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Don't Surrender In Solo Queue!

Best Ekko NA·9/14/2015, 4:03:50 PM·4 votes·612 views

Nothing good comes out of having the ability to surrender in Ranked game play and right now I'm about to explain to everyone WHY this is.

1.) To start off, let's look at the overall picture of what ranked solo queue game play is in League of Legends.

Five players from across the world are matched randomly into a team, none of these players know each other. All of them could have different view points, culture, language, along with many other factors. They are all grouped into ONE single team FORCED to work with, or refuse to work with, one another. We can safely assume that the only constant in solo queue is that all the players want to win. Ranked solo queue is about winning a game with 4 complete strangers.

2.)** Now we understand the goal... so let's look at why surrendering is considered useful and how it relates, if at all, to our goal of winning in ranked solo queue play.**

There's several reasons why players consider surrendering when playing:

  • One or more members of the team have went AFK. [Save Time]
  • The game seems as if it is unwinnable. [Save Time]
  • Members on the team are having conflict and are disagreeable to one another. [Save Time]
  • Skipping the wait time when one team is aced and / or cannot prevent the enemy team from ending the game. [Save Time]

3.) Does the Surrender Option assist in achieving our goal?

As can be seen from my remark, every reason for surrendering is based on the idea of saving time. However 3 out of the 4 reasons for surrendering are based purely on one players perspective and all 3 are based around NEGATIVE perspective. Take a moment to consider the thoughts leading up to a player thinking about surrendering.

  • "We have an AFK, we should surrender."

-This view expresses blatant disregard and possibly even disrespect towards the fellow teammates on the said players team. The player(s) seeking to surrendering know absolutely nothing about their teammates ability to carry and are giving up mentally. They are also dismissing the fact that the player could return AND that later the enemy team might also suffer having an AFK player later in the match as well. No one can predict the future.

  • This Game Is Unwinnable

-This view is very similar and could even be the same as having an AFK player on said team.

  • Conflict Within The Team

-When players are heated towards one another they lose the ability to properly judge and analyze situations. Even if every player on the team hates each other and thinks they should surrender why should they be allowed to? The goal of solo queue is to win. Worse yet, if 4 players are arguing there could even be 1 player who is still trying to win the game.. Is it right to allow 4 players to end another player's game just because they can't get along?

After analyzing each situation we can see that none of them help players in solo queue and most of the reasons players frequently surrender actually PREVENT players from achieving their mutual goal when they had originally queued. More often than not, even a mutual surrender does not save players time as they dismiss that there's a chance that they could have won the game had they not surrendered.

4.) You Never Succeed When You Surrender

The next time you are thinking about surrender take a moment to reconsider why you are trying to get your team to surrender. Think carefully and remember that your goal in queuing was to WIN. Surrendering might not even save you time, and surrendering will NEVER help you achieve Victory.

4 Comments

disregardable9/14/2015, 4:22:37 PM4 votes

If winning was the only goal of playing League of Legends, everyone would always play bots.

When you play a pvp game of League of Legends, there are multiple "goals", or reasons to play. You want to have fun, to improve at the game, to feel challenged, to interact with the enemy team, and to impact the result of the game via strategy and your actions.

You'll never have all of those things in every game, but a healthy mixture. When it's impossible to reach most/all of those goals though (usually from either team having a significant/insurmountable advantage), you have no reason to continue playing *other than obligation to your team. If most of your team has no problem with quitting, though, then there is no reason to continue playing.

*edit

Maximum Morde9/15/2015, 3:43:53 PM2 votes

Mathematically, you will climb faster if you write off games that are most likely a loss and get in more games overall. I can drag out games that I may or may not win or I can play more games that are favorable and drop the ones we are getting trounced in, playing more games overall in the same time period. Time is the limiting factor.

The purpose of ranked is to climb the ladder. Math suggests that surrendering is often the most effective way to climb because time is your limiting resource on how many matches you can play.