And Riot is implementing harsher penalties.
League of Legends has a massive and occasionally toxic community, with Riot Games consistently working on new ways to incentivize good behavior and to punish bad behavior. As a team-based game with long rounds, League has always had a problem dealing with those who leave games early or simply just leave their game running and walk away to go do something else, usually if they feel the match is a wash.
In a recent dev blog, Riot spoke openly about the fact that a lot of players are consistently AFK. 9% of the entire player base, in fact, and few of them seem to care about Riot’s current anti-AFK measures.
Up until now, we’ve penalized AFKing with Queue Delays. Queue Delays are a speed bump on an offending player’s way to their next few games: Upon clicking the play button, the queue blocks them behind a short timer. The purpose of this is to change behavior. If someone who goes AFK gets to experience what having their time wasted is like, they are less likely to perpetrate it in the future. For most folks Queue Delays work well, but about 9% of our players worldwide engage in consistent AFK behavior and don’t seem to be deterred by a few delays between their games.
As a result, the AFK system is being reconfigured. The new system features seven layers of hell to subject players to, with the new torture device being queue lockouts. The maximum a player can be locked out of the queue is 14 days, with additional queue delays where the game simply wastes the player’s time making them wait in order to wait for the queue. At the maximum tier, the queue delay is 15 minutes for 5 matches.
Additionally, the tier system is not time-sensitive, meaning you can’t skip to an alt and wait out the delays. You have to play those matches. The method of lowering your tier has also been configured, with Riot confident that the system will target those who actually exhibit disruptive behavior rather than those with simply bad internet connections.
The AFK systems will be rolled out gradually with the impact on player behavior monitored for efficiency.
Source: Riot Games
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