The Overwatch team is sick of leavers. So sick, in fact, that it might dole out permanent bans in Competitive mode here and there.
Little by little, the developers have been increasing the penalty for those who behave poorly, but it looks like the ne'er-do-wells have reached the last straw that broke the camel's back.
Competitive Mode Leavers, Beware
In the Battle.net forums, Overwatch Director Jeff Kaplan announced how the team intends to deal with Competitive mode leavers.
"We'll definitely take the idea into consideration. Our philosophy has been that we would rather not have leavers playing the game at all (especially in Competitive Play). We keep increasing the penalty for leaving and will continue to do so. We're in the process of implementing a new policy which would take into account how many Competitive Seasons you have been banned from and at a certain point, prevent you from playing Competitive ever again," he said.
Of course, that's not set in stone just yet. It's still a work in progress, after all. At any rate, the team is planning on rolling out harsher sanctions that could possibly go all the way up to a permanent ban in due time.
Put simply, if a player gets banned from one too many Competitive Seasons, then they won't be allowed to participate in Competitive Play any longer.
Why Leavers Are A Huge Problem
Every Overwatch player probably understands how frustrating it is to be teamed up with a leaver.
Imagine this: things aren't looking good for the team, and after that, one member leaves, significantly lowering the chances of a comeback. That's besides their flaming and trash talk before they quit too.
However, it should be mentioned that they just lose their internet connection sometimes.
Match Throwers Not Forgotten
In another post, Kaplan also addressed the issue with players who throw matches, saying that he and the team already had a "lengthy meeting" about it.
"We've been doing a lot of research on the problem for months now. We think we have some good solutions. We still need players to help us by reporting people. We do both manual and auto detection on our end, but player reports are the most immediate indicator that point us in the right direction," he said.
Just to be clear, throwers are those who do everything they can to make the team lose on purpose.
One notable example of this is the pro player Dafran of team Selfless, who got banned from Competitive Play Season 5, disqualified from Contenders Season Zero, and lost eligibility to participate in Contenders Season One and all Blizzard tournaments in the current season.
As a side note, some players throw games to drop their ranks until they start getting matched up against other players who are below their skill level, perhaps just for the heck of it or to ruin the experience for others.
In other related news, Blizzard kicked off a double XP event weekend that's set until June 12 11:59 p.m. EDT or June 13 2:59 a.m. EDT.
Additionally, it's celebrating the anniversary of Overwatch with a ton of customized hero-themed PS4 and Xbox One controllers, but they won't be for sale — from the company itself, at least.
