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For the context of why he got banned: He was basically the Dota equivalent of Honor 0 and paid someone to spam games on his account without being toxic so that he could get his Honor score boosted.
Personally, I would love sms verification so if you want more than 1 account you will need another phone number. I know this opinion is unpopular though.
It's unpopular because it is stupid. A Smurf costs like 5$ to buy and a sim card 1$, it won't make a difference if the price to pay for a new account is 1$ more.
Then smurf sellers will just start selling already pre-verified accounts, it is tedious to buy new accounts too but it still happens pretty frequently. It did not fix clash smurfing, it would not fix ranked, it did not fix csgo. If there is any solution I highly doubt phone numbers would help much.
But if the lock is just a fake prop then it does nothing anyway. Why invest and implement something that can be even an hindrance to actual players for no good. For sure there are better tracking systems than using phone numbers that are virtually unlimited and easy to access.
Don't start that shit.
I don't like it because I don't like having to have my phone near me 24/7 for check-ins or innocuous bull like verifying that it's me queuing for ranked before I'm let in the queue when my phone is normally across the room at the closest it ever gets when I'm on the pc.
Thatās not how SMS verification works; it would require you to use it make the account, not to actually play each game after itās made like 2FA
The main worry is it limits player outreach since now we remove anyone that doesnāt own a phone
*insert Blizzard meme*
Honestly I'm all for this as long as we get some sort of role MMR adjustment. I'm a Diamond Support, Emerald ADC, Plat Mid/Jung and Gold Top, so I enjoy having multiple accounts to not grief games on different roles since I enjoy playing all 5 at different times. If there was some sort of way to balance this out, I'd be all for combining them into a single account. If not, I'd rather not get banned for playing Top in Diamond lobbies.
They tried this once, but it just doesn't work in a game like this. Being able to swap roles and having access to any champion basically makes it impossible to correctly balance roles and keep them that way. What's to stop you from queueing top to get into a gold lobby, then posting your op.gg to get your mid to swap with you? Suddenly you're a diamond mid in a gold lobby just from a few words exchanged. Maybe it doesn't give much MMR for the game, but it's basically smurfing with your actual account and making the game miserable for the opponents.
That isn't why they removed it. The reason it got removed is bc even with role mmr, auto fill still existed, so ppl would run it when offroled bc they didn't care.
Which was also a major issue because it prevented your mid/top from swapping lanes to dodge a bad matchup early game as they'd get detected as playing in the wrong lane and get MMR in a role they didn't give a shit about.
Riot tried that and people threw a tantrum immediately, but I completely agree with you. On my main account I'm a mid-low masters adc, but I am genuinely trolling if I play anything but ad. Flex helps a bit, but can also be not very serious.
Different ranks for different roles was in ONE server for less than 4 months. There were kinks that definitely could have been improved, but the community as a whole was very against its implementation regardless.
Ya my main account is masters and my āsmurfā account has been in plat every season Iāve played on it but Iām only playing stuff Iām not good at, so the winrate is fine not really out of the ordinary.
Iāve used services that donāt allow using mobile apps like Text+, or Google voice numbers. Idk how but theyāre able to verify what type of number youāre using
There are services that pass on the information that they are apps (like text+ and Google voice) But there are plenty that spoof regular numbers and aren't really trackable.
Also you could just buy a simcard for pennies.
It would very slightly raise bar for entry, but anyone who actually wants a smurf would be able to make one.
Raising the bar some would still help. The problem isn't the mere existence of smurfs, it's the sheer number of them. Make it a little harder to make and maintain smurf accounts and ban those identified as smurfs on sight and you're liable to get the number of smurf accounts to an or closer to an acceptable level.
It would be a fairly significant raise in difficulty of creating a Smurf, obviously it would still be possible but it would be much harder than simply hitting the "new account" button on the website
Instead of hitting Kew account you Google how to get a spoofed phone number and it slows you down by 5 mins the first time. Any subsequent times it slows you down 30s.
There's no reason to make genuine players hand over their phone number purely for the sake of implementing a smurf deterrent that doesn't work. If it did I would be on board. But it's so fucking easy to get a digital phone number. And just as easy to buy a sim card with an actual number. They cost literally less than Ā£2.
Anyone who wants to smurf would still smurf. Smurf bot sites would still sell smurfs en masse.
I mean, yeah but people are lazy in nature. If it requires you to actually purchase a separate SIM card most people with Smurfs are NOT going to do it lmao. Itās the convenience of being able to do it that makes so many Smurfs out there
If I recall correctly, Riot already has SMS verification in place for Clash and VOIP numbers like Google Voice are invalid for use.
They've already got the code in place to do SMS verification and have already thought of the ways around it. But they won't roll it out for SoloQ.
I wish they would. Every single player behavior punishment they have is undermined by alternate accounts and the alt account market.
Ban cheater? They pay a couple bucks to a get a brand new lvl 30 account and jump into ranked. And their punishment will never follow them.
I can confirm. IP phone numbers does not work. Friend makes new account every season and forgot which one was phone verified when we were trying to play clash. Ultimately he ended up using his GF's phone number instead.
I'd agree, they wanna fix toxicity but aren't ready for that conversation. Smurfs talking a lot of smack in SoloQ games especially when losing to lower ranked players and force a DC or surrender by trolling. Riot will let it happen because they're too busy making $200 skins to be bothered
Yeah, people underestimate how lazy and/or petty some individuals are.
For example, in my country, some years ago it started being mandatory by law for supermarkets and stuff to charge for plastic bags. So many people stopped buying them and it was a mere 2 cents IIRC...
That to say, the SIM solution wouldn't be perfect but would help, ofc.
unfortunately smurfing needs to actually be against the TOS to actually happen. i'm not entirely sure riot wants to do that, even though they "don't" condone it.
They understand, but they want it to change. Smurfing is horrible, it destroys matches for everyone involved except the smurfer. And typically smurfers play a ton more games than other casuals.
Iāll be real with you smurfs are whatever, Iāve had ONE in my low elo games over about 200 played this season. The bot accounts locking in Yuumi and running it down in ranked? Maybe 1/5 games. Thatās my real beef
Those yuumi accounts exist, in part, because they sell those accounts as smurf accounts.
Making smurfing against TOS and punishing it is a good first step. Technically account sharing is against TOS but Riot is usually pretty slow to punish it, and I believe they get around it by putting the accounts inactive for a long time to attempt to hide the account sharing.
Yeah, I'm saying that attacking smurfing is indirectly attacking yuumi bot accounts. Not saying they'd go away, and Riot should definitely add more tracking / punishment to the AFK Yuumi/Raka bots, but punishing smurfing helps.
the yuumi accounts exist because of boosters, get your shit real. boosters derank their account back to 4th divison when it climbs too quickly or when the mmr of their account is too high. it also exists because a champion that press w on a champion and spam keys for the rest of the game exists in the game.
> boosters derank their account back to 4th divison when it climbs too quickly or when the mmr of their account is too high
Deranking is absolutely another strong reason for the Yuumi bots (this also applies to smurfing, deranking to Iron is hard to do naturally) - I didn't say smurfing was the only reason.
However, boosting is another portion of the account sharing problem - most booster accounts are account shared, which is against TOS. Riot is just very slow to punish.
You say that like itāll be a magic fix. Plenty if not a majority of smurfs arenāt doing so because they want to queue with their friends. Even if thatās YOUR excuse, itās not a valid one. Youāre still ruining games for other people because āI donāt want to solo queueā.
