Leaverbuster System Improvement- Letting the community decide
I hope this post doesn't get lost in the myriad of repetitive suggestions Riot receives every day, as I think this issue affects many players.
I would like to suggest a new Leaverbuster system. Systems similar to my suggestion have been made in some forums before, but it appears that it has not been read or properly addressed by Rioters, and thus I would like to post here to make sure the players' voices are heard.
First of all, we must consider what the purpose of punishing players who AFK is. Players who AFK automatically make the game into an 'unwinnable' scenario where their team must fight 4v5 and most probably lose. A punishment should be implemented to make sure they don't lose the game for 4 other players next time, right?
Of course, I have no objections to punishing people like this- I hate it when an AFK causes me to lose my games too! I do not hesitate to report them if I think they could have made a difference. This leads me on to the main point I hope to make: Players are the people affected, so they should be the ones who decide if a certain AFK deserves a ban/LPQ (Low Priority Queue) or not, instead of a program that doesn't know the specific situation.
Since AFKing is one of the more common offenses, it is not unreasonable to implement a system that addresses this issue directly. If a player was AFK, at the end of a game, there should be something like this:
The following summoners have been AFK: xxx1 (34 minutes, 27 seconds) xxx2 (2 minutes, 55 seconds) Do you wish to report them? xxx1 (Yes) (No) xxx2 (Yes) (No)
Let's call this suggestion 'x'. Obviously summoner 'xxx1' was probably away for the entire game, and players would opt to report him. However, summoner 'xxx2' might have had a personal router issue, and took about 3 minutes to fix it before carrying his team to victory. Do we really need to punish players like 'xxx2'? We should leave that up to the people who were affected- the nine players in the game- since they have the best judgment.
Furthermore, if all nine players didn't feel affected by the whole-game-AFK by player 'xxx1', I do not see why there is a need to punish him. The whole point of the Leaverbuster system is to make sure the irresponsibility of one player doesn't negatively affect the experience of other players. If all nine players feel that their experience hasn't been affected by the absence of one player, then I do not feel that there is a need to punish him or her.
Another issue is premade games. If 5 players are queueing together (all friends), and one of them leaves, it is unreasonable to punish him or her unless their friends report them for AFKing. Most people, when queueing as a 5, play together in close proximity and one of them may be a player whose computer does not function properly or something and sometimes disconnects. Hence, he plays with his friends who he knows will understand and not mind if he disconnects since he doesn't want to ruin the experience for other players who might mind. I think that even if suggestion x cannot be implemented in soloqueue normal or ranked games, it should definitely be implemented in premade 5's. A player's friends can choose whether they want to play with him or not with full knowledge of AFK tendencies- opting to play with him means that they won't mind if he AFKs, and hence he shouldn't be punished if his team doesn't feel like there is a need to.
Ultimately, the punishment of players should be left to the people in game with them, instead of a mindless system.
So...... thoughts?