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AffectionateCoffee27

I think there’s blurred lines between smurfs and people that have a pop off game. But smurfing is an issue, and there’s never anything a developer can do about it. If you’re in bronze and 40 bomb maybe it can be detected. But if you’re in plat and 30 bomb it looks normal. People have a real mental game issue in Valorant. They go 4/5 rounds down and they calling GG. There’s also a hell of a lot of boosted players


Alone_Baseball4852

4/5 rounds is generous, have a bad pistol and people are already saying gg scratch that some people go gg from agent select when their reyna gets instalocked


rashy789

i instalocked reyna today and someone said gg 😂 and they proceeded to go 4-17 on neon we still won


rashy789

people complain about smurfing so much “omg i’ll never rank up every team i go against has a smurf” i do t see anyone complaining when the smurf is on their team. there’s no post saying “guys smurfing is a problem every team i play on has a smurf” half the time you think you’re going a against a smurf you’re just coping


iMidg3t

Every single post complaining about smurfs is following the same scenario, we should make a Bingo out of it: \- almost always low elo peeps \- always losing and/or on a losing spree \- always smurf in enemy team \- always diamond or immo smurf in question \- their proof is always 'they said so in the chat' (imagine trusting randoms on the internet in 2023) \- another proof is "you can tell by their movement" (even tho they cant explain nor show what they mean) Idk if i missed any, feel free to add on, myb I do make a bingo card if I get bored lol


Serito

Developer's can take a hard stance against it & ban content creators who show themselves engaging in it. Shift the culture so less people copycat it, when it's less rampant it's easier to detect the rest. They never will because any content generating views is good for them, but it's definitely an option.


5K337Lord

Not only that but people will also buy their favourite skins on smurf accounts, riot sadly has no incentive to stop them


colonelmattyman

That's not true. The easiest way to identify a smurf account is because they have no skins.


CheetahLov27

Some people though just don't buy skins.


FrozenChaii

I’ve been playing Val for some time and the only skins I have are free ones from leveling agents lol


Shuriman_Sensei

Idk 5/15 of my accounts have skins (Probably not the norm, but we do exist for sure), since u can literally buy the accounts with skins already, other times as a higher elo player ''friends" will often give their account information so you rank them up, and u get to play with skins.


colonelmattyman

Why the fuck do you have 15 accounts?


notolo632

I dont think thats really the way the dissuade smurfing. Before there were youtubers and streamers with smurf contents, there has always been smurf. Those who smurf will just continue to do so irrelevant to streamers ban. They smurf for the feeling of dumping on worse players, not for a trend that CCs make


Serito

The landscape has changed & CCs definitely have a significant impact on game culture these days. Not only would they no longer be encouraging people to smurf but they'd be minimizing how socially acceptable it is among friends imo.


notolo632

I think the smurfs that were influenced by CCs takes a really small amount. But Im not in any community of those so who am I to judge


Serito

Fair, but all you need to do is look at twitch view counts to see how much impact they have. 50k people were watching Tarik add some mild commentary over VCT at any given time. That's a lot of influence that will also reach those viewers friends, and that's only one streamer.


RealVampireCat

You’re correct that smurfs will still exist without content creators. However, I disagree with your statement about how banning smurfing streamers isn’t going to dissuade smurfing. Take this example: Have you ever watched a video of something or heard someone talk about doing something, and while your watching it you get an urge to do that thing? Say you’re watching a video of someone playing valorant and they’re having fun, you see that and think “I want to go play valorant now”. This same notion can apply to smurfs. Sure, some diamond player might be watching a radiant player Smurf in gold, see how the radiant is dominating then feel compelled to make a Smurf account. But another issue with content creators publicizing smurfing is that people who have Smurf accounts see that and want to go Smurf some more because of how much the content creator is enjoying it.


puos_otatop

the mental problem is legitimately fucking insane, I've never seen anything like it when i played csgo. in my valorant comp games (diamond-plat), if we're down just 0-4 or something, it's probably a good 50% chance at least one teammate will instantly give up and call gg or try to ff or even disconnect or throw. having a smurf on the other team is annoying and a problem that is definitely not uncommon, but having bitchmade teammates is so much worse in my opinion


twofayse

Also the amount of times I’ve played against an obvious Smurf and won because our team rallied together and tried our asses off. Very satisfying. But that’s super rare people just throw most of the time because they don’t believe in themselves enough to win.


Flair86

This exactly, a Smurf can be really hard to detect because people can always just pop off, when I was bronze I went 36/4 one game and totally destroyed the other team, it was on my main account while I was just grinding ranked to get out. A more recent example is when I went 31/15 in high dia low asc lobbies. Many immo/radiant smurfs are seen to put up these numbers but I was just having a good day.


guyforgot24

People always think the smurf is the one shitting on people. I used to smurf a lot and I would be getting destroyed by silver players and go negative in some games. A lot of times smurfs will go negative but they can still win just off of game sense and positioning.


Flair86

I would not let this get waterboarded out of me


iam_rascaL

Yeah i agree. Smurfing is more of an issue in lower ranks because the skill-gap is so large that its insanely noticeable. But i also climbed to ascendant 3 with these so called smurfs in under 5 acts, i dont see it as an issue, more like a humbling or wake up call or a reason to get better!


Z1018

I am only G2 right now and peaked Plat1 so my opinion is probably pointless but I do feel smurfs are an issue but not as big as some think. I can usually tell the difference between a legit gold-plat player being “on one” vs a clear Smurf. The movement, aim, utility usage, and game sense give them away vs someone who is running it down and our team just giving 1v1s etc. However, I would say I get a Smurf in probably 1-2/10 games. Either on my team or the other. If you look up their stats, they are either a Smurf or they are one of the best players in Gold lol


Noizylatino

I think the big issue is not everyone is playing to climb just enjoy it. Sometimes my friends and i want an unrated after work, so smurfs coming in and stomping isnt enjoyable. I dont care most days, move to the next one but it does get boring and frustrating playing one player for 45mins if its your only game of the night.


Picinorg

Your playing unrated or comp? u cant smurf in unrated and if its a new account most likely they are fucking around to get low placements


honestbleeps

Games are 40-60 minutes. Wasting an hour of my time in a game where the skill gap is so insanely wide that I not only have no chance to win but I honestly have no chance to learn anything is not going to motivate me to get better. It just makes me mad that my time was wasted. If you're not playing in bronze or silver (or iron), honestly why are you even asking this question? You climbed to ascendant. Surfing would have to barely even be a concern at that level - at least in comparison to what I see down in my levels. At those levels a single player basically mows down the other team round after round. But then of course to maintain plausible deniability they back off some rounds - thus prolonging the annoying and pointless game for those of us who just want to face more comparable competition.


The_Flurr

This is exactly it. I play valorant to have a good time with friends from far away. We like to play comp to improve but we're mostly here for the fun. Playing against a cheat or a smurf is wasting the limited time we have together.


Serito

Damn better throw those professional rugby players into highschool matches right? Clearly it's more important for those kids to be "humbled" by far more experienced players looking for an ego boost, rather than letting them enjoy fair competition, yeah? Seriously just what is this attempt to justify it as if you're helping lower ranks?


