What’s the deal with all the leavers lately and what is going to be done about it?
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I dont know, they are avoiding most of my games.
Idk what more you want, leaver penalizations are already harsh. You cant over do it.
Leaver penalties are not harsh at all. It takes 6 consecutive leaves in small window of time to get a season ban, and you don’t even lose enough SR to go down a full rank.
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10 games is not small window of time.
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I disagree, it’s entirely subjective to how frequently you play.
10 games is a small window to someone who plays that much in one sitting. It’s a large window for someone who plays 10 games per season.
More importantly it only affects your SR, not MMR, so you bounce back to where you belong pretty quick.
Ultimately the bans should be much, much harsher, and there should be a leaver queue pairing chronic offenders together
Time is a variable you aren’t accounting for. You are correct otherwise.
It doesn’t have to be consecutive at all. They ramp up the suspension much longer than they used to and you have to play 10 games without leaving to get your “suspension level” reduced by one.
Losing SR doesn’t incentivize people to not leave if they’re doing it either to derank, out of spite, or to troll.
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If you leave again before you finish 10 games, you now have lvl two leaver status and it goes up unless you play 20 games after.
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You can’t go much harsher than they already are without creating bigger problems for people who have a power outage or disconnect once suddenly being banned for a season like some people want.
Could it maybe take four leaves without a reduction in let’s call it “leaver level” to get a season ban? Sure maybe. But no less than that.
As it is now habitual leavers who can’t go 10 games without leaving again (and even more than that if they’re past the first “leaver level”) get longer and longer suspensions until they just get banned for the season after a sixth one.
The way it’s setup to reduce your “leaver level” right now is fine and a good system honestly because it accounts for two things.
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Random one off events like power outages or disconnections not leading to a major punishment if your system is otherwise stable.
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More importantly it accounts for volume, targeting the more habitual leavers for longer suspensions and bans. After all if someone is leaving 10 games a season it’s not as bad if that’s while playing 3000 games and never leaving twice every 100. Especially compared to someone who leaves or disconnects from 6 games in the span on 60.
As far as a leaver queue goes I’m not opposed to it (kinda like how GTAV puts players who are deemed “bad sports” and destroy other players cars a lot in the same lobbies) but the important things would be.
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Both teams in a match would need to come from that queue. If all twelve players aren’t in the same label you make it where you realistically give the non “leaver” team a known advantage once you decide to label a player as a “habitual leaver”.
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Players who are in the “leaver queue” can’t group and queue with people who are not (at least for comp) that way you don’t have either the situation where players go into a leaver queue match with a reliable team that aren’t labeled as “leavers” and the other team is to try to get easier wins, or the situation where players who should be in the leaver queue use a group of people who are not to queue into normal games.
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Just like how you can both get your “leaver level” reduced by not leaving a certain amount of games in a row (depending on the level) and how you can get the “bad sport” label removed in GTAV if you just don’t destroy other player’s cars, you would have to have a threshold for both how many leaves puts a player in the “habitual leaver” label and a point where they can be put back into normal games. My thought would be to put them in the leaver queue if they have reached level 3 in the current leaver system and let them back into normal queue after not leaving 25-30 games uninterrupted. (Not counting leaving after someone else of course).
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I don’t think a single leave or DC should result in a season ban, but certainly less than 6, and they should not cooldown for at least 25 consecutive matches without an issue. Make it matter.
Seasonal and permanent bans need to be implimented rapidly against chronic leavers and DCers. Once in awhile is one thing, but people abuse the leniency knowingly.
I do not have the best internet and I can count on one hand the number of times i’ve been disconnected from a game since launch
If i’m an outlier, then let’s double the amount and say in 4-5 years i’ve disconnected a dozen times. There are people hitting that in a single season and anything that doesn’t end that is unacceptable to me.
I’m fine with anyone in the leaver category for queue having as abysmal a time getting out of it as possible. Give them 30 minute queues trying to find other leavers.
If the punishments don’t have teeth, people won’t adjust their behavior.
It is, it is 5 games now.
This is roughly the number I recommend to get back into good standing. I used to have problems WAY back in the day, and kinda figured out it takes a lot of completed games to reverse the damage from Competitive Leaver violations.
