A note from a player who often goes AFK
Ok, one: I am not a bad person just because I'm forced to go away from the keyboard. Two: let me explain myself. The reason I go AFK is not because I rage quit, or because I'm a troll, or because I'm "toxic" - it's because I still live with an inflexible family who tells me to do things out of the blue and if I don't do them right away, I'll be in deep deep doo-doo. I've tried to explain to them that I'm in the middle of a game and they say "just pause it." If I say that I can't pause it, they respond with "playing a game is not as important as doing your chores, so get your priorities right and go do what you're supposed to" or "that's stupid." So I drag myself from my computer after saying I'm sorry (the responses are probably not all that positive, to be sure) and go and do my chores. Then I come back to find that I am disconnected from the game and I groan for I know I'm getting another lower priority queue thing that lasts for 20 freakin' minutes. Now, I understand that abandoning a game is a punishable offense and isn't a good thing to do, but I have to lest I face my parent's wrath. I often come back to the game and reconnect and try to help out, but all the same the punishment is waiting for me afterwards. I have the best intentions and honestly want to play the game all the way through but no matter how often I ask my parents to warn me in advance and give me time, it doesn't happen. So, Riot, I'm turning to you. Since one side won't budge, I'm asking the other side (even though it probably is of no use): would you please do something to examine if someone leaves because of a good reason rather than a negative one and hand out punishments accordingly? I understand it would be ridiculous to ask you guys to not punish me for going AFK, but I am asking you to reduce the sentence due to why I go AFK. I hate being stuck in this Inferno where all I get to see is a 20 minute clock ticking down to zero, and me all the time knowing I'll probably get interrupted again and having the penalty reset the lower-priority queue and my guilty conscious as well as my subconscious anger grow.
P.S. The real kick in the gut is you guys generalizing "all the AFK'ers" and assuming all of us are bad team-players and create a negative experience for the team, and basically have no soul (exaggeration mine).
TL;DR: Please, Riot, examine why people go AFK and make changes accordingly. Don't lump me and the rest of the good-intention AFK'ers together with the ill-intended ones and condemn us to twiddling our fingers as we sit through the Purgatorio, for that bruises my spirit.