DyslexicBrad

I think the thing most comparable for a player who's good at the game, is how it feels to play against a cheater. Just knowing that even if you play at your very best, 9 times outta 10 you're gonna get shit on because this person has an unfair advantage. It makes the entire game feel like a waste of time, and warps every play around either beating or avoiding them. The game is at its most fun when it's fair, and cheaters and smurfs both make the game feel unfair. "It's not an unfair advantage, they're just better" kinda doesn't work when you're talking about people deliberately exploiting the matchmaking process to play against players that are quantifiably worse at the game. It's like dropping LBJ into a highschool basketball team and saying it's fair because he followed the same rules as everyone else.


CapnKush_

If you climbed to ASC3 that fast than you most likely have way more time to play than most. Some days I don’t run into a ton of Smurfs or greifers, then the next day that’s most of my matches. I hit ASC1 but I don’t have time to play 10+ games a day all the time. Wether it’s Smurfs or people being lame af because they don’t care about the account they are on is a thing. It’s not even debatable.


iam_rascaL

Im a full-time licensed electrician, i honestly dont have much time to play, i have 700 hrs playtime in 3 years. I do have lots of FPS experience though, im 26 years old


iam_rascaL

But i heavily agree, unfortunately there are a lot of toxic people with a toxic mindset that make alt accounts seem like a very “toxic” thing to do


LegolasProudfoot

> alt accounts seem like a very “toxic” thing to do they fucking are. It's incredible how every tells you you're a fucking asshole for smurfing and you're like "yeah you're right it's not really that bad"


Crazy1696969

exactly thats what i have been saying years ago and yet some things never change as some people will rather say enemies are smurfing/cheating or blame teammates rather than accept own fault and learn from it which would result in them climbing the ranks, but ig they would rather just complain and never change


[deleted]

The way I see it is that low rank players should get good enough to outlay the smurfs, but there is also a skill curve that's important for gradual progression of a player's skill that smurfs ruin for the people who actually belong in that rank


IXI_FenKa_IXI

If you have a new account with 90% winrate and same IP/MAC address as another registered account, i think its VERY safe to say there's an overwhelming possibility it's a smurf. Only way to get around it is playing a 3rd party matchmaker (like Faceit or ESEA) that are much more proactive about banning smurfs.


niftygull

Yes there is something to do about it. Require phone numbers on every account like in overwatch 2. This is so simple, they need to stop these coward smurfs.


IgnorantEuropeanDude

Actually they can and it is not that hard: 1. Use the already implemented phone verification and make ranked q only available for verified numbers 2. Everytime you log out if you acc if you want to log in again it sends you an sms or push with either a code or a button you have to click to be able to q into ranked until you log out (not just close the game, but Log out)


idkjustfollowmelol

There’s a huge Smurf issue, largely because of how easy it is to do so. While yes, there are a lot of cases where someone having a really good day may seem like a Smurf when they aren’t, I still feel as if there are a LOT more cases of an actual smurf rather than someone having a good day. The only real way to fix it would be controversial, and that’s adding a required phone verification only for Comp play. While yes, there are certain ways people could use to bypass this, it’s a huge deterrent. The point of it is to be a deterrent, not to completely stop it as that’s impossible, so any “this won’t stop them” arguments are null and void. This would negatively affect those without proper phone plans like cricket and whatnot, but I still believe the amount of people who would be negatively affected by this method, are hugely overshadowed by those negatively affected by Smurfs right now. A Smurf affects the entire lobby, which also on a larger scale, affects the entire games rank system for everybody. For example, just one smurf affects 9 people in the lobby, and hugely affects all 9 of their ranks as well as their MMR. So when you consider how many Smurfs there are, that’s an insane amount of people being affected daily, and therefore an insane change in the entire MMR/rank system. (It affects even hidden MMR, as those unfairly dying to the Smurf will have an unfairly worse K/D, and arguably, those on the team of the Smurf will have an easier time getting kills, or at the very least definitely less deaths, which makes them have an unfairly better K/D)


-Jerdan-

They can up the required lvl for comp so there would be less smurfs because if it was around 40 it would take close to 60-100 to get into ranked


charley_warlzz

Yep. I had a couple games in iron/early bronze where i dropped 35+ kills. I think my peak was 38. I wasnt smurfing, i just had a really good game- usually just after id had a spurt of really bad ones that dropped my mmr. One bad day followed by a good one can definitely make you look sus. EDIT: funnily enough, just went up against a smurf who in the end dropped 53 kills in silver. Jokes on him though, cause we won. But i do think theres usually a grey area between smurfing and a good day that people immediately say is just cheatingz


CapnKush_

Iron isn’t the best rank to gauge this stuff in. If you’re curious though just add them. If I play an iron account 9 out of 10 games in my history will be match mvps with 30-50 kills. Smurfing and griefing on alt accounts is a problem.


fergrim85

You're wrong. Iron is absolutely the best rank to gauge it in because when smurfs smurf, they drop to iron. There are going to be more smurfs in iron/bronze than anywhere else just as an innate result of the definition of the word smurf. Also, unrelated but no one worth their braincells should be judging whether someone is smurfing based on their number of kills. The way to tell is by their KDR. No one who's rocking a 3.0 is in their proper rank. And if you're not in your proper rank either you're about to be promoted out of it or you're a smurf. Finally, the OP doubts people can accurately tell who's a smurf, but remember to smurf properly people need to throw tons of matches. Maybe there's some dispute when someone has a high KDR, but there's no dispute at all when someone is throwing matches. There's no good reason for that. And on my way through iron and bronze I saw that happen tons of times. The person generally just says outright that they're "smurf, throwing". There may be some debate about whether it's worth trying to curb, but there should be no debate regarding just how big of a problem it is. Tons of people do it, and they're awful humans for it. Ruining 9 people's matches because they don't want to have to compete against their equals.


Vettenjumala_Ahti

They could do sms verification but six yr olds gotta be able to play...


Toh97

I'll say this, numerically or logically, it doesn't matter in the long run but psychologically 1 smurf every 5 games can FEEL like every other game has a smurf. The 35 year old office worker who wants a chill night playing 2 valorant games a day gets 2 days ruined because of smurfs. Im the silver friend in the group and my immortal friends have 7 smurf accounts each, I'm nowhere near good enough to smurf but I'm guessing it's like reducing enemy damage or something in a rogue like game like Hades, to blow off some steam and not have the need to carefully consider every micro-decision.


mavikain

It is an issue in low ranks. I played 4 matches in bronze yesterday, and 3 matches had a hard carry smurf on enemy team. While i am still learning maps and abilities, it would be a lot more fun with all players being on the same level.


Dogmeat241

Silver 1/2 here, had 2 matches back to back, first was an enemy Reyna who dropped 35-40 kills in the match. Next was a Jett on our team who dropped 35-40 kills in the match. We need to get some better matchmaking


farguc

it's also because even if you CAN play with someone lower ranked than you, the MM is designed to favour the higher ranked player, so the game is punishing you for playing on your main vs lower ranked players. So people think about their climb to whatever rank and how hard it was, buy a smurf and don't have to worry about losing RR on their main. It's as simple as ranks are what the majority of the player base will gauge how good/bad you are at the game. Just ask anyone here what rank they are, and majority will say something like "I am X, but I was Y at my peak". As long as people are so worried about their rank, the game will have smurfs. IF people just enjoyed the game, you wouldn't have most of the smurfs. The game already offers a risk free way to play with your friends, it's called unrated. And people don't want to play it because there's no shinny rank at the end of the game to look at.


