Summoner Slots: A solution to smurfing and player toxicity

Superbian·May 24, 2014·40 votes·9,073 views

Posted on Reddit, made Front Page; (http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/26dvz7/summoner_slots_a_solution_to_smurfing_and_player/)

Smurfing is one of the largest inducers of toxic behavior in League of Legends, and its existence hurts the playing experience of new players, and inhibits the learning process. It's clear that a change needs to be made. Here is my suggestion for what Riot can do to revamp the smurfing system.

Introducing "Summoner Slots"

Each Account gets 2 Summoner Slots to start, a Primary and a Secondary. Additional Summoner Slots may be purchased with either RP or IP, up to a maximum of 5. This would allow Riot to make up Revenue lost by including other changes. Players punished through the tribunal would not be allowed to start new Summoners, or access previously started Secondary Summoners for a specific length of time. This would help prevent toxic smurf accounts. (Suggested Cost: 975 RP or 13,500 IP)
Secondary Summoner Accounts begin at level 1, have access to the same 10 Free Week Champions at the start, and cannot be accessed unless the Primary Summoner is level 30.
All Summoners on the Account share RP and IP. Secondary Summoners earn IP at an 80% rate until they reach level 30. Secondary Summoners earn EXP at a 150% rate.
Secondary Summoners do not unlock their own Champions. With each level gained, a Secondary Account may unlock one Champion already unlocked on their Primary Summoner, for use on their Secondary. An additional five Champions may be unlocked at levels 10 and 20. At level 30, the Secondary Summoner gains access to every Champion unlocked by the Primary Summoner.
Each Secondary Summoner has its own MMR, and similar to a soft reset, that MMR begins at the halfway point between your Primary Summoner's MMR, and 1200. This helps prevent Diamond/Challenger Smurfs from being thrown in with Bronze/Silver players in the early levels.
Players are not allowed to have multiple accounts (Possible enforcement issues not with-standing). Any tribunal punishment earned on a Summoner applies to all Summoners on the Account. The combination of these two factors forces players to behave if they want to continue to play. Right now, even banned Pro Players just openly create new accounts and keep playing, often without improved behavior. Potential removal of a player's ability to play League of Legends should prove a much better motivator of good behavior.
Secondary Summoners are able to use all tier 1 Runes their Primary owns at level 1, and unlocks all tier 2 at level 10, and all tier 3 at level 20.
Secondary Summoners unlock rune and mastery slots, and Summoner Spells, at the same rate as Primary Summoners.
Summoners share a revamped Friends list that allows viewing of all summoners on a specific friend's account by hovering or clicking name.

Additional Benefits:

Seamless transition between Summoners without having to log out of the client. Smurf Accounts get matched against players of similar skill based on a more realistic MMR, rather than new players. Eliminating toxic smurf-related experiences for new players.
Allows players access to content they've already unlocked on their main, on their smurf.

Possible Issues

Potential loss of Revenue from Skin and Champion purchases on Smurfs could make system unsustainable. Possible Solution could be discounted price to unlock champs/skins already owned on Primary, for Secondary (ex. unlock already owned 975 skins for 487).
Possible Match-making issues with Secondary Accounts being matched with higher level, but not higher skilled players, who have access to more Runes/Masteries/Summoner Spells.
Client Related difficulties. Would likely have to be incorporated into new/reworked Client.

53 Comments

RiotBuboBuboMay 25, 20148 votes

Hey Superbian, thanks for the well written and constructive post. The depth of your wrietup shows that you have spent a lot of time working on the details and preempting some concerns - great work!

To help flesh this out more, I think one critical area would be to list out the main reasons people make smurfs and make sure those needs are met, otherwise people will continue to have an incentive to make smurfs and the problem would be unsolved.

Also like you mentioned in point 6 - if the success of this hinges upon people not being able to make multiple accounts then this might be a big risk. Afaik there is no great way to limit this in most of our regions.

