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Introducing the new LeaverBuster system!

RiotLyte·11/20/2014, 10:39:57 PM·300 votes·494,088 views

TL;DR We’re rolling out a new LeaverBuster system to help reduce the frequency of AFKS and leavers that is also significantly more severe in ranked games. This system will only penalize frequent leavers/afkers, although players will now get a one time notification in their first leave after the system goes live.

LeaverBuster is our system for detecting players who frequently leave games or AFK. In the past, we’ve generally erred on the side of caution, and for that reason, many of you have given us the feedback that LeaverBuster hasn’t always seemed effective and some players seemed to just switch to a smurf to dodge the leaving penalties.

With this new update, we’ve implemented a significantly more strict design while providing a clear feedback loop. Our goals are to better educate players that AFKing or leaving a game is not acceptable in League, and punish leavers faster and more severely.

The first time a player leaves a game, they’ll see a pop-up explaining that leaving is not okay and then have to manually agree to not leave future games. If they continue to repeatedly ruin other players’ experiences, they’ll enter lower-priority matchmaking for a number of games. While in low priority queue, players will experience queue times that are 5, 10, even 20 minutes longer than a player who hasn't left games.

Players will know how many games they have in lower-priority, and if they join a premade group, that group will be notified they are playing with a chronic AFK/leaver and they’ll face the same lower-priority time penalty.

While we hope it doesn’t ever happen, if a player fails to stop AFKing or leaving while in lower-priority matchmaking, continued offenses will result in bans. Leave us your feedback below, and we’ll see you on the Rift!

**I'd also like to take a moment to thank the Rioters who worked on this particular feature: ** RiotLobster, RiotId, boourns, RiotBahamut, RiotComplex, RiotWorldPeace, RiotTantram, davin, RiotChomey, stochasticmx, Fr3nch T0ast, Scezumin, Ryedan, RiotNeurocat, RiotZulu, RiotJayway, RiotBlackrook, Christokkies, RiotStopthief, DoctahWayne, RiotNoyz, and RiotExLibris.

**Finally, thanks to the players who helped test the LeaverBuster and find some bugs! The ones who completed the tests will be sent a RP bump in their main accounts over the next few days. ** RaXSpIkE123, iSPZ, ZedRex the 1, T0MMYNAT0R, James Franko, BrandonJamYo, FlashnFuse, IEGP, johnc12369, The British, Grinzpilz, iMNAZAL, Murishani, The Feeder, iPuddingPie, iivan, DotZip, TheCosmicWave, TorretDunker, Yaknose, Tacoworld501, Saerus, edstars101, Wolfeur, Feichti1996, ALEXKOND, Hakaisha89, Ayowel, Lao Fu the Tiger, RendingSaber, Dwark, unknownXX, shrimpp0123, quincymccoy, Intilink, CCkeebs, Zehel72, xStah, xonra.

3,062 Comments

UrgotFantasy11/20/2014, 10:47:28 PM415 votes

Just out of curiosity, does this system know the difference between intentional and unintentional AFKs? Will a player who is experiencing internet problems receive the same treatment from this system as a player who is going into the menu and hitting the "Leave game" button? Or does there need to be such a frequency for the Leaverbuster system to punish you that it doesn't really matter that you have internet issues, as long as it doesnt happen every game?

Alljoy11/21/2014, 3:18:12 PM225 votes

This is burning a house to kill a flea.

Eleshakai11/21/2014, 1:19:58 AM168 votes

Lyte, the goal of this system seems really muddy. It doesn't make sense to me.

Because, honestly, it feels like you're just trying to punish people who have bugsplats, who disconnect due to riot server issues, who have power outages, or who have random internet issues.

People who intentionally leave games aren't that common in ranked, and I doubt they'll be deterred by a few minutes of delay time - small price to pay to be out of the game they hate so much they want to leave. The people who will really suffer from this system are the innocent people. This isn't going to improve anything, because the people who will actually CARE about this punishment are the ones who have no control over leaving the game in the first place.

