Smurfing is Unfair

Memeguel420·Jan 10, 2016·54 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 WhiskiesJan 10, 201646 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.

Samus72Jan 10, 20162 votes

{quoted}

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.

It might be interesting. But to what end would the study have?

RiotRiot WhiskiesJan 10, 201617 votes

{quoted}

It might be interesting. But to what end would the study have?

Haha good question! Some examples of things off the top of my head: -- What are the main reasons people create smurfs? -- What is the life expectancy of a smurf? -- Has smurf-creation significatly died down since the retirement of RAF? -- What percentage of a player's play is done on a smurf? -- What percentage of active summoners are smurfs?

Not even sure how accurately we could even try to put these answers together, but I don't think it's a bad idea to take a gander. And one of the things I love about data is how you can bumble about in it with just a vague idea of what you're looking for, then sometimes actually come across something pretty fascinating and unexpected [useful or not, heh].

[edit] Hrmm, you said 'to what end' so I didn't really answer that, sorry. I guess what I'm going for is maybe the results would go to help show how big/small the smurf problem may be, or perhaps aid towards how to handle smurfs in a data-informed way in the future.

Samus72Jan 10, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Haha good question! Some examples of things off the top of my head: -- What are the main reasons people create smurfs? -- What is the life expectancy of a smurf? -- Has smurf-creation significatly died down since the retirement of RAF? -- What percentage of a player's play is done on a smurf? -- What percentage of active summoners are smurfs?

Not even sure how accurately we could even try to put these answers together, but I don't think it's a bad idea to take a gander. And one of the things I love about data is how you can bumble about in it with just a vague idea of what you're looking for, then sometimes actually come across something pretty fascinating and unexpected [useful or not, heh].

It is a curiosity. I just...wonder if anything tangible would come of it. Knowledge is knowledge after all.

RiotRiot WhiskiesJan 10, 20166 votes

{quoted}

It is a curiosity. I just...wonder if anything tangible would come of it. Knowledge is knowledge after all.

Just added this edit in the post:

[edit] Hrmm, you said 'to what end' so I didn't really answer that, sorry. I guess what I'm going for is maybe the results would go to help show how big/small the smurf problem may be, or perhaps aid towards how to handle smurfs in a data-informed way in the future.

Totally get where you're coming from; it might not lead to anything, of course :P But for someone who enjoys nerding out to data and also hopes to positively affect player experiences, I don't mind some extra effort on the side to dig into it if it means something just might come out of it.

KinjishiJan 10, 20161 votes

Actually, I'm really surprised that Riot doesn't already know this. Just wow.

RiotRiot WhiskiesJan 10, 20164 votes

[{quoted}](name=Yasu Yoru,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=bTUf5bUF,comment-id=0002000000010001,timestamp=2016-01-10T07:35:08.842+0000)

Actually, I'm really surprised that Riot doesn't already know this. Just wow.

More like grrrlee doesn't know it. XD Maybe Rito already does and I'm just not in the loop. It's not my area haha. But I'll report back anything I'm given free reign to share if I do discover anything interesting [existing or new].

KinjishiJan 11, 20161 votes

Ah, ok. Makes more sense. Thank you for taking the time to reply, Grrrlee.

DrCyanideJan 10, 20164 votes

What are the main reasons people create smurfs?

Reasons I've heard tossed around (don't have a smurf myself). Note that some of these are more prevalent than others, and are in no particular order:

