I think it's a better idea to punish players who leave the game for longer than 5 minutes in a ranked game. That said, leaverbuster gets them, and they get an LP loss. There's not a whole lot more that should be done in those situations. However, I discussed this idea with a friend of mine:
Imagine an option in the play menu designed to play games already in progress that have a leaver. Imagine getting an IP boost for taking a leaving player's place.
Let's say you join a game, doesn't matter if it's ranked or not. You never connect to the game to play. If you never connect, instead of getting a leaver penalty, you get a replacement player after five minutes, of the same elo/mmr, to take your place with your lane and your champion and current gold/levels. You still lose LP. Players who opt in to take other players' places are given an IP boost for playing that game. The player who couldn't connect gets timed out for "X time" until their next game (no magic numbers). Remember, that's if they never connected in the first place.
If a player connects and then leaves a game, after five minutes, the player gets half a day timeout, an LP loss and leaverbusted. The player also gets replaced with another player who will get an IP boost for taking their place (of the same mmr/elo).
What does this system do?
Punishes players who deliberately leave games, or connected to a game, played then left and never came back.
Puts less of a punishment on players who cannot connect to the game at all.
Gives every team a fair chance to play the game with five players of equal skill level.
Awards players for taking a chance on a potentially lost game by giving them a reward, regardless if they win or lose.
Allows the community to repair the track record of leavers and afk'ers.
What does it not do?
Detect people sitting in the well moving every once in a while.
Detect trolls who run around feeding mid.
How do we fix what it cannot do?
Since this system can't distinguish between a player sitting in the well and a player trolling to leaverbust them, I am recommending a system called "Community Warden". A Community Warden is a title given to players who have shown great behaviour and teamwork and have not been reported in "X time". A player who becomes a Community Warden will have the opportunity to earn IP by watching demos of players who have been reported for showing toxic behaviour in-game. Names are removed and replaced with generic names, ranks are removed, and the offending player is highlighted on a locked camera. To combat large demos on Riot servers, an in-game reporting option is implemented, and the first report given will go back ten minutes from the time a player has been reported to allow spectating. Once a verdict has been reached a copy of the demo is sent to the offending player along with the verdict and punishment. The punishment is handed out by Riot in all cases. Community Wardens only watch demos and reach a verdict together with other Wardens.
What Riot's automatic punishment system does not catch, Wardens will. Community Wardens who have participated and punished "X amount" of cases get a special icon to display, on top of a small banner with a Piltover Sheriff Star on their character portraits on loading screens. This lets other players know that you are part of a team that combat toxic behaviour and deters players from deliberately making games feel like a punishment. For every case the Warden identifies as toxic or not toxic, the Warden gets awarded IP when the same verdict is reached.
