Riot tweaks VALORANT’s surrender vote to start at round 5 and removes unanimous requirement in Unrated matches

VALORANT players will now be able to throw in the towel a little bit earlier.

VALORANT’s Patch 1.03 is making a few quality of life changes, including some tweaks to the tactical shooter’s new surrender option. Today’s patch notes explain that players can forfeit earlier in a match and voter unanimity won’t be necessary for unrated matches.

While players were previously required to play through eight grueling rounds before waving the white flag, Riot will now let you surrender five rounds in. This will let teams with a bad start or AFK players move on to their next game.

Since Unrated Mode is a casual way to warm up your reflexes and hone your skills, surrendering will no longer require all players to vote yes. As long as 80 percent of your team agrees, a losing team can move on to their next match and leave their loss behind them.

But Competitive Mode will still require a unanimous vote.

“We want to make sure the team is in full agreement before a decision is made that will negatively impact a player’s rank,” Riot said.

In VALORANT, a team wins the match once they successfully best the opposing squad in 13 rounds. Surrendering automatically gives your adversaries a score of 13. While this would typically not be an issue, VALORANT’s ranked system rewards and penalizes players based on how big the discrepancy between the two teams is.

If your team loses 13-2, for example, you’re likely to drop much more rank than a 13-10 loss. Riot decided to keep the Competitive Mode surrender vote unanimous to avoid a player being outvoted and taking the big hit to their rank.