Leaverbuster is busted

Before we start, I want to clear up that i'm not saying there shouldn't be some kind of system for sorting AFK'ers and people with recurring network/hardware issues out of mainstream gameplay. What i'm suggesting is a better system that actually aids in the issues it currently fails to address.

First let's outline what the current system is: A player is found to disconnect from too many games (in the experience of those people i know that have befallen it, this can be as low as 3 times), and the system flags them as an afk'er and gets them to confirm that they won't leave any more games. This is already bad, but we'll get to that later. If the player further AFK's then they are given time limits before they can join further games, starting small, but getting progressively longer and longer.

So lets talk about that first part, the confirmation element. This is dumb. The concept of it is fairly sound, it is intended to force the player to consider their behaviour, then in some way agree to stop it. However this relies on the assumption that the problem is behavioural and does not account for those who suffer connection or hardware issues. So unless your problem is that you have a habit of rage-quitting, it doesn't help. And in the case of Rage-quitters, they tend to have a personality that makes them highly unlikely to fully quit from a game, if they could be persuaded not to, their team would be able to before riot would ever need to convince them.

Now lets talk about the wait times. These are ridiculous. They are intended to inconvenience the offending player, thus forcing them to try and curb their behaviour, lest they face mounting wait times that inconvenience them and all who play with them. But here's the issue. They don't actually stop people affecting others with their AFK behaviours. This is especially true of those with connection/hardware issues. All the wait system does, is makes those who AFK waste time in their lives before they go into the game and disrupt others, and in many cases either quit the game or simply create a second account. The other problem with these waits is that they have no element of reduction, there is no way for the player to affect them, they only continue to get larger and larger.

Finally there is the issue of disconnection/inactivity being irredeemable. Let's imagine that your system crashes at the start of a game, no problem, just a simple reboot. But as you reboot your computer ends up taking 10 minutes to fix the issue before you find yourself back in the rift. Here is the point where you might assume you can simply jump back into the game, apologise to your teammates, and farm up under tower until you're able to contribute to the game. You'd be wrong in this assumption. Once you have been AFK for too long, you aren't actually able to rejoin the game.

Why is this a bad thing?

It actively works against its intentions by causing your team to suffer a missing player, even if that player is attempting to re-join the game. Furthermore, on the part of the AFK player, it FORCES them to suffer the consequences of inactivity, despite any attempts to make the situation better, be that calming down and returning to the match, or fixing some sort of technical blip.

So here is a relatively suitable alternative, it isn't perfect, but it's not my job to design systems.

First of all, remove the affirmation requirement, remove the 'low priority queues' and remove the block on returning to a game.

What should be there instead is a system by which it keeps track of your AFK's, but does so in context. Each time you AFK, you are flagged, receive too many flags and the system deals with you (in a manner i shall disclose shortly), as per usual. But contrary to the current system, have the ability to reduce the number of flags on your account, streaks of games where no AFK behaviour is flagged should be cause to remove flags, until eventually they are entirely gone, or at the least mitigated.

So what do we do with people who have too many flags? Short answer: segregation. Long answer: These players should be put into genuine 'low priority queues' where they are only able to play with other heavily flagged players, this would be accompanied by a message that notifies them as to their current situation, and that they should expect to see some degree of AFK'ing from their teammates or opponents. This way people don't necessarily feel like they're being AS unfairly and strangely punished, the cause and effect are more closely obvious and more closely linked. In addition to this, they should be blocked from joining ranked queues, i'm unaware as to if this is a part of the current system, but it would be a good idea. Compared to the current system, this might appear quite severe, as you only have to wait out some timers before you're playing as normal again. But When you consider that in the current system, increasing amounts of time are wasted to the point where it's unbearable, and consider that in my proposed system, continued play without AFK'ing will remove the flags on your account, then it becomes clear that this is a better alternative.

I would prefer to play with my friends knowing there's a risk that we'll be faced with Missing teammates, and that we'll only have to put up with it for a little while as the reasons for AFK'ing were merely outlying situations, much more than I would like to be faced with long periods of time spent browsing the internet or whatever waiting for an arbitrary and unhelpful timer to count down.

This might be a large job as far as network architecture construction goes, I am not a programmer. But I think it would be a much better alternative overall. Furthermore, this way the masses of people who don't ever befall and network issues aren't simply being coupled with people who had to wait a little while before they could Rage quit or before their system went kaput.

Tl;Dr We should put consistent AFK'ers in their own queues until they are seen to be consistently completing games uninterrupted. Our current system continues to ramp up punishment, offering no basis for reducing the blocks placed on players.

P.S At the very least let players who haven't AFK'd in a long time have their timers reduced if they ever happen to have them again.