In its announcements regarding penalties, Riot has always emphasized its commitment to regularly improving and effectively addressing issues such as game sabotage, trolling, and AFK in its titles, especially in League of Legends. Riot also stated that penalties would apply not only in ranked matches but also in casual games and related modes, with the aim of deterring players who negatively impact others’ gaming experience.
Recently, Riot announced the Queue Lockouts feature to minimize AFK situations as much as possible. The penalty system is tiered, with the highest level resulting in a 14-day queue lockout, after which players will have to wait additional time to find matches.
However, the effectiveness of this new feature remains unclear, but the League of Legends community has uncovered a seemingly “willful” oversight of violations by Riot. Specifically, an account has been discovered by players to be continuously AFK for an extended period, averaging around 20 matches a day. Notably, this account continues to operate normally, and its AFK instances occurred solely in solo queue mode.
Without delving into the account holder’s intentions, it is clear that Riot has intentionally neglected accounts like this one that have been rampant for a long time, despite the game’s creator repeatedly asserting a stronger stance against AFK and game sabotage… Players are understandably frustrated, asserting that no matter how many times they report, the number of accounts addressed by Riot is minimal compared to reality.
“- The reporting system does nothing. Support says they have handled the account and you will receive a notification about it, but in reality, the reported accounts still play without issue.
– I reported 3 accounts and received a message from Riot on the client about an hour later, essentially saying ‘the report has been processed, thank you for reporting,’ but when I checked back, those 3 accounts were still playing together normally.
– There are thousands of accounts like this.
– You can add more details in the report box. If you see no action taken, you can submit a ticket directly to Riot.’
It is evident that game sabotage, particularly AFK, will continue to occur in League of Legends specifically and many other games generally… While it can be attributed to the sheer number of such accounts, alongside the poor awareness among some players, Riot also appears to be struggling to enforce the rules it has established.