Desperate Need: Increase punishment for AFK/Leavers
The number of people who leave or go AFK is absolutely insane in the Silver and low-Gold ELO, where I played this season. It's not uncommon for me to have two leaver matches back to back anymore. 2 of my last 3 matches had a leaver. If you add AFK, that number grows much higher (I define "AFK" as someone who does not participate in the match for 5 or more minutes. I had a Teemo who just walked down mid and sat there invisible for about 7 minutes. Another match had someone disconnect/reconnect well over 10 times).
I'm not complaining from a ELO drop perspective. If you average it out, it's probably about even as to if I'm benefiting from the leaver or am the victim of it.
I'm complaining from a quality of match perspective. It's just terrible, even when I'm winning. So boring, you have to sit in this match either stomping a 5v4 or waiting for the inevitable loss. Three matches ago, we had someone leave within the first 2 minutes of the match. My team had to just sit there getting crushed because you cannot FF before 15 minutes, which inevitably leads to people getting frustrated/toxic.
I am of the belief that I'm not the unluckiest person in the world. I'm not just happening to encounter a lot of first-time leavers. People who leave matches do so with regularity. Either their connection is consistently poor, or they have the temperament that causes them to quit.
Leavers should be pursued with punishment FAR more aggressively than poor behavior, but from what I see, it's mostly behavior that's focused on. At least people who are toxic still play the match. You can win with someone who is toxic far more likely than playing down a person.
Proposed System
- First offense: pop-up warning and 1 hour Ranked cooldown
- Second offense: 24 hour Ranked cooldown
- Third offense: 3 day Ranked cooldown
- Fourth offense: 7 day Ranked cooldown
- Every subsequent offense: 14-day Ranked cooldown
Every 30 days that goes by without a leave, you fall down one punishment tier. I'm sorry for those who will inevitably reply that they have a shaky connection. Play unranked.
EDIT: I decided to play a couple of matches today. I think my latest match best exemplifies the problem. People are unashamedly leaving - boasting about doing so - because they know there is no real punishment for AFK/Leavers in the same way that there are for behavior reports. Click the image below to see the disconnect and final message from Riven. Note that our Zed did so well, we drew the game out to 42 minutes. It was never our advantage, we never were close to winning, it was just a slow 42 minute loss. What a massive waste of time. For those who read the chat log and are wondering, I ganked Riven, we killed Teemo. Riven then stayed in lane, Teemo came back, Riven flashed under the tower to chase a second kill, died, then left the match.