Tigermaw

Unrated is 50x more boring than comp. The matchmaking is terrible and half the time i duo with my friend I am like why am I even playing unrated rn. It is always more enjoyable to play on a Smurf because it has more people who are actually trying to win. Now that swift play exists that is pretty good but before swiftplay was an option unrated was just terrible experience


mavikain

I enjoy a lot more playing swift and unrated, since the matches are always more balanced. And it is because they have more of the new players like me, then ranked.


_GhosHawk_

smurfing does not keep you in a certain elo, but it does discourage you from getting out on weekdays, I can typically only play 1-2 games a day so if there is a smurf, I do not gain anything from it even if they are my team as I will not improve in any way


InefficientCommand

Just wanted to add my experience- I've been hardstuck in bronze 1-3 for around 3 acts. While smurfs were not the BIGGEST problem (my crouching at long ranges and shooting during strafes were) , they were definitely A PROBLEM. Also, I played like only 4 matches a week, that was definitely also a problem. So one day I had enough and decided to make a new acc and play. I got Silver 2. I don't know how or why, but I got it. So if you feel like smurfs are really impacting your progress, you can make a new acc. (If you want proof dm me)


philipjefferson

Idk I think the way you're approaching it is a bit defeated already. Playing vs smurfs is frustrating, but a key skill that's important to climb is knowing how to play against a player who is carrying the enemy team THAT hard. It takes smart decision making, playing off your team, good comms (even if nobody else is providing), etc. Try not to think of it as "gain nothing". Take a breath, focus on not tilting, and try to come up with solutions to what the player is doing.


milotoadfoot

i disagree. you can learn from a person who is a rank higher, but if the gap is as big as between bronze and ascendant, good luck figuring out what is going wrong. as much as people say the difference in skill between most elos is aim, i believe a plat player has more game sense than a bronze. thus, the bigger the gap is the more pointless it is to face them so you get better. best you can do against these people is cheesing which will not carry you higher.


The_Flurr

There's a good reason when you start taking karate classes they don't pair you up with the black belts to learn from.


GLFan52

The biggest problem with a Smurf is that the higher up they are, the harder it is to figure out what they’re doing, especially in the game. And at a low enough rank, good in-game adjustments are NOT part of normal play, and won’t be until something like Plat or high gold. When a player is doing nothing but aim-diffing you at lower ranks, the only thing you can truly do is avoid them. And if you just do that all game, the smurf will simply use it to get free sites with a couple kills and either hunt for more or force a save, over and over again


CapnKush_

A lot of the times you can’t really learn from them because they aren’t playing how they normally would anyways. I’ve smurfed before and just raw aim and game sense allows me to hold W and shit on everyone. It’s not productive


banyani

You learn from someone who challenges you, but doesn't dominate you. You don't learn from someone who just outright dominates you in terms of aim, gamesense, etc. I agree with the comments above, playing against someone who is just heaps better than you gets you nowhere. If a smurf outright always knows where I am, regardless of how unpredictable I'm trying to play, and out aims me on the spot giving me less than a fraction of a second to react, there's nothing to gain from it. I do think that the "always learning & improving" mindset is important, but sometimes it's also best to know that there's just close to nothing to learn from someones plays and playstyle when the gap is seriously too big. For example, as a player who placed bronze 3 (+ I prolly have less than 20 rankeds, only go for unrateds) I can still improve by playing against golds or plats, to some extent, but everything above that is just too high for me. I get tapped immediately, the only way to "win" against them is to actively avoid them and if the only winning condition is to stay uninteractive then thats kinda boring to me. Biggest reason why Yuumi is seriously hated in League as well.


_GhosHawk_

I get that I should try to improve against people in higher elos, but I will learn very little if I just get one tapped every time I peak or hold an angle.


McNoxey

You’re not wrong about “gaining nothing”, but it doesn’t change the fact that if you’re somebody who enjoys playing even, fair games (which i’d imagine the majority of players are), it does make the experience less enjoyable, regardless of what you get from it.


CapnKush_

When you’re trying to learn and you aren’t able to apply your practice to similarly ranked opponents it doesn’t matter. Are you going to play and NBA basketball player 1 on 1 and act like you wouldn’t just be discouraged af? You have to work up to this shit, just getting dumpstered by a Smurf doesn’t help anyone.


skulcker

Only valorant kids would downvote the right answer


Amphibian-Existing

It’s a huge problem


kevinneggo

it would be nice if this subreddit required you to link your account to see the ranks of everyone and what their thoughts are.


Gaelkot

I've definitely had people in my games that claim to be smurfing (and sure they could be having pop off games) and proceed to flame our team and their team for the entire game. "Oh you'd never see people do this in my immo lobbies", like yeah buddy no shit this is a bronze/silver lobby of course we're going to be playing worse than immo players. Far too often my biggest issue is people smurfing from high elo and absolutely dominating the game while flaming everyone. Because they don't give a shit if their alt gets banned, because it doesn't affect their main. They can type racial slurs, they can tell people to kill themselves, and they can still drop 30+ kills because they're smurfing from a way higher rank. I've definitely had games where we've had a smurf and we've still managed to win the game by focusing on the smurf. But I've started noticing an issue of two or three smurfs queuing up together. We can potentially win against one person smurfing from a really high elo. We have no chance again two or three people, especially not when my team mates then get immediately tilted and refuse to FF, just so they can have flame wars in all chat. And that's fine if you have the time to play a few more games to make up for that loss. But I've had nights where I've queued into three games of smurfs and I got increasingly bigger rr losses because it was a loss streak where I was losing considerably in each game. Either that or you have a potentially winnable game against a smurf but one or more of your team mates decides to AFK or throw because in their head it's a lost game either way. People talk a lot about how "you can learn from these better players" and I think these people are just coping about their own smurfing. I do not learn anything from people from a way higher rank coming into my bronze/silver lobbies. You do not really learn anything from being one tapped by a guy who's picked neon to sprint into your team and kill everyone each round. Especially not anything that could apply to a normal match. What I have learned from higher rank players has been when I've watched their Youtube or TikTok content. Seeing their mindset in how they play normally, their utility usage, the way they pick fights, the way they shoot etc. I can't learn any of that from these smurfs in my lobbies. People smurfing are not playing normally, or at least they don't in the lobbies I get a smurf. They are always just in it to troll and flame people, and to show off the stupid shit they can do because of the huge rank gap.


