An Overwatch developer update video was uploaded on Overwatch official YouTube channel on June 5th. This update introduced some upcoming social features: endorsement and group systems.

This new group system will be able to improve the matchmaking in Overwatch Competitive Play, which has thus far been solely dependent on SR points, and does not take role preference into account. Many Overwatch players have been complaining about ‘disputes within teams’; these disputes were a result of matchmaking that did not consider player role preferences, which often led to conflicts over who gets stuck with which role.

Also, the privacy of player profiles has become a hot issue among many Overwatch players. Being able to see other player profiles previously worked as a way for players to find and report aimbots, throwers, and one-trick players. However, as the data available on player profiles could also possibly lead to conflicts within teams, it has become a controversial subject within the Overwatch community.

Today, we were able to hear from the principal designer for Overwatch, Scott Mercer, and learn about the current status of player penalties, the changes that will be applied to the endorsement system in the upcoming 1.25 patch update, and player profile settings.

In a presentation prior to the interview, Scott Mercer talked about how the stats of player penalty changed in the wake of their machine learning penalty system, which was implemented back in March of this year.

According to this presentation, the silence penalty has increased by 651% and permanent suspension by 1471% in comparison to when the system was first introduced in March (based on Korean stats). Mercer believes that players will be able to experience an improved game environment as time passes, since these stats have a 0% rate of false punishment; additionally, these results were reached in just 2 months.

This was followed by the introduction of a new social feature currently in the PTR - the endorsement system.

They have improved the cards system that highlights the 4 best-performing players in a game. Now, all players will be able to vote for players they thought did well in 3 categories - Sportsmanship, Good Teammate, and Shotcaller.

Players will be able to vote in each category based on the standards Jeff Kaplan announced in the developer updates; of the three, Sportsmanship will be the only category where players will be able to vote for both allies and enemies. All players will start out from level 1 in the endorsement system and build up to level 5, at which point they will have to keep getting endorsed in order to maintain their level. The players who receive any kinds of punishment will fall to level 0. Players will later be given rewards based on their endorsement levels.

Since the voting in the endorsement system is also based on positive behavior, not just game performance stats, Mercer believes that it will be able to encourage positive behavior among Overwatch players.

Mercer then moved on to the group system, which was something the developers had received a lot of feedback on. After reflecting on the feedback, the devs have created a new system that is somewhat similar to role matchmaking.

The following is the interview with Scott Mercer.

Will the endorsement level increase for those who vote? If so, how will the endorsement level increase base on voting vs receiving votes?

Voting will increase player level XP, and will not have any influence on the player endorsement level itself.

What Overwatch players are curious about the most right now would probably be what kind of rewards will be given out to players who voted and players with high endorsement levels. Can you give us details on it? Also, what ways are there for players who have fallen to 0 level to make it back to level 1, and are there any plans to use this endorsement level as part of matchmaking in the future?

We are thinking of rewarding players with things like extra loot boxes based on player endorsement levels at random intervals.

If a player has fallen to level 0, they can gain back their levels little by little as they keep on playing. If they get endorsed in the process, they will be able to recover their levels even quicker.

Also, players cannot set their endorsement level to private in the setting and it will be one of the things that will be shown to other players. The leaders of the groups will be able to see it while looking for members in their groups, and this could work as a way for them to decide whether to accept players in their groups or not.

Do you have any plans to expand this endorsement system in the future?

In truth, many of our developers are against fixing the endorsement level cap at 5, although it will be quite difficult for players to even hit endorsement level 5 right now. We are currently testing several things such as the endorsement level cap and the rate at which the endorsement level will decrease.

Is there a reason behind having the groups made before entering matchmaking instead of entering matchmaking automatically?

I think it’s like the Dungeon Finder in World of Warcraft; we went for this form of grouping since we focused on players being able to find teammates more thoroughly before enter matchmaking.

There must be cases where players will want to change the group settings after they have already created a group (for example, they might have created a group with 2 tanks, 2 DPS, 2 supports, but might want to change to 1 tank, 3 DPS, and 2 supports); what would they have to do in these cases?

They can change the group settings in the lobby once the game has ended.

The degree of profile privacy you can have has been a big discussion point among Overwatch players. There are many players worrying about the negative influence the profile privacy settings could have, since players will not be able to figure out whether or not certain players are aimbotters, boosters, throwers, or one-tricks. Is there anything you are preparing for this?

We were told that this discussion was happening in the KR Overwatch community, so the developers are currently considering it. We know that player profiles could be a measure for players to find out whether certain players are abusers or not, so we will have to discuss it further.

There seem to be several steps to the player penalty process now. However, is there anything you are preparing when it comes to encouraging abusive players to become better?

Actually, we think that the endorsement system will be the key to bringing out the goodness in players. The endorsement level is something players will be able to see right away after player levels, so players won’t be able to ignore it.

Will the social features added to Overwatch be added to other Blizzard games?

The team that came up with these social features have the same duty for several other games. I think applying these features to other games won’t be a problem technically, and we will consider adopting these features if they are needed.