In Overwatch, considerations are being made regarding an increase in penalties. However, there are other issues to address first…
Although Blizzard takes a strong stance against anyone diminishing the enjoyment of other Overwatch heroes, some players still find the penalties insufficient. Particularly in ranked play, it is increasingly common for teammates to leave a match prematurely, disregarding the team. This is partly due to players slowly “getting a sense” of how often they can leave a game without sanctions and when it becomes critical.
Jeff Kaplan has commented on the issue, stating that harsher (and quicker) penalties might be considered once the overall “disconnect and reconnect situation” has been resolved. Currently, there are simply too many reports of players being unable to rejoin their original game after a disconnect.
In Kaplan’s own words:
“We have tried to resolve some issues with disconnects and reconnects. We implemented some bug fixes at the end of last week and will make further adjustments within the next 2 weeks. Once we feel that the majority of the disconnect/reconnect issues are resolved, we will reassess the penalties for leaving games and see if it would be appropriate to apply them more strictly.”
Cortyn states: Once players figure out how much they can exploit a system without facing penalties, the system ceases to function as intended. I can fully understand the calls for harsher penalties, as few things are more frustrating than losing a match due to someone leaving prematurely. Sure, there are also days when one’s PC explodes or the power supply burns out – but that is unlikely to happen repeatedly.
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