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Why one AFK is worse than you think.

ScurvyNave··10 votes·2,208 views

We've all been there whether normals or even worse, Ranked, when one person decides to never show or leaves 5 min in.

Now numerically speaking people will always say that you can comeback and list how many times they've won a 4v5 but the fact that games and more importantly LP are lost because of an unfair advantage beyond the player's control is ridiculous. Also even if yur 4 remaining players are individually better than the 5 opponents you are still likely to lose based on simple math.

There are 3 main reasons why a 4v5 because of an AFK ruins the game and most hopes of winning:

  1. Morale: Definitely the most obvious aspect of how an AFK ruins the game. Everyone knows that 4v5 is unfair and that the odds are greatly against them. This causes people to rage, complain, ask enemy to report, and generally attribute any mistakes they individually make to the lack of their 5th player. What's worse is that some poor people get multiple afk games in a row and get increasingly salty (Myself amongst these types of players). When you consider the game lost already you don't try as hard and for lack of a better word say "4v5? Eh fuck it! ff at 20 and try again".

  2. Enemy freedom/confidence: 4v5 means one of your opponents doesn't have a direct match up and therefore can free farm without harassment. If your junglier takes over the afk lane the opponent junglier can have a party in your jungle and gank with immunity to counter ganks. Free farm, experience and roaming snowballs the advantage the enemy already has numerically. Also if the enemy knows you have an afk they get a tremendous boost in confidence and therefore will make more risky and beneficial plays.

  3. Disruption of balance: AFK matches screw up ranked and mmr systems because good players can be punished for reasons beyond their control. Similarly the enemy may have lost a 5v5 but because of your afk these less skilled players get a free advance in the ranked and mmr ladder. Thus the entire system is skewed and games are unfairly matched in the future.

What I implore Riot and my fellow players is to stop accepting the bullshit that is an afk in a ranked game. Find some system to keep people for being punished because some fool started a game he couldn't finish or decided to leave because he missed a cannon minion in lane. Once we stop tolerating afks they should stop appearing, obviously the automated report system is failing in this matter and something needs to be done.

You gave us an awesome free game for 5 seasons Rito, surely someone at the company can give us the solutions to afks.

12 Comments

RookPusher4 votes

It might be a reason that you have to always play top tier champs in solo queue, but it's not the worst thing. I think people always assume the champ who left was good. If someone's leaving, they're probably garbage.

Not having a jungle isn't as poor as you'd think, and the main thing team should be doing in this scenario is roaming harder and taking out towers. The B5 solo queue is allergic to pushing towers, but lopsided KDA games are still won by super minions.

Straley2 votes

And what if I want to play champs that I actually enjoy playing in solo queue? Not having a jungler is just as bad as missing a solo lane. If the other team is near equivalent to the skill level of your team, and in theory they should be, then you're already at a huge disadvantage. Roam and take out towers? So basically play the match exactly how you would play a regular 5v5?

Champion Skin1 votes

Pretend you have an Udyr jungle or something who decided to sit in jungle and farm all game long... there now it is like you don't have a jungler even if you do have one

RookPusher1 votes

{quoted}

And what if I want to play champs that I actually enjoy playing in solo queue? Not having a jungler is just as bad as missing a solo lane. If the other team is near equivalent to the skill level of your team, and in theory they should be, then you're already at a huge disadvantage. Roam and take out towers? So basically play the match exactly how you would play a regular 5v5?

Your line of thinking is going to cause you to lose.

First of all, there aren't towers in the jungle. Nor are there enemy minions constantly pushing those towers. If you want to win games, you need to get out of the mindset that you matter. You're a custodian. You're there to maintain towers and eliminate theirs. If you think your kills matter at all, you've already given the enemy the advantage.

The only kills that matter are theirs. Don't give them any. Yours are irrelevant. I always find players that tell me "Yeah but if you get a lot of kills, then you can take towers." You don't get kills, the enemy team plays sloppy and gives them to you. Work the towers. Always the towers. Play champs that are good at taking towers.

As for champs you want to play, you have two options.

  1. Play a champ you like and roll the dice.

  2. Play a champ that is top tier, regardless of how you feel, and minimize risk. In the end, that's how more games are won in the long term. Taking out all the risk you can in every way you can.

*Can you tell someone in chat might be a troll? Pick a champ that can fill in the lane he's playing in case he's a jerk.

*Is someone playing like crap? Capitalize on another lane to either minimize his failings or make them focus on another lane. If bot lane is getting eaten alive, the jungle (for example) should increase the pressure dramatically on top or mid.

Swag, skill, leetness - it's all an illusion. You can take 5 average players and get them a 75% win rate if they play tower-taking champs and have basic mechanics. The difference between Diamond and Bronze isn't skill - it's decision making.

SmokingPuffin1 votes

You never answered the question you posed in your title.