A player views the game as a "got to catch 'em all" type thing, making a new account when they have all champions unlocked.
A friend just started playing, and rather than have MMR difference and trust matchmaking to make things fair (when no one trusts it to with new players and very experienced players tossed together) they make a new account so there is no significant MMR difference.
A friend or family member occasionally wants to play, but is extremely casual and would never be able to get enough IP for champions on their own and doesn't play enough to make buying champions worth it. The person who knows how to play adapts the new account as a smurf, grinding occasionally to help them unlock content.
Debugging game issues. I have a friend that made a new account when he was having a hard time connecting on his main account for whatever reason. The new account could connect, so he kept leveling it.
New user name. Many people who stream or make YouTube videos want a name that fits a particular series of plays. They either need to get a name change every few days, or have several accounts that they switch through.
Stomp noobs. We've all had days where we can't seem to win, and to some people the solution to that is a smurf account where they can feel like they're at least good enough at the game to beat someone.
To troll. They want to mess around and get other players angry without risking their main. Some likely do it with the notion that somehow it's getting back at a troll they had in their own game.
Accounts banned, but still wanting to play the game. I could see this picking up a lot, where a player could see a 2-week ban as a reason to take a three month break from playing on that account.
Wondering about what rank they'd be in if placements were different. Some players wonder if they would be able to crawl out of Bronze 5, others wonder if they'd never get stuck in low elo if they placed higher. The smurf acts as a placement reset.
A player stops making meaningful progress in climbing the ladder, so they decide to start at the bottom and do it again.
To sell the account. It could be that they're botting it to 30, or actually playing to get it there as a safer way of selling the account, or it could be they are looking to sell a high ranked account to someone. I feel boosting and smurfing are two sides of the same coin, and it's something no one likes having in their games.
LCS secret strategies. This is one I'm pretty sure I've heard Rioters throw around, a way for popular players to not be tracked while practicing new things.

I'm sure I've heard of more, but those are the ones coming to mind right off.

As for what could be done about it, the best suggestion I've heard is for there to be incentives to connect the smurf to the main. Some way to get to 30 easier, share your IP/RP/champions between the accounts, an option to redo placements, etc. This has the limitation of only help one subset of the smurf demographic though, as players looking to bypass punishments, break the rules, or start from scratch wouldn't want this.

Honestly, I wonder if having more placement games would help. You feel like each of the 10 games has momentous sway on your rank. If it was 20 games, it might help players not feel like they got trapped by bad luck in some no win situation. Inevitably there will be some who still feel that way, but it might reduce it.

The big one would be a way to play with new friends. Some sort of handicap system would be perfect for this, and could possibly be enjoyed by other players as well. Ideas for such a system involve locking you out of certain champions, limiting your masteries, denying you runes, or potentially giving you less effective stats in game.

JubbinautJan 11, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Reasons I've heard tossed around (don't have a smurf myself). Note that some of these are more prevalent than others, and are in no particular order:

A player views the game as a "got to catch 'em all" type thing, making a new account when they have all champions unlocked.

A friend just started playing, and rather than have MMR difference and trust matchmaking to make things fair (when no one trusts it to with new players and very experienced players tossed together) they make a new account so there is no significant MMR difference.

A friend or family member occasionally wants to play, but is extremely casual and would never be able to get enough IP for champions on their own and doesn't play enough to make buying champions worth it. The person who knows how to play adapts the new account as a smurf, grinding occasionally to help them unlock content.

Debugging game issues. I have a friend that made a new account when he was having a hard time connecting on his main account for whatever reason. The new account could connect, so he kept leveling it.

New user name. Many people who stream or make YouTube videos want a name that fits a particular series of plays. They either need to get a name change every few days, or have several accounts that they switch through.

Stomp noobs. We've all had days where we can't seem to win, and to some people the solution to that is a smurf account where they can feel like they're at least good enough at the game to beat someone.

To troll. They want to mess around and get other players angry without risking their main. Some likely do it with the notion that somehow it's getting back at a troll they had in their own game.

Accounts banned, but still wanting to play the game. I could see this picking up a lot, where a player could see a 2-week ban as a reason to take a three month break from playing on that account.

Wondering about what rank they'd be in if placements were different. Some players wonder if they would be able to crawl out of Bronze 5, others wonder if they'd never get stuck in low elo if they placed higher. The smurf acts as a placement reset.

A player stops making meaningful progress in climbing the ladder, so they decide to start at the bottom and do it again.

To sell the account. It could be that they're botting it to 30, or actually playing to get it there as a safer way of selling the account, or it could be they are looking to sell a high ranked account to someone. I feel boosting and smurfing are two sides of the same coin, and it's something no one likes having in their games.

LCS secret strategies. This is one I'm pretty sure I've heard Rioters throw around, a way for popular players to not be tracked while practicing new things.

Here's an odd one for you: my cousin wanted to do a ranked 3s team with me (team and accounts named on a specific theme), so we all rolled up new smurfs, rather than have that name associated with our main accounts.

