No respect for anyone who does it. Ruins the game. If you have a smurf to play with friends, then play normals. If you have a smurf because you can't do well enough in your own league and you need to stomp lower leagues, then I hope you're happy ruining the games for others.
Nothing creates more salt than losing a RANKED game and at the end, the most fed player on the enemy team says that they're smurfing. I thought they were good, but now I just think they're jerks.
Daen4 votesPersonally, I find smurfing to be a far more complex topic than a lot of people give it credit for. Here are some reasons I can see for people smurfing, for better or for worse:
Positive
Neutral
Negative
These are only some of the reasons a player might smurf, but right off the bat we can see that there are both positives and negatives to smurfing. Personally, I'd be interested to see how the following changes (not considering difficulty of implementation) would affect how people view smurfs:
Now, if we're just talking Ranked smurfing, it's very different because a ranked smurf will very quickly hit true MMR. I agree that it can be frustrating, but between the time it takes to get the smurf to level 30, rune/champion deficit, and how quickly smurfs ascend I'm not sure it's quite as significant a problem as you're outlining.
jaymc11301 votesNeutral
- Setting up a new account to main a particular champion or concept
- Setting up a new account to get a name you want
I am so guilty of these two. I don't wanna pay for name changes when/if I come up with a new name I like and it's the most common reason I make new accounts. I've also taken to making a new account every season exclusively for the reason of learning a new champion. I spend 30 levels playing it exclusively to become intimately familiar with it's play style and build options, then I set the account up to one trick the champ and try to hit diamond playing nothing but that champ. It's a fun challenge for me.
Daen1 votesI am so guilty of these two. I don't wanna pay for name changes when/if I come up with a new name I like and it's the most common reason I make new accounts. I've also taken to making a new account every season exclusively for the reason of learning a new champion. I spend 30 levels playing it exclusively to become intimately familiar with it's play style and build options, then I set the account up to one trick the champ and try to hit diamond playing nothing but that champ. It's a fun challenge for me.
I wouldn't say these are necessarily bad things (as per the "Neutral" heading), and I actually think Riot should be facilitating this sort of activity directly without forcing users to create new accounts that are completely disconnected from that player's main. I would love to be able to have a few specialty accounts associated with my main name (Daen), I think it'd be fun.
jaymc11301 votesI wouldn't say these are necessarily bad things (as per the "Neutral" heading), and I actually think Riot should be facilitating this sort of activity directly without forcing users to create new accounts that are completely disconnected from that player's main. I would love to be able to have a few specialty accounts associated with my main name (Daen), I think it'd be fun.
It's certainly not a negative thing, and it's definitely a lot of fun. It always makes my day when I get that first person who comments on an accounts name, they recognize the reference or just think it's cool. Makes me smile. I've found it's actually easier to learn a champ while leveling a new account than to try to learn it on my multitude of others. On a fresh account I've got no runes or masteries and neither does any one else so some of my preconceived notions don't have a chance to cramp the learning process. I get to discover the innate advantages of a champion vs the innate abilities of it's competition. It can be a double edged sword at times tho too, I often find that my normal game mmr increases rapidly as I tend to win at a 75% clip after I finish the required bot matches. This means I often end up winning about 35 or 40 of my first 50 and I end up playing against almost exclusively other diamond level smurfs doing the same thing, which is good. But having 2000+ mmr at level 15 can make queue wait times extremely long, it's not uncommon for matchmaking to take 10 minutes to match me up.
Deep Terror Nami3 votes
1 800 MID LANE1 votesThat's the issue. People smurf to carry their friends out of Bronze and that's ELO boosting to an extent. Then there's the guy that just wants to be a prick and roflstomp people at a lower ELO.
Deep Terror Nami1 votesBut you didn't come up with any alternatives... all this is without thinking of ways to fix it is just whining.
1 800 MID LANE1 votesBecause there really aren't any alternatives.
Deep Terror Nami2 votesRefer to Daen's post. He answered it perfectly.
AJStarhiker1 votesThat's the issue. People smurf to carry their friends out of Bronze and that's ELO boosting to an extent. Then there's the guy that just wants to be a prick and roflstomp people at a lower ELO.
No, that's just getting carried and considered a legitimate method. Riot's definition of boosting is giving someone else access to your account to bring your rank up.
kJs1 votesYeah, smurfing really sucks for new players climbing because it makes them think that they're not improving at all. It takes a long time to climb from Bronze because the League system is doubtful and cynical about your real skill level. It gets depressing getting stomped by Diamond smurfs after dozens of games ignoring the smurfs.