I don't see this system helping anyone. It's not like a person whose power goes out can FIX getting a power outage. Or a person who gets disconnected due to your servers going down can fix your servers. You're just punishing people for something outside of their control.

Sgathach11/20/2014, 11:46:47 PM152 votes

I have an honest question here, and I'm not playing nor am I trolling. It used to be that if your internet derped a little it would say "attempting to reconnect" and eventually reconnect you if your internet stopped said derping.

HOWEVER, something I've experienced since the new interface appeared (before the new map when we got the pretty client), that this never happened for me. I would sit there and wait for it to reconnect me and it wouldn't. By then I know my net is better, but it wouldn't reconnect me. I would have to manually exit the game and reconnect--technically, I'll have left the game. That is the ONLY way I've been able to reconnect in those instances.

If I have to do this for something I cannot control (i.e. my internet derping), what is going to happen to me? I never leave a game intentionally EVER. The times I've "left" was in an attempt to return because of my downed internet. So how will this affect me? I never want to leave a game, but am I just going to have to sit there and pray to be reconnected by the game (and probably not) and therefore screw up the whole game even more than if I left the game and reconnected because the game itself is screwing up?

Please, this ***honestly worries ***me.

Notgnimer11/22/2014, 4:53:21 AM135 votes

Also, for all you Social Systems Designers, what you are implementing here is called negative reinforcement. In case you don't know, that means punishment for negative behavior.

I think it would behoove you to use positive reinforcement instead:

Don't punish people who leave. Reward people who stay. For example, provide an IP bonus for a player who plays X consecutive games without leaving. And maybe hand out some RP for a player who completes 20X consecutive games. Or something like that.

That's my two cents.

I'm going to type I Agree into that little box so I can keep playing, but I am telling you here and now I don't really agree. No, sir. I'd rather type in My Computer Shut Itself Off. I object to this sort of bullying from you, Riot. I am now less likely to spend money on RP in the future.

Be careful how you treat us.

petrouske11/21/2014, 1:57:56 AM127 votes

l just experienced the leave buster for the first time in my two year history of league....... l must say l was not very impressed considering it was a beginner bot game to test recently purchased champions. l take a lot of pride in displaying courteous and honourable behaviour and systematically have been rewarded many times with ribbons and player recognition messages from riot. l am frustrated that it locked me out of my account because the auto generated DO YOU AGREE MESSAGE refused to accept the I AGREE. Well l do not agree and am saddened that it was almost a form of entrapment for me to continue playing my primary account. l have invested money into this product (LOL) like many people and think that there should be better consolidation for people that get Dcd in game due to unforseen circumstances (like server issues). l understand the logistical aspect of the system in weeding out toxic people but why should l suffer for the bad apples in the barrel. l am not here to gripe but would just like to express a consumer point of view. Kind regards petrouske

Images to substantiate my opinion

Charles Arwin11/20/2014, 11:32:13 PM117 votes

How about fixing the so called "firewall bug" and other stuff that prevents players connecting to the game in the 1st place? It feels like 3/4th of all "leavers" and "afks" suffer from technical problems with your servers - not rage... Banning those involuntary "leaves" is not the answer. Thus banning is not the answer to 4v5s in general imo as it only targets a small portion of those.

It's still nice and all but it is NOT what I hoped for since server migration. Then again these bugs are global and might not be a migration related issue... whatever it is: at least acknowledge the problem and tell us whether you are working on it.

Drastic200011/21/2014, 6:09:42 PM91 votes

I have been banned in the past for AFK due to Charter internet having so many issues. Our lines where I live are not quite up to par and we get disconnects all the time or due to accidents, cable cuts, etc... It was a combination of that and Riot themselves, server issues disconnecting me in middle of a game and not allowing me to rejoin or even login, top that off with a few home emergencies and voila! Banned.

When I contacted Riot about this, they told me to contact my cable company to try and make sure this never happens.

Does anyone realize what Riot is saying here? They are telling you to make sure multi million dollar internet companies don't lose their services. Is this more than ridiculous? I think so.

