I’ve been playing a lot of Pokemon Unite over the holidays – which is something I do for a couple of weeks every year before I get fed up with it again – and after just a couple of days, I’m already fed up. The thing that’s bothering me the most about Unite is the same thing that has always bothered me about Unite since it launched three years ago: when people think they’re losing, they leave the game, leaving their team with fewer players and no chance of winning.
If this happened occasionally it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it happens constantly. Unite sends a message to your inbox every time it identifies that a teammate was caught idling (the coward’s version of leaving) and since I started playing two days ago, I’ve had leavers/idlers in 12 games. That’s at least half the games I’ve played, if not more.
Leavers Are A Video Game Epidemic
This isn’t a Pokemon Unite problem (though it’s certainly worse in Unite). I’ve had to deal with teammates throwing the game in Overwatch 2, Apex Legends, League of Legends, Destiny 2, and Heroes of the Storm. It’s been a problem in every team-based game I’ve ever played, and I’m sure it’s a problem in all the ones I haven’t, too. It’s been decades of this nonsense, and I really don’t understand why.
Have you ever left a match before it was over? I’m sure it’s happened to me before. I probably got stuck in a long game of Counter-Strike in high school and had to quit because dinner was ready. From time to time I’ve had connection issues that forced me out of a game. There are reasons people accidentally or have no choice but to leave a game, so I understand why games have forgiving penalty systems for leavers.
What I don’t understand is why they are so forgiving that people can constantly and freely leave games. There’s a big difference between the internet going out once or twice a year and quitting every time you get mad, yet those things are treated the same way.
Every penalty system baffles me, but let’s just take Unite’s as an example. Every player starts with 100 Fair Play points. If you leave or remain idle in the base, you will lose FP points based on how long you’re out of the game. Typically players will lose five points, which is the penalty for AFKing for two minutes. The maximum is eight, which you’ll only lose if you idle the entire match. If a player is successfully reported, they can lose an additional ten points.
If you have fewer than 80 points, you can’t queue for ranked games, so each person is allowed to leave multiple games without any consequences. Players also earn two FP points for every match they play, meaning you can just abandon two out of every seven games in the final stretch, and you’ll never be penalized. Of course, Pokemon Unite is free to play, so if you ever are actually penalized, you can just swap over to a fresh account and keep terrorizing your teammates.
You can only earn back five points a day, so you are limited to how much pain you can inflict on others.
I had to look all this up because the entire Fair Play system doesn’t apply to me. I don’t ever leave games. If the system changed to permanently ban someone the first time they idle, it wouldn’t affect me. I don’t actually think it should be that harsh, but why don’t developers see how close they can get to zero tolerance? Why are these systems so forgiving?
Why Do Leavers Get So Much Slack?
People argue that you have to be conservative with leaver penalties because some people have frequent internet problems, and it’s not fair to punish them for something out of their control. But they queued up for the game knowing that their internet is poor, so it’s totally within their control. From the perspective of their teammates, it doesn’t matter if they rage quit or left because their internet went out. Either way, my match is ruined because of them, so I don’t see why the penalty system would cater to this supposed population of gamers with bad internet. Especially when it lets all the bad actors get a free pass.
People also argue that games can’t liberally ban people because it’s a revenue loss. I understand that a banned account can’t buy skins, but what about the other four people on that person’s team who are having a bad time? I’m just not sure the math checks out on that one. When you give someone a break who is ruining the game for everyone else, then everyone else loses interest in the game.
So perma-ban the leavers. Let’s just try it. I know it will lead to online complaining. I saw how Overwatch 2 players reacted when Blizzard instituted the mildest penalties of all time on leavers in non-ranked games. But hey, I’m complaining on the internet anyway. We need a studio to be brave enough to say ‘if you ruin matches for your teammates, you can’t play our game anymore.’ That shouldn’t be controversial, and if someone actually did that, it would be the only game I’d play.
Pokemon Unite is a free-to-play MOBA in which two teams of five players compete to score as many points as possible before the time runs out. From Pikachu to Greninja, unleash their signature moves and dominate the battlefield.