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Smurfs are ruining league of legends and are forcing players to quit. (VERY DETAILED)

LlamaSpeed·8/21/2018, 6:57:23 AM·27 votes·8,330 views

I'll be cutting right to the chase, please save the downvote until you have read the entire post, I deeply appreciate your time and open mind. I originally believed I was a whiny bitch when I thought Smurfs were ruining the game, but after 2 of my diamond friends agreed with me, I decided maybe I'm not so crazy after all... and neither are you if you are thinking the same thing.

In High elo gameplay particularly in diamond and master and forward, que times are very bad, and can be upwards 10+ minutes (As per my diamond friend), this results in players to create new accounts to get placed back into lower elo matches to then reduce their overall que times untill they inevitably climb back to where they belong. There are dozens of other reasons players create these account, be it to simply dominate lower elo players or to test the waters in lower elo gameplay, the list goes on. This process of creating a new account as a seasoned and skilled player, to play matches in lower elo, is called 'Smurfing', and the people who commit these acts are 'Smurfs'

Why are smurfs ruining the game. I mentioned earlier these smurfs will climb out back to where they belong inevitably, because these are skilled players who are talented at the game and have put hours of practice into it (Most of the time), so these players deserve the rank that they will climb to. However, it is that climbing process that leaves a trail of fire behind them, that will force players to quit. While these players are enjoying the game and dodging the 10+ minute que timers, there are 5 other players on the other side who are going through absolute torture and are starting to think to themselves "This game... maybe isnt for me man."*1| And that isn't just a quote I pulled up out of my ass, it's actually something a good friend of mine said in discord when we were losing to a 35/2 irelia smurf. He said this before he uninstalled league of legends, and is one of the main reasons I decided to create this post.

Before I continue, it is important to note that some players are just playing good, maybe they drank plenty of water got all their vitamins in and their brains are just on fire. It's very important to know whether you are losing to a player doing good, or a player who is indeed smurfing. One of the best ways to determine this is to go on op.gg and to search their ign. If you see the account is relatively new, and the player has an almost spotless match history, you are looking at a smurf. If you see an account from 2014, there still is a chance it is a purchased account, but the usual gotcha factor is the match history, and particularly the scores in their wins. Smurfs dont just win, they dominate the game. They play at such a high skill level that other players just dont have the mechanics or skill (for lack of a better term) to face them. Granted, smurfs can come from all ranks so their score might just depend.

A trail of fire behind them, is one of the best ways to really see how smurfs are ruining the game, 'ruining' I try to use lightly, It's not like smurfs are the single worst thing for league and they are absolutely killing the game, no not really, but they are definitely a factor. However, it is NOT the smurfs fault. As much as I would love to play pointing fingers here, smurfs can not be blamed for what they do. If you have the option to create a new account to have tons of fun for yourself instead of playing a match you have to wait minutes upon minutes on to actually play vs players who you need to try against, yeah, you'd definitely pick the fun route.*2| And this post is not to create a witch hunt against smurfs, it's to draw awareness, and at least try to decrease the amount of smurfs in the game (However futile it might be).

One of the main "arguments"*3| for smurfs are, going against smurfs are good, because the best way to get better to play with or against a very good player. And that is very true, but far too general. In reality, people will always recommend hanging around smart people, as it will rub off on you, and it is true. But this doesn't work as well with smurfs in league. You see, a smurf in league (Most of the time) Are not just smurfing from 1-2 ranks above you, they are usually coming from the top of the top, and their skill level is near the ceiling where the players the smurf may be going against is near the floor (No offense of course.) The reason people will recommend hanging around people of a certain skillset, is to begin to gain those skills, its because humans have a wonderful way of adapting, and learning quick TO adapt. However, there is a limit, and there is no way a player of a low skill level will adapt to a plat-diamond smurfs skill level in just the 30 minutes, and then the opposite effect, a more negative one will occur. When the human successfully adapts to an environment or situation, there is a sense of great accomplishment and confidence, but when this turns south and adapting fails, and (In the smurfing scenario) a player can not catch up or, adapt, they will get the exact opposite, a great sense of "I don't belong here" and "I should get out of here."4| And this, is where the unhealthy part of smurfing comes in

Another very good argument is, well sure 5 people on the enemy team get spanked, but 4 people on the smurfs team just had the time of their life. This is one of if not THE best justifications for smurfing. However, while it may seem like those 4 people had the time of their lives (Which they probably did), it's not usually the best thing for them. Those 4 players dont get to hone their skills or sometimes have to use any at all, and will move up from this smurf and then realize in the next game, when they most likely dont have a smurf, that they need to try, usually leading to more losses directly after that grand win. This is just speculation of course, and no basis for shutting down the argument, but it's one of the best counters. Not to mention those other 5 players who just got traumatized.

