DOTA2

[Lakov_Sanite]

Its a team game, and you make a commitment to nine other people each time you queue up.

This is the bit that resonates for me.

Bullshit? At most you make a commitment to the other 4 people on your own team. Surrendering is not shutting the game off and telling both teams to fuck off. Surrendering is, as typical in lol, something your team needs to vote on. It's not depriving the opposing team of a victory, it is conceding defeat and very much acknowledging their gameplay.

What surrendering DOES do is not wate peoples fucking time, which is more important than any game.

It's no fun fighting a losing battle and you can go on about the learning experience and other completely batshit ideas on why its smart to stay in a game but what about the other side?

I've been in plenty of winning games where it just stopped being fun because the enemy team wouldn't quit. It wasn't a contest, it wasn't even close but they just wanted to be dicks and fight for every inch.  It's a game, it's not a goddamned land battle and people need to invest their time doing better things when a victor is inevitable.

[Thrawn]

Come from behind victories are the best wins and are much more possible in DotA than they are in LoL.

Surrender is not a team vote because once it's in you will just get people who go "Surrender, I'm just going to afk if you vote no."  Saw it all the time in League, rarely ever see people actually abandon or afk in DotA.

[Hoax]

LoL's incredibly bad itemization/item design hurts a lot but I'm still going to say that I prefer not having surrender to having it after 200 games of dota2 and probably close to 1k games of LoL.

[HaemishM]

Uhh, I don't see how that disproves Eld's point?

Because instead of being able to play a game I was actually going to enjoy, I had to sit in a game whose ending was a foregone fucking conclusion.

[Malakili]

Its a team game, and you make a commitment to nine other people each time you queue up.

This is the bit that resonates for me.

This works fine when you are playing ranked games/competitive games, etc.  But to just sit down and play a random game at lunch, I'm really not going to make a commitment to 9 other people.  Then again, this, combined with the shit community, is why I don't play LoL anymore.   The gameplay of the genre is really good, but it never really has fit my schedule very well.  Whereas with Starcraft I need not worry about screwing anyone over if I leave, generally games last 10-15 minutes, and so forth.  *Shrugs* I don't even really have a point anymore, I just wish there was a way to play this genre that was more suitable to me.   My mix of hardcore mentality/casual schedule really precludes team games I guess.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I think we've already had this discussion, but this game REALLY needs a surrender function.  

Not really, no.

Yes really, yes. Yes yes yes. YES.


(QED)

Edit: Okay, honestly this one totally baffles me. Like I literally cannot imagine a single remotely reasonable argument for not allowing one team to surrender to the other if they believe the game is no longer winnable. Even if they are wrong, I still don't understand why it would be a problem for anybody involved. Nobody wants to play a game with a bunch of people who would rather be afk, or even better playing a second game that they had some chance of winning. I just cannot think of a single civilized game that operates on the same principles as DOTA that does not allow one side to concede defeat once the other side has gained an insurmountable advantage. Not one.

I really am not the sort of person who likes to throw around generalizations, but I think I'm willing to go to bat for the claim that literally all competitive and non-competitive games that do, have, or will exist either already contain such a rule or would benefit from such a rule. Like, this is Geneva convention level shit, here, people -- even in war, you should get to surrender.

[Megrim]

But there is nothing preventing you from quitting. There is a button right there in the play menu. Its called "Leave Game" or something.

[Lakov_Sanite]

But there is nothing preventing you from quitting. There is a button right there in the play menu. Its called "Leave Game" or something.

The fact you can have your account banned from doing so seems like a deterrent.

[Thrawn]

But there is nothing preventing you from quitting. There is a button right there in the play menu. Its called "Leave Game" or something.

The fact you can have your account banned from doing so seems like a deterrent.

You don't get banned (I think?), you just end up playing with other people who agree that it's fine to just leave as soon as you are unhappy with the game state.  Seems like a win-win for everyone!

[Ice Cream Emperor]

But there is nothing preventing you from quitting. There is a button right there in the play menu. Its called "Leave Game" or something.

