Blizzard announced more improvements to its penalty system, as “Play nice; play fair”, is a core value for the company. In an attempt to keep Overwatch a great environment to play, they will be making additional improvements over the next several months based on player feedback.
Blizzard stated that, “effective immediately, we will be issuing increased penalties to players in response to verified reports of bad behavior.” This means anything from abusive chat, harassment, in-game spam, match inactivity (being intentionally AFK), and griefing. So if you see anyone exhibiting these behaviors, don’t hesitate to report them. Players in violation will be silenced, suspended, or even banned from the game.
As Blizzard keeps making improvements, over the next several months additions like scaling competitive season bans, a notification system that will alert you when a player you’ve reported is actioned, and functionality that will allow us to more aggressively penalize players who attempt to abuse the in-game reporting tool, will be made.
Players on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, unfortunately, will have to wait to get this reporting system. Blizzard says that as, “console players ourselves, we know it’s been frustrating to not have this functionality on your platform. We are actively working on the feature and have many elements of undergoing internal testing right now.”
Source: Blizzard