Why would I mention my 2 diamond friends if I'm not gonna talk about them? Well here's where they come in. Smurfing doesn't just negatively impact the gameplay of the lower elo getting smurfed on, but also negatively impacts the higher elo play. I quote Dplayer1, "These dudes don't understand that, if you gonna smurf bc you hate these que times, you're not helping the problem, you're making it worse. When you're off smurfin that's one more player that que needs to search for, you could save the players your skill is supposed to go against, 3-4 minutes from que time if you just didnt go visit silver elo." I never even thought of this, but this is very interesting. Smurfing can even impact the elo you leave, because the less players up there, the even longer the que gets. Dplayer2 brought up another point, "Why would you even spend all them hours and grind just to go back down there to Fuk on some people that you know cant do shit against you, it's stupid honestly idek why people do it. Just pick on people your own size." This is the very victim approach to it, but at least it came from the mouths of someone up there, and it's a good point.

Here is where I want to add that, smurfing in normals, smurfing in aram and stuff like that, is 100% fine, and anyone who thinks otherwise should reconsider. Because in a normal match, nothing is on the line but some BE, players are nowhere near as geared into a competitive mindset and will let losses go easily. Ranked is where competitive players go to get better and hone their skills*5|, this is where smurfing takes a negative effect.

Suspending, reprimanding or even banning smurfs is one of the worst things that could ever be done to try and solve this issue. A bit odd for me to say that right? I don't really think so. First of all, there's no feasible way to even punish smurfs as they will just make or buy new accounts, and most likely make the matters worse. Second of all, that wont solve anything at all even if it did work, as players would most likely just quit from getting their smurf banned. It's just not a good idea. So how do you tackle it? What's the solution. Well, there's the hard part. The easiest solution of course is player based, where smurfs decide to just not smurf and stick to their elo level, and that clearly isn't going to happen. So the best solution that I could come up with*6| is to up the win detection in ranked. I'll speak little about this, as I already know a ranked revamp is coming, but currently ranked works in a Bad-Good scale, where the better you get the more you will slowly climb. I believe one of the best ways to get smurfs to play as few matches in low elo as possible is to aggressively implement a Good-bad system, where players a judged as good players and are slowly debunked down based on how they play. There are numerous systems already in place that assist in this, like division skipping and such, but if a player is winning non stop for 20 games with insane scores, there can easily be a detection system for this, and just place the player randomly into a very high elo. Of course, the player could just start playing bad but I guess there's just the hope that they accept they're back in their elo and just keep playing how they play.

There you have it, a detailed reasoning as to why smurfs are unhealthy for league of legends, If you actually read ALL of this, write "Read all dat" in your reply, I'd love to see who actually read it all. Whether you read the whole thing with an open mind, or just skimmed it through, I still appreciate your time, and would love to hear your thoughts. I'm very open minded about this myself so I'd love a conversation about it. I'm off, we meet again when I find something else to complain about.

*1: This was a player was very competitive, and only wanted to play ranked. I did try to explain the fact that he was against a smurf and it doesnt usually happen, but I guess the damage was too heavy for him, and I can't blame him.

*2: Fun I guess depending on how you see it. Some smurfs do indeed create these smurf accounts just to ruin the low elo gameplay experience for the enemy team, pretty sick people, but thankfully few.

*3: I put quotations because it's not really an argument, but more of justification and reasoning, and pretty good ones too, to definitely be considered on the apposing side of this situation

*4: Smurfs aren't in EVERY game, in fact they can be quite rare (Not nowadays though unfortunately,) but sometimes, it takes just one horrible defeat to just crush a players entire confidence and lead them to seeking a different game.

*5: There are 24 mil active players in NA and only 1.5 mil are in ranked (as per op.gg), This gives some perspective on how many players smurfing is effecting, honestly not a lot when compared to the big picture of players, but it's definitely enough to stir the 1.5 mil in ranked for sure.

*6: If you have better ideas, please leave a reply, come up with some creative counter measure to reduce the impact of smurfs, it's all up you in the end, the playerbase.

22 Comments

Takahashi938/21/2018, 2:29:33 PM6 votes

The problem is MMR. MMR Needs fixed.