The message here is also that life may simply not be as important as some "likely 12 year old kids" losing a match. You are being punished for life happening. So Riot, you figure your game play is more important than peoples' home lives? This system you implement says exactly that.

Say you, like me have a few years into this game, much money and play time. You keep running into streaks of internet disconnection issues and eventually banned. Suppose you get perma banned for this? What happens? Well all that time and money Riot made off with while you no longer get to play and what? Start over? Re-buy everything? Put a crap ton more money in their pockets?

Does anyone else see why these bans may actually be in place? This whole afk system is still so flawed it's not funny. Why leave it to an automated system to determine this? Why not leave it to the players to determine if someone afk'd on purpose or not. There are times some people apologize for having to leave. So the team has no problem with it but your leave buster does?

I personally would rather have afkers than this system and that's saying something.

Zelirious11/21/2014, 8:17:28 PM81 votes

If riot honestly believes a person who got disconnected unintentionally deserves to be punished, they've sorely misread their community. If the packet loss from your game causes me to DC for an entire match, i shouldn't have to be punished. I didn't "ruin the game's experience" for 4-9 players. YOU did. YOUR game is what caused the DC, so why should the person affected be punished?

Also you're not taking into account that sometimes, just sometimes, there are things in real life that happen during games that are more important. Maybe league of legends is just a game?

Orisi11/21/2014, 9:10:18 PM78 votes

Notice how the people who're getting cracked down on are not the "We should be able to leave if toxic scrubs need to L2P" it's the "Well my connection isn't always spot on, everyone has the odd disconnect what about that?" and you're just saying, essentially, "Fuck you." It didn't go down well for Microsoft last year, it won't go down well for you now.

I thought the entire point of the LeaverBuster revamp was to be able to pick out the intentional and persistent from the unintentional/occasional. If you're fine with punishing players for their geographical location, or a sudden ISP issue that cannot be fixed easily/quickly (As you should well know given your own problems with their services from time to time) then there is something very contradictory between your desire to make the new SR as accessible to all players as possible, and saying those people who don't live in densely populated urban areas can get out.

And one feels compelled to highlight that your own server issues, including the ever requested East Coast server issue, make you rather hypocritical for punishing players for circumstances outside of their control, when that's the excuse used for basically every delay, every outage or every server bug. Because right now you guys should be getting some pretty serious flak for having screwed matchmaking across your entire game.

ThatDarcyGirl11/21/2014, 8:43:53 PM71 votes

I honestly, 100% do not like this. It really doesn't address the problem of Leaving/AFKing the game, and does more to punish people who leave games due to forces outside of their control. And while it's nice to say "fix your internet or don't play", it's not really fair to anyone in this situation. Last week I was kicked from a game because my internet went out (it isn't a frequent thing, but it does happen more often than I'd like due to issues with the company I pay for and the wiring in my apartment) but then when my net was fully functional again, I couldn't reconnect because Riot had applied some sort of hot fix while I was in game, and the client for whatever reason would not patch and I was left scanning files for 45 minutes while my teammates finished the game without me. While this system is a good idea, I feel like it's coming at a time where it will do far more harm than good. Until the servers are fixed and working again after this last major patch, it will do nothing but punish the innocent.

KawaiiGurrl1311/21/2014, 4:30:37 PM63 votes

Recently I was afk for a portion of a game because every time I'd ult as Kalista, the game would crash. Is that my fault that LeaveBuster picked it up as an afk and counted me as a leave, even though I was continually tried to reconnect for 15 minutes until I finally did? Seems like when the game's bugsplatting or failing to create process dumps and not letting me play, it isn't my fault. Are there any plans to have the system look for error messages in the logs to check to see if it was the player's fault, or is my case too fringe to matter?

Gallowgrim11/21/2014, 3:07:48 PM58 votes

Yeah, this system was a case of "good intention, awful implementation" and you've made it worse?

