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AFK Balancing?

lagomorph129··5 votes·928 views

AFK's are a problem whether it's someone who enters a game and leaves, or even if someone's internet router dies on them because they were too busy playing LoL to check out that problem that they really should have checked about 80 rounds ago. Anyway, AFK's will always exist, and I wonder if buffing the rest of the team per AFK player will compensate for the lack of team members.

If they come back, maybe the buff can fade away over time based on how long the ally was gone (or other power indicators such as level), considering the fact that some catching up may be in order ("Sorry team, my client crashed 4 times in a row, but I'm finally back after 20 minutes"). If someone decides to troll and just sit at fountain as opposed to actually being AFK, I suppose that is much more easily reported than completely closing the connection; which may remove the troll from the equation if AFK balancing were possible.

These are just thoughts. I'd like to know what may go wrong as a result of such tweaks, how they may be abused (and other suggestions to deter such abuse), and what other things should be taken into consideration if such AFK balance tweaks ever comes into existence. Maybe there is a reason riot hasn't implemented all this in the first place that I've overlooked altogether. More than anything, I think I'd like feedback as to why this is or isn't a good idea.

13 Comments

Best Ekko NA4 votes

I do agree that Riot should try inventing another approach for handling AFK players. Life is not about video games and everyone has different responsibilities in life. If I am a doctor who has to be on-call at all times or some other type of on-call employee, you don't really have a choice in the matter when you are told that you have to leave. I am one of these type of employees and I feel that no one should be punished for leaving a game. The only people who feel like they should are kids who don't have any responsibilities in life and that's not the type of people Riot should be listening to in matters such as this. If a player rages and quits a game, then you report them for being unsportsmanlike conduct because that is unacceptable and I understand that. Someone leaving a game is a totally different ball park that no player should ever have to be punished for.

As for how you would fix this problem.. I think a good start would be to increase the default gold gain by a small amount (nothing crazy though). Since the enemy team will likely have an easier time fighting objectives and acquiring gold it would make sense to help boost the gold gain on the team with the AFK. You can't change LP gain or loss because it's too easily abuse-able. Another thought would be to implement balance changes after 20 minutes for teams with an AFK player such as giving the opposing team slightly stronger jungle monsters and slightly weaker lane minions (once again nothing insane just slight changes). Another thought would be to reduce the Baron buff when it's acquired against a team with an AFK player. One last thought would be adjusting tower strength on the AFK team when no players are present to defend the tower or maybe even giving the tower a shield to help stall how fast the enemy team will be able to shove on an undefended tower.

I'm sure it's not an easy solution however I do believe that you are right, something needs to be done as you can't stop AFK's and punishing them isn't always fair either. Riot really needs to come up with a better method of handling AFK players in matches than the system which is currently in place.

SmokedAlmonds3 votes

Any kind of stat buff that was going to be able to compensate for a missing player is going to make the game miserable for the other team in the laning phase. Laners are still going to be fighting mostly 1v1 and 2v2 but the team with the AFK is going to have their side buffed in those small skirmishes and will have a ridiculous advantage. There is also the question of how do you tune that. Stats aren't going to effect each champion the same so you really cant just have a static like +25% bonus. You can't have any situation where having an afk is and advantage. You have to make sure players can't organize and say choose 2 or 3 early game champs with the rest late game champs so that you can have the early game champs leave late in the game to buff the hyper caries.

TBH I would much rather just see games with AFKs ended automatically. I have no interest in continuing those games.

lagomorph1291 votes

Good point. What do you see along the lines of tweaks based on how many enemies are near with a threshold of maybe 4 enemies or a difference of 3 players when a skirmish has 2 or fewer players on the side with the AFK so that even the ganking jungler won't trigger it?

SmokedAlmonds1 votes

{quoted}

Good point. What do you see along the lines of tweaks based on how many enemies are near with a threshold of maybe 4 enemies or a difference of 3 players when a skirmish has 2 or fewer players on the side with the AFK so that even the ganking jungler won't trigger it?

That would solve the issue of those small skirmishes favoring the team with the afk but that kinda defeats the whole purpose of having any kind of buff. 1 team is going to be without a jungler since the jungler would typically fill in w/e lane is afk. So they are still going to be getting ganked and crushed anyway.

Maybe you could balance the stats decently for 4v5 team fights that everyone is involved in but I think thats about it. The loss is so much more than just stats. Thats a extra round of CDs to burst someone down, an extra person moving around in a fight that you need to keep track of, that is CC. The factors are endless.

I just don't feel like there is any way to reconcile someone being gone and its best to just cut the loss and end the game.

Rozair1 votes

I think there should be a join an afk game option for players who want to help out. Getting a double ip bonus and an insta queue playing a random champion in the middle of a game.

