Short version: If you DC, for any reason, while a match is forming, you are penalized. Blizzard has no way of determining if you left by choice or if there was a technology failure. This is not new, and is official Blizzard policy.
Long version:
Each time a player leaves competitive matches any time before the Victory/Defeat screen, he will receive a 50 SR penalty. It is not known if leaving penalizes players’ MMR. In addition, a leaver will receive increasing automatic bans, with each leave (19):
10 minutes
30 minutes
2 hours
8 hours
24 hours
Season Ban (with a season ban, no rewards are received)
The season ban cannot be reversed. The reason or method of leaving is irrelevant (43). If a player plays many games without leaving, the leaving penalty resets downward. The rule of thumb is that if the bans are getting into 8 or 24 hours, a season ban is imminent. If a player receives three season bans, a permanent ban is likely (30). The season bans do not need to be consecutive to count toward a permanent ban.
If the player leaves before the game is 30 seconds old, the match is cancelled and no one except the leaver is penalized/rewarded. If a player leaves after the game is 30 seconds old, Players on the leaver’s team get no consideration due to the leaver. That is, they (and the other team) gain and lose SR/MMR as normal. This is to prevent situations where it is the team’s interest for one person to leave and save everyone else from losing SR/MMR (and the winners from gaining SR/MMR) (41, 42).
If a player leaves and rejoins the match (after rebooting / internet comes back, etc.), he will often be able to save himself from getting the penalty, but it is not a sure thing. He needs to rejoin quickly, and not disconnect and reconnect several times (43).
Leaving during or after the Victory/Defeat screen is safe, but it does not save time before joining the next match. The matchmaker waits for the previous match to be complete before attempting to place players in a new match (44).
(19) Overwatch Forums Overwatch Forums Overwatch Forums Overwatch Forums Overwatch Forums Leaving game when seeing defeat or victory - #8 by JeffreyKaplan
KingTJ:
Who CARES what my current SR is? I’m not trying to play this as a competitive sport, ok? If you are, great! You do that and you’ll rank high enough so I never have to run into you in a game anyway! I just want to get some kind of ranking while playing, instead of “free play” games that count for nothing on any kind of score-board.
The main reward for ranking up is less toxicity and less broken games. But toxicity never goes away completely in solo-queue. The other way of reducing toxicity is to group with people you like playing with.
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