Quality Broccoli11/23/2014, 2:21:54 AM57 votes

This is probably the worst update I have ever seen come out of riot. No matter what changes they threw at me I was with them all the way, figuring they had a dream for this game and they knew the direction that they wanted it to go. But this its just sad and depressing, this feels like the worst possible thing they could have done, they are punishing players for things that they can do nothing about, you can trust me, if it was within my power I would have perfect internet all the time and my keyboard would have a few more working keys. but alas this is not a perfect world and I am bound by the laws of the universe and money. If i could host my own internet hub i would, if I could get better internet I would. But all of these things are out of my control. So what then is the solution punish everyone who uses comcast (for those of you who don't know they have been having some serious issues as of late), or who doesn't have perfect computer to play riots perfect game. I am wondering if they people who made this update even thought it through or talked to anybody else at riot, or if they just simply decided that they were in charge of the project and there was nothing anybody else could do to stop them. What i assume happened was Lyte lost his promotion series due to an afk, and decided that was the end of that. he is employed by a company that requires perfect internet, so why doesn't everybody else have perfect internet, ban them! I can understand this system in ranked queues but within normals I am not a fan. Especially when you get leave bustered because riot wont let you reconnect to the game (an issue I have been having and seen a lot of posts about have yet so see a reply or fix too)** so you are forced to quit the game to reconnect (an automatic guilty in the eyes of Leavebuster apparently)**I also do not like how the rioters are handling the complaints, as evidence look at the very first riot post, which is in the negative of hundreds of votes.

iThghtSheWsLvl1811/21/2014, 8:28:30 PM48 votes

I just finished a ranked match. No one left or Afk'd. After the match the game hung on Awaiting Stats Screen. After two minutes I got bored and clicked the skip waiting for Stats button. At this point I went to re-play a new game and it stated I couldn't because an existing game was already in progress. So I logged out and logged back into league. Now I'm sitting at an 10 minute Que time, so far and even more strange is my previous match has not been recorded at all, no loss prevention, no loss or win, not a lp gain or loss. This system may be nice when it gets going but I have clearly been hit by the system when I have absolutely no business being so. I have left, maybe, 2 games in the past 5 years. Now 12 minutes into my wait time for a new match I can only hope this system figures itself out so I don't have to deal with 15 minute wait times every time i want to play a game, because that will get old real quick.

Loliholocaust11/21/2014, 11:24:22 PM47 votes

Since my thread I made got deleted because I apparently put it on the wrong board... I guess I'll post here now that I'm actually aware of this thread, not that the reds in charge here seem to care very much...

Leaver Buster was a system that desperately needed a rework, and this intentions here are obviously in the best interest of the game, as Riot obviously doesn't want the quality to decline because that means less players and less money.

The problem here is like many others are saying. Most people that disconnect, and the majority, actually, almost every game I see in ranked (Was up to Gold 2 almost 1 I'll talk about that in a bit) the people that go "afk" or leave game are almost entirely dcs. Since the beginning of the summer, I can only think of two actual rage quits that have occurred, and the rest were people that were obvious dc's that all the children in the game start spamming the all chat about reporting for afk. So in essence, the reason that the "afk" problem is so prevalent is not probably due to afks so much as dcs. Honestly, no one wants to lose, and afking is the quickest way to losing. Sure, I see people threaten they are going to leave if so and so doesn't shutup, or that they are done with this (bad word here) team, but they never actually leave. They just continue to whine.

Normally when people start begging for reports, I bm them and tell them to stop being a child because that person obviously disconnected to internet issues, and few people have control over this. I've become very understanding because of my own situation. On that note...

Since the beginning of the summer or around when the (bad word here) Squad started their shenanigans, probably about 40-60% of my losses have been due to connection problems of my own or other people on my team. I recently went on a losing streak where the majority of my losses were due to my connection and oh the demotions have been real. R.I.P. my platinum endeavors. Anyway, I'm not really angry with Riot so much as my ISP, aka Charter.

