Boards›Player Behavior

Smurfing is Unfair

Memeguel420·1/10/2016, 4:19:35 AM·54 votes·17,336 views

So I'm somewhat new to league and have been enjoying the game a lot! The only thing that really bugs me in the game are smurfs. I was playing a match against a Master Yi in mid. He was able to kill our entire team and got 1 penta kills and 2 quadra kills. While thats great for him, it really ruined the quality of our game! Since I was the first to die to him everybody said it was my fault, then my whole team blamed each other, and everyone reported each other. It really bothers me when high leveled players take extreme enjoyment in beating noobs. It causes people to stop playing this amazing game. I understand that there are good reasons to smurf like trying champions, but I think smurfing should be reported because it causes toxicity and ruins the game for lower leveled players. Riot can easily fix some reasons to smurf like adding a rental system or something like that. Any annoying smurfing experiences that annoyed you guys?

97 Comments

RiotRiot Whiskies1/10/2016, 6:37:31 AM46 votes

Blah I understand this feeling too. I didn't start playing until pretty much everyone and their super-cool grandmothers all had smurfs that queued up at the same time as I would. It was really confusing and frustrating that so many of my fellow lvl 6 'noobs' could be so much better than I. It can be a pretty sucky experience in the game sometimes.

It'd be neat to do a study on smurfs -- I wonder if I could have a chat with a few people around the office to see what we could learn about 'em. Noooo guarantees of course, but it's definitely a topic I'd be interested in helping out with the research.

I appreciate being able to lurk these boards, particularly in 'Player Behavior & Moderation,' even if I definitely don't get to read everything, and I don't always comment on things I do get around to reading. Since I'm a gamer too, player pain is a very real thing to me, so these matters are of a particular interest to me and I'd love to be able to make an impact whenever possible.

ltmetal1/10/2016, 5:21:59 PM3 votes

I don't have a problem with smurfs. My beef is with matchmaking, especially for levels 8-29. I wouldn't mind waiting for an additional 15-60 seconds on the usual 13 second blind pick queue time to get matched with people who are either all smurfs or all noobs. I also would like to see pre 30s never get matched with level 30s.

KuribohOP1/10/2016, 11:06:11 AM3 votes

As someone who has lvled a second account to lvl 30 (this account) I would like to share my experience.

I made this account it was for a friend on EUNE but he ended up coming to EUW anyway so I stopped playing on it for a bit. Then one time when EUW was down I decided I wanted to get this account to lvl 30.

I will admit I did play normals and did crush newer players and did feel bad about it. So I started playing stuff I was worse at and it got to the point I was playing almost exclusively against Smurfs. This was a horrible experience it felt like players I was getting matched up against would vary between low silver and high plat in terms of skill lvl. (probably due to player base of Smurfs around my lvl being small). But mainly because the players were extremely toxic. I do not think I played a single normal post lvl 20 where someone wasn't getting flamed in all chat. Someone would kill their lane opponent and be like "you are shit and I want you to know it" in some cases or the most common was the "9x report this xxxx they're sooooo bad". I stopped enjoying my games even when I was doing fine and not getting flamed. ARAMS were more chill and not very toxic though. To me it feels like a reasonable number of Smurfs are coming on a new account as their previous account got banned for toxicity. I make that assumption based on my experience with the amount of flame they give each other.

Once I hit 30 I have played ranked got placed in gold 5, promoted to gold 3, got suspended for "MMR Boosting" then continued up to plat 5 where I am now 30 wins 13 losses and have plat 3 MMR I do not feel bad about crushing silver/gold players as I deem it a necessary evil in order to get to equally skilled opponents.

exe31/10/2016, 8:16:17 AM3 votes

I'm sick to death of smurfs, they're an issue in every skill level (except the top obviously). Just then had a game where there was a smurf playing Rengar and another playing Zed. We simply had no chance because they were simply put much better players than us playing champions that can very easily snowball. It wasn't a fair match and quite frankly a waste of our time. I'd happily surrender in champ select and accept the loss if I could if I knew i'd be versing Smurfs because it's never a fun experience.