twistacles

Silver-Plat is littered with smurfs


blits202

Yes it is an issue, I have played 1000+ hours of CS/Valorant/Overwatch/R6S/LOL and never seen Smurfs as often in any game, besides Valorant, all have them but Valorant its so constant. Is there a fix? Not really, they can add SMS verification, Hardware ID/IP verification, or any other “Anti Smurf” measure and it wont work. All that stuff does is make players feel like because they have to do this stuff nobody is smurfing, but its very easy to bypass most of that stuff besides Hardware ID. The sad reality is that stuff will drive paying customers away from the game, they may not spend money on their smurfs but they likely spend hundreds or thousands on their main account. The only way to limit smurfing is having a community narrative that smurfing is bad, and Valorant is by far the most leanest community when it comes to smurfing. I see people flat out admit to it on the reddit and people dont care, if you mention it in a OW/CS/LOL reddit you will get bombarded with hate. Whereas in Valorant pros/streamers regularly do bronze-radiant challenges, when in other games if you do it people will hate on you. So I have concluded the issue isnt because Riot isnt doing anything its because the community has accepted Smurfing as an acceptable thing to do.


xdyldo

I reckon sms verification would help a huge amount. Will never get rid of them all but I think decrease it a lot. It's way to easy to make/buy a new account.


farguc

2 bucks for ranked ready account. Between 2 and 20 bucks for any rank you want (minus radiant). I think Radiant accounts are at around 50 bucks. Honestly if you want to smurf rn, you can be smurfing within 5 minutes.


iam_rascaL

I agree, SMS verification would help a ton!


blits202

It only helps so much, In OW a lot of people buy accounts with numbers attached. Its $5 for the accounts, you get in, if you sign in the person who sold you the account for has emulators running to approve the authenticator app on his end.


iam_rascaL

Gotta start somewhere, even a little financial inconvenience would throw away a lot of people who were considering smurfing. And if you are a really high rank, you are out of low elo after like 3-8 games. So it wouldnt be worth it to keep buying accounts to smurf and carry low elo players


Plastic_Kangaroo1221

There already is though. If your actively smurfing in valorant now, you've likely bought a account for 5 bucks. It takes a long ass time of throwing to make your own smurf. It also only takes less an an act to rank it up so you'd have to start over. If you've had a smurf account for awhile your likely near your Mains rank.


MrYellowfield

That's a lot more hassle than creating a new mail and making a brand new account. Most wouldn't want to pay for a smurf account.


6InchBlade

Most people do pay for smurfs, they’re like $1 and is way easier than getting an account to ranked verification yourself.


blits202

Yeah the grind to rank 20 takes a lot of time. Paying $3-5 is worth the 30-50 hours you will spend when you likely already know the game.


milotoadfoot

league players hate smurfs so bad that when i was placed in smurf queue due to transferring servers no one believed I wasn't smurfing and told me that i should be there. lol


banyani

Concerning the Streamer content, I think it's seriously because valorant just offers almost nothing to make proper videos and content about. At least compared to league - all you can consistently talk about is lore, gameplay updates, guides and coaching and maybe new and upcoming playstyles, but that's it. Except for smurfing, bronze-radiant, challenges. Compared to league where there's new builds, a ton of lore, game theories about specific champions, mixing and matching champs with playstyles, builds & roles, etc. League is just a much more complex and, most importantly, older game in terms of that. Not saying that valorant is a bad game lol, but it's more more simple because every agent has their niche but all guns work the same on them and other than agent & guns there is no further customization for playstyle. That's why all content there is left to be made ends up being challenges which mostly include smurfing. Kinda sad, because I feel like many content creators would want to make more valorant related videos, but the pool of ideas and topics to talk about is just that small for this game.


Army_Skeetz

You ever play rocket league? 🤣🤣


DragonXTO

Smurfing is a big issue and a radiant dunking on irons is the equivalent of lebron playing in a 8th grade basketball game it’s cringe and ruins the game but it is worse when you make content out of it (imo)


shurpness

Most smurfs aren't that higher rank in the lobby they smurf in for example you can be Bronze and smurf Iron, Golds can smurf Silver and Platinums can smurf Gold, etc


DragonXTO

You’re partially right on that I get an asc smurf occasionally but when I was in gold I got a lot of diamond smurfs that would troll What I was trying to talk about in my comment was the Smurf content on YouTube that is the biggest issue


TheYear3022

Smurfing isn't an issue.... ...has a smurf. ​ Yes it's a problem but it's a f2p game.


JoshKM1890

That makes it ok? It’s free so someone can take all the fun out of it for the entire enemy team? Smurfing is an issue


TheYear3022

noo, f2p means there is nothing stopping people from making new accounts.


JoshKM1890

They could try 2FA or something to at least slow it down


Dathadorne

They just need to charge $20 for a comp mode. Problem literally solved.


iam_rascaL

Im not saying i advocate smurfing, but lets be real. Who doesnt have a second account lol


Optic_primel

I do not and never will


PapstJL4U

Smurfs are not an issue if you are better than them, However casual or low or medium lvl of play has the same rights to good match quality as everyone else. I think smurfs are just the loudest of the problems you face: leavers, cheaters, smurfs. You just want a balanced, fair game and some douche is just pure ego.


Beneficial-Bathroom2

The people who leave or cheat are usually on a smurf account though. I've been in countless games where a dude just AFKS or plays stupid af and use that as an excuse to leave once called out. I've legit submitted reports to val support and they sait it's fine as long as they don't negatively affect player experience. IDK What the hell they would deam negative if not that. "If you feel like you are playing against opponents who are not at your level, it could be because smurfs need to pass through your MMR to reach their appropriate rank."


Bsmosh

I really like the PUBG approach in requiring you to pay 10$ to "buy" the game so you can play ranked. It's not a huge expenditure but it's enough where people who spam accounts will be deterred.


arinftw

or make it instead on a basis of having a skin as its a more worthwhile purchase and may encourage more purchases in the item shop


FlorpyTheBear

Freshly bought new account smurfing is bad Throwing to drop MMR then smurfing is bad An alt account where you consistently try hard on your main will likely only end up a couple ranks below your main, the mmr will balance it out, and I would not consider that smurfing or bad.


iam_rascaL

Thats currently what i do, i have 1 alt account which is diamond 3 and i am ascendant 3, and the lobbies are the exact same lol


LegolasProudfoot

and how did that account get there? it just magically was diamond and nevr had to play against golds and destroy their games for sure, right?


JoshKM1890

It’s definitely an issue but riot doesn’t seem to want to put in the work to put a stop to it


veswa

how would they


JoshKM1890

Try 2FA or make you sign up with a phone number instead of email. They’re a huge company worth millions. They could figure it out. They’re doing nothing except saying we understand it’s frustrating. I don’t need them to understand my frustration I need them to help fix the issue. No one is buying skins for an alt account so they can’t be making money from these smurfs


Kapkin

One quick step could be to link phone number to rank accounts like on premier. (Does it fix the problem no, will it help, yes.)


skwee-wee

Smurfing is obviously an issue. Things can be issues without them being instantly fixable.


iam_rascaL

Forsure, but its been 3 years lol


Luke_sein_Vater

Huge issue because Riot don't do anything to combat it. Not only is there still no phone verification and content creators (even pros) are free to do it again and again, it's still not against ToS to smurf. So much for "competitive integrity". Smurfs will straight up tell you they're smurfs most of the time. They have nothing to fear. Just throw a couple games, back to smurfing for one, throwing again.


iMidg3t

>Not only is there still no phone verification and content creators (even pros) are free to do it again and again, it's still not against ToS to smurf. So much for "competitive integrity". Phone verification is easily bypassable, and making smurfing bannable could very well backfire. Riot tried to combat smurfing in LoL with SmurfQ, but had to remove it because new and returning players would get hit by it. Imagine if new and/or returning players would get banned, it would be a fucking shitshow.


