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Let’s talk Smurfs, Snow, and Bans in Ask Riot

Riot·5/25/2016, 5:57:37 PM·4 votes·72,765 views

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(This week’s version features questions taken from existing player conversations on the web.)


Is smurfing okay? Why don’t you have better solutions in place for this?

(Note: This question generated a lot of interesting internal dialogue. So we wanted to include two Rioters in an edited conversation for this question, to highlight that we don’t always have all the answers.)

It’s complicated.

WookieeCookie: We don’t endorse smurfing, but tackling it is a very difficult issue because of our player population size and the ease of account creation. We agree that smurfing can really ruin the game, such as when a smurf stomps lower-tier players. However; from past attempts we've learned that it's a real uphill battle to create powerful restrictions on alt-accounts without inadvertently affecting the majority of our players who don't smurf at all.

Instead of cumbersome systems to blanket restrict smurfing we're looking for targeted answers that attack specific pain points. For example, if we find a player is using a smurf to actively hurt the game and other players we’ll take direct action on that account, and in some cases their main account as well.

Ghostcrawler: Sometimes players are smurfing because they are trying to accomplish something that League isn’t offering - in other words, the need is unmet. For example, playing with a friend with a different skill set is a noble pursuit that League doesn’t support very well. Other players might make a smurf account because they want a sense of rapid progression that they experienced when leveling from 1-30 or maybe even climbing through Bronze and Silver.

So we should be careful not to paint all smurfs with broad strokes and assume that they are trying to grief actual new players. They may have other intentions. That said, taken on the whole, I’m not a fan of smurfing and worry the potential harm to other players outweighs the benefits to those players with unmet needs.

WookieeCookie: Agreed! That’s why we can’t endorse it. Instead of trying to restrict or prevent smurfs, various teams across Riot try to minimize issues caused by smurfing. For example, one of the teams that works on meta-game systems developed pretty good detection methods that quickly separate new players from experienced smurf accounts in the early levels. Within a few matches, smurf accounts only end up playing against other smurf accounts.


Since we are having more and more champions, are we thinking to redesign the amount of bans in champ select?

We don’t think the number of bans needs to scale linearly with the number of champions. If you take that to an absurd conclusion, we might end up with so many bans that champion select gets really bogged down.

If we increased bans, it would be because we thought we could promote team diversity or produce some more interesting comps. Player agency is an important part of the "how many bans?" discussion. Too few bans and you can't deal with frustrating champions. Too many bans, and you might never get to play the champions you want to play.

One idea that we're beating around internally is whether one ban per player (meaning 5 per team or 10 total) makes sense. That increases ban number slightly, but more importantly, it gives everyone a chance to make a choice about who they don't want to see on the opposing team. We have no idea when or if we would make this change - we’re just trying to give you a glimpse into how we are thinking about the issue.

(BONUS ANSWER!) Reading between the lines, there seems to be concern about how many champions LoL can support. There probably is a finite number, but at the rate we release new champions these days, it will be many years before we really have to worry about having too many. - Ghostcrawler


Why don’t we get a winter-themed Summoner’s Rift skin for Snowdown anymore?

One of the outcomes of the Summoner’s Rift Update was a need to completely rehaul how we would reskin the map. When updating Summoner's Rift, we wanted to deliver a unique, timeless art style that remains relatable years after its creation. We also wanted to do all of this while increasing the visual quality, gameplay clarity and thematic cohesion AND while still running the same or better on our min spec. This was quite a challenge and required developing Summoner's Rift in a totally unique way. We took the talents available on our team and decided to take a hand-painted approach. This means every pixel on the map is unique, no shared textures, no programmatic lighting, no tiling. We achieved stylistic lighting and gorgeous textures, without the performance cost, in a way that won't degrade over time as technology improves. We essentially created a giant painting and overlayed that on the rift.

So what does this mean for a winter-themed map? The con of our approach to building SR is that making any changes or modifications to it requires significant work. It's like trying add snow to a summer landscape painting – it's impossible – you have to repaint the whole thing from scratch. These changes also mean we have to repatch data over multiple patch cycles, causing pain for those of you who have data caps and extra costs, which add another layer of complications with changes to the new map. I’m sure some of you have seen the winter-themed custom map skins made by some players and have asked, if they can do it, why can’t Riot? Most of these maps are made by running a programmatic filter across all of the textures and simply put, we want players to feel like the map is of the highest quality. It would be like slapping some snow on top of Orianna and calling her Winter Wonder Orianna. That may have been fine 5 years ago, but nowadays we consider the things I mentioned above; gameplay clarity, thematic cohesion, and visual quality, which means it’s not a simple undertaking.