Edit: I am not on the relevant team to say yay or nay on this, just wanted to provide suggestions for strengthening the idea and to raise some of the potential shortcomings

ShadowNinetailsMay 26, 20142 votes

I've made a smurf for two reasons:

To help a new recruit learn the game without throwing them in with lvl 20's.
To get that account to lvl 30 and try ranked again "the right way". I feel like I got the short end of the stick my first time around because I made the mistake of going into ranked without as much actual game experience as I needed counting on a hard reset at the end of Season 2 the way it had been at the end of Season 1. That's.....not how it panned out and my poor performance then has taken a long time to come back from.

Lao Fu the TigerMay 25, 20144 votes

I may be completely wrong about this, but I see a good idea that can't possibly be implemented. It simply isn't really possible to stop somebody from creating an entirely new account on the same computer without restricting IP addresses, and restricting IP addresses can cause severe undesired problems.

Hyrum GraffMay 26, 20141 votes

You can also do analysis of play patterns. For example, if two accounts are on the same IP and never play at the same time, there's a much higher chance of them being the same person, than two accounts that are often played at the same time.

Lao Fu the TigerMay 26, 20141 votes

It's still incredibly difficult. Especially when you deal with mass internet routing such as a coffee shop or a college campus. Two may very well never play at the same time, but massive problems can result if the IP of that location was restricted.

Like I said, great ideas, but I have no idea how it would be enforced :/

ShadowNinetailsMay 26, 20141 votes

Or it could be two people that only have one computer.

Hyrum GraffMay 27, 20141 votes

There's also more sophisticated analysis that can be done, many of which I'm sure I don't know about - one example is analyzing the times that different accounts are on. For example:

There are 3 accounts, X, Y, and Z on the same IP address. Account X is always on from 5-6 each day. Account Y is usually on from 2-3 each day. Account Z is on from 2-3 on the days that account Y isn't on.

From this, we conclude that Y and Z are the same person, who is different than X.

Is this oversimplified? Yes, of course.
Is this kind of analysis flawless? No, but it's better than you might think.

the Anarchit3chtMay 28, 20141 votes

I think that anaylsis is heavily flawed, actually. I don't play on the same times at the same days EVER. And I let multiple people use my computer to play on their accounts. We all play at different times every single day depending on what we are doing, and there is little, if any consistency.

Hyrum GraffMay 28, 20141 votes

I make no claims that my analysis is sound; I'm saying that statistical analysis over a long period of time is more effective than you might think.

the Anarchit3chtMay 28, 20141 votes

If they were going to put in the efforts to do sort of long term analysis, I think they would just moderate matches.

Hyrum GraffMay 28, 20141 votes

What do you mean? I think it takes a lot more effort to moderate matches than to use software that analyzes gameplay patters (and, win/loss rates, kda, etc, that can be used to identify smurfs).

Edit: we've hit the end of our comment train; just reply to one of my other posts so I get a notification.

toiR SpindermaanMay 25, 20143 votes

With the exception of points 3 and 4 I like this suggestion and I hope that Riot really looks into it. But every account should have separated champions, runes and skins. Making them available or discounted is not going to work aka you'll have to buy them again if you need. So - exclude the unlocking stuff - this is never going to happen. The MMR should be determined as a seasonal soft reset. Another hassle is going to be the already existing alt accounts but Riot could just let us merge them although I don't see it happen for different regions...

YiseryMay 25, 20141 votes

If you don't want 3 and 4 then 7 would have to be removed/changed as well.

BeowwulfMay 25, 20141 votes

not necessarily but what's wrong with 3 and 4 anyway? makes sense to me.

Sir ArmaMalumMay 25, 20142 votes

I like and respect the effort and thought put into this idea. Slot mechanics have worked very well in many games and are a great way to provide account versatility.

However, I'm still stuck on how this will address the problems smurfing creates. 3 and 5 are active efforts to thwart it yes, but this seems to me as a system that actually encourages smurfing. No matter how you spin it, it's still bringing a more experienced and knowledgeable players into the <30 pool and pitting them against other <30's that may or may not be fellow smurfs. As I said, 3 and 5 does contribute against that by decreasing their time there and making their time less of a cakewalk, but there will still be a period of time where higher level players get access to lower level players as is the purpose of smurfing, to abuse the matchmaking system.

There is also the inevitable issue that strikes any established system. Assuming people will follow it. There are still no additional barriers preventing someone from making an entirely new account anyway.