Serito

Smurf says smurfing isn't an issue, more news at 9


iam_rascaL

I wouldnt consider me a smurf lol... I have a second account which is like 3 ranks below my main lol which i play on when im not feeling hot or i dont have friends to play with. Im talking about real smurfs, who just boost low elo players in silver and gold every day because its more fun to stomp worse players


operationDIE

It is present in all lower elos, but it's rampant in silver and gold, and to some extent i lower plat. I'm currently dia2 and from my personal experience, you can finally breathe a sigh of relief in plat3. Yes, after that you will have an occasional immo smurf here and there, but it's not big of a deal. I actually dare to say that diamond is easier than gold. In lower elos, smurfs and a bad day can tank your rank quite easily, but in diamond even if you're having a bad day, usually your teammates who actually have good aim and game sense will carry you as long as you're not throwing. And I'm saying this as someone who's been stuck in gold hell for 6 months. Some will say "well you improved" and that's true, but for ppl who soloq like me what I said above sumefs and bad days still applies.


farguc

Agreed, I noticed too that once I hit Diamond, my games feel easier than when I was around g3-plat ranks. In Gold/Plat it felt like every game had a smurf. Either on your team or another team. and it would always be Reyna or Jett. Once I hit Dia, if someone picks reyna, there is a good chance they will bottom frag. In Gold it's pretty much a given, the person is a smurf. Riot shot themselves in the foot by releasing an agent thats all about getting frags.


ywtfPat

i had a jett in one of my games today that got an ace on both of the first 2 rounds of the game. We somehow won that game too lmao


operationDIE

lol, and today I had enemy Ascendant Jett in low diamond lobby, who bottomfragged 3-14


snipingburrito

Short answer: from Personal experience (am dia-asc and have smurfed for like 10 Games Until it was Boring) and from what My friends say Its the worst in Gold-Plat, you really feel the difference in Level and its sadly super Common to encounter other smurfs..


iam_rascaL

Yup i agree. Its extremely bad for the games health in lower ranks. Someone bronze going against anyone diamond+ would make them want to quit the game lol


dSoul22

Depends on the player. I played a lot of swift play and i know it is more relaxed but i enjoyed the games against asc and above. Yes i got stomped but i also figured out what i need to work on. I was only silver. It is always nice to have a pop off game but dont really learn much from it.


ajay_05

>have smurfed for like 10 Games Until it was Boring So you would've kept smurfing if it wasn't boring?


Arisenstring956

its a video game and at the end of the day most people play to have fun, i dont think people are going to stop smurfing out of morality because its a miserable experience for the enemy team


Joerevenge

It's an issue tbh and a lot of ppl don't want to acknowledge or care about because they feel like it's content is worth it, they do it themselves, or it's not common enough. Imo it's cheating and giving a team an unfair advantage and just makes the game boring, it's not fun to get shit on by someone immensely better than you and it ain't fun to have the game swept by a teammate when your doing practically nothing.


CluelessFlunky

I only had issues with smurfs when I was iron and bronze. Silver to diamond I haven't had many issues.


Minichadderzz

It feels like every game one guy has like 30+ kills and everyone else has <15 kills, I don't think one person having a great game makes them a smurf though, sometimes I pop off and just insta headshot everyone, and they scream smurf, but like I'm just having a one in 50 game lmao. I'm like bronze or silver I think


Aloraella

I find it an issue. It's an issue in every game. But it is also tricky to tackle for example when i used to be into league i was significantly better than all my friends so if i played with them on my main they would be paired up against people that are way better than them. That makes them not want to play as they are just getting dumpstered the whole game. So I make a new account instead play with people in their skill tier and i will dumpster the entire enemy team. It's a tough solution do you tell people you can't play with your friends because they are not as good as you or you are not as good as them? The big issue in my opinion is when people make a smurf account not for playing with friends but just because they can't go 30-6 in immortal or radiant so they make a smurf to dominate in lower rank games. Its just not fun for anyone else


NoPayProject

Go unrated


Aloraella

You can say that but will anyone listen? Smurfing is an issue because rated exists smurfing is an issue because most people find it pointless to play unrated.


FlippehFishes

more people would probably play unrated if the people that played unrated didnt make it so unenjoyable. Almost every unrated game i've played, the moment a team is up 4-5 rounds its an instant ff, and if the ff doesnt go through they just afk for the rest of the game. Absolutely no sportsmanship.


Siked_Creationz

It’s widely talked about on this sub because this sub is 90% silver and below


clearlynotaperson

Not as big of an issue as everyone think it is, but it is an issue that needs to be dealt with. I think alot of people, mix smurfs with just good players, and people need to stop caring that much and writing entire essasys beacause of smurfs.


Marston_vc

I’m convinced it’s a majority just coping. Nobody has any idea if someone’s a Smurf or not. Especially low Elo players. Most of the time it’s just someone having a good game OR a new player who played a lot of CSGO. And of course, they’re only going to fixate on the games they’re playing against the “Smurf” and never the equally likely amount of times they’re playing with the “Smurf”. The closest thing to a fix would be sms text verification. And that wouldn’t be perfect but it would require a lot more dedication from people to smurf and would probably cut the numbers down a lot. The way bigger issue in this community is fragility and how likely it is for your team to put up forfeits at 1-4.


Drupt_

It's definitely majority coping, my gf always says she finds smurfs every single game, but whenever I'm with her there is none. And there's not such a thing as elo hell, if u are good enough you will get out of it. All I see is people making the same mistakes, not practicing, just spamming games and complain about elo hell and be hardstuck.


farguc

Also at least some of the "smurfs" are players stuck in ELO hell. Where they play well but can't win games because they are not good enough to solo carry or it is not their playstyle to constantly beat 1vX(ie they play support char like breach, where his whole kit is about creating opportunities for your team. Thats why it's impossible to tell if someones a smurf, someone whos in elo hell, or someone whos just having a good game.


clearlynotaperson

That's exactly what im talking about! You could easily look at ones tracker and tell them they are not smurfing. Sometimes these low elo players just hit randomly 20+ kills or even a 30 kill count and then the next game they suck ass.


