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New players quitting because of the sheer volume of toxic smurf accounts at low levels.

Ëntoma·6/6/2018, 2:24:29 PM·80 votes·19,494 views

I thought I would share my experience as a new player who has just recently started playing and has already decided to completely quit and never come back as a result of the pure volume of toxic smurf accounts. I always considered playing league for years, but only just recently did I decide to actually jump in to give it a try. What I was met with was an ocean of smurfs, as a result of their countless bans on other accounts, completely ruining the experience of literally every single new player they encounter.

After playing a decent amount of AI games, and getting the hang of the general mechanics on a couple of champions, I started playing pvp. With my prior experience with other mobas, I was able to do quite well for myself in the first few games just from pure mechanical skill without having any game knowledge whatsoever, but I knew that wouldn't last and I wanted to improve my awareness on the map and learn various things like how to jungle properly, when to kill dragon/baron, etc. Occasionally someone would make calls, and while I still didn't know a lot of the terms they were using, I'd try to adapt and help out where I could, when I could. I was checking out a lot of the different champions and their abilities, watching some videos here and there, and even admiring some of the skins that I might possibly buy soon for the champs I was enjoying the most. All in all, I was having a pretty good time.

But suddenly I hit a wall. All at once it seemed like I was being bombarded every single game with smurf accounts on both teams who were completely roflstomping by themselves, and/or flaming other new players for their lack of ability/knowledge. Keep in mind this is around level 2-10, and these people are expecting god level game sense and ability, from BRAND new players, with zero comments on what they could do better, just a wave of things like: "ARE YOU FKING RETARDED?" "REPORT ______ FOR ______" "YOU FUCKING SUCK (insert racial/homophobic/etc slur here)" Some of them weren't even very good, but still continued to flame and rage at the friendly and enemy team constantly, rage quitting games, afking, intentionally dying, spamming pings and racial slurs, etc.

All the while, I was just trying to learn the game the best I could so that I could improve, and I kept telling myself: "Maybe if I just keep adapting and getting better I can eventually get away from these people and start having fun again" and kept trying to improve. But it just continued to get worse. I have absolutely no problem losing, especially when I'm still trying to learn, but when I'm getting completely blown out and flamed CONSTANTLY, it starts to get a little frustrating. Even the games where my team is winning by a considerable margin, they still find things to talk shit about everyone else on the team. A lot of the time there's literally just two different smurfs on a team who are actually ignoring the rest of the team, but nothing but screaming at each other the entire game. At some point a line has to be drawn. I have enough stress in my daily life as it is, and I don't need to add more to it because a bunch of man-children get their accounts banned and have to start over again repeatedly with zero consequences.

So as it stands, there is absolutely nothing about this game that is compelling enough to convince me to continue spending my time on it while this continues. Every single game is just as bad, if not worse, than the last. There are consistently 3 or more people MINIMUM completely ruining EVERY game for everyone else who is actually trying to improve or just play the game. It's clear to me that this isn't going to stop any time soon, and I don't have the patience or the desire to continue playing because of it.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to make a topic like this, nor will I be the last. But hopefully Riot will eventually pay attention to topics like this and realize that the influx of new players is going to continue to decline, and possibly even stop, if they don't do something about this. The report system works great, and consistently penalizes offenders, but the fact that literally every account can just be thrown away to make another one in seconds, even using the SAME email that a previously banned account was made under, is completely ridiculous, and needs to stop.

/end wall of text

72 Comments

Trollmanship6/6/2018, 2:31:03 PM22 votes

I recommend hitting level 30 before leaving co-op vs ai games to all new players. It's just not worth it to deal with those toxic fuckwits that infest low level games.

DollaMenunaire6/6/2018, 2:49:44 PM16 votes

The pre level 30 experience is absolutely terrible, they should just treat new accounts as if they are level 30 and give it a bronze VI MMR for normals.

At this point there is basically no correlation between level and skill

XxDRAGONsAK47xX6/6/2018, 4:49:13 PM8 votes

My advice, don't quit league. It does get better.

