Master the Art of Surrendering in Valorant: A Comprehensive Guide

Curious about surrendering in Valorant? Wondering why players choose to throw in the towel mid-game?

In this article, we’ll explore the ins and outs of surrendering in Valorant, from how it works to the requirements for initiating a surrender vote.

We’ll also delve into the reasons players may opt to surrender, as well as the steps involved in the surrender process.

Stay tuned to learn more about what happens after surrendering and how you can avoid the need to surrender in the first place.

What is Valorant?

Valorant is a free-to-play first-person shooter game (FPS) with objectives developed and published by Riot Games. The game was released on June 2, 2020. In Valorant, two teams of five players compete against each other. One team takes on the offensive role by attempting to plant a spike (called a bomb) that detonates at a set time or eliminates the opposing team. In contrast, the other team plays defense by preventing the opposing team from planting the bomb or by eliminating them until the time runs out.

What is Surrendering in Valorant?

Surrendering is a game feature that allows teams to vote on ending a match early and awarding the win to their opponent. Valorant surrendering means to vote to surrender, and it is done to end a match early.

First-Person Shooter (FPS) games tend to have longer match times with regards to the primary objective and therefore enjoy a surrender feature. For some reasons why teams may vote to surrender in a game, check out How to Surrender in Valorant? In Valorant, surrender rules, including how many players from the same team must vote for surrender and what rounds you can surrender on, have changed from time to time.

How Does Surrendering Work in Valorant?

Surrendering in *Valorant* during an unrated match is a vote-based system that requires a majority of your own team to agree to end the game before it officially does. A *surrender vote* in *Valorant* doesn’t officially end the game until the surrender vote passes with a *4/5* or *5/5* vote. Each player on the losing team gets the option to call a surrender vote once the 8th and 12th rounds have been played and after a vote has been called you need a *4/5* or *5/5* vote for the game to end.

In theory, whether you are winning or losing, you can call a surrender vote as long as it’s not at the beginning of the match. The dropdown chart provided by Riot suggests that a 5/5 vote is allowed to surrender at the end of the first round, 4/5 votes after the fifth round, a 5/5 vote after the third round, a 4/5 vote after the seventh round, and any vote from the eighth round.

However, the reality is that the majority of users will not surrender when they still have a good chance to win, hence a majority of teams who call a surrender vote when they may still have a chance to make a comeback are almost always going to be universally turned down. This makes it highly unlikely that you would be able to call for a surrender before the majority of your team or another player has put to a vote.

In ranked matches, surrender is not an option and players are obliged to fight to the very last round as silver is based purely on whether a team wins or loses and surrendering could have an impact on a player’s rating at riot based on their actions.

What Are the Requirements for Surrendering in Valorant?

The AAR states that in order to surrender a match, 80% or more of the following criteria must be met:

1. Two of your team members must be disconnected or missing from the match for three minutes.
2. Your team is losing by 8 points or more.
3. There are not enough players on your team to legally surrender the match.
4. You have not completed half of the match’s total rounds.

Given the 12-round limit on Valorant, players must be losing by 8 rounds or more in their surrender attempt during Round 5 to justify surrender.

Why Do Players Surrender in Valorant?

Players use the surrender option in Valorant as a way to forfeit the match and accept a loss early when they are certain that they are unable to come back. The reasons are usually related to one of the following issues: creating a new round imbalance and unfair conditions for the other team, affecting a player’s Agent performance and win/loss ratio due to toxicity and player discouragement, and an inability or lack of desire to play anymore because of time and scoring limits.

Unfavorable Team Composition

Unfavorable team composition for the map and enemy team is a good tactical reason for surrendering. Before the match starts, if the wrong agents or bad agent combinations are picked, teammates are unable to perform well, or consistently perform well with their agent selection, or selection is not productive against the enemy team, a low chance of winning can be apparent from the start.

If the game proceeds far enough, a team composition can be switched during a match. This is for this unlikely to be chance in Valorant which mostly relies on coordination and timing. This is where the potential benefits of forfeiting must be considered. A forfeit results in a loss but in all other respects is no different than a normal loss, so deciding to surrender following having played a decent amount of time will have an extra loss but no other benefit over simply allowing the game to end whenever the match ends.

Poor Performance of Teammates

When teammates perform poorly in a game, that lowers the match certainty as well. This can lead to surrendering as the chance of winning becomes significantly smaller according to match results with net score adjustments. The probability of winning also becomes smaller with additional round losses and only becomes viable for surrendering if there are teammate performance deficiencies.

Technical Issues

Technical issues that cause a player to abandon a Valorant match are generally specific to server issues that are out of the player’s control. If there is a server crash or the connection quality is very poor, Riot Games has a feature that should automatically flag the match as a server crash and prevent the player from receiving penalties for leaving the game. Players can further help Riot by submitting a support ticket if they’ve experienced these difficulties during a match.

