AFK?

NorwayFOO·Sep 30, 2013·2 votes·1,973 views

Ok, so the last four or so games I have had from one to three afkers on my team. Each match those that were still around did fantastic but not good enough to beat the odds. Some of the games we honestly could have won if just one more player was their to help cover an extra lane while we made a push. This is why I would like afkers to be turned into bots. Sure this might not be as helpful as another human player but still it would help even out the team. Even so, in some cases the bot might not be helpful at all and it may even start feeding the enemy team which is why I assume we don't have bots to begin with. This being said I would also like a way to vote if we want a bot or not, or if we should keep the bot or not. That way we can turn on and off the bot depending on whether we see a use for it or not.

12 Comments

RiotMontagOct 1, 20136 votes

I agree this is a problem we need to work on. However, I'm not sure "replace with bot" is necessarily the right answer. Without diving into too much detail, bots are basically really dumb right now when it comes to human teammates, and they'd probably do more harm than good overall.

Right now the Player Behavior folks are working hard on champ select. If you look at behavior issues across the game, a lot of them can be stopped dead in their tracks or at least highly mitigated with a better champ select. I'd include AFKs in that group. AFKs happen very infrequently in pre-mades. If we can get a group of strangers to operate much more like a pre-made, we're a lot less likely to have AFKs in the first place.

But once we have that system in place, it might make sense to take a look at AFK mitigation, something that solves the problem of, "I have an AFK now; how do I deal with this?" It depends on how it stacks up against other problems that affect behavior. We try to look at all the things we could possibly do to promote a sportsmanlike community and tackle the highest-value stuff first. AFKs is on that list -- and it's something I bring up with the PB team on a regular basis -- but we want to make the biggest impact, so it might not be at the top just yet.

GodlySpinjitzuOct 1, 20131 votes

I just read your whole comment but this might be of topic. I downloaded the PBE launcher but i cant join why is that. Do i have to register again?

NorwayFOOOct 1, 20131 votes

As long as the problem is brought up every now and then and sooner or later it is solved or at least worked on I am happy. It was just so disheartening to see how great we worked together but because of a couple people not their we still ended up losing. I will try to come up with another idea perhaps that will be more realistic because this is my biggest problem when I'm playing lol.

Hope you can solve this soon Montag! Thanks for replying so quickly.

CHIESUTOOOOOOOOOOct 1, 20131 votes

Hey Montag, is there a way you could possibly do the same thing the creator of this discussion made; except having human players instead of bots? If you have time to reply with an idea, please do so; and keep in mind about the actions of the community when thinking of an idea.

RiotMontagOct 1, 20133 votes

Any solution is theoretically possible, including bringing a human in to cover for an AFK player. But to bring it out of theoretical and actually build it, we'd have to solve a few things to get there. How do we source those players? How does the player know what they're getting into to start? How do we match skill -- and how do skill needs differ when the player is jumping into an unfamiliar game in progress with a potentially confusing build? How do you prevent abuse, so players can't AFK on purpose and self-select their Gold 1 friend into a Silver 5 game? Can you jump into a game with a champion you don't own? All of those are solveable if we worked at it. It's more a question of effort vs. impact. At the moment, champ select is clearly the most important way for the Player Behavior team to spend its time since it has the potential to have a large positive impact on all games. AFKs is important but not necessarily the most important, given the effort.

It's similar to deciding when to dragon, when to baron, when to B to buy that item. You have to pick the option that will net you the most gold for the least risk -- you could Baron now, but with their entire team top and mid, it might not be a good idea. It might be better to farm now so you're more likely to win that Baron or dragon fight later. That's how we approach all feature development at Riot: highest value for the effort.

dragonboypetOct 1, 20131 votes

wrong post/forum, but i would like to play league. fix mac version plllllzzz
http://community.na.leagueoflegends.com/c/support/eHL23EKr-crashes-on-opening-the-game

General ElephantOct 1, 20132 votes

what if the person simply DCed, and before he/she could reconnect, his spot was filled. What kind of system can accommodate that? a flat timer? what type of (ranked)protection/benefits does the substitute get? How would champion pools be incorporated? these are all very pressing issues that face this idea. I still feel like it can work, but there are tons of kinks, and i'm not sure it is worth the man power to implement when people are so content hungry.

Silver RavenOct 1, 20131 votes

Hey Montag!

Is there a way we can sit with a Rioter to have a serious Rioter/Community chat about Ranked? This system doesn't do it's job correctly.

Magister RagunOct 1, 20131 votes

I can't help but feel like the premades not having AFK may be more a self selection issue than a teamwork issue. I know I wouldn't queue with someone who regularly has connection issues.

NlghtDemonOct 1, 20134 votes

how about if someone afks for the whole game somebody who is waiting in a que should be able to join that game and take his spot and when they connect they should start at a level that matches his or her team. And this concept would apply to people who dodge champ selection if someone leaves somebody waiting in a que can take there spot. I think this would be an effective option and should be called "Player Swapping".

soup dumplingOct 1, 20133 votes

What happened instead of a bot, the afker was replaced by a player who would come in game with an averaged level and gold base? And to compensate, the player would be granted a sort of first game bonuses.

CHIESUTOOOOOOOOOOct 1, 20132 votes

Yeah this "Player Swapping" is a good idea. So according to you guys here, we could give our idea to Riot about an afker being swapped with another person in queue. But maybe if the team allows a new player to join by majority vote or something?