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Improve AFK for player still ingame

Darth Plagueis··3 votes·947 views

Riot deleted this in Gameplay, where it should be as this is not player behavior, but well they don't let me post it there, so if someone with control could move it there, would be awesome :)

Everybody knows the proplem with afk people during ranked games, or even in normals. They leave and you basically have no way to win the game anymore. Sucks. These are not ideas for punishment but for how to give a team with afk people still the chance to win/ not lose lp:)

While thinking about some ways to improve something like that I considered following concepts:

What if the people come back during the game Is it possible to create a lead that will not be overcome during the game (e.g. gold, exp) Why are people even losing as 3v5 Also I looked up how other games solve the afk issue, for example Star Craft's custom game modes "Squadron TD" and "Desert Strike HoTS", in which the losing team spawns it's waves faster and the waves are stronger.

Also ( credits to ryuuseiboy96 on twitter for this idea, even tho it is something that was part of the game once) a loss prevented system would be possible. For example, if you have 1 or more people who left before the end of the game, the loss will be prevented. But people would start abusing this and leave shortly before the end of the game, so there would have to be a time (like people are 10 min afk) after which the loss is prevented.

Do you guys have any more ideas? Please share them with me and maybe we can get some Developes to share what prevents them from bringing some of our ideas into reality:)

10 Comments

RookPusher2 votes

In my opinion, you're attempting to balance a naturally occurring event. While it's the right idea, the major problem is that changes like "faster minion waves" may cause exploits that encourage AFKs. There's no way to calibrate wave generation to compensate for a player. If you've got a terrible person, you might see an increase in harassment so that player leaves.

But I think the problem is you're sampling individual games, and not, for example, 100 games.

Over time, the number of AFK's people are exposed to are probably on a normal distribution curve. So while individual games look imbalanced, a year of games is likely more similar than not. If anything, AFK'ers real issue can be solved by eliminating the Promotional Games where they do the most severe damage. Since you can't accurate predict where an AFKer will appear, their undue leverage should be removed by not having promos occur, OR, having 3 "warning games" when you're about to fall out of your bracket, instead of moving up into the next bracket.

Darth Plagueis1 votes

I agree, afk during promotion really sucks. But it still is annoying to have afk even if it is not in promo, so a long term solution would be the best, IMO

RookPusher1 votes

{quoted}

I agree, afk during promotion really sucks. But it still is annoying to have afk even if it is not in promo, so a long term solution would be the best, IMO

Well, sure. But a solution that doesn't screw some other aspect of the game is the "???" portion of this problem.

  1. See problem
  2. ???
  3. Problem solved

Don't get me wrong, I wish we could publicly shame people who AFK/throw tantrums/feed, but for whatever reason Riot has seen fit to make that illegal. When anyone who's studied Commons management knows that shame is the most effective and light weight of all punishment systems.

Darth Plagueis1 votes

{quoted}

Well, sure. But a solution that doesn't screw some other aspect of the game is the "???" portion of this problem.

  1. See problem
  2. ???
  3. Problem solved

Don't get me wrong, I wish we could publicly shame people who AFK/throw tantrums/feed, but for whatever reason Riot has seen fit to make that illegal. When anyone who's studied Commons management knows that shame is the most effective and light weight of all punishment systems.

yeah, riot should point out frequent afk people, but after all, those are just accounts and only people who know them in rl will see their shame ( if there is even shame ). Also they could just make a new account, what lead to the longer queues, as the servers couldn't handle that many accounts anymore

Awkward Couch1 votes

In my opinion, you're attempting to balance a naturally occurring event. While it's the right idea, the major problem is that changes like "faster minion waves" may cause exploits that encourage AFKs. There's no way to calibrate wave generation to compensate for a player.

I used to watch people in my dorm play Starcraft 2 (I'm not nearly skilled enough to beat beginner bots at that game) and these guys would play 2v2 and 3v3. They pulled off strats where one or more people would go AFK at the beginning of the match, and that would make the remaining player take the AFK players resources. Effectively this gave one person the resources of 2-3 players within seconds of the game starting.

I think unintended consequences are a problem for me. If we go with loss prevention or even reduced LP loss, all it would take to gain the system is having a duo partner on a smurf. Losing a game badly? Have your friend's smurf go AFK, that way there is little to no LP loss. I believe in Dota 2, if a player is AFK for "X" minutes, a random person will be thrown in (at least I think that's how it works, it's been years since I've played Dota 2). I personally think this is the best solution, but I don't think its one that will fix all the problems.

LordGeovanni1 votes

except that you can have it turned off on games where there is any kind of premade. may not help premade people who have afks in their lobby but it prevents premades from being able to abuse it. I dont like any of his solutions but it can happen. and dota 2 really just lets you control the afk team memeber while that team memeber still loses gold through out the match stalling at -1 you can use the characters spells and autos but they wont be able to get better through items and you cant control both your afk and your self at the same time

Awkward Couch1 votes

I don't know about the turning it off with a premade on the team. Especially when Dynamic que gets back online (Soon ™) more people will be playing with premades. I just don't see a system where loss prevention works with AFK. To be clear, I'm not defending AFK players, I just don't see it working.

Thanks for the clarification for the Dota point, like I said it's been a long time since I've played the game.

Dominick Destine1 votes

Absolutely not.

No one should be rewarded for afking.

RyuuseiBoy1 votes

As I suggested in twitter (thanks to Maxing Micky for giving me credit) the loss prevented is the best option. Easy, the enemy team can decide if you have loss prevented or not. Some of the players are idiots but I want to think that the most part of the community is nice, so if your enemy team see that you have one, two, three AFKs, feeders, whatever that is harmful to the game can decide when the game ends if give your team a loss prevented or not. And no, if you are thinking that all the people will put loss prevented you're obviously wrong. Not in this game.

LordGeovanni1 votes

im not standing up for people who afk but people really give up to easily when 1 person dc's they may be trying their best to get back on. and for the point that there is no way to win ive won 3v5 before its not that there isnt a way to win its the people arnt willing to work harder when things get tougher which is the same reason why even when there isnt an afk one team surrenders most of the time

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