Overwatch 2 players say they’re getting season-long bans for unavoidable bugs
Salt in the wound.
Overwatch 2 officially launched on October 4, 2022. But many players haven’t gotten to enjoy it yet, due to a plethora of bugs and server issues. Long queues, missing Heroes, and frequent disconnections have plagued players in the days since launch. Now, some say they’ve been banned as a result of these disconnections, which are most often caused by the game’s poor performance, not player behavior. This has led to understandable frustration in the community, with users unsure how to resolve the issue.
Overwatch 2 disconnect due to LC-208
A pesky disconnect issue is causing some players to get banned.
Due to ongoing server issues on Blizzard’s end — exasperated by multiple DDoS attacks — players have reported frequent disconnects, even after getting logged into the game. One Reddit user said they were banned from Season 1 Competitive mode due to the LC-208 error, which is tied to the game’s servers.
It’s unclear how many times a player needs to get disconnected before getting banned, but the user says they were only kicked four times.
Despite the Redditor’s claims, some commenters are skeptical. Many users reported getting disconnected more than five times without getting banned, while others — such as one player who was only disconnected twice — had different results.
Another Reddit user says they can’t access Competitive mode at all, again because of server issues.
“I only play Competitive and they’ve wiped my whole account so I have to get 50 wins to play Comp,” the user said. “I can’t get 50 wins when I get kicked out every other game for an achievement. It’s a total mess, I can’t even log in today.”
Clearly, Overwatch 2 players are struggling to enjoy the game as intended right now. Inverse has reached out to Blizzard for comment and will update this article if we hear back.
Achievements causing Overwatch 2 disconnects
Xbox users get kicked from games after earning achievements, which could result in bans.
The LC-208 issue seems to be more frequent for Xbox players, and can apparently be triggered by earning an achievement. After an achievement pops, the game can disconnect from the servers, displaying the aforementioned LC-208 error code. Turning off Xbox notifications seems to help mitigate the issue for some, though it’s not a surefire fix for all users.
This issue, according to a Blizzard Support page, is a console error that can disallow users from logging into the game, and can kick them from the Overwatch 2 servers. It seems Blizzard is aware of the LC-208 issue, but it’s unclear if the company knows that players are getting banned as a result of the disconnect errors.
Elsewhere on the Support page, Blizzard has a few recommendations to decrease the chances of getting disconnected:
- Verify if there are issues with your firewall, router, or port.
- Reset your router and/or modem.
- Run a network test on your console to ensure there are no issues.
- Connect via an ethernet cable, as opposed to Wi-Fi.
Unfortunately, there’s only so much a player can do to mitigate server issues. The majority of problems are on Blizzard’s end, so players will need to wait for a fix if the disconnects and bans persist.
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