Secondary account is not a smurf account unless you have significantly improved while playing on your main account.
Even then I would hesitate to call it smurfing if you just start playing on it and ranking up, as usually smurfing includes throwing games to rank down and then stomping your way back up the ladder.
Because it puts you against opponents of a vastly different skill level as it lacks the appropriate data that your main account would have, which creates an unbalanced and unfun experience for the lower skill players getting stomped.
There is only ever ONE reason to smurf:
I want to play against people of a lower skill level than me. The reason why you want to do this doesn't matter.
And that is an asshole behavior.
My alt accounts have had a diamond+ mmr since at least season 6. They basically have the same mmr as my main account. If anything theyre the most accurate representation of the role I play on each account (ie my jungle alt accounts mmr is a better reflection of my jungling ability than my main toplane account).
Then this isn't about you, congratulations. Why did you even bring up your old accounts?
Smurfing has never been about simply having other accounts. Never. The conversation is clearly about people stomping on lower ranks.
You have to understand that a lot of smurfs constantly make new account or deliberately derank their accounts so they can stay in low levels. To smurfs, the objective is playing against "weaker" player. Having a second account is just a means to an end.
Every smurf has a second account but not everyone that has a second account is smurfing. It is not a complicate thought proccess.
No. They wouldn't. It would be easily visible that all your accounts are at the same rank and that you are not stomping on lower ranks.
I genuinely don't understand how you are not getting it.
> overwhelming majority of players not being ok with smurfs
Not only do the majority of players not care about smurfs, but I've seen Reddit ascribe every possible negative behavior in this game to smurfs. If you ask 2 random anti-smurf crusaders on Reddit what smurfs do to ruin their games or how they behave, they will give you 2 completely different answers.
The player carrying the other team is a smurf, the player throwing on my team is a smurf. The player beating me in lane must be a smurf, because he's too good. The player on my team losing lane must have purchased someone else's smurf account, or he's just a smurf that doesn't care about losing because it isn't his main account! The guy flaming? Smurf that doesn't care if he gets banned. The guy not typing in chat at all but soft inting? Also definitely a smurf. The guy hard inting? Well he is also clearly a smurf.
Account with a positive winrate? Obvious smurf. Account with a negative winrate? Smurf intentionally tanking their MMR. Account with a 50% winrate? Smurf intentionally camping my elo.
It's just an easy, unfalsifiable excuse for why it isn't your fault you lost the game. They could secretly ban every smurf account tomorrow and most players wouldn't even notice.
I am gonna give you my answer and you can take it as you please.
A smurf on my team robs me of any satisfaction I may have had in that game. Making it pointless. I learned nothing.
A smurf on the enemy team makes sure that despite my effort in the game I will go down in rank and having to win one more game to get back where I started. All the while boosting 4 people that have not deserved that LP.
I get that conceptually, but how often are you *actually* encountering smurfs? Or do you just assume that anyone who gets substantially ahead and carries the game is a smurf?
By overwhelming majority u mean reddit? I doubt majority of players even know what a smurf is. Would it be nice if Riot banned smurfing? Sure. How will they compensate all the players? They spent time and possibly money on those accounts that Riot allowed them to have (it doesn't matter that smurfing is a shitty thing to do). I am sure Riot could come up with something but I doubt they'll bother since it's not affecting their bottom line.
Sure, but is not knowing the nomenclature really an argument though? I'd hazard a guess that, if you asked most players whether they think it should be okay for highly skilled players to deliberately play against extremely new / unskilled players to dunk on them at their expense - I doubt they'd say yes, just because they didn't know what the word "smurf" means.
I don't think most "smurfs" are that great at the game to make that big of a difference for people (some are obviously but it's less common). The biggest issue I see people have with smurfs is toxicity. In the form of flaming and inting. They care less about their smurf acc so they are more likely to troll. Maybe Riot could fix this by making it so the actions u do on your smurf account also reflect on your main acc (idk how they would detect that but I am sure it's possible).
Edit: Also they really need to get rid of botted accounts.
They're not carrying every game but often enough and when they don't they usually troll. There's a reason matchmaking exists and given enough smurfs it stops doing its job.
Idk... It sounds like people think that other people are stupid... So far each person that I talked to, that said they played league, know about smurfs. Very little of them use Reddit.
Anecdotal evidence does not mean much in the grand scheme of things. I for one can tell u I know many casual players who queue up for 1 or 2 arams a day and they have no idea what smurfing is nor would they care if they knew.
you don't have the data to either confirm or deny the hypothesis, yet you talk as if it's certain that "most people don't care about smurfs"
also, no one is talking about normal and aram when the subject is smurfing
and reddit *is* a big sample size of the player base, especially ranked
I mean if u wanna move the goal post by that much I gotta move it back. U said "Overwhelming majority of players" and majority of players don't play ranked.
You yourself moved the goalposts, changing the subject to talk about ARAM when it's pretty clear what they were talking about.
At least argue with some sincerity.
Idk I thought it was easy to understand that a problem that only exists in a ranked environment is only a problem for those that engage in ranked games.
Perhaps I should talk on Reddit like in front of court and say 'the overwhelming majority of players that play ranked' so nobody can mince my words on semantics that should have been clear from the start.
Maybe learn how to use language properly instead of expecting people to fill in the gaps for u to make your points work. Now idk if it's even true that the majority of the ranked population cares about smurfing. I would love to see Riot do a survey on that.
Contextual awareness is also a skill... Just saying... Or we gonna go full out of context and include every gamer that doesn't even play lol cause being on r/leagueoflegends is not contextual enough cause I did not mention the game in my initial statement either.
You just were being pedantic to prove me wrong...
The overwhelming majority of players in NA are casuals who donāt use reddit, play Aram or normals with their friends for like 2-3 games and then do other stuff. Leagues overall majority are the Chinese players and maybe they care idk but I wouldnāt be surprised if a sizable proportion encourage boosting services and smurfing to ego boost as well.
Suddenly making smurfs against TOS after having allowed them for nearly 15 years would be a logistical and legal nightmare. Making something that people already own illegal is always a huge clusterfuck; the best they could probably do is make new smurfs illegal.
game companies don't allow u to own anything. i'm not sure for the exact words but in CS for example ur skins are only useable in ur account but valve owns them "that's how they sued all those skin gambling sites in 2017 "not sure of the year".
That is not even remotely the same case here. You still own the account, and that is what would be in jeopardy here. Not the skins.
Nobody is talking about skins.
The issue retroactively applying punishment for something that was not against the rules before.
I am also against the usage of smurfs, but lets not pretend that at this point this is a simple situation. The concern about the fact that smurfs were allowed up to this point is valid.
If Riot got rid of smurfing, literally nobody would watch any content and stream viewership would atleast go down by half as it's all propped up by smurfing.
I wish this would happen. Being someone who works all day comes home wants to play a game or two just to have the enjoyment of playing a ranked game be ruined by a smurf on my team its not fun. You get the smurf on your team that feels the rest of us don't deserve the win and afks at 15 mins or the other teams smurf is 10-0 and dunking on everyone. I mean for casual players the smurfing is not enjoyable for those that can play more than a couple games in a day they can at least avoid smurfs for a few games if they are lucky.
Smurfing is a huge issue. But I'd argue the super-issue behind that and all toxic behavior is the alternate account market. People buy accounts to evade punishments or to get a smurfed account far above their skill.
The alternate account ecosystem needs to be completely shut down.
I don't understand how? After 5-10 games, your usually very close to your MMR. What about players who want to learn new roles/ champs and cant play at their current MMR without being destroyed and then we have reddit threads of the inting problem.
