Boards›Gameplay

Smurfing is a real issue man

Zelectric·3/15/2019, 5:08:22 AM·24 votes·10,779 views

Just trying to play the game and teach my friends how to play and every game there is just one or two guys on the other team that just abuse their knowledge and skill of the game to make it unenjoyable for new players to learn. I understand they could just play bots but bots are not anything like real players. I also know I could easily do the same thing but then they also don't learn anything about the game and I want new players to have the opportunity to learn things about laning and teamfighting instead of just dying over and over again to somebody that has played the game forever. I know its a hard thing to fix but riot needs to do something if they want their game to survive and have more new players join the game. Gotta do something so new players can play against other new players instead of people that just steamroll games because they made a new account so they can just kill noobies. C'mon riot.

34 Comments

Jamaree3/15/2019, 5:25:11 AM16 votes

"I can't smurf with my friend because other smurfs are stomping them?"

[sg-lux-2]

If you want them to stop playing against smurfs, you have to stop playing with them then, as long as you play with them, they will play against others smurfs, if you don't, they won't.

Hawckey3/15/2019, 5:14:21 AM6 votes

yea they need to stop perma banning people into making new accounts. on top of that the people on multiple accounts tend to care way less about bans/punishments. just lower the sensitivity for PERMA bans ffs

terderserce3/15/2019, 2:40:35 PM3 votes

Believe it or not, naysayers, smurfs aren't simply there because you duo'd with someone stronger than you. Smurfs do things like create a 5-man premade with 2 gold players and 3 "new" players, then they ravage your team for 50 minutes, only winning because finally the minions can destroy the nexus. (Which, how do you end up vs. a 5-man premade when you solo-Q'd? And from all you can deduce, you might have one duo on your team. Like, what?)

It's not accidental. It's not all permabanned accounts. It's people trolling because they must have it hard in their main account games. So they're in that match to make you feel their pain.

I create new accounts from time to time, but that is usually when I am trying to learn a new champ or lane. So while I may know the mechanics better than newer players, I am still terrible at my role/champ, and if I do have an advantage, I just play to win. I don't grief the person who can't keep up with me.

These smurfs this post is addressing are doing what they do intentionally. It's abusing the system. And it doesn't stop at the new player level. You see this huge imbalance in matchmaking even through Gold, if not past Gold.

Corvin07163/15/2019, 10:05:49 AM3 votes

I do not support smurfing but your reasoning seems flawed to me. The better the player you play against the more you can learn from the game. Even if he stomps you, you can watch the replay and analyze his gameplay and your mistakes as well. Playing vs a better player improves you the most because you can learn something new from him.

Der Lindwurm3/15/2019, 6:29:06 PM3 votes

In every single questionnaire that I've got from Riot in the past 3 or so years, I have told them that smurfing is the main reason why the game inaccessible to new players in its current state. It's one thing if they act like they can't do anything about it because it would pose problems for the business model when players are annoyed over what smurfing does to matchmaking. You'd think they'd be more concerned about the competitive integrity of ranked gameplay, but if that's more than they can afford to worry about, then... okay. Alright. Whatever. When it comes the fact that new players INVARIABLY have a, horrible, disgusting experience thanks to them, however, they need to get off their asses and do something if they want to save their game.

Sillae3/16/2019, 7:37:17 AM3 votes

Your MMR is screwing with theirs.

The23rdGamer3/15/2019, 1:29:24 PM1 votes

Generally speaking brand new players will not be placed against people who are smurfing all that often because their effective skill levels are quite different. However by playing with them yourself, you're essentially asking for more smurfs to be placed on the other team to offset your skill being added to their queue.

It does kind of suck, but being fair from the other team's point of view you're doing something very similar to what you're saying is an issue in this post.

If you want them to learn against players of their own skill, have them play pvp alone. If you want to try and teach them in pvp, be ready to face a team with a wide variety of skill. :P

DrippyBrownHole3/15/2019, 2:31:18 PM1 votes

Permabans are why smurfs exist. All permabans do is make people create a new account where they won't spend any money

Nadiri3/15/2019, 5:23:14 AM1 votes

I mean if your friends are new of course other players will be more experienced like wtf

Knyron3/15/2019, 4:55:46 PM1 votes

To be honest it sucks for the smurfs as well. I made another account to play in a different server and it's the most depressing thing I've ever witnessed while playing this game.

Sometimes you get matched with people who clearly are new to the game, well then, since they got matched with players with thousands of games they obviously feed and get flamed for no reason. The amount of toxicity there is ridiculous, I haven't seen something like that in ages. Can't tell if it's because people just don't care about their lvl 10 account or just that they were toxic fucks in the first place and they got perma'd for that and they still won't reform.

Then you have to play over a hundred matches to get to lvl 30 to do want you want to do in the first place. The runes and summoner spells just don't let you play as you want to, also if they got a jungler and you don't the game is done. Smurfing sucks for everyone.

ROYALR3IGN3/15/2019, 5:41:06 PM1 votes

You're literally doing exactly what you're complaining about. Sounds like justice.

Mathgodpi4/7/2019, 4:10:40 AM1 votes

The question I have is, when I lose because a smurf or smurfs are on the other team, why should I still be hit with full LP and MMR hits? When I'm the best performing member of my team, there's honestly no reason why my LP/MMR losses shouldn't be mitigated.

The current system doesn't distinguish between the person who had say a 2.5 KDA and put down a lot of wards and put pressure on objectives, and the person who had a 0.25 KDA and didn't do ANYTHING besides feed.

Meteora7073/15/2019, 7:35:41 PM1 votes

stop perma banning people for r%%%%%ed reasons and I'll stop smurfing n selling : ^)

5050BS3/15/2019, 7:42:12 PM1 votes

Its been a huge issue if you were in S1-S2 of any past seasons.

Its now an issue that everyone sees because they are in Iron, Bronze and Silver at all levels of them.

Riot REALLY needs to make you link accounts.

OH and they need to do away with DuoQ

If you want to play with friends that is what Normals and Customs are for. Ranked should be 100% SoloQ

BigFBear3/15/2019, 6:23:21 AM1 votes

Yeah this season there is something wrong with matchmaking. In no season I had so much Smurfs in my games like in S9.

If they are in my team (which is, for some strange reasons, very rare.. idk why) we win 90% of the time. If they are in enemy team we lose 90% of the time.

And when I am talking about smurfs I mean Players around 70-90% winrate. That are almost everytime smurfs.

I am Plat1/Plat2 atm and often I have Gold1 Players with 80% winrate or in one of my last games a Plat2 with 75% winrate.

AatroxKin3/15/2019, 6:47:05 AM1 votes

ur post being downvoted is the real issue man :)

JedenVojak3/15/2019, 9:19:44 PM1 votes

Everything I've seen about high level competitive play looks super boring - low ranks are the only people who are able to have fun.

That's probably why people smurf.