And then nobody gets credit for the game, even if they outplayed you? Even if they deserve a proper win? Why not include tools to allow teams to make the decision, and have it enforced/carried out by the game. Among other things this would help create community consensus about what to do when you are losing. Are you really saying that one dude quitting the game is usefully equivalent to one team conceding? The former is shitty, unilateral behaviour that potentially ruins the game, the latter is just what civilized, friendly people do when a competitive game is already decided and they don't feel like playing it out.

[Malakili]

But there is nothing preventing you from quitting. There is a button right there in the play menu. Its called "Leave Game" or something.

Not wanting to be the guy that screws everyone over for quitting or going AFK while everyone else is still playing prevents me from quitting, even if it pisses me off at the same time.

[Hayduke]

I thought the lack of concede was because this was a beta and not everything had been implemented yet.

Are you people saying that there's no concede because that's a design decision?  And there's players who support that design decision?

Are you fucking mad?

[Thrawn]

Are you people saying that there's no concede because that's a design decision?  And there's players who support that design decision?

Are you fucking mad?

Yes, Yes, No

[Lakov_Sanite]

DOTA always had a hardcore following but I'm thinking valve is going to realize that it might be too narrow a playerbase and add stuff.

[Megrim]

But there is nothing preventing you from quitting. There is a button right there in the play menu. Its called "Leave Game" or something.

And then nobody gets credit for the game, even if they outplayed you? Even if they deserve a proper win? Why not include tools to allow teams to make the decision, and have it enforced/carried out by the game. Among other things this would help create community consensus about what to do when you are losing. Are you really saying that one dude quitting the game is usefully equivalent to one team conceding? The former is shitty, unilateral behaviour that potentially ruins the game, the latter is just what civilized, friendly people do when a competitive game is already decided and they don't feel like playing it out.

If a player leaves the game, and the rest of his team follows, their Ancient will self-destruct after a brief delay, and the other team gets the win accordingly.

But there is nothing preventing you from quitting. There is a button right there in the play menu. Its called "Leave Game" or something.

Not wanting to be the guy that screws everyone over for quitting or going AFK while everyone else is still playing prevents me from quitting, even if it pisses me off at the same time.

So, the answer then therefore, is not that the option to surrender is a necessary function of gameplay, but a means for you to get out when you feel like it.

Ask yourself this question, both of you (sorry ICE, I know I'm not answering you fully, but I need to head off to work): lets say you are in a game and things are going badly. Someone starts a surrender vote, and you hit Yes. You are downvoted 3 to 2. Are you, then, going to do a mental 180, tell yourself that "ok, most of my team still believes this game to be worthwhile" and do your best to turn the game around? No you aren't, are you. The game is "already lost" and is a "waste of your time", and thus, fuck everyone else.

Now you guys personally are not like that, but I don't think you will disagree that 99.99%-repeating-to-infinity of pretty much any player base will act accordingly.

[Malakili]

Does it solve the problem 100%, no.  But surrender has absolutely saved me a bunch of headaches in LoL, this isn't some totally hypothetical situation. 

[Ingmar]

Well, it's a team game, right? Don't be the guy who doesn't run out that grounder to first. Like, in Haemish's story, the guy who didn't want to give up is the bad guy. I dunno, I don't see him that way, and I see that as a big problem.

I absolutely understand the value of the concession option in a 1 on 1 game; in a team game, though, the community has to not shit on the guy who stops people from getting their way because he wants to play it out. I can't see that happening in a MOBA, so I can definitely see the argument about taking the concession option away entirely.

[Thrawn]

Does it solve the problem 100%, no.  But surrender has absolutely saved me a bunch of headaches in LoL, this isn't some totally hypothetical situation. 

But in LoL you are much less likely to ever come back from being down because of many of the crappy design choices of the game.  In DotA you see huge come-from-behind wins all the time.

This discussion could go back and forth for 100 pages and no one on either side is going to shift their view on it.

[Malakili]

Does it solve the problem 100%, no.  But surrender has absolutely saved me a bunch of headaches in LoL, this isn't some totally hypothetical situation. 

