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League of Surrendering

Lost R··76 votes·5,156 views

So quickly after I posted the last thread about this did the problem get exponentially worse, the problem of early quitters.

Of the dozen or so games I played the past few days, only one or two have been decided by a direct destruction of the nexus. Actually, that doesn't truly put the epidemic into perspective. Only one or two games wasn't decided by a surrender at 20. Actually, THAT doesn't truly put the epidemic into perspective, either. Before the 15 minute mark, someone up and decides, be it on my team or the enemy team, that the game's impossible, that the enemy is too fed, that they're too far ahead, that it's too difficult and impossible, etc. Actually, that still doesn't truly put the epidemic into perspective. The players came to this conclusion BEFORE FIRST BLOOD. You know what? That's still not accurate enough to the size of this epidemic. It's not just one person doing it most of the time. It's half of the team or more who end up whining about how difficult or impossible everything is and spending the entire game harumphing and grumping in the fountain or halfway into the lane.

It's gotten bad. Really bad. With the update that added the Black Market Brawlers, the problem has gotten WORSE. I've actually attempted to rally the ENEMY to continue fighting us, that's how bad it's gotten. What the hell is going on? What fueled this new surge of defeatism, or have I just encountered a particularly bad section of this tide of depression?

89 Comments

Arch Mage Magnus49 votes

Call me Nostradamus, but I can generally tell a win from a loss straight from the pick and bans. If that isn't enough, by 10 - 15 mins, I can certainly tell you what team is going to win. At 20 mins you know 100% what's going to happen, and I feel Riot also knows this; hence why the option is there.

It's not so much about gold advantage as it is about emotional advantage. Being ahead gold wise is always good, but having the morale of a winning team and not getting smack talked by your own team is such a deciding factor. Players start typing more than play, and end up running around doing nothing while typing.

Zyorhist26 votes

for a second I almost downvoted you because of where you were going with this. But when I got to the end I realized what you were getting at. No game is decided in picks and bans, nor is it decided before 20, unless it is attitude based. Any game can be won but attitude will dictate the losses

Klatn Yelox1 votes

Opvote for Skyrim reference.

GhostOfShrimpmas1 votes

I, too, appreciate when I stumble upon others who share my incredibly obscure taste in video games.

7ha7guy77711 votes

Could you have predicted the outcome of this game?

MagicalGirlRosel1 votes

HOW

7ha7guy7776 votes

We got early dragons because i "smited" it with my ult. We won almost every teamfight over dragon as well. We accidentally had 3 tps which made grabbing objectives/split pushing easier. We had a tryndamere with tp and the enemy team didn't notice the wards i placed in their base. The only Baron that matters is the last Baron.

GhostOfShrimpmas1 votes

What happened with that enemy Diana? You were all doing terrible, how did she not also get fed like the rest of her team?

7ha7guy7772 votes

Ekko did a decent job against her (top lane) and trynd ganked top most because it seemed like mid and bot were lost. If i had to guess, fizz and cait took all the kills from her or she didn't roam enough. I rarely saw her outside of dragon fights until lategame.

Troll for Trump1 votes

never give up when you have: Diana Tryndamere MasterYi Udyr that kinda stuff

Crossette1 votes

Yes. You have Ekko and dragons.

Especially Ekko. xD

Davy Crockett1 votes

This is how I feel when I watch LCS most of the time...

LordGeovanni1 votes

this is bs because in the times when everyone wasnt a quitter i have been on teams often that got their ass kicked out of them early game and came back wrecked the fed team and won i have highly agree that smack talking your team is usually cancer to your team. there is also the team that continuiously loses 5v5 s and want to fight some more. people play this game and most people dont realize the real objective of the game they dont realize there is more than one thing you can do to win they dont realize that the champion they like to play may not be an early game champion and the though your team is fighting the enemy 5v4 they have better early or late game champions so its not that smart to fight them head on in that point of the game. most people follow a simple formula farm early game, cry about who ever dies early, when the tower in my lane is destroyed go mid for the rest of the game and farm some how force fights when you alone and cry when no one is there and back off when they allies start a fight especially the front liners and tanks, ace the enemy team and recall with out touching the tower. all in all people play this team tower defense game like a free for all death match when kills reflect 15-30% of your skill and only benifets you and towers and manipulateing pushing is about 50% of your skill and benefiets your whole team but then that may cut into you secureing kills so we wouldnt want to do that. people come on a team game and believe their individual skill is worth much individual skill is important but it still cant be worth more than 20% on a 5 person team

Thryale25 votes

It's definitely frustrating.

