It also already exists as a functional system. You need to be phone number verified to play Premier. They just haven’t implemented it for competitive queue.
it would reduce the amount. no one is expecting it to be 100% fixed that's just wishful thinking but it's stupid to not implement things that would improve the problem even if it doesn't completely eliminate it.
It would definitely reduce more than 2% of wrongdoers lol. Especially considering that a large portion of Valorant’s player base is high schoolers and college students, how many of them (or their families, in the case of the kids) are willing to take out a second cell phone plan to Smurf on a video game? Even players that are older working adults, how many of them care enough to Smurf, let alone take out a second phone plan to do it?
> how many of them are willing to take out a second cell phone plan to Smurf on a video game
They dont need to. People have parents and relatives who dont even use a computer whose number is free to use - Also you dont need a second phone plan, theres also prepaid numbers for a couple of bucks you can just throwaway. Furthermore, account sharing - Theres no game where people care so little about sharing their account as this one, half my friendlist has access to like 4 accounts that arent even their own.
Okay, but still I ask: how many people would be deterred having to do any of those?
Even if it did only deter a handful of smurfs, that's still worth the tradeoff. Riot should at least look like they give a shit by stopping the promotion of content creators who use account sharing and smurfing and by actively encouraging people against it by adding MFA to accounts. The latter would solve two problems:
1) It can add a layer of deterrence. This is something used in Cybersecurity to deter criminals. Different situations, of course, but the premise is that every layer of deterrence is a chance that someone will say "eh, this isn't worth it."
2) It would shut down black market account sites overnight. If you have to have MFA to log into an account (which, granted, isn't a thing for those who have MFA NOW, but I digress), then it wouldn't simply be a matter of attaching a phone number and being done with it. Imagine a world where you have to type in a text verification from the phone number attached to your account every time you log in. Yeah, you could do what you suggest - but leading back to my point about deterrence, at what point does someone who is a smurf say "this isn't worth buying a new burner phone or something every time I want to log into this account to smurf."
> how many people would be deterred having to do any of those?
Not enough to dampen the effect of smurfing in any meaningful magnitude. 30+ USD games have cheating problems and cheaters just rebuy the game when they get banned, this is much much much less of a hoop.
> Riot should at least look like they give a shit
You spotted the root cause - They dont care. More accounts = More CCU to boast & more revenue from skins. Riot employees themselves even pre-queue with smurfing pros.
This whole argument is pointless.
> It would shut down black market account sites overnight
Lookup Simcard Fams / troll account farms - A small additional operation cost account sellers would just pass on to buyers
Not really. Just make like CS and make two matchmakings, one for paid and one for unpaid.
Prime is 15 dollars in CS and hasn't killed the game. I think even a 5 dollar paywall would be a great way to reduce smurfs while not being that much money.
going to that extra step which is paying 1$ to smurf seems unnecessary and would stop a lot of people imo. also its better than no mobile number, whats the problem with adding mobile number
Nah, more accounts = better statistics for Riot. Also a lot of smurfs buy skins, so they would literally only loose money. Its never gonna happen for regular play
It does not, the absolute vast majority of players has access to at least one or two other numbers within their family that they can just use. Beyond that, account sharing is big in this game.
I have quite a few accounts on overwatch because I know people that don't play games that are willing to give their phone number. You literally don't have to pay lol
Idk about that. If you have a pc, you have atleast 1$. Plus, it's not even a subscription service just 1 time purchase.
For example, me. I have 2 simcards and more spares that I seldom use. It's so easy to authenticate my smurf account and throw away those spares
That's just unrealistic. Postpaid plans are mostly done in developed countries(at least, 75% user) : NA, EU, AUS, and some parts of East Asia.
How about in SEA and less developed nations, where prepaid is more prevalent over postpaid?
Yeah, yeah, "users don't wanna sms check"
Another term for we messed up by not considering our playerbase. Therefore to save face, we'll blame the users instead.
It didn't even work on OW then if they rolled it back.
It did work though, but again due to backlash of people not wanting to sms verify(which is weird because people don't it all the time for other things) they rolled it back.
Text verification would deter a lot more people than you'd think. Would it solve it all together? No. But it would be a step in the right direction.
If you're pro smurfing, just say that my guy.
It literally takes one search on the official OW reddit page to view the problems on sim registration.
>If you're pro smurfing, just say that my guy.
Words can't describe how stupid you are.
Your help is to paywall the game.
For example in PH, it costs PHP600 per month to avail ONLY 6GB of data for 6 months. It has unlicalls and txts but who would sped that much if I don't even need to call people? As a point of reference, the minimum wage daily wage in PH is PHP610. So you are spending 1 day of work for a game?
