For the vast majority of League of Legends players, we often face negative behaviors such as AFK, game disruption, and harassment… From normal matches, ranked games to even ARAM mode, these negative attitudes continue to appear and leave many gamers feeling extremely frustrated psychologically.
This situation has occurred so frequently that Riot Games has had to continuously implement features and updates regarding penalties for negative behaviors in League of Legends. Just a few hours ago, Riot Games introduced a new feature called Queue Lockouts aimed at minimizing AFK situations to the maximum extent. Essentially, this feature will automatically impose heavy penalties on players who frequently go AFK, with a maximum queue lock duration of up to 14 days.
Riot Games: “For players who frequently go AFK, we will apply a new penalty called Queue Lockouts. When a player is penalized by Queue Lockouts, they will receive a notification explaining the penalty and will be unable to queue in any MOBA mode. With the application of Queue Lockouts, we don’t want to tell players, ‘Hey, isn’t it too bad that your time is wasted?’ What we’re doing is temporarily removing that player from League of Legends so they can no longer go AFK.
When the Queue Lockouts penalty ends, the temporarily locked queue time will still be at a maximum level so we can continue to correct the player’s behavior. This Queue Lockouts penalty applies to all queues in MOBA mode. A small note is that players who are at a high AFK level will be reset to tier 3 and have the opportunity to change their behavior before the Queue Lockouts feature is applied.”
With the information from Riot Games, we can understand that when a player is penalized by the Queue Lockouts feature, that player will not be able to queue in any MOBA modes of League of Legends. From traditional 5v5 matches, ARAM to rotating modes, players will be locked out of the queue for a very long time.
The only mode in which you are allowed to queue while being penalized will be Teamfight Tactics. Clearly, in Teamfight Tactics, you will be the only one suffering when going AFK while other players will be glad to have one less opponent.
Clearly, for any player, whether exhibiting good or bad behavior, not being able to play League of Legends for an extended period is the heaviest penalty. Therefore, players are forced to improve their attitudes on their own, gradually eliminating toxic behavior to continue their commitment to this game. It would be a shame if you went AFK to argue with teammates and ended up being banned for 7 or 14 days.
According to Riot’s statements, they will begin testing the Queue Lockouts feature on a few servers in upcoming versions before implementing it globally. Hopefully, Riot’s “ultimate weapon” named Queue Lockouts will prove effective and significantly reduce AFK and game disruption in the future.