But I will say, it's also frustrating if the score is something like 6-23 and your team won't surrender. Then after your 3rd attempt, you finally try putting in that futile effort, drag the game out to the 40+ min mark and still lose because of the same reason the enemy had such a huge advantage at the 20 min mark: no teamwork.

I don't like to surrender unless I've identified that a game is truly over. A game isn't 'over' if you are 1-5 a game isn't over if you are 10-20. A game is over when your team is no longer playing to win, and has begun fighting among themselves. A game is over when your team cannot/will not prioritize objectives and consistently throw away hard earned advantages. It's about identifying player behavior patterns, not what score is shown on the score board.

That being said, I do agree that players surrender far too often. Much more than is necessary. The hopelessness is genuinely frustrating, as it makes rallying your team to pull through so much more difficult. It also doesn't help that riot has been on a trend of nerfing the champs that can hard carry, and that league is currently in a meta where teamwork is much more important that in previous seasons; so getting fed and carrying is much more difficult and less reliable than before.

I think the core problem here is that there is a stark lack of trust players have for each other. People have spent so much time looking at what others do that all they see are their mistakes, and thus are prone to not trust anyone due to expecting these mistakes to be repeated. This lack of trust and cooperation is crippling in a game dependent on working with your team to achieve a collective goal.

Last thing I have noticed, is that the more you play the game, the less you look at yourself and the more you look at your allies. This feeds right into my previous point, but I can say, I enjoyed league much more 3-4 years ago when I was blissfully unaware of what my teammates were doing because I was so focused on what I was doing. But now that I'm comfortable with the champs I play, I no longer feel the need to put so much focus in learning the mechanics that I have more spare time to give glances at other happenings, and thus I look to my allies. The LCS isn't helping in this regard, as it gives false expectations for how the game "should" be played, and I naturally project those expectations on my allies, and thus become increasing frustrated as these expectations are consistently not met.

Rito Staff2 votes

{quoted}> People have spent so much time looking at what others do that all they see are their mistakes, and thus are prone to not trust anyone due to expecting these mistakes to be repeated. This lack of trust and cooperation is crippling in a game dependent on working with your team to achieve a collective goal.

Last thing I have noticed, is that the more you play the game, the less you look at yourself and the more you look at your allies. This feeds right into my previous point, but I can say, I enjoyed league much more 3-4 years ago when I was blissfully unaware of what my teammates were doing because I was so focused on what I was doing. But now that I'm comfortable with the champs I play, I no longer feel the need to put so much focus in learning the mechanics that I have more spare time to give glances at other happenings, and thus I look to my allies. The LCS isn't helping in this regard, as it gives false expectations for how the game "should" be played, and I naturally project those expectations on my allies, and thus become increasing frustrated as these expectations are consistently not met.

Ye... this doesn't happen because you're now better then you used to be, that you "know better" -- at all points always you should look at yourself. There are flamers before lvl 30 just so you know. -- it's a personality trait. Some people look to the outside to blame for their frustration. Other people, ME, don't really care. I don't feel mad at a feeder, as I know I've done that before, I know it happens -- It's just that some people when they're doing good they think they've changed and are different now, that they belong to a different flock, poor delusional sheep.

"Maybe this guys is better then the rest of us, maybe he should be judging others!" -- So I went to check your match history and.. ayyyy lmao I'd love to see them replays.

It has nothing to do with experience, it has to do with arrogance. The group of friends I play with NEVER ONCE flame, we're always either enjoying together, or try-harding together.

99% of the times I vote 'No' to surrender because 99% of the time I'm playing something I enjoy and I rly just want to play it out.

RUNAAANS HYDRAA1 votes

"The LCS isn't helping in this regard, as it gives false expectations for how the game "should" be played, and I naturally project those expectations on my allies, and thus become increasing frustrated as these expectations are consistently not met."

SOOOO true. Comparing ourselves and our teammates to people way beyond our skill level/experience level is a recipe for frustration. To use a single match as a microcosm, it'd be like a level 3 Ashe getting pissed off about not being able to use her ult, mashing her R-key in anger to no result, because in some other game somewhere, there's an Ashe that is level 18 and full-build snowballing hard. To compare yourself to a level that you haven't reached yet is INSANE.

Lugg15 votes

There are literally players out there that want to surrender if the enemy team gets first blood. It's insane how easily people give up.

Thryale5 votes

I want to say it's a result of the "everyone is a winner" mentality society is feeding everyone, but I have no hard evidence. :/

Solumindra2 votes

I think it's more of the pro scene existing. It helps the game, but not the community.