Now don't take this as an attempt to shut down of your idea, but I would like to debate it's overall effectiveness towards the given issue.

Edit: Also I apologize of this has been brought up in the Reddit thread already, I am slowly glancing through it now.

SuperbianMay 25, 20142 votes

I think these would be the main reasons people make smurfs

To help a friend(s) learn the game

In this situation, the player should not be unduly punished for doing what should be a good thing; teaching the game. The problem is, the very existence of this player in a new player game is toxic to that game. Unfortunately, smurfing in this situation is the current best solution. At least, if you smurf, you're not bringing your superior runes/masteries/summoners/MMR into the game, which would be even more damaging.

Solution: This is arguably the hardest to fix. There's only so much you can do to equalize the playing field. Making the Secondary Summoner's MMR closer to their true MMR does solve this problem somewhat. The problem here is a matter of choice. You are choosing to smurf. Your opponent isn't given a choice in the matter. New Players can't choose not to face smurfs. Thus, the best solution is to make the "smurf" have an MMR closer to their real MMR. This puts the choice in the correct person's hands. The New Player. The New Player can either choose to play alone, or with similarly skilled players, or play with their experience friend and accept the fact that the players he will be matched with will have a higher skill because of the "smurfs" enhanced MMR. It's not the ideal solution. Which could be some kind of Coaching Que, but there are already so many ques, would it have enough people to be viable?

To Pub Stomp New Players

This is what we would call overt, or intentional, toxicity. Willfully ruining the game for five other people for the sake of your own ego is, in my opinion, pretty pathetic. These people do not belong in the system. So the solution will attempt to prevent this, rather than incorporate them into the game, like in point 1.

Solution: The fix here is two-fold. First, we tie the Secondary Summoners, or "Smurfs" to the Main Account's MMR. Since you must have a level 30 Primary Summoner to have a Secondary Summoner in this system, Match-Making can be tuned to recognize a Secondary Summoner, and take that into its calculations for team MMR. This prevents experienced players from being matched with new ones. This tethering of accounts also means Tribunal Punishments more accurately remove the player from the player pool for the intended time. It's not a perfect solution, but it's a better one than the current system.

For this system to really work, some form of Account Verification would be needed to help prevent multiple accounts as a work-around. One possibility is text verification. Yahoo/Google already use this for their email accounts. A code gets texted to the player, that they then have to enter into the system to confirm their account creation. I work for AT&T and I can say with some certainty that the saturation of the cell phone market means that this system would exclude very few people. You can make any number of email addresses, but the number of cell phone numbers is limited.

A Fresh Start

Sometimes, a Player just wants a fresh start. Whether they are bored with the game, or their MMR got buried due to some bad placement luck (I went 2-8 this season, 28-17 since). I'm confident I can work my way back to where I should be, but for some people, it's really disheartening when you get dropped more than a whole tier back. Whatever the case, this system solves this situation well.

*Solution; The Soft Reset of the MMR, places the Player's Secondary Summoner closer to the Median, giving them a fresh chance to get themselves above the Median. Allowing access to previously unlocked Runes/Champions over time makes the prospect of starting over less daunting. As does the innate EXP boost Secondary Summoners would get. They've already proven they deserve to be at level 30. *

To Answer the Question of why we don't just make Secondary Accounts start at 30, I think this creates a situation where a player has too much of a good thing. A Player should not be able to repeatedly make Secondary Accounts until they have a Placement Series they accept.

SuperbianMay 25, 20141 votes

continued.

To Prevent this, I would limit Secondary Summoner creation to once every 30 Days. A Secondary Summoner can be marked for deletion, but it takes 14 days for the Summoner to be removed from your Account. This prevents player's from gaming the system. Even the worst player, if given enough chances, could go 8-2, 9-1 in their placements. Just as where trying to prevent Smurfs from being able to pub stomp, having a bronze player in a Gold/Platinum game is just as toxic an experience.

Play with a Different Set of Friends

*Solution: Revamped Friends List that has a section for Friends of the Account, and Friends of a specific Summoner, and allow player's to enable a Secondary Summoner to be hidden from view of Account Friends. *

Try new Champions.

