Riot's way of dealing with AFK

DannShadow·Dec 30, 2014·5 votes·1,977 views

I think that the way you (Riot) deal with the AFKs is stupid. They don't even look into it they just straight up, ban, tempban, suspend or punish you, it's stupid. They could email you asking why you were AFK, spend a little bit of their time reading them, hire someone? they have the money to. You could have lost your internet connection, you could have been helping a family member, your family member could have died? they wouldn't know and you'd get suspended for it. It's ridiculous, they need to change the way they suspend 'AFKs' -DannShadow

26 Comments

OJ191Dec 30, 20144 votes

sigh you have to afk a LOT before you get suspended, though idk when low priority queues kick in

to put it another way, if you are dcing often enough to get banned without having actually afked/quit, you probably shouldn't be playing league at all because you are ruining your teams games on a consistent basis.

and if you are having to afk/quit for legitimate reasons enough to get banned well, maybe you should sort out the rest of your life before playing games.

Voltage22Dec 30, 20142 votes

Agreed. Their OWN server issues lately with this whole "firewall" error crap has gotten me warnings and low priority queues. They really need to fix this so it gets actually leavers/AFKer's instead of just blanket banning everyone who may have a issue.

EleshakaiDec 30, 20142 votes

This is what drove me to quit. I don't like the implication that LoL should be more important to my life than everything else.

IronChefBoyardeeDec 30, 20143 votes

That's not what they're saying. That's the opposite of what they're saying. If you want to play a team-based game online with 9 other people, you should be able to dedicate that time so everyone has a fun experience. Feed the dogs, take them out, check on your baby, burp it first, make sure your taxes are done and you're done cooking. Real life comes first, but once responsibilities are over you can game.

proud and bronzeDec 30, 20141 votes

that's right but riot is trying to put the blame on the players instead of on their game. ragequits happen. crashes happen. life happens. they all happen in every other game too. the difference is other games have systems where it doesn't ruin the whole game if one player leaves. this is on riot but they are putting it on the players. its pathetic. they could put in a replacement player system or make the other team drop a player or some other fix, but they are too lazy. its on them.

IronChefBoyardeeDec 30, 20142 votes

You're honestly telling me that it's ok for a person to get so mad they quit? Are you joking right now? Yes, crashed do happen. But you don't get banned for one crash. If your PC is crashing numerous times while playing league for an extended period of time, get your PC fixed or get a new one. 2 of the 3 instances you cited are literally your fault, not Riot's.

Replacement player? This isn't CoD. You can't drop a person from queue into a game where the other 9 people have been playing for 20 mins. Forcing a player drop? that's just as bad and more people will quit! Come on man, be real.

proud and bronzeDec 30, 20142 votes

yes. it is okay to get mad and quit. come on man, be real. its a video game. you really believe people should be forced to play a video game for 30+ minutes when they aren't having fun? you are seriously saying someone's kid comes and wants to play catch and they are supposed to say 'sorry kid I made a commitment to play this video game all the way through even if it takes an hour'.

that's retarded. if you really believe that you have some serious problems.

riot could have a separate queue for people who are willing to be replacement players. give bonus IP or something. or have a bot take over the afks champ. there are probably dozens of ways they could deal with it that would be better than saying 'our video game is more important than your friends, your family, or anything else that might come up'. what a joke. its a video game.

IronChefBoyardeeDec 30, 20141 votes

Yes. They can wait a few minutes for your team to surrender or lose. Or win, hell if I know. Or, if you know that kid is coming over and you guys normally play catch, why even start the game?

No, rage quits are not ok. that's one of the reasons this system is in place. That's one of the reasons the community has wanted a Leaver Buster system. TO STOP LEAVERS. You contradict yourself there.

The most people on the forums bitching about the new system haven't gotten banned or in LPQ, They've seen the message and get all huffy about it. It's basically the same system as before but with new features. It's literally the same scenarios you'd get busted for with old LB but now it makes itself known. Clarity.

proud and bronzeDec 30, 20142 votes

this is what you aren't getting Boyardee - do you know what is more important than a video game? answer - everything.

you (and riot) should realize this and accomadate their players accordingly. or just come out and say their game is not for casual players and lose 95% of their playerbase.

