LoL: Study shows that 98% of games have some “partial” AFK

A recent analysis by a League of Legends fan brought to light a worrying statistic: 98% of players start their matches AFK. This number raises questions about the gaming experience and player engagement.

Study on AFKs at the beginning of LoL matches

The study, published on the Hextech Lab website, analyzed thousands of games directly from the Riot Games API and observed player behavior in the first minutes of play during the game. patch 13.18 no EUW European server.

The results showed that the vast majority of players are not actively participating at the beginning of matches, which can affect the dynamics and even the outcome of the game.

How was the analysis carried out?

In the analysis, the first 15 seconds were disregarded, which is when the barrier of the spawn area is not yet open. After this time, a player is considered AFK until he purchases his first item.

On the European server, in only 269,897 ranked games there were no AFK players; everyone left the base at exactly 15 seconds. This only represents 1.75% of total games rated.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the person will stay AFK for the rest of the match, but an interesting fact is that in 50% of games still have someone AFK as soon as the minions are borncausing them, at the very least, to arrive late in the lane.

First Blood and one-off players

The study also showed that in 4.6% of games there is a First Blood with someone AFK at the base on one of the two teams. In ARAM this number is 23%, since, due to the portal and game mode, fights happen earlier.

Still talking about ranked matches, only 10% of players are constantly on time, but the good news is that only 0.5% of players are constantly late, that is, all the others who did not enter this percentage, are late at one time or another.

But why are so many players AFK in the opening minutes?

The fact that there were so many AFK players in the beginning has been discussed several times by the community, but, until now, no study had shown how frequent the phenomenon is.

On Reddit, users sought to find possible reasons that could make players go AFK at the beginning of the game. Some examples cited were loading times, external distractions or simply the mentality of some players who do not consider the first minutes of a match to be crucial.

The study does not specify the links where this occurs, but it is expected that higher level players will give more importance to leaving the base on time, aware that actions at the beginning of the game have a great impact. Sometimes a simple ward placed by the enemy can make all the difference.