Blizzard is Looking at Harsh Penalties for Overwatch Competitive Play Leavers
- Thread starter ffronw
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I enjoy how dedicated to ignoring the facts our victims are in here. Is being a victim a full time job for you guys?
Its been explained multiple times why youre overreacting yet you ignore those posts to keep the discussion going with those that feed your narrative.
Its been explained multiple times why youre overreacting yet you ignore those posts to keep the discussion going with those that feed your narrative.
There have already been suggestions for this on the Blizzard forums, and those suggestions usually include protecting the substitutes rating and giving alternative rewards eg:McElroy said:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20753098947
Or you could have a bot fill in the slot. This bot should probably get its own class for a few reasons. Firstly, it gives players fair notice that a player has been replaced with a bot. Secondly, some have objected that a bot would feed ult. This can be fixed by players not getting ult for killing the bot, which would be balanced by the bot not having an ult. Thirdly, it would be easier to program one class, especially without an ult. Lastly, people wouldn't want a sniper bot that just randomly decides whether they live or die from moment to moment, this can be addressed by giving the bot some form of projectile attack, so you always have a sporting chance to dodge.
Or maybe the losing side could get some kind of buff if a player left. Moving faster, doing more damage, having more hitpoints etc. The downside is that this might be difficult to balance. It's simple to draft a player with a similar rating to the one that quit, and reasonably easy to evaluate the strength of bots, but harder to predict the effect of a buff. OTOH, I imagine it might be pretty fun to have the buffs, even if your team was still losing, so Blizzard could err on the side of weak boosts and still improve the game.
Yet another option would be to simply kick someone on the other team to balance the match. The kicked player would be awarded a win, balancing a loss for the quitter. Being kicked might be slightly annoying, but it would happen to you five times less often than having a quitter, you wouldn't suffer rating wise and you would be free to start another game.
Now I'm sure most of these ideas are terrible and I haven't thought them through at all, and I know nothing about the game, but there are so many options for balancing the game when one player quits that I find it hard to believe none of them are viable. But something all these ideas have in common is that when a frustrated player gives up but doesn't leave the game because he fears the punishment, his team is effectively one player short yet cannot be compensated.
Yeah, this kind of stuff is why I just got really annoyed at Blizzard. If it isn't the horrible seesaw balancing between patches, the drip feed of content (for a 70 euro game on console launch in Overwatches case), and their tendency to shove every other game they ever made in your face, it's failing to realise how fans are going to take a lot of changes.
We saw this with the Diablo 3 auction house and forced always online DRM on top of the several rebalances in loot drop and turning the skill tree into a linear progression where half the moves overlap, the closing of Legacy servers on WoW (and waving away/mocking fans who preferred old content) and entire setups in Hearthstone just becoming obsolete due to nerfs.
From day 1 of competitive Overwatch people have been complaining that the leaver slots weren't being filled in, and they still haven't done anything about it after several seasons. Pretty much all the points raised By Bad Jim and shown in his posted link would have stopped at least half of the teams with leavers from just giving up. As it stands, 1 leaver leads to 1 or 2 more, dooming the entire game.
As for the penalties on serial leavers itself, I'm fine with it up to a certain level.
- First: Maybe actually show what metrics you use when you implement the check for serial leaving. "Several times over a certain time period" doesn't cut it. Why is that? Well...
- Second: If you're going to count disconnects and leaves as the same thing (Understandable due to just pulling out the ethernet cable) then you might want to make sure the servers are up to snuff on your end. I quit Overwatch a couple months back after my party was being serially kicked mid match and getting penalised for it. Loss of RP, banned fron Comp for x minutes or hours, various warning messages. This was not a short time either, 2 months this kept happening.
- Third: If you're going to ban people from playing the game they bought off of you, Comp or not, consider the following:
Full priced game + special editions + preorder needed for the Widowmaker skin + Blizzcon tickets needed for more skins + hugely pushing people towards buying boxes + Online only + no singleplayer + 'cracking down' on what users do in custom games + whatever else I may be missing here. Somewhere along the line, you have to realise the same people you're banning now may well have paid over 10 times the price of pretty much any multiplayer only title.
