Riot Cracks Down on Vitriolic LoL Players, Increased Penalties for Leaving Matches
Longer, tougher penalties for AFK-ers in LoL are coming. The team at Riot Games announced an upcoming update introducing additional reprisals for players who leave the game during a match and impede the fun of their allies.
- Riot Games has announced an update improving the behavioral system for unruly League of Legends players;
- The reporting system is expected to work with greater accuracy, improved detection of instances of deliberately obstructing one's own team;
- Penalty thresholds have also been increased for the players who walk away from their PC during a match and those who leave the lobby during character selection.
A post has appeared on the official League of Legends blog announcing an update to the systems for detecting bad behavior and punishing players who don't follow the "fair play" rule. The plan of action includes changes to the algorithms responsible for detecting so-called "grifters," i.e. players who intentionally act against their own team:
"We've rolled reporting confidence out for Intentional Feeding and have been seeing some promising results. We’ve started to confidently detect behaviors like jungle griefing, under-the-radar intent to lose or feeding behaviors, intentional lane taxing and griefing, and other behaviors that our automated systems are less likely to identify."
This is important because, with these changes, the devs will be able to better distinguish legitimate reports from spam reports from players frustrated by the poor disposition of their companions who had no intention of spoiling anyone's fun.
An important point of the upcoming update is modification to the penalty systems for leaving the match, but also for the equally troublesome "dodging", i.e. leaving the character selection lobby before the start of the game. This behavior can significantly increase the time it takes to find a new lobby, especially if we're playing in a solo queue. However, Riot Games doesn't want to penalize those players who were hit by random situation and had to leave the game through no fault of their own, so instead of increasing the size of existing penalties, new thresholds have been added:
Existing thresholds:
- First dodge within 24 hours: 6-minute block (15-minute for ARAM) and -3 PL in rank;
- Second dodge within 24 hours: 30-minute block and -10 PL in rank,
New Threshold:
- Third dodge within 24 hours: 12-hour block and -10 PL in ranking.
The entry ended with information about improved penalties for leaving or inactivity during a match. As in the case of "dodging", the developers have tried to find a solution that will not hurt those who are forced to go AFK e.g. by losing connection. Notorious leaving will result in extended blocks:
Current thresholds:
- First inactivity: 5-minute lockout and automatic loss;
- Second inactivity: 10-minute lockout and automatic loss;
- Third inactivity: 15-minute lockout and automatic loss.
Thresholds after upgrade:
- First inactivity: 5-minute lockout and automatic loss;
- Second inactivity: 30-minute lockout and automatic loss;
- Third inactivity: 14-day lockout and automatic loss.
Riot also announced further improvements to LoL's griefing detection systems, including the ability to report malicious behavior from within the game, rather than after a match as was previously the case. These plans are not expected to be implemented until the second half of 2021.
