Just came back to the game after probably 2 years of inactivity. Got into a game vs Elite AI for practice cuz I’m super rusty. We actually lost that game because we had an afker for the ENTIRE match…the match was probably 20 or 25 minutes or so…
why is this a thing?
Welcome back, and unfortunately that sometimes happens. Also, you are fortunate. A couple weeks ago there was a bot plague where “players” would just suicide down lanes over and over again. I had the misfortune of playing with three such bots on a team as Valeera with a Muradin. We lost against Adept A.I because it was 2v5 with the bots feeding the more intelligent bots. That was an almost half long match if I recall correctly.
I don’t think AFK timer apply to vs AI.
If by AFK timer you mean after a set time a bot takes over then yes if someone is AFK for long enough or disconnects they will be possessed by a bot. However, if someone twitches their character every now and then a bot will not take over. Or if they had a program running on a character that had them running down lanes to die over and over again.
Edit: Sorry, had a brain fart. SamiSha is correct in that there is no A.I takeover. You have to ping them to follow you after they go AFK in order to get them to participate. You will however get a notification that so and so is no longer playing with the bot taking over to immediately hearth back to base.
The AFK timer is by far the worst thing about this game. There is no reason why anyone should be idle for more than 2 minutes before the bot takes over.
Fair solution: If you’re deemed ‘AFK’ for 30 seconds, the bot takes over but the player is still allowed to spectate. Also better AFK detection. If after 2 minutes, the player doesn’t return, they are kicked and issued a penalty.
It absolutely does apply to vs ai. With some exceptions that I think are f@#$ing dumb. Example, abathur. He can sit IN HEARTH all game, doing absolutely nothing, and never get kicked
Ping the afk, the bots doesn’t move on their own.