To Riot from a relatively new player. This game drives new people away.

djPWall·Oct 16, 2014·208 votes·11,726 views

Your matchmaking system is completely fucked. It's horrific, in fact.

The road to 30 is littered with smurfs, trolls, and very little chances to learn to be better while actually enjoying yourself.

I just played vs a Diamond V and a Gold I and my whole team was levels 22-27. We are just trying to play a game for fun and your system constantly matches me with people who are so much more experienced and skilled that it leaves absolutely no room to learn and have fun. You can't learn from mistakes if you go to mid lane and get the fuck beat out of you by a diamond V jayce who just snowballs out of control. I try to practice farming, zoning, whatever, but these kinds of games actually drive people away. Who wants to pick up a game just to lose every single attempted match while getting beat to shit and then talked shit about?

I won't even get into the toxicity of the other players who don't care that you have been playing a week.

You guys won't grow bigger without new players and no new player should play this garbage.

227 Comments

Flipmode83Oct 16, 201420 votes

I'm a new player, so I can't speak to the smurf issue, but I do have a good trick for avoiding the toxic attitude. I learned this in WoW, where D-bags are just as common as any MOBA. When you enter a group, say something nice, like 'Hey how's everyone doing today?' or tell a dumb joke or anything to lighten the mood. It doesn't actually make anyone friendly, it just lets them know that you are, and it's a lot harder to be mean to a friendly person. If you're the 'First Blood' in the match and someone says 'Don't feed, moron.' Just say, 'Just checking to make sure their turrets were turned on.... they are!'

You go from anonymous noob to friendly teammate, and that buys you a lot of slack. I found in WoW, people were FAR more forgiving of mistakes if I was friendly ahead of time. Try it out... it's not like you have anything to lose.

junglerboy16Oct 16, 20144 votes

Yeah, I have had success with similar tactics, people have a hard time hating you if you are friendly first.

RainleinOct 17, 20145 votes

When I tried that everyone just flat-out ignored me the whole game... I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe they mute everybody? :s

XenohazOct 16, 201416 votes

I actually have to agree with you. It's an extreme uphill battle to get much experience playing this game; I remember that very well from a few years ago. Now that I am experienced I enjoy it greatly, but I would never want to go back to needing to learn.

Some hot sauceOct 16, 201415 votes

Well, if the game is too difficult for you then you can pick easier games to play. I hear shoots and ladders is fun.

XenohazOct 16, 2014145 votes

^Proving the OP's point.

Some hot sauceOct 16, 201437 votes

I actually help out the new players I am beating up on. I offer builds and I duo with them helping them to play better.

Now, I don't think most smurfs do that, but they should. They could be playing with a future diamond player and not even know it.

ChimeiTekinaNasuOct 16, 20147 votes

Yeah, smurfs should do that more instead of having an arrogant attitude towards low levels.

ShadowNinetailsOct 16, 201424 votes

In game: "hey buddy you're absolutely terrible at this game why are you even trying you autistic little Bronze V-to-be do you even know what wards are oh wait you don't because you're bad omg why can't you see lee sin coming top at 3:00 when every lee sin obviously does that to secure first blood just go afk so we have a better chance without you feeding scrub blah blah blah shit shit shit"

After game: "Check out my Twitch stream, I can help you not be as bad as you are. I'm a nice guy like that."

Saw stuff like this a lot when I was running a smurf of my own.

xxtastyxxOct 16, 20149 votes

I agree with hot sauce, when I was leveling up to 30. I ran into quite a few smurfs and what not. Yeah they might of snowballed out of control. But 90% of the time they were nice and offered advice or to team up. One thing you could start doing is do what I did and still do to this day. Record you'r games with Lolreplay, and when you run into those smurfs or people that did really good. Go back and watch the game and watch what they did throughout the game. Like what decisions they made in lane/ roaming/ positioning in team fights "each role you want to be positioned different in team fights" , objective taking, and how many WARDS they bought and were they placed them. Can't stress that last one enough. Map awareness is key. It's easy to set up traps or catch the enemy of guard when you can see were there going. Just my advice to you man.

FluffehPoroOct 16, 201410 votes

I will have you know Shoots and ladders is a hardcore game man. Have you ever got all shoots? Its like life is toying with you #_#

For CarthageOct 16, 201413 votes

It's just another metaphor for life. Like how it's so much easier to fall down a chute, but climbing up that ladder... You gotta actually take steps, man. Totally bogus shit. Fuck gravity.

djPWallOct 16, 201414 votes

I am not saying the game is too hard. I actually came from Dota so this game IS the chutes and ladders... However, not even Dota was this filled with smurfs and toxicity. I understand from MOBA experience that it is very hard to deal with those sort of cases but the fact that I play against the top 1% of the player base before I can even finish a mastery page is just way out of line. You get the crap kicked out of you EVEN if you play at the same skill level. Runes/masteries just give one side a clear advantage. plain and simple. The worst part is that after getting destroyed by much more experienced players, u get talked down to by teammates and the enemy beating you.

