I have seen the pages of debate on this via a search of the forums here re. 1v1 games, though the topic of team games seems to be a bit more unique and less easy to exploit.
Why add in this feature for team games?
Simply because some games are clearly lost, and therefore unenjoyable both to the losing team and even perhaps to most members of the winning team (there is no skill or excitement in mopping up with overwhelming force, indeed it might even breed general boredom or complacency).
Is there more downside to this than upside?
I really don’t see how there could be, certainly not within certain criteria (which I’m pretty sure the users here could figure out with a bit of thought/debate and perhaps a vote on where to draw the line of acceptable vs. unacceptable resignation conditions). Even if the criteria were fairly strict to avoid theoretical abuse (I’m thinking it should be easy enough to find teams/groupings of people who are throwing games for some reason) it would be better IMO than having to play out clearly lost games over many days while the other team mops up.
Seeing the controversy via 1v1 games maybe this could be problematic via re-igniting the debate on that front (though again I think a good poll could also clear that up - perhaps limited to paid members who should have a better grasp on things), though I think it could be intelligently implemented by way of determining which games are obviously lost via publicly available data (for example with less than a .5% chance or so of a comeback absent one player on the winning team going full-AWOL or turning on one’s team).