How to Surrender in Valorant?

To surrender in Valorant, follow these exact steps:

1. Calling a surrender vote in Valorant is achieved by typing /ff in the chat to auto-fill the next command’s dropdown. You can also type ff and then enter for a surrender prompt. It is a unanimous agreement among all team members having control over an agent.
2. You must call a surrender vote by typing in ff followed by enter whether everyone is in agreement or not.
3. A surrender vote can be called within 80 seconds after the start of the game and at any time after this point up until the game ends.
4. If the whole team agrees, the score is 4-0.

• I call for surrender.
• Immediate surrender, if everyone agrees will be printed in bold text on your screen.

Vote for Surrender

Surrender in Valorant begins with someone on your team voting for it. Only after you have people vote for the surrender does the surrender vote become available to the wider team of 5. The surrender vote only counts if the majority of players outside of the person starting it are for surrender. At least 3 out of 5 people must be in agreement to give up before progress towards surrender displays.

Draw up arguments and encourage teammates to vote for a surrender. The most effective way to get your team to surrender is to make reasoned arguments as to why the team should concede. Say that the goal is to have fun and there is no fun in getting trampled. If you start the surrender vote (by typing in /ff), you may need to entice your team to think about the benefits, especially after multiple rounds have occurred in the match and it looks like winning is nearly impossible.

Wait for the Vote to Pass

If someone initiates a vote to surrender, you can press F5 on your keyboard to cast a vote to surrender. Once it reaches the required number of positive votes (either ALL or TIE/ALL for the remaining rounds), you will automatically surrender. Matches automatically end once all teammates have disconnected. Keep in mind that surrendering too early, without allowing time to test new strategies or with toxic motivations, will land you on the short end of the stick. Surrender appropriately!

Confirm the Surrender

Once the result of the vote is displayed on the screen, one player must confirm the surrender. If the surrender fails, it is because no one has confirmed the surrender. The first player who sees the message that the team would like to have a surrender vote and who thinks the team has voted yes should confirm the surrender as quickly as possible. Having more than one person trying to confirm the surrender at the same time could potentially break the vote off, and repeatedly pressing F5 to check how the vote counting process is going will disrupt everyone’s experience. One person pressing F5 quickly should be enough for everyone to know the vote status.

What Happens After Surrendering in Valorant?

After surrendering in Valorant, your team will not be notified of your decision, and the option to see the surrender vote if it was cast by any of your teammates, is removed. If a match is surrendered, the surrendering team’s opponents do not receive any less MR or honor for the result of the match. After the surrender time passes, the surrender vote will fail and your team then has to play as if nothing happened. If the surrender time passes and the vote passed with too few teammates casts, there is no way to revoke it, and the match is ended with a loss for the surrendering team.

Total match time and MR gain are decreased for all players, including those who chose to surrender. For example, the game timer will show at final match point if the match was ended by surrender – a player had to leave and the rest chose to surrender because of an overwhelming loss and so on no matter how early in the match the surrender is made. MR gain will be minimized and affect all involved even if the minimum rounds have not been played. Players must play at least 8 rounds to be eligible for queues from Competitive Act rank (gold1/diamond etc) players are not eligible after a surrender happens.

Match is Declared Over

You surrender during a match of Valorant by opening the chat screen and voting to ff if your entire team agrees. If a player leaves a match of Valorant and the total Agent count for the team is still 5, leavers are faced with a time penalty. If they do not return in 100 seconds they can no longer rejoin the match. At this point a surrender vote can be initiated and four team members agreeing is considered a successful surrender.

Changes in Rank and MMR

Dropping your Rank and MMR is a disadvantage for you while playing Valorant but a benefit for your team and opponents. Regardless of your skill, your presence and bad performance have a negative impact not only on your MMR but on your team’s MMR and rank. With fewer players around our MMR, the teams become less balanced.

In general, ranking systems measure individual play but groups them with others to create teams. Lowering one’s MMR has a ripple effect and can be good for older and newer players to the game. Lowering your MMR can be good for newer players by not overwhelming them with such competition when they are still learning. Losing your MMR inadvertently is also beneficial to old hands who no longer take the game seriously. Thus they help to steer newer players in either direction by setting an example or by teaching them in the game who may be a new Sola player surrendering to responsibility has a cyclical benefit influencing other players around you in a chain reaction of events.

Below is an example graph from Freak Death explaining the below. The opponents and teams of players always adjust according to their personal and team-ranked skills. As Player A decides to surrender and play AFK. Bots join on that team, the game’s evaluation tunes down the team ranking by one and moves the new player who will most likely lose to a more senior player with advantage rankings. As more players decide to surrender and provide an easy game for new players, the older players, even while playing BOTS, convert them into other veteran players similar to themselves.

Penalties for Surrendering

In Valorant, known penalties for surrendering include a decrease in Maintained Competitive Skill Level (MCS), and an effect on rated game reputation that prevents surrendering every game casually.