To make matters worse because they're smurfing they actually screw with matchmaking even more making it think they're low rated, so it gives the opposing team actually low rated (below what we are) to "balance" the teams so not only are we versing players much higher level than us but we're paired with players who are much lower level than us. It's a no win situation except for the smurf who gets to laugh at us as we struggle and just generally rub the loss in as much as possible.

It actually makes me want to quit a lot of the time and honestly is a main reason why I don't play this game a fraction as much as I used to in S1-3.

Got downvoted by smurfs feeling they're entitled to smash lower level players for fun.

xl Kirito lx1/10/2016, 8:06:44 AM2 votes

You're completely correct, and it is an overall pain for new players, to run into experienced players. But, a slightly necessary evil.

Without divulging too much, there are reasons a person would want a smurf.

As it stands, my mmr is low plat, low - mid diamond in normals. This presents a problem, since I'm unable to duo with my bronze / silver friends, and they're unwilling to play with me, since we're guarenteed to play against mid - high plat mmr.

Understand, Riot isn't completely free of blame either. It would be incredibly easy to sell level 30 accounts, which would deal with the bots infesting dominion, and the smurfing problem. They could even charge a reasonable amount, since the cost to level a smurf is roughly 30-40$. Boosts are required for someone trying to level. Getting an account to level 30 is approx. 400-500 wins, with boosts it's 100-200, depending on efficiency.

Finally, Riots systems do counteract smurfing to an extent. People winning consistently get placed against others who win consistently, and so on. Very quickly, by level 10 or so, there's a pseudo "smurf mmr", where you can be reasonably confident that everyone else in the game with you is also smurfing, or at very least has the ability to keep up.

On a personal note, even if you're playing with or against a smurf, they have the exact same restrictions that you do. The only difference between two level 1 accounts is the skill, and the team. As much as it sucks to say, this is a very prevalent theme throughout league of legends.

Tract1/10/2016, 4:24:59 AM2 votes

Adding a rental system would make litteraly no difference, most high leveled players own most champions, and there is a 10 champion per week rotation, People smurf to either beat up noobs, or play with low level friends(me). I made a smurf to help my brother level before. People who smurf for the fun of beating new players are extremely uncaring, but theres not alot that can be done.

Valrun1/10/2016, 9:18:03 AM2 votes

Personally, I have a smurf account for when a friend of mine joins League or I'm just bored.

However, unlike you're Master Yi experience, I try to teach players how to play the game instead of just Roflstomping them into the Rift. I like to go in as a support when I can and help the ADC's learn how to last hit and position and give pointers to other new players as well, regardless of the team they're on. I'd prefer this game to go in a more positive direction and I hope that even the slightest efforts towards helping the newer players to have a positive outlook can easy the communities suffering from the toxic, angry players these new guys are going to run into somewhere down the line.

Only Play Darius1/10/2016, 12:42:01 PM2 votes

My first penta kill was playing Yi top on a lvl 10 account

kaltenashes1/10/2016, 1:55:59 PM2 votes

Zed with item 1036 killed me 3 times, then roamed and got more kills and assists... he kept the short sword the entire time and only returned to base at lvl 9,10

fkin smurf, they take the fun away, cant play with neither against them, its so frustrating

oh great we're going to win, smurf carrying us, cant really do anything else such a gooood game =/ so uh, if we dont figure a way to shutdown that overly fed smurf we're going to lose... fk that the whole team is raging at each other, gg

Memeguel4202/28/2016, 2:04:39 AM1 votes

Update: I can't improve just because of how much games I feed because of smurfs. I'm currently a level 25 and just went against a plat 4 and an obvious smurf who was bragging about how good they were. She got a triple kill first blood by herself. I just wish the match making wouldn't pair me with a level 30 currently gold 2 previously plat 4 player when im not even level 30. Amumu

Croceum2/28/2016, 3:55:02 AM1 votes

Well, sometimes its people who were banned making a new account. Most likely people you see posting on this forum how they've been banned and are quitting the game forever.

