Rainbow Six: Siege Match Abandon Penalty | Explained

We're all familiar with a gamer's typical daily struggles. Some of us have to deal with bad internet. Others might have PCs that keep crashing for no apparent reason at all. A few of us may still be struggling to convince our parents that pausing online games simply don't work that way. Who knows?

What Are Punishments in R6?

Some people aren’t aware of is that leaving an ongoing game of Ranked isn’t the only way to trigger the Match Abandon Penalty. In order to discourage certain behaviors, Siege implements the Abandon penalty for multiple offenses.

Alongside leaving mid-game, you can also be punished for:

• Reverse Friendly Fire: Stray bullets that end up hitting your teammates register damage on them. Appropriately, Siege introduced the RFF mechanic in order to make sure players wouldn’t purposely inflict damage on their teammates. After a certain number of offenses, the player is kicked from the game, and the Match Abandon Penalty is triggered.

• In earlier seasons, a vote-kick option was available in case most players on a team felt that their last member was throwing the game on purpose. In these scenarios, a vote-kick could be called where if four players agreed to kick the final member, they would be removed from the game while being awarded the abandon penalty.

The punishments are treated the same way regardless of how they’re acquired.

What Are the Penalties for Abandoning a Ranked Match?

The frustration after getting a queue penalty for any of the above reasons is entirely understandable. However, a team-based competitive shooter like Rainbow Six Siege has to find the balance between its leniencies and punishments. One must realize how detrimental the effects are for a team that loses a member for the entire game duration.

Most of us have probably felt this during any 4v5 we may have played in any of our Ranked games; with proper kill trading and strategies employed by the enemy team, it's near impossible to win a match with that handicap.

This is the very reason why UbiSoft issues penalties to people who ruin the competitive experience for other players. These penalties will vary in degree and status depending on the type of offense. While players can go to Ubisoft's official page to view the different sanctions applied for each violation, we'll give them a quick rundown of what they can expect from abandoning matches.

Queue Suspensions

The base punishment incurred over prematurely leaving a match is a queue restriction placed on the offender's account. This restriction only applies to Ranked and Unranked matches, so the player still has access to the Quick Play and Arcade playlists.

The length of the suspension period depends on how many games the player abandons:

1st Abandon - 1 hour

2nd Abandon- 2 hours

3rd Abandon - 1 day

4th Abandon - 2 days

5th Abandon - 7 Days

Players should note that these penalties are reset after a certain period of time if their record is clean for a while.

Renown Reduction

For the duration of the queue restriction, players are also subject to a 50% decrease in Renown Currency gained through any other game modes. So if you’re grinding Renown Currency for that brand new Operator you’ve been looking forward to, make sure you behave in your Ranked games!

MMR Loss

One of the more devastating punishments for leaving Ranked games midway is a fixed decrease in MMR, regardless of the game's result. If a match abandon penalty is incurred on your account, you'll probably see a 25 MMR decrease in your Ranked rating.

That's right. You could be 3-0 up on the game's final round and still lose your MMR if you abandoned the game right there, even if your team manages to win the game without you.

Another thing players should take note of is that MMR penalties are way harsher during placement games. Players report losing around 75+ MMR over abandoning a single game.

Why Are Match Abandon Penalties Needed?

Rainbow Six Siege has a relatively harsh leaver penalty compared to other games like Call of Duty and Apex Legend match abandon penalties. Well, that’s for a good reason. The games we’ve just mentioned aren’t impacted quite as much when one of the team members disconnects. The chances of winning a 2-v-3 in Apex are far greater than that of a 4-v-5 in Siege.

A game like Siege, which has insanely low TTKs and relies on every member of the team playing their role, is severely impacted by handicaps. For that very reason, the developers try to deter players from abandoning games by implementing a variety of punishments for a single offense. Hopefully, one of these punishments, if not the combination of each one, encourages you and everyone else in your lobby to play out the entire game.

Besides, anyone serious about the game shouldn’t be leaving them mid-way. Whether you’ve ended up with horrible teammates, or someone in your lobby insta-locks Lord Tachanka at the start of every Defense round, you should learn to play with the cards you’re dealt. Dealing with these stumbles is a part of every Ranked grind, so if you really want to make your way toward that coveted Champions Rank, you need to persevere through.

Disputing Account Penalties

If players feel that they’ve been unfairly banned or penalized, they can submit a ticket to UbiSoft Customer Support to try and reverse it. These are entirely subjective to the context of the situation where the penalty was incurred.

The UbiSoft Customer Support team is extremely cooperative. They try their best to ensure that Account Sanctions are only applied in situations where they’re necessary.

Valid situations where you should consider disputing account Sanctions are:-

• Ubisoft server issues

• Having a hacker in the game lobby that you abandoned

• Being kicked from the game for no apparent reason while still being active