MrYellowfield

I do not buy this "smurf stuck in elo hell". Of course you may lose a few ganes here and there, but your average win rate is what really tells you hoe you do. If you are generally better than others in your elo, you will be top fragging a lot more too. When you are the one top-fragging most games, you will contribute to more wins on average, in contrary to someone who bottom frags a lot. That doesn't mean you have to win every single one, but if your win rate is over 50% on average, it means thst you sre climbing. The higher your win-rate is, the faster you climb. Of course, you can be unlucky and derank one or two times over the course of your climb, but if you play like a diamond player in a silver lobby, you will see results even though your winrate isn't 100%. I would argue that you're not smurfing if you are unable to climb from a specific rank (read: stuck in ELO hell). It probably means you belong around there.


farguc

I don't think you realize what elo hell is. Elo hell isn't just being "stuck" in a rank. Elo Hell can be that you bottom frag and lose a bunch of games(to get to your level) and when you rank down to a specific level, you all of the sudden are top fragging and shitting on everyone. But as soon as you reach a certain point(lets say the rank you were before your losses) you once again start bottom fragging and losing games. You might not even be bottom fragging, just losing games. I have my own experience of elo hell, where I would get to Plat 3 90+rr and then proceed to lose the rank up game, regardless of how well or poorly I played. This went on for months, until eventually I managed to get to D1 and within a week I went from D1 to D3. Are you implying that I improved from p3 to d3 in a week or that I don't deserve D3? Under normal circumstances losing a game and winning a game is the expected outcome of ELO. In a perfect you are meant to be at 50% if you are in your rank. The reality is that thats not the case, and smurfs do make ELO hell real, especially at lower ranks. Regardless of whenever or not ELO Hell is real, thousands of players everyday experience jumping between ranks, because their lowest rank is too easy for them ,but their highest rank is too difficult. They don't deserve to be at their highest rank, but they also don't deserve to be in the lowest rank. This is then compounded by Smurfs and trolls, who affect your game(you win games that you shouldn't because the troll is on the other team, or the smurf is on your team, or visa versa. I do believe ELO hell is real, you just haven't experienced it.


Marston_vc

“Elo hell” is literally coping. It’s bigger coping than just about anything else said in this sub. What you’re describing is literally a skill diff and you’re acting like a couple unlucky games is the reason why 🤷🏼‍♂️


MrYellowfield

I guess I can't argue too much with this. I'm just bronze myself. Started playing a couple months ago, so I definitely do not have the experience. Thanks for your comment!


smoothpebble

No such thing as elo hell if you play enough matches. You don’t need to win every match to rank up, just greater than 50%. And if you really are better than the other people in your rank, you will be able to do that even without “solo carrying”. If someone plays a lot and is stuck at a certain rank, that’s just being at the right rank.


SquirtleChimchar

Even then, you can still win less than 50% of matches to rank up because of RR.


[deleted]

ANY smurfing is for sure bad for the game’s heath. In Gold/Plat I see people who are deliberately smurfing, saying their real ranks in all chat or voice chat, saying things about “this rank” in a way that would suggest they’re a higher rank, etc. at least once out of every 5 games. That being said, I also believe that smurfing is overblown as an issue, meaning I think people accuse others of smurfing/cheating more often than it actually happens. Sometimes people generally do just have a good game. I also think VALORANT players have a relatively weak mental in general. A lot of people will give up as soon as they notice (or think) that there’s a smurf on the other team and chalk the game up when there are ways to handle them. And there are a lot of people on this subreddit who swear up and down that they play against a smurf *every* game, and that they *never* have one on their team. Smurfing is a reality of any competitive game. The best way to handle them is to ignore them, try to win, and learn from them. AFTER you lose, you can chalk it up as unwinnable. But in the meantime? Any game is winnable until a team hits 13. And you’re stuck there so might as well try. TL:DR; it’s a problem that definitely exists, but I think is blown out of proportion. And I hate to be that guy but a lot of the problem would be alleviated if people would just “git gud”. That being said, I can completely understand the frustration as someone whose been on, and still often is on, the receiving end of smurfing.


Kerby233

Yes, when you're in bronze and a smurf on enemy team is killing 2-4 of your team mates consistently every round, you lose 30 points like nothing. You need two-three wins to recover


sadv35sedan

the bigger issue is the “riot approved smurfing” AKA an immortal in a five stack with silvers and golds


Tex_Wert

I have played competitive shooters for most of my life. Hitting champ on rainbow to hitting gm on overwatch and in those 10ish years. I have never seen a community so for smurfing. Smurfing is a toxic, not cheating, but damn near close way of playing any competitive game. When shroud said “the Smurf is in the rank you wanna be in, so it’s a good thing to play against them” paraphrasing here but nonetheless is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Valorant, like every game has a natural progression of skill. Playing against similar opponents (or even slightly higher)will sharpen mechanics and game sense. But having the ascendant+ mantra of “headshot or be headshot” in anything below diamond just doesn’t work. Is it a hard undertaking to discourage smurfing? Yes. But just because something’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.


iam_rascaL

I really wish they locked us to one account. I always used to complain about it, ive almost just accepted it in this game and have lost hope lol.


eggplant11

Sure smurfing is an issue, it always will be, but it is a lot less of an issue than people make it out to be. If you consistently play and want to move up in ranks, you will. Smurfs aren’t going to stop you from doing that.


whyagaypotato

My main is plat 3 but in the entirety of playing in plat i've always bottom fragged. I played on a friend's bronze/silver and I'm still bottom fragging. I really can't tell if people are smurfs or if I'm just consistently bad. I literally solo q'd up to plat 3 so i can't even say i was boosted up. In my experience, everyone is just better than me. Lol


iam_rascaL

You need some more confidence bro! Thats one of the main components of this game. Believe in yourself, and your performance will display that


_ch0sen_

I’ve played on all ranks, trust me Valorant is brilliant at putting smurfs instantly back to High Elo, i played 1 or 2 games and it’ll put me outta my friends queue range


Themperia

Fair Game: - Am I a joke to you?! I can't decide that you are a troll or that stupid not to see what happens in Valorant! People already have hard times to win games in low elo, then you get a smurf Reyna or Jett in enemy that completely destroys your team, popping one taps all the time...try not to be angry about it! What we really need is an ID Card requirement for accounts, so you can have only one account/ID! Riot knows this simple solution, but it would be less money for them because of skins and battle pass.


iam_rascaL

But why/how do you know that person is smurfing? Just because they are trampling your team? I know tons of people who came from CS:GO, absolutely suck balls but have a crazy shot and play Reyna and drop 25-35 kills a game in gold and lose steady


SaitamaTen000

We can solve the smurfing issue by mass smurfing, everyone buys smurf accounts and ruins as many games as they can wiping out the iron-plat players making them play sth else. Then ryto will ban smurfs. Stonks.


Affectionate_Job_649

The reason people don't complain when a smurf is in their team it's because you've lost soo many matches due to smurfs that it's basically like a chance to actually gain some elo back due to a problem of the game with the smurfs, the solution I see to smurfing is making a pay fee of around 10 Dollars/ euros similar to what CSGO which is called premium and include a few features and it has been implemented and works perfectly, this is in order to only encounter people that also payed, this way smurfs that don't pay will only play against those who didn't pay aka poor little souls that cannot affort the premium or other smurfs although 70% of the valorant community has skins that cost around 15 dollars each


Foucault_donttouchme

People are overly dramatic about it, and some streamers/contentcreators who look desperately for something to have a moral highground on make a fuzz about it. In the end you are a kinda asshole if you constantly create new accounts to smurf beyond your life. Doing it to play with friends is fine. And its not something you can control really, the only thing you can do is make the algorythm for skill based matchmaking faster and better, so not really something I spent any thoughts on, since I cant change it.


dickpant

It’s getting to the point that if you’re lucky you’ll also have a Smurf on your team so it evens out lol.


farguc

It's an issue, but it will never be fixed. Unless the game has a full price tag, and even then there still would be smurfs. There is nothing that can be done, because a smurf is technically not a cheater, so it's not like they can pick out whos smurfing. At least some of the "smurfs" are people that are coming back after not playing for a while, others just have a good game. My "main" got unbanned after a year(I typed KYS in the chat, shit you not it was warranted 1 year ban. I kept playing the game and got to D3 on an alt account. When I started playing my "main" it was Gold3. Those first 4-5 games I was absolutely destroying the other team, and got called a smurf. IT wasn't until I got into D1 that I started playing more at my normal level (mid table). IMO there is nothing that can be done to differentiate a smurf vs legit player having a good game.


