In the upcoming Season 13, Overwatch 2 will make it easier to report and mute annoying players.

Overwatch 2 Season 13 is full of exciting new features. This season's battle pass is stacked, and there are also some needed balance and map updates. We're also getting tweaks made to the scoreboard, which will make it easier to deal irritable players.

Kaedi is a community manager at Overwatch 2. In a forum posting, she says, "We've added the option to interact with the scoreboard to give players easier access social features, particularly on controllers." The interactive scoreboard will make reporting easier and faster, as well as improve your social experience via whatever channels you prefer or avoid.

Scoreboards were useful before, but only for comparing your team's performance to that of your opponent and checking the composition of your team throughout the match. Now you can adjust the volume of your mic and that of other players, report players, join team voice chat or group voice chat or leave match text chat.

My general rule is to always have voice chat muted. Despite popular belief, I have never lost a game due to poor team communication. Most half-decent players are able to read team fights and react accordingly without having their teammates double-check. The ping feature works well for urgent calls. Blizzard's social settings make it easier to customize.

A smaller, but equally cool, change to the scoreboard, is that if you switch heroes mid-fight, the enemy team will be unable to see your choice for 15 seconds. This helps to maintain a sense of mystery. This change will add more friction to counterswapping. This is especially true in extreme cases where two players from opposite teams are sitting in spawn and have the scoreboard up, and quickly switch heroes to respond to each other's choices. Counterswapping, for those who are unfamiliar, is a feature found in hero-based/ability games, where players choose their characters based on which will be most effective against the heroes of the enemy team. These can change over time with patches and updates. However, a long-standing example of a counterswap is Zarya for D.Va because D.Va cannot negate Zarya’s beam.

I've never met anyone who is so committed to counterswapping they will wait in spawn for you to choose your hero. Counterswapping is a big part of Overwatch 2, and I don't mind it. It's why it's important to learn a variety of heroes rather than relying on one. Also, I have beaten an opponent Zarya in many matches as D.Va. You have to play differently than usual. Being better than your opponent also helps.

The scoreboard update may be a small one, but it is still a positive step, as it simplifies the actions for players. I'm still hoping that Blizzard will add a ban-hero button.