Brohan461 votescmon man... jumping into a 1200mmr normal game and running up 20-30 kills on poppy is always a good time
VasilisGreen1 votesLook, smurfing sucks when the smurfer is in your enemy team i get it. But, smurfing helps you determine if you deserve your league in your main account or not. You are gold in one account, but can you reach gold from scratch again? It is a good test for someone's skills. With some luck, you can get higher than you diserve if you have teams carrying your weight up in one case and being match with players that are worse than you. A second account with 0 ranked history and a fresh mmr can give you a new chance at testing your skills. Can you reach gold/plat/dia or wherever you were a second time from nothing? Also, if you smurf for that reason, if you succeed, you won't stay lowelo for long anyway. So, keep that in mind, smurfs don't stay at your elo for a long time anyway, instead they climb up faster than you. Unless they were not that good to begin with and can't carry themselves up. Smurfing is good at making some things clear.
JohnTheLibrarian1 votesI would agree with you but since Riot started the hard reset on Ranked in season 5, you get what you get, no need to smurf and find out its all done right there. No need to ruin the lower elo's play.
VasilisGreen2 votesI would agree with you but since Riot started the hard reset on Ranked in season 5, you get what you get, no need to smurf and find out its all done right there. No need to ruin the lower elo's play.
Hard reset? There is no hard reset. I won 6 out of 10 in my placement matches and got bronze 4 this season and befor that i was bronze 1. It is a soft reset.
RisenDarkKnight1 votesYeah people get wildly different results with the same amount of wins in placement games.
VasilisGreen2 votesYeah people get wildly different results with the same amount of wins in placement games.
It must depend on something, it can't be random
RisenDarkKnight1 votesI was agreeing with you...
Espy Psyche1 votesImagine Floyd Mayweather (world champion boxer) putting on a mask so nobody could tell it was Floyd Mayweather. He enters the Toughman contest (amateurs only, no professionals) under an assumed name. Obviously, because he's Floyd Mayweather, he annihilates everyone and wins.
That's what smurfing is like.
Imagine Adrian Peterson (top-tier American football player) dressing up in some random high school's football uniform and going out to replace the high school's starting running back. Nobody can tell who he is because he has a helmet on. Every play, the high school QB hands the ball off to Peterson, who overruns everyone on the enemy defense and scores a touchdown. Every play for Peterson's team results in a touchdown because nobody in high school can tackle a pro running back.
That's what smurfing is like.
Imagine Jon Favreau (the guy who writes President Obama's speeches) disguises himself as a student and joins a high school debate team. He's going to be miles above and beyond any other students because that's what he does for a living at the highest level. His team wins because they have a professional.
That's what smurfing is like.
Imagine Lionel Messi (considered the best soccer player in the world) putting on a uniform of a youth soccer team and going out on the pitch. After the first couple of goals Messi scores, the players are going to realize he's practically a god and pass to him every time, and every time they pass to him, he's going to weave through the pathetic defense of youth players and score.
That's what smurfing is like.
And that's why I hate smurfing. If anyone smurfed in regular sports, they would be shamed and disgraced. Nobody would have any respect for them as players or as human beings. They would receive death threats for beating up on children. Why is it not the same in League of Legends?
Rossendale1 votesDo you mean smurfing in general, or only the type of people who smurf with the purpose of being matched with less skilled players? People smurf for lots of different reasons, and not all of them are bad or have inherently malicious intentions.
ZeroSixTeen1 votesDo you mean smurfing in general, or only the type of people who smurf with the purpose of being matched with less skilled players? People smurf for lots of different reasons, and not all of them are bad or have inherently malicious intentions.
would not be okay no matter what the reason is! there is no reason, you dont have any reason to "try" to play bronze games when you are consistently playing in diamond! its just stupid. there is NO valid reason.
Look1 votesI only have a smurf account to help my new friends, and to teach my lower tier friends. I have only done ranked 5s with friends, and we weren't even taking it to serious. I will never use the account for solo queue unless something happens to my main.
puremojo1 votesa lot more responses here than I thought I'd get, and good discussion. Daen has some good points, but regardless, it does not ease the salt. If you smurf in solo que, then you're just taking the fun out for 9 other players. The other 4 on the same team get a win, but it's too easy and not a challenge. The 5 against you are bored getting stomped.
Yikes Im bad1 votesIf you smurf in solo que, then you're just taking the fun out for 9 other players
Not entirely true. Most players you played with might have been smurfs. You simply didn't know because not all smurfs are douchbags. So you probably had fun playing with or against smurfs.
