Long story short there was a persistant bug with the sound driver software to my USB headset that conflicted with Overwatch. This required a long amount of work between Blizzard and the headset manufacturer to resolve (and several web tickets on my part).
On a side note, if this never happened to me, I would not be the Tech Support MVP that I am today as I learned so much about Overwatch and PC gaming from the experience.
disconnects are punished because the game cant determine if you left voluntarily or because of an actual dc so it just punishes you for both
Rejoining a game without penalty is only possible during certain phases of the game and within a timely manner. If you leave a game either during the pre-game or during the first minute of the game, the game will automatically cancel (remember the 10 second rule does not apply to the leaver, but as a warning to other players that the match will cancel). You can rejoin the match during the initial hero selection screen if you are lucky enough to quickly reconnect though.
Otherwise, you can only rejoin any-time after one-minute of match time has passed up until the match completes. However you only have two minutes to do so without penalty. If you rejoin a match after two-minutes, you will still automatically be marked with a loss an be penalized with a -50 SR cut and a ten-minute suspension. This rule ensures that no one can abusive the leaver system by attempting to return to a match after deliberately leaving in order to avoid such penalties. Furthermore leaving three or more times in a single match will result in an automatic penalty. If you fail to return to a match by the time it ends normally (regardless of match result) you will be penalized.
I am aware of how the system works, I also think that it should be changed.
As it stands, if I randomly DC and it takes more than 2 minutes for not just my internet to come back online, but also reconnect to the Overwatch servers and the match, add on rebooting my computer if my power flashed out for a second, then I might as well just not reconnect at all.
Why waste time tryharding in a game when I end up with exactly the same negative outcome regardless?
What I’m saying is that there needs to be an emphasis on the outcome of a match. If you return and still lose, it’s fine to take the -50 SR + a ban. I don’t care, you cost them the match and you deserve it. But if you come back and help your team win, then, in my eyes at least, you’ve made up for whatever setback you may have cost them, and shouldn’t be punished as much. You can still take away their winnings or even dock them some, but they shouldn’t get the full -50 as if they threw the match, because they objectively didn’t.
Well for me, because even though I will be penalized, I will do everything in my power to help my team recover and if I can save them a win, it’s worth it. Yeah you may win, but a lot of players who have a blip won’t hesitate to queue up right away for another Competitive match thinking it won’t happen again. That is what the suspension is for, to make sure they don’t jump back in right away. The SR deduction further sets this mentality. Again, I will say you only lose 50 SR which does not directly affect your MMR. It is easily recovered assuming any issues are resolved to the best of your confidence.
ok so 3 things.
something seems off with this system
See my post above.
If you are in the middle of a match, the career profile reported SR on the play menu will reflect the penalty, but if you return within the allowed time and complete the match, the penalty is recalled. I have tested this myself.
Unless you have very detailed before the match, after the match recordings to show this. I don’t know what to say. I maintain a personal journal to check my SR adjustments overtime and never had anything like you describe.
Yeah, you guys need to FIX that part of it. Leaving a D/C player with ZERO incentive to rejoin UNFAIRLY penalizes the other 5 members of their team! The -50 SR penalty is enough already.
Once again, if you can return within two minutes, there is no penalty. After that, remember other players on your team at that point have the right to leave the match and still take a loss but no suspension and immediately requeue for a new match.
i dont have anything solid to show for that as i didnt know it could or would happen myself, what i do know is that i came back within 2 minutes so i didnt lose 50 and then gain the 17
I understand how it works, but thank you.
What I am saying is that the current system is BAD. Keeping the -50 SR penalty in place but removing the ‘automatic loss’ aspect would be a GOOD system.
It’s abusable.
“This team is a bunch of idiots, I’m not playing this game.”
Leaves match. Goes and makes a sandwich. Eats the sandwich while watching Kitchen Nightmares clips. Rejoins match so they aren’t penalised for it.
The reason why remaining teammates on both teams will take the match result is to prevent players having incentive to leave or attempt to coerce other players into leaving. In season 1, when there was a leaver, the match did actually adjust the SR calculation based on the odds of winning or losing for each team when there was a leaver. This result in season 1 having SEVERE leaver issues and increased toxicity. So they removed it (click here).
Yes, from the perspective of having to recover or reboot equipment, it typically is not enough time, but the time limit is more reflective on the state of the match. As I said, 2 minutes is an eternity for your team to play without you.
I’m glad you feel that way, but unfortunately not everyone shares the same mentality. Many people will say “Screw it, I get the punishment either way, why bother? Odds are we’ll lose, and that’s no hair off my back, so I’ll just come back later when my ban is up.”
