Nobody likes playing a match of any multiplayer game with an AFK (away from keyboard) teammate. Being one man down could be the difference between winning or losing, and that remains true in Overwatch. However, Blizzard may have gone too far in their latest Overwatch patch in their attempts to limit the effects of AFK players on a match. In a recent forum thread on battle.net, players brought up experiences of being kicked from their current matches due to inactivity, even though they were actively partaking in the battle. The common theme throughout most of these experiences is that most of the people admitted that they were playing as a Bastion in turret form when they were kicked.
As many Overwatch players already know, Bastion is a hero who’s bread and butter lies in his turret mode. While in his sentry form, Bastion hunkers down in a stationary position and mows down enemies with his Gatlin gun at a rate of about 30-40 rps. It’s pretty devastating, and if in the right position, a Bastion could potentially get several kills without ever having to move. However, due to this new Overwatch bug that came as a result of the latest patch, Bastion players have been getting kicked from games because they remained in his sentry form for too long without getting up and moving, even if they were still actively partaking in the battle by swiveling around and shooting at enemies. For those of you that wanted a Bastion nerf, you got it, albeit by accident.
Bastion may be the hero who experiences this Overwatch bug most often, but he is not the only one. Other players reported being kicked due to inactivity while playing as more mobile heroes like Pharah. Blizzard has since addressed the issue. Here is their response to the forum thread that brought this glitch to their attention:
Definitely an unintended change. It was a new bug introduced as a result of us making some behind-the-scenes updates to our databases.
We've recently pushed a fix to help address this (i.e. we rolled back the updates). If you see a bright yellow banner at the bottom of your screen saying a new patch is available, click that and your client should adopt said fix immediately.
(Note: We're still rolling this out to all players, so if you don't see the banner right away, don't worry! The change will also roll out automatically in a few hours. The optional patch is just to help reduce player interruption.)
Apologies for the momentary panic/concern/increased salt levels. =/
It seems that this Overwatch bug will be fixed soon, but until then, it might be safe to try to move around a bit every now and then, even if you aren’t actually AFK.