DrCyanideJan 11, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Here's an odd one for you: my cousin wanted to do a ranked 3s team with me (team and accounts named on a specific theme), so we all rolled up new smurfs, rather than have that name associated with our main accounts.

I guess I'd put that in a category similar to LCS secret strategies + New user name, only instead of wanting the anonymity because you're doing something awesome for your next tournament you're doing it so the likely Bronze 5 3's Team doesn't show up on your main. The anonymity combined with the fun names and team make for a new engaging experience.

StigtriXJan 10, 20162 votes

I have what might be considered a smurf account that I mainly use to play with friends I have introduced to League of Legends. It would most likely be harder for my friends if I used my main account for this, at least that is my experience as I tried that first. I play on it now and then just to keep it an active account, but that is really rare. I also have an account on EUE because that is where I started playing, and where I had some friends, but most of them migrated to EUW. I mainly play on this account with the friends I have on EUE and when the EUW servers are unstable (not so often now, but EUW still needs some improvements [wink-wink-nudge-nudge]).

I hope this might be of relevance and interest to you :)

DeynaTaggerungJan 10, 20162 votes

I really like this idea, and I hope that there's some serious looking into this matter. So far as I've been able to tell a large percentage of the smurfs(or at least the obvious ones) are people who have received temporary or permanent bans in the game and are creating an alternate account so they can keep playing. These people who were proven to have a negative affect on the game are now even more frustrated and therefore come across as a really negative experience to players. At least that's been my take one it, I'd be interested to see what kind of information you could gather to prove or disprove that fact.

New player experience is really important to any game because if people get turned off by an initial problem that isn't actually present in the rest of the game then the growth of the game will be massively slowed down. And if League isn't growing well then it'll eventually die off :'(

CansemaJan 11, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Haha good question! Some examples of things off the top of my head: -- What are the main reasons people create smurfs? -- What is the life expectancy of a smurf? -- Has smurf-creation significatly died down since the retirement of RAF? -- What percentage of a player's play is done on a smurf? -- What percentage of active summoners are smurfs?

Not even sure how accurately we could even try to put these answers together, but I don't think it's a bad idea to take a gander. And one of the things I love about data is how you can bumble about in it with just a vague idea of what you're looking for, then sometimes actually come across something pretty fascinating and unexpected [useful or not, heh].

[edit] Hrmm, you said 'to what end' so I didn't really answer that, sorry. I guess what I'm going for is maybe the results would go to help show how big/small the smurf problem may be, or perhaps aid towards how to handle smurfs in a data-informed way in the future.

-Smurfs are created when people want to carry lower elo people, (normally friends). -smurfs are normally the accounts you will see get sold off. Not much money is invested in them and end of season people can make a few bucks. / or Some people keep smurfs just to get away from all the people on their friends list.. they feel an odd thing of being nice so they dont delete people and just create a new account to be alone. -i think it may have reduced the bot creation, due to the make level 10. but smurfs have different intentions. -i would say during the creation of a smurf 80% of game play is spent on a smurf... once leveled it drops to about 40% -15% of active players will be smurfs

most of these numbers are ruff guess and estimations.

Smurfs dont stay low ranked too long thou. for a person that is actually smurfing you are looking at upper plat to challenger skill level.

Some people are just good and not smurfing. i spent 5 months working with a friend and teaching them the game. He was bronze. he finally started figuring it out. he ADC's and i Support... i am plat with no drive to go beyond top 10% . A Smurf was used to get him out of silver. He was low gold last season. i started seeing people comment on him calling him a smurf and complaining about him when we would do ranked together. He just finally figured it out now people assume he is a low diamond smurf. i expect him to get high plat this season.
i spent hours showing him footage of his game play and what he did wrong. I blamed him for his mistakes.. i blamed him for my mistakes. i made him see were people and were he was going wrong. Why did i blame him for my mistakes... i wanted him to think of what could have been different then i would walk him thru the game and we would discuss after who was really at fault, but i needed him to be able to explain to me why i am wrong. it wasnt to be a problem. it was to get him to actually know if he understood who was at fault and i wanted him to talk back to me. it shows confidence and knowledge... enough of that ...

so.. i enjoy playing and will never make a smurf again.. and i wont invest that much time in anyone else anymore. honestly wanted to see if i could train someone and i am happy with the results.