Kinda like if I punched a kindergartener as a high school student and then said, HA! REKT!

Jesus is SaviorOct 16, 20144 votes

I like how you pretend Dota is harder than League, when it's not, and then talk down League players saying they are playing "chutes and ladders".....

And then you complain that you can't beat other smurfs. lol.

Yeah have fun. League is actually harder than Dota in some ways. You get punished for the most simple mistakes because there's not a lot of "lol I clicked a button and you died cuz I'm OP" champions in League, so you have to actually outplay your opponent.

And in order to outplay your opponent, you have to memorize every champion (all 130+ since you WILL see them all at some point), and ESPECIALLY every cc the enemy team has in their arsenal. You have to wait for them to blow their skills or make a mistake, and then go in on them.

Yokel85Oct 16, 20142 votes

You have to learn similar things in Dota, only they're less visually clear. It's definitely a harder game in many ways. You not only need to know what CC they have, but also if they have an ability that negates your CC. Or hey, maybe the guy you're attacking has a way to turn that attack into a heal instead. Oh, and this guy can charge at you from across the map. Also, this one is in multiple places at once. And this other one only LOOKS like he's in multiple places at once, but they're really just images, and the real one is invisible.

jQueryOct 16, 20143 votes

****First of all u cant just go and compare the player base of two games with Huge difference in active players.

Smaller communities are more easily controlled and have more constant players, where a huge and popular community attracts on an hourly basis every kind of assholes and trolls.

And u are wrong current LoL will attract more new players than current Dota 2, the reason why every one says that playing dota need more skill is because its** Dota is less balanced** and u need more awareness and skill to play optimal there. And this requirement for more skill and awareness is why new players to MOBA feel very inferior when they start with Dota 2. I mean they dont know what "last hit" means and how does it matter, let alone "deny".... So he is gonna go and find some other Moba (if he quits from Dota 2 he might not try Moba ever again) like LoL, that doesn't mean that he will get to challenger in the first of his seasons; So all u new players don't worry, see even Dota players have it hard to get to desired rank, like this guy here who started this thread.

And one more thing; Great player in Dota 2 cant beat Great player in LoL on Summoners Rift, and of-course the other way around! One can not play both games at the same time and be great at both at the same time. So don't compare any of them with "chutes and ladders".

It Is I EmotoOct 16, 201411 votes

I'm still not understanding why people are smurfing. I mean, are you guys bored or just want to ruin the games for newcomers?

GraiskyeOct 16, 201420 votes

I'm still not understanding why people are smurfing. I mean, are you guys bored or just want to ruin the games for newcomers?

Becasue it makes them feel superior to beat on people who have just started the game. The game the smurf has been playing for several years. They get an ego boost, and a** tiny little** stiffy, guaranteed, by going into low level games on a smurf they have mastered long ago, and they obliterate new players. FUN. When I was coming up ages ago, I saw some moron in a game with 60 kills, and he was bragging about his skills, he was matched up against lvl 10-20, he also bragged he had been playing since beta. Thats the kind of moron that plays LOL get used to it.

PL55Oct 16, 20148 votes

For many people the reason for smurfing isn't to get an ego boost, but it's what they do when they get banned or have a low level friend who would get destroyed by matchmaking.

giraffiti0Oct 17, 20145 votes

I create smurfs when I'm teaching a friend the game. My account brings gold and platinum players into the game and ruins it for them. Even if I can beat that player it's basically the two of us slugging it out while annihilating eachother a teams. When I snuff I usually just duo lane with my new friends and try to make them look good. Give away kills as often as possible. That way even if I am smurfing, not the one snowballing

KikirinoOct 16, 201419 votes

I create smurfs to relive the days of when I started playing. There is no meta at low levels. You can pick Ashe top or Ziggs bottom. It is a completely different atmosphere and I love it hell I even got away with Leona mid. Try that in even normals at 30 and you will be reported for trolling. I miss, 100% genuinely miss, being new to this game prior to season one. The point of the game was to have fun. Not to follow the meta and win all the time. I can achieve a bit of those days on low level smurfs.

