How does Riot fix the common complaint of LP loss when team has an afk/leaver?
Hello everyone!
Surprisingly, this post won't be a "comment on my/a punishment" but an idea in general. Further, please note that this is in no way any kind of official post/concept/idea, I'm just looking for ideas that anyone may have to answer this question:
If Riot eliminates/decreases LP loss for teams that have an AFK/leaver (with any stipulations/requirements/restrictions on who gets a reduction/when), how do you propose Riot deal with the large net gain of LP within the system?
I've seen ideas ranging from "give the leaver all of the LP loss" (i.e. leaver would basically always drop down to 0 LP in their league) to "don't give the winning team any LP for the win because it wasn't a real win". And quite frankly, I don't think either of those ideas are a good idea - one results in a very harsh penalty to someone for what 50+% of the time is an accident/emergency, and the other punishes people who did nothing wrong and wastes their time. A down the middle approach also isn't really desirable in my opinion for the same reasons.
So what ideas does anyone else have that would enable people to not lose as much LP from an AFK/leaver on their team, but wouldn't result in LP getting inflated? Or do most people outside the Player Behavior sub-board think the system is fine as is?
A quick explanation of why just removing LP loss from teams with AFKs would cause LP inflation:
LP is like a transaction in most games - one team loses LP and one team gains LP at the end. Given that, on average, teams should be evenly matched, it can be assumed that, on average, the team gaining LP will gain about the same amount of LP as the team losing LP loses. Thus, the "total" amount of LP within divisions under Master/Challenger should stay fairly constant.
If the LP loss is removed, one team will gain LP without there being a corresponding loss in LP. This results in people who currently have a 50% winrate (and therefore a 50% LP gain rate) keeping that win rate, but increasing their LP gain rate to potentially 60%, 70%, or more (because games in which they don't lose LP/as much LP wouldn't count as "losing" LP, as they'd balance with their wins).
This would lead, under the current system, to people hitting promos like crazy. They'd still need to win their promos, yes, but they'd be getting them more easily, even if their winrate was 50% (generally meaning they're in the correct tier/division).
I'd also like comments on how any suggested system could avoid abuse by malicious users. This includes duos, players who flame to convince someone to afk, etc.
I'm posting this because I don't really have any clue how this could work, just that I've never seen people suggest a system I can see working. Who knows, if this thread gains traction and a coherent, logical, and workable idea forms, maybe a Rioter will take a look and make it happen.