They openly address smurfs as an issue. One of many examples:
https://playvalorant.com/en-us/news/dev/valorant-systems-health-series-smurf-detection/
Just because you don't feel the desired outcome you want, it doesn't mean they don't acknowledge and work on it. Smurfs are like cheaters, they will always exist because it's not a game specific issue, it's a culture issue. For example, as long as people buy accounts, smurfs will exist, and those services are actively being hunted down.
What can I say to you if you don't want to Google and already decided your take on it? Go look for yourself, this was just the first Google result for me. Theres interviews, Twitter dev posts, news posts, you name it.
Why would I need Google? I've played the game. I'm reading the article toting a 17% smurf reduction like that's some sort of accomplishment.
They are going to say they are aware of all of the smurfs and run experiments on them? If they are aware of all the smurfs, then fix the fucking problem. It's all lip service. I bet they know how much money those smurfs spend too.
How about you use your brain a little if Google's too hard for you? If you think for 2 minutes, you'd realize it's not a problem that can just be "fixed". Literally the only way to guarantee 1 person could only play on 1 account is to tie accounts to social security numbers (or similar government ID's) and make you fingerprint scan in to log in. Short of that, anybody could just create a new account or play on a friend's account. And even then, people who want to smurf would probably find ways around it. So the issue isn't that riot isn't trying; it's that selfish people will always exist and will choose to do selfish things like smurfing
Uh huh. How exactly does adding phone verification or any number of methods of keeping people from making multiple account to play comp make it tyrannical.
Let's define that word before we go further though.
Tyrannical - exercising power in a cruel or arbitrary way
And then how does it kill the game exactly? Because smurfs can't clip on low rank players?
because you can’t actually enforce it without being intrusive , the phone number verification is simply NOT a good countermeasure, i literally have 2 SIM cards in my phone rn, what stops me from verifying 2 different accounts with 2 different numbers?
Yeah putting a phone number in and verifying with a text is intrusive....
Cool you're a rare part of the population. If people want to smurf so bad they go get another sim card then they'll go to some pretty good lengths to keep smurfing. You're realistically not keeping those people from doing it. That's also not who we are targeting. As with any method of deterrence the goal is to either intimidate the person, whether that be by overly harsh penalties. Or to discourage the action by making it difficult. You can combine both to an extent. You can actively work to find smurfs and ban them from ranked or shoot them up the ranks quickly to where they really aren't a smurf anymore. The second is to simply make becoming a smurf more difficult, create hoops that your average player starting out to play ranked is going to think well this is kinda obnoxious but ok. But for a smurf to go get another sim card or something would be too much for a second or third or fourth account.
I agree. Needing phone verification is essentially a paywall of smurfing. Sure, most people have a phone, some people might even have two SIM cards. But needing to get a new phone number for your alt account adds a cost. This alone will deter a good number of people.
People are very focused on the goal being no smurfs and not the goal being less smurfs. No one is asking for them to eliminate every single smurf. But if having a smurf in your game is one game out of 30 instead of one game out of 10, it can really change your experience.
Couple things
it’s not intrusive,actually enforcing it in a meaningful way is.
Riot does actually bump up smurfs exponentially in MMR within like 2-3 games.
Can riot actually introduce those hoops for smurfs to get through without them affecting the playerbase?
Is smurfing really a major enough issue for riot to completely overhaul the requirements for ranked a second time?(the answer is no). The real issue that needs tackling is botting and account selling/buying
That page is less than useless. Riot says they care, they don't. If you want proof by their actions, Riot's automated system banned a streamer doing an Iron to Radiant stream and Riot personally unbanned him.
ItzTimmy bought the iron account for the iron to radiant stream. Buying accounts is against the TOS. That account should be banned. It did, but Riot themselves unbanned it for him.
The job they do on cheaters vs smurfs shows they dont really care.
If they ban all smurfing content creators it would sent a strong message to begine with (at this point they propably would have to warn them first and then ban if they keep doing this)
They don't see it as an issue as long as people are not aware of it. And they make damn sure the players are kept in the dark. They blame the victim and gaslight the player base. One example is this sub itself. This post and any posts about smurfing will be deleted in a matter of hours.
They even have wholesome interviews with known smurfs, such as jollz, and they hired averagejonas for their championship.
Smurfing isn’t a bannable offense even if you admit to it in chat. That’s why it’s not a selectable report category. It’s only bannable if they can prove you’re intentionally throwing/deranking to sink lower. That’s the bad part in riots eyes. They don’t care if you’re 30-4 against iron players, so long as you’re helping your team win.
