Additional LP penalties were added for AFK players in League of Legends patch 11.3

Image via Riot Games

With the recent patch 11.3 update, League of Legends has received a significant amount of changes to champions, items, and certain aspects of its gameplay.

Riot forgot to highlight one quality of life change that was introduced in their official patch notes. It was the additional AFK penalty to counter trollers in the game.

With the League of Legends patch 10.24 update, Riot had already introduced better ways to counter AFKing in the game. However, those measures did not seem to be enough for the devs. With 11.3, they have introduced additional countermeasures to help improve the MOBA’s competitive experience.

PSA - in 11.3 we added additional LP penalties for AFKing or leaving games. Repeatedly AFKing will ramp this penalty up over time. With a little more skin in the game, hopefully a potential leaver will think twice about ruining a game for their team.Leavers never prosper

— Mark Yetter (@MarkYetter) February 11, 2021

In a recent tweet, League of Legends design director Mark “Scruffy” Yetter opened up about the penalty tweak that was added in 11.3, and said,

“In 11.3 we added additional LP penalties for AFKing or leaving games. Repeatedly AFKing will ramp this penalty up over time. With a little more skin in the game, hopefully, a potential leaver will think twice about ruining a game for their team. Leavers never prosper!”

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Riot doubling down on AFKers and Trollers in League of Legends

The mitigation is based on how much your team was losing before the player went AFK, sometimes it doesn’t affect losses at all.

— 1337 player (@carsen64) February 11, 2021

For any competitive online multiplayer, having a griefer in the squad leads to a very frustrating gameplay experience. It often leads to many players uninstalling the game because of how toxic the environment can get.

In their November 2020 Behavioral Systems blog, Riot had outlined how they will be looking to compensate League of Legends players who had a troller in their match.

A new surrender feature was introduced, which allowed teams to forfeit after 10 minutes if a player on the squad had been AFK for a considerable amount of time.

Moreover, those who were affected by the AFKer, now get LP consolation. This ultimately helps them have a much better time in climbing the League of Legends ranked ladder.

With the additional penalties added in League of Legends patch 11.3, griefing in the game might just go down considerably.