Migrañaboy2 votes

Agree with you, every kid that lives in the city has this winning mentality fed by television. It isn't strange that people only enjoys the game as long as they are dominating.

Monsta Moo2 votes

{quoted}

Agree with you, every kid that lives in the city has this winning mentality fed by television. It isn't strange that people only enjoys the game as long as they are dominating.

You took it out of context with the whole "city kid"

Migrañaboy1 votes

Well, people that were born form the city has usually the attitude of keep winning. I have given summer classes of robotics to kids, and recently experienced giving classes at towns. When teaching stuff to middle school kids they have recess time and that's were I make my observations.

It's pretty interesting how town folk play for fun, it's pretty strange to find salty attitudes. In cities it isn't pretty uncommon to find a-holes, rage, brawls, tantrums just because they are loosing or somebody isn't keeping with the rules.

Know that I kept it out of context, but we are educated that good guys and successful people keep winning.

Urgonnalearn2day1 votes

{quoted}

Agree with you, every kid that lives in the city has this winning mentality fed by television. It isn't strange that people only enjoys the game as long as they are dominating.

It's also funny that the person who is like "never surrender" is usually the guy who is 0/8 and thinks happy thoughts will win the match.

83sqojSQ6j1 votes

this.

Klatn Yelox11 votes

No, its not. The "Everyone's a winner" thing as I have seen it is a huge bust. What is at work here is the mentality that "You can't have fun if you lose".

People think that if you lose, that whole game was wasted. They think that if they spend 40+ minutes in a game, and they don't win, that is 40+ minutes of their life wasted. This is not the case. So they surrender, in the hopes that they can win next game. Thus, they never get better, and the mentality never changes.

83sqojSQ6j3 votes

Because it is wasted. There is no objective gain from losing. Subjectively you could say well heres where i messed up i could do this better. But objectively you gain nothing from a loss. So your point is a huge bust.

Duke Anax10 votes

objectively you gain nothing from a win either.

RUNAAANS HYDRAA4 votes

HAHAHAHA ya man, all you get are pixels on some account that represent numbers that really only hold SUBJECTIVE value, and don't mean much outside of the little game we play.

Troll for Trump1 votes

if that were true there wouldn't be "you are bronze.silver and you suck, rage, and are an idiot" or "im challenger kiss my ass"

Klatn Yelox1 votes

Honestly, you raise a good point. Almost (but not quite) as good as my own. But you have an error. You mixed up your terms. Objectively speaking, you gain experience and fun from losing, Subjectively nothing is gained.

83sqojSQ6j1 votes

No im pretty sure i had my terms right. Subjectively you are able to rationalize reasons why your loss isn't a total loss. But objectively meaning something you actually gain in the game. When you lose you dont get any LP for losing instead you lose waaay more than what you gain from winning. You don't get any xp since presumably your already lvl 30 and your ip gain is nothing to be proud of. So no i had my terms right. Subjectively you can come up with reasons why its not so bad. But objectively, its bad. Thats why people look at their stats because objectively they want to know where they really stand.

RUNAAANS HYDRAA1 votes

Objective: Based on measurable numbers/quantifiable results Subjective: Subject to personal opinion

RUNAAANS HYDRAA2 votes

The "You cant have fun if you lose" mentality is something I've noticed in myself, and have come to loathe and thus I am working very hard to eradicate in myself. It takes real work to replace limiting beliefs though.
We need NEW sayings like: "The perfect is the enemy of the good" and "Anything worth doing is worth doing less than perfect" and "Play to learn/improve, while attempting to win"

Sassmast3r3 votes

This is just a theory of mine, but I think what causes people to develop this... habit, comes from either: Constant verbal slaughter from those on your own team, making you feel insignificant and trashy and feeling that, if you give up first blood, oh woe is me the game is lost fuck this afk gg, ORRRRR, it simply just comes from being on a losing streak in general and having this attitude. I don't know about you all, but I'm friends with a few friends who I Skype with a lot, and I kid you not when I say that after four-five sequential losses, all the games that I play with them after that they just don't perform... well. They aren't in the mood. They still want to play, but they develop this expectation that "Oh shocker he's killed me of course I'm doing terrible I'm trash - Oh shocker they have more farm than me, I suck crap what else is new?" I've had this a few times myself, but that's when I, instead of starting a new game with real people, invite all of my friends into a custom match and we just build off meta against a bunch of bots and brighten our moods with an inevitable victory :3. I actually feel as if this... habit is something that a lot of players feel currently, due to the sheer number of trolls/afkers/feeders. People just start losing all faith in this game feeling redeeming to play and put actual effort into winning when the teammates you're paired with don't.

