Rocket League will block matchmaking for players who often leave Casual games
Season four of Rocket League kicked off Wednesday and will see stricter action against players who frequently leave Casual Matches. They can be temporarily banned from the matchmaking process. There will also be an option to cancel rounds.
Developer Psyonix writes in his commentary on the fourth season’s innovations on ‘improvements for Casual Matches’. In it, the company says it can be frustrating when teammates leave these games early. To improve this situation, there will be an option to end the match early, as is already possible with the Competitive Matches. All remaining players must agree.
In addition, Psyonix is targeting players who are constantly leaving Casual Matches. Those players may face a temporary suspension from the matchmaking process, which means they can’t get into a match for a certain period of time. These bans get progressively longer as a player exits more Casual Matches prematurely. Players who only occasionally exit such rounds before there is a winner will not be affected by these measures. Incidentally, bots are used to replace players immediately when they leave a round. Those bots can in turn be replaced by other, new players as they present themselves.
This innovation leads to division among players. There’s a post on Reddit with nearly 14,000 upvotes showing the author’s displeasure with the change. He says that the rounds are called ‘informal’ for a reason. Another player joins him and say that he regularly interrupts Casual rounds when he suddenly has to intervene as a parent to take care of his children. He points out that these rounds can also take longer than thirty minutes, although that is usually a lot shorter. The overarching objection is that this stricter policy blurs the distinction between Casual and Competitive too much.
However, there are also players who appreciate that Psyonix is going to take a stricter approach against players who leave rounds. For example, there is a player who intervenes in the discussion and points out how negative the situation has become in Casual mode. According to him, it has now become so bad that you can just play four rounds in a row, without actually finishing one. He says it’s rare for an entire lobby to continue playing for the entire round. In his opinion, the new policy is reasonable, because punishments are not immediately handed out for one or a few times.