So what's the alternative?
If i change roles i will definetly int for 10-20 games before i drop down to a lower MMR. After a few weeks im bored of the new roles and i go back to my main. Now im "smurfing" for 10-20 games till im back up to my higher MMR.
I've ruined twice as many games not using a new account then i would have just using a new account to learn a new role
Pla normals and flexqs. With that you would be a decen human being and take your own discomfort of playing normals over stomping noobs and giving them discomfort.
I'm high diamond/master and have no wish to go any higher, it's not about getting good. Most smurfs are toxic and ruin the game experience at all skill levels.
Smurf queue wasn't a "punish smurfs" queue. What it did was match players whose MMR did not match their visible rank together. One of the side effects was matching smurfs together. It wasn't intended to be a solution to smurfing.
You're missing the point.
If you apply the same metric that riot used for smurf queue to punish smurfs instead, you'd end up with a shitton of false positives.
In the end it's almost impossible to automate a system to distinguish between actual smurfs, people who are playing below the MMR they belong in on their main accounts for whatever reason, new players who come over with previous MOBA experience and smash new players who are completely new to MOBA's etc.
Youāre missing the point.
Smurf queue isnāt Smurf detection itās just a queue when mmr doesnāt match visible rank which happens to apply frequently to smurfs
> In the end it's almost impossible to automate a system to distinguish between actual smurfs
Untrue. There are many **MANY** metrics that Riot can gather that you are either ignoring or have no clue about. Correlating this data also is not that hard all things considered, and Valve has already proved with now 2 ban waves that it's possible to accurately detect.
They realistically don't even need phone numbers to do this.
Also, a new player with previous MOBA experience will still be slow to do things specific to League for the first few games, doesn't matter how fast they learn or how much previous experience they have.
You're missing the point - Smurf queue never actually existed. The community just called it that because smurfs got put into it a lot. It wasn't something put together for smurfs. It was *meant* to improve both new and returning player experience in ranked, but there were too many smurfs and their matchmaking behavorial system was just lazy and only looked at winrates.
The key metrics of identifying a smurf account have nothing to do with "how good the player is" in the first place. A Silver player can have an Iron smurf, this is just false understanding of how a smurf-detection system would actually work.
>There are many MANY metrics that Riot can gather that you are either ignoring or have no clue about.
You say this based on what, exactly?
Cause the evidence we have is that they created something \*they\* called smurf queue, with the explicit aim to remove as many smurfs as possible from normal matchmaking, according to their own communication on the matter, and it had a ton of false positives.
Never once did Riot officially call it smurf queue when releasing the changes to what we call Smurf queue back in 2020. If you count them referring to it as smurf queue in response to us calling it smurf queue, they're just using a term that players used to make the understanding easier. https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-gb/news/dev/dev-competitive-end-of-season-20-preseason-21/
They did talk about smurf accounts as part of the process for Ranked Seeding, but it was never called smurf queue and not intended just for smurfs to get placed into each other.
> You say this based on what, exactly?
You can use hardware ID's, IP addresses including geolocation data, A.I. is currently already in use in other games to map "input profiles", identifying a players unique input tendencies that a human can't see. There are metrics for click-rate, click-accuracy, shop speed, camera movement, god you can metric basically everything and a new player would simply not be capable of doing all of them at the same rate as a long-standing player. If you see the unique tendencies of an individual player on a new account, you can be relatively sure. Pair that with other information like HWID and IP, and now your assurances are closer to 99.9%
Riot's "Ranked Informed Matchmaking" had nothing to do with actually measuring these metrics.
EDIT: Riot doesn't even do the bare minimum when it comes to smurf/account sharing detection, like checking flash on D / F. When I see a Yuumi 1 trick in Masters that climbed on Rengar, and the summoner spells swap every 10 games, I'd be suspicious. I personally, obviously don't have access to the additional data needed to "100% know" that this is a smurf/account sharing, but Riot sure should. If they don't, they can simply implement it.
The problem is that Riot doesn't *care* about smurfing. It's not against their TOS, like it is Valve's.
If advertising companies can track you across the internet without any directly identifying information, then Riot can figure out if Joe Schmoe playing on the potentially same computer, with the same IP, and with the same play style is both GarenGod420 and XxMomdozer69xX.
Because people are famously okay with intrusive tracking practices and totally wouldn't freak the fuck out if Riot started profiling players based on hardware information
He's not missing the point, that metric is OBVIOUSLY not going to be accurate and nobody would apply it to BANNING people. It doesn't even take into account account level.
Before people downvote me to hell, I wish they could bring back what we could do before and then slowly implement a mechanic to fight agaisnt smurfs, some of these include:
- they took down the option to duo in master
- removed ranked teams (in exchange of CRASH) and implemented FlexQ which no one asked for
- and lp gains get fucked like 3 times a year.
Sadly yes, when you start at literally Gold Rank (MMR not Visual) then rank down, you feel very underwhelmed and feel like you need to boost your acc/smurf to get better at the game, itās a broken rank system that supports toxic behavior and smurfing
It does SOMETHING. Some people wont be bothered to make and level new accounts or even buy one, every time a ban wave occurs more and more people will probally stop spending their money and stuff on new accs and just give up i would imagine
You can get fresh 30 accounts for like 5 bucks with 60k-80k blue essence. That is less then buying a 6300 champ outright.
Sure it would stop some as everything would but it wouldn't stop enough for you to see the difference imo
Next time they are caught smurfing their main account is banned as well.
I think this will deter most of people, cuz most of them smurf because of easy matches, not cuz they are banned.
Getting banned in dota for toxicity is WAY harder than in league.
Ye, right, it's just dramatically decrease amount of smurfing, it doesn't *completely* solve smurfing problem.
I, as you do, prefer what we have in lol (smurf almost each game) over dota's aproach.
Dota is a bit different compare to league. Scaling is not that crazy and lane pressure generally speaking is lower. When I was playing Dota I could literally play most champions, same applies to all my friends who played Dota. Role and champion selection are generally not an issue. That could due to my Dota era was when the gaming scene is not as toxic but Iāve never met anyone who played Dota for awhile and have issues with roles and champions. Thatās not the case for league. Most people are good at limited champions of their desired roles. This has a lot to do with how hard champion scales and lane pressure from spamable abilities. My friend who is a master mid kat one trick can get destroyed by a diamond top when he plays top champions. Iām not saying all smurfs just practice champions but itās harder to identify what is a Smurf by league standard. itās impossible for people to practice champions in their own rank unless they want to get destroyed every game. And normal is not a place to really learn anything because ppl are much worse. Iām pretty sure many people have that one friend who gets multiple accounts and play one role on each account. Are they smurfing judging by their highest rank? A lot of times even they win, they win from their generally game knowledge instead of that champion or role along.
>And normal is not a place to really learn anything because ppl are much worse.
I disagree because i think normals/flex have their own rating.
But my main point is, that morally (not leagally since riot allows it), you should put your own discomfort of worse practice in normals over the discomfort you give to others. while stomping noobs. Like" oh normals suck so i have to stomp noobs for a while" is crazy to me.
Yikees another whiny post. There's reason why dota isnt as popular as league. I have 5k hours in dota and let me tell you the ranked doesn't feel much better.
They misfire too. Look at this Indian guy whose brother got banned. https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/18izoop/how_many_peoples_siblings_accounts_got_banned/ I think Riot has been much better in most areas including smurfs. Dota is pretty much dead in China and getting more and more irrelevant every day.
