League of Legends lead gameplay designer Mark “Scruffy” Yetter shared the first phase of Riot’s disruptive behavior reduction today, which will kick off in Patch 10.15.
The developers are putting their efforts into limiting the amount of intentional feeding, leavers, and AFK players who plague solo queue. Riot will begin by making its system stricter in how it classifies behavior as intentionally feeding, amping up detection to be 25 percent more aggressive.
“We still don’t want to punish players for a bad game but we think there is room between our current thresholds and where a player having a bad game would be,” Scruffy said.
The penalty for intentionally feeding, however, will remain a 14-day ban that becomes more severe if the behavior is repeated.
Riot is also targeting AFKs by improving detection when players are idle but moving occasionally to avoid punishment. The penalties will become harsher, giving an AFK player an automatic loss even if their team wins the game. Queue time penalties will also require less AFK games before going into effect.
Scruffy also outlined future plans for improving the detection system. There are players who can avoid detection by “treading the line,” ruining games without dramatically intentionally feeding. And the penalty system will be revamped by taking earlier action and ramping up the severity of repeat offenses.
League Patch 10.15 is scheduled to go live on Wednesday, July 22.