Now, I know not everyone has Charter, but as people who pay attention to the status of their ISP, and have Charter, they know that Comcast has recently bought Charter, and they've been transitioning - poorly. Most people I know that have Charter have been having issues ever since, and me personally, at random points in the day, for long periods of time, my internet intermittently disconnects every few minutes for a few minutes at a time. Like earlier today, and early yesterday, I was playing a few games just fine, and then my internet started its nonsense and I would lose connection every few minutes for a few at a time, thus losing the game. Now obviously, I'm sitting here trying to reconnect, because Riots new patch just closes the game altogether now when you disconnect apparently, and that of course got me my warning.

tl;dr I'm not mad at Riot for my disconnects or my teams disconnects, I'm mad at my ISP. However, I am quite upset after looking at this thread and the solution from the reds in charge is, "Fix your connection or don't play." You are punishing a VAST majority of your player base right now, as everyone I know has internet issues from time to time. You implemented poorly designed system at a bad time, now it's on your to fix it. When a bunch of people can't log back into their games because - bugs, can't log in to servers because - bugs, can't click "I agree" to a bullshit agreement because - bugs, and are getting punished because our ISPs are literally garbage, don't tell us to check our connection or don't play.

Not my cleanest rant, but w/e. Too much to rant about on a thread that's probably not even going to get read.

Itzon11/21/2014, 6:34:28 PM43 votes

How will this punish the people that don't want to incur the wrath of leave buster and instead run around in circles at the base?

Elphrihaim11/21/2014, 4:57:41 AM36 votes

So I can't help but notice that the main method for testing is

Go into a custom game and check

(Which isn't a problem imo!)

But this creates a rather annoying problem.

For me, I can play a game with no lag, none at all, and at some other time play another game (and nobody else except me is using our home internet as it was during that first game) during which I get constantly kicked.

But then I queue up for another game immediately afterword and I have no lag, again. Without checking anything on my end, the problem gets fixed... and occurs... at random when I connect to certain servers of Riot.

So since that is a thing that I have observed and tested with the begrudging help of friends, what do I do?

The current method's flow chart dictates

Go into custom -> Good / Bad Good -> Play games || Bad -> Don't play Play games -> get lag anyway -> be screwed Play games -> get no lag -> have fun

I never know, until I'm actually in the game and 'on the rift' if that game will constantly bog me down.

watdo besides "be screwed"

LittleRenen11/21/2014, 8:51:58 PM31 votes

how about when you get "attempting to reconnect" it doesn't penalize you. Cause its not our fault if your server goes wack mid game. Make it able to recognize a DC from the server vs an actual leave and then I'll start putting money back in this game.

Encaitar11/21/2014, 6:36:10 AM30 votes

Cool, now if I would stop attempting to reconnect for no reason every game...

C2ksH4Icqj11/22/2014, 1:47:19 PM29 votes

Feels like this system will punish people for riot bugs, and do nothing about the trolls/afk'ers we want to get rid of.

Reasons I've been "afk" this season (guessing around 1000 games total, aram/ranked 3v3 5v5/normal summoners/solo queue)

-2 times my internet went down (once my router needed a reboot, once the lightning hit something fancy so my entire city lost the connection) **<- These are the 2 I should get punished for. ** -4 times I got "attempting to reconnect to chat" on champion select in ranked, and I could not pick a champion. (So the game was dodged) -4-5 times I got "stuck" on loading, showing people loading slow and the game started without me without me knowing about it. (I got in to these games a few minutes later than the rest) -Countless times (guessing around 20-25, other teammates had issues with this as well in the same games) I got "attempting to reconnect" in game, only thing that works is to close the game and restart it. (When this happens I'm usually on skype with friends, can open pages etc so there's nothing wrong with my connection) -3 times the game failed to start after champion select, leaving both teams unable to connect or do anything for 1-2 hours.

If all these issues with "attempting to reconnect", ghost games, stuck on loading etc were fixed I think this system could work, but as long as all these problems keep happening I don't really think it will make a lot of difference. People who troll usually run around feeding for the rest of the game, flame people from base and the "rage quitters" usually never have the red mark after the game as they do a tiny bit of stuff so they wont get banned.

I did not read through all 40 pages, but would be nice to know if the system can detect client bugs, or if I'll get punished no matter what.

edit: with this season I meant season 2014.

