"Overwatch" has had its fair share of bugs, but it's been a while since a game bug was as serious as the latest one. A lot of players have encountered a strange Bug which made them lose hundreds of SR, as well as give them a season ban. Even though the bug appeared a few weeks ago, Blizzard still hasn't found a way to fix it, and it is recommended that players stay away from the competitive play until it's fixed.
Blizzard recently changed a few things regarding competitive play, including stricter rules which can easily earn players a season ban.
However, the latest bug banned innocent players who did nothing to deserve the ban. The worst thing about this bug is that it could happen to anyone, as long as one person in the match is affected by it.
Cause of the bug
This game-breaking bug is related to another bug, which seemed rather harmless. The other bug would appear when players cancel searching for a competitive match. Despite canceling the search, players would be put in a match against their will.
If a player is affected by this bug, there's a chance that the game will get into the "Waiting for Players" state, which is very odd for competitive play. Considering there are no backfills in competitive matches, the match should be canceled after 10 seconds.
However, the bug would keep resetting the match, making the players lose their ratings. Some players reported losing even 500 or 600 SR because of this.
To make the matter worse, many players affected by this bug have also received a ban. Some of them were banned for a few hours or a day, while some received even a season ban.
At the moment, there is no way to avoid this bug and it can happen to anyone after queueing for a competitive match.
Blizzard's response
This bug received a lot of attention on Reddit and Blizzard decided to release an official statement regarding it. The game developer released the statement in "Overwatch" forums, acknowledging the bug and saying that the team is working on fixing it.
"This bug is a high priority for our team, and we’re working on a fix to prevent further instances of it occurring as we speak," posted Meldheron, who is a community manager.
The forum poster also mentioned that the bug has affected fewer than 200 accounts so far. Fortunately for the players affected by the bug, Blizzard decided to remove the ban and restore players' previous skill ratings. It's important to note that the game developer hasn't given an estimated time regarding the bug fix.
