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Surrendering in Ranked

ShadowNinetails·8/26/2014, 10:48:20 AM·1 votes·1,182 views

At what point do you consider a game "unwinnable"? Is it when the enemy team gets an ace then a free Baron? Is it when the enemy team has a 20 kill lead? Or is it when the "noob jungler" started red instead of blue? Too often I find teams intimidated by being even slightly behind or worse, being ahead in total gold due to objective control but perceiving being behind because the other team has more kills. We've all had that game where someone gave up First Blood and someone else started flipping shit and went afk because they "couldn't carry that scrub". We've all had that game where someone had legit problems with their internet connection and someone else started flipping shit like it's never happened to them. We've all had that game where it was 4v5 and everyone wanted to surrender because "there's no chance of winning 4v5".

When I was younger, I had a really nasty habit of quitting and restarting games for any number of reasons. One of the worst cases for me was Diddy Kong. For those of you not smiling from nostalgia, it was an awesome racing game on the N64 that featured Mario Kart-like powerups in set places around the track. While there weren't as many different powerups, if you collected multiples of the same powerup, it gave you a better version of that powerup (ex. dumb-fire missile turns into a homing missile). The only problem was the controls were a little loose sometimes for 7 year-old-me so I would run into walls frequently. Whenever I did, if someone passed me up I'd hit Start+Down+A in less than a second to restart the race from the beginning, even if it was the last lap and I still had a good chance of winning. I was constantly willing to erase 5 or so minutes of good effort to make sure my victory was absolute. When I got older and started playing Guitar Hero, I had a similar problem when trying to beat previous high scores. Any time I'd miss a Star Phrase, I'd automatically Start+Down+Green+Up+Green to start the song over because "I had no chance of beating my old score without all the Star Power I could get". Eventually my roommate asked me "Why don't you just play the song out and see if you can do better? Then if you actually do fail, you'll have a better sense of why and you know what you need to work on and if you don't, you don't lose out on a win you didn't think you'd get." I took him up on his advice and, sure enough, saw a good increase in my scores. I think a lot of people in this community need similar advice. I was able to restart games back then because 1. there was no penalty because there was no W/L ratio and 2. there was no team that would have their time and effort erased based on my decision.

While there are certainly some games where you have an extremely low comeback potential, you lose 100% of games you give up on. While that's not as big of a deal in Normals (though that still annoys me sometimes), I feel surrendering runs counter to the competitive nature Ranked games are supposed to have. Personally, I never agree to surrender in Ranked unless all 4 of my teammates are dancing in the fountain stacking Boots of Mobility and dropping wards all over the base in between throwing racial slurs at everyone that hasn't muted them and if it's that bad, my vote wouldn't even matter because the 4 of them will vote yes anyway. My problem, though, comes when all 4 of my teammates agree to surrender a game that is perfectly winnable if we just do one thing better be it defensive warding, focusing the right target in teamfights, objective control, rotations, etc. and I've lost several games (some even in promotion series) that I feel could've been won if my teammates could be bothered to actually try. Do I want the surrender option removed from Ranked modes? Not entirely, but I would like there to either be more restrictions on when you're able to do it (ex. 20 minutes after someone d/c's and doesn't return) or for there to be some incentive for fighting until the end.

7 Comments

Eapenator8/26/2014, 1:50:39 PM3 votes

Surrendering Should only be used in ranked IF and only IF your have and afk, leaver, intentional feeder/etc. Even if the guy is not talking, or trashing your team, if he is joining fights or split pushing, or trying to get kills, HE IS DOING SOMETHING, and that is what matters.

Every game can be winnable. If there was anything I learned in ranked, is that the amount of throws the enemy team will make is too numerous to count. It it is still a 5 v 5, you can always still take advantage of that. If it is a 4 v 5, and you lack the resources to win, then yes, you can surrender, and even then 4 v 5's are completely winnable.

I too, hate it when my team surrenders in ranked, only because 9/10 you had a chance to win, and thats all that matters.

Lumus Avatar8/26/2014, 10:12:49 PM2 votes

Surrendering is the fastest way to waste time and I'm tired of the explanation "Then we can get out of this game and into the next one faster." That is net zero. I agree with you: you will learn a lot more from playing it out, even if you lose. And by not surrendering, you are giving yourself that chance to turn it around, catch them making a vital mistake. I learn champs better by playing them more, even if I'm doing poorly, I'm figuring out why I am doing poorly and experimenting to see what works better.