Does that mean we'll never have a winter-themed skin? No, not at all, just that we have to invest in updating the rendering technology on LoL before we can deliver features like Map Skins without risking game stability. It's a lot of work and needs to be prioritized against the other opportunities we have, such as Rotating Game Modes that offer alternative game modes not just changes to the map, but doing that will allow us to create a sustainable pipeline to deliver content like winter SR and more ;) – Riot JxE

Here are a few links that touch on our approach to the Update to Summoner's Rift if you want more info:

  • http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/features/dev-blog-defining-rifts-visual-style
  • http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/gameplay/dev-blog-optimizing-rift

256 Comments

Vekkna5/26/2016, 9:15:17 PM122 votes

I wonder if they have considered blind bans. Before champ select, everyone locks in their ban at the same time, and all the bans are revealed simultaneously at the end of the phase.

That way, everybody gets to ban whatever they dislike the most, regardless of whether bans overlap. You also cut down champ select lobby time by like 2 minutes.

Large Minivan5/26/2016, 9:11:11 PM36 votes

yessssssssssssssss their thinking about having one ban per person yesssssssssssssssssss

Gegachxis5/26/2016, 9:20:09 PM29 votes

My thought on the smurf problem: why not make an option to team with a lower level player that announces itself to your teammates and opponents, like a badge in the loading screen. You can even scale the summoner spells to the lower player to prevent things like the god-scale jungler in a game of level 1 players. Use this like a mentor system. Can this be broken and abused? Sure. But it'll be easier for Riot's algorithms to find those accounts that are just grief-smurfing. This mentor system could also balance the game a bit. If your team has a mentor in it, the matching system could put a mentor on the opposing team.

Anyone else have two cents to through into this thought?

Blac Iyc5/26/2016, 9:07:23 PM27 votes

player: y no winter map?

riot: too much work. summoner 32

tthrom20175/26/2016, 9:38:23 PM17 votes

Will you Riot folks do the free mystery gift for players who haven't been banned like at the beginning 2015? That was a nice gift.

zergman5/26/2016, 10:50:58 PM15 votes

I'm personally a fan of using my smurf to learn to roles and champs in a competitive ranked environment without hurting my main account. For example if I'm playing just champs I know really well and playing at my highest level I'm about a gold 3-5 player, but if I'm learning a champ or role my skill level is only about silver 1-3. It's not like I'm not trying on my smurf. I just don't have the same skill.

bend0n5/26/2016, 11:11:15 PM15 votes

honestly, i think that the draft system that riot has in place is outdated and is in need of a rework. i feel like riot should take the SMITE/ DotA style of picks and bans, where the draft follows a series of 2 bans and 2 picks twice, and then a final pick and ban phase.

with that kind of system, drafting is more focused on banning out champs/heroes that fit the enemy team comp or counter yours, rather than the current draft system, where its just banning the 6 best champs in the meta.

AMYS GRAVE5/26/2016, 9:46:55 PM14 votes

We don’t think the number of bans needs to scale linearly with the number of champions. If you take that to an absurd conclusion, we might end up with so many bans that champion select gets really bogged down.

dont let the slippery slope argument stop you from upping the bans to one per person.

NowTHISIsPodrcng5/27/2016, 2:16:54 AM9 votes

PLEASE bump up to 10 bans! This has been on me and my buddies minds for a while now, there really is a need for more bans.

haloccarmi5/26/2016, 10:29:37 PM6 votes

I only do Solo-Q ranked and am currently in a low rank because I havent played enough this season to rank back up to where I was before. Because of my low rank, I generally face people that I often deem "easy" to beat. What are the chances that I could get confused with a smurf and then be punished by facing opponents much harder than I should be facing. Im asking since Ive noticed I generally face people in a few tiers higher than my current tier in my division. Its not a big deal as long as I dont start facing people in way higher divisions if I get confused for a smurf for some reason. I would like to get back to my previous rank and then more without excessive problems being introduced by an odd system. :P Just a thought and question.

PbJMpP4xzk5/26/2016, 8:59:55 PM5 votes

less and less solo players in the mix.

quiffsplitter5/28/2016, 2:15:06 AM5 votes

Reading between the lines, there seems to be concern about how many champions LoL can support. There probably is a finite number, but at the rate we release new champions these days, it will be many years before we really have to worry about having too many.

I hope Rito is taking this observation seriously because, unless I'm misunderstanding how the money side works, this should be the key concern of the league business model. Used to be companies sold you a $50 game and were done, but Rito keeps selling you and selling you the same game. They've been brilliant at packing new saleable shit into this game, but eventually, they'll have sold their fans about all the game they can sell them. I'm suspicious that this will be much, much sooner than this comment suggests, but that might just be my lack of imagination speaking.

I have no interest in sandbox, but this is why I believe Rito needs sandbox, because that's how LOL was born (right? Warcraft 3 sandbox => DOTA => LOL). If Riot wants to be right there ready to grow and cash in on the NEXT big thing so they can survive the inevitable passing of LOL, what better way to do that than to incubate it right in their own basement?

