Boards›Player Behavior

Rebalancing an AFK

Alonso1859·1/3/2017, 4:14:46 PM·4 votes·705 views

I was wondering what might be the best way to deal with an AFK. As we all know, AFKs unbalance the game and are frustrating for everybody (personally I dislike as much a game I win with 50-10 kills as one I lose with 10-50 kills). Looks like the general advice is "deal with it", or at best "take the chance to improve different skills".

I have a couple of ideas aimed at "rebalancing" the game and improving the experience:

  1. What if the team which still has 5 players decides to make an effort to balance the game? Essentially, one of the players volunteers to AFK himself so that the game becomes a 4v4. He does it in some way that prevents him from getting a penalty, of course. 4v4 is not perfect, but it's much better than 5v4. I'm sure many people would be willing to volunteer (for different reasons, probably), and it would help to create a nice atmosphere.

  2. What about an automatic feature that allows a new player to replace the AFK player? You're queuing for a game and you get a message saying something like: "You still have to wait ten minutes for your match, but if you're willing to replace an AFK in a match which has already started, you can start playing straight away". I think a lot of people would click "Accept".

So what do you think about these ideas? Are they feasible? Sensible? Ludicrous? Let me know.

11 Comments

YerroFever1/4/2017, 5:27:12 PM4 votes

For the second suggestion, in addition to doing the player replacement, you should get the ability to Undo all items in your inventory rather than having to sell back at a penalty.

However, you'd still be locked in with the same champ, summoners, masteries, and runes.

AeroWaffle1/3/2017, 4:26:28 PM2 votes

  1. I'm not as confident as you are that someone would volunteer to even the odds back in the favor of the enemy. People still want to win the game, especially in ranked.

  2. Replace with whom? Once again, I'm sceptical that many players would opt to join a game already in progress. Especially since AFKs tend to come from teams that are already doing poorly. I know I wouldn't want to enter a game where my team was already losing. Having such a feature would also add to the toxic environment if someone on the team was doing poorly.

"You suck <champion name>, AFK so that we might get someone useful".

Limmie1/3/2017, 10:55:59 PM2 votes

I think the feature that other MOBAs have of redistributing the AFK's resources to the rest of the team is better than any of these suggestions. Less prone to abuse too.

doroftei191/4/2017, 9:19:56 PM1 votes

RIOT yu must to clean this Game TOO MANY IDIOT STAY afk,troll and feed ,i lost my promo becasue i have in team only idiot i try to play good and idiot destroy all time my game Brand

Alonso18592/9/2017, 3:41:06 AM1 votes

For the record, I've tried the first idea about five or six times, but no luck so far. My teammates always say no, so I just keep playing and we destroy the enemy team, which doesn't really feel very good.