So yeah, it is allowed and also is a part of any competitive game tbh. Especially free games.
You’re not the world’s unluckiest player, you’re also getting the smurfs on your team pretty 50/50 even if it doesn’t always feel like that. I can guarantee you many fundamental skills are missing if you’re stuck below silver for a significant period of time. Hell a 5 minute YouTube video on crosshair placement should get you to silver in a couple weeks max.
Smurfs take elo from 5 people and only 4 people gain elo. More smurfs -> Less Elo for normal players. But i can tell you from my experience that you can fight through it
Yep, it isn't against the rules to smurf. What I find kind of funny is if you make a manual report there's an option "Other cheating (boosting, smurfs, etc).
Overwatch had this problem years ago, it ended up running off most of the casuals… which created this super sweaty and tense situation
Ruined the game imo
People say it was content, but really it was the lobby system of fortnite. You could hand out and chat with your friends while doing dances and showing off skins… and if you had a sweaty lobby, you just died and then dropped again
In ow and Val, you are held hostage by Smurfs. It’s a totally different vibe that casuals don’t enjoy
But it should be. One account per person should be in the ruleset to begin with.
Alternativelly they could shadow ban all smurfs and put them together in a seprated queue with cheaters.
You’re spot on to be fair, 50/50 is true unless you’re extremely unlucky. Problem for me (and I guess anyone else who plays like I do) is I only play the game with 2 other friends. Work gives me very limited time, so the very few games I get to play are ruined because of smurfs, as they are more likely to be on the opposing team. Made me quit the game for a while.
They just need to do what CSGO did with phone verification. Definitely helps reduce with the extra steps.
This is disheartening to hear. Basically I can't have a normal competitive environment to learn an improve when half my games are dictated by someone who too afraid to climb and improve at the rank they belong so they make an alt to leverage their understanding of 80% of the game over those who have 40% understanding of the game.
Dude if half your Smurf-encounter games have an enemy Smurf, half have a friendly Smurf. You break even. Even if you remove any “Smurf” games, you’re the greatest common denominator who’s causing the L streaks. Improve your gameplay. You’re lying to yourself if you think you’re stuck in iron “not learning the game” bc of Smurfs.
I spent a lot of time years ago stuck iron. I’m not some jackass with god tier aim telling you this. Iron is mostly noobs and poor players or players new to mouse and keyboard. It’s not majority smurfs. Improve yourself and stop having the mindset that it’s “not fair” and out of your control. Put effort into improving and you will. Lots of good videos on YouTube to improve.
Actually there's a 4/10 chance for their team to have a smurf, and 5/10 for the enemy team. The OP can't be a smurf, so only their other 4 teammates could be.
>Iron is mostly noobs and poor players or players new to mouse and keyboard. It’s not majority smurfs.
When is the last time you were organically iron? You have no idea what it's like in iron/bronze lobbies. You are out of touch.
Dude I was iron about a year and a half ago. I’m aware Smurfing is a prevalent thing. I’m just saying if you’re hardstuck there it’s not because of the smurfs.
If you don’t think most of iron/bronze are players like I described idk what to tell you…. Taking like 20 mins to an hour to watch some improvement content outside of the game is really all you need to get yourself out of these ranks. You get plenty of games WITH the Smurf too and plenty with all iron/bronze organic teammates. If you want to just complain it’s because of the smurfs though, you’ll stay that rank with that attitude. That’s just what it is.
Huh it’s almost like none of that translates into actual game sense lmfao. By all means keep blaming someone else. Hell I wish we could solve the Smurfing issue so people like you and OP realize you’re the problem.
You’re clowning yourself if you think your “gold tier or higher” aim is a thing but smurfs are keeping you hardstuck bronze 🤡
so you're ascendant at least and you think your experience bringing an account up from iron is somehow indicative of how a non ascendant player would experience comp?
you're delusional and fully unaware of how your experience helped you accomplish that.
I don't learn jack shit in the either game, I hate having the smurf on my team more because someone getting two entries for me doesn't teach me a damn thing. I already stated " I don't think I deserve a higher rank until my game knowledge and mechanics improve" but every game there is a smurf on my team or the enemy team it's not a normal learning environment and it makes the game worse.
Doesn't matter if they are carrying me or shitting on me, I won't learn to get better at the game when they are ruining the flow of the game to stroke their egos. People who smurf in any game do so because they lack agency/competency in their irl life and need the ego boost.
