LP Recovery

De Vitae·Apr 6, 2019·1 votes·1,900 views

So I just got a response to a complaint - jg was afk, top laner said we were going to remake, time came to remake and I was the only one to hit to remake - and it was suggested that I share my idea on the boards; I'm not sure if this is the best board possible for the idea but I think it works decently. LP forgiveness for non-AFKs in games where a player goes AFK. I'm not saying 100% where a loss wouldn't actually matter, but some percentage (50% seems like good number though I don't have data backing for it) either forgiveness (you get the LP back when the AFK is confirmed) or reduction (if the system detects an AFK you only lose 50% of the LP you would have lost for losing the game). Notes so far on the idea:

Not available for queues - if someone you're queued with AFKs then the loss is a normal loss
AFK would have to be an actual AFK, not just a 15 sec DC at start of game

Impact:

Gacha element at lower elos is reduced - the game becomes less about getting lucky (having the other team AFK) and hoping you're not unlucky (having your team AFK)
Could incentivize players to stay - instead of rage quitting and leaving, they stay so that the rest of the team is punished more. (I don't think this one is a solid positive, people could just AFK in fountain or spam chat without doing anything; spamming chat would at least increase their reportability and the subsequent odds of them getting banned for some length of time.)
Players ff more willingly when a game has an AFK instead of hoping the person comes back - this reduces average game length, decreases player frustration at excessively unbalanced games, and decreases the odds of other players tilting and/or getting toxic to non-AFKs (I've seen far too many games where one person AFKs and the team goes ballistic at each other, nitpicking and constantly blaming for the loss without regard for the fact we have an AFK)

4 Comments

TinkerTantrumsApr 6, 20196 votes

[{quoted}](name=De Vitae,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=ZGhfZEXA,comment-id=,timestamp=2019-04-06T19:38:28.386+0000)

LP forgiveness for non-AFKs in games where a player goes AFK.

4). Would create an even more hostile team environment, where players try to force an AFK out of a teammate if they think they're on the losing team.

5). Would produce an increase in the number of games with AFKs, as kids try to game the system for free LP.

De VitaeApr 7, 20191 votes

4b) Which in turn reveals players who would be toxic if they thought they had something to gain from it, allowing them to be reported and making the overall community healthier. 5b)That one doesn't even make sense - if the community was able/willing to 'game the system' as you say, then they already would have done so. It wouldn't be that difficult, everyone just makes a normal account and a smurf account. The smurf accounts soak up losses, allowing the normal accounts to get more wins. It's the Prisoner's Dilemma and it only works how you say with effective communication and collusion - and if there's one thing people who play this game are bad about, it's communication.

rujitraApr 6, 20192 votes

And how would you make up for the reduced loss? Reduce the gain for the other team?

De VitaeApr 7, 20191 votes

Why do you have to? It's already imbalanced, since server issues etc yield reduced losses and when promos are taken into consideration there's instantly 0 balance between increases and decreases to LP. (Edit: server issues give 5 LP increases and 0 decreases, remakes give 1 LP decrease and 0 increase, failed promo for one player means 5 increases and 4 decreases, successful promo for one player means 4 increases and 5 decreases.) Personally I'd not mind too much if my wins off of an AFK didn't have as much impact on my rank because it would reflect my skill better that way. I'm sure there are people who don't see it that way though. If it is somehow absolutely necessary in the grand scheme of things then offset it by increasing the LP loss for the AFK player.