Boards›Gameplay

PSA: Having an AFK is more than just a 4v5

LazyW0lf·3/28/2016, 4:07:19 PM·4 votes·689 views

I'm pretty sure we've all had our fair share of AFK's in our ranked matches losing us our hard-earned LP. The first thing that comes to mind when you have an AFK on your team is that you're probably going to lose, since there is somewhere near a 94% chance the team with 4 people can win. I'm here to tell you how many things this 4v5 actually effects rather than just being a man down. And to those who are wondering, you can check my match history for a ranked defeat as Lucian, with a level 2 Ekko at the end of the game. (This is what sparked this thread.)

  • Minions

With the additions in Season 6, this one hits hard. Let's say you have an AFK in your game who never connected (or ran to lane then d/ced, never coming back). This person is level 1 and will gain a minimal amount of experience. Coming from personal experience in a recent game, this person was level 2 when the game ended at 24:42. Therefore, with the minion changes added in Season 6, starting when every champion on the enemy team hits level 3, minions will start to get stronger and push themselves. This continues, as minions will constantly continue to grow stronger and keep pushing lanes. This will win a game by itself, as seen if you go solo into a custom match on blue side (since blue team will get the first tower), and is the primary reason teams cannot win 4v5's.

  • Objective Control

Obviously, when you have 1 less Teemo on your team, you can't fight any teamfights. This includes being anywhere close to dragon or baron, as they are usually death in 4v5's. This ties in with the last point, as minions are making sure you stay in your base so you can't get vision at any objectives or your own jungle so there is only a small chance at trying to steal an objective you cannot contest.

  • Team Morale

Having an AFK is obviously something nobody wants. People get upset. People flame when upset. People might get reported. I had a game where our mid laner never connected. The early game was going well, our team was probably up around 5 kills and things were looking quite alright. The enemy mid laner was roaming, but wasn't getting much out of it, so he just pushed mid all he wanted. In this push, he was able to grab a tower and a half before somebody stopped him. Soon, he was back at it again, so I went to stop him with my support. We were able to get him low, but not kill him. While we were mid, the enemy bot lane was able to take our tower. As the game progressed, any fights where we could see an upper hand (Let's say a 3v4) turned out to be terrible. We might have won the fight, but the top and jungler were hard pushing top so we couldn't do anything with the death timers. This happened every time, as the teams would split bot/top until the inhibs were down. Every minute after roughly 10 was just agony. If it was a fair 5v5, I knew our team could have won by far, but because it was a 4v5 and all of these things happened to make everyone upset added onto the fact that everyone knew we could've won that game, just turned into a terrible game.

  • Snowball

This is another main reason 4v5's lose games. Lets say your mid lane Teemo hasn't connected and your support is Braum and jungle is Rengar . Neither one of these champions can cover mid so both cut their losses and continue their original roles and hope for the best. Sure, you could say that maybe Rengar could hold mid, but against any ranged threat with his item 1041 , he stands no chance. Now the enemy team has a free-farmed Zed and is up 100g because he was able to take the mid tower for free. Now he will roam with nobody to stop him, most likely heading botside and grabbing a double kill, then pushing the tower and destroying it. 3 minutes later he does the same topside. What do you do when there is a fed and free-farmed Zed going where he pleases? Not only will his lead strengthen the minions even more, but it will demolish any morale your team has left along with their confidence. No longer safe to ward your own jungle because a wild Zed might appear and your carries might look at him the wrong way.

There is no reason that loss prevention or some other form of way to lessen the blow of an AFK has not been added to the game yet. AFK's are always a huge problem in any multiplayer game, but most have a way to solve this issue. I would personally rather lose 5LP granted from a mercy vote at 5 minutes so I could retain my mental state, than be forced to play a game for 20 minutes and become angry at the fact that an AFK ruined a perfectly good game in which I just wasted 20 minutes and tons of LP.

11 Comments

love god3/28/2016, 4:21:09 PM1 votes

Really well written

Mayor Stubbs3/28/2016, 4:21:27 PM1 votes

I have a question for you:

Under MOST circumstances, wouldn't there be an equal chance for there to be an AFK on the other team in some games as well - ultimately balancing everything out.

Or do you think some of the playerbase coincidentally gets all of the AFK's on their team every time

edit: this is particularly addressed to your final comment about implementing a loss forgiven type addition - the bulk of your post was very well written

Maple Crusader3/28/2016, 4:56:42 PM1 votes

Weak turrets and wave push modifiers make 4v5 so much harder.

FioraWillCarry3/28/2016, 5:05:04 PM1 votes

Before the late season 5 changes, I'm talking about those ridiculous changes that made turrets weak and death timers long, it was actually very possible to win a 4v5, even if it was 4v5 from the start. All you needed was a bit of common sense and more passive play especially with late game scaling champs. I remember winning several 4v5's with Azir. I just did counter sieging and power farmed until I hit a massive powerspike such that a 4v5 teamfight was very winnable.

Since those late season 5 changes though, winning 4v5s are impossible. I haven't witnessed a single 4v5 win since then. You have an afk now, don't waste time, just ff@20.