Yokel85Oct 16, 201412 votes

You can do the same thing in team builder, especially if you queue with a friend or two. I've been playing Veigar bottom lane (not as support) for a few weeks now, and I don't have to ruin any newbies' games to do it.

apuigOct 16, 20144 votes

you do understand this is only funny for you who can beat noobs with any champion in any lane, do you?

KikirinoOct 16, 20144 votes

What is funny? Playing whatever I want wherever I want and not getting flamed at? I don't dominate when I smurf. I play whatever I want and give advice to new players. I intentionally avoid stomping new players because that absolutely fucking sucks. If I wanted to faceroll my opponents for a shallow ego boost I would do bots.

apuigOct 16, 20141 votes

so you actually consider yourself a good person for "helping them out" with advice while beating them with your experience in the game?

KikirinoOct 17, 20143 votes

So you are trying to say that you cannot beat someone in a game and not be a dick? If you beat anyone in a game you are not a good person? There is a huge difference between beating someone and completely slaughtering them. Yeah, sometimes I win. Sometimes I don't. My goal going into the matches is not to win. It is to go back to the early days of when I played. If I win then fine. If I lose, so be it. I can at least know that I helped someone learn what csing is or that you don't have to save up to buy the entire I.E.. I can be happy in the fact that if I win I am not a dick about it and try to help the new players understand the game better. I have tons of new players on my friends lists because they enjoyed playing with me and wanted more advice. I smurf and I win most of the time but I am as nice as possible about it and ALWAYS make sure that I don't dominate with the win.

PenteanoOct 16, 20145 votes

I'm still not understanding why people are smurfing. I mean, are you guys bored or just want to ruin the games for newcomers?

I can't understand that too. I wanted to make a new account here in NA to play with the Dominion folks here but just thinking about leveling till 30 and farming ip for my stuff made me give up. I don't get how people have so much patience to start it all again and again

Mister PunchesOct 16, 201410 votes

Honestly, I'd say that if you truly want to have fun in this game, I'd recommend going in with friends or people you trust. The learning curve isn't as high or as punishing as Dota's, but if you go into matchmaking alone, you're going to get the full force of what many people in this forum call, "Toxic community", which is true to an extent. I've noticed that ever since I started playing games with friends, my skill has gotten much better at using the champs I like using. However, at the cost of that, whenever I'm not playing with them, I have gotten significantly worse.

I've been wondering about this for a bit, and I figured out why: Communication. When I was a new player, I didn't really get any communication from my team other than, "u fkn suk" or "stop feeding noob". This was also before I figured out a few of my friends in real life played League as well. Is 1 to 30 filled with smurfs and trolls? Yes. But if you really want to have fun and learn quickly, my advice is to not go into games with randoms. Randoms (Basically, people you don't know) are guaranteed a 100% chance to be more toxic to you than a full group of friends going in and communicating with each other. At least with a group of friends, you know each other. Playing with a group of randoms is always taking a gamble. If you're lucky, you're going to get a respectful bunch of players who communicate well.

If you're unlucky like me, well, you're going to either get no communication, you're going to get verbally abused, or watch one of your teammates verbally abuse another teammate, or watch another teammate verbally abuse the enemy team.

Long story short? If you want to avoid the smurfs, toxic players, and trolls of League, go into a game with a group of friends you trust. Your experience will be much better that way.

RabinOct 16, 20149 votes

I AGREE 100%, it took me a long time to get my friends into the game and it took multiple tries. Only after the grind to level 30 do they seem to actually enjoy the game.

FooDangOct 16, 20148 votes

I remember getting smashed every game trying to learn...I also remember not crying about it as I leveled up...MOBAs have a high learning curve...you have have to lose to learn how to win...

TLDR...grab some tissues for your issues

djPWallOct 16, 20146 votes

I remember getting smashed every game trying to learn...I also remember not crying about it as I leveled up...MOBAs have a high learning curve...you have have to lose to learn how to win...

TLDR...grab some tissues for your issues

Lol, you're silver II and I bet I could beat you 1v1. I understand MOBAs, after all, I came from the hardest to play of them all. I'm not upset because I lose games. I'm upset that it is a problem that is completely in the hands of Riot.

Sailor MintOct 16, 201412 votes

I'm still not understanding why people are smurfing. I mean, are you guys bored or just want to ruin the games for newcomers?

There's really no incentive to queue up on your main when you're stuck in Diamond V+ gaining little to no LP due to clamping and ever increasing queue times.

Either way, they need to rework low level player experience, especially at sub-10 and high 20s.

Lol, you're silver II and I bet I could beat you 1v1. I understand MOBAs, after all, I came from the hardest to play of them all. I'm not upset because I lose games. I'm upset that it is a problem that is completely in the hands of Riot.

