Server crashes should not affect SR

Competitive Discussion
#1

This is a simple opinion piece I’d just like to make known.

Known Blizzard-end crashes should not take SR.

I know the policy is to take SR for leaving with no exception, and generally I agree with this rule, except in this case.

There is no reasoning for this to be the case. Unlike with traditional leaving where it is difficult to tell if it was the ISP, or the host computer, or the host themselves purposefully terminating the connection to avoid losing, Blizzard has every means to tell when a server crashes and whom it affects.

I do not play a lot of the competitive gamemode, and my rank has little effect on me, but even I can see how unfair and unfun it is for those who suffer the consequences.

I understand server crashes happen, they are an inevitability in any game. But simply because the blame may not be directly put upon Blizzard does not mean that any player should shoulder the consequences of it unjustly.

I propose Team 4 puts as much resources as necessary into detecting what players are affected by server crash based leaving and ensuring that they rollback their punishments for the affected games. If this for whatever reason is not possible, I would be very interested in knowing that, as that is the only excusable reason for it’s lack of implementation I can imagine.

1 Like
#2

It’s easier for them to do this:

Continuing the discussion from Overwatch Technical Issues, SR Loss, and Leaver Penalties:

And because it’s easier for them to say “it takes this into account” than to actually put in resources to return SR to the thousands upon thousands of people that would be requesting it (from bugs/server issues/etc.), I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

#3

It is easier, and ultimately the statement that it does not affect overall skill level too much is for the most part true.

But it is disheartening and very unpleasant when it happens so I will stand by my open proposal.

It is a video game and removing things that reduce the enjoyment of the game for no logical reason should be a high priority in my opinion.

#4

Don’t get me wrong, I’d take it. I’ve been on the recieving end of a known Blizz crash and got a 50 SR drop to show it. Additionally… just getting that 50 SR drop back took me 15-20 games in total. By no means was it pleasant.

I’m just pointing out that it isn’t the logical aspect that holds this thing up from becoming a reality, it’s the unwillingness of a team to budge due to the practical side of it (additional work load/resource costs).

FWIW - I agree with you and thing it would be a good change.

#5

Oh I know you agree, I am just reasserting my position based on the new information in the linked thread so that it is clear to anyone else reading I understand the workload and think that it should be integrated regardless.

#6

I also wish to point out that “server crashes” happen very rarely, and usually when they do you get the error message “Server closed due to an unexpected error.” and in most cases the game will restart the match with the same 12 players with no change to skill rating from the nullified match.

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.

#7

Yes I know they’re rare, and are not the cause of the majority of disconnections, of which any other I do not have a problem with them penalizing. But I believe that in the event of those server issues, where Blizzard knows there is a confirmed server issue, it should preferably be rolled back if possible.

#8

How Blizzard handles these situations really depends on the situation. As I said, if there a problem with a specific game server, in most cases, it simply resets the match and the same players have to start over (annoying, but at least its better than nothing).

For issues that affect Blizzard’s network providers (including DDoS attacks), usually the penalty for any disconnections stands. They don’t roll back, because that would affect players who did not necessarily disconnect. However at their discretion, they may disable Competitive Play to prevent players from getting into further trouble.

I will observe there hasn’t been a major network provider issue in any region for the Americas servers for several weeks now. (We did have issues with the voice chat server last night, but no disconnections.)

#9

They are definitely rare, in my personal experience. And by “rare”, I mean, it’s happened to me once in a few hundred hours of playing. (Additionally, I got booted for inactivity after I jumped as Winston and got stuck on top of an entryway on Route 66 before the second point once… but bugs are bugs.)

That concession made, it is hard to argue against the idea that it’s a crappy feeling to get booted, lose SR, and go to the BlizzardCS twitter to discover they’re “looking into” something, 'cause they’re getting a huge influx of reports.

#10

I am glad that they disabled competitive play in these scenarios, but as I said the primary reason for this post is to request that, if possible, they could develop a way to affect only players who were disconnected by the issue (I imagine with a server malfunction, their disconnections would be at the same time making this a bit easier) provided they do not have one so they may change their policy and roll back the rank in these scenarios.

And yes this post wasn’t spurred on by any specific issue or even a disconnection of my own in any recent times, it was inspired by an off handed comment by another forum user that simply reminded me of my opinion on this and prompted me to make this post.