The Overwatch endorsement system has recently gone live and since then, the social feature has made major strides in combating the toxicity of the Overwatch community. Endorsements are important if a player wants to be added to groups, can give you experience and even in-game rewards. Here is everything you need to know about Endorsements.
"ew ppl are being nice in overwatch just so they can get endorsements, it's gross"
— danger noodle ⚽️ (@hannathenarc) June 27, 2018
that's............thats actually the whole point yes
The point of Endorsements is to encourage Overwatch players to be nice to each other and to play fairly. Gaining and maintaining endorsements is not mandatory and for the most part, will not affect your gameplay but striving for the highest level of endorsement will give you more opportunities to play with the right people and continually reward you for your efforts.
You can Endorse players in three ways:
Good Teammate - This endorsement is only awarded to teammates. You can give this endorsement to teammates who switched off their mains to help the composition, or encouraged everyone to have a great game, or maybe did exceptionally well.
Shotcaller - Another team-only endorsement, this will be awarded to someone on your team who used effective communication. This endorsement also encourages people to use voice chat and to be communicative with strats.
You can give away three endorsements per match, and use one endorsement per player. You can only endorse a player every 12 hours. There are new icons next to a player's icon that indicates the level of endorsement that player has. So far, the level of endorsement goes from zero to five. This can decay, prompting players to maintain a positive playing persona.
You cannot Endorse your friends, unfortunately. Anyone you're playing with on your friend's list will not be available to receive your endorsements and vise versa. This is to ensure that players do not favor their friends over other players. Endorsements are also not available in Arcade modes.
Endorsements in Overwatch is such a great idea! I just got one and it felt so good!
— Matilda Smedius (@MSmedius) June 27, 2018
Players begin with an Endorsement level of one and can progress to a max level of five. Players who maintain a high endorsement level will be rewarded periodically.
They did it. They made Overwatch fun again. It feels like a completely DIFFERENT GAME. ENDORSEMENTS ARE AMAZING.
— Junkertown Queen stan account️ (@LolaTempest) June 26, 2018
So far, the major gripe about the Endorsement system is that its rewarding players for being "fake nice" and genuinely nice players are being accused of acting. That may all be true of course, but awarding a player for at least being nice for the sake of an Endorsement is far and beyond better than dealing with toxic players who ruin your gaming experience.
Dealing with toxicity has been an uphill battle for the Overwatch team, and has even impeded the development of the game itself because devs are having to place their focus on punishing toxic players instead of advancing the game. The Endorsement system is combating toxicity with positivity, and keeping "being nice" in the forefront of players' minds. Whether it's genuine or not, it still impacts Overwatch in a positive way and makes the game more fun for everyone.
This system is unprecedented and seems like a great experiment in dealing with one of the gaming industry's biggest problems. If this is successful, it could potentially spill over into other Blizzard IPs and even other games from other studios. Nobody can tell how well Endorsements will work yet, but the success of this experiment will benefit all of us.
Photos courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment