'Overwatch' Now Lets You Avoid More Players as Teammates

Overwatch players can now avoid more people that they’ve recently played with after Blizzard [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

Overwatch players can now avoid more people that they've recently played with after Blizzard increased the number of avoidable teammates.

The update to the relatively new Avoid as Teammate feature was implemented with the start of Season 12 of competitive play that recently begun. Included in the announcement that alerted players to the start of Season 12, part of the notes that went over what's new to the competitive season said that players can now avoid three other people as teammates compared to the previous limit of avoiding two players.

"Starting now, we'll increase the Avoid as Teammate slots from two to three spots," Blizzard's Season 12 announcement said. "As promised when the feature was implemented, we have been watching to see the effect Avoid as Teammate has on gameplay and queue times. After reading feedback and deciphering data, we think adding a slot will help players enjoy their Overwatch experience while keeping queue times reasonable. When you add a player to your Avoid as Teammate list, you will not be grouped with that player for seven days."

The system is one that'll be useful for competitive players who keep encountering difficult players in their games. It can't be used to block every person that you have a problem with since it only prevents up to three players from being on your team, but it's a tool that will at least keep problematic players out of your games for a short time.

Blizzard first announced the feature back in March with the video above sharing a developer update that discussed the Avoid as Teammate system. Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan spoke about the feature and explained Blizzard's thought process behind the feature and how it'll help players have a better gameplay experience.

"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 in the developer update. "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."

Season 12 of Overwatch's competitive play has now begun with the Avoid as Teammate update live for all players.

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