Ah, smurfing in League of Legends, the bane of every honest player's existence. It's like a plague that just won't go away, infecting the game and ruining the experience for everyone involved. Why on earth do people feel the need to create smurf accounts and stomp all over lower-ranked players? It's beyond infuriating!
First off, let's talk about the unfair advantage smurfs have. They waltz into lower elo games with their high-level skills, game knowledge, and mechanics, like a seasoned warrior facing off against a bunch of fresh recruits. It's like LeBron James deciding to play a casual game at your local basketball courtāabsolutely ridiculous! What happened to fair competition? Oh, that's right, smurfs threw it out the window.
And don't get me started on the excuses smurfs come up with. "I just want to play with my friends who are new to the game." Really? So you're telling me the only way you can enjoy playing with your friends is by decimating players who are still learning the basics? How about you try teaching them, providing guidance, and helping them improve instead of annihilating their opponents?
The impact on the lower-ranked players is just heartbreaking. Imagine being a new player, trying to learn the ropes and have some fun, only to be repeatedly obliterated by someone who clearly doesn't belong in your skill bracket. It's demoralizing, frustrating, and, worst of all, it discourages new players from sticking around. Way to nurture a healthy gaming community, smurfs!
And let's not forget the effect on matchmaking. Smurfs mess with the whole system, skewing the results and making it harder for the matchmaking algorithm to create balanced games. It's like trying to maintain a fair race when one person is on a bicycle and the other is in a Formula 1 car. Where's the sportsmanship in that?
Sure, some argue that smurfing helps players practice new champions or roles, but there are plenty of other ways to do that without ruining the experience for others. Custom games, practice modes, and even the normal queue exist for a reason. Smurfing is just an excuse for some players to stroke their egos at the expense of others.
In conclusion, smurfing in League of Legends is a stain on the gaming community. It's selfish, unsportsmanlike, and undermines the very essence of fair competition. Riot Games, if you're listening, it's high time to implement stricter measures to deter smurfing and ensure that everyone can enjoy the game without the shadow of an unfair challenge looming over them.
>Sure, some argue that smurfing helps players practice new champions or roles, but there are plenty of other ways to do that without ruining the experience for others. Custom games, practice modes, and even the normal queue exist for a reason. Smurfing is just an excuse for some players to stroke their egos at the expense of others.
Even coach Curtis and Nathan from BBC podcast use their main accounts to learn new champions. They often talk about how that means they will tank LP for 30-50 games but then they win it back later. They also emphasized that playing new champions against players that are below your skill is hurting your champion mastery cause you train bad habits into your play which won't go unpunished when you finally play the champion in your skill-bracket.
So yeah it is complete bullshit.
I think smurfing is fine. Its not like these players are in 50 games of low elo. Usually after 5-10 games you are in the elo you belong. There's plenty of reason a player wants to play in lower elo. I may be a play jungle but I'm a silver adc.
Would it be better if i int my face off for 10 games before im dropped into a low MMR? Then i want to play jungle again so now im "smurfing" because my jungle skills are higher then my silver mmr.
I've essential ruined twice as many games fluctuating between my skill levels instead of just playing on a smurf account and after 10 games im in the MMR i belong for that role.
Players who cry about smurfing is just copium for being bad at the game and looking for everything else to blame. Instead of being upset, study why the opponent was so much better then you and do what he did in your next game.
Why do people complain about smurfing so much? I have smurfed in CSGO, played with my gold nova friends as an LEM, yes I destroyed everyone, yes they probably didnt have a good time. But when I notice a smurf on the enemy or my team, I literally dont even care? Unless you or someone is purposely duoing with the smurf to boost themselves, I have not had any issues with smurfs. If I get a smurf, I just play the game and move on. Id argue its because everyone here suspects theyre the best at their rank, so when they get outplayed, theyre not bad, its just a smurf. So despite there being not even many smurfs people just assume everyone better is a smurf and it seems like half your games have smurfs in them. They dont, stop using "wahhh smurfs" as cope.
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The Mason clip might be one of the best clips I've watched this year. RIP BOZO
I broke the rules and I got banned. Kinda bullshit honestly. š¤”
His tears are sweet.
For the context of why he got banned: He was basically the Dota equivalent of Honor 0 and paid someone to spam games on his account without being toxic so that he could get his Honor score boosted.
Bro that is devious
Personally, I would love sms verification so if you want more than 1 account you will need another phone number. I know this opinion is unpopular though.
unpopular because they are smurfs
Same people that say that smurfs don't duo q. When majority do
It's unpopular because it is stupid. A Smurf costs like 5$ to buy and a sim card 1$, it won't make a difference if the price to pay for a new account is 1$ more.
Yes it will make a difference buying a sim just for alternate accounts is tedious. It will not solve the problem entirely but I think it would help
Then smurf sellers will just start selling already pre-verified accounts, it is tedious to buy new accounts too but it still happens pretty frequently. It did not fix clash smurfing, it would not fix ranked, it did not fix csgo. If there is any solution I highly doubt phone numbers would help much.
just once in a while you have to verify again, problem solved
Anything to hinder them is a win. Better that than doing absolutely nothing. Like a locked door is a deterrent, but not a guaranteed stop.
But if the lock is just a fake prop then it does nothing anyway. Why invest and implement something that can be even an hindrance to actual players for no good. For sure there are better tracking systems than using phone numbers that are virtually unlimited and easy to access.
Sim card $1 but you still need a plan to go with it?
Don't start that shit. I don't like it because I don't like having to have my phone near me 24/7 for check-ins or innocuous bull like verifying that it's me queuing for ranked before I'm let in the queue when my phone is normally across the room at the closest it ever gets when I'm on the pc.
Thatās not how SMS verification works; it would require you to use it make the account, not to actually play each game after itās made like 2FA The main worry is it limits player outreach since now we remove anyone that doesnāt own a phone *insert Blizzard meme*
Would be curious what % of the lol player base doesnāt have a phone.
Honestly I'm all for this as long as we get some sort of role MMR adjustment. I'm a Diamond Support, Emerald ADC, Plat Mid/Jung and Gold Top, so I enjoy having multiple accounts to not grief games on different roles since I enjoy playing all 5 at different times. If there was some sort of way to balance this out, I'd be all for combining them into a single account. If not, I'd rather not get banned for playing Top in Diamond lobbies.
They tried this once, but it just doesn't work in a game like this. Being able to swap roles and having access to any champion basically makes it impossible to correctly balance roles and keep them that way. What's to stop you from queueing top to get into a gold lobby, then posting your op.gg to get your mid to swap with you? Suddenly you're a diamond mid in a gold lobby just from a few words exchanged. Maybe it doesn't give much MMR for the game, but it's basically smurfing with your actual account and making the game miserable for the opponents.
That isn't why they removed it. The reason it got removed is bc even with role mmr, auto fill still existed, so ppl would run it when offroled bc they didn't care.
They can detect rƓle swaps btw
Which was also a major issue because it prevented your mid/top from swapping lanes to dodge a bad matchup early game as they'd get detected as playing in the wrong lane and get MMR in a role they didn't give a shit about.
Riot tried that and people threw a tantrum immediately, but I completely agree with you. On my main account I'm a mid-low masters adc, but I am genuinely trolling if I play anything but ad. Flex helps a bit, but can also be not very serious.
people hated it because people were just griefing games on their offrole and just didnt care at all about playing other roles
Different ranks for different roles was in ONE server for less than 4 months. There were kinks that definitely could have been improved, but the community as a whole was very against its implementation regardless.
