Rocket League, the game everyone is actually playing instead of AAA titles, recently was patched with a vote to forfeit option. This is usually seen in MOBAs where a team can call it quits if they are being dominated. It was added to Rocket League for the same purpose, for teams to surrender and quit a hopeless match. This is undoubtedly the worst feature Psyonix could have ever added….ever.
The vote to forfeit button has done three major things:
- Caused people to quit prematurely
- Given players more of a reason to be trolls
- Ruin the experience for people who actually want to play the game.
I get why it exists in gaming. People who are being spanked by another team don’t want to quit and get a waiting penalty to queue for another match. This makes sense, but, only when a game takes around 30 minutes to finish as most MOBAs do. Rocket League only has five minute matches, and those five minutes go by incredibly quickly. I will admit, when one team is scoring 10 goals those matches can take a little longer, but never a length even close to warranting this option.
Not only that, my favorite moments in Rocket League are the comebacks you never saw coming. I’ve been down 0-3 for an entire match to win tie it all in the last minute, and then win in overtime. That’s a tremendous comeback and one I’ll always remember. Those comebacks happened because you were stuck in a game and had to try your best. Sometimes you got crushed and it sucked, but only for 5-10 minutes. Then it was over.
Now people give up after the first minute. The other team gets two quick goals in 60 seconds and people hit the forfeit button. I never understand it. If the other team just scored two goals in 60 seconds, why couldn’t our team? Why give up so soon before enough trying?
I know what you’re thinking. What’s so bad about having the option? You don’t have to forfeit just because one person suggest it. Frankly, people are a-holes and if they don’t get there way, they ruin it for everyone. It’s almost encouraging people to give up instead of trying to make a comeback. The worst part, people who start the vote will do a number of childish things to get you to agree.
I’ll admit it has only happened to me rarely when someone will stop playing, and that’s really not all that bad. However, you can read about all the extremely juvenile players that will never stop spamming the button and typing random nonsense in the chat. People have rammed their own teammates repeatedly to annoy them, and in some cases people will even play for the other team to really try to get you to give in. I never understand why or how they people think. Do they do it for laughs? Are they in such a rush to play another game they have to end this one now? Or do they just enjoy being brats that don’t know how to act without getting their own way.
The good news is I personally haven’t experienced too many of these childish players since the update, but I think I’m pretty lucky. There are numerous threads on reddit which leads me to believe it is pretty common. The issue is we need to stop this behavior before it even begins, or it could become the accepted norm. Adding this option to surrender has had an immediate negative impact on an overall incredible game. It’s great to see developers listening to the players and responding (some wanted the surrender button with the best intentions I like to believe), but let’s hope they listen to the players now asking for a change.
There will always be quitters and whiners, but catering to them is not the way to go. Before, people could either quit and take the penalty, or stick it out. Now they ruin everyone’s fun and it needs to be fixed. The solution: you can only vote to forfeit if you are down by 5 with 2 minutes left in the game (or something along that line). That you will probably not come back from and it will stop people who spam the button from the first minute because they didn’t get the first goal. I wish the button didn’t exist at all, but I know that won’t happen. So at the very least, can we make it somewhat efficient?