I’m a huge Overwatch fan, probably to a fault. I’ve clocked in hundreds of hours of gameplay, struggled through Mercy’s rework, dealt with petty messages saying how much I suck—you know, the typical Overwatch experience. And I pushed through all of this because I really admire the game: how teamwork is essential, and how you can’t carry your team to victory all the time like other FPS games.
But lately, I’ve realized how much I can hate the game, too. To have your anticipated victory taken away by a last-minute, Nano-boosted, blood-thirsty Genji. To try your hardest and be supportive of your team even when you’re losing, but still get hate messages after the dreaded “DEFEAT” screen. To go into Competitive Play expecting more coordination and cooperation, but teammates refuse to switch off certain roles or even certain heroes. There are too many times when I’ve questioned why I still continue to play Overwatch despite all of the emotional distress that accompanies it.
These feelings are nothing new, however. In many of the Overwatch Facebook groups I’m in, players talk about how they take prolonged breaks from the game, only to be completely lost upon their return due to meta changes and new heroes. It’s beyond frustrating, and discouraging, to say the least.
That’s why I’m so grateful for the newest Overwatch patch, which gives players more control over their Overwatch experiences through two new social features: Looking for Group and Endorsements.
“FIND GROUP” can be accessed at the bottom of the Play page. If clicked, a list of open groups will pop up. Each group has a Title, Creator, Queue (which game mode the group will play, including Quick Play, Competitive, Arcade, or Any), and Hero Slots.
Hero Slots shows which hero roles are filled/open. This is my favorite part of the patch, because you can filter group results to your preferred role, whether that’s damage, tank, support, or flex. What’s important to note is that, when you select a role, your hero pool is locked to that specific role every game you’re in that group. That means if you pick support, you’ll only be able to play support and can’t switch to a tank. Here’s where communication becomes extremely important—you should communicate with your teammates to make sure everyone can play their best heroes!
The filters you can apply to find your perfect group are quite impressive. You can select certain game modes, require voice chat, and even select the minimum role slots for each role. That means you can search for groups with a 2-2-2 comp, 5-1-0 comp. The options are limitless! I queued up for 2-2-2 as a support, and even though I queued up with three different teams, I won two and tied one. The ultra communicative, supportive 6-stack is something I can no longer live without.
One thing to note: if teammates leave your group after a match, you’ll still be locked in your roles. It’s probably best to start a new group because of this. My two teammates and I got screwed by this earlier, but luckily an opponent left and canceled the match before disaster struck. Some advice: don’t queue (with locked roles) without a 6-stack!
Endorsements are great for promoting more positivity in the Overwatch community. After each match, players will have the option to give an Endorsement to their teammates. There are three different Endorsements you can give: good coordination, good positivity, and good leadership. You can’t give a teammate more than one Endorsement while queued together, but even in voice chat, I could hear teammates being more praising of others. It’s a nice change from the usual negativity that surrounded Overwatch in the past (and probably still, but hopefully less).
You can also see a player’s Endorsements through Find a Group (Creator’s only) or on their Career Profile. Colors vary according to what Endorsement the player received: green for sportsmanship, purple for teamwork, orange for leadership. Get enough Endorsements and get rewards, because nice people deserve nice things.
I’ve only played a few games with the new patch, but I haven’t had any negative experiences yet. I guess my only complaint would be that Career Profiles are now automatically set to “Friends Only,” but this can easily be changed by going to Options, Social, and setting Career Profile Visibility to “Public.”
This patch is already making a positive impact on teams and the general community, and I can’t wait to hop back in there and hopefully not wreck my SR too much before Season 10 ends tomorrow.