Just go into the game and do what I love doing. /muteall

All your problems are solved. It makes the game much more fun and relaxing if you can't see what they're saying.

Pika Fox6/6/2018, 6:29:38 PM7 votes

Smurfs are sorted away from new players quickly. That being said, given your statement that you have other moba experience, it likely sorted you as a smurf as well.

Also new accounts get punished rapidly if they exhibit toxic behavior.

R35URR3C710N6/7/2018, 12:44:19 PM5 votes

As a preseason 1 player, I was pretty shocked the first time i made a smurf account to show a friend the ropes and saw how toxic the environment was. Back during the release period and all of S1 everyone was still learning, and the game was new, so we were all sort of derpy together, having fun and trying new strategies. This new low level environment is nothing like that, and its a huge turn off for every friend I've tried to get to play the game. I usually recommend muting everyone and finding at least one buddy to queue and voice chat with. I've met some of my dearest friends through league (In fact, almost 9 years later and one of them will be flying down from South Carolina to be here for the birth of my first child) and I don't think i'd have met them if the game environment was as hostile as it is now.

To the OP (and any other low-level NA players): Feel free to add me if you'd like. I'd be more than willing to (and plenty of my friends would be too) show you the ropes and help you improve in a positive environment.

sleepysithlord6/6/2018, 2:29:24 PM4 votes

I'm looking at your account and it looks like your games are going fine? You get decent KDAs, sometimes even very high KDAs. I do see one game a week ago though where you literally ran it down mid as ahri lmao

KZ Eternal6/6/2018, 5:40:32 PM4 votes

Yikes man i just had this similar situation happen to me i decided to play a champ called viktor mid and give him a try i lost against a lux i just dont know the matchup that well and i was proceeded to be flamed by a draven and lee sin that said i was Inting which ment that i was intentionally giving kills even though i was trying my best to play the champ to the best of my ability. I tried defending myself by saying i was new and didnt have much game knowledge and he just said in Quote "Just Shut up you're getting reported end of story" at that point i knew it was a smurf just cause new players want to experience things and try things out instead of helping me he just proceeded to flame me after the game i get a "Vik Just Uninstall you will never be good at the game and you will always be stuck in bronze/silver" which made me think this person might be in a higher elo but they probably got their account banned for toxicity which is why they are playing on a smurf i would say whats the point in playing a game if you're playing it just to be toxic,banned and have to restart yet again

Taric the Gay6/6/2018, 10:33:46 PM2 votes

Sounds like I need to come out of retirement

http://www.auplod.com/u/pdolua802d6.png

EmpressOfBeauty6/7/2018, 3:29:51 PM2 votes

I honestly feel you. I am new too my friend brought me from another game but have been here for 4 months now. I play with friends now, usually 3-4 of us at a time.

If you want you can add me and join us. We don't flame, we encourage and if you need advice on playing or any of the terms any of us are happy to help. We play for fun so it doesn't matter to us if we lose, especially normals. Don't quit because of the toxic people, they aren't worth it.

[katarina-love]

AssauIto6/6/2018, 4:31:04 PM2 votes

Maybe there wouldn't be so many smurfs if Riot didn't permaban so many innocent players who did nothing wrong. I see people get randomly permabanned all the time for offenses they didn't do. Just check the player behaviour boards and see all the complaints there.

Glory976/6/2018, 10:18:01 PM2 votes

You were quite unlucky. Actually the game experience is not that terrible for players who are new to mobas in general. But because you performed that extremly well in your first few games, the system recognises you as a smurf, thus only matching you with other smurfs. Thus after lvl 5-10 are the majority of new players, who have no clue about mobas have very little to no smurfs in their game with a quite healthy game experience.

Unfortunatly you performed too well. And now you'll be matched only with smurfs. The vast majority of those smurf are, players banned due to toxicity, restrating on a new account, with zero improovment to their attitude. So the toxicity level is way higher than average, probably 50% of the people in your game belong to the 0.06% most toxic players of our community.

Even though we, as community have a bad reputation, in general it's not as terrible as you experienced in your recent games. You should probably only play with friends as 5 until lvl 30. Maybe you can find some friends here in the boards and recruit them as not-that-toxic-teammates. I'd play with you if i was from na.

