A proposal to deter leavers in Overwatch - Return to Match & Low-Priority Queue

General Discussion
101

I believe in all fairness that Competitive “leaving” IS a major issue.

I would whole-heart agree here, that competitive leaving has gotten out of control, and it filters INTO issues where players KNOW that account can be suspended, so they still attack but do NOT try.

This means that IF there are people whom legit are GOOD at the game and literally just bought an account to play overwatch. A Player rating will begin raising the player’s Rating. however if they are becoming an issue to the game. Well then, I do believe that there IS probable cause to PAIR them with players in that same range until they IMPROVE. This means that player rating should be given to players whom still try to win in a match and work as a team should be rated positive and those whom STILL need practice, to SLOWLY go down in rank, but at the same time, the match maker should work FOR them, NOT against them. Like it does NOW.

Win/Loss is NOT going to make for an accurate blueprint as to how a player really is and I would NOT abandon the fact, nor deny That the Match maker DOES infact legit build 2/6 matches per team. Which means we are given teams where 4 players have potato skills and ONLY 2 players on that team have good skill rating.

A match shoudl ALWAYS have a team which consist of 4 skilled players and 2 players that are lesser skill, so the outcome of the game is always close to a draw. and IF the game is a LOSS on overtime. we should NOT be penalized like we are now.

More thoughts…

Often times people toss around (lol) The word “throwing”. Throwing should NEVER be an offense on grounds to justify a Ban.

REmember, we are playing on COMPUTERS. they are full of FLAWS. As well as we are humans none the less. :wink: So in all fairness a PLAYER QUALITY RATING should be implemented for Competitive play. NOT ACCOUNT BANS

We tire out and lose endurance. I Load beehives onto semi tractor trailers and go play video games to FORGET about my day of being STUNG (feels like hot nails and thorns fyi) So I want to indulge in a video game. Overwatch by far, is a good game to play. It LOADS fast, builds matches QUICK and for the most part is easy to use. But when someone starts screaming in chat “stop throwing the game” and threaten with reporting, thats where this game gets its bad rep from.

Ultimately this game NEEDS to communicate with gamers on how they are during a game and how to IMPROVE. that way information can be projected to the user to help them become a more positive impact on the game. And to be honest. ENDORSEMENTS IS NOT THE ANSWER.

:frowning:

102

That’s not what I mean.

1. I mean 90 seconds end the match, DC’s have 90 seconds to rejoin if they do not, they take the same penalty as any leaver. DO NOT count the game as a loss if the enemy team wins 5 on 6 before 90 seconds expires. Only the leaver/DC’er is punished. NO SR LOSS NO SR GAIN otherwise. It’s not rocket science.

Fix your internet if you don’t want to DC. This is not the fault of your team, it’s your fault no reason you don’t get punished for it.

2. If you don’t want to get punished for DC’ing, then maybe blizzard can use some of that record breaking profit to develop an algorithm that detects when someone DC’s vs ESC + LEAVE GAME / + Exit to Desktop.

(If your devs do not know how to do this, then you laid off the wrong people.)

3. Increase SR loss for leavers to 500 SR or 1000 SR.

4. If DC’ers don’t want to get punished, stop doing Comp then, until you fix your connection. Again it’s your fault, and you should be treated as a leaver because it’s not just you who suffers it’s your team. Only difference is they can’t fix your internet connection only you can.

Sorry Wyoming but that is an excuse of lazy development & cheap gamers who don’t know what they are doing on the internet, or Mommy and Daddy just don’t want to pay to fix the connection.

104

I’m not reading that I just think it’s really funny that OP had to put a disclaimer at the top of the thread so Blizz doesn’t nuke him.

105

Blizzard won’t nuke me (I have a great relation with them), users who are not familiar with the forum MVP program do mistake me as a representative of Blizzard (since my text appears in green). I rarely post topics expressing my own opinion, so when I do I often include the disclaimer to avoid any confusion.