That’s nice, I often have to deal with people who say they have the best broadband but are still disconnecting… ONLY from Overwatch. This is because there is a lot that goes into an online game connection including the various stops on the world wide web it has to take to reach from the home to the game datacenter. So while having the best possible bandwidth and have an optimized route to the datacenter is preferrable, nothing is going to be perfect for anyone at any time.
Finally I would point out, there is a great way to avoid leavers entirely if they are such a concern… you can find it here.
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Last time i checked, it takes 10 games without leaving to lower your leaver level by 1. 11 to be sure 
Is there a source for this or have you tested getting an account banned recently?
This is how developers band-aid a major problem without actually attempting to solve it.
A disease causes pain. Do you treat the disease itself or the pain?
We’ve been given a symptom treatment without a cure, and leavers are not a terminal illness without solution
The devs have attempted NOTHING to improve the leaver situation in the games they occur. ‘Use LFG’ is no different than telling people to mute trolls rather than doing something about the trolls
Several people have tested it and talked about it here already. Do it yourself if you really want to.
The only “cure” is to somehow predict human behavior accurately to if someone is about to leave and punish them before they queue. Just like with throwing.
But guess what? This isn’t minority report, and stopping someone from leaving or throwing before it happens isn’t possible.
Treat your own symptom and find reliable teammates if randomness is such a big issue for you.
Oh I forgot that they’re able to predict whether or not a player will leave a game or troll so accurately. Yes they are perfect at predicting the future I forgot.
You have tools you can use to find a reliable team if you want to, you refusing to use them is not their fault. The devs could just as easily say that you’re doing “nothing” to help yourself and just expect everything to be done for you.
Someone leaves a game or trolls, sure it sucks, move on. Throwing a tantrum won’t make it any better. But you know what does make your life easier? Using any lfg to find reliable players that are less likely to leave or troll, muting trolls whenever you find them so you don’t have to deal with them.
Before you respond. I don’t care about your excuses, the tools are there for you to use and you refuse to use them. Your belief that they can magically predict these problems before they happen is just delusional.
Why is this the only cure? Stricter punishments, leaver queues, backfill all strike me as options as well
Scapegoating poor game design with a bandaid.
You keep hitting this as a point and im not sure why. Nothing im suggesting requires predicting behavior, simply responding to behavior that occurs in a meaningful way.
Why is it the responsibility of the gamer to repair poor game design?
Pointing out and discussing major flaws in gameplay is not ‘throwing a tantrum’.
Insulting someone who thinks differently than you though…welllll
Bold to discuss trolls then throw out this gem.
Not liking a point of view doesnt inherently make it wrong
Im obviously not going to change your mind, and you’re clearly more interested in picking fights with people than discussing meaningful changes to improve the game.
ill agree to disagree and keep lobbying for improving the game instead of settling for what was poorly designed. You do you boo
Funny you say this after saying nonsense like
They gave you the tools to cater teams more to your liking. You ignoring them does not make it “poor design” it makes you lazy.
As for
They’ve made the punishments stricter already. They can’t go much further without one off random events like power issues or widespread internet issues banning people who shouldn’t be.
Backfill doesn’t belong in comp. it never will happen. And should never happen. Too many people see the game as individuals so when someone on your team leaves it’s “oh no my sr!” When in reality it is a team vs a team, if your original 6 couldn’t win, even if it was with someone leaving, you guys still lost. If you really want backfill then compensate the team that didn’t need a backfill with bonus sr. Why? Because most of the times I see someone leave it’s because the other team was beating them badly. That team that was losing badly doesn’t deserve to have a chance at a smurf or hacker to steal a win from a team that likely would have won if the original leaver stayed. Give the other team bonus SR for “winning” the original 6v6. Without that backfill creates more problems than it solves.
And I already discussed the wrinkles with a leaver queue. I’m not opposed to it but you’d need to decide details and breakpoints on it.
Lol. Once again using tools the game gives you to fix problems doesn’t make them poorly designed. It makes you lazy for refusing to use them and demanding it be done for you. There’s improving the game and going too far. A lot of what you suggest is over correction. That’s my big issue with it. There’s “giving the punishments teeth” and then there’s “cutting off an arm for stealing”.
