Fed up with VALORANT’s remake system, TenZ agrees AFK penalties need changes to tackle the rise of queue dodgers.
TenZ returned to streaming on April 26 and in his first competitive match of the day, the enemy team’s Reyna immediately went AFK and abandoned the game, allowing his opponents to start a remake vote. While TenZ is usually composed, he said he was disappointed with constant queue dodgers in the North American region, agreeing with a viewer that AFK penalties should be increased.
“I can’t even play the game,” TenZ said. “That’s so sad. That’s actually so sad. Fuck this region, everyone just fucking dodges.” The Sentinels’ star added there are several players on the leaderboard who duo-queue and consistently dodge when their team isn’t stacked with pro players or teammates fail to pick suitable agents.
When a player abandons a match, they get a warning for AFK/Queue Dodging. Additionally, they can’t earn any XP from the match in question, and the system administers a 10-minute cooldown before they can hop into another game. While the devs introduced better penalties for repeat offenders in April 2023, TenZ said queue dodgers are on the rise because “nothing happens,” especially with the first few abandons.
This isn’t the first time TenZ has faced this issue. On April 15, Zellsis and TenZ queued into a match where the enemy Killjoy immediately abandoned the game. Given the community wants a rework for the AFK bans as well, we hope the devs are working on a solution.
Players can expect balance and quality-of-life changes in VALORANT’s Episode Eight, Act Three, kicking off in a few hours.
