New Overwatch Feature Lets Players Avoid Others as Teammates

Overwatch may not let players avoid every player in future games, but Blizzard is currently [...]

Overwatch may not let players avoid every player in future games, but Blizzard is currently testing a new feature that would let players block certain players from being their teammates.

The news of the new feature was announced by Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan in a recent developer update. Kaplan spoke about the feature and explained what the team's goal was when allowing players to prevent problematic players from being on their team.

"The mindset we were in when we created this was that we needed to give you more ways to craft your own gameplay experience," Kaplan said. "As you know, Overwatch is a team-based game, and that's what makes the game really fun is playing, winning, sometimes losing with other people. But also, sometimes those teammates can cause frustration, and at times it can feel like you're helpless with not control over the situation. And that's the problem we're trying to rectify."

Kaplan then went on to reveal the "Avoid as Teammate" feature, one that would block someone from being on your team in future games. The feature was originally planned for Season 10, but Kaplan said that the game's team was able to get it done sooner.

With the Avoid as Teammate feature, players can select up to two players to avoid for seven days. This feature will act as a middle ground for players wishing to avoid players who are frustrating to play with but aren't doing anything that's necessarily reportable. Kaplan used the example of a player who offers unsolicited advice and questions your methods as someone who players may want to avoid when a ban wouldn't be appropriate.

The limit to two players avoided at one time is a way to make sure players don't fill their avoid lists with tons of players which would inevitably result in longer queue times. Kaplan admitted that there's a chance longer queue times could result from this feature even with just two avoid slots, but it'll be significantly less than an unlimited amount.

Blizzard had a similar feature in place years ago, though the former one allowed players to avoid any players, not just teammates. This led to players being blocked for all sorts of reasons be it that they were too dominant or thought of as unskilled, but the new iteration of the feature looks to have improved in these areas.

A release date for when the new feature would be available was not provided in the developer update.

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