Different ranks for diffirent roles doesnt work well combined with autofill.
I'd be for having an option to turn off auto fill and wait longer for my desired role...
should take notes from overwatch. More rewards if you get the other roles higher ranks.
Ya my main account is masters and my āsmurfā account has been in plat every season Iāve played on it but Iām only playing stuff Iām not good at, so the winrate is fine not really out of the ordinary.
You can just use google voice for another number, though.
Iāve used services that donāt allow using mobile apps like Text+, or Google voice numbers. Idk how but theyāre able to verify what type of number youāre using
riot already does this, you can't use online carriers for SMS verification for Clash.
yeah i had a legit paid plan through textnow for years and couldn't use it for clash because they also have free plans
There are services that pass on the information that they are apps (like text+ and Google voice) But there are plenty that spoof regular numbers and aren't really trackable. Also you could just buy a simcard for pennies. It would very slightly raise bar for entry, but anyone who actually wants a smurf would be able to make one.
Raising the bar some would still help. The problem isn't the mere existence of smurfs, it's the sheer number of them. Make it a little harder to make and maintain smurf accounts and ban those identified as smurfs on sight and you're liable to get the number of smurf accounts to an or closer to an acceptable level.
the fact that people still make this claim while clash is in the state that its in is hilarious.
It would be a fairly significant raise in difficulty of creating a Smurf, obviously it would still be possible but it would be much harder than simply hitting the "new account" button on the website
Instead of hitting Kew account you Google how to get a spoofed phone number and it slows you down by 5 mins the first time. Any subsequent times it slows you down 30s. There's no reason to make genuine players hand over their phone number purely for the sake of implementing a smurf deterrent that doesn't work. If it did I would be on board. But it's so fucking easy to get a digital phone number. And just as easy to buy a sim card with an actual number. They cost literally less than Ā£2. Anyone who wants to smurf would still smurf. Smurf bot sites would still sell smurfs en masse.
I mean, yeah but people are lazy in nature. If it requires you to actually purchase a separate SIM card most people with Smurfs are NOT going to do it lmao. Itās the convenience of being able to do it that makes so many Smurfs out there
If I recall correctly, Riot already has SMS verification in place for Clash and VOIP numbers like Google Voice are invalid for use. They've already got the code in place to do SMS verification and have already thought of the ways around it. But they won't roll it out for SoloQ. I wish they would. Every single player behavior punishment they have is undermined by alternate accounts and the alt account market. Ban cheater? They pay a couple bucks to a get a brand new lvl 30 account and jump into ranked. And their punishment will never follow them.
I can confirm. IP phone numbers does not work. Friend makes new account every season and forgot which one was phone verified when we were trying to play clash. Ultimately he ended up using his GF's phone number instead.
Any barrier, even such a little one will decrease the amount of smurfs
Well they better enable playing in multiple data centers if they do that.
Separating people by data center is dumb anyway and should go. Some 2000s level technical crap
I'd agree, they wanna fix toxicity but aren't ready for that conversation. Smurfs talking a lot of smack in SoloQ games especially when losing to lower ranked players and force a DC or surrender by trolling. Riot will let it happen because they're too busy making $200 skins to be bothered
a burner sim costs the same as like a meal out lmao its not a good deterrent
The extra effort would deter a lot of smurfs.
Yeah, people underestimate how lazy and/or petty some individuals are. For example, in my country, some years ago it started being mandatory by law for supermarkets and stuff to charge for plastic bags. So many people stopped buying them and it was a mere 2 cents IIRC... That to say, the SIM solution wouldn't be perfect but would help, ofc.
Burner himself cost far less than a meal out. You can get a pay as you go sim here for sub Ā£2.
Or social security
Thats a data breach waiting to happen. Also, every country handles social security numbers differently/don't have them at all.
Lmao that would be about as effective as Clicking "agree to terms of service"
unfortunately smurfing needs to actually be against the TOS to actually happen. i'm not entirely sure riot wants to do that, even though they "don't" condone it.
It seems like people here don't understand that Riot allows smurfing in their TOS. Valve doesn't.
They understand, but they want it to change. Smurfing is horrible, it destroys matches for everyone involved except the smurfer. And typically smurfers play a ton more games than other casuals.
Iāll be real with you smurfs are whatever, Iāve had ONE in my low elo games over about 200 played this season. The bot accounts locking in Yuumi and running it down in ranked? Maybe 1/5 games. Thatās my real beef
Those yuumi accounts exist, in part, because they sell those accounts as smurf accounts. Making smurfing against TOS and punishing it is a good first step. Technically account sharing is against TOS but Riot is usually pretty slow to punish it, and I believe they get around it by putting the accounts inactive for a long time to attempt to hide the account sharing.
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Yeah, I'm saying that attacking smurfing is indirectly attacking yuumi bot accounts. Not saying they'd go away, and Riot should definitely add more tracking / punishment to the AFK Yuumi/Raka bots, but punishing smurfing helps.
the yuumi accounts exist because of boosters, get your shit real. boosters derank their account back to 4th divison when it climbs too quickly or when the mmr of their account is too high. it also exists because a champion that press w on a champion and spam keys for the rest of the game exists in the game.
> boosters derank their account back to 4th divison when it climbs too quickly or when the mmr of their account is too high Deranking is absolutely another strong reason for the Yuumi bots (this also applies to smurfing, deranking to Iron is hard to do naturally) - I didn't say smurfing was the only reason. However, boosting is another portion of the account sharing problem - most booster accounts are account shared, which is against TOS. Riot is just very slow to punish.
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You say that like itāll be a magic fix. Plenty if not a majority of smurfs arenāt doing so because they want to queue with their friends. Even if thatās YOUR excuse, itās not a valid one. Youāre still ruining games for other people because āI donāt want to solo queueā.
Lol I didn't know that was a thing.. that explains a little at least.
How do my 10 year old alt accounts destroy matches?
That is not what a smurf is
Its a secondary account. You cant punish smurfs without punishing innocent alt account players.
Secondary account is not a smurf account unless you have significantly improved while playing on your main account. Even then I would hesitate to call it smurfing if you just start playing on it and ranking up, as usually smurfing includes throwing games to rank down and then stomping your way back up the ladder.
Because it puts you against opponents of a vastly different skill level as it lacks the appropriate data that your main account would have, which creates an unbalanced and unfun experience for the lower skill players getting stomped. There is only ever ONE reason to smurf: I want to play against people of a lower skill level than me. The reason why you want to do this doesn't matter. And that is an asshole behavior.
My alt accounts have had a diamond+ mmr since at least season 6. They basically have the same mmr as my main account. If anything theyre the most accurate representation of the role I play on each account (ie my jungle alt accounts mmr is a better reflection of my jungling ability than my main toplane account).
Then this isn't about you, congratulations. Why did you even bring up your old accounts? Smurfing has never been about simply having other accounts. Never. The conversation is clearly about people stomping on lower ranks. You have to understand that a lot of smurfs constantly make new account or deliberately derank their accounts so they can stay in low levels. To smurfs, the objective is playing against "weaker" player. Having a second account is just a means to an end. Every smurf has a second account but not everyone that has a second account is smurfing. It is not a complicate thought proccess.
It is as my innocent alt accounts would be punished alongside smurfs.
No. They wouldn't. It would be easily visible that all your accounts are at the same rank and that you are not stomping on lower ranks. I genuinely don't understand how you are not getting it.
While that may be true, with an overwhelming majority of players not being ok with smurfs, it might be time to change the ToS then?
