League of Legends’ 12-hour penalties for queue dodging might be too harsh on casual players

Queue dodging is a common practice that happens daily in League of Legends. It is an idea where players skip a match on the champion selection screen as a means to prevent themselves from trolls and griefers.

League of Legends is a game filled with players who take genuine pleasure at spoiling games for others. There are also those who have no regard for match quality and might make picks that ultimately hurt the entire game.

In such scenarios, genuine gamers often decide to dodge the matches and re-queue again.

Dodging in norms is probably bugged this patch, did some testing (so you didn't have to) and I got hit with the new 12 hour queue ban from ONLY dodging in normals. For reference this change was only supposed to be applied to ranked and ARAM. pic.twitter.com/ypGK3SKt4O

— Spideraxe (@Spideraxe30) August 27, 2021

However, every time they dodge a game, such users get a penalty that prevents them from queueing again. It used to start at five minutes and increases depending on the total dodges in a day.

It seems, though, that Riot Games might have increased the penalty timer to 12 hours, and this is a major problem.

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12-hour queue dodge timers in League of Legends hurts genuine players and promotes griefing in general

Riot recently announced that it will be re-adjusting the queue dodge penalties for ranked and ARAM matches in League of Legends. However, it seems the change has been implemented for normal draft picks as well, where players are getting slapped with 12-hour dodge penalty timers.

This has been done to prevent consecutive dodges as it is frustrating for others to keep getting re-queued as someone decided to dodge.

Users dodge in League of Legends not only to escape trolls, but also if their favorite champion gets banned or they get autofilled into a position. However, there are millions of casual players within the title who just want to play a few games after a day of hard work.

For these players, facing trolls and griefers can be frustrating. They might want to play their main and if it gets banned, then it is frustrating from a casual point of view.

So this is intended but wasn’t super clear. https://t.co/b2PQiukS04

— Spideraxe (@Spideraxe30) August 27, 2021

However, a 12-hour ban in League of Legends means they will not be able to queue again and this might lead them to quit the game altogether. It only promotes griefers to be more toxic, as now, they know there are no consequences of intentionally throwing games.

It also means that casual gamers will have to stick with them and hope that the game goes well and somehow they win.

Nobody likes to lose in League of Legends, and a system like this in normal draft picks might be a poor decision by Riot. While it makes sense in ranked, users have already complained about this after finding out about it.

Many players initially felt that it was a bug. However, it Riot devs clarified that this was intentional, and they should have been clearer in their patch notes.

Note: This article reflects the author's views.