I dont have a problem with it in regular games since it doesn't really affect my rank, but when I am against an enemy in mid lane in a ranked match and they tell me "lul im a diamond smurf", then I start to have problems lol. It's almost a guaranteed loss. Personally, I think it should be a ban-able offense. It is just so stupid that someone who is really diamond gets put into a silver match.
What do you guys think? P.S. Dont post hate messages, its just my opinion
Define smurfing because a diamond leveling a second account is smurfing but it shouldn't be ban worthy but when you have diamonds that intentionally keep a second account at a low elo just to troll that is a different story. But for example I'm gold and I am leveling a second account. When it hits 30 and I do ranked do I deserve a ban just because I'm trying to rank up a second account?
I'd like to see it bannable, but I feel like it's too hard to properly track
the main problem is enforcement. There is just no easy way to insure a player only has one account.
Smurfing is allowed because it cannot be stopped. There is no point to banning something you can't enforce.
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/legal/termsofuse
V. CODE OF CONDUCT ... H. Participating in any action which, in the sole and exclusive judgment of Riot Games, "exploits" an undocumented aspect of the Game in order to secure an unfair advantage over other users;
Smurfing is actually a TOS Violation in LoL. Riot would be within their rights to ban any smurf they identify.
guys this is simple networking every pc on the same ip has a mac address that can tell you if the same pc on the same ip is playing on two diff accounts this is easy , old , and done in a lot of other games , some games just scan ip and make you register diff people to diff accounts (multi account ip's) and just monitor that group for consistency, why riot hasnt done this goes in the huge pile of simple solutions they dont employ to make the game better for all.
i have the same simple question as above though , why they hell do you want or need 2 accounts .... so what if you got all the stuff they release new characters and skins all the time you can pickup ... a new account doesnt change the fact you own and can play all these characters on your proper account. getting them on a new one means literally nothing, gives you nothing new no new experience no new learning etc.
my two cents people should only be allowed 1 account because then youd be a lot more accountable for it and to it , your mistakes, your toxicity, whatever is yours and not dodgeable and you cant fall back on your other accounts when you mess up on your main.
Honestly, it has nothing to do with it being "allowed." Riot has no way to know if someone is smurfing. You just make a new email account, put in a fake name, and keep rolling. There's literally no way to stop it outside of requiring a fingerprint scan to log in... They are aware that it is often not healthy, but how exactly are they going to police it? I see no way to reasonably do that.
Yes there is actually. If someone at Riot really wants to know if someone else has more than one account on a single PC, all they have to do it look at the IP address and W/E they do from there, they can figure out the other accounts that come from that same IP. I saw it on the GD before it was deleted someone said he was smurfing and a Rioter checked his IP and banned his other account so he wouldn't be able to troll games anymore.
These are the circumstances of free to play games. There are no penalties to prevent you from creating additional accounts.
Other online games that you pay out-front for the game and/or subscription discourages from acquiring additional accounts.
It's the nature of the game. Unfortunately you live with it or find a pay to play game.
:(
the big question is: how would u prevent smurfing? with the current free to play model(which is great), there is not much riot could do against smurfs.
Like some others have been saying, there are two kinds of smurfs, really. One that is deliberately staying at low elo, which I'm pretty sure is considered abusive and can be reported, and one that is more or less just passing through. You see a lot of challenger players making smurfs because they just want to play the game but they have to wait for like 30 minutes each time they queue since there are so few players at their elo. The latter smurfs usually place in gold or plat and get to diamond pretty quickly, so I don't think it's as big a deal.
As long as the internet is unregulated--as long as a person can own multiple E-mails, reset or spoof their IP address, and as long as you can't identify two different people using the same IP address--it will be entirely impossible to actually enforce anti-smurfing.
I agree with OP, smurfing has ruined the ranked system. why? because smurfing creates false game matching of player skills. they dont know who is smurfing because there all silver or gold etc... players can not naturally evolve with there peers.
How exactly do you enforce it? Sure, you can look up IP addresses, but all they have to do is claim they're on a public wifi (university, dorm, apartment, etc) and bam. They're off free. They have no way to enforce a policy of banning short of guessing you're doing better than Riot thinks you should and banning you because you're winning.
I just think riot should at least be brainstorming ideas to fix this... It's ridiculous and unfair to others.
Best analogy for smurfing is wrestling. If a 300 pound man entered a competition stating his weight was 140 he'd be banned no questions asked. How is this any different for esports? Not to mention splitting hairs between smurfing and boosting. One is bannable, the other isn't? talk about being hard to regulate: it's because they can't make up their minds. There are plenty of reasons to ban smurfs, and one really Really big one to keep them around: money. If a diamond lee main makes a smurf, he's going to buy at least 1 lee skin. It's going to happen, and even if it only happens a small percentage of the time, that's more money for RIOT. Let's not pretend that this has nothing to do with why it's never come up. FACT: a smurf ruins each game they play for not just 1 person, but 9, in one way or another. For the 5 players desperately trying to deal with their disproportional skill level, they learn nothing from getting trounced so hard they can't react, regardless of how many replays they watch. For the 4 players who got placed with them, they get a bump to their elo and LP that they may or may not deserve, keeping that silver 3 player from demoting to silver 4 where they will be placed with players more their level that they can more gradually learn to play against. The argument that smurfs only affect 10 games or so on their way is bogus, because that's 10 games PER SMURF and there are very likely tens of thousands of them in existence, so the likelihood that you won't get at least 1 in a game of 10 people is just tiny. Smurfs: they're only fun when they're on your team, and that should not be the state of the ranked system if it is to have any seriousness as a competitive platform.
If anything you should actually be happy you're facing a diamond even though you might lose. You'll learn what to improve on. I honestly wish I could face diamond5s+ on my plat 3 main but I don't. Its because I want to learn from somebody higher up and almost mimic what they do and learn what I can do differently to climb elo.
There are four main reasons for smurfing that I have seen.
First, queue times. Challenger players spend almost as much time in queue as they do in game, and it's always against the same people.
Second, teaching. I see a lot of bronze and some silver players complaining about being stuck in elo hell, so some streamers level up a smurf and start from unranked to show others what they can do to carry games, even if everyone else feeds.
Three, practicing new champs. Sure, they can do it in normals, but a lot of people troll in normals as well.
And four, trolling. These people purposefully stay low so they can dominate games. These are the ones that should be banned.
I think it is allowed because it is possibly the hardest possible thing to stop from happening.
