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AFK Punishment: Everybody Is happy, except the AFK and his friends

Racism Bad·5/27/2016, 11:39:00 PM·17 votes·971 views

People have previously suggested ranked games not counting as a loss if there is an AFK, and riot have replied that people will then harass one person into leaving the game. This is easily fixable. If someone disconnects for a certain period of time, like 10 minutes, then everybody on the team with the AFK EXCEPT the people queueing with the AFK should get no loss, everybody on the other team should get a win, and the punishment of loss of LP would be evenly divided among the AFK and the people queueing with the AFK. There are three possible outcomes of someone being harassed into leaving a game:

  1. If the AFK was queued alone, it is highly unrealistic for someone to AFK and take everyone elses punishments for a bunch of strangers that they didn't even queue with making this outcome so infrequent that it would be less than 0.01% of a problem than current AFKing.
  2. If the AFK was queued with 2-4 people then those 2-4 people would get a harsher punishment than a normal loss, and the other 3-1 people would be exempt from a loss.
  3. If it was 5 people queueing then making one person AFK would make the whole team suffer a normal loss, so it would be pointless.

Because of the possible outcomes of this system, the problem of people being harassed to leave a game are solved. However there are also outcomes where a person disconnects from computer/connection problems OR from not having enough time/just leaving(not ragequitting) without being harassed:

  1. If the AFK was queued alone, they would take the entire punishment and the rest of their team would be exempt, discouraging people with poor internet connections or other problems that would make their game stop AND people who do not have enough time to finish a game from playing ranked until their problems were fixed, dramatically reducing the amount of AFK's from connection/computer related problems and not having enough time to finish a game.
  2. If the AFK was queued with 2-4 people, then the 2-4 people would blame the AFK for their larger losses, meaning that with enough time of this system being out people would know not to play ranked especially with their friends---because then their friends would suffer higher losses---when they have problems with staying in the game OR when they are not sure if they have the time to finish a game.
  3. If the AFK was queued with 5 people, then it would be the same as a normal loss for everyone, which is not a negative. This could be prevented on the players part by not queueing with people who would leave in the middle or people who disconnect often.

If this system were to be implemented, not only would there be no harassment out of a game but people who just AFK would also be discouraged from putting themselves in those situations, and encouraged to be responsible with choosing who to queue with. There is one more outcome that I could think of, and that is, ragequitters:

  1. If the ragequitter is queued alone. There are two reasons to ragequit while alone. The first being they have been arguing with their team so they want to give them a loss, and the second being they are just frustrated at the game and don't want to play anymore. If this system were implemented, then both cases would be solved. People who ragequit to give their team a loss won't exist, as they will instead take the losses for their team and their team would be exempt from the loss according to this system. The other reason, since the punishment for quitting would be around 5 times larger, people are much less likely to quit and are more encouraged to be responsible and stick with the game.
  2. If the ragequitter was queued with 2-4 people. The person who ragequit in this situation is most likely angry at one of the 3-1 people that they were NOT queueing with. Then they have 2-4 people they are queueing with to convince them not to ragequit since those 2-4 people do not want to suffer heavier losses. If they happened to be angry at one of the people they WERE queueing with, then the problem lies in responsibility of who you decide to queue with.
  3. Again, If the ragequitter is mad at someone who they are queued with, then there is a problem with the decisions there.

That is all I could think of, and as you are probably thinking, yes, I did just come out of a game with an AFK on my team when I wrote this, so my judgement may be cloudy. If there Is anything I missed, or simply was wrong about please tell me, I am open to all comments.

15 Comments

Rand0mH3r0X5/28/2016, 5:12:19 AM2 votes

This is an absolutely trash idea. A premade can bully a single person out. The system is fine now, because it has little to no abuse options.

Surr20plz5/28/2016, 2:21:29 AM1 votes

I like this idea.

Remlap12235/28/2016, 3:32:52 AM1 votes

Clicks tongue.

NICE.

Racism Bad5/28/2016, 12:14:40 AM1 votes

So i see someone has downvoted without voting or commenting

Sightless665/28/2016, 11:32:39 PM1 votes

If the AFK was queued alone, it is highly unrealistic for someone to AFK and take everyone elses punishments for a bunch of strangers that they didn't even queue with making this outcome so infrequent that it would be less than 0.01% of a problem than current AFKing.

This doesn't address the harassment problem. The problem, as you note, is that " people will then harass one person into leaving the game." That doesn't mean that the problem is fixed if the person decided to not go AFK. There still is a strong motivation for the other players to harass him because him leaving leads to a better outcome for them, and that harassment is a problem regardless of if the individual decides to give into it or not. This is even more true now that we have dynamic queue and he could be matched as the solo for a 4 man (and as we all know, that situation already opens up the solo player to a lot of harassment). Your solution increases the punishment for the solo player who goes afk and should therefore lead to fewer afks, but it still offers potential reward for the rest of the group if they manage to harass him into leaving, so harassment is still encouraged even if it isn't likely to produce the results the harassers want.

Don't get me wrong: I like your system, and I do think something along this line should be implemented regardless of the harassment problem, but the harassment issue definitely still exists, and your solution is not designed to prevent it.

FourVsFive5/28/2016, 11:42:01 PM1 votes

A minor solution for starting out be if a person has been afk for the first 5min of the game, the game is forfeit no one gets wins or losses. Excpet for the AFKer gets a loss.

Emerald Fang5/28/2016, 4:54:49 AM1 votes

Nope.

I play with a premade all the time. I have a history of toxicity and get angry. If I get so mad I just want to leave, why should my friends get punished for that? They already get punished with a loss, now why an AFK penalty? I would get harassed into STAYING, not leaving, which would ruin my real world friendship.

This pushes soloqueue too much.