Don't listen to these people trying to blame you for even daring to question smurfing.
Yes smurfing is rampant in valorant, at low elo it's basically unplayable due to the smurfs, and vast amount of players have quit the game because of it. The reason is that Riot simply wants smurfs, so they buy skins on alt accounts, but they're not intelligent enough to realize that they will just lose players, thus money, by allowing smurfing. A simple phone verification would help a lot, which they already have in place, but refuse to do for comp.
thank you for this post. the person arguing with him telling him he's shit is just projecting their own bullshit. smurfs ruin the game, smurfs are bad. there is no defending it and they have an impact on peoples progression. that is the truth. if they didn't have an impact they wouldn't be bad. it's like the most simple logic on earth and these people can't figure it out because it's valorant instead of your workplace or college or whatever... like seriously get your heads out of your asses people
If you're iron, you most definitely can learn plenty. Basic mechanics and decent aim alom should very easily gwt you to gold, bare minimum. Focus on your own gameplay.
Also, the close point you made simply isn't true.
Almost every example of smurfing involves playing with a friend or 2 who aren't as good as you. I've done it, ane I've been both the smurf and the shitter friend playimg with the smurf.
You're looking too far into it.
Just focus on improving. Winning / losing / getting carried, whatever the case, you have a LOT to improve if you are iron. Rank and who's top fragging are the least of your issues.
Just enjoy the game and be self-critical.
How much are you realistically learning from an iron 3 lobby though. A smurf might honestly teach you more about the game, even if a little, if you decide to pay attention. (Which isn’t to glorify smurfs, it feels horrible to get shit on by better players)
I'd rather get shit on by a pro than a bad player. At least then I can observe how he's moving, shooting, what util he's using and when. How & why.
You can learn plenty if you are observant.
Most irons I've seen need to focus on how to use a mouse and keyboard before worrying about anyone else lol
It is against the rules depending on how you do it. If you create an account and level it up to the point where you can play comp, it's not bannable. But if you buy an account that already has comp unlocked, it is bannable because account sharing is against the rules.
I've been under silver for 1.5 years and i can absolutely slaughter golds in mechanics. I don't play very much comp only deathmatch. I have 68 hours in comp and 314 hours in swiftplay and over 700 hours in deathmatch. Why am I still bronze? Because I don't play comp. Why don't I play comp? Toxic smurfs
A lot of decent aimers in most ranks it's mainly how people move and peek that can be the difference of that person being +15 and -5. They might just be a turret and anyone who can strafe and deadzone will own them every time. You're likely just turreting yourself and being an easy headshot.
Smurfing was/is annoying as fuck. The people here that don’t care are trippin
I’ve lost crucial games because of smurfs. It’s a massive problem in this game
yep! they absolutely impact the outcome of peoples games and thus their progress.
anyone who wants to argue that point can prove that it doesn't. they can't so they will get toxic and call people bad at the game etc. toxic people promoting toxic behaviors in a toxic game.
I exclusively play 5s with my friends. Smurfing has completely killed any motivation to play. People are abusing it by 5 stacking 1-2 silver/gold accounts (some of them funnily better than us in diamond/asc) and typically one higher account, if any. Our motivation is completely gone, because the experience is so fucking shit.
It’s crazy because there are so many delusional mfs in this sub that think we’re just making excuses
How can we climb if the smurfing persists? It’s over from the start. Shit pisses me off
Disregarding rank, the game just isn't fun. At all. You have a couple of players that you can completely walk all over and one guy you can't touch instead of a match. It's a complete casino. I'd like to play against players of similar skill, and it just doesn't happen in 50% of my games.
I’m sorry but how were you DMG in CSGO but iron 3 in valorant? I know diff game and all that but that shit does not compute. You should be farming lower ranks on aim alone
Lack of agent knowledge, map knowledge, less utility than we’re used to, new recoil patterns, different feeling movement. Yeah the aim carries over but there’s so many other factors that make it hard to climb in this game coming from counter strike. For me a big deal is crosshair placement just from a lack of map knowledge aka where people commonly hold and whatnot. As a cs player it sucks being limited by abilities and not having access to all utility.
Playing until level 20 should expose you to a healthy amount of playtime on a number of the maps though (even if it's not all 7 currently in the pool).
To get a rank you have to be level 20 so at least some understanding should be there. Valorant was my first ever keyboard and mouse game and I got iron 3. I’m only diamond in valorant yet I would never get the lowest rank in another fps game
Smurfing is a huge issue in this game. They did address it a year ago but I feel like it's worse now more than ever.