But in LoL you are much less likely to ever come back from being down because of many of the crappy design choices of the game.  In DotA you see huge come-from-behind wins all the time.

This is definitely a fair point.  But fine, lets shift the discussion a bit.   If DOTA 2 a game, where if you sit down, you are saying "I'm going to spend the next hour doing this regardless of anything that happens"  because that is a tough pill to swallow for me.

[Ingmar]

Does it solve the problem 100%, no.  But surrender has absolutely saved me a bunch of headaches in LoL, this isn't some totally hypothetical situation. 

But in LoL you are much less likely to ever come back from being down because of many of the crappy design choices of the game.  In DotA you see huge come-from-behind wins all the time.

This is definitely a fair point.  But fine, lets shift the discussion a bit.   If DOTA 2 a game, where if you sit down, you are saying "I'm going to spend the next hour doing this regardless of anything that happens"  because that is a tough pill to swallow for me.

Why would you sit down to play it in the first place if you don't have that hour?

[Malakili]

Why would you sit down to play it in the first place if you don't have that hour?

It isn't about having an hour, it is about having to sit through an hour game that everyone agrees is over instead of being able to start up a new game.

[HaemishM]

Does it solve the problem 100%, no.  But surrender has absolutely saved me a bunch of headaches in LoL, this isn't some totally hypothetical situation. 

This. My God, some of the games I've had to endure where we couldn't get 4 people to vote for a surrender were just goddamn PAINFUL. As in "I literally want to reach through the Internet and yank this guy's brain stem out using his testicles as a handle" rage. The griefing and trolling in those games alone by people who START the game feeding on purpose just amps up, especially when you have at best time for 1 fucking game the entire night. I'd rather just not have to play through games like that. I had one game in LOL where the Mundo was an obvious troll - he started the game running straight down the middle lane before minions had even spawned to be killed by the turrets. And then he did shit like that ALL GAME. At least in LoL, I hopefully only have to endure 20 minutes of that shit.

[Fordel]

Why would you sit down to play it in the first place if you don't have that hour?

It isn't about having an hour, it is about having to sit through an hour game that everyone agrees is over instead of being able to start up a new game.

If it was actually over, you would lose in 5 mins, not 30+ .

[Megrim]

Why would you sit down to play it in the first place if you don't have that hour?

It isn't about having an hour, it is about having to sit through an hour game that everyone agrees is over instead of being able to start up a new game.

Well, you did kind-of start this discussion by complaining that you couldn't get a game into your lunch-hour. Soo...

If the game went on for an hour when you though that it was over in 15 minutes, then either the other team were jerks, in which case you have a report function - use it, or the game was a lot closer then you supposed.

Does it solve the problem 100%, no.  But surrender has absolutely saved me a bunch of headaches in LoL, this isn't some totally hypothetical situation.  

This. My God, some of the games I've had to endure where we couldn't get 4 people to vote for a surrender were just goddamn PAINFUL. As in "I literally want to reach through the Internet and yank this guy's brain stem out using his testicles as a handle" rage. The griefing and trolling in those games alone by people who START the game feeding on purpose just amps up, especially when you have at best time for 1 fucking game the entire night. I'd rather just not have to play through games like that. I had one game in LOL where the Mundo was an obvious troll - he started the game running straight down the middle lane before minions had even spawned to be killed by the turrets. And then he did shit like that ALL GAME. At least in LoL, I hopefully only have to endure 20 minutes of that shit.

You're right, but anecdotally the reverse is also true. The amount of times I've seen the Surrender function in League being abused more than balances this out. If we are talking in anecdotes. That same guy you mentioned is probably relying on the fact that "oh I'm just going to fuck around for 20 mins because my time is going to surrender anyway".

The point of the current system in DotA2 is to eventually filter those kinds of people out through a combination of the Report function and the low-priority pool, and increase the overall health of the player base. Now this is not a quick-fix process that everyone loves, and it doesn't let you keep hitting the reset button until its your turn to "win", but in the long run, I think, it will result in a much healthier community.