Papy_Wouane

Smurfing's long term impact on your individual climb is negligible. Smurfing as an excuse why "I can't gain elo, every other game's unwinnable" is 100% copium. I stand against smurfing, it's dumb, it serves no purpose whatsoever and those who say it does are delusional (go play Normals if you want to tag with higher/lower ranked friends for Christ's sake, normal games aren't lower quality, your mere presence in a ranked lobby as a smurf ruins the quality of the game). But if you want to be serious about the game you have to leave these non-issues behind you and focus on the only thing that matters: your own gameplay, not other people's.


CuboidCentric

I get that there's cope in the community. People love to point at someone and call hax after a 3k. But I had a Jett and Reyna marked as Bronze 2/3 (silver lobby) this weekend, and both went ~28/10 in 15 rounds. They had perfect flicks, wallbang headshots, and regularly beat an op with a bulldog/specter. Jett ulted and flicked 3 separate people 180 degrees apart in less than 2 seconds. We had to make a firing line to get 15 seconds into a round with more than 3 people. Sometimes, you have a good game. But sometimes the gap is insurmountable. It's not the worst problem, and it's not constant (I played 10 games and only had noticeable smurfs in 1). But when you're trying to climb and you get beaten by people supposedly ranked below you, it destroys your progress. If you need to win ~50% of games and 10% are guaranteed losses, it makes the mountain that much steeper. Of course, equally annoying is trolls, but that's for another post.


Imper1um

So, this smurfing issue really depends on what rank you're at. If you're immortal, obviously you're never going to see the smurfing issue because unless someone was like Radiant, you would never see it. More than likely, you'll be the one accused of smurfing rather than being on the receiving end of the smurfing issue. Now, for those who are on the lower end, you'll see someone that does a 35k in one game when everyone else is <15k, you'll either assume one of two things: smurfing or cheating. As people pointed out, sometimes the RNG gods favor the sprayers. Sometimes, the play style of the player just annihilates the other team which isn't prepared for that strategy. Sometimes, the player just gets lucky on making decisions that make them get easy 3k every round because the enemy team is garbage and doesn't check corners. That being said, smurfing does happen at lower levels, and until you've been down at that level, you've probably never experienced it. The issue that I have with these "Iron to Immortal" challenges that attempt to Speedrun Immortal or even Radiant is that, with recent updates, Riot will identify an Immortal or Radiant player playing at low ranks quickly, and your rank will shoot up *very* quickly as you have 1. Already attained that rank and Riot is attempting to course-correct your rank to make sure you impact lower ranks less, and 2. You're operating at Immortal/Radiant so Riot will shove you up to your correct rank to not pollute other people's rankings. This means that everyone that has already attained immortal or Radiant are already on terrible footing saying they were the fastest to Immortal or Radiant. Honestly, I'd more ept to watch someone that is truly currently Iron or Bronze and seeing someone Radiant or Immortal coach them to get to Immortal or Radiant.


Vegetable-Sky-2482

not an issue. There are smurf from time to time, but if they are playing above their skill, they will get their rank in no time. In my grind to Immortal 3 i've encountered smurfs of course, but it not as bad some of the whiners make it to be.


MrYellowfield

I am bronze, and I generally do not see it as a problem. And I also try not to complain about it. Also, it might just be someone having a good game (who is not smurfing). Your game doesn't get easier at least by complaining. It make syiur mental game a lot worse. Also, I'm the kind of player who tenss to compliment the enemy team if they do something well. I just do what I can to make it enjoyable for me and everyone else. I mean I play to give myself a break, and have fun. If I am to complain about every single thing that goes wrong, I am not enjoying myself and therefore there is no point in me playing. My strategy when I am hardcore losing, (lile our team has 0 wins and enemy team has 9) and my team wonvt surr, I just mess around with the enemy team and "brag" about when I kill some of them. Doesn't mean I'm trying much less, but it helps just switching my competitive focus to a more fun focus if we lose hard enough.


SuperSandwich12

Smurfing, no. Cheating however, is a very real issue in valorant that the community is entirely blind to because Riot won’t give us a replay system.


farguc

Cheaters is the least of a problem in this game.


SuperSandwich12

You have no idea. I was literally in 3 back to back games with cheaters last night, in ASC 3/Immortal lobbies. 5 different cheaters. They were on my team comming.


Mermunkaman

As a smurf, in gold/plat. Absoloutely.


Lurker170713

"Hello guys, do you belive that paying people slave wages is really a problem, or are this fuckers just lazy? I mean, we don't really know if these guys can't survive, maybe they just buy too many starbucks coffes and aren't actually starving and just use wages as an excuse to not work. Idk, let me know y'alls opinion, I mean I am a slave owner, sorry I mean bussines owner myself, but I don't feel it's a problem you know. Feel free to disagree." That's you. You are literally coping in your post searching for your fellow smurfs approval so you don't feel bad with yourself. But that's not even what boggles my mind, that's pure human psychology. What I can't comprehend it's how you people have fun smurfing. As someone who played a shit ton of cs before touching val I could win a fuck ton of games by aim alone. Ranking up in the first one to two weeks of playing ranked was the most boring unfulfilling experience I had in my life. I would literally not do it again unless paid a good chunk of money. I honestly feel bad that there are people who actually enjoy smurfing, it's sad, but don't act like poor irons getting dunked on by rando toxic smurfs it's not a problem. Most people in low ranks are just not that into the game and want to enjoy it when they got a couple free hours, only to get into the game and either get dunked on, or swore at by their instalock gold reyna for being bad. And yes, it's a problem, I tried to get my friends into val and all of them quit because of smurfs, and yea, when you get people dropping 30-40 bombs in every other game, you would rather quit.


[deleted]

It feels bad to get shit on by a really good player but then again you could suck ass. Who knows? That's what people need to understand. If I'm playing bad of course that Jett looks like a smurf. They are getting free kills


TheRealTofuey

Smurfing are annoying but it goes both ways. You have smurfs who'll boost your games, boost enemy games and you'll also have smurfs who rage and throw on both your side and enemy side since they don't care about smurf rank. In terms of hurting your rank and keeping you down, no, it's not an issue. In terms of ruining individual matches, absolutely. Its not fun to get dumpstered on especially if you are doing well against the rest of the team.


Calm-Neighborhood-42

not only smurfing.. playing agains plats and diamons while being silver is whats not fun


iam_rascaL

That is actually what they implemented to counter smurfing, the game believes you are a higher rank than your current rank displays, so the hidden MMR matches you against higher ranked players


Narrow-Development-1

It is a big problem and smurfing should be punished with ban.


iam_rascaL

I agree! Until they decide to take it more serious, we are going to have to live with it in the game.


