Riot details plans for tackling queue dodgers in League, will roll out ‘over the next few patches’

League of Legends queue dodgers, beware—increased penalties are coming.

Competitive team design lead Jordan “BarackProbama” Checkman discussed queue dodging in today’s dev blog, providing an in-depth breakdown of why it’s a problem and how it’s being addressed. These adjustments should decrease queue times, especially in higher ranks, and make matches more fairly balanced.

Riot previously unveiled plans to tackle the issue in April, which would create three tiers of penalties for queue dodgers. The first dodge within 24 hours will give offenders a six-minute lockout (15 minutes for ARAM) and -3 LP, the second dodge will dish out a 30-minute lockout with -10 LP, and the third will jump up to a whopping 12 hours with another -10 LP. But Chapman unveiled some more changes today to dissuade players from dodging a lobby.

“Previously, we completely reset dodge tiers 24 hours after the last recorded dodge,” Chapman said. “This’ll change to reduce dodge tiers by one every 12 hours, making daily consecutive dodgers face these restrictions sooner and helping legitimate dodgers recover faster.”

A player on tier three of a dodge penalty would only drop to tier two after 12 hours, instead of wiping the slate clean. This adjustment should discourage frequent dodgers from leaving a lobby multiple times in one day. And regardless of what your dodge penalty is on, players will still be able to hop into a Teamfight Tactics match since there’s no champ select in the autobattler.

Chapman offered additional information on dodging, explaining that roughly 33 percent of champion selects end in a dodge in Diamond One ranks and above. But only 1.6 percent of high-ranked players dodge three or more times a day. Riot is also looking into adding new punishments for players who plan on ruining a match in champ select, as well as a system that will prioritize having the same roles autofilled for both teams.

There isn’t a specific timeframe for when the new system will debut, but it should roll out “over the next few patches,” according to Chapman. There will be no warning as to when it’s introduced, so players can expect it to activate at any time.

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