Game Freak and The Pokémon Company are finally making good on their promise to ban players disconnecting from competitive matches in Pokémon Sword and Shield.
This is both a good and bad thing because while it will help limit the number of players disconnecting to exploit the competitive system when they are losing a game, it will also end up banning players who drop out of matches because of bad internet connections.
The disconnection issue has plagued Sword and Shield since the start of online play, with players rarely being penalized for dropping out of a game if they were losing. This would result in the player who would have won not receiving credit for their play, while the would-be-loser escapes with only a bit of wasted time.
The official Play Pokémon! account announced that changes involving punishment for frequently disconnecting players would be happening back on April 8. And now, just under a month later, it appears that whatever system the team at Game Freak has put into place is live.
As of now, certain players who have exhibited the outlined behavior have had restrictions placed on their online functionality in Sword and Shield, though it is unclear exactly how you will be notified if your account is one of the ones affected. Originally, the penalty was stated to include restricted online access for certain activities in Sword and Shield, including being unable to participate in future online events.
More information on the penalties will likely be provided in the near future, along with a way to appeal your account for review just in case you weren’t purposefully disconnecting. Hopefully, the system will be able to differentiate between unintentional and intentional disconnects based on button or command inputs, keeping players with poor connection from being penalized.
Published: May 4, 2020 09:07 pm