Ok I would like to bring up a topic that I know has been talked about quite abit online however after today I feel like I need to say something. Is anybody else getting tired of joining a competitive game and be giving it your all then mid way through the match a teammate leaves and essentially throws the game. I feel like Blizzard needs to make some changes to how leavers are treated. Now I’m not going to lie, I have left 1 game in my +100 hours played due to toxicity and I didn’t really get punished for it… I went from endorsement level 3 to 2 and lost 20 or so sr… that’s it. Now to hardcore players that is not good however to the everyday player, losing some endorsements and sr isn’t a big deal at all. We need a system to treat these leavers more harshly and I may have a fair solution. But first I want to explain what happened today.
So today I decided to do my competitive placement matches and start grinding for sr. I warmed up on a couple quick play matches and before each match started I looked at other players career profile to see where the matchmaker is putting me. I was seeing a consistent sr of 2600-2800. When I got into my first placement match I saw a platinum ranked player on each team so I figured I was around that same level based on what I had previously seen. That first match went very well with us winning 2-0 on nepal (btw I main Winston/Reinhardt and for this map I was playing Winston). I got a medal in every category other than healing. This is when I started having issues with people leaving. Every other game I had one or two people leave and I noticed that I was being matched with gold ranks then silvers and by the end I was being matched with bronze players. I finished off the matches and got an sr of 1628… now there is an issue here. Either I took a huge sr hit because of other people leaving, keep in mind I stared off playing with platinum players. Or the matchmaker is messed up for putting a 1628sr player up against platinums. I personally believe people leaving caused my sr to drop significantly because playing these low silver games with my tank heroes is a cake walk. I am easily dominating the other team and especially the enemy Reinhardts and Winston’s. I do believe I can climb to 2000 sr relatively easily depending on how many games are thrown because of people leaving.
Now I’m not here to convince anybody of my rank, I’m trying to explain the impact I think leavers have on the game. I have come up with a solution however I am not a developer nor do I know anything about what goes into these games. Therefore what I say might not even be possible.
Solution
Give leavers and automatic 2hour ban on cometitive and if they keep leaving increase the time of the ban. If a player leaves mid matches make all solo queue players immune to sr change if the game is lost given that they stayed until the end. If you have team queued and a member of your team has left the game you are susceptible to all sr losses of a normal game. I feel like this is the most fair solution that still prevents exploitation but again I’m not sure what it would take to do this or if it is even possible.
I hope blizzard can do something about this issue soon because I truly love the game.
If you remove the “leave match” button, people will just disconnect their internet. Honestly can easily make a batch file to disconnect your network connection then reconnect it a few moments later. Sure a little more work but if someone is forced to use alternatives they will.
First let me point out that Overwatch does not account for leavers for the calculation of SR at the end of match, this post explains more:
I have looked at your profile and its evident this is a new account you are playing on, which explains the tanking in skill rating from Platinum to Silver during placements. Typically a returning account already has an established hidden MMR from the previous season so even if you lose all ten matches you would likely not drop more than 200 SR. There are exceptions to the rule such as if you are a returning player after several months of not playing Overwatch.
One thing to note for sure is that I can personally say that in Bronze and Silver ranks, there is going to be a natural increase in leavers (as players in those ranks often don’t play seriously or play with equipment subjected to crashes or disconnections). Be prepared to win games 5 versus 6 (something I had to do in season 4).
Right now the minimum suspension time for a first-time offense is 10 minutes. It starts this small because Blizzard does take into account for one-time disconnections and crashes and gives players a reasonable chance to correct the issue. However, the suspension time will escalate quickly if a person leaves (or continues to try to play with technical issues) and it takes as little as six leaver violations to trigger a season ban. Now I could one day see Blizzard increasing the minimum suspension time to say 30 minutes to really deter the “bad leaver behavior” however increasing the suspension time isn’t exactly going to be impactful on the entire leaver problem involving those who have disconnections or crashes. Furthermore, increasing the minimum suspension too much would deter any honest player from wanting to continue to play if and when they have such a malfunction.
Unfortunately, this is not an effective solution. As the post I linked mentioned, back in season 1 the game did recalculate how much SR was lost or gained based on whether there were any leavers including for solo queue players, and unfortunately this resulted in situations where toxic individual would try to bully out players into leaving so that that toxic player can salvage SR. If you think leavers and toxicity was bad now, it was nothing in comparison to season 1.
The struggle to find a balance to tackle deliberate leavers, disconnections, crashes, and impact they all have on honest players is not an easy one. Realistically, there are no clean solutions. I myself could see leavers getting grouped together and away from those who have a relatively clean record, but would that be fair to say someone who had a really bad issue and just barely missed a ban but now has to be subjected to extremely unreliable battles for who knows how long? As a forum MVP, I try to help players with disconnections and crashes so I see both sides of the argument very clearly. Hopefully, this gives some insight as well. Cheers.
Ok that’s all fine but the issue still stands. I’m seeing posts from season 2 and 3 that are saying the exact same thing! If this issue hasn’t been fixed within the past 13 seasons then either Blizzard is just ignoring everybody’s feedback or they just don’t care about the issue. I mean seriously it’s been years since this issue was noticed and nothing has changed. You wonder why people are leaving this game, well it’s because Blizzard isn’t fixing any of these problems. Stop focusing fixing heroe balancing at the pro level and start helping people like me who are just trying to enjoy this game. Everyday I start this game hoping to have some good games and everyday I leave feeling cheated. It feels like Blizzard doesn’t even care about the core game anymore and only cares about what’s happening in league and while I enjoy watching overwatch league, I would love to have the game itself to be enjoyable and not frustrating.
The issue is not with Blizzard, the issue is with players. There is no “fix” for people being disconnected or rage-quitting beyond what they already do. What you personally can do is accept the fact that leavers will happen and take it in stride. Try to win 5v6. And remember that the enemy team actually has a higher chance of getting a leaver as you only have 5 teammates who can potentially leave vs 6 opponents.
The more mental energy you waste on worrying about things like this, the less mental energy you can dedicate to playing well.
What if there was a way so that even if people leave, the game calculates SR based on how you did in that game? Well then it wouldn’t matter if someone leaves a match, or if someone throws the match. You determine your SR. That’s what we should rally for!
I guarantee you that it will never be fixed. Even when you’re in the winning team and immediately after winning the 1st round, your teammate mysteriously “disconnects”.
Throwers, cheaters and teammates disconnecting after we’ve won. That just about sums up my experience with OW. I truly regret buying blizzard’s games, all hype and no quality.