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106

Oh sweet. Can you give me my pink Mercy skin now?? I’ve been waiting for cross-platform cosmetic transfers for two years now. :cowboy_hat_face:

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107

Please do not quote my post and edit it out-of-context.

108

My take:

Yay for Return to Match. Players shouldn’t be rewarded with a new game for abandoning a current one when they don’t get the hero they want or whatever.

Boo to Low-Priority queue. The match making system already struggles enough to get people into a game where it feels close on both sides. Adding additional sub-queues based on amount of leaves is only going to stress this system even further.

I think Return to Match is perfectly adequate. No need to go with the over complicated second idea IMO.

109

Jeff has said that its unfortunate but if your internet can’t reliably handle not cutting out often then you probably shouldn’t play comp. They can’t tell the difference between a legitimate disconnect and you just pulling the plug on your router so they need to treat disconnects the same as leavers.

110

I just got one question: those proposed left matches are in a row or during a set amount of time?

Because if it is during a set period of time, I would bring another problem and possible solution: leaving due to the map you end up on (during the first 30 seconds in the hero select screen, or even just 20 seconds, before you actually spawn in the map). I do it myself sometimes and I know people who also do it.

Possible solution: Map selection, that would 1) Diminish the amount of players leaving due to not liking certain maps and 2) Give Blizzard data on preferred maps.

If “cherry picking” maps would be too much trouble, there could be a game type selection, so say I like Control and Hybrid more, Escort less so and would like to never play Assault again, some sort of game mode priority could be used, even with a temporary blacklist of either maps or ONE game mode, which again, in my case would be Assault.

Note: I do know you talk about “matches completed” to remove the low priority, but map selection could be put in place at the same time, which could and likely would kill 2 issues with a single feature.

111

Map/Mode Selection would be great for some players but, others would have bad outcomes because the matchmaker will attempt to make matches as easy as possible which will lead to popular content dominating big time and everyone will likely see a slight increase in queue times. Playing the same content over and over can make you hate it if you don’t like it.

TF2’s got matchmaking that works like that and you can see the results of it.

You’ll notice some modes have far more players than others and the same is true for some maps.

Players may find the mode they like isn’t really popular and they’ll have to wait an extra 5 + minutes to get it. They may find the same thing is even worse for specific maps.

For example, my favorite map in TF2 is cp_steel. As it averages 53 players if I want to queue for a match on it I will probably be waiting a while.

As for Overwatch impact:

My impression was the most liked map type is Hybrid and the most popular map is King’s Row followed by Eichenwalde.

So, a map select system will lead to lots of both popular Hybrid maps. However, Nubani, Hollywood, and maybe even Blizzard World might have trouble populating due to the sheer dominance of the first two in the category.

My impression was the most hated map type is 2CP. I’d suspect the matchmaker would create few enough matches of it that people that like it would start queuing for it exclusively so they’d actually get sent to it. This might have an interesting impact as the players that like 2CP may play differently than other players and this may draw more people to 2CP or turn them off.

112

And that’s exactly the point, Blizzard could use this info to make changes to less popular maps, to try and make them better, the queue time thing was why I suggested either game mode or map select.

I know the problems both may cause, but I think the data that can be collected is far more valuable to the Devs, since they can use it to actually improve the second most important aspect of the game, the maps you play on.

113

If you force someone to play in a match they don’t want to play, they’re gonna throw. Soft or hard.

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114

Thats not true, just end the match after 1:30. Give the rest of the team a 5-12 SR penality, but don’t do like it’s there fault that they left…

115

you left out what happens with a group :wink: Are they forced to wait or can he just lfg and avoid this?

120

The thing is, Blizzard can just toss up an ingame survey to figure that out or look at one of the existing surveys.

Ex:

King’s Row was the favorite of 32% of the game with 19k responses.