i wont call my other account a smurf.. it has reached the same level that this one is on.. i will only refer to it as an ult and i am no longer stepping in that end of the game due to the frustration and the confusion.

as a one time rehabilitated smurf. i didnt do it for anything other than to understand what it would have taken to smurf and how much time i invested to get my account to a certain point.
i forgot how long it took to level and getting all the runes and pages. collecting all the champions.. on a side quest i would run with a low elo person.

i would be greatly annoyed if anything happened to the alt or main account because i have put money into both accounts and actively play both. now that i have made the goal to get every champion on the alt account than i am spending 90% of my time in the off season on the alt. But keep in mind it is no longer low elo and if the patches treat me nice i will never be low elo again. it is fun being the sole reason for deleting another team of the map, but i am over it now. Goal to Diamond is now this season objective.

i didnt say this to get punished. i really dont care to much about smurfs because i feel i play against people of that skill level anyway now on a regular basis.

i remember reporting someone for hacking because i didnt know this game well enough back in season 2... seriously people going thru the tree line was a new concept for me and getting smashed because only one person on the enemy team was everywhere. now... i got better and understand the game...

to all the new players, good luck and if you start hitting a batch of smurfs, take a break for an hour or 2 and play normals or bots for a bit just to get away from them. really it feels that at a certain hour they start playing heavier.

sorry for the long post.

Tearin TrueJan 11, 20161 votes

I find the concept of smurfing interesting as well so I would be interested in what you find.

I played a game recently In this game Diane was crazy good. I asked if she was a smurf and she said no, but I mean WOW good! She was on my team and I needed to queue up again because we won so easily I found it unfun.

I also created a smurf account, but I didn't spend money to buy runes or anything. I created the account because I was curious how much better I have become over a new person. I wanted to play a couple PvP games and just destroy. Seriously I just wanted like 2-3 games.

Now I did play one game and I did absolutely destroyed, but then the matching system put me against people much more smurfy than myself and I died ALOT.

Troll ArmadaJan 10, 20162 votes

Here you go, I'll save you guys (and gals) the trouble...

Here are the primary reason you see "smurfs"

( fyi, probably spelling and grammar errors below )

. 1. FOR SALE

Account is being leveled, partially by bots. for sale at a later date. winning games giver you more IP.

. 2. DODGE TIMER CIRCUMVENTION

The dodge wait timer is stupid , encourages trolls, and matchmaking is horribly broken. It makes sense players will seek to use that time playing league and end up leveling up secondary just as a bonus.

. 3. ARAM

These are folks who love ARAM so much, but hate getting stuck with that urgot they bought six months and never played again. They create a smurf account with only a limited set of ARAM champs they want to play with.

. 4. ANONYMITY

No way to post anonymously to these message boards, without your sumoner name and match history, therefore every complaint gets turned a around on you and the discussion quickly becomes ridiculous...

. 5. GETS OFF STOMPING NUB

This is probably the smallest perecent of these pre-30 accounts. They exist for sure, it my educated guess based on experience that this percentage is teeny tiny.

You're welcome.

------------- edit: oh yeah, here are two more... -----------------------

. 6. FRESH START

Riot won't provide a hard reset at the end of the season, so players waking up to the fact that the future will endless games of stoned trolls walkimg around the map aimlessly, asking people desperately to group mid, finally just give up and start a new account.

. 7 FUGITIVES ESCAPING JUSTICE

Self Explanatory, Freshly Banned, these people need a new account.

NinjaGuy69Jan 10, 20161 votes

{quoted}

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.

What do you even do at Riot? Do you work with the Money Grab Queen KateyKhaos or Lyte or what?

RiotRiot WhiskiesJan 10, 20163 votes

{quoted}

What do you even do at Riot? Do you work with the Money Grab Queen KateyKhaos or Lyte or what?

I am on the Insights Tech team, responsible for the collection and preparation of data we track. I have pretty much full access to the data, and get to interact fairly frequently with our Research and Analytics teams, so I am hoping that puts me in a decent position to poke around if I have the time to!

