5 years later, why do 4v5s still exist?

Unbi·Dec 12, 2014·7 votes·1,318 views

An anti-4v5 system should be a basic feature. Seriously.

Prior to the start of a game, the client should check that everyone is connected. If someone isn't connected, the lobby disbands and they're given an appropriate leaver penalty. If someone disconnects in the loading screen, the game is paused for up to 3 minutes. If they don't return, the game is disbanded and they're given a minimum 1 hour leaver penalty, with harsher penalties for continuous/consecutive repeat offenses a la LeaverBuster. If someone disconnects at any time, the surrender time cap is reduced to 10 minutes until they return.

Why don't we have an anti-4v5 system? For a 5+ year old game, there is no excuse.

14 Comments

SmokingPuffinDec 12, 20144 votes

Are you really seeing enough 0:00 disconnects to make it worth investing in the loading screen enhancements proposed here? I don't. Perhaps my corner of the game is significantly different than yours.

What I see lots of is ragequits. I also see some number of cases where a player is playing on a shaky connection and gets disconnected/reconnected repeatedly.

I don't feel like your proposals would improve my quality of life much. The decreased surrender time thing is possibly interesting, although I am concerned about the possibility that it will encourage abusing a teammate until they quit so the game can end earlier.

UnbiDec 12, 20141 votes

It's not like it happens every game or even every 10 games. When it does happen, I'm just left to wonder why Riot didn't fix this 4-5 years ago since it's such a no-brainer.

As for ragequits, LeaverBuster can take care of that, provided it's doing it's job. Players playing on a shaky connection shouldn't be playing in the first place. They're at a significant handicap and everyone (them especially included) would be better off not playing PvP until their connection improves. And by shaky I assume we're talking about constant disconnects and 1000+ ping etc.

At the very least I would like a reduced surrender time. That is by far the simplest thing that can be done, and even with a subpar client, Riot could certainly do it within the week. I don't think there'd be an increase in player abuse, if that happened we'd just see a consequent increase in reports, getting a few more toxic players chat-restricted/banned.

Thanks for your comment, I mean it. You actually raised some valid concerns and didn't just mindlessly downvote.

SmokingPuffinDec 12, 20143 votes

As for ragequits, LeaverBuster can take care of that, provided it's doing it's job. Players playing on a shaky connection shouldn't be playing in the first place. They're at a significant handicap and everyone (them especially included) would be better off not playing PvP until their connection improves.

Certainly agree. The problem here is that players have no good way of knowing their connection is shaky, because it's typically an intermittent ISP dropping their packets on the floor thing and they don't know what routing path they'll be playing on until the game starts.

I'd be pretty excited if Riot would deploy some kind of connection health checking utility that would display packet loss and ping over a period of time to each of their server installs, so players could check their connection before deciding to play, especially for ranked.

At the very least I would like a reduced surrender time. That is by far the simplest thing that can be done, and even with a subpar client, Riot could certainly do it within the week. I don't think there'd be an increase in player abuse, if that happened we'd just see a consequent increase in reports, getting a few more toxic players chat-restricted/banned.

I think there would definitely be an increase in player abuse. League community is loaded with strategic trolling and Lyte has mentioned in the past that this is a concern with reduced surrender times. I don't know if the amount of increased toxicity would be worth not implementing a desirable feature for, though.

By the by, Riot can't push a new client build to users in a week. Even if that new client contained exactly zero changes.

UnbiDec 12, 20141 votes

{quoted} Certainly agree. The problem here is that players have no good way of knowing their connection is shaky, because it's typically an intermittent ISP dropping their packets on the floor thing and they don't know what routing path they'll be playing on until the game starts.

I'd be pretty excited if Riot would deploy some kind of connection health checking utility that would display packet loss and ping over a period of time to each of their server installs, so players could check their connection before deciding to play, especially for ranked.

Yeah. That's an often requested feature as well. Many people would benefit from having some way to check their connection to the server beforehand. The next best thing is loading into a custom game but that's not really reliable and I also think Riot can do much better than that.

I think there would definitely be an increase in player abuse. League community is loaded with strategic trolling and Lyte has mentioned in the past that this is a concern with reduced surrender times. I don't know if the amount of increased toxicity would be worth not implementing a desirable feature for, though.

That's true, but I still think it's definitely at least worth a shot. If people did what they're supposed to and reported toxic people, it wouldn't really be an issue. Nobody is going to troll to get out of a game 10 minutes quicker if they think they can actually get banned for it.

Furthermore, I think we'd see a large decrease in toxic players if we could report from the recent players list instead of just the lobby. Often times it's only after the fact when I'm sitting in queue waiting for the next game that I realize a player was toxic. That, or I just exited out of the lobby too quickly out of habit.

By the by, Riot can't push a new client build to users in a week. Even if that new client contained exactly zero changes.

It wouldn't really be a change to the client, per se. It'd be a change to the in-game surrender time cap, so a bit like a hot-fix to the game itself, changing 20:00 to 10:00 if one player isn't connected. Still, 1 week might be a tad bit optimistic.

JevelFaithfulDec 12, 20142 votes

Because the internet didn't change in 5 years?

UnbiDec 12, 20142 votes

That has nothing to do with anything. You think some people having connection issues is enough to justify wasting 20+ minutes for 9 other people?

JevelFaithfulDec 12, 20142 votes

{quoted} That has nothing to do with anything. You think some people having connection issues is enough to justify wasting 20+ minutes for 9 other people?

Because riot was small and the code is probably semi-stable. And they never went to change it because it's probably too much of a mess (changing that kind of underlying code in a live program is no easy task). I mean, they could really patch it if their base code isn't really badly hacked together. Then again maybe it is.

So their code and the internet didn't change, accept the size of the community did and the server load probably did too. So you still get them.

warpenguin555Dec 12, 20142 votes

Because afkers and bad internet never go away

UnbiDec 12, 20142 votes

Of course they won't. That's exactly why there should be an anti-4v5 system.

SarahElleDec 12, 20142 votes

I think they should do something like...if someone is afk and disconnects and 10 minutes have passed , someone who is in a queue should be eligible to join your game, and replace that leaving person. They have to agree to using the same champion , but will have a chance to select proper masteries and such. Maybe given a gold boost to thank them for joining mid game , and incentive to join.

UnbiDec 12, 20141 votes

You're the first person to actually contribute something. Thank you. That could work, but I think my way would be simpler to implement.

Although, probably in the end Riot won't even consider doing anything until they make a new client. Which is years away by the pace Riot does things.

Long Dong WukongDec 12, 20142 votes

Because people leave or disconnect sometimes?

HetchyDec 12, 20142 votes

God only knows... I mean, this is only really a problem in SoloQueue, and in fact, I think it's an intended part of the "artificial difficulty" factor. It's not just about gameplay; it's also about overcoming horrible teammates who rage or are just plain bad; horrible East Coat ping and general Internet problems; game-breaking bugs and clunky UI; and of course the inevitable 4v5 or even 3v5 games that you are forced to either surrender and lose, or painfully endure when clueless teammates refuse to surrender.

"Gameplay" is only the first layer.