Ýisus5/27/2016, 4:43:25 AM5 votes

So regarding Smurfing - Riot seemed to forget the main reason I log into a smurf account - the speed of play. Lower level play is much much slower and less stressful. Sometimes it's just nice to get back to slow play. Regardless of the skill level of the champions - the play is just slower without runes / masteries. And that is enjoyable and relaxing sometimes.

Schizoid Steve5/27/2016, 2:48:30 AM5 votes

Please give Aatrox some needed attention. #Rework?

andriy935/28/2016, 9:46:36 AM4 votes

In the future, would something like a currency exchange or a player bazar of sorts be considered? I don't have the issue, but I know that many veteran players have a large amount of IP they they don't really have any use for. They have all champions, and all the runes they need, or don't need. But there's always skins, summoner icons, ect. to be obtained.

freebuck5/26/2016, 9:45:37 PM4 votes

If smurfs are discouraged, then why do several pro players have more than one account in challenger? I don't understand what Riot thinks is a good smurf and bad smurf.

KAYDEL5/26/2016, 11:30:44 PM4 votes

I find it funny that they couldn't stress enough who difficult it was to create a snow-themed map yet there are multiple websites that offer third party, very well made custom maps including a snow-themed one.

TooDangFabulous5/27/2016, 7:47:46 AM4 votes

I remember when I made my second account to play with my friend that just started. I really disliked having to do it, I felt like if I played with him on a level 30 I could ruin the game in more ways for both teams. Like one team could have more higher level or only high level players. I fell making a new account to play with a new player is better then unbalancing the matchmaking system. The real problem is I actually did try once to make an account to see if I could dominate by picking beginner the games I played sometimes had all smurfs I was so mad about it because the players I get after selecting Veteran actually seem to be all new or bots. I literally tell new players not to pick beginner or they will get stomped.

Revolvus5/26/2016, 8:57:45 PM4 votes

is it just me are there only 2 comments?

Indica x420x5/27/2016, 8:55:36 PM3 votes

I just wanted to comment about the smurf account issue. I understand people like to smurf to maybe play with friends or maybe so they don't have to play long matches if they was trying to farm currency / drops. I guess the way to look at it is how fair do you want the competitive side to be. I would think in my opinion smurf accounts should be aloud but not in competitive. If they want to play with friends of a different tier then make it locked to normal and not possible to do comp. I feel this would help balance the ranks in comp ladders. Games are meant to be fun and playing with friends is encouraged. I feel if this was done then say whatever my comp rank was would be more accurate opposed to the way it is now. People that have smuft accounts should be able to pick which account they want to be there comp account and which they want to be for casuals then it should be locked to that after chosen. I like to consider the new players to the community that are maybe trying the game for the first time or just trying to get into. Competitive should be as fair as possible and I feel this might be a step towards that. I myself have had my account for awhile but have played on and off here and there over time. What I do see and I feel its due to smurf accounts is a lot of people complaining about how other players don't know what they are doing and complaining in matches about how bad they are. This is Bronze v an entry level into comp the bare minimum. When people do or say things like this to new or newer players it only hurts the community as a whole in the long run. Or maybe even consider in comp modes to get rid of the chat and only make pings on the map instead. Anyway my input on this is yes smurf accounts in comp is not fair and should not be aloud or really its truly not an accurate comp ladder. 5 people in bronze v on the ladder could be the same guy so to speak. Smurf accounts also don't have the need or want to excel as the guy who only has 1 account and is trying to climb the ladder. Smurf accounts also don't have to worry much if they think people are bad and become vocal about it are most likely not even to finish the match or troll. The small infraction means nothing to the smurfs that just don't care. This leads to a lot of trolls or afk's cause the novice team isn't playing at a diamond league level. So sure making comp more competitive and accurate would be great for all new and old players. This is just food for thought ad clearly just an opinion. Good luck on the issue.

gibbsies5/27/2016, 4:08:50 AM3 votes

I'm afraid the texture excuse for "Why don’t we get a winter-themed Summoner’s Rift skin for Snowdown anymore?" is weak sauce. All you need to do is make a Summoner's Rift Winter map that has it's own artwork and painting, and leave the original alone.

Some might say that this is bad because you'd have to update two maps whenever you fixed a bug in Summoner's Rift's map: but, that should be minimal because you would only use the winter map for a couple of weeks a year, and could manually update it every Christmas.

It's not a rendering technology issue if you've got your processes down right, it's just a production issue in this case.

If, on the other hand, you don't have a team of two artists to address the making of a copy of summoner's rift with snow, what do the 400 people working on the project do day to day?

LeBr0nze James5/28/2016, 8:21:39 AM3 votes

how about making ranked only with mastery level 4+ champs only? that way you know if a player has experience with a champ and won't lock in with a champ they played only a few times before.

Insidious15/27/2016, 5:45:23 PM1 votes

To limit smurf impact...How about limiting every PC installed to one ranked account. You want to play with your friend to help them get better...no reason it should be ranked.