League of Legends Finally Showing Mercy in 4v5 Situations

With Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, Battleborn, and even Smite proving to be faster-paced MOBA experiences, League of Legends is fast becoming an 'old guard' style of game, where games routinely reach the 30, 40, or even 50 minute mark. Is that bad? Not strictly, but it does mean that whatever minor annoyance you may suffer, be it lag or a teammate with no skill, has to be endured for longer--at the very least, until 20 minutes, when you can finally call for a surrender, but only if you have a majority of your team's support.

This can be especially bad if you have an AFK member on the team: in a game as snowbally as League of Legends, being down one player can result in a slow death by a thousand cuts, and it can be one of the most painful things to endure, especially if you have two teammates who are convinced they can "carry you it if you just learn to peel, n00b."

Fortunately, the developer Riot Games has finally created a system to deal with AFK players in some limited capacity. Here's how it works:

• At the start of the game, if someone has been marked as AFK by way of three minutes of inactivity, a notification will come up in the chat window prompting people to REMAKE the game.
• If the team with the missing player vote in favor for this remake (which requires two votes yes), then the game ends and all players return to cue.
• The game is called a draw for everyone, except the player who was AFK. It counts as a loss for them.

It's worth noting you can only do this as long as first blood hasn't been drawn: if someone dies, on either team, then you're all stuck there for the duration. Also, once you hit Diamond V, there's no AFK mode, so you're stuck with what you get.

So it's an imperfect system, but at least it can't be easily exploited and it's far better than giving players no choice but to sit at base and wait until 20 for the surrender option, and even then you still suffer a loss. The biggest shame of this is just how late it's arriving: League of Legends has been around for who knows how long, and we're only just now doing something like this? Sad.

Whatever. It'll be going live in Patch 6.11, so if you plan on getting spotty, unreliable internet, that's a great time to do it.