Boards›Player Behavior

AFK Balancing?

lagomorph129·12/1/2015, 11:12:26 PM·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 NA12/2/2015, 12:05:24 AM4 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.

SmokedAlmonds12/1/2015, 11:37:50 PM3 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.

Rozair12/1/2015, 11:13:05 PM1 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.

Professor Ward12/1/2015, 11:15:13 PM1 votes

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

AyyeGeo12/4/2015, 9:16:52 PM1 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:

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.
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

Axests12/4/2015, 9:20:19 PM1 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).