Darth Karto6/6/2018, 5:26:42 PM2 votes

smurfs would get paired with other smurfs cause of mmr

Flashes6/7/2018, 4:42:41 AM2 votes

Here's my tip:

Play with F R I E N D S!!!

This way, you can cherrypick who you play with, and it removes all toxic people.

Add a friend in whoever was a good sportsmanlike player, and if they accept, if both of you are online, or mutiple people are online, you can play with fun people.

Regulas6/7/2018, 6:33:39 PM1 votes

I'm going to give you a big secret: If a player claims he's "a smurf" odds are he isn't a smurf. At best one time he may have made it higher up into the tiers (quite possibly not that much higher either), but mainly he jut says that he's a smurf because it makes him feel better about not being in the higher tiers.

The flaming is the unusual phenomena of moba's, something of which draws people to be unnaturally aggressive to each other. Ironically it's still way better then it used to be.

the weeaboo6/7/2018, 7:17:38 PM1 votes

Just stay in Co-op vs. AI. Dont do PVP. It's mega cancer. Wait until you're level 30ish to start PvP.

Learn to use "/mute all". You only need pings to communicate anyway.

Also stay away from the boards, the boards are for salty players like myself that just like to complain and argue with other salty players about how Riot sucks even though we log in hours and hours of each day on their game lol.

jimmyjames1096/8/2018, 4:56:46 AM1 votes

I've been playing a couple months but I think I am done now. I am sick and tired of people expecting me to know shit I couldn't possibly know yet and raging at me for it. I just rage quit my last game because of this and I think that's it for me. I'm not enjoying my time playing so why the hell would I continue.

I Love Thresh6/8/2018, 11:27:30 AM1 votes

Yeah. I have several underleveled accounts that I each use for a different purpose; and I tend to suck at what I try to do, so I get flamed a lot and quite often. Actual smurfs are actually nice to play with though (so not the ones who got permabanned for toxicity, the ones leveling up a side account for x reason) because they tend to be more understanding of mistakes and helpful. At a certain point, (apparently when you hit 30, and/or when your MMR get high enough), you don't really get matched with toxic wastes anymore because they didn't far with their attitude and are already permabanned. Many proposed this already but you can add me if you'd like to play with a friendly person.

Eye Of Terror6/7/2018, 4:24:36 AM1 votes

Good! Hope it gets even worse for new players! That's the 'Fuck you too!' response to Riot for perma banning our accounts since they turned the game into a tilt pool.

More perma bans Rito! There won't be many new players. Just current playerbase that keeps leaving the game because your current employees suck af and couldn't just hold a great game.

ModCaliCoastReplay6/7/2018, 5:24:27 AM1 votes

I agree, smurfing is a problem. I had a 0-10 game in my placements - probably for Silver, I have always been Silver - this season. My opponent was a plat smurf top, which he admitted after the game.

Thilmer6/7/2018, 5:54:18 AM1 votes

I had problems with that when I started playing... in Season 3. It's basically the incurable disease of this game.

Pluto Nash6/7/2018, 6:32:23 AM1 votes

I got a 14-day suspension for saying one word in one game. No prior warnings/suspensions in my 6-year account history.

Yet I still see flamers/afkers/inters/etc. in every other game I play; people that actually ruin the game for the majority of people unlike me jokingly saying a word that could possibly offend a small handful (and apparently it finally triggered one person after months of doing so). But even when they do get punished, they're then forced to make new accounts and ruin the game for actual newcomers. This shit is backwards.

I'm hoping when the finally add voice chat it might diffuse a lot of the negative in-game chat, but I don't know. Riot has done nothing but unintentionally perpetuate "flame" culture to the point where most old players are desensitized into not being bothered to report people. And then they just slap on an automated system as a quick DIY fix to the problem to feed Riot's (and possibly Lyte's) fetish with statistics.

I'm very cynical of Riot at this point, but the voice-chat thing seems to be the first thought-driven move they've made so far towards dealing with this issue.