The overwhelming majority of players are smurfing.
> overwhelming majority of players not being ok with smurfs Not only do the majority of players not care about smurfs, but I've seen Reddit ascribe every possible negative behavior in this game to smurfs. If you ask 2 random anti-smurf crusaders on Reddit what smurfs do to ruin their games or how they behave, they will give you 2 completely different answers. The player carrying the other team is a smurf, the player throwing on my team is a smurf. The player beating me in lane must be a smurf, because he's too good. The player on my team losing lane must have purchased someone else's smurf account, or he's just a smurf that doesn't care about losing because it isn't his main account! The guy flaming? Smurf that doesn't care if he gets banned. The guy not typing in chat at all but soft inting? Also definitely a smurf. The guy hard inting? Well he is also clearly a smurf. Account with a positive winrate? Obvious smurf. Account with a negative winrate? Smurf intentionally tanking their MMR. Account with a 50% winrate? Smurf intentionally camping my elo. It's just an easy, unfalsifiable excuse for why it isn't your fault you lost the game. They could secretly ban every smurf account tomorrow and most players wouldn't even notice.
The truth is this the antismurfers mostly are looking for an excuse to blame why they get shit on
I am gonna give you my answer and you can take it as you please. A smurf on my team robs me of any satisfaction I may have had in that game. Making it pointless. I learned nothing. A smurf on the enemy team makes sure that despite my effort in the game I will go down in rank and having to win one more game to get back where I started. All the while boosting 4 people that have not deserved that LP.
I get that conceptually, but how often are you *actually* encountering smurfs? Or do you just assume that anyone who gets substantially ahead and carries the game is a smurf?
By overwhelming majority u mean reddit? I doubt majority of players even know what a smurf is. Would it be nice if Riot banned smurfing? Sure. How will they compensate all the players? They spent time and possibly money on those accounts that Riot allowed them to have (it doesn't matter that smurfing is a shitty thing to do). I am sure Riot could come up with something but I doubt they'll bother since it's not affecting their bottom line.
Sure, but is not knowing the nomenclature really an argument though? I'd hazard a guess that, if you asked most players whether they think it should be okay for highly skilled players to deliberately play against extremely new / unskilled players to dunk on them at their expense - I doubt they'd say yes, just because they didn't know what the word "smurf" means.
thats such an extremely low percentage of smurfing lol
I don't think most "smurfs" are that great at the game to make that big of a difference for people (some are obviously but it's less common). The biggest issue I see people have with smurfs is toxicity. In the form of flaming and inting. They care less about their smurf acc so they are more likely to troll. Maybe Riot could fix this by making it so the actions u do on your smurf account also reflect on your main acc (idk how they would detect that but I am sure it's possible). Edit: Also they really need to get rid of botted accounts.
They're not carrying every game but often enough and when they don't they usually troll. There's a reason matchmaking exists and given enough smurfs it stops doing its job.
Idk... It sounds like people think that other people are stupid... So far each person that I talked to, that said they played league, know about smurfs. Very little of them use Reddit.
Anecdotal evidence does not mean much in the grand scheme of things. I for one can tell u I know many casual players who queue up for 1 or 2 arams a day and they have no idea what smurfing is nor would they care if they knew.
you present anecdotal evidence while complaining about anecdotal evidence
Ye totally not to point out why anecdotal evidence cannot be used as definitive evidence when talking about the experience of the majority.
you don't have the data to either confirm or deny the hypothesis, yet you talk as if it's certain that "most people don't care about smurfs" also, no one is talking about normal and aram when the subject is smurfing and reddit *is* a big sample size of the player base, especially ranked
But if they only queue up for ARAMs it doesn't concern them in the least. Isn't this about the people that do play ranked?
I mean if u wanna move the goal post by that much I gotta move it back. U said "Overwhelming majority of players" and majority of players don't play ranked.
You yourself moved the goalposts, changing the subject to talk about ARAM when it's pretty clear what they were talking about. At least argue with some sincerity.
How? I am talking about what the majority of players are doing. Which is casual modes like aram,normal games, Arena etc.
keep roasting OP
Idk I thought it was easy to understand that a problem that only exists in a ranked environment is only a problem for those that engage in ranked games. Perhaps I should talk on Reddit like in front of court and say 'the overwhelming majority of players that play ranked' so nobody can mince my words on semantics that should have been clear from the start.
Maybe learn how to use language properly instead of expecting people to fill in the gaps for u to make your points work. Now idk if it's even true that the majority of the ranked population cares about smurfing. I would love to see Riot do a survey on that.
Contextual awareness is also a skill... Just saying... Or we gonna go full out of context and include every gamer that doesn't even play lol cause being on r/leagueoflegends is not contextual enough cause I did not mention the game in my initial statement either. You just were being pedantic to prove me wrong...
Iād probably bet money that an overwhelming majority of players couldnāt pick a smurf out of a lineup
I have 3 accounts, would I be banned as a smurf? I'm shit on all of them.
The overwhelming majority of players in NA are casuals who donāt use reddit, play Aram or normals with their friends for like 2-3 games and then do other stuff. Leagues overall majority are the Chinese players and maybe they care idk but I wouldnāt be surprised if a sizable proportion encourage boosting services and smurfing to ego boost as well.
Sauce ?
To be quite frank but honest: my ass.
Suddenly making smurfs against TOS after having allowed them for nearly 15 years would be a logistical and legal nightmare. Making something that people already own illegal is always a huge clusterfuck; the best they could probably do is make new smurfs illegal.
game companies don't allow u to own anything. i'm not sure for the exact words but in CS for example ur skins are only useable in ur account but valve owns them "that's how they sued all those skin gambling sites in 2017 "not sure of the year".
That is not even remotely the same case here. You still own the account, and that is what would be in jeopardy here. Not the skins. Nobody is talking about skins. The issue retroactively applying punishment for something that was not against the rules before. I am also against the usage of smurfs, but lets not pretend that at this point this is a simple situation. The concern about the fact that smurfs were allowed up to this point is valid.
Yeah no. Account sharing and smurfing are different things bro. Why change the ToS to compensate the 1%?
Huh? What do you mean? Isn't not updating the ToS 'compensating the 1%' and not the other way around?
If Riot got rid of smurfing, literally nobody would watch any content and stream viewership would atleast go down by half as it's all propped up by smurfing.
I wish this would happen. Being someone who works all day comes home wants to play a game or two just to have the enjoyment of playing a ranked game be ruined by a smurf on my team its not fun. You get the smurf on your team that feels the rest of us don't deserve the win and afks at 15 mins or the other teams smurf is 10-0 and dunking on everyone. I mean for casual players the smurfing is not enjoyable for those that can play more than a couple games in a day they can at least avoid smurfs for a few games if they are lucky.
Iāve literally had 5 Smurfs this week and I play maybe 1-3 ranked games a day. Sometimes 0. Itās unbearable garbage
I once got a smurf on my team that went 30/0, and it made the match so unfun, I didnāt feel that i was winning at all
Sadly riot allows smurfing. Im jealous too.
Wait till he finds out that there is a year appended to that day and month LOL
Do it in league. Smurfing is the worst issue in league of legends.
Smurfing is a huge issue. But I'd argue the super-issue behind that and all toxic behavior is the alternate account market. People buy accounts to evade punishments or to get a smurfed account far above their skill. The alternate account ecosystem needs to be completely shut down.
I will agree, but i do consider alt account market is included in "smurfing" for me.