At what point, Blizzard, are you going to acknowledge that you reeeaaally just don't care about your games themselves anymore.
It's not about 'the team experience' or 'player feedback'. It's about keeping as many players as possible running in their wheels for the next little loot drop, the next +25 in ranked until the season resets, the next card that will go from overpowered to useless in the span of a few weeks, long enough for them to get sick of it and dropping more cash on it for even just a slight semblance of meaningfull progression.
If you're that annoyed you have to make games, or at least make them halfway decent from the start, just pull a Konami already and put up a WoW based pachinko parlor, now featuring a shot of Widow and Tracer's butts when you plop in 50 "Diablo 4: the same 3 bosses again" coins. But don't forget you can't take sexy photos of the sexy ladies, because BlizzCorp hasn't found a way to monetise porn as DLC yet.
We saw this with the Diablo 3 auction house and forced always online DRM on top of the several rebalances in loot drop and turning the skill tree into a linear progression where half the moves overlap, the closing of Legacy servers on WoW (and waving away/mocking fans who preferred old content) and entire setups in Hearthstone just becoming obsolete due to nerfs.
From day 1 of competitive Overwatch people have been complaining that the leaver slots weren't being filled in, and they still haven't done anything about it after several seasons. Pretty much all the points raised By Bad Jim and shown in his posted link would have stopped at least half of the teams with leavers from just giving up. As it stands, 1 leaver leads to 1 or 2 more, dooming the entire game.
As for the penalties on serial leavers itself, I'm fine with it up to a certain level.
- First: Maybe actually show what metrics you use when you implement the check for serial leaving. "Several times over a certain time period" doesn't cut it. Why is that? Well...
- Second: If you're going to count disconnects and leaves as the same thing (Understandable due to just pulling out the ethernet cable) then you might want to make sure the servers are up to snuff on your end. I quit Overwatch a couple months back after my party was being serially kicked mid match and getting penalised for it. Loss of RP, banned fron Comp for x minutes or hours, various warning messages. This was not a short time either, 2 months this kept happening.
- Third: If you're going to ban people from playing the game they bought off of you, Comp or not, consider the following:
Full priced game + special editions + preorder needed for the Widowmaker skin + Blizzcon tickets needed for more skins + hugely pushing people towards buying boxes + Online only + no singleplayer + 'cracking down' on what users do in custom games + whatever else I may be missing here. Somewhere along the line, you have to realise the same people you're banning now may well have paid over 10 times the price of pretty much any multiplayer only title.
At what point, Blizzard, are you going to acknowledge that you reeeaaally just don't care about your games themselves anymore.
It's not about 'the team experience' or 'player feedback'. It's about keeping as many players as possible running in their wheels for the next little loot drop, the next +25 in ranked until the season resets, the next card that will go from overpowered to useless in the span of a few weeks, long enough for them to get sick of it and dropping more cash on it for even just a slight semblance of meaningfull progression.
If you're that annoyed you have to make games, or at least make them halfway decent from the start, just pull a Konami already and put up a WoW based pachinko parlor, now featuring a shot of Widow and Tracer's butts when you plop in 50 "Diablo 4: the same 3 bosses again" coins. But don't forget you can't take sexy photos of the sexy ladies, because BlizzCorp hasn't found a way to monetise porn as DLC yet.
Good. There is no argument against this that doesn't come down to "I paid $60 for this game so I have the right to constantly ruin it for 5-11 (not everyone enjoys winning by handicap stomp) others" and that doesn't shake out economically. You ragequitting because of leaver penalties is less of a loss for Blizz then the 5 people who's game you ruined quitting because they are sick of loss by leaver. If your connection is so bad or your life so hectic that you can't consistently finish a game, quit being selfish and either play QP or switch to a SP game.
And I apply this to myself. If there is any significant possibility of interruption or my connection is being screwy (thanks AT&T, you shits) I just wont play competitive MP games.
And I apply this to myself. If there is any significant possibility of interruption or my connection is being screwy (thanks AT&T, you shits) I just wont play competitive MP games.
