An idea for smurf accounts: player account VS gaming account

patmax17··4 votes·917 views

So I was reading a suggestion to avoid the annoyance of smurf accounts, and I thought of posting mine here, too.

First, for this to work I need to distinguish between player accounts (i.e. your username, your e-mail, your personal information) and game accounts (your summoner name, your games, your unlocked content, your ranked stats...)

The idea works more or less like in MMORPGs, where you have one account and (possibily) more than one character, where secondary characters are usually easier to level up. So here's the idea: What if a user could have one player account, but more than one gaming account? I.e., when your main gaming account reaches level 30 (or gold rank, or whatever, as long as it means you are not a new user), you can create a second gaming account (new summoner name), already level 30, unranked.

Pros:

  • no more smurfs to play against leveling users
  • a player can still try to start ranked all over again
  • players don't need to level another account (i think leveling is needed for new players, but one who is lv.30 does not need to undergo the whole thing again)
  • all gaming accounts are tied to the same player (reports are tied to the player, not the gaming account, riot points could be tied to the player account, ...)
  • no more need to buy lvl30 accounts, no more need for bots to level accounts to lv30

Cons:

  • i guess thechnically it would be quite complex to pull off, at least at first (need to overhaul the whole accounting system)
  • player could still make new accounts, e.g. to avoid bans/punishments

Additional ideas:

  • of course "player account" and "gaming account" are crappy names, need better ones xD
  • conditions are to be decided that you need to fulfill in order to create new gaming accounts
  • new gaming accounts could come with some base IP to spend (dunno, 15k, enough for 3-4 champs)
  • Riot points could be bound to the player account, i.e. you can charge RP and spend them for any gaming account

Comments and thoughts are welcome! ^_^

4 Comments

FarRockBF3 votes

I am pro anything that will remove the difficulty for new players even if slightly. So +1

OhBoyItsaMegaman2 votes

I think the largest issue with this is the motivation of people who create smurf accounts. Aren't most smurfs either bypassing a ban on their main account, or deliberately trying to fool matchmaking into giving them easy games (either for ego reasons or in order to play with low-level friends without subjecting them to level 30s)? The former type of player doesn't want the account linked, and the latter doesn't want to be matched as a level 30.

The other type of smurf is the type who is stuck in Bronze and wants another crack at placing well in ranked, and nobody benefits from Riot encouraging people to do this.

patmax171 votes

I actually have a friend who's main support, plat I. He would like to play ADC, but his skills aren't enought for that league. A smurf account would allow him to play as ADC against GoldI-PlatV players. Also, I know quite a few people who make smurfs for "road to diamond" or "only Urgot" challenges.

Also, afaik streamers and pros have many accounts (don't really know why)

But yes, your examples still hold. My suggestion would not solve all problems, but maybe make life easier for those who have good reasons to want smurf accounts ^^

Eleshakai1 votes

{quoted}

I actually have a friend who's main support, plat I. He would like to play ADC, but his skills aren't enought for that league. A smurf account would allow him to play as ADC against GoldI-PlatV players. Also, I know quite a few people who make smurfs for "road to diamond" or "only Urgot" challenges.

Also, afaik streamers and pros have many accounts (don't really know why)

But yes, your examples still hold. My suggestion would not solve all problems, but maybe make life easier for those who have good reasons to want smurf accounts ^^

Teambuilder does this too. Teambuilder neuters your MMR when playing a role, champ, or position that you're not familiar with. People may not have realized this quite yet, but it does, so that issue isn't a concern. You don't need to play ranked to practice a role. Normals or teambuilder games allow you to play at a different MMR than your ranked MMR.

Making a smurf for 'road to diamond' challenges... so they're intending to throw their 10 placement games to end up in bronze... which is against the terms of service AND makes life hell for a lot of bronze and silver players since there's nothing more frustrating than being in a low rank like bronze/silver and being matched against someone who is so much better than you that you never stood a chance(especially since your teammates are quite likely to report you for 'feeding' when you're the one pitched against this diamond player). I consider this to be essentially the same category as 'creating a new account to troll lowbies', personally.

The 'only one champ' thing is essentially the same, except that you're not even giving your teammates the benefit of a good teammate since you're insisting on playing that one champ regardless of whether the people on your team have room in their strategy for that or not.

These streaming challenges are just new clever ways to troll lower skilled teammates, in my eyes. I don't consider them to be valid reasons for smurfs either.

Are there any other reasons to smurf you can come up with? If you can find one reason that isn't just a form of trolling others or avoiding punishment... then I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and discuss your solutions for making smurfing easier.

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