Ars3lynJun 23, 20171 votes

how do i find your research sir? I notice this is a year ago and i wanna see the outcome of this and find out my recent problem with a certain smurf i collided just today at 6 pm PST. this will be cool to look at, I've been playing this game for about a year but still learning. just trying to figure out everything including smurf and other questions on reporting and such. of course there will be plenty of other questions but for now i will be the patient man here and try to answer questions that i cant find

RiotRiot WhiskiesJan 10, 20162 votes

Thanks for all the comments!

I'm going to start bothering some friends tomorrow to see what can come out of this, because I am genuinely curious to learn more about smurfs and their impact in the game. I hope I can bring back useful information to share on the Boards. But please don't expect crazy results immediately; I'll keep you updated though.

badoogaJan 10, 20161 votes

I was thinking more along the lines of smurf prevention. If you guys have the ability to determine that an account is being used in different locations (to detect if more than one person is using it), then couldn't you use that same capability to limit smurfing? Although it wouldn't stop it from happening, being able to detect when someone creates a new account from the same IP address of an account that was recently active would potentially detect a lot of smurf account formations.

DeliothJan 11, 20162 votes

They don't take IP address as a major consideration for multiple usage- due to the large volume of people who travel for a living and take a laptop to play on with them, it's relatively common for someone to log on in camelot, play a few games, hop on a plane and get to wentalil and play a few games at the new hotel before doing work the next day.

Nah, much more definitive things like ward placement, flash on F/D, champion pool, lane preference/proficiency, click frequency, &c.

And if you think about it, which is more likely: Person A plays LoL and his IP switches from one place to another weekly; or Person B typically plays mage supports at a Silver 3 level, but suddenly starts playing toplane fighters at a Platinum 1 level and midlane assassins at a Diamond 4 level, while switching his flash placement from F to D and he now clicks 4x as much. Oh and he happens to be at a different IP address.

Tik115Jan 11, 20161 votes

I mean honestly alot of your questions can be answered by the common player

-- What are the main reasons people create smurfs?

Several reasons, I have friends who have smurfs for the sake of doing silly things in ranked without affecting their normal accounts ELO another reason is for those in Master-Challenger, the Que times are far too long and if they're streamers they can't just sit there for 30 mins while streaming, so they make smurfs And the last one I'll throw out is if people dodge due to a poor matchup/troll they can go on their smurf and continue playing

-- What is the life expectancy of a smurf?

Depends on their main accounts ranked, a silver-plat smurf will be rare to last before level 30 where as higher Elo players will almost always keep them due to dodgeing/long que times as I said above

-- Has smurf-creation significatly died down since the retirement of RAF?

I doubt it, few people did it for the skins, they did it for....all those above reasons

-- What percentage of a player's play is done on a smurf?

Can't say, ask around

-- What percentage of active summoners are smurfs?

Can't say, ask around

Hopefully that gets you started on your journey of learning

AnomanderJan 11, 20161 votes

Off topic but I just have to know..... are you from omicron persei 8?

BigKittenPawsJan 10, 20162 votes

I remember when last year I won my promos thanks to a legal boosting duo aka smurf pairing up with his low tier friend.I got a free ticket to Gold but seeing how they stomped on the enemy team I seriously felt sorry about them.The guy played ghost-tp irelia mid and he was just mercilessly hunting down people,winning us the game in mere 16 mins.

Though imo smurfs are annoying,but since sometimes they are on your team,sometimes not,it gets kinda balanced from a win-lose view,just like trolls/afks.I think they are similar from a toxicity point too,as getting beaten in 16 mins by someone obviously not belonging in your tier is frustrating.

Question is if the frustration created by smurfs or keeping high tier players entertained has priority. As a Rioter,I would think about linking smurfs to main accounts (Like multiple characters in mmo games,Diablo etc.) and put some challenge options for smurfs like "no masteries","no runes" or "no gold for champion kills" etc. Maybe place a limitation where main accounts and smurfs have a different queue in ranked.(though it would increase queuing time).Even silver and low gold tier players have smurfs nowadays for some reason. XD

In the end,I have nothing against smurfs,I learned a lot from games where I had to lane against high tier players,but I see how they can be a source of toxicity in a competitive and already toxic environment.