  • Instead of basing MMR on victory or defeat, base it on kill/death/warding count.
  • Don't bother counting assists (unless you are a tank or support) because 90% of the time it's the higher level smurf that kill steals the measly wood division player's only shot at a kill.
  • If you consistently end a match with 0/5+/? you should be placed with people at a lower skill level...
  • If you consistently end up breaking even like say 5/5/? you should stay with the current skill level or be dropped a little lower
  • If you consistently end up cleaning house and destroying the other team with 10+/0/? you need to be placed in harder matches
Rev Jeckel5/29/2019, 4:37:27 AM5 votes

I don't get whats so difficult.. If someone is reported for Smurfing you check to see if they have multiple accounts, and then ban them all. I am not saying permanent but a month or two of not being able to play on any of your accounts might convince them. If they keep doing it perm ban them.... problem solved.

ItsFlexie4/12/2019, 9:04:41 PM3 votes

There is nothing sympathetic about smurfs, they are people who enjoy ruining other peoples day and/or game, just so they can have fun. All smurfing does to the game in the bigger picture, is drive people away from the game, because they are getting matched up against players, who they should never play against. Riot really should try and do something. Valve made "Prime matchmaking" for players who linked their account to their phone number. Then they will only get matched against who also have prime. That system is by no means perfect, since you can always just buy a "use once" phone number to sign up. But it's way better than the heap of nothing, rito is doing right now.

ModKnightsKemplar8/21/2018, 2:36:16 PM3 votes

Skimmed all dat.

I agree with you, but you kinda already outlined the problem in your text. I'm just not sure what Riot could do to stop it.

But, Riot could also do better at not encouraging it. I made my first smurf in 6 years playing this game because of those "new player" quests. No one I knew was new enough for it to count with them, and this game isn't the kind of game I would recommend to many friends. When they give missions like that, all it does is encourage people to make smurfs. And I did. I'll cop to it. I had to pay back a friend who let me do the missions on my main with their smurf. So, not only am I smurfing and making people's experience worse, I also did it twice, so my friend and I could both get the quests done on our main accounts!

I haven't played on that smurf account since, for reasons that you outlined very well. I see no point. But the fact is, that mission line was supposed to bring in new players. The irony is that because of the way they did it, those were probably the worst two weeks to be a new player in League's history.

Noice N EZ1/19/2019, 4:14:38 PM3 votes

The logical way to counter this would be that league associates accounts with IP adress and even networks.

The Bad Touch8/21/2018, 7:14:00 AM3 votes

Make a post named "Smurfs are ruining league of legends and are forcing players to quit. (VERY SHORT)" and I'll read it.

LlamaSpeed8/21/2018, 6:58:48 AM3 votes

Let me know your thoughts, your opinion might not matter to other people but it matters to me

MisterDogeSays4/23/2019, 9:28:25 AM2 votes

I agree enjoed the game A LOT against bots. But since i play against humans there is always 2 or more players completely annihilating the enemy team. Its extremely frustrating and no fun at all anymore. I will give this game 1 or two more matches to sort out the fucking ranks im in before i will uninstall it.

Boatwhistle8/21/2018, 8:30:23 AM2 votes

you could probably just send someone from bronze to silver if they dominate about 5 games in a row. It means they know what they are doing and are proficient with their champion. Every continuous game dominated afterward could more and more aggressively raise ones ranking to the point of per game bases. As soon as they don't dominate the system could hold them in place following this for about 10 games or so if a player really wants to lower their rank they need to be at it for at least 2 hours.

theChibiTina8/21/2018, 12:19:14 PM2 votes

Read all that.

And jeez it was a lot. Lol. I agree with a lot of what you're saying though. I know some people will smurf to help a new friend learn in normals without dragging them into games with people that have high MMR. Some smurfs do it because they want to have fun without the high queue timers or just to practice on champs that are new or unfamiliar to them without effecting their rank and/or MMR. Those smurfs are okay. I can deal with them. Then you have the bad smurfs. The first type being the ones who just want to boost their ego by stomping on lower ranked individuals. The second type being the unwilling smurf. The one who is super toxic and being forced to start over on a new account because their previous account is either temp or perma banned. I dislike these kind of people. They make low elo a living nightmare when you have to deal with them. Unfortunately, I don't know if there's a whole lot that can be done about it. The good smurfs will probably look at this with sympathy, but not enough to stop because of the reasoning behind why they're doing it. The bad smurfs will just look at this, scoff at it, and write you off as a whiny baby. So as much as I agree with what you have written here, I don't think it's going to change anything.

Butterwood4/26/2019, 8:03:31 PM2 votes

I think it'd be interesting if Riot tested a split of matchmaking up to level 30 - one side is made up of high performing accounts linked to an IP that is registered to multiple accounts, and the other is for IPs with only one account login in the IP's history. It's imperfect, but it'd be a step in the right direction.

This wouldn't help with ranked obviously, but it may at least disincentivize people from creating new accounts just to stomp people lv 1-30.