IronChefBoyardeeDec 30, 20141 votes

I don't think you're reading what I'm typing. That's exactly what I'm saying, that life is more important. And that's what they're saying to, but you know what sucks? People leaving due to wholly preventable circumstances. Many of the scenarios brought forth in the conversation that is this thread are preventable scenarios. If those unpreventable circumstances are making you leave frequently enough to get banned you probably shouldn't be playing league. You don't get banned or LPQ for one game, but for multiple leaves over a period of time. Cross a threshold and you get LPQ or banned.

If you have time to play, play. If you don't, don't. It's that simple. If you have other responsibilities that make playing games with real people difficult, don't play. There are plenty of single player RPGs out there that can be paused and completed at any pace. Even during an internet outage or through connectivity problems.

Casual does not mean "I have 15 minutes before food, I'm going to play ranked and try to win in time. OH look it's here kthxbye." It does not mean, "I know my area is having brownouts, but I'll try to play anyway." It means people who don't play this and make money off of it. Your perception is a little skewed if you think casual play means constant leavers and rage-quits or AFK is ok.

proud and bronzeDec 30, 20141 votes

as I said - the problem is not the players. players ragequit/leave every video game ever made. since it is a game ruining problem in LoL, riot has decided to try to fix the players. that is wrong and its not going to work.

players are Always going to ragequit or have real life issues come up because for the vast majority of the playerbase, a video game is not a priority. riot (and you) seem to think league of legends is special and you should have to set aside an appointment to play the game where nothing can disturb you. but its not special. it will always be just a video game to most people. fix the game not the players.

SkullDuggery19Dec 30, 20141 votes

You clearly have no respect for the other 9 people's time that you are playing with. If LOL is so unimportant, then why do you care if you're banned? This is a ridiculously bad opinion, and has no relevance whatsoever.

CryptekkkDec 30, 20141 votes

[{quoted}](name=proud and bronze,realm=NA,application-id=cIfEodbz,discussion-id=h0tlR4Pb,comment-id=00030000000000000000,timestamp=2014-12-30T15:33:48.809+0000)

yes. it is okay to get mad and quit. come on man, be real. its a video game. you really believe people should be forced to play a video game for 30+ minutes when they aren't having fun? you are seriously saying someone's kid comes and wants to play catch and they are supposed to say 'sorry kid I made a commitment to play this video game all the way through even if it takes an hour'.

So it's ok for you to ruin 9 other peoples game for 30 minutes because you got angry? What is that sort of mentality? A "I'm going to do me" mentality. That's selfish.

If you have a kid and he wants to play catch DON'T PLAY VIDEO GAMES, or tell him I'll be done in 30 mins buddy and we can go then. I was playing with my real life friend one time, true story, and he got a phone call that his dad had died and he had to leave the game. I wasn't mad in the least for him but other players were and they had every right to be, they don't know him and if they want to be mad about someone ruining the next 30 minutes of game time that is their right.

proud and bronzeDec 30, 20141 votes

its not okay that it ruins the game for 9 other people. but that is the fault of the game not the player. that is why riot needs to find a way to replace the player who left. because no matter how harsh the punishment is people are not going to stop leaving games.

give the remaining players a 10% dmg boost, put in some kind of replacement player system, let a bot take over the afk players champ, make one of the players on the other team leave for winning IP. these are all ideas that could fix the problem.

riot is too lazy to try any of it. they instead think they can force players to play an hour long video game no matter what comes up. it's just not going to happen. there will always be leavers. just like there are in every video game ever made.

JubbinautDec 30, 20141 votes

The problem is none of those are workable. They create more problems than they solve:

[{quoted}](name=proud and bronze,realm=NA,application-id=cIfEodbz,discussion-id=h0tlR4Pb,comment-id=0003000000000000000000010000,timestamp=2014-12-30T17:30:18.212+0000)

give the remaining players a 10% dmg boost

So you've built an early lead, and your team has managed to take some good objectives. You've put them on the back foot, and are slowly building your lead into a win. Suddenly, 3 of them come out of base and randomly melt your team.

I guarantee that if a system like that was implemented, the boards would erupt with complaints about how unfair it was.

put in some kind of replacement player system

The limitations that would have to exist for such a thing would ensure that replacements either a) were rarely of an appropriate mmr, or b) took so long as to be irrelevant.