MCS: The Maintained Competitive Skill Level (MCS) is the equivalent of one Rank Rating Point (RRP) in Competitive Mode. When a team surrenders, their RRP is lowered which leads to a decrease in MCS.

Rated game reputation: If a player votes to surrender multiple times, they are automatically having their Ranked Reputation worsened, leading to an eventual Matchmaking ban. Only consider using the /ff command when you are hopeless. Be a better player and fight till the last round of the game.

How to Avoid Surrendering in Valorant?

To avoid surrendering, ask the team to work together to try and turn the game around if the team is not too far behind. Winning even one round can restore a good amount of morale and give the team the boost it needs to then win the whole game. Some competitive games are won only after the team that thought they were losing started performing better and winning.

The biggest reasons to avoid surrendering a losing game involve the Valorant Ranking System. When a game of Valorant ends early because the losing team has surrendered, fewer match statistics are processed which skews internal global performance ratings for each of the surrendered games. As the account of pwnsweet demonstrates, when too many games are surrendered, it is possible to go from Iron 3 on match entry to a +50 RR promotion in a single match plummeting back to Iron 1 after only 6-7 ranked matches and therefore demoting automatic performance (PRA) losses.

The exact formula is unclear but it is one of the factors taken into consideration by the game’s ranking system. According to Riot Support, winning or losing a game is one of the primary factors that decides how many Ranked Rating (RR) points an account gains or loses. When a game ends prematurely code failsafe mechanisms adjust the RRs by calculating the performance grades earned up to that point and adding them to the RR model.

Communicate with Teammates

Communicating with teammates is the very base on how to surrender in Valorant? in competitive mode. The requirement which comes shortly after Conferring about the decision of how to surrender the match is to confirm the decision with the rest of the team. Before players go for the submit option, they should kindly ask their team if they are okay with it (after discussing the vote and trying to make a comeback). If the decision is made calmly and the majority vote is cast in the defined time frame for unanimous surrender, a player’s team will only be slightly taken aback, if at all. Although a lone wolf player can discuss the surrender with them and if they agree, he or she could be the body oroviding the final vote to surrender.

If the majority on the team saves the toxic behavior for the final 5 or so rounds to take their frustration out on the other players, then take a deep breath and surrender without waiting for them to give a positive response as to whether they wish to do so. This is important to note because the concerns of other players must still be considered even if playing toxicly. If a few players disagree, the match cannot be surrendered according to the surrender conditions until the stakes are high enough. Keep playing the match and work for the right moment to suggest a surrender again and allow players to understand that their teammate’s concerns are as important as their satisfaction.

Adapt to the Situation

Adapting to the situation in Valorant tournaments is another important element of surrendering and another reason players and clans choose to tap out. When streaming a competition, players may see their opponents resetting or surrendering as a stronger ability to adapt and preserve their talents. By deliberately tapping out for this reason, one may better illustrate to fans that your aim is to learn and adjust in future tournaments, according to the authors of How to Understand Surrendering in Valorant?. Deciding to surrender as a unit in a tournament situation involves players and their coach discussing what is to be done in the event of a poor situation, such as having a devastatingly bad half or losing the initial strategic battle. Frenzy is a good example of a team that is simply never out of a match, according to ddk → Graeme James Lewis. They often stand up from decimating losses to play their opponents and may easily pull off a turnaround. In numerous other circumstances, teams likely realize they are facing defeat and are able to mechanically execute their current objectives in a round or match prior to a decider map.

Stay Positive and Focused

Stay positive and focused when surrendering because there is always a chance your team can rally and win.

Valuante Professional Talent Series player Julia ‘juliano’ Kiran says in an Aric Ryabar piece entitled How to Tilt-Proof Your Mental Game in Valorant that forming alternative plans will give you realistic short-term goals to focus on, which will keep you focused in the game and help you not to get down on yourself.

In Valorant, starting a vote to surrender means starting a new plan, which can actually improve player mood because it was decided on as a team. This may still be a plan to win, but if it is, the team must take it seriously or they may lose sight of their objectives and lose even when they could win.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to Surrender in Valorant?

What is surrendering in Valorant?
Surrendering in Valorant means giving up on the current match and accepting defeat before it ends.

How can I initiate a surrender in Valorant?
To initiate a surrender, press the Escape key on your keyboard, then click on the “Surrender” button in the menu that appears.

Can I surrender in the middle of a match?
Yes, you can surrender at any point during a match, but it requires a unanimous vote from your team.

How many votes are needed for a surrender to go through?
All 5 members of your team must vote in favor of surrendering for it to be successful.

Can I cancel a surrender vote?
No, once a surrender vote has been initiated and all 5 members have voted, it cannot be canceled.

What happens if a surrender vote is successful?
If the surrender vote is successful, the match will end immediately and the opposing team will be declared the winner.