Naithiz1/26/2020, 2:49:57 AM1 votes

Here is where I want to add that, smurfing in normals, smurfing in aram and stuff like that, is 100% fine, and anyone who thinks otherwise should reconsider. Because in a normal match, nothing is on the line but some BE, players are nowhere near as geared into a competitive mindset and will let losses go easily. Ranked is where competitive players go to get better and hone their skills*5|, this is where smurfing takes a negative effect.

i dissagre with that. i made a new account as i dont play ranked on my main at all(last season i got b1 and stoped playing cause friends were trying to climb bronze) i am in no way great at this game but im ok. but since about lvl 10ish i found that every match i played was alot harder then on my main. and its not like im plat or something i have failed at ranked any time i have tryed to do it. the last match i played i legit read your post while playing cause i was worthless. the riven rollstomped me into the dirt the froze the lane so i got to sit there not playing the game cause if i tryed to cs i died and i didnt want to feed. I ended up winning cause someone who said its 3am on na server at about 6pm mst so they from like asia or something. he played yassuo and roll stomed the game. i didnt get to do shit all. any fight i tryed i lost so i just wandered about with nothing to do as i might as well not die and not take cs away from the people playing well. yea thats alot of fun! im lvl 26 now after that game. i have played with chalanger lvl players befor (friends who would let me play a bit with them when one of the team was missing and they wanted to play. and it felt like that. like there is an area around each player that is death you just dont go into that. and yea thats not fun. it dont help players learn to play this game. so yea i do agree being master ranked playing with some friends who are iron is fine if your past lvl 30 imo below lvl 30 its a shit show as many people legit dont even know what champ your playing.

TN Beastzy4/28/2019, 9:14:42 AM1 votes

As a gold player, I have landed against diamond players in normals on their main champion in mirror matchup multiple times.

Remember that u dont have to win lane to win game, as long as u dont lose lane you are not ENTiRELY responsible for losing game.

If you ward well, constantly look at minimap, give up CS when necessary, and dont fight then there is no way you will get killed. Alternatively, you could hard push lane, place control wards, clear vision and set up a gank with your jungler.

Better players can only take advantage of ur mistakes, as long as u dont make those mistakes then they cant snowball.

Ironically, I smashed diamond player in that match, and only realised it at the end game lobby.

Having a smurfing jungler is much worse experience in my opinion, they will kill everybody in ur team and u cant deny them from ur lane unless u r winning it.

If you really wanna win the match, then win your lane and solo carry from there, that's the only way. Think ur teammates as bunch of useless blockheads and 1v5 the match, if you fail to smash ur enemy laner and fail to snowball from there u dont deserve to win.

Peace

foosballa4/26/2019, 3:13:24 AM1 votes

Just a suggestion as a long time low elo bronze player, who is giving the game a second chance after quitting the game for HOS several years ago: Put a low level floor on accounts that have a play-frequency/age.

Reasons: (1) The lvl. 30 limit doesn't cut it and might even encourage smurfing through using a work-limit as opposed to attempting to determine how much somebody cares about the account.

(2) The only difference I've seen the few times I've managed to get a win-streak and make it up to silver before falling back down is that people care a bit more about the game. Some might disagree with me, but Silver IV and Bronze I are actually fun. Bronze IV sucks and not just because of smurfs but because you get afkers, rage-quitters, que droppers, and the list goes on - just people that could really care less about their accounts.

I think this would help the issue by rewarding accounts that are less likely to be smurfs rather than punishing smurfs.

(3) If anything, it would spread the smurfing problem over several elo ranks rather than just concentrating it all on low skill / low-tier elo players.

Ikyoto11/8/2019, 5:35:38 AM1 votes

read all dat I have two "smurf" friends that help me out with playing the game, but their other accounts never got to ranked or a very high level at all. Didn't start playing the game that long ago but I'm constantly losing if they're not there to send me a heal and save my butt. The matching system is kinda wack. Sometimes you'll get pitted against level 60s to level 100s. I got placed against a level 227 Elderwood Ahri once and I haven't even hit level 30 yet. It's probably just that I'm bad that I keep losing though. League is only fun with friends.

Jarlaxle2034/26/2019, 7:29:13 PM1 votes

Read all dat. I Partially agree. As I'm sure you can see I'm a new ish player. Got bored 10 months ago playing against bots (as I never really won against people, only have access to ARAM at the moment) and decided to try again. I've played 3 (yes only 3) today and I actually was on the winning team for one. I think the issue is that, as someone who keeps coming back, I start a game where it's a stomp. I'm not learning anything when Twitch comes up and 2 hits. I only played ARAM as I was advised it was a "FUN" way to learn. It's not fun getting stomped. In fact this will likely be my last foray to try League.