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A Few Suggestions to Reduce Smurfing - League's community is destroying itself.

100HorsePower··3 votes·1,230 views

Smurfing has got so bad because of the toxic players going round and round in cycles that they are basically ruining the new player experience for everyone else. Riot has done absolutely nothing to control these people who pollute the matchmaking system with their failure to learn from their ban and ruin the game for everyone else because NOBODY truely new is going to come to this game and bother staying to 30 because of the level of smurfing that is going on.

Make having multiple accounts a bannable offense. Its the only way to solve this because they are never going to learn and they will just keep taking advantage over and over again and making the game more and more toxic for everyone else.

I'm a new player, just reached level 12 and I'm so sick of it, I'm consider quitting. It is just not worth if you are not going to deal with the level of toxicity probably. Out and out banning of accounts is NOT working, its just shifting the problem to the new player experience. Its time to not ban these accounts but provide restrictions and lock people to having just ONE account.

Either that, or League has to stop being free to play because this is just dragging the game down. People cannot afford to get new Overwatch accounts when they get banned and the money is an effective deterrent. Or have people pay a sub to a "Premium" service where they get placed in a separate queue away from the rest of the free to play rabble. I would gladly PAY for that if it meant that I didn't have to play with smurfs and it would bring more people back to this game.

Because at the moment, League's own community is destroying itself with this constant smurfing and banning cycle.

40 Comments

LostFr0st3 votes

Sure, I'll just tell my brother to delete his account then, KAPPA >.>

100HorsePower2 votes

Its an extreme answer but then this community has repeatedly demonstrated that they need to be treated like babies in order to actually learn from an experience. This community is pretty much the worst of the gaming world and it has a lot to do with League being a free to play game.

100HorsePower2 votes

There are simply not enough consequences to being toxic and losing that account. Because people can just happily make smurf accounts all day long, learn nothing and ruin other people's games. Especially people trying to learn the game. Its utterly frustrating!

FulleroDendrimer2 votes

[deleted]

100HorsePower1 votes

Arrogant child... sigh

LostFr0st1 votes

What I'm saying is the solution isn't to ban smurfs, it's to find the reason why people make smurfs in the first place and make that less appealing. How could a new player use 'repeatedly' so loosely to define a community they just joined? It makes me sad.

League players come in all different types; right now you're only encountering smurfs and botters; basically the scum of the scum that I'm very sad they can interact at all with the newest players.

League has just as many trolls as the other games, the difference with League is that you need to plead/compromise with said rager or troll and pander them to try in order to win. You can't just straight-up carry their weight most of the time as you can in say a shooter by just out-scoring their negative score overall.

I don't think money is the solution either, since people that get banned literally spend hundreds on skins that get locked away from them once their account is banned yet still make new accounts. If money was the solution, then the banned players wouldn't keep doing that cycle.

Zaryelle3 votes

No one will accept it, but this is honestly the only answer to prevent the horrible matching caused by smurfs. Obviously the matchmaking is not working well enough or we wouldn't have people complaining about smurfs in low level every day.

It's funny when people try to deny that having a gold/plat+ smurf in a low level game ruins the experience. Sure, the new players may learn a little bit.. but one player is completely dominating everyone else to the point no one can even really fight back, the winning team doesn't feel satisfied cause one guy carried them, the losing team doesn't understand how 1 guy carried the whole team and wrecked them effortlessly.

If there's multiple smurfs it comes down to who has the more/better smurfs on their team, and the new players are mostly a nonfactor. It's really shitty honestly for new players.

Then these new players are accused of 'feeding' cause they got wrecked by people who have played 1000s of more games than they have, and this is the kind of experience smurfing is giving to new players.

Multiple accounts also allows people to not care about getting banned/AFKing/ or otherwise punished. Everyone who plays LoL eventually has multiple accounts just so they can smurf or avoid punishment. The only reason this is so widely accepted is because it's not punished at all.

