The problem with early resignations

I guess everyone here has experienced the same frustration when a player (often in the 1150-1250 rating range) resigns for unknown reasons very quickly (within 5 moves or so). The equal chances at the beginning for every player are out of the window. This is disastrous for the chances of the player on the opposite of the board. First, he/she has almost no chance to capture that 20 points-king on the other side. Secondly, and even more unfair, he will be under attack on both flanks for the rest of the games. The other two players have a flank they virtually dont have to worry about, and they can push the outer pawn without much resistance.

So what to do about this? Any ideas? Maybe a penalty for early resigning? I like to know what you think

Yes, this is a problem! 
and in some cases, I see that the "resigning person" is an account created a week ago or so.  That is why I try to avoid these situations by using the min. rating to 1400 for my games but that is not a solution for others I believe. 

This is a problem and another is that 1 player can play from 2 PC's to get in the 1st place - he sacrifices from 1 account and resigns in a time when the other one can take his queen. 

I believe that these situations occur only for <1400 rated players. It would be very hard to deal with it.  

It sucks.

But the good and the bad are equally distributed. You are just as likely to benefit from an early resignation as be harmed over time.

4-player FFA is not regular chess. There is a lot of "randomness" in the outcome of 4PFFA that isn't present in regular chess and this makes many "normal" chess players uncomfortable. I've seen people attempt to denigrate the game by calling 4PFFA all "luck". Very few sports/games have no luck/randomness involved. No one says baseball is all luck but there is definitely a lot of randomness impacting the final outcome. 

In the long run the randomness balances out for you. Playing as well as you can in each situation is the best you can do. 

and btw - when the opponent across from you resigns/dies then you likely cannot just play normally. You need to adopt a new strategy because the game situation has changed. (not understanding how the game has shifted and what to do now because of that change is probably the biggest difference in "good" and not-so-good players.) Attacking the player on your right at the correct time can put enough 'blood in the water' to get the opponent on your left to attack with you instead of against you. And imo, you need to do this as soon as you can after your across opponent dies, before shit starts happening to you and it's your blood in the water.

True, good and bad will be equally distributed over time. Well, i have to accept the factor of randomness, I suppose. I am 1500+ right now, and i think of myself as a reasonable FFA-player (not master-level ofc!). Its just frustrating that a troll player ruins a game. But i benefit from it too sometimes, I have to admit that!
Setting a minimum rating (1400+ or something like that) is a good idea, PeterisRekis, I look into that!

As for strategy goes, yeah, you have to adapt. Its just very difficult, because you are the weak link basically. Anyway, thaks for the feedback.

And for players playing on two accounts, this happened to me once! He even admitted it in the chat!

That is why we have the teams version, try it out

I don't care about my rating, so when a player resigns on turn one I resign as well. The remaining two are not guaranteed a fair position (their first moves matter) but it's better than one of three being at a large disadvantage. Then I go looking for a new 4p game, which I clearly was not going to get if I remained in.

i try to avoid resigning at all because of reasons like this also i like play out the entire game but the thing is what if its the only reason i ever resign i have to go somewhere?

not that they shouldnt try something about this but you have to keep those kinds of things in mind to