Boards›Live Gameplay Balance

Accelerated Champion Experience After Being AFK or Disconnected (DC'd)

XionI·3/22/2014, 6:46:25 AM·3 votes·1,697 views

The rapid pace at which champion experience is gained after being AFK or DC's can create a large advantage for a team. This effect is particularly noticeable when the player position missing is support. While the support is gone, the lone ADC levels faster than opponents. Players like Tristana and Ezreal, who can play safe and farm well under tower, can sustain an undermanned lane and gain an early advantage. Later, when the missing champion ( support particularly) arrives in lane, their experience is accelerated to "catch-up". This effect is overly accelerated and offers a huge advantage if a team, with an AFK or early DC, can maintain during that period. Now you have a team that has benefited from the possibility of playing 4v5, which is not the opponent team (with five players) fault. I understand that accelerated experience is to make the game more enjoyable for everyone, but it really is not fair, and makes it quite un-enjoyable for the team that had an advantage of a 4v5 and ends up losing the game because the other team has an unfair experience boost. Teams that have an AFK or DC should gain no boost to experience.

Some alternatives:

  • ALTERNATIVE 1: Increase stats with an inverse ratio (i.e. 5/4 , in favor of the team with fewer players) of how many players are actively playing. When the player then returns, the ratio would again be even to 1. This gives the team missing a player and advantage that can be reversed and does not give champions earlier abilities (due to accelerated XP)etc.

  • ALTERNATIVE 2: Another option would be to not accelerate the experience, or at a much lower rate, for the champions that remain active on the team with fewer players. When the missing player returns, only allow the increased XP until the player is 2 levels lower than the team average of levels. This would allow the returning player to remain competitive, but still keep it more even and punish players who disconnect because of bad connection or go AFK.

I notices this effect over a series of ranked games when a support would be AFK and then return when their ADC is level 7-8 and the team with all players ADC and support are one, or, maybe for brief moments, 2 level below. The support is then able to gain enough levels to be even with the origianlly full team and their ADC still has an advantage. This is not to mention the XP boost for all other players on the team if the opposing team has a disconnected player.

Please, share your thoughts and vote the poll. Let's try to make a difference in the playing experience of all summoners.

Thank you,

XionI

5 Comments

Sir ArmaMalum3/22/2014, 5:38:31 PM2 votes

You put a lot of thought into this and I think the community as a whole agree AFK's and dc's suck tremendously. However the chief reason no compensation has been made for that in-game is the potential for abuse and nagative behavior to stem from the feature's existence. Any bonus gained from a dc/afk has the capacity to be used as an advantage outside of the reasons it was implemented.

For example, say someone is just not playing well, having one of those days we've all had at least once. If this mechanic existed that player would get flamed and harassed until they left and gave the bonus.

Or say, arguably, the dc happens from the start. Early game abuse strats and comps can be made off of this bonus. Just one I can come up with is having a Zilean supp dc on purpose and have an Udyr, Draven, Akali (Lux maybe?) and Shen to abuse their early and mid-game power and increased level to get an advantage they wouldn't normally have.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, and I would love some form of compensation for dc's and afk's but any in-game bonus stemmed from this has the capacity to be abused and thus it's very very difficult to come up with an appropriate feature.

XionI3/22/2014, 6:55:53 AM1 votes

I realize there are some grammar errors. Please, do not misinterpret the point of the discussion.

Hullabaloo9073/23/2014, 12:56:45 AM1 votes

I did not know that it was accelerated. Are you sure it is not just that you can gain lower levels faster than higher levels?

Kirasune3/29/2014, 9:46:14 AM1 votes

Leave buster makes sure this will not be a good idea, too many people being banned will resolve itself. My first ban was 3 days, and i'm sure they continue to grow in time period. In the same aspect, if your lane is 1v2, you being 1 your experience will grow faster then the other two you are opposing. This can be seen in every game there is a jungler. The top lane will scale faster even if he or she is under the turret. Same aspect ratio would go for bot lane if the adc was to stay by him or herself. Iven if they ran support off for a few minutes so they can have the experience all to themselves. Oh and they even put items out to help supports or your laning partner to game passive gold by doing nothing but being near you in lane when you slay a creep. Experience does make a difference, but in a game where yyou can drop more in shop assures victory most the time. Because yes, being near you your partner takes some of the experience from the slayed creep/champion/neutral monster. You can see this by standing near the jungler as he takes blue, and your experience going up before you hit lane if your still near him when he kills it.

Yes, by a different method.... Items for instance, for support or anyone. gradual they would scale up of course but the weakest could start out with like 12% Exp gained from creepsbeing slain near you. Stacking up to like 35% maximum, kinda like the gold income items. this would help everyone even the adc if the so chose to let the support farm or have a kill for instance

Sicarius104/5/2014, 3:54:31 PM1 votes

Hullabaloo907 makes a good point that lower levels are easier to gain, and I'm fairly certain there is no experience gain buff for a team with an AFK, outside of simply not having to share the exact same experience among fewer players.

The idea I've had, and I laid it out in my own post, is actually to add a gold/exp gain buff to the already existing 1K armor/MR buff to afk players. By doing so, if a disconnected player were to return, there would be a much greater chance of comeback by that player and his/her team as a whole.