Demonblade Talon6/7/2018, 8:40:20 AM1 votes

It bums me out so much seeing new players just trying to play and cancerous smurfs ruining it.

Axzarious6/7/2018, 9:09:25 AM1 votes

Sorry to hear that you're having a bad time starting out in the game. I remember hearing about this thing one time - in that RIOT has some sort of smurf detection algorithm, in which after a few games it will either put you in with legit new players, or smurfs. I don't know what's required, but i've heard smurfland is horribly toxic, while actual newbland is pretty great. It's possible that your prior experience put you in smurfland. Granted, take this claim with a heavy dose of citation needed, for I have no idea of it's accuracy. If it's true, it's kind of stupid to penalize people who know what they're doing. That said, If it's that easy to spam smurfs, I think Riot will need to take a look at it.

/muteall (or was it /mute all?) is very much a thing, and it's something i'd suggest giving a shot. Playing with friends is also an option, and makes the game a whole lot more fun. I'd be willing to run a few games with you if i'm around and have the time if you perhaps want to give it another shot.

On another note, while people often seem to say "LoL is toxic" and love to hate on it for that reason, I'm going to point out that almost every game with a sizable playerbase can be just as toxic, such as CoD and Halo. In fact, I'd say that overall, Dota was worse - at least in it's warcraft 3 days. I'm not sure what state it's in now, but I don't really have much motivation or drive to go and see for myself.

Suckdeezbeez6/7/2018, 9:47:50 AM1 votes

Im that guy. Until riot changes from permanent bans on main accounts to scaling penalties like WoW, ill continue to dumpster your ass LOL.

Leto GT6/7/2018, 9:55:27 AM1 votes

I did a smurfs few days ago. During my first game I was matched with those toxic ppl you were talking about. I was also matched against players with skins (expensive ones) and honestly clearly doing a bit too well for a lvl1 game. What I did is that I went on lane with the only real new player in my team (lvl1 first game I repeat) and helped him out with a support (sona). Even tho my intention we're fine I believe, I actually stomped the other two guys, smurfs or not, to a point where I felt bad because clearly I was making them having a horrible game with my poke and it wasn't even fun at the end. I did stop after this game. Added to that the toxic players who rightfully claim they got "permaban" yet point out new players mistakes. Lvl1 game? The system for new players is bad. I remember you had to select your moba/lol experience before starting your games. I didn't have to do any of this with that account.

Mèo Kêu Meow6/7/2018, 10:59:45 AM1 votes

and old players leaving because of unbalanced gameplay, matchmaking (kinda) and RITO ignorance to intentionall feeders and ragequiters. Gosh I didnt expect it but I have to say Fortshit is better than lol.

masterdomlo6/7/2018, 11:09:21 AM1 votes

although it may seem that there are more toxic ppl then there are good one, u should try and tough it out :/. iv meet countless toxic ppl but iv also seen tons of nice guys. games are meant to be enjoyed mechanically, if u like playing the game and just hate the toxicity, just mute them. some game i /mute all, the second the game starts cause ik its gonna be toxic

GentlemanTrap6/7/2018, 11:18:29 AM1 votes

Honestly, nothing has changed. I've been playing league on and off since Dec. 2012 and I remember encountering the word ''toxic'' in my 3rd or 4th pvp game. Fun fact, I've never ever come across that word in any other game I've played back then(wow, dota/dota2, hon, ssfiv...) Today it's everywhere. Everything one says is considered toxic what the other doesn't fancy.

Take away those that intentionally run it down, afk, leave. We can all agree that's toxic and u cannot prevent them from doing so what so ever. As for those that flame, just mute em. If they eventually proceed to do one of the above, report em. And you dont need to be telling such people anything. Don't tell em u're muting them or reporting.

People would find excuses to act in a way everywhere else, just not in themselves.

''The game is trash, that's why people are toxic''.

God, how many times i've read those lines recently..

And ye i forgot, verbal toxicity is considered the worst eventho it's the only you can prevent. Ironic.

sutora36/7/2018, 12:41:42 PM1 votes

cant you just embrace the toxicity?