Banned after losing connection

One of the most frustrating things for me is when I lose connection to the OW servers, then get an automatic 10 minute ban and lose an endorsement level. I try so hard to be a good player and even stay in games that my team completely threw just to keep a good endorsement level, but I can’t seem to make it past 4, let alone stay at 4 for very long due to periodic connection drops to the OW servers. I know that changes in this area are tough because people would surely abuse any connection issue mercy by disconnecting their internet simply to leave the game without penalty. But there has to be some way for OW to differentiate between a serve connection issue and an internet issue. It’s extremely discouraging to have so many penalties for something completely out of my control.

Nope. It’s completely impossible. What is the difference, for instance, between your router being unplugged and going offline due to a power outage?

Sorry.

You’re certain about that??

Yeah. The game knows if you alt-F4, but if you cut your network connection intentionally it is completely impossible for the other side of the connection to know (versus a real, unintentional disconnect.)

To the other side of the connection, you just instantly go silent. It can’t know why, and you can force that any number of ways (from software to just unplugging your router).

Well I am thinking something more along the lines of whether or not OW could differentiate a connection issue with their servers vs my internet. IDK, perhaps you’re right.

They could, but truthfully, it’s almost never their servers. The problem is almost always on your end.

Most of the disconnects due to servers can be avoided just by not playing comp when major patches drop, which is usually on Tuesday morning.

I suppose that is true. I usually don’t drop too often, and it takes FOREVER for me to build my endorsements back up. I wonder if it would be feasible to have a once per so many hours of comp played “freebie” to take of those loyal players who occasionally disconnect

Nah, people would just treat it as a mulligan on a match they could avoid losing. Anyways, level 3 endorsement is fine.

Better just to try to figure out why you’re dropping. Are you on wifi?

Hello there Vanadium. Mitrovarr is correct, there is no effective way to discern a legitimate technical malfunction (whether it be a crash, power outage or disconnection) from an issue that would be caused deliberately by a dishonest player trying to bypass such penalties. Furthermore, the Competitive leaver penalty system starting suspension is relatively small at only a 10 minute penalty. Of course penalties can quickly escalate if you attempt to keep playing Competitive while such issues persist. You can learn about this policy here:

Remember if you see the message, “Lost Connection to the Server” in the title screen or the message “Failed to Connect to Server” in yellow text in the text chat box, this means there is something that disrupted your connection to the game server and not a problem with the game server itself. There can be a variety of reasons this happens including those that don’t disconnect your computer from the Internet. There is great troubleshooting to start with that can most likely resolve most issues and I encourage you to check them out here:

As always if nothing in that guide works, please start a new topic in the technical support forums saying you completed these steps and additional advice can be provided. Good luck!

Naw there is no way to tell the difference.

The only thing they can tell the difference between are their own servers crashing, meaning their physical server and software on that server crashed causing everyone playing on that server to get kicked out and some other disconnect.

  • If your game or computer crashes then it stops sending data to the server. It doesn’t say why it stops sending data because it can’t, its crashed.
  • If your Internet modem loses power then it goes offline and unable to send data causing you to disconnect. Again the servers just stop receiving data. There is no info as to why the data stopped.
  • If you unplugged your network cable then data stops again. Still no info sent to the server as to why.

Because they can not tell the difference between a real Internet outage or power outage and someone just unplugging their network cable, all disconnects must be treated the same. So if you chose to exit the match/game or your cat chews the power cord on your Internet modem causing it to go offline, you get the same punishment.