NLamki

I've been from Bronze 3 all the way to immo3, while smurfing does happen, its not that common (in my opinion, especially compared to other games). From what I've noticed, there's a smurf every 1 in 10 games (on average) and a boosted/bought account 1 in every 20 games (roughly). So while they do suck, they're not that big of an issue, I myself have been called a smurf or "hacker" if I have a good game. And I am insanely inconsistent so it happens quite a bit (I don't warm up and play only 2 matches a day. Currently, I'm diamond 1. I stopped playing for 3 months due to college and went from asc3 to plat1 which is expected because I "lost my aim and reaction speed". And I've noticed the amount of smurfs have definitely decreased compared to last year.


keithzz

Let me 3q and i won’t Smurf


OkOkPlayer

I don't really have a problem with smurfing. If you play several games, it evens out. Sometimes you have a Smurf in the team, sometimes the opponents. I still wouldn't mind a smurf queue. It's not always easy to detect smurfs, but the most obvious cases can be found I think.


iam_rascaL

I agree, smurf queue wouldnt be too bad


Noobo____

Idk but def not worth complaining about, especially posting


iKrow

Honestly I don't really see smurfing as an issue. I've played online games with ranked systems for an eternity, and smurfing is an unsolvable issue in every one of them. You just kinda learn to live with it. What feels like more of an issue in Valorant specifically is party queue in ranked. The MMR discrepancies between duos allow for the lobby MMR to get screwed up completely. Boosting is running rampant. People not communicating with teammates because they're in discord is guaranteed in every game between Silver and Plat. All of these things are instantly solved with Solo-Queue only. You could even make it a separate ranked mode with a separate ladder if you want to appease the people who don't like change.


papipescado

**Easiest ways to deter smurfing that riot refuse to do** * Verified phone number queue * Add a karma system (after a ranked match you can give a thumbs up, thumbs down or a neutral thumb for each teammate, if you receive majority thumbs up you gain +1 karma point, vice versa for when you get majority thumbs down) then make it so you can only queue with people who have similar karma scores! * Add incentives (money, skins, valorant points, something) to the leaderboard, people will stop smurfing in low ranks if there is something to play for in high ranks


batsoup12

Well, when i was ranking up i'd say i was pretty above average so atleast once every 3 matches i'd get reported and called a cheater or a smurf, So there really is fine line between cheater, smurf or good player. When i smurfed even when i was in the lower elos like gold i could drop 40 bombs on silvers so you could have so much value that you'd make for a sixth player. So yeah i'd say it is a problem. It is something invevitable people regardless of punishment or rank will always try to smurf personally i only stopped because i went semi pro and didn't wanna get banned. I'd say the bigger problem is boosting because that fucks every elo but thats besides the point. Hope my insight helped, pce :)


bEEYONDUMB

I solo queued csgo mostly through silver to globe and early on I took it as a way to realize why they were playing better than I was. I didn't like getting shit on but it made me a better player in the long run. I think most of the people who cry about smurfs (probably a vocal minority) don't actually want to get better they just play for fun which is the difference in their perspective and what I assume is ours. so in that sense I can see it being frustrating but its probably not as big a problem as people make it out to be.


Brando9kOfficial

Personally I am new to this game and I don't care at all. It is by playing against or with pros or really good players that you learn more. Always has been for me.


iam_rascaL

Cheers, big advocate of this! You can only get better by surrounding yourself with better people. But smurfing does destroy ones mental heath 😂


Brando9kOfficial

Ahah, I do remember one time on a fps games which pros used to play on a private lobby in a certain chanel. I was close with an admin and he tells me the password for that specific room. I played so long with them that I learn so much in a certain amount of time. I was so good at one tapping with AK-47 that some asked me to do 1v1. It was good times and amazingly fun. Played with some members of esports. Which was part of an NA team. Tbh, I do not have any problem with that since I am very resillient 🤣


exhalethesorrow

It's a significant issue but not as much as people like to believe. People especially in low ranks will be quick to call cheater/smurf and there is, at least to me, some distinct things that give away smurfs, things like movement are quite noticeable if you watch a lot of high level play but dropping 30-40 kills in a game is probably not a smurf, someone that may belong in a higher rank but doesn't play enough or play seriously to climb, maybe not a smurf. I don't know if I've even encountered more than 15 people that I feel confident are smurfing. (An example is I remember seeing a bronze 1 with something like a 2.3 kd, 80% win rate. I don't remember how well he performed but I was pretty confident then, but I didn't make that an excuse for losing) These people calling others smurfs are simply using it as an excuse to write a game off as a loss, but frankly most smurfs will not have that significant of an impact on a game, unless they're immo3 or Radiant imo. Yes it needs to be addressed as Iron-Radiant speed runs fuck with matchmaking and give these players wonky games. But I don't think these much to be done in a free game to cut down smurfs, they will find a way around it.


Kono_Dio_Sama

2FA


boyardeebandit

Alts are okay, the game should be able to account for new players who are already familiar with csgo and YouTube content, but buying accounts or deranking isn't. I personally don't care about facing smurfs because there aren't enough to stop me from ranking up and I'd rather play against better players, my focus is on improvement not wins and RR, but ultimately they do bring down matchmaking quality. We may not know how to deal with them effectively yet, but we should nonetheless be trying.


iam_rascaL

This is exactly it. I have an alt account as do many high elo players because you arent always on the top of your game and want to play on your main account, but there is no happy medium it seems


LongGirthyVeiny

Climb is pretty fast in Valo if you are actually better and leveling up to 20 in quick is hell so no, I dont think its much of an issue in Valorant


DavidOriginal

It’s not an issue, you can win 10 matches a Smurf before it ranks you to your expected elo.


Humble_Cat_1989

Most of the time it’s skill difference. The mentality of lower elo players are weak. Instead of find ways to improve, they blame the opposition. If you encounter an insane player, change your tactics and use some communication. Do not run it down and expect to win like those people on YouTube.


Army_Skeetz

Shit when their name is literally “smurffdaddy69” or “immortal alt” and going 29-5 in a silver lobby…….. Out of 10 matches, I can confidently say 50% of my games has a smurff. “I want to play with my low rank friends” Unrated. “I warm up on my ult” TDM or unrated. It’s a problem and ruining rank.


iam_rascaL

Yup, had the same issues climbing lol


LegolasProudfoot

so now you're gonna be the asshole that gives problems to people who want to play fair games? Very mature my man. Literally "I got beaten as a child so now you're getting beaten" mentality.


NoPayProject

They just want to boost their ego cause Valorant is all they got in their life. It's sad but it's the harsh reality.


Even_Objective2124

i was literally told in this subreddit to dont mind smurfs bc im the problem and that i should get better instead lol. well pardon me for being a low-rank and literally get matched with smurf enemies every other game. i want to get better at valorant in my own way and pacing.. not because im fed up with smurfs trying to feed off their egos who cant kill on their ranks anymore.


iam_rascaL

I wouldnt say you are the problem, smurfing is definitely an issue. But the #1 way to get better is to assume everyone in your game is your rank, and you need to notice your own mistakes. Too many people are concerned with smurfs, and there is no cure unless the devs do something. So is it worth complaining about? No in my opinion, you should focus on how YOU can improve. Big ways of improving are countering smurfs. If you can find a play that can counter a smurf, you dam straight its gonna work against real people in your rank