Crossette1 votes

Might be the bronze in me speaking, but I never surrender and my friends hate me for it. We win 80% of the games where I stop the surrender though =D

Erockandroll9 votes

For me, it's about having fun. I usually only vote so surrender if the game stops being fun.

But unlike me, too many people play to win, so they stop trying at the first moment they think they will not win. "We can't win this game, so lets surrender and prepare for the next." And for some people, this starts at champion select. People complain if the team has no tank, or no damage, or doesn't have any late game. Or if the enemy gets a particular champion. Or is someone didn't take the right summoner spells. Though I feel like the only real legitimate reason to feel like you can't win is due to a Disconnect. But even then, it's not impossible, at least if the reconnect within like, 5 minutes.

Thryale4 votes

yeah. I remember I got stuck playing bot lane once. (couldn't remember if I was the adc or supp, but regardless, bot lane is not my mojo) and I kid you not, we went up against an AD Cassiopeia. I thought to myself that this would be an easy win. 40 min later we lose cuz my team is too busy fighting each to bother fighting the enemy.

Solumindra2 votes

AD Cass, or AP Cass bot lane.

I run AP Cass bot lane, her current kit works better with a support, she spikes faster than most ADCs and her late game doesn't drop off. I think she works well there.

But if it was actual AD Cass........I.....Im so sorry you lost to that.

Thryale2 votes

it was AD. She had a BF sword on her first trip back. (jungler screwed up a gank I think, that or me and my lane partner derped. but either way, she got 2 kills or so early on)

She went full ad with infinity edge and phantom dancer. I think she got either a manamune or an essence reaver too. It was a sad day. She only died like 3 times or so. Had more assists than kills tho, but they were destroying us, so it was a moot point.

But yeah, that's what I thought when I saw her show up bot too. Thought it'd be ap cass, and I thought it was clever cuz I knew how adc like she was and how a good supp would do wonders for her. Then I saw the D.blade :/

Zyorhist6 votes

this match right here

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1904676976/40293208

I was slowly picking up steam...meanwhile everyone on the team ranting and raving about teemo getting fed on their top lane. Our jungler dc and they trying to surrender over and over and over. I said no because I was pretty fed and no one stopped long enough to notice. My support is the only reason we didn't end in a surrender then when our jungler came back and I proceeded to carry the game the other two were like..."gg ez"

Long story short, don't surrender without evaluating the whole situation, a fed graves beats a fed teemo. no need to surrender.

also I was a little angry about carrying the team and the two with the worst attitude all game were the ones talking smack.

ujf2qEqxi96 votes

When your bot lane is 1/15, or loses their turret at 8-9 minutes... it's a 3v5.

When your mid lane dies 3 times in the first six minutes of the game to a Talon, the game is pretty much over.

When your top lane feeds the Riven, sorry, game over.

When the enemy team has taken your mid inhibitor and you have yet to take a turret, the game is over.

The game is not fun anymore when the feeder on the team says, "it's ok guys, we got the late game," or, "we still got this."

There once was a time when people focused on laning mechanics instead of pvp at levels 1-6. All those tutorials people follow forget one thing: this is a game about objectives, which happens to involve pvp. It is not a game about how many kills you can get. You can win a game without a single kill, but you cannot win without taking objectives.

Shield Villain4 votes

To be fair, it's far more annoying when you're at a heady disadvantage, playing an impossible game, and your team refuses to surrender. That's 40-50 minutes of my life I won't get back. Meanwhile if you surrender you can just go right back into another game.

People are far less willing to surrender than they are to actually surrendering. I just finished a game today where my Azir Mid and Jarvan top fed the fuck out of their enemies, and then wouldn't shut up about how bad I was at jungling. This happening before 20 minutes. Additionally they kept pinging me for assists against their fed laners as if I could just rush in and remedy the situation. This clearly wasn't the case.

I wanted to surrender right away, but did they want to? No..they thought they could carry still. So I was stuck with them for about 35 minutes before the game finally ended.

It's way more frustrating to know you're wasting your time, than to believe you could have possibly won and just didn't because of a surrender. There's just no way you're winning some games.

Xonra3 votes

Everytime I see this topic I have to agree and disagree with it out of my own experiences.

I hate hate hate hate people that want to quit because you are losing 4-2, or someone has died a few times in lane. Not that big of a deal, realistically.

What I hate equally is when you ARE losing ridiculously about 35-45 minutes into a game and people refuse to surrender the same as the people that want to quit at 7 minutes. I don't want to hear the "I've won a 3v5 this one time" or any of that, because you know what I mean.

