Reposted by request. In another thread was the common complaint that you're screwed with no recourse if someone leaves in the middle of your ranked game (or god forbid, in your promo series).

Here's a better idea. What if we had a vote when someone disappears and isn't coming back?

Someone leaves and gets 3 minutes to reconnect.

If they fail to do so, everyone on the shorted team gets a popup (kinda like the surrender window). They're voting on staying or leaving.

• If majority votes to stay, they're locked into the game and proceed as usual. Someone who doesn't vote is considered to have voted "stay", a tie vote is resolved "stay".
• if majority votes to go, their nexus pops and they lose instantly.

This puts some control back in the hands of the shorted team and lets them make a tactical decision. They can't be held hostage by a leaver, and they can't really abuse this all that much.

So far, all I've described is an automatic surrender vote

Now here's where the magic happens:

What if we factored LP/MMR calculation into this as well? What if we recognize that measuring skill is a bit different when teams are imbalanced?

In short, everyone in the game wins and loses (abs(player difference) * .20) more or less LP/MMR depending on the details.

If they vote to stay, and the shorted team wins:

• They gain 20% (or one-fifth) more LP and MMR than usual.
• Carrying a team down a person is not a small achievement, and this serves as a small incentive to play the game out.
• The losing team loses 20% more LP and MMR than usual.
• Losing against a team you're up a man on should also be reflected.

If they vote to stay, and the shorted team loses:

• They lose 20% less LP and MMR than usual.
• Being down a guy statistically ruins games and means the match result isn't as much a reflection of skill as it should be.
• The winning team gets 20% less LP and MMR than usual.
• Winning against a team down a guy requires less skill.

Now, what happens if they vote to go?

• LP is calculated normally for both winning and losing teams
• If a player on a leaving team is in a promo series, the loss is not counted against the series. They get another try.
• The player on the winning team still gets the win in their series.
• In the case of both teams, Their MMR is not impacted.

The general goal here is realizing that the game is already blown, and trying to minimize the impact of the errant game, while also minimizing possibility for abuse.

The loss of LP (and the threat of demotion) is the incentive to not bail out of games frivolously or have sacrificial leavers, but the result shouldn't be held against your skill so we leave MMR alone. Bailing out when you're down a guy means that your next game should be of equal difficulty because, in a way, you were deprived of a real test of your skill.

Possible modifications of the basic idea:

• Apply small leaverbuster penalties to those who vote to bail out of a game. More incentive to play it out, a token inconvenience for not doing so.

• All of this adjustment goes out the window either past some time after midgame, or after an event like an inner turret/inhibitor going down. This protects against abuse of the leniency by a losing team in the late-game taking steps to minimize the loss to their stats. At that point, the normal surrender system should be sufficient.

• Timers and percentages are best effort and pulled completely out my ass and could be moved either way.

• LP and/or MMR subtractions are stacked entirely against the leaving player(s). That is, if the guy who quit early and invokes the vote causes a 4v5 loss, costing the winning team 4 LP per player, that 4LP is taken directly from the guy who quit. (so if everyone on the losing team lost 15LP, but would have lost 20, an additional 20 is deducted from the leaver - we can consider this a 5 point per-remaining-player penalty given to the winner - this way, the per-team gains and losses are normalized). Similarly, if the team wins a 4v5 after voting to stay, the extra points the rest of the team won are taken out of the hide of the guy who left.