Drop the attitude.
If level 30s can't play with their lowbie friends, they'll just make a smurf to do so, moving the problem elsewhere and potentially ruining more games.

If you have a more elegant solution, feel free to share.

If you already have a negative perception bias of the game and a superiority complex, you'll obviously paint your experience much more negatively. I just hope it doesn't devolve into a can-do-no-wrong attitude once/if you start playing ranked.

As a reminder, what you perceive as difficulty is often just poorly explained mechanics that add some complexity without adding any depth.

FooDangOct 16, 20145 votes

Oh I'm silver II...you caught me...Maybe I'm just a nub that doesn't know anything...I don't rank b/c I play with 3 or more IRL friends so we play nomals...and I'm not talking about rank...I'm talking about your QQ session...I'm silver II but i get matched vs Golds and Plats all the time...I don't cry about it...I go into the match thinking "maybe these guys can teach me something"...then I win lane and find that Rank doesn't = skill...to a certain extent...

GunpointOct 16, 20148 votes

Yeah brude, he could make it all the way to the LCS if he wanted to. It's his shitty teams that weigh him down.

XengreOct 16, 20148 votes

The issue I am concerned with here is non-premade sub level 20s getting matched against multiple Diamond/Plat/Gold premades. The matchmaking there is simply not balanced. How does a full pre-30 team with no premades get matched against a Diamond 1, Plat 5, and Gold 3 all on the opposite team with the Diamond and Gold premade. The remaining 2 on their team are pre-30s. I have seen this happen. Its pretty sad.

clickheadOct 16, 20141 votes

My gold-plat ranked team got matched against a diamond-master team in ranked 5s recently. We won but damn that matchmaking is crazy...

cshakesOct 16, 20142 votes

You have a separate MMR for each queue. Someone who has 2k+ MMR in ranked soloqueue might not play many normals and thus have a MMR of around 1200 (the default IIRC) and then get matched with other people of similar normals MMR when they do play a normal.

(It might be better if normal MMR would be affected by ranked soloqueue MMR if you don't play enough normals. Maybe (normal MMR + ranked MMR) / 2?)

MakersFOct 16, 20145 votes

Playing with a lvl 10-15 account. Pick any champion I want mid/top/bot, strictly with TP + Ignite. Let's say Soraka top. The whole team " soraka is no top. Go sup. You fucker you will make us lose. Fucking troll. Reported"

Proceed to be 6/0 in 10 minutes with three times the creeps of everyone else (not big deal obviously, as at that level the creeps score is pretty bad). Proceed to write in chat "The important part of laning phase is winning trades while earning more gold. You can do that by effectively CSing and building according to the matchup. You can practice in custom games for CSing, there are videos on youtube. Get informed about what are the strength of your champion, and try to avoid trades when you know you are behind, and force them when you are stronger. Every time you can, try to kill the dragon or the turrets: it gives a lot of gold to the whole team"

Usual reply "Fucking troll. Reported for flaming. /all this soraka make us lose. Report pls". Proceed to carry this self entitled butthurt people to victory. Obviously I'm never reported, they just want to act as they know everything.

I have the green ribbon (friendly) in my main, so I'm most definitely not a troll.

Not everyone is like that, but a lot of people. Even when I stomp someone and offer them advice like "I do magic dmg, you should buy mr first, and armor when the laning phase ends. Building penetration is better than full dmg on your champ" people just ignore that, and do whatever they want.

I played with rl friends on ts that where in plat from level 1 to 30, I was practically tutored by them, and I knew a lot of the mechanics of the game even before level 30. The problem of the game is that no one is officially saying to the players what is the most effective way to play, and they have no way to learn. The problems are not the smurfs, the problem is that the players should be guided way more early, as this game is complex and it is impossible for the average Joe to understand it by his own. And that shouldn't be even expected!

LegendariOct 16, 20144 votes

Yeah, I never understood why there isn't more effort to educate new players... The tutorial teaches people to build Thornmail on Ashe ffs (at least last time I saw it)... and we wonder why so many people are so frustratingly clueless about how the game works....

For CarthageOct 16, 20144 votes

I'm assuming you're talking about teambuilder because that's the system that has the, ahem, "matchmaking improvements" that alter a player's MMR based upon how often they have played the champion they're currently playing in teambuilder, often to a rather absurd degree.

This is easily circumvented by going to blind pick, which doesn't have these alterations and instead averages the levels of players and links you up with a team of similar MMR.

That being said, avoid blind draft. For some reason, I get paired with nothing but the lowest MMR's while facing Plat V's and above. It's uncanny as all hell. And while it's great to practice against better opponents, it does nothing to develop teamwork if your team refuses to work together while their team is SEAL Team 6.

m3rcyOct 16, 20144 votes

My first impression from this game when I first started playing was that is seemed to be a very simple game (was I wrong).

