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When can "smurfs" be a thing of a past?

Traveler 001·12/15/2019, 3:01:13 PM·5 votes·2,703 views

I get it. It used to be cool to come down to a lower rank than your main account and say to your teammates "Im smurfs, I'll carry". But what about for the gaming experience for the other team? What kind of experience would they have when they're beaten 5-30. And what if one of the losing player has had 3-4 games of these on the day he decided to play League?

If a much higher ranking player comes to play in a much lower rank, there is no other outcome then the higher ranking player destroying the other team. I've had endless amount of these games in my last week alone. I've had "smurfs" in my team and on the other team. I rarely see the smurf's team lose.

Can you imagine a Gold medal holder Olympic champion comes back to the high school he used attend and competing there again to win the first place? The high schoolers won't have a chance against him because he's already a Gold medalist. And he won't be allowed to compete there simply because it'll be "unfair". We know for a fact that it is going to be unfair. The same thing applies here. It won't be fair for the team that doesn't have the high rank player on their team. It'll be a nightmare experience for the opposing team.

I used to have about 20 more wins than losses but every win I'd get 17 LP but I'd lose about -20 LP. There are numerous times that I just play a long 40 mins game to win 17 LP then in the next game, I'll be against a Diamond 1 smurf player on enemy team and we had to go 5-30 and just lost back -20. Just like that. And I am pretty damn sure I'm not alone who's had this kind of experience.

So, why isn't "smurfs" a thing of a past already? Why is Riot allowing players to ruin other player's gaming experience?

Can't riot limit of link each account to a single MAC so that way, one account equals one computer? And if a player is willing to play in multiple account he needs to get multiple computers (which I think is a fair game).

But now, each of the player has like at least 3-4 accounts. I haven't get into the case of players that just leave the game and play on their other account because they don't want to try anymore after dying 2 times to Irelia.

I am a plat player. I was in Plat 2 recently but I do admit I got there because I had a bunch of smurfs on my team so often in the past few days. I felt back for the other teams. I undeservingly got to Plat 2. I barely did anything. I'd go 0/8, 2/10 etc yet kept on winning.

Riot, you need to work on fine-tuning your matchmaking system and it's time to stop the smurfs. You're allowing unnecessary stress on players who just want to have a good time -- unless you don't want people to have a good time playing your team, then forget everything I've said.

39 Comments

Darkdemon65312/15/2019, 5:40:46 PM8 votes

You have 2500 games just this season. You aren't being held back by alts.

FOR JUSTICE12/15/2019, 3:36:39 PM3 votes

It's never possible to completely stop smurfing. Besides, statistically speaking there aren't enough diamonds to legitimately stop you from climbing as they represent less then 3% of the LoL population .

Also your Mac idea definitely wouldn't work, as Mac spoofing is in fact a thing, either with simple one button press on some spoofing programs, or iirc you can use the registry editor on Windows to change the hardware address on a network adapter windows is reporting, or do the same in network adapter properties.

And even further still, that means 1 person per family is allowed to play once an account is created.

rujitra12/15/2019, 4:19:56 PM3 votes

Can't riot limit of link each account to a single MAC so that way, one account equals one computer?

They can, I suppose. But what about families that have one computer and multiple people who wish to play League? Fuck them, right?

The bottom line is that in a free to play game, there will never be a method to ensure "one person, one account" beyond using some form of "national ID number" such as the US Social Security Number. In some countries, such as Korea, this is legal - for a private company to use the national ID number for this purpose. In the US, for security reasons and because the SSN is government run, private companies are only allowed to utilize it in very limited (financial transaction) circumstances when it is absolutely necessary to prevent fraud.

DuskDaUmbreon12/15/2019, 3:28:05 PM3 votes

When people stop using smurfs.

Ehhhh12/15/2019, 3:37:04 PM2 votes

Gaming cafes would be useless for people that can't afford a computer able to run LoL, since they now have nowhere to go play the game, making Riot lose money.

What happens if people have family or friends that play the game on the same computer, but their own accounts? Not every family can afford multiple computers, just because they cant have more than 1 account per computer.

2Charmnot2Charm12/15/2019, 5:36:31 PM1 votes

The only way riot can stop smurfs and bots is by making League of Legends Pay to play.

Which is a completely stupid idea for many reasons.

ChargeItDownMid12/15/2019, 6:01:23 PM1 votes

When the game stops being free to play. As long as creating a new account is free, smurfing will always be a problem. Any attempts to ban smurf accounts will just result in more people making new free accounts.

klin53712/15/2019, 6:12:06 PM1 votes

if anything smurfing will just get worse as players get better and better but get more and more bored of fair games.