[HaemishM]

No it won't. DOTA games by definition draw out the most insanely disgusting group of degenerate fucktards to grace the planet.

[Megrim]

Thanks baby, love you too 

[Typhon]

These games (MOBA) are designed to snowball.  It's pretty easy for the game to know how much gold/levels advantage one side has over the other.  If you, statistically, reach a "less than 10% of games won after this amount of deficit", the surrender button should light up.

Also not a perfect solution.  Much better then having to listen to a team mate try to talk the team into quitting after going down by 2 deaths.  Much better then suffering through a drawn-out beating from sociopaths who are enjoying pulling the wings off of flies.

[HaemishM]

Thanks baby, love you too 

To be fair, the little I've played DOTA 2, I've had less trouble from fucktards than LoL. Of course, that's likely because I didn't have clue one what I was doing most of the time and was in lower level games.

[eldaec]

If you really want to surrender in DOTA2 you just need one of the team who hasn't been first disconnect for a while to take the hit, and then the rest of you can quit for free.

AFAIK you need multiple first disconnects in a period of time to get tagged as low priority (which just means you get paired with other people who have a record of surrendering when behind).

[Malakili]

Thanks baby, love you too  

To be fair, the little I've played DOTA 2, I've had less trouble from fucktards than LoL. Of course, that's likely because I didn't have clue one what I was doing most of the time and was in lower level games.

This mirrors my general experience.  It is also one of the reasons that generally speaking the better I get at a game, the less I enjoy it. 

Edit:  I should clarify what I mean here.

When you are new there are several good things : 1) everything is new and exciting 2) the community of newbs is generally ok 3) you can be bad and not care..

But eventually you hit a sort of "pub star" state where 1) You notice every little mistake you make that didn't bother you when you were new 2) So does everyone else and 3) The fact that everyone is reasonably good means that a lot of people have drastically inflated opinions of how good they actually are.  Great in pubs, but not actually near true competitive level.  This is where I tend to cap out these days - and it is just a dreadful place to be in most games.

But, if eventually you crest into that actual competitive tier, and join a team (as I've done with several games over the years) which plays in leagues and such, then things start to get good again because the players you interact with regularly are teammates, there is a general sense of helping each other, and mistakes becomes things to correct for next time, rather than things that ruined the current game.   

[Ice Cream Emperor]

You're right, but anecdotally the reverse is also true. The amount of times I've seen the Surrender function in League being abused more than balances this out.

I just find it so hard to believe that you are taking a fair account of your own experience, here. I played LoL pretty regularly for the better part of a year and there is no way that there was an equal number of cases of people abusing surrender vs. surrendering sensibly in a way that saved everybody involved a significant amount of their free time. If what you actually mean is 'I have anecdotes on both sides therefore they're basically the same' then I assume we agree that this is not a reasonable argument.

A lost game that is surrendered as a natural flow of things, preventing a final 5-10-15 minutes (depending on the proactivity of the winning team, this could easily stretch out indefinitely) of meaningless play, simply does not register as a notable experience -- you don't even remember that shit, because it is just so normal. It's unremarkable, it's how the game works. One guy spazzing because he wants to surrender after 5 minutes, or one guy refusing to ever surrender even though the game is lost and the other team is running endless Barons and farming up endgame items instead of pushing -- those things you remember. But those things aren't the design decision, here -- the unremarkable, normal, everyday experience of 'oh damn, there's no way, we've lost, /surrender' is the design decision. And it's the right one.

As for all these people advocating about how DotA is like, super-come-from-behind-land compared to LoL -- do you guys actually play this game? I mean on the one hand, yes, you are correct -- the mechanics of DotA are such that it is more likely a team might come from behind. But it's those exact same mechanics -- the presence of harder carries, the dramatic momentum that results from deaths causing gold loss, the even greater importance of map control -- that also mean that in some cases it is a thousand times less likely that your team can come from behind.

