Overwatch 2 players desperate for change to “toxic” challenges

Overwatch 2 players feel that some of the game’s challenges promote a “toxic” playstyle that is detrimental to matches and want to see them changed.

There are a ton of different, varied challenges for Overwatch 2 players to pursue and complete when playing Blizzard’s Hero shooter in Season 3.

The overall goal is to earn XP and currency that can be spent on cosmetics and other fun purchases. However, Overwatch 2 players believe that some of the game’s challenges are promoting negative behavior and are negatively impacting games.

Win-based challenges are rewarding toxic play in Overwatch 2

Reddit user xObiJuanKenobix posted to the official Overwatch 2 Reddit page and said that: “Making challenges based on WINS and not PLAYED enforces quitting mid-game as a strategy.”

They explained: “Trying to unlock characters and do other challenges that require wins promotes a toxic strategy of ditching your team when you think it’s a loss and re-queuing for the best chance and the most efficient chance at getting through the challenge the fastest.”

In essence, if players don’t think they’re going to win, they’ll leave, which will truly jeopardize the team’s chances of winning and leave the team with one player fewer.

“Time and time again in every single game that has had a “wins” requirement for anything, it always ALWAYS promotes this toxic playstyle,” they added.

Making challenges based on WINS and not PLAYED enforces quitting mid game as a strategy from Overwatch

The OP also highlighted another major issue that this causes: “Also, I forgot to mention the final part of it. Because more people are leaving games because of this, now the players like me trying to grind challenges get thrown into losing games in progress that we can’t leave or else WE somehow get a penalty, yeah because that makes sense, and more toxicity arises. Now, we have to waste time in a join in progress game that we didn’t want to queue into.”

Fellow Overwatch 2 players also agreed that this needs changing: “Yeah I agree. Especially in QP [quick play] and Arcade people will be raging and someone will reply ‘chill, it’s QP/whatever’ but get hit with the ‘Yeah, but I’m trying to do a challenge so stop throwing’. Should be like the OW1 weeklies: play x games, Wins count as 2.”

Lots of other players agreed that the rewards should be incentivized more by playing games instead of winning them. One player commented: “Yeah, that’s why nobody is playing Arcade (or immediately leave when their team is losing).”

With tons of players still playing Overwatch 2, anything that is causing players to voluntarily quit a game in the pursuit of cosmetics could cause issues. Overwatch 2 players have praised Valorant’s new Tournament system, and this additional challenge noise could cause the devs to make alterations to the way challenges currently work.