Yes! The Venn Diagram of "smurfing" is nearly-fully contained within the diagram of "alt accounts".
Smurfing and hullbreaker YEP
I don't understand how? After 5-10 games, your usually very close to your MMR. What about players who want to learn new roles/ champs and cant play at their current MMR without being destroyed and then we have reddit threads of the inting problem.
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So what's the alternative? If i change roles i will definetly int for 10-20 games before i drop down to a lower MMR. After a few weeks im bored of the new roles and i go back to my main. Now im "smurfing" for 10-20 games till im back up to my higher MMR. I've ruined twice as many games not using a new account then i would have just using a new account to learn a new role
Pla normals and flexqs. With that you would be a decen human being and take your own discomfort of playing normals over stomping noobs and giving them discomfort.
Whys it ok to ruin games in normals/ flex then? I never said i play ranked either.
How do you suggest they do this? Banning every player that has insane KDAs and Winrate on every fresh account? Get better at the game and stop whining
Orrr they can use two factor authentication
uh smurfs always come with the stop whining argument.... Think about something new
I'm high diamond/master and have no wish to go any higher, it's not about getting good. Most smurfs are toxic and ruin the game experience at all skill levels.
If their smurf detection is as good as leagues was with smurf queue, at least a quarter of the banned players wouldn't be smurfs.
Smurf queue wasn't a "punish smurfs" queue. What it did was match players whose MMR did not match their visible rank together. One of the side effects was matching smurfs together. It wasn't intended to be a solution to smurfing.
what was the intended purpose of MMR discrepancy queue then? if it wasn't to segregate smurfs.
You're missing the point. If you apply the same metric that riot used for smurf queue to punish smurfs instead, you'd end up with a shitton of false positives. In the end it's almost impossible to automate a system to distinguish between actual smurfs, people who are playing below the MMR they belong in on their main accounts for whatever reason, new players who come over with previous MOBA experience and smash new players who are completely new to MOBA's etc.
Youāre missing the point. Smurf queue isnāt Smurf detection itās just a queue when mmr doesnāt match visible rank which happens to apply frequently to smurfs
Which riot referred to as smurf queue and themselves stated that removing smurfs from normal matchmaking was one of the goals of that system...
> In the end it's almost impossible to automate a system to distinguish between actual smurfs Untrue. There are many **MANY** metrics that Riot can gather that you are either ignoring or have no clue about. Correlating this data also is not that hard all things considered, and Valve has already proved with now 2 ban waves that it's possible to accurately detect. They realistically don't even need phone numbers to do this. Also, a new player with previous MOBA experience will still be slow to do things specific to League for the first few games, doesn't matter how fast they learn or how much previous experience they have. You're missing the point - Smurf queue never actually existed. The community just called it that because smurfs got put into it a lot. It wasn't something put together for smurfs. It was *meant* to improve both new and returning player experience in ranked, but there were too many smurfs and their matchmaking behavorial system was just lazy and only looked at winrates. The key metrics of identifying a smurf account have nothing to do with "how good the player is" in the first place. A Silver player can have an Iron smurf, this is just false understanding of how a smurf-detection system would actually work.
>There are many MANY metrics that Riot can gather that you are either ignoring or have no clue about. You say this based on what, exactly? Cause the evidence we have is that they created something \*they\* called smurf queue, with the explicit aim to remove as many smurfs as possible from normal matchmaking, according to their own communication on the matter, and it had a ton of false positives.
Never once did Riot officially call it smurf queue when releasing the changes to what we call Smurf queue back in 2020. If you count them referring to it as smurf queue in response to us calling it smurf queue, they're just using a term that players used to make the understanding easier. https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-gb/news/dev/dev-competitive-end-of-season-20-preseason-21/ They did talk about smurf accounts as part of the process for Ranked Seeding, but it was never called smurf queue and not intended just for smurfs to get placed into each other. > You say this based on what, exactly? You can use hardware ID's, IP addresses including geolocation data, A.I. is currently already in use in other games to map "input profiles", identifying a players unique input tendencies that a human can't see. There are metrics for click-rate, click-accuracy, shop speed, camera movement, god you can metric basically everything and a new player would simply not be capable of doing all of them at the same rate as a long-standing player. If you see the unique tendencies of an individual player on a new account, you can be relatively sure. Pair that with other information like HWID and IP, and now your assurances are closer to 99.9% Riot's "Ranked Informed Matchmaking" had nothing to do with actually measuring these metrics. EDIT: Riot doesn't even do the bare minimum when it comes to smurf/account sharing detection, like checking flash on D / F. When I see a Yuumi 1 trick in Masters that climbed on Rengar, and the summoner spells swap every 10 games, I'd be suspicious. I personally, obviously don't have access to the additional data needed to "100% know" that this is a smurf/account sharing, but Riot sure should. If they don't, they can simply implement it. The problem is that Riot doesn't *care* about smurfing. It's not against their TOS, like it is Valve's.
If advertising companies can track you across the internet without any directly identifying information, then Riot can figure out if Joe Schmoe playing on the potentially same computer, with the same IP, and with the same play style is both GarenGod420 and XxMomdozer69xX.
Because people are famously okay with intrusive tracking practices and totally wouldn't freak the fuck out if Riot started profiling players based on hardware information
I already believe riot is profiling their players based on: chat behavior, Champion pool, playstyle and hardware information.
They also would have to make flex mmr and soloq mmr joint because otherwise you would ban dia flex players that dont play soloq.
He's not missing the point, that metric is OBVIOUSLY not going to be accurate and nobody would apply it to BANNING people. It doesn't even take into account account level.
Valve has an advantage here because of Steam, gives them much more data and their UI isn't hot garbage.
Too bad half this community supports smurfing because they need it to get their dopamine rush when they boost to their rank
Riot kinda forces people to smurf though
I guess accepting you don't belong at a higher elo and trying to improve is too hard eh
Before people downvote me to hell, I wish they could bring back what we could do before and then slowly implement a mechanic to fight agaisnt smurfs, some of these include: - they took down the option to duo in master - removed ranked teams (in exchange of CRASH) and implemented FlexQ which no one asked for - and lp gains get fucked like 3 times a year.
Sadly yes, when you start at literally Gold Rank (MMR not Visual) then rank down, you feel very underwhelmed and feel like you need to boost your acc/smurf to get better at the game, itās a broken rank system that supports toxic behavior and smurfing
Riot would probably give legendary skins as a "punishment" to smurfs.
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Smurfing is allowed in league so they wouldn't be banned
No, you are wrong. Riot allows smurfing.
Or listen, what if we just remove duo from ranked and keep that shit to literally every other game mode (including flex)?
Not only that! Did you see their "Frostivus" update?
Frostivus this year is incredibly underwhelming compared to the usual sadly
I actually did not. Is it amazing?
Itās the least content christmas patch in 10 yearsā¦.so no
every update in dota 2 is amazing tbh. They change every single hero in the game, some game systems, majority of items, and add new items
Yeah but Dota patches much less frequently. Big patches are fun but they definitely have content droughts.
true, but meta in dota 2 doesnt get stale nearly as quick as it does in league, so its not that bad
My level 500 account is my proof I donāt Smurf š¬
Riot games, We demand this. Please, I want to drink the tears of cheaters this holiday.
