There have been multiple suggestions on how to deal with leavers in competitive so
I just wanted put down my idea on how to at least give the affected team a fair
chance at winning.
I was thinking of a system that would allow other players to fill in the slot(s) of
leaver(s), which in turn would motivate the rest of the team to stay and finish and
potentially even win the game instead of just leaving after the timer runs out.
For this to work players who queue for competitive would be able to choose whether
they also want to search for competitive matches that are in progress and they
could fill in. So if a player leaves a competitive match they’d be given a certain
amount of time to rejoin and after that time is over there would be a smaller time
span in which potential players can join and fill. After that time is over and no
players were found the rest of the team is free to leave without getting a competitive
cool down (But still receiving a loss as usual).
Players who filled in a game would gain an appropriate amount of XP
and SR (meaning that it’d take into account for how long they filled the match).
To encourage players to use this feature, players who fill in a match will lose
little to no SR (Losing no SR might encourage exploiting this, but it would be very
tedious and not worth it) if the team they filled loses the game, which means that
players can only gain from opting into this. The rest of the team would still lose
SR like they would normally.
I’ve given this some thoughts and haven’t found obvious downsides to this, other
than it being too complicated to implement and not being used by the players, so if
you find any I’d like to hear them.
TL;DR:
Competitive leavers get timespan to rejoin
After that matchmaking will search for a short time for players to fill
If the match couldn’t be filled the rest of the team can leave as usual
Competitive players can opt into filling games in progress
Will receive less XP and SR
(Adjusted to time spent in match and maybe their performance)
Incentive to encourage this option:
Players filling will lose little or no SR in case of a loss
I think if a person presses the leave button he should recieve a suspension of certain time (like it is now) but If you got disconnected from the server than you shouldn’t loose sr or get a suspension. This happen to me 2 times and it is annoying
If you ever discover a way for players to not abuse this then sure it’s fair, otherwise anyone could just disconnect their internet cable and not be punished for it, which is the main issue.
This wasn’t really about how to handle players leaving but rather about how to help the team that would be affected by that. There’s no way to force players to stay in the match other than to punish them for not doing so. The whole point was to offer a way for the rest of the team to continue playing and having a fair chance at winning.
It would add a single option for players, which in return would make these situations less unfair and discouraging. Not sure if this really would over complicate things.
Neither of us (I assume) have insight into how Overwatch matchmaking works, but judging by the fact that the quick play matchmaking can already search for new players to fill on the fly, I would guess that it should be possible to reuse that functionality and adjust it for competitive matchmaking.
So I’d say that a feature that would benefit all competitive players would be worth putting in a little effort, unless a developer wants to correct me on this and confirm that the matchmaking system can not be easily tweaked to support a feature like this.
Wouldn’t work. The team would bully the weakest link in the team until he/she leaves. The team would do this hoping for a better player.
In my opinion there is no good solution to the leaver problem. Trying to help the rest of the team with something will result in exploits done by intentionally leaving or bullying someone to leave.
I don´t think there is much to do about this problem. Only thing that I can imagine is slight adjustment to lost and received sr. Leaver gets full penalty, but others who stick to the end get reduced sr lost, like about 25-50% (if they lose). if team with player advantage win they also get similarly reduced sr gain.
That wont fix the leaver issue but it makes outcome slightly more fair
SR adjustment would also be exploited. The team would bully someone to leave in order to decrease SR loss for the other 5. Every kind of help would be exploited by leaving or bullying someone to leave.
What needs to happen is Blizzard need to get serious with punishments. If you’re leaving games constantly you need to be banned for the season from Comp
This is probably the only thing that could make the competitive player pool more reliable regardless if they leave intentionally or as a result of technical issues.
Yes they know it. But I could simply simulate a genuine disconnect by unplugging the network cable or turning off my wireless network. Just how players did it in the past with some other multiplayer games.
If you enter competitive with a bad/crashing PC or a low quality and/or cheap network connection then it’s your fault.
The only working solution to the problem is being a reliable player with a reliable gamer PC and a reliable broadband package and having strong penalties. You’ll still be unlucky a few times and get a disconnect or crash or power failure but a few times isn’t enough to get serious penalties. The number of leavers would probably be significantly less.
That is a wonderful idea Universal and i feel like it could really improve the competitive environment in such situations. I’ve been in that situation several times where a person would leave even if we were doing well and then it’s just impossible to finish properly. Like having a mercy on your team it’s a 5v6 situation.
Some people might have internet issues and that is why they got disconnected or the overwatch servers kicked cause of region issues(both happened to me personally as well) and i feel like this would really assist in those situations as well cause i’m sure at least half of the time that is why you might get this “problem” and it’s not even intentional.
Universal’s idea isn’t viable for the reasons mentioned after his post. The most serious issue is that it could result in 5 players bullying the weakest player to leave the match in hope for a better one. It could create a very toxic and hostile environment.
TRON i understand what you are saying but the counter to that is very simple and that is “its better than an automatic loss in a 5v6 situation”. Just because you don’t agree with it or like it doesn’t mean leaving it as it is is better. Sry. But this is why we have these conversations. You got to say what you got to say and i got to say something different.
Your idea of what is best for everyone doesn’t include everyone agreeing with or thinking it’s best.
No offense and have a lovely day.
Further more that is why we have the report button for toxic players with toxic behaviours. Just because you don’t want to use it or too afraid of what some people might say online when you play with them(that live thousands of miles away) and take it too seriously doesn’t mean everyone else does as well. You kinda expect that in almost every game for whatever reason… and trust they find reasons when they get upset that their match isn’t going as smoothly as they would like. The blame party is always on. xD
The team would only get a filling player (or players) once after the first player(s) leave(s). After that the match is handled like they’re already being handled.
I think that’s enough to deal with 90% of the games which end up being lost due to one player leaving.
Even if they get more than one there are always toxic players and repercussions for leaving matches it shouldn’t be a deterrent for making fixes to those situations and bringing up useful solutions. They can’t fix what people are gonna say or how they behave but they can make a losing situation into one that gives you hope of success.
In quick play if someone leaves you get a replacement. A lot of the time when i get into an ongoing match i get a win for the team cause i’m just the support player they were missing.
In comp at the moment you just end up with an empty slot and no willingness to finish the fight cause you feel like your going into it with a broken leg.