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Question For Riot Regarding AFKs

LordObsidious··2 votes·851 views

I was fortunate enough to be invited into the Heroes of the Storm closed beta and while it lacks the in-depth strategy and focus on one person carrying it made up for it in overall enjoyment of the game. I've caught myself in several situations while playing LoL where an AFK just simply ruins the game, 4v5s are never fun. Sometimes having that 5th champions skills really turns the tides of a game in the 5 man teams favor. League has been around for YEARS so my question is: How come a developer with a game in BETA is smart enough to say "oh, well if someone AFKs we aren't going to let that put a team at a distinct disadvantage so... let's make the AFK champion controlled by an AI until they return, if they do". Let's think about that, someone AFKs put an AI in charge for a bit... now are AI's as "smart" as human players? No, but it maintains the 5v5. The champion that AFK'd still can use their abilities to benefit the team even if they are retarded (but deceptively good at dodging and aiming skill shots). This should have been a NO BRAINER, never once in HotS have I said "Well great, an AFK get ready for the 4v5" because it doesn't happen. Take notes Riot, I think HotS upon release is going to have some features that will make this game really fall behind in the MOBA genre. Will league remain the "#1" e-sports MOBA, yeah probably after all this game has a cult following. Another side note, HotS is FTP just like LoL but yet (like smite) you can purchase skins using in game currency. Is it a ridiculous amount? Yeah of course it is, and it SHOULD be because that's what will make players use real money to buy a skin so they don't have to play 200+ games saving all their in game currency to buy ONE SKIN. But the option is still there. I'm sure one could argue that Blizzard is one of the top developers and they have more money than they know what do with so why would they care if their skins could be bought with in game currency but the cool thing here is you guys have a chance to learn from the pro developers and improve your game to maintain that top spot in the MOBA genre. With smite launching on consoles soon (doubt LoL will ever go that far) and HotS solving the AFK problem in BETA the need for improvement is rising. After all many people don't realize that the MOBA concept started in Starcraft through the use of the world editor. (Improved in the WC3 "DOTA" custom map). The ONE thing that has always made me reluctant to que up is the thought of having an AFK. In bronze/silver it's common place, 70% of my games involve AFKs either on my team or the enemy team. Keep the punishment for the leaving player, improve the experience for the team being forced to suffer.

6 Comments

hh the thinker1 votes

bots are free food. by this I mean I would rather you put a bot on the other team than on my team, just for the extra gold. it's really, really hard to balance a team with an ai. either the bot is free gold or it's too strong (and this can change depending on the rank also.).

LordObsidious1 votes

This may be true, but we all know that when a champ continuously dies, they aren't worth very much gold. The point here is their ABILITIES, perhaps integrate a way to control somewhat where the AI goes so that they aren't easy pickings. For instance, if someone pings near an AI to fallback, they fallback. Ping for the assist, the bot takes the safest known route to assist that champion. There are several ways to make this work, HotS did it. I have yet to see an AI just allow themselves to die. They rotate well, fall back when out numbered, and group with the team when most of the members are grouped together. Could it be too strong? That's also a possibility but another bad part of the LoL community is most of the time the team without the AFK won't report the leaver because well, they won. If someone playing Annie AFKs and then the AI Annie comes back and melts their faces I'm willing to bet they report the summoner for AFKing. The only real potential for this to be negative is if a jungler AFKs, Riot has already proven in their co-op v AI matches that they can't program an AI to jungle but something has to be done. Yes, it is possible to win 4v5s, I've won quite a few myself but the enemy team has 4 more abilities over you (plus any item abilities), more sources of damage, cc, the ability to split push pretty much uncontested. I'd rather have a feeding bot on my team than no one at all considering in the mid-late game where it's primarily team fights I'll have the same number of damage sources as my opponents. Would they have to take the time to improve their AI, yes but that is LONG overdue anyway.

If you're worried about ranked being unfair, fine I can understand that. Atleast implement this in norms.

Matthias91191 votes

PROTIP: hitting Enter every few sentences makes it so that your posts are more readable. For bonus points, do this when you change topics.

Let's think about that, someone AFKs put an AI in charge for a bit...

Apparently Riot tried this internally at some point and the bot just gets slaughtered against decent players.

Also, if the bots are good enough to NOT get slaughtered, it could be advantageous in some cases to have a player AFK.

LordObsidious1 votes

I say improve the AI and have different levels of AI based on the elo of the players in game. Have a "bronze" level AI. Besides, I really don't understand this argument is it an advantage to have a "smurf" on your team or a disadvantage to have a "noob" on your team? Basically this community just wants to keep the 4v5s because those are more fair than having an AI on your team.

LordObsidious1 votes

Thinking more on it though, probably the main reason HotS is so successful at it is because there's no individual leveling or itemizing. Everything your team does is shared.

Matthias91191 votes

Having the current League AIs on your team (the ones from Intermediate Bots) would be far worse than an AFK in almost all circumstances. The only way those bots are remotely competitive is that they get absurd amounts of free gold and items.

If Blizzard can make AI that's actually usable as a replacement player in a competitive match I'll be impressed.

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