Smurfing really ruins the game for lower level play.

Which brings up the question- Why does Riot bother paying for commercials for LoL? Every new player who picks this game up, quits before they hit level 10, because all they encounter is a massive swarm of smurfs, the extremely toxic smurfs that are hard stuck in silver, and think its their teammates fault. This game is the worst if youre new. Every person ive tried to get into it hasn't even made it to level10.

I agree that it diminishes the play experience for beginner players, but I don't think its a solvable problem.

I play on a smurf, so I can play with my girlfriend and teach her. I can't duo with her without her getting her face smashed in by plat players. So I smurf and go support while she adcs, and I coach her how to cs and how to poke in an environment where she won't get pub stomped. That being said I'v never smurfed in ranked.

Can we get some more upvotes to let all the smurfs know we hate them?

Smurfers are bullies and the lowest kind of lol players. They prey on innocents for their own fun.

In RL they would be labeled as horrible persons but somehow in a videogame is ok

Op you need to stop feeding so much in ranked and then you would climb. Smurfs are the least of your problems.

When I smurf, its usually to return to a simpler time of playing something stupid which you can't always get away with in regular levels of play like Bard Mid or Garen Support, not to wreck newbies. In fact, my mind set for smurfing usually gets me killed by other smurfs who are actually being douchebags and trying to ruin the game for newbies, while I'm just playing something stupid, like Rakan top.

A lot of the times low level scrubs cant even tell the difference between a smurf and someone who is just heavily fed, then cry smurf to make themselves feel as if it wasnt their fault for opening 0-12-0

can't stop won't stop dances.

I don't think people realize this, but some people use smurfs for experimental purposes that are more than just crushing low elo. I, for one, use smurfs to play new lanes.

Okay, that wasn't the truth in the beginning... but I do now. It's so I understand how the game works and to get better at it overall. Doing that on my main account will only prove to frustrate my team. Working from the ground up is better.

I'll stop when playing at my own level is actually enjoyable.

Guess I wont stop. Season 7 so fun hahaa kms

Smurfing in no way destroys the lower level playing experience. Trolling however does. There is a difference between smurfing and trolling.

With smurfing you're straight climbing. Smurfs will climb and leave your ELO in less games than you play in a day.

With trolling you're deliberately losing games to stay in the desired ELO and your only gain is that of ruining games. Take for example this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ5LXCMwZP0 The video was made by LoLHounds showcasing a Master Yi player with 100% win rate, but 100% loss rate with other champions. The player in question deliberately loses games to stay in the ELO so they can ruin games with their desired champion Master Yi.

Some players that you believe are smurfing might just actually be better than you mechanically, but are in the same ELO because they lack the game knowledge to progress. You can be Dirt 9000 with 200 IQ mechanics, but you won't ever climb beyond a certain point with 0 game sense. You're more likely to climb with -200 IQ mechanics and 9000 MS brain lagg if you have the necessary game sense to win games.

Only if you're a smurf yourself and know and understand what smurfs are.

Matchmaking already flags Smurfs and tries to match then with/against other smurfs. There are only two scenarios where a Smurf can avoid this: 1.) They deliberately lose many games to avoid detection and 2.) They just haven't played enough to get detected yet i.e. they are in pre30 normals, but even then it's possible to get flagged if you stomp games too much.

Do I think smurfing to stomp bad players is a dick move? Of course. That being said, I have to acknowledge that I do have a Smurf that I was using to warm up before hopping on my main. The account was immediately placed gold and is currently g2 with p1-d5 mmr, so it's not like I'm bullying bronze/silver/g5 by playing on it, and I got flagged by Smurf detection in ~15 games or so.

Leveling up is absolutely the worst experience I've ever had. If you play bots, you are pretty much guaranteed to have 2-3 bots on your team. Last night i had FOUR bots on my team. 3 took smite/exhaust and just ran into the jungle and died/afk by spawns. I was relieved when I hit level 20 because I could play normal draft. Oh, but what's that? I get put against plats/diamonds? Cool.

I can't imagine being a new player and having to endure this experience. It's really sad that a game of this caliber has such a terribly embarrassing leveling system.

Why do threads like this exist? Every single game that has a ranking system has Smurfs in it. There is nothing Riot can do about it.

The only potential way to lessen the amount of Smurfs is to turn the game into a subscription-based game, where you have to pay a monthly fee in order to have an account. Even then there would still be Smurfs, though maybe not as much.

I forgot to leave this in the online survey I took from Riot, but smurfing and toxicity are the LARGEST reason why I would not recommend others to League of Legends. Hell, if my wife and I ever have kids this would be the last thing that I'd let them play.

Heroes of the Storm is a different game, but at blizzcon they mentioned a method of tracking player skill that works on an in-game aspect (versus 'if you won your mmr goes up, if not it goes down). Surely if you implemented this already then it would be easy to place a tracker that could also spot OBVIOUS smurf gameplay.

"Huh, this accounts goes crazy wild in win streaks occasionally and then sudden drops like a rock back to the lowest rank! I wonder what this data set tells me of the account!"

or on a more micro scale

"Jeeze, this guy has an absolutely crazy good game and then a very bad one, and its a consistent pattern. Maybe I should have a moderator look in to this."

Ultimately, you have ignored this for a VERY VERY long time and its largely based on laziness as programmers. You should fix such an obvious problem.

I’d say that a combination of smurfing and botting in Co op is to blame for the horrendous new user experience.

For smurfing, I think that this problem might actually be solved for a good long while after the Preseason hits. Half of the time, people smurf because they’ve already hit lvl 30 and don’t have anything to strive for. Now that the cap is gonna higher, this should be alleviated.

The bots are far bigger of an issue. Co-op offers new players a mostly non-toxic exposure to the most basic mechanics of the game. The fact that there are bots relentlessly sabotaging games there is my greatest concern.