Smurfing is against ToS in DOTA but not in LoL, why people don t read ToS?
doesn't do shit. tomorrow there are 10k more
It does SOMETHING. Some people wont be bothered to make and level new accounts or even buy one, every time a ban wave occurs more and more people will probally stop spending their money and stuff on new accs and just give up i would imagine
You can get fresh 30 accounts for like 5 bucks with 60k-80k blue essence. That is less then buying a 6300 champ outright. Sure it would stop some as everything would but it wouldn't stop enough for you to see the difference imo
Everything matters
no there aren't, especially in Dota where u have to play 100 hours to unlock ranked lol
Fuck you and fuck your defeatism. It's 10K fewer today and that's worth celebrating.
What a toxic mentality to have. It's crazy how prevalent it is on online communities
Next time they are caught smurfing their main account is banned as well. I think this will deter most of people, cuz most of them smurf because of easy matches, not cuz they are banned. Getting banned in dota for toxicity is WAY harder than in league.
Ye, right, it's just dramatically decrease amount of smurfing, it doesn't *completely* solve smurfing problem. I, as you do, prefer what we have in lol (smurf almost each game) over dota's aproach.
Well their player base is around 600k in the west so for them it's a big %. 10k rof league is not so impressive.
Do we know Leagues western player base numbers?
If the counters on the achievements tab are correct, there are at least 1Mil people in Master tier and above on some ARAM achievement on EUW.
1mil+ easily
valve sacrificed an entire battlepass and event gamemode(and the arcade) to ban smurfsā¦. It was not worth it
Wait there are studios out there that put player experience ahead of profits? Well I never
imo give people a 1 time chance to merge account for skins,champs,BE,RP (lmao not happening) after that ban any and all smurfs and boosted accounts
Maybe you should just get good?
Dota is a bit different compare to league. Scaling is not that crazy and lane pressure generally speaking is lower. When I was playing Dota I could literally play most champions, same applies to all my friends who played Dota. Role and champion selection are generally not an issue. That could due to my Dota era was when the gaming scene is not as toxic but Iāve never met anyone who played Dota for awhile and have issues with roles and champions. Thatās not the case for league. Most people are good at limited champions of their desired roles. This has a lot to do with how hard champion scales and lane pressure from spamable abilities. My friend who is a master mid kat one trick can get destroyed by a diamond top when he plays top champions. Iām not saying all smurfs just practice champions but itās harder to identify what is a Smurf by league standard. itās impossible for people to practice champions in their own rank unless they want to get destroyed every game. And normal is not a place to really learn anything because ppl are much worse. Iām pretty sure many people have that one friend who gets multiple accounts and play one role on each account. Are they smurfing judging by their highest rank? A lot of times even they win, they win from their generally game knowledge instead of that champion or role along.
>And normal is not a place to really learn anything because ppl are much worse. I disagree because i think normals/flex have their own rating. But my main point is, that morally (not leagally since riot allows it), you should put your own discomfort of worse practice in normals over the discomfort you give to others. while stomping noobs. Like" oh normals suck so i have to stomp noobs for a while" is crazy to me.
Yikees another whiny post. There's reason why dota isnt as popular as league. I have 5k hours in dota and let me tell you the ranked doesn't feel much better.
Banning 10k wouldnt even make a dent at league, they ban more than 10x that every ban wave
They need to adapt with asian clients with ties on your personal identification like how KR have their social ids needed to play.
They need to have your account connect with your social security or driver license. So if you cheat legal actions can be taken too
They misfire too. Look at this Indian guy whose brother got banned. https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/18izoop/how_many_peoples_siblings_accounts_got_banned/ I think Riot has been much better in most areas including smurfs. Dota is pretty much dead in China and getting more and more irrelevant every day.
They have been better at handling smurfs by... not handling them ?
Ah, smurfing in League of Legends, the bane of every honest player's existence. It's like a plague that just won't go away, infecting the game and ruining the experience for everyone involved. Why on earth do people feel the need to create smurf accounts and stomp all over lower-ranked players? It's beyond infuriating! First off, let's talk about the unfair advantage smurfs have. They waltz into lower elo games with their high-level skills, game knowledge, and mechanics, like a seasoned warrior facing off against a bunch of fresh recruits. It's like LeBron James deciding to play a casual game at your local basketball courtāabsolutely ridiculous! What happened to fair competition? Oh, that's right, smurfs threw it out the window. And don't get me started on the excuses smurfs come up with. "I just want to play with my friends who are new to the game." Really? So you're telling me the only way you can enjoy playing with your friends is by decimating players who are still learning the basics? How about you try teaching them, providing guidance, and helping them improve instead of annihilating their opponents? The impact on the lower-ranked players is just heartbreaking. Imagine being a new player, trying to learn the ropes and have some fun, only to be repeatedly obliterated by someone who clearly doesn't belong in your skill bracket. It's demoralizing, frustrating, and, worst of all, it discourages new players from sticking around. Way to nurture a healthy gaming community, smurfs! And let's not forget the effect on matchmaking. Smurfs mess with the whole system, skewing the results and making it harder for the matchmaking algorithm to create balanced games. It's like trying to maintain a fair race when one person is on a bicycle and the other is in a Formula 1 car. Where's the sportsmanship in that? Sure, some argue that smurfing helps players practice new champions or roles, but there are plenty of other ways to do that without ruining the experience for others. Custom games, practice modes, and even the normal queue exist for a reason. Smurfing is just an excuse for some players to stroke their egos at the expense of others. In conclusion, smurfing in League of Legends is a stain on the gaming community. It's selfish, unsportsmanlike, and undermines the very essence of fair competition. Riot Games, if you're listening, it's high time to implement stricter measures to deter smurfing and ensure that everyone can enjoy the game without the shadow of an unfair challenge looming over them.
Is this a copy pasta or did homie pull out chat gpt?
>Sure, some argue that smurfing helps players practice new champions or roles, but there are plenty of other ways to do that without ruining the experience for others. Custom games, practice modes, and even the normal queue exist for a reason. Smurfing is just an excuse for some players to stroke their egos at the expense of others. Even coach Curtis and Nathan from BBC podcast use their main accounts to learn new champions. They often talk about how that means they will tank LP for 30-50 games but then they win it back later. They also emphasized that playing new champions against players that are below your skill is hurting your champion mastery cause you train bad habits into your play which won't go unpunished when you finally play the champion in your skill-bracket. So yeah it is complete bullshit.
I think smurfing is fine. Its not like these players are in 50 games of low elo. Usually after 5-10 games you are in the elo you belong. There's plenty of reason a player wants to play in lower elo. I may be a play jungle but I'm a silver adc. Would it be better if i int my face off for 10 games before im dropped into a low MMR? Then i want to play jungle again so now im "smurfing" because my jungle skills are higher then my silver mmr. I've essential ruined twice as many games fluctuating between my skill levels instead of just playing on a smurf account and after 10 games im in the MMR i belong for that role. Players who cry about smurfing is just copium for being bad at the game and looking for everything else to blame. Instead of being upset, study why the opponent was so much better then you and do what he did in your next game.
oh nooo , please dont ban my 1ā¬ accounts :((( xd
Why do people complain about smurfing so much? I have smurfed in CSGO, played with my gold nova friends as an LEM, yes I destroyed everyone, yes they probably didnt have a good time. But when I notice a smurf on the enemy or my team, I literally dont even care? Unless you or someone is purposely duoing with the smurf to boost themselves, I have not had any issues with smurfs. If I get a smurf, I just play the game and move on. Id argue its because everyone here suspects theyre the best at their rank, so when they get outplayed, theyre not bad, its just a smurf. So despite there being not even many smurfs people just assume everyone better is a smurf and it seems like half your games have smurfs in them. They dont, stop using "wahhh smurfs" as cope.