League of Legends has always had an issue with frustrated players AFKing for extended periods of time mid-match. Due to this, Riot Games have made various changes to punish leavers and to relieve the burden placed on their teammates. However, the current iteration is still not good enough according to the community.
Sometimes, a game is just not fun to play. In other games, you can just take a break and pick the game back up later, but that is very difficult to do in an ongoing League of Legends match. Due to this, League of Legends struggles with a problem other competitive games share: players just AFK or disconnect entirely when the game does not go their way.
- LoL: How One Champion Decides Which Others Are Playable In The Top Lane
- LoL: The Reason Behind China's Unique Chroma Splash Arts Unveiled
There are some easy patterns to figure out too. Players are more inclined to AFK in lower-ranked Ranked Solo/Duo games. In Ranked Flex, there are about 0.5% fewer games where at least one player AFKs.
There is also a bigger relative number of players AFKing on the Turkish servers, with 8.7% of solo queue games featuring at least one AFK player. For comparison: North America only sees 3.6% of all games with an AFK player, while EU West is slightly above that at 4%. The lowest AFK rate is found on the Japanese servers, with only 1.5% of games featuring an AFK.
Interestingly enough, there is also a pattern when it comes to champion classes. The ten most-AFKing champions in League of Legends are all melee champions, with Sett taking the crown at an AFK rate of 7.42%. Teemo is the highest-ranked ranged champion on eleventh place, with 5.9% AFK games. Are you surprised about that?
On the other hand, supports seem to have the strongest will to finish their games. Five out of the top ten least AFKing champions are supports, with Rakan taking the crown at a mere 3.21%. It is needless to say, though, that way too many players are AFKing in their games.
Why Are League of Legends Players AFKing So Much And What Does Riot Do About It?
Player frustration is the main point why players are AFKing in their games. One big issue is that many players have access to an alt account, and even if they do not, alt accounts are very accessible. Many shady websites are selling League of Legends accounts for less than ten dollars. We can not recommend this practice though, as purchased, pre-leveled accounts may be banned for account sharing.
This also reflects why the AFK rate on the Korean servers are very low. Players can not typically create an alt account because accounts are bound to a social security number. Due to this, the vast majority of players only own one account.
Currently, Riot Games are punishing continuous leavers by placing them into low-priority queues and penalizing their LP gains and losses. Additionally, players who suffered from an AFK in their matches are partially compensated by losing less LP. The AFK player will still lose full LP, while not gaining any LP if their team manages to win despite the disadvantage.
However, most players still feel really bad about losing LP, and that is for good reason. While it is nice to lose 20% LP less, the difference between -22 LP and -17 LP feels neglectable at best.
Loss mitigation needs revising. by u/kingTking in leagueoflegends
This sentiment is generally shared within the community, and chances are that you had those experiences in your games too. We certainly had many of those.
Comment by u/MarioK91 from discussion Loss mitigation needs revising. in leagueoflegends
However, it seems like our Riot overlords are aware that there is an issue! While they are trying to be fair, as a game that is pretty much lost should not see players rewarded for one of their teammates going AFK within the last three minutes, it is the close games decided by an AFK that are the community's main complaint. This sentiment is shared by Rioter BarackProbama.
Comment by u/BarackProbama from discussion Loss mitigation needs revising. in leagueoflegends
Is it possible that further changes are coming to loss mitigation? Will it soon also affect a player's Match Making Rating (MMR)? So far, Riot Games have not communicated any plans, but BarackProbama's attention is a good sign that changes may eventually come. While we can not predict when these will come, we can stand together in unison and hope for a better future with better loss mitigation.
- LoL Team Vying For Worlds Spot Banned From Future Riot Games Tournaments
- New LoL Champion Briar Had Some Assets Leaked