What people like and dislike on maps isn’t necessarily the same. For example, I hate 2CP and what I hate about 2CP is what other people like about it. Changing 2CP to make me happier would possibly frustrate the people that like it (and people do like it).

121

Usually if a behavior is rampant its because there isnt a harsh enough penalty for it…

so yeah…im down for increased penalties for people leaving matches…youre basically giving an FU to 11 other people…the game should do the same to you in all honesty…

sorry but its true

note: if its repetitive obviously…a one time thing for legitimate reasons should be ok…and the game already does this as it requires several occasions before it takes any actions…but if its repetitive (be it several times in succession) or just something an account does very often (like once every 3-4 matches)…yeah…harsher penalties

122

I’m neutral to the idea. However, I absolutely can’t support it unless we also have the following changes:

1.) Player agency in Overwatch is already extremely low. Your proposal reduces it further. Users need choice to avoid unfavorable matches that they won’t enjoy and are likely to abandon.

a.) Provide a map blacklist feature (for QP / maybe Arcade). I don’t enjoy 2CP and I will often leave these matches, including when I am backfilled into a 2CP round. As it stands, the player has almost no choice or option to choose which maps/map types they want to play, and your proposal will punish players who quit those games for that reason.

b.) Provide me with a game play option to opt-out of backfilling. I have zero desire to play backfill games, period. If you are dead-set on punishing leavers, you should also be open to alternatives to backfilling (such as immediately ending the round, awarding EXP accordingly, and moving on to a fresh match or re-instance).

c.) Expand the avoid list. I’m a player who keeps habitual track of people that I don’t want to play with and I rotate my avoid list frequently. I will also quit pre-game or backfill QP/Arcade games where I have a person on my team that I don’t want to play with, and they would be on my avoid list if I wasn’t out of space already. There is zero reason that the avoid list can’t be significantly larger. The avoid system already penalizes the person who avoids players by prioritizing avoided players over the avoiding player, so the only players with a significant increase in queue time will be the ones with a lot of people on their avoid list.

2.) Your ideas run the risk of “improving” the game experience at the cost of “fun” and accessibility. A wise retired man once said: “If it’s not fun, why bother?” If I’m not having fun because your game design decisions aren’t allowing me to play in a way that I enjoy, then I am going to quit and find another way to spend my time.

So, with that said, you need to clearly define the expectations of each mode and provide alternatives.

a.) For Quick Play, this means either making Quick Play ‘the ranked mode without SR gain/loss’ or creating an alternative to Quick Play (Unranked or whatever you want to call it) and enact the “serious business” ruleset there. Game design can’t force undesirable players to become better, but you can use your system to segment them into the mode that best fits their desire to play and behavior.

b.) For ranked, this means removing rewards and potentially further changes such as removing visible SR (for example, hiding SR during the season and then you receive an SR number at end of season). Ranked should be ranked for the competitive aspect and not for ego or for golden weapons.

Leavers in competitive haven’t been a huge problem for me personally, but I play at somewhat high elo (low GM) so maybe the situation is different at lower ranks. But the honest truth is that rather than penalizing the people who regularly leave competitive, you don’t want them playing that game mode at all. They aren’t the sort of players who are desirable for a competitive environment so decoupling material rewards and doing your best to remove the ego factor is a better solution. Once that is done, make the leaver penalties for competitive as strict as you want.

123

If that’s the case, though I think someone has to be a bit insane to like 2CP, what they could do is create some sort of game type priority, which is then decided by the player.

Say someone’s priority mode is 2CP, only if a match cannot be found in a reasonable amount of time (up to 2 minutes solo, more if in a group) will the matchmaker try for other game modes. That could just be for like 1 mode which is prioritized, or one that is less so.

I don’t think this would impact the game negatively, since people would get the mode/maps they like more often, but not all the time. (Though as far as I’m concerned, 2CP could cease to exist and I wouldn’t miss it)

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124

How would it work if someone from a lower priority queue grouped with members of a higher priority queue they grouped up with after a win?