ScurvyNave1 votes

{quoted}

You never answered the question you posed in your title.

Technically I did, I listed how a person leaving impacts more than simply 4v5 team fights. An afk ruins every aspect of the game. I'm sick and tired of people saying "it happens to everyone" and just accepting it. You could win a 4v5 maybe 1 time in 50 but usually its just a waste of everyones time and a stupid reason to be losing LP.

SmokingPuffin1 votes

An afk ruins every aspect of the game.

I haven't seen anyone disagree with this point.

I'm sick and tired of people saying "it happens to everyone" and just accepting it.

I see no alternative course of action. There is no plausible approach to ending AFKs. It's a question of mitigating the problem, not something with a solution.

ScurvyNave1 votes

I see no alternative course of action. There is no plausible approach to ending AFKs. It's a question of mitigating the problem, not something with a solution.

Could there not be a system implemented where if an afk occurs that a player waiting in que could join the game and receive the afk's gold amount and level and therefore the gap can be filled with a player who's not at a disadvantage for joining a game part-way through?

SmokingPuffin1 votes

Sounds pretty impossible.

Many times, a player disconnects for 10 or 30 seconds. You wouldn't want to kick a player from the game for a lag spike. So, you wait let's say 60 seconds before finding a new player of the right rating. That new player has to agree to join a game with an afk player (generally this is a bad idea, you're going into a probably losing game). Then that player has to play exactly the champion that was being played. Then that player has to load into the game. This whole process can't possibly take less than 2 minutes to do, and 5 minutes is a more realistic estimate. Paradropping into a game with a 5 minutes of AFk disadvantage sounds like a terrible plan for your ranking.

Basically, it sounds like this feature will die a quick death.

Wallaroo02261 votes

{quoted}

Sounds pretty impossible.

Many times, a player disconnects for 10 or 30 seconds. You wouldn't want to kick a player from the game for a lag spike. So, you wait let's say 60 seconds before finding a new player of the right rating. That new player has to agree to join a game with an afk player (generally this is a bad idea, you're going into a probably losing game). Then that player has to play exactly the champion that was being played. Then that player has to load into the game. This whole process can't possibly take less than 2 minutes to do, and 5 minutes is a more realistic estimate. Paradropping into a game with a 5 minutes of AFk disadvantage sounds like a terrible plan for your ranking.

Basically, it sounds like this feature will die a quick death.

There are too many people who are apologetic for people who do not have the means of playing this game. I wouldn't mind so much if it was ARAM or Normal or something where at the end of the day it doesn't matter other than a terrible game... we aren't talking about that. We are talking about Ranked where there is supposed to be some level of association between a player's skill and their particular rank. The current state of this game is such that lower tiers are hell to get out of because better players have to play an ungodly number of games to make there way up or they are forced to duo queue with someone who isn't a foam at the mouth retard like most of the people who queue up for Ranked like it is their job. Promos exacerbated this problem even further by making bad luck streaks (afk, garbage team mates, what have you) an even greater factor in progressing forward.

Failing to address the lopsided nature of this game in Solo Queue due to extreme random factors begs the question why a ranked version of it even exists in the first place. If I wanted to play a game where I extreme bad luck happens, then I would go play poker.

SmokingPuffin1 votes

I wouldn't count on afk protection helping you climb out of low elo. You probably aren't seeing any more afks than other players at the same elo. In fact, afks probably help you climb. If you never afk, and we assume a 4v5 is a 100% loss, your expected win rate in games with afks in them is 55.5%. Easy to climb with that kind of win ratio, so if you only care about the LP, you'd want more afks rather than less.

It turns out that promos don't have much impact on your long term ranking. You will get to the rank your MMR says you should be at. If your MMR is higher than your division's MMR, but you keep dodging promos, the system will keep giving you new series after every win. If you keep dodging the promo series, eventually the system will forcibly promote you. I know this because I had a friend who had a diamond MMR but used the promo dodges to keep his account in bronze rank. That no longer works; a diamond MMR account is going to be at the very least high plat.

Poker is a pretty good comparison. Having high randomness in games does not destroy the validity of ranking systems. In any given game, you are a relatively small factor in winning or losing. Over the long run, your luck evens out and all that's left is your aggregate contribution to winning and losing. Some players are misrated by a couple divisions, but wide misrankings (e.g. a gold quality player in bronze) only exist where a player is actively trying to manipulate their ranking.

There are too many people who are apologetic for people who do not have the means of playing this game.

Basically the whole east coast has occasional hard-to-predict connection issues. Can't be kicking them all out of ranked.

Wallaroo02261 votes

Riot's Ranked system is a joke. The bottom line is they will not do anything even close to dealing with the problem because they want more paying customers. If that wasn't the case they would have dealt with this nonsense years ago.

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