Down nearly triple the amount of turrets, 4-0 dragons, enemy team has baron, you have 1 inhib turret left with 2 inhibs down, and still those 2 guys "we can still win" who are both like 1-7-2 with 110 farm at 45 minutes and you just want to face desk.

Hellmet3 votes

I know it's frustrating when people quit early in the game but honestly I would prefer to be able to quit at the 10 minute mark. I'd also like a 5 minute vote where if 9 players out of 10 said surrender the game would end with no winner. The game is supposed to be about fun, and quite simply it's no fun when you get some tool bag troll picking at the beginning, or somebody goes afk and doesn't return by the 5 minute mark. Or worst when 3 players on your team never join the game. These situations are f'ing terrible, you are basically locked in and you just lost 20 minutes of your life and there is no way out. What's really sucks is when it happens 2 or 3 games in a row to you.

Players should be able to get out of games that aren't setup for the player to have fun.. playing 5v4 or 5v3 is a perfect example. Something should be added for these situations.

Biff Manly3 votes

If Riot could add a gamemode that DIDN'T take half an hour plus to play, I feel like all the people who surrender for time purposes could all enjoy themselves over there, rather than flailing around for an extra 15 minutes, fighting a losing battle with their idiot hyper-optimistic duo-queue bot lane that refuses to surrender.

A Really Big Dog2 votes

I personally only want to surrender under a few circumstances: A: The game is undeniably lost (something in the ballpark of 40 minutes in), or the enemy team is incredibly toxic and I feel like swiping the win out from under them as a minor act of spite. I am well aware that this is incredibly rude, but sometimes you just get that feeling that "these people don't deserve a win treating everyone like this, screw it FF" B: Our team is incredibly toxic and I want nothing more than to be away from them and doing something else. League is a commitment, and being committed to awful people sucks. I don't want to just go and feed either, because then that makes me no better than the people I have to play with. C: Half the damn team already quit. D: I am playing with a group of friends (we make up the entire team) and we aren't feeling it. Some days you just aren't on your game and its time to pack it in.

I do notice people wanting to surrender over the smallest things, though. I joked a couple times that the ADC would quit if I accidentally took a kill as the support, and its happened where the ADC immediately calls for a surrender, it fails, and then he/she afks in base shit-talking everybody down. Other times, we see that an enemy laner just up and quit because they didn't like their matchup, or something happened early game to stunt them, like a gank or getting caught out in the jungle somewhere. Quitting on your team just makes everybody else worse, and while sometimes it can be a benefit, usually it just drags down the morale.

The mentality that you can't have fun in League if you're losing is kinda dumb, but I feel like a lot of players who worked up to level 30 playing against bots are trained into it, and refuse to play a losing game.

On top of the awful minority of players in the game, who just treat everybody like garbage, its easy to get pretty down while you play league and just want to quit.

Competitive scene doesn't help either, but I don't think I need to go into that.. hasn't it always been a negative impact on regular matches?

tl;dr surrender epidemic is a sad thing and it doesn't look like its going anywhere anytime soon with the community the way it is

ChenMingYang11 votes

I have been noticing a lot lately as well. I don't know if it's because I am in bronze though...I have seen so much negative attitude and toxicity in bronze so far and it's pretty sad. I just don't get people who give up and even rage quit if people don't agree to a surrender. It's people like them that need to be severely punished by ranked restrictions or even permabanned. The problem possibly also comes from the fact that people are starting to become more selfish and don't care about what others think/feel. This is why when they rage quit or spam the surrender button, they don't seem to care about the team mates who actually want to win the game.

Zyorhist5 votes

rage quitting is absolutely stupid. I don't care if you're getting stomped and only two people want to continue the match. When you started the queue you made a dedication to give it your all and win or lose you should expect to stick it through. I once won an 2v5 (SR) solely because three people rage quit at 15 mins. Stuck it out and got a lucky ace because they came in one after the other and boom pushed everything down. It happens people make mistakes and you can sometimes come out of a horrible game with a victory because someone on the team made an error or got cocky.

LordGeovanni1 votes

its been like this from November last year no body wants to work for a win its supposed to fall in their lap and if it doesnt seem like its going that way then they want to hurry see if the next one will fall in their lap game has laneing phase early game mid game and late game. if they dont seem like they are going to win from early game or if it seems the enemy is ahead early they give up and want to get to next game. i even have had games where we were winning and snow balling in 2/3 lanes or 3/4 and the my team that was winning gave up with no loss of towers or 1 max.

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