IamNoobFtw123Jul 28, 20171 votes

Yes it's fun being hard stuck in bronze you finally get to b 1 promotion to s5 you lose don't promote,win promote ,In their team they had 2 smurfs ,One was Plat 1 and one was Gold 3 ,it is not fair,We have no chance beating those players,It's just not fair.I was doing well in lane but their 2 smurfs won the mid and jg .We lost it's NOT FAIR,it sucks and it demotivates me to play this game item 3073

exe3Jan 10, 20163 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.

KuribohOPJan 10, 20163 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.

ltmetalJan 10, 20163 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.

TractJan 10, 20162 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.

xl Kirito lxJan 10, 20162 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.

ValrunJan 10, 20162 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 DariusJan 10, 20162 votes

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

kaltenashesJan 10, 20162 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

4ManVotedAgainstJan 11, 20161 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 RosaJan 11, 20161 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

DaxterrJan 11, 20161 votes

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

4ManVotedAgainstJan 11, 20161 votes

This was originally a term that came from some other game (maybe it was Counter-Strike or something Doom-related) where "PapaSmurf" was used as a name to make it look like a harmless opponent, but in actuality, was an experienced player. The Smurfs of course was originally a cartoon that came out in the 1980s (you can probably find episodes of "The Smurfs" with You-Tube searches). The history of using names that had "Smurf" in it eventually caught on as the reference to why it's now called Smurfing (within the cartoon, The Smurfs were mostly powerless against the Villain Gargamel, thus the reference to the appearance that the smurf-character is powerless, but in reality is more like a trap in game-systems).

{quoted}

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

DaxterrJan 11, 20161 votes

{quoted}

This was originally a term that came from some other game (mayube it was Counter-Strike or something Doom-related) where "PapaSmurf" was used as a name to make it look like a harmless opponent, but in actuality, was an experienced player. The Smurfs of course was originally a cartoon that came out in the 1980s (you can probably find episodes of "The Smurfs" with You-Tube searches). The history of using names that had "Smurf" in it eventually caught on as the reference to why it's now called Smurfing (within the cartoon, The Smurfs were mostly powerless against the Villain Gargamel, thus the reference to the appearance that the smurf-character is powerless, but in reality is more like a trap in game-systems).

That was a great answer thanks! I doubt many people actually know this

MLG Loominaty m8Jan 11, 20161 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.

61939590DEL1Feb 28, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=MLG Loominaty m8,realm=EUW,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=bTUf5bUF,comment-id=0024,timestamp=2016-01-11T13:40:15.842+0000)

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.

Smurfing shouldn't exist period but riot allows this to happen** "Thx RIOT you didn't banned any toxic players from this game!"**

Yes MLG the majority of players who play this are** kids including YOU**(coming from a bronze player who doesn't have an main yet enjoys all champions.)

Fellow Adults with smurfs why the fuk are you wasting your time? Smurfs excuses

I'm playing with newbie friends duh( yet calling your IRL friend a newbie that's weak)
I'm bored .... Ok get employed go workout go apply for a education.

Lets face it! The majority of adults they work part-time & they continue their education which this makes the rest of the day/week unavailable to play anything else really. If someone states "I work 12hrs a day"( which this includes travelling time) so be it, but it doesn't mean your full-time. Full-time adults have their careers already achieved they cycle repeats itself form 6am to 6pm( just a example of my father's work all day, sometimes overtime). Around this time you are starting family not sitting on your ass playing video games. Heck i haven't seen one of my 30+ friends online for maybe 3 mths now because he wants to be OPP officer & start a family.

@ the end of the day I don't understand why these kids do it still, it goes for consoles as well. Yes I do have 2 smurfs one is for a back up with a excellent name that suits me LOL(been 4mths might i add)" if ever something happen to this 1. The other one is slowly leveling to lv 30 to see how the female side is doing.

MeltzerJan 11, 20161 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)

GRVet3ran0sSJan 11, 20161 votes

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

ElipoJan 11, 20161 votes

...

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

Potato DocJan 11, 20161 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.

Memeguel420Feb 28, 20161 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

hh the thinkerFeb 28, 20161 votes

{quoted}

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.

match making in normals isn't great. ranked is much better for it since the skill level is much closer. sadly you had to go through it, but it does get a bit better afterwards i believe. one reason for this is runes and masters.

CroceumFeb 28, 20161 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.