rise to an interesting - and divisive - side-effect.
Players across the community have reported a rise in players being 'fake nice' in chat, with some saying it's made the historically toxic Overwatch community a nicer place to be, while others say it cheapens genuine good behaviour.
Endorsements are a new feature for the game, giving players three options to reward both comrades and opponents they enjoyed fighting with. Giving out Endorsements comes with a bump of XP, and receiving them contributes to an overall Endorsement Level. Players with higher Endorsement Levels will find better teammates in the new Looking For Group tool.
The upshot, it seems, is that players on the hunt for a better Endorsement Level are now acting nice to receive the rewards, and the community can't decide if that's a good or bad thing.
At time of writing, a thread about this issue sits at the top of the Overwatch Subreddit, with user TrumpImpeachedAugust arguing: "If our two choices are 'tons of people being overtly hostile and rude' or 'tons of people pretending to be kind', I'd choose the latter 100% of the time."
However, over on the Overwatch forum, Shyrakeso complains that being genuinely nice in the game has been tainted, going so far as to say that, "I have been called a lot of different names because people think I try to 'get votes' by being nice."
Many have pointed out that this might be a temporary effect, with players simply trying to hit the highest Endorsement Level, then reverting to their old ways. Endorsement Levels do drop if you stop receiving plaudits, but some may simply see the peak Endorsement Level 5 as a one-time goal.
Toxic players in Overwatch have been an ongoing issue since the game's release, with director Jeff Kaplan saying that development for the game was being impeded as resources were poured into tackling it.
Report tools were added to console versions of the game, with Blizzard also using social media to identify and ban toxic players even before they'd been reported, but problems have persisted.
It's too early to tell if Endorsements will turn the tide on toxicity altogether, but it's clear that it's already had an effect on behaviour, which is more encouraging than many of the game's previous changes.
We've contacted Blizzard for its opinion on the issue, and will update this story when it gets back to us.
Joe Skrebels is IGN's UK News Editor, and he would like to be endorsed for "spending too much time on bylines". Follow him on Twitter.