Unfair Punishments in Deadlock for Connection Issues – Scaled Penalties are Excessive

[Noisyeater]

I’ve been playing Deadlock a lot lately, and while the game is fantastic, I have to point out an issue that not enough people seem to be talking about: the punishment system for connection problems. Despite having a decent internet connection that runs other games perfectly, I’m still facing heavy penalties due to disconnects in Deadlock.

Here’s what happens: if you disconnect or leave because of connection issues, you’re hit with a temporary ban and then forced into a series of low-priority matches. What’s worse is that the number of these low-priority matches scales up based on how many times you’ve disconnected or left the game. For players who experience occasional connection drops, this feels overly punishing, especially when no other games give us similar issues.

It seems unfair to treat unintentional disconnections this severely. I wish more people were talking about this, as it really impacts the enjoyment and fairness of the game. Has anyone else had this issue? Do you think Deadlock should consider a more balanced approach to handling connectivity-related penalties?

 

[lbg]

this isn't what happens. if you crash or DC in a match, you have the option to rejoin, and that option will stay for a long time. You only get penalized from leaving the match on your own accord.

I have crashed a bunch and have never received any punishment. I have over 300 games played.

 

[Noisyeater]

this isn't what happens. if you crash or DC in a match, you have the option to rejoin, and that option will stay for a long time. You only get penalized from leaving the match on your own accord.

I have crashed a bunch and have never received any punishment. I have over 300 games played.

if you don't get back in fast enough it still counts and puts you in Low P and sometimes it wont let me back in I've seen other people have the same problem but this is only my personal experience

 

[ph4yd]

this isn't what happens. if you crash or DC in a match, you have the option to rejoin, and that option will stay for a long time. You only get penalized from leaving the match on your own accord.

I have crashed a bunch and have never received any punishment. I have over 300 games played.

This is not true. Multiple times I have crashed and received a punishment. The crash is severe enough that it keeps crashing. I have restarted my PC and rejoined several times in an attempt to stay in the game or be in the game at the end, but if it crashes and keeps crashing and the game ends you do receive a punishment.

Thanks for letting us know how many games you've played! Very cool.

 

[icarus8]

This is not true. Multiple times I have crashed and received a punishment. The crash is severe enough that it keeps crashing. I have restarted my PC and rejoined several times in an attempt to stay in the game or be in the game at the end, but if it crashes and keeps crashing and the game ends you do receive a punishment.

Thanks for letting us know how many games you've played! Very cool.

I'm facing the exact same issue. The game isn't really reliable enough to enforce low priority queues at this point but I don't see what other option they have besides making the game more reliable. I don't have connection issues in any other game.

 

[Emily.e]

This is not true. Multiple times I have crashed and received a punishment. The crash is severe enough that it keeps crashing. I have restarted my PC and rejoined several times in an attempt to stay in the game or be in the game at the end, but if it crashes and keeps crashing and the game ends you do receive a punishment.

Thanks for letting us know how many games you've played! Very cool.

if your game is repeatedly crashing after crashing once you have bigger problems than getting low prio. your pc either cant handle the game or your game is corrupted or flawed in some way

 

[Starling]

this isn't what happens. if you crash or DC in a match, you have the option to rejoin, and that option will stay for a long time. You only get penalized from leaving the match on your own accord.

I have crashed a bunch and have never received any punishment. I have over 300 games played.

Sometimes the crash is the server going down. You can hit rejoin as many times as you want but it won't ever actually let you back in. Eventually it abandons and applies the penalty.

 

[hellduke]

Sometimes the crash is the server going down. You can hit rejoin as many times as you want but it won't ever actually let you back in. Eventually it abandons and applies the penalty.

If it's the server that goes down then the match is canceled, and you don't get any penalty, this happened a few times to me and my friends and none of us ever got a penalty for it. That is more likely a failure on your connection to the server, most likely a problem with your ISP

 

[hugeisno1]

I have 24 low priority games lined up at the moment from internet connection issue related abandons. I do have occasional internet issues that dc me for a few minutes at a time and the connection does not always return. Getting connected to far off servers can be an issue sometimes as well.

This isn't my first streak of low priority games but I don't abandon games out of spite or just because our side is losing so it feels bad to be punished like someone who does. I understand why it's that strict, if there was a loophole, selfish people would come to exploit it, I just wish there was some appeal to commends or second circle of purgatory to be sent to first.

 

[hellduke]

I have 24 low priority games lined up at the moment from internet connection issue related abandons. I do have occasional internet issues that dc me for a few minutes at a time and the connection does not always return. Getting connected to far off servers can be an issue sometimes as well.

This isn't my first streak of low priority games but I don't abandon games out of spite or just because our side is losing so it feels bad to be punished like someone who does. I understand why it's that strict, if there was a loophole, selfish people would come to exploit it, I just wish there was some appeal to commends or second circle of purgatory to be sent to first.

The reason behind the abandons is really a moot point. The only thing needed is for the first infraction to be extremely mild and then expontentialy increase the punishment. Reset the "stack" of abandons if not abandoned for X days. Let's say over 7 days and minimum of 5 games if there was not a single abandon, you get your punishment reduced. If it clears it clears and if not after 30 days and at least 20 matches played it would clear. Something like that would resolve all issues.

If you are abandoning games regularly enough to trigger high punishments from such a system then the reason why you abandon is irrelevant. Players who abandon that much due to loss of internet connection are no different from those that rage-quit and should be treated the same.

Appeals don't make much sense since as I said - why you abandoned the match doesn't matter, it matters how often you do it. Do it once or twice and it's fine. Do it on a regular basis, and you deserve to get a timeout from matchmaking to prevent ruining others games.