The leaver penalty system is broken

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been experiencing game crashes. I have mostly managed to fix them, but they still happen every once in a while. The main thing that sucks is that I lost 150 total sr and an endorsement rank from this. I’ve already regained the sr, but the endorsement rank hurts, but that’s not what I’m going to be focusing on.

A couple of days ago, I was playing competitive, trying to regain my lost sr, when out of no where, my whole computer crashes. I was freaking out, but I managed to get back into the game and win it with my team, but as I was waiting to rejoin, I noticed that I had already had a 7-hour suspension thrown on me. I was confused, but I got into the game soon after. Despite the fact that we won the game and that I made a difference in the final round, I was still banned and LOST SR AFTER A WIN. I’m very mad about this because I can understand the other suspensions I had, but this one was put on me before the game was even over. I just don’t understand how I can get in trouble for ruining the game for my team when I joined back and helped my team win. I’m just venting here, but I wanted this to get out there.

Unfortunately all disconnections and game crashes counts as leaving the match and will be penalized appropriately. The game server has no way to discern a legitimate disconnection or game crash from one that is forcefully caused by a dishonest player to bypass leaver penalties. You can learn about this policy here:

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.


Since you have not specified details about your crashes, all I can do is recommend you to check out these common troubleshooting steps:

Be careful because it sounds like you are already at the 8-hour suspension mark, this means you are about 1 or 2 leaver violations away from triggering a SEASON BAN. If you are season banned, you will be disqualified from playing in the remainder of this season and you will forfeit all end-of-season rewards including bonus Competitive Points. You will also be one step closer to a permanent ban (3 season bans triggers this).

These rules are important to encourage players who are having technical issues to stop playing Competitive mode so that they do not impact their teammates. I myself know how frustrating it is to deal with crashes, but if you need help players including myself and Blizzard Support Agents can lend a hand in the Technical Support forum.

Leaving for any period of time automaticlly puts your team at a disadvantage till you come back.
Your computer crashing is your problem.

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