You can legit ruin like 30 games in a row and just make a new account with zero punishment. Plenty of other games require 1 account per person (or at least per each purchase/CD Key), since LoL doesn't have that you need to bind it by IP or PC as Steam does. The main reason they do this is to avoid abuse and it works pretty well, without it you can have all kinds of abuse going on with no punishment whatsoever.

100HorsePower2 votes

and then they go and quit as several of my friends have and won't touch this game with a barge pole because smurfs dominate lower levels and then teammates abuse lower level players for feeding, so you cannot win either way and its so frustrating because League can be a good fun game to play.

I am sick of tired of seeing somebody with Thunderlords wrecking players that don't even have level 5 yet and access to ALL the summoner spells.

100HorsePower2 votes

I love how people are downvoting this, just to prove my point. You need to have a pretty sick mind to think that smurfing is ok and is healthy for the game because its not.

Just shows the general attitude and maturity of the forum in general. Its all "me, me, me" and not about creating a fun experience for everyone. This game is entirely too selfish.

Zaryelle2 votes

I know everyone denies it, but this is one of the most annoying ('toxic') communities I've ever seen,and I've been playing online games for over 15 years.

This is one of the only games I've seen where you can have a guy trolling all game, flaming the new guy, even feeding himself, and then the troll convinces everybody to report the new guy by the end of the game.

After a while you kind of get desensitized to the ridiculousness of it all, the complete lack of logic and common sense and common courtesy in people.

ChargeItDownMid2 votes

[deleted]

Zaryelle1 votes

Not true at all, don't spread things that you don't know just cause they sound good. I've seen plenty of new players who are matched with smurfs all the time and a lot of them quit because of it.

ChargeItDownMid2 votes

[deleted]

Zaryelle1 votes

Also not true, you probably heard it from one of the other 50,000 people who spread false information on these forums

ChargeItDownMid2 votes

[deleted]

10SaeKki1 votes

Just ingore Zaryelle. Hes dumb not to even know this. Not even worth talking To him. as if he knows everything but fails.... Sad life.

Zaryelle1 votes

You logged on another account just to prove your point cause you can't find anything legitimate to back up what you said. I'll take my own experience and the experience of tons of new players I know in real life over some internet trolls who believes everything they read on the internet

You are trying to prove smurfs only get matched up against other smurfs, that is completely false. and just saying I don't know anything without giving any actual reasons just makes your posts worth as much as garbage spam.

Riot may have intended to have smurfs play mostly against other smurfs, but that isn't the result. New players games' are constantly ruined by smurfs and you making a joke out of it just makes it seem like it's not an issue when it is

The only people denying it are the ones who want to smurf so badly (which is caused by other issues like matchmaking being so f'ed at low level)

10SaeKki1 votes

still talking? Man 92%winrate gg easy

10SaeKki1 votes

btw what do you mean 'logged on another account'? Yes this is my smurf so what?

10SaeKki1 votes

ph1234k (NA)

  • 13 minutes ago

"if you are going to play with low level friends, there is NOTHING stopping you from using your main account."

You are incorrect, there is a lot that is stopping you from doing this.

Nah you are just wrong Either keep crying or get of out this forum, riot knows what they r doing. They ban people if they do any negative things on their smurf

ph1234k2 votes

Alright there is a lot here but the idea is unfeasible for many reasons.

First and probably the most important to you is that it is absolutely impossible to limit people to one account short of installing spyware on every users computer and requiring biometric scans for login.

Disallowing smurfs though is also inherently against the ideals of the game, it discourages playing with friends which Riot will never do, There are account based restrictions on who you can queue with and without smurfs that means your silver player and his best friend in diamond will simply not be allowed to play together.

Your idea of charging money for new accounts alo wouldn't work. It would deter people from the game in the first place (many like myself will never play a game such as overwatch as there is no value to paying $60 for a copy of already existing free to play experiences as well as newer free to play experiences). At the same time, people already spend A LOT of money on league. Between my main account and gifts I have sent to my gf and family's mains I have personally spent over $1000 on league so even if I was a toxic player i your scenario here and was banned yet accounts cost money in the first place I could easily have purchased multiple accounts. However in reality the playerbase would just move to a diferent free to play MOBA.

