A Comprehensive Fix for AFK Players in Ranked
As any active League of Legends player knows, players not connecting and going AFK in important ranked games is a very real issue. There are many ways that this problem can be resolved; higher ban rate, stopping ranked games for those players, more LP loss, etc. However none of these solutions matter as you lose the last game in your series before minions even spawn. The solution I have come up with is one of the few plausible ways that this problem can be resolved.
The solution is simple; another queue is added to the "Play" option, after clicking on ranked. This option is a "Fill" option. The "Fill" option would be used to join a game in the place of a player who has disconnected for a certain amount of time, or has clicked the "I'm actually leaving the game" option when quitting, compared to the alternative "My internet sucks and I need to reconnect" option. The new player takes control of the champion that is in the game as if a new person was sitting down at the same computer. Same runes, same masteries, same items. The new player would be able to finish the game in place of the first player, and the team would not have to suffer. The player that left could still be punished accordingly. There are several ways that this can be made to be balanced. Depending on what Riot sees fit, the player can choose a few (5ish) champions they would prefer to play. From here, players would be queued for a game with one of those champions. This makes sure you are not joining with a champion you are unfamiliar with, and the team in a 5v4 situation now stands a fighting chance.
Why would anyone ever queue for this? Besides the fact that players enjoy making the LoL community a better one in general, simple rewards would greatly incentivize players to fill this role. Things that are a positive without Riot's help -> No waiting in champion select for 10 minutes -> Game has already started, you are hopping right into the action -> You (should) get the champion/role that you want -> The team you join will show you love for saving the day!
Things that Riot could do to make this a very popular option (Just suggestions, feel free to comment more below :)) -> Gain regular LP/Lose half LP (Able to rank up faster, less risk for joining a losing game) -> Bonus IP for filling in for an AFK -> Skin Rewards -> Banner / Icon / Border Rewards -> Maybe some RP? A way to slowly gain RP in order to help players willing to dedicate time to make the community better, who may not be able to spend real money on the game (25ish RP for a game? 40 games/skin) -> Not being put in games that are too far gone. If the team is going to lose in the next few minutes anyway, it could get frustrating.
TL;DR: Add a new queue for ranked games that allows you to fill the role of a player who has gone afk.
Im sure there are some oversights I was unable to adress in this post, but I hope that someone who has some authority will see how simple and effective this fix would be to improve the game substantially.
All the best Hazuzoo