I spent two days doing almost nothing but AI games to learn Ahri. When I first started, my ratios were horrible (I had the advantage of being unable to lose against intermediate AI). I needed to learn how she moved, where her hit box was, where the hitbox on her abilities was, get a muscle memory for the range on her abilities, learn to control the return patch of Orb of Deception to my advantage, learn the dash range on her ult so I wouldn't launch myself under an enemy turret. The list of what I needed to learn goes on, and if my team had surrendered just because I was giving up so many kills to the enemies, then I never would have racked the play time to learn these things and fix my mistakes.

I never surrender in any game, no matter how lost the game is. Not AI, Not normal or ARAM. I don't play ranked, but I wouldn't surrender there either. You do crazy things when you're in a losing fight, maneuvers you might not have tried while you were dominating. Sometimes, those crazy last-ditch ideas work. You'll never learn them if you Surrender before they become necessary.

MrSc0tty8/26/2014, 11:41:32 AM1 votes

All I know is that leavers are frustrating for everyone and AFKs, crippling lag or other factors are, to me, the big things that just make me want to quit and start another game.

Any time someone is absolutely trolling as well (my last game, the enemy Blitzcrank was forced into support, and gave up first blood to me and my ADC when we did a standard lvl 2 vs lvl 1 all in, and he started intentionally feeding) I think there should be a way to extend loss forgiven to the enemy team.

I think in the case of a confirmed AFK, or in the case that everyone on both teams reports someone for intentional feeding/assisting enemy team the losing side should get loss forgiven.

Will people try to abuse it by duoing and having someone on a smurf AFK? Maybe but that's the easiest to catch boosting scheme I've ever heard of. Will people abuse those who are doing badly to try to get them to AFK? Maybe but how different is that from how they abuse them now, mute, report and move on.

Worgslarg8/26/2014, 12:11:28 PM1 votes

I would surrender, if we are so far behind the other teams most fed carry could dc and we couldn't win the 5v4

kiloechoesp8/26/2014, 5:36:21 PM1 votes

I disagree with changing the current ranked system, EXCEPT for one minor change.

When there's 5 players, and 1 abstains, 3 votes YES, 1 votes NO, 3-1 should be a surrender. This is especially annoying if that abstain person afks and forgets to log out or whatever. I mean, 3-1 is technically a 75% majority. This actually happened in a recent match.

Other than that, the surrender option is totally fine. If you want to surrender, you have to convince your team to do so. This is where communication is important. Usually people won't unanimously(5-0) surrender unless it's completely obvious we have no chance. Be polite about surrendering, and give a good reason. People will listen to that more. It's a part of the game

67chrome8/26/2014, 9:41:12 PM1 votes

Do I want the surrender option removed from Ranked modes? Not entirely, but I would like there to either be more restrictions on when you're able to do it (ex. 20 minutes after someone d/c's and doesn't return) or for there to be some incentive for fighting until the end.

The surrender vote is already pretty restrictive, waiting 20 minutes for it to be available and needing a 75% majority are already pretty steep requirements.

Also, giving up and being a looser as opposed to persevering and being a winner aren't really changed by a surrender vote being there or not. If someone's dead set on loosing a game, they'll probably loose it.

And it's not like surrendering doesn't have a few minor advantages - some games do unravel to the point they're truly hopeless, might as well avoid the psychological irritations that come with some of those.

As for DC's - depending on when someone disconnected has a pretty big impact on how that effects the game. the sooner they leave is actually better - they destroy the least amount of resources there. The later they leave, the higher respawned jungle mob health becomes, the greater level of creep score they wasted, the larger the lost experience is, the more potential assist/kill bounty goes to waste, the more kill/assist bounty is available to your opponents. A set 20 minutes after a leave is pretty awful, as a leave at 20 minutes is substantially harder to work around than a leave at 0 minutes. I mean, the 3v5's I've won have been from people never connecting or lagging out hardcore all game, not from someone leaving 30 minutes in. If they never connect I'm preeeeeety sure that actually influences tower health to.