It’s not so much that the -50 SR itself bothers me. I know I can get it back either way (done it more times than I care to admit). And the ban is fair as well, I get forcing people to wait to see if their hiccups are done before risking another match.
The problem is that since both outcomes are 100% the same, it encourages the selfish players to simply choose the path that’s easiest for themselves, which is to not rejoin and just do something else for 20 minutes instead of 10. Issue is, as you know, them not rejoining then keeps the other 5 players at a constant disadvantage that they can now no longer make up, which isn’t fair to them as they’ve done nothing wrong.
There needs to be some tangible difference that even selfish players can see that would encourage them to go back in, rejoin, and help out their fellow teammates. Hell, you could double a loss’s SR from -50 to -100 and keep the win at -50 if you want to get extreme (afterall, as you said, the actual MMR isn’t effected). But something needs to draw people back in, otherwise you’re left with more permanent leavers than rejoiners, which only escalates the overarching issue.
Maybe, but maybe I DC’d because the power flickered in the heat of summer, not enough to turn off my computer but enough to disrupt my internet for a couple of seconds. Maybe my Ethernet cord got unplugged, and I plugged it right back in. While a 5v6 can be detrimental, instances such as these result in quick rejoins. Especially if a fight just ended and everyone is regrouping. Momentum can’t be lost if there wasn’t any to begin with.
I’ve played in matches where a player DCs and comes back and then we win the match. A brief 5v6 doesn’t guarantee a loss, but it does gurantee a Loss and -50SR to the poor sap who got disconnected, even if he rejoins and they win the match. That’s too harsh of a punishment, and there’s no benefit for the player to come back, if the system doesn’t automatically ban them.
Now, I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be any deterrent. But I am saying that, in cases such as these, rejoining the match after DCing should reset the SR measurement for the player, so win or lose its only their performance that happens after they rejoin that matters. Leavers don’t return to matches and can’t know when they’re about to end to gain any benefit from this.
A brief disconnect and then reconnect isn’t a guaranteed loss. A player disconnecting and realizing there’s no point to rejoining the match because he’ll be punished just as harshly, win or lose, is.
But you lost 50 SR. Plus you lose SR for losing the game. That is not abuseable.
This only works if you know when the game is ending. A lot of the people on this thread are suggesting to keep the SR punishment for a loss, because that’s a fair punishment for causing a no win scenario for your team. But the punishment for a loss can’t be the same as a reward for a win.
This thread is requesting to remove the 50 SR penalty. If they removed it, players would abuse the lack of 50 SR by returning to games last minute. Yes, they likely still lost some SR for losing the game, but it’ll be left than 50 + they don’t get a suspension.
Maybe, but how often do leavers (on your team) affect your specific games. And among those that leave on your team, is suspected to have a technical malfunction. I am smack dab in the heart of the Overwatch community as a Gold rank player and I have many 1 game out of 20 where there is a leaver on my team and not too many on the opposite side either.
Having a leaver (on either side) makes for an unfortunate game of Overwatch, but it will always be a persistant and uncontrollable factor no matter what changes they make to the leaver rules (unless they put leavers in matches with other leavers, which I think with Role Queue coming, that is extremely unlikely to happen anytime soon). Uncontrollable games (leavers, alledged “smurfs”, toxic players, cheaters, anything you can’t control yourself) will happen. I am just glad that Role Queue eliminated one uncontrollable factor which was dsyfunctional team comps. Before role queue, I believe 4 out 5 games are uncontrollable games, leaving about 40% of games being absolute wins, 40% being absolute losses, and 20% having the perspective actually being competitive. And while you should try to do your absolute best and take advantage of every situation in every match, its the 20% of competitive games that truly define how good of a player you are.
Now I want the percentage of competitive games to increase. Role queue is one key step in that goal from my perspective. I wish there was more ways to minimize the impact of leavers. Hell, I even wrote a topic about having a low-priority queue. Last year I wrote out ideas to enhance the game’s UI to prevent accidental leavers. But really, when a leaver happens, the damage is often irreversible for that given match. Focusing on making sure a leaver works to prevent from leaving future matches to me is more important.
In any case, I think I will conclude here tonight. I hope the information I have provided at least provides insight to why the current policy are the way they are. They could change, yes, and do try to come up with ideas, but just keep all parties (the leaver, the team of the leaver, the other team) in mind. I have been the observer of the endless leaver debate since getting myself nearly banned in Season 1, so I tend to come up with a lot of counter-arguments, but I do so to challenge your ideas and hopefully make them good enough to where Blizzard may find them useful one day.
People already throw by “randomly” disconnecting repeatedly during a match. I’ve seen it happen more times than I’ve thought to count.