If your team comp has a shitty late-game and then you lose the early game because you get outplayed, the game. is. over. It's over. You are not going to miraculously become better players and turn Zeus into a late-game right-click carry. Not against the team that already kicked your ass for the last 15 minutes?

Yes some extremely good teams in extremely well-matched games with carefully-calibrated drafting do come back -- and yes just as often some random pub team that has superior late-game team composition gets stomped early but then turtles and farms up and follows through on their heroes' potential. But those are exceptional circumstances and moreso they are predictable: you can see the possibility that things will turn around, just as clearly as you can see the impossibility of a turnaround in other games where one team is up 27/3 and the team with 27 kills is so excited about their map control they are running around farming and doing Roshan for the next 25 minutes instead of waltzing into the enemy base to end the game. (Or maybe they are pushing, but the losing team has super-strong turtling capability so they can hold out for like 20 minutes even though they will never actually turn that shit around.)

The point is, you have to let the players in the actual game evaluate these things. You can't decide for them that they should never, ever give up, and then stigmatize anyone who does as a leaver, because you are creating a completely retarded community environment. 

I mean imagine going to play a game of tennis with your buddy (or even some random guy) and after he whips you 6-0 6-0 in the first two sets you are like 'damn you are on fire, you totally won and I'm not feeling it, let's go get a drink' your opponent is like 'NO WE AGREED BEST OF FIVE YOU MUST FINISH NOOB WTF LEAVER' and keeps serving tennis balls at your face for the next 20 minutes... ? Like what the fuck sort of game is that? And this is talking about tennis, where neither side gains even the faintest structural momentum, so that it is actually totally possible that one player could win 15 straight games to come from behind or whatever -- whereas in the DOTA version of tennis after winning two sets one player would get like three first serves, have rocket shoes, and a racket that hits every ball in two directions simultaneously.)

The point is, players learn when they are beaten, and recognizing that is a skill that is worth developing. The fact that team dynamics are involved in the decision makes it harder, but it doesn't actually reduce the value in making the decision -- which is, as mentioned, like several man-hours worth of free time, when you consider that you are saving 10 people somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes each.

[Ingmar]

Your tennis example is a one on one game. The situation changes in a game like DOTA because you have some level of obligation to the other 4 people on your team.

[Malakili]

Your tennis example is a one on one game. The situation changes in a game like DOTA because you have some level of obligation to the other 4 people on your team.

So ignore that example and the rest of the post is still a good argument.

[Ingmar]

I dunno. When you're playing a game competitively, and there's an opportunity to improve your play skill by playing the whole thing out, you take it. I've maybe conceded one game of Blood Bowl ever*; there's always something to learn in a losing effort, in most games. Some don't lend themselves to it mechanically, like a chess match where you're in one of those '3 moves to checkmate' locks, but I don't think this is the case in MOBAs. There's always some aspect you can be working on improving, and if you add to it the obligation to teammates, I just can't see doing it. Hell just seeing how the winning team is winning is useful. I never want to be that 'just let them win' guy in Alterac Valley, and that's what a surrender button means to me. Maybe they should just disable it in ranked play or something, that might be a decent compromise.

I don't know, maybe my approach to this kind of thing is more unusual than I think. I piss people off in MTGO when I won't take prize splits for the same reason; I'm there to play the game and improve, getting to the last round and then not playing seems silly.

*There's a strategic reason to do it if you're trying to protect important players, etc., in some circumstances. Concede simply because I can't win? Not a chance.

(You know what would be great, also, would be if my invite to this game would ever actually freaking happen so I can talk about the actual mechanical parts instead of just generic competitive gameplay theory stuff.)

[Fordel]

The point is, you have to let the players in the actual game evaluate these things. You can't decide for them that they should never, ever give up, and then stigmatize anyone who does as a leaver, because you are creating a completely retarded community environment. 

This is where I disagree entirely. Players IN the game are TERRIBLE judges of how the game is actually going. They only get half the information at best and it's almost entirely biased to fit their current mood or amount of momentum they feel they have/don't have. 

Dota, SC2, fucking Arathi Basin, name it, people are completely wrong about how a game will play out ALL the time.