Improving game systems in Valorant : AFK

Fighting AFK in Valorant (inactivity in a match). How developers deal with such cases in the game.

AFK - these are cases when a player leaves the match or does not participate in the current game. This problem can be encountered in most multiplayer games, and to some extent it is specific to all competitive team games.

VALORANT is no exception, but that doesn't mean Riot is quietly turning a blind eye to inappropriate behavior. AFK makes matches unfair (who likes to play XNUMX vs XNUMX?) and it detracts from the overall experience. From the very beginning of their work, the player social interaction team has been looking for effective ways to deal with AFK, since the problem is really very serious.

Earlier this year, we talked about the AFK countermeasures (and other measures), in which the developers talked about the changes that have already entered into force, and about new developments.

Improving the system of combating AFK, they adhered to a number of principles.

• Do not punish players for failures. Anything can happen in life (for example, a cat can press the button to turn off the computer with its paw), and we are not going to punish you for rare missteps in which you are not to blame.
• Provide AFK detection flexibility to avoid false positives. We don't want to penalize for AFK a player who is standing still just because he is defending a position.
• Definitely measure the effectiveness of your actions. Without continuous analysis of the data, we will not be able to find out whether the number of cases of AFK has decreased or not.

WHAT ALREADY DONE?

In March of this year, an AFK combat system was introduced into the game. Its first version was quite simple, and the main function was to search for players who left the match or were inactive for a long time.

Such a system captures most cases of AFK - from losing the Internet connection to exiting the match on emotions. But it could and should have been improved: it did not reveal more nasty cases of AFK where people are not in the game but are moving around to avoid getting kicked out of the match. Such players deliberately spoil the game for the rest, in particular the allies, so it is very important to fight them.

To make the system work more efficiently, the developers have implemented into it the detection of certain behavior and the analysis of game data that can be correlated with AFK. They did not elaborate on this, because then it would be easier for violators to bypass it.

МWe have tried to make this system very flexible. So, for example, when a new type of behavior or search method appears, it is very easy to find it in the system (and apply measures to similar violations).

Finally, punishments for AFK should be fair (no need to severely penalize players for rare instances of AFK, but those who are inactive often and on purpose deserve severe punishment).

For this purpose we have created a so-called individual AFK rating of all players based on their behavior in all matches played. The more often a player is inactive, the lower his rating and the more severe the punishment for subsequent violations.

In other words, if you have rarely or never been idle, then you have a good AFK rating. Thus, if you were not intentionally absent from the match, you will not receive a serious punishment (for example, you will receive only a warning).

Conversely, if a player leaves matches frequently, they will have a poor AFK rating. Instead of receiving warnings, such a player will lose experience, after some time he will be forbidden to search for a match, and subsequently he will be banned in the game. Punishing the players, we explain to them why we took such measures and how to behave, so that later we will not regret our misdeeds.

In addition, it was necessary to exclude edge cases, such as exiting a match in Deathmatch mode. For inaction in the "Deathmatch", the player in the worst case will not receive experience after such a match. This is because AFK in Deathmatch does not spoil the game for allies, since in this mode it is every man for himself. However, we noticed that some players were specifically looking for Deathmatch matches in order to earn experience while idle for the entire game.

AND WHAT WAS OUT OF IT?

None of this would matter if it didn't improve your VALORANT experience. So what makes it clear that the system works?

We measured its effectiveness on the basis of a number of indicators. It would take another article to go into detail about this whole process, so we'll just show you a couple of graphs.

1. Number of detected AFK cases over the entire period

This chart shows the proportion of serious AFK cases detected (number of such cases per match) in ranked and unranked games over the lifetime of VALORANT. Severe cases are defined as a player's inactivity for 6 or more rounds per match.

For about the first six months after the launch of the game, the share of AFK practically did not change, but at the beginning of 2021 the number of such cases began to decrease. It was during this period that improved punishment systems and AFK detection were introduced into the game.

Overall this year, the number of AFK cases per match has more than halved! Now this figure is consistently low.

2. Complaints about AFK

The problem with counting detected AFK cases is that it is not possible to know about player inactivity unless it is detected by our system. There are indications that there are fewer cases of AFK overall, but it is not clear how much more work remains to be done. One way to make sure that the players in your matches are actually less likely to be idle is to look at the number of complaints.

At the top of the graph is the so-called proportion of complaints against AFK. This is the number of complaints about inactivity, taking into account hours of play. The bottom of the graph shows the percentage change in the share of AFK complaints since the beginning of the year. As you can see, after the March decline, the share of complaints decreased by 17% compared to the situation in January.

But you also need to keep in mind that some may have simply resigned themselves and stopped sending complaints. However, comparing the share of complaints about AFK with the share of complaints about other violations, we can say with confidence that the situation is indeed improving.

ABOUT DETECTION AND INFORMATION

To date, the work done is yielding tangible results: new systems for detecting and punishing AFK have significantly reduced the frequency of inactivity in matches.

First, detection can be improved. Since the cases of AFK began to be studied, the concept of inaction has expanded. As intruders come up with new ways to ruin the game for allies, so does the AFK detection system. This is also a good thing because the new ways of doing nothing have much in common with undesirable behavior in the game - intentional feeding, sabotage, automatic account leveling using bots.

Secondly, you can establish communication with VALORANT players. Riot Games will share with us the details of the work done and its results, especially since the Valorant community themselves asked for it.

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