EMOFRATPARTY11/20/2014, 10:54:22 PM26 votes

Lyte,

Thank you all for rolling this out. Seriously. As the new system starts to have its effect, hopefully this will lessen the frequency of intentional AFKs.

On that note, is there any plan for an in-game balancing system if intentional (or even unintentional) AFKs affect matches? Perhaps a stat boost of some kind to account for a 4v5 (or even 3v5) match, or just any other ideas in general?

LBoon11/21/2014, 3:52:24 PM23 votes

I've experienced (multiple times) and read accounts of League completely freezing Macbooks forcing a player to restart their macbooks just to get back into a game, I can't help but feel like this screams.. "Use a macbook and your account will suffer."

Potatofaktman11/21/2014, 6:52:21 AM16 votes

Does this affect Co-op vs ai games too? I already rarely play PvP games since I never know when my internet might give out, do I need to stop playing bot games too?

VixiousSycle11/23/2014, 6:24:26 PM15 votes

I am a new player to League of Legends. It's only been a few weeks but I have been really impressed with many facets of the experience. The ONLY thing I found toxic so far were the Kill-hoes in Beginner bots who nag and harass you because you don't know what your doing... o-O. Everything else has been a pleasure to learn and adapt to.

Then I met Mr LeaverBuster.

I joined a cue for a Intermediate AI/Co-Op, selected a Champion, locked in a load-out, gave greets to my teammates. The timer counted down, the screen went black, and..... nothing. Waited. I hear the default "ding" of a Windows alert box but I don't see one. The client is new to me and I decide to wait on it figuring it must know what it is doing. A hand full of minutes pass and I tire of waiting, ALt-Tab to find the hidden alert box that says it can't connect. I click re-try... several times. I decide to select cancel... it warns me that leaving a game is bad so I re-try a bunch more times. Cancel again.. this time I mean it. This brings up a box that says "The client has crashed... " AH-HA! ... I click the button to reconnect. Back to black-screen-of-nothingness. I hear the ping again and Tab out. Back to square 1. I attempt to close the client thinking a restart is in order since it said it crashed. I get another warning that leaving a game is very bad. I close the thing anyways, relog and receive a notice that I have left a game in progress and click to rejoin. Nothingness greets me again.... Ding. SQ1! I reboot my modem and computer. Verified everything was normal and operational. Get logged in attempt to connect to the game (now going on 20+ mins) and... NOTHINGNESS.

I gave up, tabbed out to search up some reading on the subject since that often solves my problems, and found this thread as part of that search. I tab in, the game is apparently over and BAM! I am LeaverBusted! 5 min time-out for 5 games. It was a BOT game for Pete's sake!

I cue up a game to see if it would stall at the Nothingness again and... it did not. Loaded up and off as normal.

You punished me Riot. You administered punishment for a flaw in your systems. Being a new player I can tell you that this makes me not want to play. Not even the most toxic of players who insist I give up the game cause I am so bad at it my mother needed insulted have made feel the way Mr. Buster has. I tried. I gave every reasonable attempt to connect and it failed, on YOUR end.

  1. Mr. Buster should be able to tell a "Leaver" from a distressed "Player" who is doing their diligence to be where they are supposed to be.

  2. Mr. Buster should be a coach or a guide, not a hardassed Cop bent on conviction. At least not right off the bat.

  3. Mr. Buster should take input from the community. Teammates should be able to flag problem players at the endgame screen. Teammates should be able to "excuse" a player because they HAD to leave and let them know in a proper manner.

  4. Mr. Buster should be able to analyze/monitor the players logs/actions and determine if further action guidance is required over time. Habitual offenders are the problem.

I am going to forgive this first run-in with Mr. Buster. I am willing to take my lumps for actually leaving a game, if I ever do. If Mr. Buster corners me again for not playing a game that NEVER LOADED it will be the last game I ever play. I refuse to be innocent and lumped in with "criminals".

Sorry Riot, but Mr Buster is what has ruined my game experience more than any AFK'er.

KimTheNukeJongUn11/20/2014, 10:55:21 PM9 votes

This will be applied to all queues, correct? Dominion, ARAM, Twisted Treeline as well?