Earlier this morning I saw
a thread that was active on the Overwatch's General Discussion forum where a player was complaining about being silenced. Of course, being a forum, the typical types are there getting him riled up for their personal entertainment and have no desire to discuss the effect a silence has on a player in competitive.
But hey, if you're reading this post or following this forum then there's a pretty good chance that you play and enjoy Overwatch and no doubt watch popular video channels with game content, like the Overanalyzed series for example. I watch videos in the series from time to time and enjoy them quite a bit, but one of the first things I always see the author point out in every video I have watched is whether or not the player is using a microphone & communicating with their team. He seems to think it's pretty important to a successful experience in competitive, and I can't say I disagree - communication with your team can give you a pretty big edge if it's being utilized by your team.
Which brings us to the topic of discussion: does silencing an abusive player really feel like a punishment to them? Is it
really an effective way to combat toxicity?
Personally, I don't think you have to speak in chat at all to be an unpleasant player on a team to have to interact with; just happens to make you stand out in a crowd.
The most effective thing a silence will do to a player is prevent other players from seeing their messages. But players already have an option for that through blocking users, don't they? It's at that point I really start to wonder how Blizzard came to the conclusion that silencing a player was a suitable punishment for abusive behavior. It just makes no sense to me.
Even if you didn't block someone who was being a dick and you got teamed up with them again in the not so distant future, I doubt your reaction to anything they'd have to say would be very positive or enthusiastic. I suppose being silenced could potentially keep an abusive player from being blocked by a great many number of players in a short time and could be benefit them a bit in a roundabout way if they are stuck at that SR so they don't end up blocked by a large number of potential teammates, which, if someone is really that bad off then the call for a silence is totally valid. But really, honestly, how many people have we all met who were that bad off? Probably a more exclusive club than top 500.
I mean, yes, silencing a player will absolutely prevent you from seeing them type "KYS" or "useless faggot piece of shit" into chat and no, I'm not saying things like that should become a widely accepted exchange of dialogue at any point, but I don't think a silence is much of a punishment on an individual level and removes any kind of valuable information or input a player could or would be willing to share. Hurts their teammates more than anyone tbh.
And honestly, I think there's quite a bit going on in this community that provokes this kind of behavior in players and the people causing this increased level of frustration are simply not being held accountable for it. This increase in abusive behavior is just an underlying symptom of a bigger problem and with competitive play in mind, I really don't think removing a player's ability to communicate with their team is a healthy solution to this problem at all, especially since players already have all the tools they need to block communications with unpleasant players at their disposal.