Smurfing.

Somà·5/21/2016, 4:48:10 PM·2 votes·635 views

Why isn't smurfing a reportable option? Riot is all about the "experience of the game." Yet a report option for smurfs admitting they are smurfing isn't even there. Pro streamers do it so they aren't recognized, or for videos on "unranked to whatever" guides. That's good for them and all, but in no way is that fun for the players getting smurfed. It's happened to me 3 times in promos where they ADMITTED they are smurfing, yet I can do nothing. It is not fun. It is not cool. It doesn't make me a better player practicing against that. It makes me frustrated and it makes my team frustrated. Does riot care? it appears not.

Perhaps it doesn't happen enough to justify talking about it, but I have never ONCE seen anything that discourages players from doing it. And quite frankly it ruins games and gives all the players a bad experience.

Tell me what you think! Best regards climbing the ladder, Somanoid

7 Comments

Mysticman895/21/2016, 5:09:18 PM1 votes

There are legitimate reasons for smurfs to exist, such as helping show new players the game without them getting thrown into a match with high MMR people, or for people who might need an escape from their main account (e.g. popular people who don't want to deal with people at that time).

Actively boosting people is a problem, but riot does potentially action that. It is delicate there though, since they do want people to play with their friends and friends are rarely all equal skill levels, so sometimes it's unclear whether it's active no-no boosting or just sortof 'accidental' boosting by virtue of playing with higher ranked friends. This situation is probably something that could stand to be looked at closer, particularly with dynamic queue being how it is.

The other thing with smurfs is their mmr's rapidly go nuts, so even if their level/rank is low, they'll still end up in 'fair' matches on average. I've faced off against diamonds on a sub-30 account that went on a big winning streak (bearing in mind I'm 'only' plat), so it quite possible for the smurfs mmr to overshoot their 'true' mmr and end up actually being a hindrance to the team rather than a free win ticket. Similarly smurfs frequently end up getting matched versus smurfs, so even if the game ends up snowballing one way or another, that's sometimes just the nature of the game currently and not because of the smurf aspect (as both sides had a smurf so they sortof cancelled each other out).

Also, I disagree that playing against smurfs doesn't make you a better player. It isn't fun to get wrecked I agree, but I feel like you really need someone to punish your mistakes in order to really force you to learn to correct them, and smurfs are good for that. Besides that, I feel like a huge number of players are utterly terrible at playing from behind, and anyone who wants to advance should really acquire that skill. There's countless games that were completely winnable that people lose because they fell behind a couple kills, said "gg" and afk'd at fountain until 20, and then blame smurfs as the reason they're not climbing, and that's quite painful to watch.

Lastly, there's lots of 'smurfs' that aren't, including those who say they are. For some odd reason some people seem to get an ego boost from saying they're a <insert high rank here> smurf whenever they have a good game even if they really are only silver/gold or whatever, and by saying they're a smurf from whatever elo they can feel like they really do belong at that high elo, even if in actual practice they can't reach it.

LU Vanilla Rice 7/21/2016, 4:03:13 PM1 votes

Well, there are different types of smurfs. Some people smurf and are toxic as fuck, or troll ranked games, in which I agree that this action should be prohibited and such. Others smurf because they are playing with their friends. With friends, it could be boosting the friend's account higher, or the smurf could want to play for fun with friends. In which case the boosting part should be looked into a bit more. ALSO, playing against smurfs is absolutely good practice! I am fairly sure the person getting smurfed against won't win, but they can learn even basic mechanics such as standard positioning, rotations, and even different combos and such.

Grithok7/21/2016, 4:31:11 PM1 votes

I want to clarify some things for you, to help you understand the situation. Doing unranked to whatever isn't detrimental smurfing. It's literally what happens at the start of a new season. The dudes's normal mmr is calculated in conjunction with his record from the 10 placement matches. Very often, these people get placed in plat right off that bat. Riot has also talked about how smurfing is against the TOU, but as long as people are playing their best every game, and not int feeding to get placed low, or stay low, then it's a non issue, because their mmr forces them to play with people at their level of play, regardless of their current rank.

I've also noted that sometimes people say they are smurfing when they just aren't. It's just a thing people do because they know it tilts other people, and the fastest way to win a game is to put the other team on tilt.