Alternatively, you have to recode tons of stuff to allow players access to champs they shouldn't have access to.

let a bot take over the afk players champ

Honestly, I suck at this game, I really do. And I can personally 1v5 Intermediate bots, without any real trouble. A system such as this would actually be worse than just letting people leave willy-nilly.

make one of the players on the other team leave for winning IP

I don't think creating artificial IP inflation would be helpful. In fact, I think it would create entirely new problems. Moreover, you'd still never see it used in Ranked unless it also gave winning LP - which would be even worse.

That's not to say that they shouldn't examine other options. But I still haven't seen one - from you or anyone - that was really workable. I've thought of a few ideas myself, but they either create new problems, exacerbate old ones, or simply don't actually address the situation.

It's not a function of how League is built. It's a function of how MOBAs work, and short of completely changing the game's style, I don't see a real solution.

EleshakaiDec 30, 20143 votes

{quoted}

That's not what they're saying. That's the opposite of what they're saying. If you want to play a team-based game online with 9 other people, you should be able to dedicate that time so everyone has a fun experience. Feed the dogs, take them out, check on your baby, burp it first, make sure your taxes are done and you're done cooking. Real life comes first, but once responsibilities are over you can game.

Not everyone's responsibilities are 'done'. Some people have responsibilities that aren't 'one and done'. I have a wife who has a severe medical condition, for example. Sometimes, she's perfectly fine for days.... other days she'll need my help a few times in a single day.

I've known people with kids who had minor developmental conditions. Same deal, sometimes the kids are perfectly fine for hours, other times they need to be attended to every 10 minutes... and there's no way of predicting which today is going to be. (Hell, even normal kids can require attention on a moment's notice when they decide they want to try to play with the pots, or climb on the top of the couch, or even just cry randomly for no reason)

What about a person who is a volunteer fireman? Should they simply NEVER PLAY because they're always on call? Yep, that's what riot wants. Don't play. Ever.

What if you live in a place with a highly unstable power grid(like some parts of New Brunswick or Nova Scotia) and could disconnect at any times, sometimes several times in a single month but never with any warning... should you be unable to play League of Legends at all?

What Riot is saying is that if you don't consider League to be as important as the rest of your life and if you have a life that you can't 'put on hold', don't play. At all. Ever. Because they do not consider ANYTHING to be so important that it is justifiable to leave a game. Any way you leave the game is punishable. Even if you had no control over it.

But... I've hashed this to death. We will have to agree to disagree, because I have no desire to argue this any further...

IronChefBoyardeeDec 30, 20142 votes

Not everyone's responsibilities are 'done'. Some people have responsibilities that aren't 'one and done'. I have a wife who has a severe medical condition, for example. Sometimes, she's perfectly fine for days.... other days she'll need my help a few times in a single day.

I've known people with kids who had minor developmental conditions. Same deal, sometimes the kids are perfectly fine for hours, other times they need to be attended to every 10 minutes... and there's no way of predicting which today is going to be. (Hell, even normal kids can require attention on a moment's notice when they decide they want to try to play with the pots, or climb on the top of the couch, or even just cry randomly for no reason)

What about a person who is a volunteer fireman? Should they simply NEVER PLAY because they're always on call? Yep, that's what riot wants. Don't play. Ever.

What if you live in a place with a highly unstable power grid(like some parts of New Brunswick or Nova Scotia) and could disconnect at any times, sometimes several times in a single month but never with any warning... should you be unable to play League of Legends at all?

What Riot is saying is that if you don't consider League to be as important as the rest of your life and if you have a life that you can't 'put on hold', don't play. At all. Ever. Because they do not consider ANYTHING to be so important that it is justifiable to leave a game. Any way you leave the game is punishable. Even if you had no control over it.

But... I've hashed this to death. We will have to agree to disagree, because I have no desire to argue this any further...

If your child or spouse has developmental concerns or illnesses, you probably should only be playing when they're not home (at school) or going to be home later much later (Out with spouse or doing something else). Your wife needs you more than the game does
Volunteer fireman are not on call 100% of the time. If you are on call, maybe wait until you're no longer on call?
No. you simply shouldn't be playing if your country has numerous brown outs all the time. Why even try? I bet it's more frustrating for you than your teammates at that point.
What they're saying is league is a game and real life responsibilities comes before the game. If you have pressing responsibilities that frequently interrupt whatever it is you're doing, not just playing league then you have more important shit to do and shouldn't ruin a game for 9 other people.

