Ranked being punished for AFK/Leavers on team

FlooptheHydra·May 5, 2014·3 votes·799 views

I've had this happen to me in a few ranked games now where I'll play through a match, someone on my team leaves, then my team loses and I lose LP. To me, it doesn't make sense to punish a losing team if someone decides to leave. It hurts the moral of the team and of course the ability to have a fair match. My view of the ranked system is that it rewards those who play well and work together to win. Is there some way to lessen the blow of leavers in ranked or are we going to have to just suck it up?

7 Comments

Water of EdenMay 5, 20141 votes

So there's no actual way to prevent the loss when you have a leaver. If you were playing in ranked and two people were in a duo, one of them could afk so that the other person wouldn't lose LP (you scratch my back I scratch yours). I know it sucks, trust me, but there isn't a way to fix it.

IriaxMay 5, 20141 votes

So there's no actual way to prevent the loss when you have a leaver. If you were playing in ranked and two people were in a duo, one of them could afk so that the other person wouldn't lose LP (you scratch my back I scratch yours). I know it sucks, trust me, but there isn't a way to fix it.

There certainly is a way to fix this.

If someone leaves early in the game or doesn't leave the base for and extended period and the team loses, you simply add up all the LP loss and give it to a single person (or split it between the leavers/AFKers) and allow the other players to get no LP gain or loss. The other teams gets slightly reduced LP for the win because they didn't actually win the game against a full strength team.

It wouldn't take long for people not to leave a ranked game if they lost massive chunks of LP in doing so. This could have a grace period of 1 or so games in a specific time window that it would allow before this took effect for internet issues or power issues.

I personally don't play ranked and would like to, but since Riot is lazy and doesn't analyze play to determine the amount of LP gained or lost, it handicaps people like myself that seem to constantly get the bad players randomed on their team.

Unlike other games where one champ can carry a game, League has been designed to prevent that. Feeding the other team makes them extremely strong, so there is no way to recover properly till they actually decide to analyze actions in game to determine LP loss/gain and not just win or loss.

Some say that would be hard, but that's just an excuse to be lazy. Things like warding, scanning, buying properly, not 1v5ing, assisting, etc are all things that make for good players and are super easy to track. If anyone watches LCS, they make a big deal about the little things that are able to be tracked as to the reasons why a team wins or loses. Not analyzing game play and adding/subtracting addition LP for playing properly is just plain lazy.

Sir ArmaMalumMay 5, 20141 votes

I agree with you that the aspect of a loss mitigation can be done in the case of someone never connecting, but what if it's a dc? People already come in complaining about dc'ing because they've already lost the game more than likely and will be losing LP anyway. Giving massive LP blows to people who are victims of something outside their control would be a huge mistake in my opinion. It would prevent people from intentionally leaving, sure, but there are other factors to consider.

On tracking in-game participation. I don't think that can ever work, League as a game is way too situational. Someone could be warding, killing, farming and numbers-wise do amazing, but only roaming and refusing to take objectives. On the flipside a tank support could be dying left and right but have a perfect initiate everytime, carrying the team by sacrificing his own in-game score. Someone could be playing average and generally okay, but land a hook or catch someone out of position at the end of a 50-minute game and win by that play alone. How would you gauge those points? What scale of LP gain/loss would you give to each action at, at what time in-game, where on the map, and the results those actions made?

LCS and professional play is deceptive compared to live play. Their overall skill means their reactions and consequential results off of a development (kill, ward, objective, etc.) is very predictable, but in live ranked that can't be farther from the truth, just because getting a kill early means pushing the lane and getting more gold is the logical and 'right' thing to do doesn't mean someone in ranked is going to do that, and just because a Nocturne was seen on the other end of the map doesn't mean when he ults it won't scare that lane back and save a teammate's life. There are plenty of things you can do at varying skill levels that cannot be accurately predicted and therefore not accurately rewarded or punished.

Crimson HatchetMay 5, 20141 votes

Yea dude, my promos had afk's so now i'm stuck in elo hell. How fun :)

UNST3RBLICHMay 5, 20141 votes

Isn't this what LeaverBurster was introduced for? If they keep doing it multiple times, they'll find themselves out of the game for an ever extended period, iirc.

RubitonabuildingMay 6, 20141 votes

An idea occurred to me the other day. It won't prevent AFK losses, but it might help people climb out of elo hell. Say you win enough games to be put up for promotion. Would you want to be stuck with normal bronze folks for those 3 games that determine whether you're going to rank up? No. So how about people in their series are teamed with other people who are playing their series. That way everyone on the team is trying to get promoted.

I find it funny when people say "I'm in my series, lets try to win this".

To me, that just invites the trolls to do even more damage, because they don't care anyways, and people are more pissed off when they lose their series to a troll.

RegisLOLJun 12, 20141 votes

Of my last 6 ranked games, three of those I've had an AFK that doesn't even connect and isn't present the entire game. I feel like, in this case at least, there should be a loss forgiveness.

Something like this is frustrating enough that it just makes me wonder what the point of playing is. Why play ranked when you can't win and half my games have AFKs?

No one is going to decide to leave at the beginning of the game and risk getting banned so that their friend doesn't lose 10 LP, so I think that if a player is AFK from the beginning and doesn't connect by 10:00, if not sooner, then the loss should be forgiven.