Your analysis that this is a problem for new players is also incorrect. Toxicity exists at all levels of league. It never gets any better at any elo. League has the largest playerbase and most of the world's population are simply toxic people. When they are behind the anonymity of the Internet this only gets worse. This is not an issue that is being moved to the new player experience, it is simply an issue of gaming online.

Your analysis that league is destroying itself it also incorrect as is your assumption that most players won't stick it out to 30. I have introduced more than 10 people to this game so far and only 1 of them has stopped playing. It wasn't due to toxicity, he played one game and didn't like the game. League has a huge playerbase, has the most viewers on streams and has an absolutely huge competitive scene. It is not dying anytime soon and is not even slowing down.

I would even go so far as to estimate that you yourself will not quit, as the behavior of one who quits is not to post his distress on the forums. This indicates that you are likely already addicted to the game and simply wish you could have it go exactly your way every time.

My advice: Make friends that aren't toxic and play with them, or make friends with the mute and report functions. Reporting can get you free skins if your reports are good quality and lead to consistent punishment (not just abusing the report system) and muting lets you ignore the toxicity outright.

If you do feel that you need to leave the game, then just do it. You are a free human being and nobody is forcing you to play this game. There are many other Internet games and even games like league such as Dota 2, Smite, Paragon. There are also single player games.

Off Hiatus1 votes

You don't understand how IPs work.

100HorsePower1 votes

I do not pretend to be a technical genius but something needs to be done. Even if its just allowing players to pay for a "premium" service to separate out the serious players from the trolls/ragers/afkers ect. Because then there is a REAL consequence to losing that account in loss of actual money.

Nick Da Chip1 votes

There's healthy smurfing and then there's toxic smurfing. I would say someone who makes a new account to play with a friend who is new to the game is pretty reasonable. Then there are the people who make new accounts specifically to stomp new players like yourself.

There really is no way to stop this it feels like. The league community is already one of he more toxic communities I have been a part of, so limiting the all around toxicity would help do a part to stop bad smurfers. Or something like that...

100HorsePower1 votes

League is one of the more toxic communities because there is no premium subscription service. Take Overwatch for example, if you get banned from that, you lose a significant investment in cash so it actually serves to make the game less toxic. I have never agreed with smurfing under any conditions, if you are going to play with low level friends, there is NOTHING stopping you from using your main account.

ph1234k1 votes

"if you are going to play with low level friends, there is NOTHING stopping you from using your main account."

You are incorrect, there is a lot that is stopping you from doing this.

FulleroDendrimer1 votes

[deleted]

100HorsePower2 votes

Exactly the wrong attitude to have and this is why League has the reputation it has. People like you just disgust me. Its not a question of "getting good", its a question of the game actually being a balanced platform so people can "get good" and not having the odds stacked against you and yes, feel free to look at my recent match history, every match has had a smurf in it.

Typical ______ trying to attack something that you don't understand for your own selfish ends. Its so incredibly sad.

FulleroDendrimer2 votes

[deleted]

100HorsePower2 votes

I want Riot to actually remove Free 2 Play entirely so that people like you, who get banned for toxicity on a regular basis actually stay off the game because you cannot afford to make new accounts.

Thus getting your disgusting attitude off the rift and making it a more pleasant and SUPPORTIVE (something you wouldn't understand if it bit you with your arrogant comments) environment for all of us.

FulleroDendrimer2 votes

[deleted]

Zaryelle2 votes

You are the one crying here. Just cause of it's a forum doesn't mean you have to be completely useless.

10SaeKki1 votes

get out of this community then. No one wants you. Good for u good for us.

100HorsePower1 votes

The people downvoting this are probably the same people that think that cheating and using aimbots are perfectly acceptable in Overwatch. Some people went as far as to send abusive posts to Blizzard for not letting them cheat. What is the world coming to?

Whatever happened to common decency and belief in the common good!?

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