EleshakaiDec 30, 20142 votes

{quoted}

If your child or spouse has developmental concerns or illnesses, you probably should only be playing when they're not home (at school) or going to be home later much later (Out with spouse or doing something else). Your wife needs you more than the game does

Volunteer fireman are not on call 100% of the time. If you are on call, maybe wait until you're no longer on call?

No. you simply shouldn't be playing if your country has numerous brown outs all the time. Why even try? I bet it's more frustrating for you than your teammates at that point.

What they're saying is league is a game and real life responsibilities comes before the game. If you have pressing responsibilities that frequently interrupt whatever it is you're doing, not just playing league then you have more important shit to do and shouldn't ruin a game for 9 other people.

Yep, that's the attitude I disagree with. Exactly that. "If you aren't in the absolute 100% perfect situation, don't play League. If there is any chance of anything getting in the way, simply quit the game because League is more important than everything else."

That attitude is why I quit. Thanks for confirming that I was right to do so.

AJStarhikerDec 30, 20142 votes

Actually, some one who has life stuff that can interfere unexpectedly can play, it just has to be in customs. Preferably with other player who know he or she might not be able to finish the game. I remember a firefighter asking about this a while back and I suggested finding/starting a clan for first responders to have custom games with players who are okay with a unexpected leave.

For the situation with unpredictable family, everyone needs to step back and unwind from a constant care situation. If that happens to be League, either play customs (if there's no one else available) or arrange for someone else to provide care for that hour or so while you play.

Might suck having to give up climbing the ranked ladder, but there are options to keep playing.

BeatzBoyFTWDec 30, 20141 votes

I got 3 people in different matches on this month who afk'ed because their wife is giving birth. You can see what's the point I'm trying to say here about Riot's vicious way of banning people who leaves games no matter what the reasons are.

AJStarhikerDec 30, 20141 votes

And what you don't seem to understand is that the majority of players don't get more than a warning. I left the first game I played because I didn't know any better. Since then it's always been some kind of unexpected incident, ranging from a bad power cord to a messed up graphics card (that one was weird-- blacked out terrain and any time I used an ability, the screen froze) to the generic connection errors.

The system accounts for emergencies. That's why it takes multiple games to even trigger a warning. But if you know you might get called away suddenly? Then maybe you shouldn't jump into that queue.

debugginOutDec 30, 20141 votes

Some of this may be repeating other comments but ....

It takes multiple times to get banned. I have had to leave 2 games this week. Now those were the first 2 games in months but I received no warning, ban, or email. The issues you mentioned are edge case scenarios and should not happen on a regular basis so you should have not fear of ban.
Connection issues, crashes, etc. happen but unless it is an ISP related issue, should be correctable within 5 min. There is no reason to bail on your team if you have a temporary setback. Most people can completely reboot their computer and get back into a game within that time. Don't want windows update to mess up your game? Change your update settings. Otherwise learn to use your task manager and kill the LoL process and restart it then get back in; or reboot if you absolutely have to.
Worried about having to get pulled away? Then create a custom bot game and play AI. Sorry but when you play an online team game, you are committing to real people for some period of time. It is no different than if you were playing pick up game of basketball with a group of friends. If you have to bail on them, you are screwing over their plans. If I have time for 1 game a night (which is usually the case), I am going to be annoyed if the entire experience is ruined because you decided to leave (valid reason or not).

Other games punish quitters as well, one example that comes to mind would be people leaving Madden games.

Soybean16Dec 30, 20141 votes

you quit after feeding because you are mad at your team and are being stuck-up about it
Riot e-mails you and asks why you quit
you respond "My mother fell down the stairs, so I had to come help her and take her to the hospital because she was in lots of pain
Riot forgives you of the AFK
repeat
never get banned

CenturosDec 30, 20141 votes

email you asking why you were AFK

Yeah, like people who ragequit wouldn't say they had internet/real life troubles.

CryptekkkDec 30, 20141 votes

The only real solution is loss forgiveness, which I KNOW they can do because the person that leaves shows red in the end game screen, but only for the team with 4 people and only if they lose. The other solution would be to give the team with the leave extra gold based on what he'd be earning AND the gold if he'd sold all his items AND the gold of what he had when he left spread out 4 ways.

JakubrusDec 30, 20141 votes

When you hit "I agree" to Riot's terms of service (which you have to do to play in the first place), you agree that your account and everything associated with it belongs to Riot, and they can do whatever they damn well please with it. If you don't like it, play something else. There's always Dota 2.