Solution: The Secondary Summoner would be no different than current Smurfs in that regard. In fact, with IP being pooled between Summoners, players can try new Champions without feeling their IP earned on their smurf is being wasted.

Smurfing is not inherently bad. There are plenty of acceptable reasons for wanting a secondary character/summoner to play on. The key is to design the system so that smurfing is not inherently toxic. For the people who smurf to ruin the experience of new players, I have no sympathy for you, and you won't find any allowances for that in any of my ideas.

This system also specifically targets the "I don't care about this game, I'm on my smurf" crowd. In this system, toxic behavior on any Summoner will effect all your Summoners. This will not prevent players from being toxic, but will give them better incentive not to be. For anyone who has read Freakonomics, they know that proper incentives are the best way to get a desired result.

If I have missed, any reasons for smurfing, let me know and I will try to address them.

SuperbianMay 25, 20141 votes

The biggest impediment to this, in my opinion, is the potential loss of revenue for Riot. I'm not one of those people who spends my day on reddit complaining about the cost of things in League of Legends. Riot is a business, and needs to make money for this game to continue to be FTP. I don't begrudge them that. Nor do I think the current cost of champions/skins/rune pages is unfair.And the rate at which you earn IP is perfect, and also ensures players actually take the time to learn champions they buy.

While I obviously don't have access to statistics regarding RP purchasing on Smurfs, I imagine the loss of that revenue would hurt. Some system would have to be devised to make up for this loss. I do like the idea of making Champions owned on Primary Summoners, half off on Secondary Summoners. This combined with the fact that the Summoner System would likely increase the overall number of Summoners, should help close that gap. Add in making additional Summoners past 2 cost RP, and that could be a reasonable solution. The introduction of Secondary Summoners also opens other opportunities for monetization of summoner customization.

RiotBuboBuboMay 25, 20141 votes

I don't think revenue from direct sales to smurf accounts is the biggest cost here. It's more the opportunity cost of putting resources on solving x vs y, and solving it this way vs another way.

I think your suggestion of text based verification and tying that to primary accounts has a lot of merit. Would people be willing to weigh in on if this would feel intrusive or excessive? Is anyone familiar with ways to cheaply/easily get temp text receiving numbers to spoof this?

Jesus is SaviorMay 25, 20141 votes

Why would you want phone number based verification in a video game? Things like gmail only do that because people use new email accounts to send illegal email spam (and they still don't limit you to one account - I have like 20 - they just limit you from making more without waiting a certain period of time). Are people using League accounts to break the law? I had a longer, more detailed post, but it wouldn't let me post it.

SuperbianMay 25, 20141 votes

I work for AT&T, and I can tell you that with how saturated the market is, access to additional cell numbers may be difficult. The problem is that there are free text apps that do give you a number, so someone could use one of those. It's, as with everything else, not a perfect solution. So the idea may need further thought. But it would definitely be more effective than email verification.

RiotBuboBuboMay 26, 20142 votes

I agree that it would be more effective but I am not sure the current norms would allow us to require it, and without that I am not sure how effective it would be.

Regardless of where his discussion goes, thanks again for helping us come up with ways to make the game better. And also for openly engaging in the back and forth to improve the idea. It's been a pleasure chatting with you and I look forward to seeing you around on the forums!

ThryaleMay 26, 20142 votes

for what it's worth, if riot suddenly desides to require text verification for accoutns I'd be highly inclined to stop playing league. Email verification is annoying enough, but at least it's easy enough to make a spam mail account for stuff like that. But I don't want stuff from the internet going to my phone as well. :/

Fear NotMay 26, 20141 votes

You could require uniquely-verified accounts for using chat. It wouldn't stop smurfing, but it would largely stop super-rage "this is my smurf I don't care if it gets banned" behavior.

the Anarchit3chtMay 28, 20141 votes

the "free texting apps" never work on anything i've tried to use them on such as Facebook or Gmail. I think there is a way to differentiate between real and fake numbers.

Hyrum GraffMay 26, 20142 votes

I'm very privacy-conscious, and prefer not to give my cell # to a company if I can help it - if league required my phone # to play, I'm not sure I would have gotten into it in the first place.