Lugg1 votesSmurfing in normals is fine, Ranked is a different matter.
jodobo1 votesand then your team gets mad at you for feeding
Puynsi1 votesSmurfing is toxic for the sole exception of learning roles. Pros: High elo players can learn other roles. (Only legit reason to smurf.) Can play with friends. (only normals) Cons: Stomps people Ruins MMR for lower-elo players. Ruins his own game (unless hes learning a role hes not familiar with). For some reason people thinks that winning a bronze match and mocking players is something to be proud of. The worst part is that theres people who elo boost and sell accounts.
Rossendale1 votesI was wondering, does making a new account on another server count as smurfing? My main is on NA, but I live in Europe and made an EUWest account a while back top lay with friends. On one hand it's not really smurfing since it's another server that I didn't have an account on, but on the other hand I'm still technically playing with lower levels and 'stomping' them. I'd like to hear people's stance on this.
Daen1 votesI was wondering, does making a new account on another server count as smurfing? My main is on NA, but I live in Europe and made an EUWest account a while back top lay with friends. On one hand it's not really smurfing since it's another server that I didn't have an account on, but on the other hand I'm still technically playing with lower levels and 'stomping' them. I'd like to hear people's stance on this.
Personally, I'd say that's not smurfing. I suppose you could do a transfer to avoid it completely, but I'd be surprised if many people would fault you for creating a new account if you wanted to play with some friends in a different region.
Rossendale1 votesPersonally, I'd say that's not smurfing. I suppose you could do a transfer to avoid it completely, but I'd be surprised if many people would fault you for creating a new account if you wanted to play with some friends in a different region.
You see, I didn't really want to transfer either because 1. No monies and 2. I actually wanted to keep my NA account. I have friends on NA too that I occasionally play with and the lag is not that bad at all (Although after roughly a month of being pampered by 30 ping going back to the old 180 felt like my champ was covered in tar QQ).
Puynsi1 votesNo, having another account in another server does not make you a smurf, since you have to learn how people play on different servers. This could be subjective. I for one, started on NA and then moved to LAS when it opened up, but since LAS is just a trinket server I came back here. But the thing about smurfing is that you are being completly selfish, instead of learning anything you are just stomping people for the sake of making yourself feel good.
ZeroSixTeen1 votesI was wondering, does making a new account on another server count as smurfing? My main is on NA, but I live in Europe and made an EUWest account a while back top lay with friends. On one hand it's not really smurfing since it's another server that I didn't have an account on, but on the other hand I'm still technically playing with lower levels and 'stomping' them. I'd like to hear people's stance on this.
yes it is, there is a built in feature to change servers. choose a server and play there. if you want to play on both then bad for you! choose one, its how all other games work, it how league is supposed to work.
so me loosing games, loosing lp, loosing promos due to that some idiot has a need to stomp people in way lower leagues? I cant play that many games every day, two maybe 3 often just one game a day, and that one game I want to loose because I played bad, not because I played worse than a diamond player. I play worse than a diamond player every game, and I will never have the possibility to get that good. it makes the game unfair. I loose lp for loosing lane to a player that is ranked way higher than me. it makes the game zero fun. It makes me want to just afk and don't play any more. I want to improve, and I want to play games, but I will never be diamond, probably never be platinum. and it completely and utterly ruins the game for the people there. might just aswell just stand afk in fountain and wait for them to push down mid, there is absolutely no way I can beat him anyway. So there is NO justification for smurfing, riot should have harsh ip bans for doing it. they are actively ruining the game for other players, for no good reason. nobody needs to see if they can climb again. you have climbed, you are there, if you are not good enough, you will fall. its sad how the majority of the playerbase is getting shit on, for the benefit of the best.
if bronze players do the same, you get your account banned. boosting is litterary the same thing! the boosters wont stay there for long, they will fall back down. I can make the same argument for boosting. the only difference its okay when diamond players do it! oh, and bronze players learn a lot about the game from playing with diamond players! you can really understand the game from playing with someone so good at it! What argument you want me to make next? its no better to smurf.
oh, and you know what I do when I want to learn a new champ? I play that champ, against people as good as I am!!
you are all making nonsense arguments! It makes me really sad to see how broken the community is. when the game devs themselves are openly letting good players ruin games for bad players. even when the game is meant to separate wildly differing player skills, for that exact reason. I guess I deserved to loose that one game of the day in silver because I cant beat diamond players.