This is why the “avoid player” function was removed from Overwatch

The ability to avoid certain players has been removed from all versions of Overwatch.

The feature which was originally in place to help players avoid harassment, was being abused by players so they “wouldn’t have to face those they deemed more skillful than them”, says game director Jeff Kaplan.

“We recently realized that ‘Avoid this player‘ was wreaking havoc on matchmaking.”

One of the best Widowmaker players in the world complained to us about long queue times.

We looked into it and found that hundreds of other players had avoided him (he’s a nice guy – they avoided him because they did not want to play against him, not because of misbehaviour).

The end result was that it took him an extremely long time to find a match.

The worst part was, by the time he finally got a match, he had been waiting so long that the system had ‘opened up’ to lower skill players. Now one of the best Widowmaker players was facing off against players at a lower skill level.

As a result, Overwatch players may have to deal with both a little more harassment and a few more skilled opponents.

Do you think Blizzard did the right thing in removing the feature? Let us know in the comments below and in our forums.