Due to issues with the surrender vote system, ending games early has always been a pain. But, it may soon be easy to exit a League of Legends game that appears unwinnable from the beginning.
League’s upcoming Surrender vote in Patch 13.2
Riot “Chris Roberts” Auberaun, producer on League’s Game Loop team, said that modifications to the early surrender feature will be tested in Patch 13.2. Beginning with this patch, early surrenders in blind pick and normals will only require four yes votes instead of five unanimities, however, because the change is still under testing, it may only last for this patch.
Previously, early surrenders—which could generally only be initiated after 15 minutes of play—required all 5 members of a team to vote yes, thus finishing the game and resulting in a defeat for the team that voted. If not all of those players on the same side voted yes, they would most likely have to wait until the 20-minute mark, when only four votes yes would be necessary.
A remake vote, which may be begun if a player AFKs for a lengthy amount of time, usually just as the game begins, is the only other option for a game to conclude before 20 minutes.
Riot Auberaun stated that the deployment of this adjustment is based on internal statistics demonstrating that teams that fail to pass an early surrender vote frequently do not have the capacity to return to the game.
For now, Riot will only implement this change to normal draft and blind picks. It is unknown if these improvements will eventually be included in the game’s ranked queues, but Riot will slowly collect data and feedback in that meantime.
These modifications to the League’s early surrender system will be tested in conjunction with the release of Patch 13.2 on January 24.