The other thing is that, if you ever made a smurf account, you would know that the fun only lasts like 10 games. Your mmr would be so inflated after going 30/0 against noobs that you would likely never get matched with players that low again. My friend's smurf account has 15 min long matchmaking as it looks for other smurfs. A true toxic smurf would intentionally lose in order to tank his mmr and relive the smurfing, but I'm not sure if that's what your dealing with considering that this is usually something you see in low elo, not plat.

If you're getting diamond players in plat games, it's not because they're smurfing. It's because they had a (likely unintentional) loss streak and it tanked their mmr. Or its because you had a win streak and your mmr is higher than it should be.

I try to treat smurves as a learning experience. If you only play against people your elo then you will get real good at beating players of that elo, but you'll have no idea how to deal with players who are better. I don't know if you are all that interested in climbing, but if you are, then these "smurfs" are going to be the norm once you get to higher elo and you should welcome any practice you can get against them.

Revech12/16/2019, 3:56:28 PM1 votes

ez simply aquire challenger skill, duo with a challenger skill friend and you'll elo up from plat in no time :D

Traveler 00112/28/2019, 6:57:38 PM1 votes

Yesterday, I played 10 games. Out of the 10 games, I noticed 10 smurf players. The majority of them were on enemy teams. It was very difficult to play when your bot lane and other lanes are dominated by the smurfs.

Someone said smurfs aren't that common. Well, this fact proves you wrong. I clicked on each of their profiles and they have match histories like 10+ win streaks with very high KDA, low games played and high winrates. A normal genuine new league player won't have that kind of stats so early in their ranked games history. So don't tell me they're genuinely good players from the beginning. These people are smurfing for reasons that are dishonest: making new aco%%%% to sell, or whatever.

Game 1 (WIN) Enemy Mid - Plat 4, 32 games (78% winrate) Enemy ADC - Gold 1, 21 games (91% winrate)

Game 2 (LOSS) Enemy ADC - Plat 1, 117 games (65% winrate) Ally ADC - Plat 4, 66 games (68% winrate)

Game 3 (LOSS) None

Game 4 (WIN) Enemy Top - Plat 3, 181 games (60% winrate) - maybe smurf, not sure

Game 5 (LOSS) Enemy ADC - Gold 1, 45 games (64% winrate) Enemy Support - Plat 2, 83 games (65% winrate)

Game 6 (LOSS) None

Game 7 (WIN) None

Game 8 (WIN) None

Game 9 (LOSS) None

Game 10 (LOSS) Enemy ADC - Silver 1, 14 games (100% winrate) Enemy Mid - Plat 4, 83 games (71% winrate) Enemy Top - Unranked, 8 games (75% winrate)

2gudaiya12/28/2019, 7:37:17 PM1 votes

they already have a solution, linking the accounts to cell phone numbers. they just aren't making it real yet.

Salty Mc Feed12/28/2019, 7:58:48 PM1 votes

When Ryze stops being blue and broken.

R0ses R Red12/15/2019, 4:20:38 PM1 votes

Smurfs are only ever apparent when they get a large lead. You should just play safe when you're pitted against one. They don't have some ability to take reduced dmg against towers, enter the game with extra stats, or anything like that. A Diamond 0/0/0 Lucian will not survive a Silver 4/0/0 Fizz, because leads are king in this game NOT skills.

Zardo12/15/2019, 5:06:11 PM1 votes

Never. Riot has said that having alternate accounts is acceptable, so banning them now would be extremely unethical.

Let's say someone has 4 accounts. At the beginning of the season they were all gold elo. However, the player improves on their main account and ranks up to diamond 4 over the course of the season. The player is now in possession of 3 smurfs- should the player have those accounts banned?

While I understand losing to a smurf is frustrating, there are very few ways to ban people who smurf to stomp lower ranked players that doesn't ban people who just have alternate accounts(the latter which has been completely acceptable)

If the issue is smurfs being toxic and leaving a game, we can make players link their accounts to a single phone number and have a shared punishment system. Most people won't get burner phones just to be toxic/leave games on smurfs. If the issue is stomping low elo, then riot needs to revamp the placement system(which they probably should anyways).

Jaguar Påw12/15/2019, 5:06:45 PM1 votes

They could easily just do like DOTA2 and require a mobile number for ranked, and ban people making multiple accounts, who are trying to circumvent needing a real number. Riot would rather subsidize boosting so they will never do anything in regards to this problem. They are truly just a cash grab company and the reason they are so popular is because sadly being a scammer is promoted in the current age of our world.

Sukishoo12/15/2019, 5:09:21 PM1 votes

Never probably. Riot doesn't advocate them but they don't really try to stop it either.