Unfortunately, I don't think that the majority of people share my reservations about putting personal information on the internet.

the Anarchit3chtMay 29, 20141 votes

in reply to your other comment:

That kinda of data isn't so black and white. It would take a conscious mind to review it fairly, not a robotic intelligence.

Hyrum GraffMay 29, 20141 votes

Of course a conscious mind should be the one verifying before they issue a punishment. But I think you'd be surprised at just how accurate programs like this can be. That's one of the reasons I don't like putting my own information on the internet - there's so much you can learn about someone from just the smallest bit of data.

Fear NotMay 26, 20141 votes

If not phone numbers, you could do a Facebook account connect; most people only have one or two of those, connecting things via FB is pretty normal nowadays, and creating a fake FB so you can THEN create a LoL smurf is kind of much. Still possible, yes, but I'd imagine that it would reduce the number of smurfs significantly.

caprahapp3Aug 17, 20141 votes

I think there's a way to actually counteract temp text spoofing, and there's a way for companies to detect text verification counter algorithms, but due to people's varying stances upon the implementation of this (and even the truth in caller ID act[applicable only in the US]), this WIP invention in modern society is slow moving, and so far being popularized only in the field of law enforcement>Furthermore, with the consideration that this is pretty much a worldwide accessible game, different countries =different laws, different laws=text verification spoofing has various potential, and, unless the UN actually prioritizes something as menial as this, there's no way a text verification system being introduced into league of legends would have any adversely positive effect on riot's overall profit potential, in my opinion.

...was this comment a bit too epic? :/ ... I dunno. Here, have a gnar for good measure. Gnar

caprahapp3Aug 17, 20141 votes

oh and another reason it wouldn't work http://www.spoofcard.com/blog/

...And to think at first I actually liked the idea of text verification. Well, it's safe to say my view on this endeavor is arguable, yet rational and unbiased, after I took a look around the internet.

RiotBuboBuboMay 25, 20141 votes

*..Making the Secondary Summoner's MMR closer to their true MMR does solve this problem somewhat..."

This might be a good example of problem with multiple non-perfect solutions. Summoner slots with soft elo reset is certainly a solid option, but there are other things like limiting to bot games early and making deeper bot progression that could have a similar impact on low level toxicity while creating positive externalities for all players.

And the two ideas are not mutually exclusive, they both would help move things in the right direction.

RCIXMay 25, 20144 votes

For what it's worth, I have smurfs so I can have different names. Name changing is waaaay too expensive for me to do on a regular basis, and besides I can do themed accounts like Top Doge NA (nasus :D) with smurfs.

RiotBuboBuboMay 26, 20144 votes

I learned something new - thanks for sharing :)

caprahapp3Aug 17, 20141 votes

lol, Redeemed in fire, you're not helping! I honestly think that the phone number thing is a good idea, and if the system recognizes you already have an account, then you should honestly have to pay some money to make a smurf account, if benefits like these are going to apply(ahem, the same price as changing your summoner name, or probably more).

Hyrum GraffMay 27, 20141 votes

There's one more reason I'd like to add in here: I made a smurf to practice a role that I was not good at (adc - I was and still am absolutely horrid; I was tryharding against level 7's and losing).

This is one scenario where a soft reset would not be great for me - my MMR would still be high above my skill level.

That being said, I think that this can be solved in other ways - for example, by allowing team builder to make massive MMR adjustments if you're queing for a role that you're horrid at.

KingSmizzyMay 29, 20141 votes

I made a smurf but my reason was because i didnt want my gf finding out i'd played league. I can imagine others could have reasons like this for smurfing. match history is annoyingly easy to find with all these websites around.

RubitonabuildingMay 25, 20142 votes

I like some of the suggestions here, but I don't think anything Riot implements will stop people from smurfing and ruining the experience of honest players. Being a free game, there is no cost to making a new account (all you need is a different email address), and it would be really hard to enforce a limit on accounts. So even if these ideas worked for a while, people would soon find a way around them.

