People who leave Overwatch games are ruining the experience for some players.
Fans of Blizzard’s team-based have been complaining about its new competitive mode, which gives players a rank based on their wins and losses. They’re especially upset by the way the new mode handles people who quit a match early, aka “leavers.” Overwatch has quickly become a big hit for Blizzard, and communication with its players will be key for the company if it wants to keep the community happy.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1996171,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"C"}']When a person leaves a game, all players can eventually leave the match with no penalty. Some argue that this is unfair for the winning team, who won’t get the rank points they should for win even if a player on the other team leaves during an obvious loss. Others don’t think that Blizzard punishes those who exit enough. It’s a hard thing to balance, since sometimes players will actually get disconnected from a game because of an internet issue. Even then, people complain that they can’t win a ranked game if they rejoin from a disconnect. Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan took to the forums today to say that the team is working on it.
“We have some improvements coming that should address some of the ‘Leaver’ issues,” Kaplan wrote on the forum. “We should be able to get some in this week and more are coming later on.”
To be fair, Kaplan has noted before that Overwatch’s competitive mode was going to see adjustments even after its release. Blizzard tested it during both the beta and in a Public Test Region. However, the team wanted to release it for the general public so that it could have a larger pool of players provide feedback (which they haven’t been shy about providing).