League of Legends Developers Implement New Penalties for Queue Dodging

League of Legends is introducing stricter punishments to combat players who are deliberately avoiding queues by not accepting matches, resulting in quicker and more severe penalties for all offenders.

Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends, is continuously striving to enhance the player experience in their MOBA. This includes implementing new tools to combat toxicity and actively seeking feedback from players to improve the game. The developers are dedicated to making the experience more enjoyable for all players.

It can be a challenge to manage a player base that has gained a reputation for being extremely toxic within the gaming community. These players may use vulgar language towards each other, engage in disruptive behavior during games, or constantly avoid matches for their own malicious intentions.

Riot is taking a stricter approach towards the latter, implementing new penalties in Patch 14.15 in an effort to curb these actions.

Queue declining changes. Declines to warning reduced from 3 to 1 and lock out reduced from 4 to 2. pic.twitter.com/RVS4FLqzLc

— Spideraxe (@Spideraxe30) July 30, 2024

One of the less noticeable updates in Patch 14.15 is located at the very end of the patch notes. Along with changes to Arena, Swarm, and other gameplay tweaks, there has also been a modification to the queue decline process.

Lately, we have observed an increase in players exploiting the decline button for dishonest reasons in order to control their game selection. As a result, we will be adjusting the number of declines needed to activate penalties to be less forgiving. We also have some other ideas in progress, but they are still in the development stage.

As a result of the stricter rules, you will now only be able to reject two matches before being prevented from joining the queue. Furthermore, a warning will appear after the first rejection. This increased enforcement indicates that once you join a match in League of Legends, you will be committed to playing it.

These changes are applicable to all game modes, not just ranked. Therefore, it is important to remember to grab some water and use the bathroom before queuing up for your next match.