A simpler solution IMO would be a temporary (or permanent) IP ban (internet protocol, not influence points) for people who are punished regularly in the tribunal. People who misbehave would be completely blocked from playing League of Legends on that computer for a period. This way, you can't just switch over to a new account by simply using a different email address, and if you're acting stupid or toxic on a smurf account, you end up locked out from your main account too. This would accomplish the same goal I think you're trying to achieve, without a hugely complex and potentially costly overhaul of the client.

I personally have never seen the appeal of creating a smurf account, even though a couple of my friends have smurfs.

P(o)ros:

if you play League on the same computer as a family member or friend who also plays League, you'll have to face their wrath if you get an IP ban.
it would probably drastically reduce the number of smurfs and toxic ragers
it's the same consequences you're asking for without being so complex
no real need for a client overhaul/rework, I'm pretty sure IP bans are fairly simple.

WuCons:

Proxy servers are a thing

Hyrum GraffMay 26, 20142 votes

it would be really hard to enforce a limit on accounts.

I think you underestimate the power of data analysis in linking accounts.

So even if these ideas worked for a while, people would soon find a way around them.

True, but forcing people to find a way around restrictions, reduces the number of people who will actually do that - the harder it is, the fewer will do it.

A simpler solution IMO would be a temporary (or permanent) IP ban (internet protocol, not influence points) for people who are punished regularly in the tribunal.

So my brother can be locked out of league because the Tribunal banned me?

Proxy servers are a thing

However, playing league through a proxy, is not.

ShadowNinetailsMay 25, 20141 votes

I really love this idea as long as there are ways of enforcing it accurately. Would suck to be that guy that gets permabanned because he shares a computer with his brother.

Noxe OutMay 25, 20141 votes

Well thought out but I guarantee you that this will never be implemented. There is too much loss of revenue, no reason to stop smurfing. At any rate, there is already smurf detection so even if you make a smurf it will get detected pretty fast.

Again it's well thought out but personally I love getting on my smurf and messing around lower elo. I would just do it again, I wouldn't even use this feature.

SuperbianMay 25, 20142 votes

That is why some type of account-verification would have to be used. Korea ties theirs to some kind of government ID. But this is the US, and people would flip if they had to use their SS#. Tying your account to a cell phone, with text verification would solve this. You don't seem like a toxic player, but you need to realize that just by playing in those lower ELOs with your high elo skill is toxic, by default.

JingerbeardmanMay 25, 20141 votes

account verification would require some sort of identifying information to be provided. The only feasible identifier would be credit card verification which is not easy to fake. That stops the game from being free to play even if no real billing is done to the credit card provided.

any other identifying information that would be asked could easily be forged or falsified.

Fatalion PanicMay 25, 20141 votes

Look what I found: http://46.29.19.99/

A nice list of cheaters.

Lady LuckMay 26, 20141 votes

I kind of like this idea to an extent... I started leveling my smurf so I could practice playing roles I'm not as familiar with from an earlier level. (Getting one CS per wave was much more acceptable at level 10 than it is at 30.)

For this reason my biggest issue is what I understand of your number 4. "Secondary Summoners do not unlock their own Champions. With each level gained, a Secondary Account may unlock one Champion already unlocked on their Primary Summoner" sounds like I would have to unlock a champion on my primary in order to practice on my secondary. But since I smurf to try new roles - I often don't even own the champion on my primary account... So I'd have to basically buy a champion twice in order to practice at a lower level.

Also as others have said.... The name is another reason I like to have my smurf :) I love the name Lady Luck - and it's something that I can give out to people when I cosplay because it's easy to remember. My main account is limited to only people I know personally.

lonetreyMay 26, 20141 votes

Definitely an intriguing idea. Hopefully, people who are more knowledgeable about this topic will chime in with their opinions and maybe this idea might get off the ground!

JackYAquaMay 26, 20141 votes

Aren't Smurf accounts usually made to achieve the friend invitation rewards?

RhytoMay 26, 20141 votes

Have you guys seen how the Korean accounts are set up? I don't know if there's any smurfing over there.

Water of EdenMay 26, 20141 votes

The reason I made a smurf was to try new champions and see if I could play them without wasting IP on my primary account. I spammed Zed on my smurf to get some practice on him before I spent a hefty 6300 IP on him (I had an IP boost on my smurf).