I guess that won't be an issue anymore since you'll probably be forced into quickplay then, where you might still get banned for 'bad behaviour' but that's somethine else altogether.major_chaos said:
I do think it's a bit strange though to call someone selfish and then say "you have to switch to singleplayer games if your connection is bad" which in this issue then means "you can't play your game with me or others if you might leave for any reason". What if my connection is bad due to the country itself having slower internet on average? What if you live further from the regional server, which you can't know until you've bought the game? What if, as I mentioned, it's the Blizzard servers themselves messing up for a longer period? And we don't yet have the metrics for how often is considered too often when leaving.
Honestly, if they were this upset at leavers then why did it tak them until now to change it? Were the current systems not good enough? Kinda their fault for letting it linger then. On top of that we have no other fixes to solve teams being unbalanced after someone leaves.
I mean, isn't/wasn't there a timer on how soon you had to reconnect before the match locked you out? Seems to me that's more punishing on people DC'ing for whatver reason than on actual intentional leavers.
As far as money spent not being a valid point, I partially agree, as long as we also take into account we're kind of balancing loss of game value to player X with possible loss of revenue to Blizzard I see the issue. It does make you wonder though if leavers were to pay 12 times as much ingame as average if they would just not punish them under that model.
I'd like to also see some things for people that suffer leavers.
Like if someone leaves at the start of the game and the match is cancelled, I'd like to get a small amount of XP to compensate for the time wasted.
Like if someone leaves at the start of the game and the match is cancelled, I'd like to get a small amount of XP to compensate for the time wasted.
I have literally never been banned from a MP game. It's not that hard to not be a shit.Ironclash said:
I don't know why you would buy a MP only game if you knew your internet was crap, and my advice would be to do some research on server location/ping before buying if you aren't in the US/UK. And in either case, I don't see how you being in a bad position justifies ruining the game for others.
That's a rare occurrence, and if I did happen I would imagine they would temporarily disable either lever penalties or ranked play altogether until the problem was sorted.
And we likely never will, because exact metrics invite people to game the system to stay just under the punishment threshold.
Because they didn't want to rush in on a change, but now they feel the ire of the victims of leavers is hurting the bottom line. And I believe they did step up penalties before, but apparently it wasn't enough.
We are also comparing the loss of game value to player X to the loss of game value he inflicts on unwilling players A-K.
Well I did say I was willing to just let that be, and I'm happy you never got banned. But keep in mind your experience may not be representative for everyone else.major_chaos said:
Well first of all, it's not that my internet is crap, it's that most peoples' internet is crap. Second, I can't really see a basic server ping as representative on how the game itself handles switching internet strength. Does it disconnect you after a minor connection drop, a 1-2 second glitch or do you need to just be in total radio silence for 30 seconds. Answer in this case was the 1-2 second window in my case.
On top of that, there wasn't even a mention of competitive mode being a separate mode and becoming the main draw for halfway decent players, meaning players got split up post launch depending on if they lived outside the UK or US according to you. Never mind that internet quality isn't consistent over either country but oh well.
It doesn't matter how rare it is, especially if they then don't distinguish disconnects on your end or theirs. It happened, no statement was made at the time and a bunch of pissed off people flooded the forums with no choice but to keep gambling disconnects. Oh, and these disconnects happened right as the match start timer hit 0, meaning it was very clear to players it was on their end.
You know, this is the 3rd time in a row where your points boil down to this weird state where, because I'm already not getting the intended experience (I don't choose to DC and many others don't either) that I should just get banned for trying to roll the dice playing an actual serious match.
Next you're going to tell me people in wheelchairs shouldn't be allowed on buses so your stops don't take a couple extra minutes.
Or, you know, you can just add "another disconnect in the next 24 hours will lead to ...". At what point do you want people who genuinely want to play to just eff off rather than focusing on how there is still no rebalancing after players leave. Yes, a dog shitting on your lawn is bad, but you're not blameless for the smell if all you've done is watch it stink up the place for the last year.
Hang on, you're saying Blizzard, the guys who go backwards and forwards through any singular balancing patch, now suddenly didn't want to rush a change? No, I'll tell you what the issue is. The leaving didn't affect their esports streaming and now that people are getting tired of seeing the same overpowered meta on tournaments and watching streamers instead, now it's suddenly priority how the average player might see stuff like that.