Vodka Nation12/27/2016, 4:53:51 AM1 votes

yea it may be but its fun

4ManVotedAgainst1/11/2016, 3:33:46 AM1 votes

Smurfing may as well just be introduced as part of the tutorial & explanations given as to why it can be to your advantage (I never liked it myself but the system is simply set up in a way that makes it more economically rewarding to have smurfs rather than only one account). One thing that comes to mind is the first-win-of-day bonus that is only rewarded once per account per day. You can technically unlock more champions in less time this way due to the fact that grinding it out on one account takes MORE time than the amount of time to get maximum level in even the old-school version MMORPG of FFXI back in the day. The champions will simply be on different accounts rather than the same account. Then you can also fine-tune that particular champion with just the necessary runes needed without wasting it or extra time (because TIME is a VALUABLE commodity since human life-spans are limited).

Lithium Rosa1/11/2016, 3:54:22 AM1 votes

nah they are not trying new champions. 90% of the smurfs do this because that's pretty much because they can't handle their elo the only way they can secure a win besides bot games. Like literally 90% of the smurfs I have seen raging/taunting in low level games are from silver/bronze

Daxterr1/11/2016, 4:05:46 AM1 votes

Where did the name smurf come from anyway? Why are they named after creepy little blue things?

MLG Loominaty m81/11/2016, 1:40:15 PM1 votes

When I was silver 4 I got smacked 3 games in a row by a diamond 2 evelynn mid mainer, this was when eve was nerfed badly, nonetheless we lost the first game badly, second game went a bit better and third game we threw the game ourselfs in their base. During these games: 0 toxicity and both teams had lots of motivation to win. Also played a game once vs trick2g on his smurf, won that one, no bragging, as he wasn't lucky with his team.

Yes it sucks to lose 3 games in a row, but boy this only made me want to improve more and more. When I got into plat 2 last season I started smurfing, not for fun, simply to know if I was worth platinum. During this smurfing experience I noticed that bronze, silver and gold elo has the most raging kids ever. Instead of asking questions to smurfs so you guys can improve, you bash them for being "unfair assholes" etc.

Maybe if you guys actually changed your attitude towards smurfs, you could learn from them and improve your own game, closing the skill gap between you and the "oh so hated" smurf.

Don't get me wrong, it can feel unfair and sure there are smurfs that only play to bash "newbs", but even from these guys you can learn a lot, so instead of hating, take it as free education.

Meltzer1/11/2016, 6:09:47 PM1 votes

Smurfing sucks, playing against noobs is so boring and they make you play worse. would rather play bot games on smurf account. (btw I half way their to level 30, this is gonna be my first 30 smurf :D)

GRVet3ran0sS1/11/2016, 7:22:39 PM1 votes

Well if riot didn't banned our accounts we wouldn't do them

Elipo1/11/2016, 7:45:04 PM1 votes

...

sounds like my first time playing yi.nreally, you dont need to be good to achieve that with yi

Potato Doc1/11/2016, 9:01:48 PM1 votes

So ill be honest I have a smurf, Reason: Friends want to ranked but many of them are afraid or want to know the common mistakes. Im running through bronze, silver, and gold again to analyze what makes teams lose/ major player problems that occur at those elos

Findings: Even when I can 1v3 and get 3 kills but die to a 4th I will still have teams that lose with such a huge advantage. Many of these issues are frustrating for me, but have helped me realize how to better help my friends avoid the mistakes others in these elos make. Currently im helping my friends learn how to avoid these mistakes themselves and how to better understand the game they play. I also run through the replays to show them good and bad examples of each thing I find people doing. It makes it easier for them to understand/ makes it less scary because they see enemy players who make huge mistakes instead of focusing on me the plat which when I play with them I usually do. Its helping a whole lot more then before when I used to just explain things to them through voice since I had forgotten what it is like to play in bronze silver and gold.

Do I play on it often? Not really I do a few games to get some vids then continue on my main. Results of the match? Its pretty easy for me to tell who other smurfs are as well. Usually by me being a smurf im evening out the odds, (even if sometimes they are a duo queue smurf which then im pretty much hoplessly lost)

I will agree smurfs are for the most part bad. The question is thought how do you effectively go about banning people and preventing smurfs? That is an almost impossible question right now, unless you IP ban, but even then it creates problems for internet cafe's if an IP ban were to occur and it would hurt a lot more then just the banned person.