Quil Evrything2 votes

good idea, but difficult to implement.

unfair on one hand to maek it random champ. changes whole balance of things

unfair on the other hand, to make them play with the remnants of some rage-quit loser who went 0 and 10

but yet again would be unfair to zero out the losses, since that would result in the other team losing all the work they put into smashing that guy down in the first place.

perhaps the only truly fair thing to do would be to allow loss-forgiveness for the loser afk-er, but still give win to the other side, and make sure the afk-er has the loss on THEIR record.

(and also allow EARLY end-game, when some jerkface has been afk for 10 mins, but its still only 11 mins into the game.)

Ive had FOUR. $#@$@#$! AFK GAMES TODAY!

PS: maybe should have two different afk balancing cases. 1 for AFk at start of game. 1 other case for rage-quit type situations

Pierce The Veal1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Quil Evrything,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=hEce3n9O,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-12-01T23:20:59.901+0000)

good idea, but difficult to implement.

unfair on one hand to maek it random champ. changes whole balance of things

unfair on the other hand, to make them play with the remnants of some rage-quit loser who went 0 and 10

but yet again would be unfair to zero out the losses, since that would result in the other team losing all the work they put into smashing that guy down in the first place.

perhaps the only truly fair thing to do would be to allow loss-forgiveness for the loser afk-er, but still give win to the other side, and make sure the afk-er has the loss on THEIR record.

(and also allow EARLY end-game, when some jerkface has been afk for 10 mins, but its still only 11 mins into the game.)

Ive had FOUR. $#@$@#$! AFK GAMES TODAY!

PS: maybe should have two different afk balancing cases. 1 for AFk at start of game. 1 other case for rage-quit type situations

In my last 5-6 ranked games, 2 had afks, and 3 had ragers. The only thing in common? A feeding botlane.

TheSeltzerBaron1 votes

{quoted}

I think there should be a join an afk game option for players who want to help out. Getting a double ip bonus and an insta queue playing a random champion in the middle of a game.

For ARAM I'd support this. I don't do rift or ranked but I understand people take those more seriously and having a random person fly into a role they may or may not be able to play under those circumstances sounds like troll city.

Professor Ward1 votes

I dont think buffing remaining champs is the way to go about this, seems to abuse-able

lagomorph1291 votes

If not buffing, then what do you suggest? I did mention abuse may be in order, and I'd like suggestions around it.

Professor Ward1 votes

{quoted}

If not buffing, then what do you suggest? I did mention abuse may be in order, and I'd like suggestions around it.

I think it is one of the biggest problems with league, and the main reason there isnt any sort of thing done for this.

the problem is finding a fix that isnt abuse-able. Which at this point i cant really think of a good option

replace with bot-----may feed team more than the 4v5 lower loss penalty- will be abused when game is "lost" Buff team- Teams will be stronger 4v5 then 5v5 give pause option to let people reconnect-- will be abused by trolls

E: the best option ive heard is the possibility of mmr matched ringers brought into game, that recieve normal lp at 1/2 penalty for loss and letting you ring only a certain number of times weekly or daily

AyyeGeo1 votes

As far as it goes, I would suggest that 1) the player that AFK should be examined for history of AFK's before penalized, or 2) the game should consider; (a) the team with the AFKer automatically loses, (b) the game should by default consider a DRAW voting for the team with the AFKer regardless of the timer and only ONCE, and (c) Automatic Draw, no LP, no lost, no wins, game closes and announces Draw.

My reasons:

  1. Examining the player that went away from key will give a much more justice of how and what this player is like. The judges should be allowed to look at the queque chat and the ingame to determine the motive of the player. If the player that afk does not have any queque chat and ingame chat history for that particular game, the system should atleast show previous AFK report or history. By doing this we are allow to determine the motive, like I said, therefore, those who may have such emergency can not be penalized. We all honestly have better things to do but to just be a troll and start a game to get back at players who have done nothing wrong is just in itself absurd.

  2. The game should consider: (a) Automatic lose: By default, the game no long can continue because a player decided to be an asshole and the team will now face consequence by LOSING.

    (b+c) Automatic DRAW: by far i think this is the best option and should be taken into consideration because the team with the AFKer did not clearly ask for a player who knows that they are on a tight schedule and decided to run a game because they do not think they will have to go. Ironically, worst case scenario, you consider yourself to have a busy life and AFK on the game and you, yourself would not want this to happen to you. So why start a game when you clearly can't play? Another case would be the afking player being a total troll, again no one ask for an AFKer on the team and so if there happens to be one, it'll be a draw. However, the player should be penalize...seriously...On the case of the Automatic Draw Vote, this will just allow the team to consider the idea that if they are capable of taking on the enemy team or not without a member.

If anyone care to elaborate on this idea feel free too! +1 this Post and Comment!

AyyeGeo

Axests1 votes

riot should add some way to check your ping in the client before a game, that way you can know if your internet is garbage for whatever reason (though usually if you're having 2 second delays on selecting a champion you'd notice something is wrong).

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