I been playing for over a year now and just only 2 months ago I started doing research to understand the game's mechanics.

I have been playing online games for over 20 years. I can say that for me, LOL is by far the most complex game I ever played and requires so much understanding.

Over 100+ champs, each with it's own unique strengths and weaknesses. Melee, range. AP/AD or hybrid. AOE / CC / Stuns / Silence / etc.... Items + Masteries + Runes + Spells that changes the dynamics of each champions. Map with objectives (some with timers) that have their optimal opportunities for completing and gaining resources. Fog of war (warding for vision control). Minions waves that provide resources on last hit. The list goes on and on.

I never raged and I was more on the receiving end of it (even from my own family and friends). I still suck but now I understand why.

I leave you with one last thing. I love to play golf and suck at it really bad (even got injured doing it). What keeps me coming back? That one hole out of 18 were everything was alined and I birdie or par.

Hang in there...see you on the riff.

apuigOct 16, 20144 votes

I hit lv 30 playing vs AI with friends, then we had a relatively fun time transitioning to PvP.

ZarxisOct 17, 20144 votes

I've been waiting since the beginning of S3 for the ELO system to return, but Riot won't own up to the mistake that is this "League" system. End-of-season rewards are being passed out in accordance to one's "fake ranking" (League tier and division) when your MMR is what actually matters in matchmaking. The entire "League" system is nothing more than a forced grind. With ELO (and MMR!), you gain points if you win more than half of your games. This does not apply in the "League" system, in which you have to win 66% (or 60%, depending on if you're going up a division or a tier) of your games in your promotion series.

This system was a mistake. The only way to salvage it is to remove promotion series and have your division+tier determined solely by your MMR rating (no more LP bullshit), or to return to the old system (which did the same thing, basically, but with only divisions, no tiers).

clickheadOct 16, 20143 votes

I remember starting to play and thinking ''Damn, I suck compared to everyone'' and quitting. A few months later I came back to the game and started playing again. I started playing easy mechanical champions and realised I could stomp people even if I sucked at the game and that's when I really started learning how to play. I honestly didn't find it that hard, learning any complex game requires effort and time.

Although I didn't know what lolnexus was at the time, I don't think there were a lot of smurfs in my games. The thing is if you smurf for more than 10-20 games you get matchmade with people who have really high normal match mmr, you are wrong if you think the normal matchmaking system simply looks at summoner levels to decide who plays against who, there is an elo ladder in normal games just like ranked but it's just not visible.

SpaceGiraffesOct 16, 20143 votes

Could have been done without the profanity and insults. I learned the most from getting stomped by high rated players when the ELO system was still present. Losing a game is not the end of the world, especially if you're a casual. Play some co-op if you're that upset but still need your League fix.

ZulgainesOct 16, 20143 votes

The best advice I can give you when dealing with smurfs in low level games is to defend up, protect towers foremost, farm everything you can until your team catches up with theirs in item builds, and buy some early home guard boots. The hardest thing to pull off is getting low level players to understand the game isn't over and they shouldn't surrender at 20.

Hardcore smurfs are rarely very good at dealing with anything beyond snowballing off a couple people in lane and pushing in an early win after crushing newbie morale.

Adrian UmbraOct 16, 20143 votes

As someone who does smurf, I only do so to play with friends and I try to do so in such a way as to support my friends and make them shine and help them learn. If others on the enemy team want to ask any questions, I'll answer them. I play champions who I'm inexperienced with and focus on my basic mechanics. Because stomping new players is just boring and mean.

Basically, there's no reason to be a dick in low leveled normals with a bunch of newbies.

TeemoHunter1337Oct 16, 20143 votes

just remove chat system till lvl 10(u could still ping)

CryoidOct 16, 20142 votes

It gets better after 30? I always assumed after 30 everything would be the same as pre-30. Which really is not as bad as you seem to think.

JevelFaithfulOct 16, 20143 votes

Like everything in League, it really depends. I have a friend who is playing with the smurf and enjoying every minutes of it. Another who gets a smurf or two and jsut roll with it. Then by lvl 30 you'll get people saying playing normal is a sesspool of raging and trolling while I'm actually quite enjoying it and when I last played I got pretty decent folks (I think my MMR sinked a bit too much since that time, playing a game per month does that to you). Same for ranked : I see people saying it's a decent enough experience and people are more focussed on the game. Other say it's all trolling and "mid or feed!!!1!" and raging at the slightest mistake.

Everyone sees a different game.