Boards›Player Behavior

AFKers in Ranked

Arkangyle·3/14/2018, 10:32:55 AM·10 votes·717 views

So I play on OCE, but I'm writing this post on the NA boards at the recommendation of a Rioter I spoke to recently. Long post incoming.

We all know how this feels - someone in your ranked game goes AFK, and despite you having a decent lead you just can't close it out 4v5. Maybe your team gives up, or maybe the enemy team just out rotates and out teamfights you once they realise your fed adc isn't here anymore. But either way you end up losing (usually), and the frustration at your missing team mate is exacerbated by the face you still lose the full amount of LP.

Now this isn't a post to flame Riot or any of the systems they have in place. Leaverbuster is good for making sure the person who AFK'd (regardless of their reasoning) doesn't get off scot-free. And the remake system has been good for helping you avoid the 4v5 if someone doesn't connect. I honestly think Riot's trying to make things better for people in these situations.

But the system is falling short in that the people left behind still get penalised.

One possible solution I can see is introducing a system that reduces the LP loss for people left behind when a team mate AFKs. The systems are already in place to recognise when it happens - players who AFK don't receive experience or LP and can't get honored. So the client knows when it happens - and I'd like to see it brought in that when the system does notice it, the LP losses are reduced. Not removed entirely - otherwise there's a window for it to be abused, but even if it's a 25-50% reduction in your LP losses, I think it would be less of an issue.

That way there's still an incentive to keep playing and keep trying to win (obviously winning > losing), but if it proves ultimately unsuccessful, it's less of a case of innocent players being punished for someone else's actions.

My response when I brought this up with a Rioter was to "open a topic on the matter on the board since it would be beneficial to the player base, and deserves to be discussed on it". So here we are.

I'd welcome any and all opinions on the matter.

glhf

9 Comments

Frankbang3/14/2018, 4:00:51 PM2 votes

I think it still opens the options for premades to afk if they know a game is losing, just to reduce LP loss for their friends. I like the idea of doubling LP loss for the AFKer, so it disincentives people for leaving, in addition to decreasing LP loss for the rest of the team. In premades especially, no one would want to bite the bullet, and the overall loss for the premade would be greater than the gain. And then for regular games, people would be less inclined to rage-quit if they knew it would be twice the consequence.

Bob the Toastr3/14/2018, 4:55:04 PM2 votes

I saw a post to this effect a while back and had a good idea. Each person left behind should lose 4 or 5 less lp and the AFK'er should lose the total of the reduction.

Ex. P1: -15 lp P2: -15 lp P3: -15 lp P4: -15 lp P5(AFK): -40 lp

This increases the incentive to not afk, while reducing the punishment for those who are left.

Jackin ur lawn3/14/2018, 4:59:36 PM2 votes

I agree. It should be a 25% reduction PER afk player is put in place (w/ the bot that detects afk players having their timer cut in half when your nexus towers are breached bc everyone knows those players who sit in base but move around so they don't get tagged by the bot), and every afk player should be punished with a minimum of double lp loss because it is ridiculous that you get punished for players like this. I also think they should come up with a bot that detects inting, so those players can be punished as well. Also if you lose a game due to someone afking it shouldn't chain onto your losses where you get punished for like 4 lost games in a row or whatever.

Aerial Queen Liz3/14/2018, 11:27:23 AM1 votes

and make the AFKer lose 25-50% more, I hate when people do that on rankeds.