I dont think it’s nonsense at all, simply unpleasant questions people prefer not having to answer. Again, agree to disagree.
Whether i use them or not does not impact leavers existing in overwatch and compromising the integrity of competitive play 
Hence the bandaid analogy. The game has pneumonia and the devs gave us a box of tissues.
How have they made the punishments stricter? Banning people one game sooner? Requiring 3+ season bans for a permanent ban?
With the cooldown periods people still actively abuse being able to leave and back off the threshold of a ban, people still dont think ‘wow my internet is unstable, maybe i shouldnt queue until it is working properly’
Im not saying ban people for 1, 2, or even 3 disconnections. Im saying ban people who, season after season, are consistently pushing 4+ in low game counts, and make each suspension tier longer to force people to cool off and/or stabilize their internet
And i know people dont want to hear this, but if you are in a situation where your internet is consistently unstable…you shouldnt be in comp.
At best, this only makes me as lazy as the designers who opted not to solve the actual problems
Keep up the insults though, i love internet cliches
I agree with this that doesn’t make any difference though.
The “cooldown thresholds” aren’t that short. 10 games for the first level and they get longer the higher you get. It accounts for frequency not pure volume which is important.
Personally I think a dedicated queue for leavers (and maybe trolls too for the fun of it but ) is the best idea you’ve proposed. But like I said before.
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Both teams in a match would need to come from that queue. If all twelve players aren’t in the same label you make it where you realistically give the non “leaver” team a known advantage once you decide to label a player as a “habitual leaver”.
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Players who are in the “leaver queue” can’t group and queue with people who are not (at least for comp) that way you don’t have either the situation where players go into a leaver queue match with a reliable team that aren’t labeled as “leavers” and the other team is to try to get easier wins, or the situation where players who should be in the leaver queue use a group of people who are not to queue into normal games.
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Just like how you can both get your “leaver level” reduced by not leaving a certain amount of games in a row (depending on the level) and how you can get the “bad sport” label removed in GTAV if you just don’t destroy other player’s cars, you would have to have a threshold for both how many leaves puts a player in the “habitual leaver” label and a point where they can be put back into normal games. My thought would be to put them in the leaver queue if they have reached level 3 in the current leaver system and let them back into normal queue after not leaving 25-30 games uninterrupted. (Not counting leaving after someone else of course).
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You’d need to have a threshold of more than one leave to put you in it to start.
Once again acting like the problems can be solved without overly aggressive punishments or other issues is just not true. A lot of what you seem to want just feels like over correction. That’s my issue with it. There’s “giving punishments teeth” and then there’s “banning someone from the internet because they made my day bad.” You lean more towards the latter.
You’re plat/gold? I’ve been through all ranks up to Diamond and by far the rank with most leavers is Mid-Plat to High-Gold
I was just “Lagged-Out” of a match about 40 minutes ago. It wasnt that my internet dropped or bad ISP. In fact it was completely fine. There is another variable thats been popping up and this one has stuck around for the last 3 seasons. There is a “free hack” with a paid feature that allows you to alter your upload side of your connection with False-Packets (null data) which creates artificial lag and if its set high enough it creates a DDoS effect on the server and/or other players. This exact thing happened to me, probably the 4th time that I can recall. If its bad enough, it literally screws up your modem completely deadlocking your internet connection forcing you to reboot it and your routers.
So in turn I got my 10 min suspension because i could not return to the match. I know which player was cheating and did the DDoS because the one key thing that gives that player away is you (or at least me) get frame drops. I lose about 30 frames of my 155fps and it starts stuttering when that player is in proximity.
not trying to spoil this thread about cheating, jsut bringing in info on another issue within the Leaver topic thats happening. Not everyone is leaving on purpose, they are being force dropped by a cheat, server issues, login server, authentication server issues, etc.
Hmmm…it occurs to me that the leavers are leaving for a reason.
Maybe if you addressed the reason instead of the leaving, there would be less leavers.
Open MMR or SR Visibility. A Functional Team up ability. A game that isn’t skitsophrenic about whether it’s a 6 man hero ban 1st person shooter or a flexible 6 man objective based moba. But hey, then we’d have a viable game. Don’t want to push that envelope too far, we need resources for overwatch 2.