This is a fair enough point, disregarding one thing. What do you, you personally, get out of me or someone else being effectively banned from competitive play compared to the soft or timed bans we already have. Them leaving is already considered a loss for them, they lose ranked points, and repeat behaviour usually leads to soft bans anyway. I find it really inconsistent that leaving for any reason is considered a mortal sin yet I didn't see this big outrage when cheaters were told by Blizz they could bypass their ban by just paying for a second account.
What I'm against is the final hard ban from comp, any other stuff they want to do to mitigate leavers is pretty much fine.
If I don't have fun playing the game, guess what? The game for everyone else is also "ruined" regardless. If I am allowed to leave, I leave. Game is supposdely "ruined" because I left. If am not allowed to leave (because that's what the penatly basically says), then I stay, don't give a fuck about the game, end up not contributing anything, game is "ruined" for everyone else.major_chaos said:
Notice how there is no difference for everyone else in the whole outcome? Because there isn't. The only difference is that if I am allowed to leave, I don't have waste another 20 to 30 minutes on something I hate, meaning in that case one less player has a ruined experience.
And that's literally not considering situations where Real Life itself interfers for whatever reason, which also take 100% priority over the game.
But hey, keep defending that anti-gamer-practice of leave penalty because good lord, how dare people just have fun with a game. Games aren't there to have fun with. Games are SERIOUS!
And that's the exact bullshit why I hate every game or mode with a leaver penatly with a pashion and avoid it at any cost, with everyone defending it being always the most toxic and hostile part of the community (and so far, I always have been proving right with the latter)
Are you self aware enough to realise you're talking about a game with competitive queue, quickplay queue, arcade(custom games) and Co-op vs AI?Bindal said:
And that the leaver penalties being discussed exclusively apply to competitive? If you want to have single match fun times, by all means, have single match fun times! Don't go into the queue which is about players engaging srs mode, get punished for not wanting to be srs, then whining about how you just wanted fun.
The guy with the disability is being dramatic, and will probably never have any problems under the new system, as 'real life happens' is accommodated for.
But you? You're just being an entitled baby whining because you have to take the game seriously in the mode where people take the game seriously. Instead of you know, playing the single serving just for fun modes.
I'd say leaving a issue that allows the people you play with to be penalized by your actions, through no fault of their own, unchecked is much more "anti-gamer" than harshly penalizing repeat offenders.Bindal said:
Play quick play if you regularly quit when things go sour, or think that you're likely to be indisposed. It's there specifically for that.
The quality of the experience of the many supersede the quality of the experience of the few here.
Bindal said:
Couldn't have said it better Elijan. Bindal it sounds like you're just wanting to complain about it, that every experience isn't being tailored to you. I'm glad there's report options for a teammate that just disconnects or doesn't contribute, if you decide to just hang out in spawn because you're not winning and you're not having "fun" - Here's an idea for you, if you're not having fun with it just don't play it! If you're going to enter into a competitive match at least have the ability to try and fight to the end, even if you're losing, and not just flip the table and say "F it I'm out!" I'm happy they're going to keep those people out of competitive. Your attitude about not having fun in the game is like one of my kids when they're losing a game and don't want to play anymore, or when cleaning their room just looks "too difficult and impossible" - so screw it, right? Why bother? I've seen matches turn around when it looked most certainly lost - but I've also seen that happen when someone got frustrated in quickplay and disconnected only for it to be filled in by someone competent that wants to try.Elijin said:
Short story is, if you don't like the policy, don't go to competitive. Your complaints and dissatisfaction with the policy are noted, and I don't think anyone at Blizzard or players that are looking teamwork care about your unhappiness with it. It's a win-win for all of us - there's other modes for you to play and we don't have to deal with you disconnecting or not caring about the match.
How has it come to this that people make up so many excuses why the world has to shape itself around them? Mid game subs suck, they suck for the subber, they suck for the team requiring a sub, it even sucks for the opposing team ... it just fucking sucks. There is no way to accommodate you without making like worse for everyone else.Matthew Lynch said:
They decided to prioritize everyone else. So the lower tiers of competitive become less of a complete shitshow.
Thats not a good approach. Maybe the system will work...but it has far too much ways it could go wrong and ban innocent players whose only crime was to have a patchy connection over the weekendPinky said: