I have gotten into so many games now where I lost the game just because a teammate goes afk or abandons a match. We can always report them for going afk but that doesnt change anything. They are not going to get banned from the game which is indeed a very harsh punishment and shouldnt be implemented in any game, but I feel the cooldown period is just not a good enough punishment.

You can win rounds on attacking half if you execute well, provided its not the controller who went afk. But winning a round on defending side with a player down at the beginning of the round is just very hard, especially on maps like split and haven.

Trust factor is not a new concept. It has been implemented in Counter Strike and it works surprisingly well. I have seen all the posts about CS being infested with cheaters and hackers, but that is because Valve doesnt hardware ban people unlike Riot. Just to explain how trust factor works in CS - It is a bit like Elo. New accounts have low trust factors. Players with similar trust factor are matched together. What decreases your trust factor -

1. Leaving a match half way
2. Reports for being toxic or cheating

What increases your trust factor -

1. Having a prime account (You can buy a prime status or just acquire it by gaining certain amount of XP)
2. Buying an operation (Kinda like battlepass) (Basically spending money on the game will earn you trust factor)
3. Getting commendations from your teammates for being friendly or helpful(Yes thats a thing in CS)
4. Not leaving a game even though you know theres a cheater in the opposite team. And maybe couple other things.

Implementing something similar in Valorant will yield great results. Just give a moderate trust factor to new accounts and baam!, you reduce the risk of new players getting paired with cheaters/ toxic players/ deserters (I am gonna call people who leave mid game deserters now).

I appriciate any criticism of what I suggest here. Its entirely possible that I have overlooked something.

(The reason I wrote a post this long is because I drew a match because 2 of my teammates decided to desert us. I had 62 kills in that game and it pisses me off that I didnt win the match. I only performed well because I collected the 2 orbs every round, the opposition was taking us lightly the whole game because we started every round 2 players down and my teammates lost interest so I decided I will just bait them. This might sound like bragging, because it kinda is lol.)