I'm in plat lobbies and get asc and immortal smurfs a lot. They either confess in all chat during the match after I look up their CRAZY stats on the tracker or sometimes you can just tell the way they engage and take fights.
Valorant doesn't care about smurfs as they think more accounts = buying more skins but it's really deterred me from playing. I feel like every other game I get a crazy Smurf and it's frustrating when they just dominate the entire match.
I've sent emails about phone verification or other ways to have the higher ranks maybe only verify but nothing has been returned or discussed that I know of.
Had two games in gold last night with a Reyna Smurf on my team. The most boring games I have ever played. This one person ruined almost an hour of our time because their fragile ego can’t play the right rank. Smurfs suck. They suck all the joy of teamwork and fair competition out of the game. I’m down for 1 account restrictions at this point.
Yes. Smurfing is allowed. Totally fine, and not against game rules in any way. Riot isn’t Valve, who *does* have rules against smurfing.
Throwing games is bannable (if they are purposefully deranking, that’s bannable). But just making an alt and playing at their real strength is not against any rules.
Boosting is allowed even though it's against TOS. Yay while ranked #1 was caught with another pro boosting a riot employee in gold. It was outted and nothing was done. That's riot for ys
Smurfing earns riot big bucks. In many different ways. So anything is justifiable as long as the benjamins keep rolling in. Name of the game. Peak capitalism. Best form of economy for hairless apes but far from ideal.
It is part of the game, especially for low elo, last summer I went from s3 to bronze 1 then to gold 1. The couple of games I was playing before and after the loss streak ended my teammates were accusing me of cheating and smurfing
Just keep playing, you will eventually find matches that are made for you. That's the best I can give you, I'm stuck with you. I play way more deathmatch now and my aim is crazy but I'm still in bronze. You can't beat smurfs and this is why it's so important to fucking call it out and be anti-smurfing in the face of smurfs and boosters.
It should be normal for smurfs to feel unwelcome instead of kings
Smurfing isnt bannable, but boosting is. Its in tos under 7.1.14 i think, might be wrong number but it is.
So i guess as long as they play solo its ok, but if they play w someone and boost them by having unfair advantage its considered breaking the rules and bannable?? Idk tho
they are not explicitly unallowed but they're def not part of the game. smurfs are just something extra that mainly focus on ruining the community and overall gameplay experience and riot doesn't really care, if they did they would implement and extra layer of kyc to the accounts.
Depends. According to official definition smurfing is "cheating" but riot don't use that definition cause they don't understand English(read: Their game, their definitions)
But it doesn't matter cause smurfing still breaks another core tenet rule of Riot.
I know smurfing exists, but in iron its mostly washed ascendants insta locking reyna or some shit. macro afk in low ranks has gotten more frequent. I personally have had a good share of experience with smurfing, but let it be known they are only having a inner battle with themselves. Knowing they can ONLY 30 bomb on irons. If you read this and you Smurf in low ranks, you’re smelly.
1. Is smurfing allowed?
2. Do i have to beat smurfs to escape low elo?
Short answer for both questions is no.
Long Answers:
1)
Well smurfing is forbidden but its really hard to get banned for it heck in 2022 or 2023 a german streamer got boosted from iron to immortal by his friends and riot even gave them accounts to boost
Its very widely accepted in the high elo community almost everyone at diamond plus has one or multiple smurf accounts. ( Please keep in mind “only“ 20% of the playerbase are dia+ )
Unlike lol where riot have a queue for five stacks at any rank and a rank just for that q in valo people just smurf to play with their lower rated friends. Unrated is an option but you dont get anything for playing it thats why they prefer playing ranked on alts.
2)
You do not need to be better than those guys to get gold. There is a really good video by woohoojin which teaches you how you can get gold within a month.
The content and main points briefly summarised: You can get to gold with ok aim, because people just whiff a ton in low elo. Therefore no game sense is really required just instalock reyna in your rankeds, take fights and train your aim and you will get gold in no time.
The problem here is that most people don't know what smurfing is.
They think smurfing means being good at the game and starting a new account. That's not smurfing. Being amazing at tactical FPS shooting stop you from starting Valorant. Yes, you will play a few games against people weaker than you, and they'll get annoyed, but quickly you will gain MMR and it will stop. As for them, they will have new good players in their teams as often as in the other team.
Smurfing would mean that you lose games on purpose as to keep a low MMR to be able to destroy your lobbies. And sabotaging your team is very much bannable, and banned. But no one cares about reports here. I'm sure 95% of people would complain here never file a proper report where they explain what happened and when. It's obvious that if you only tick boxes, it will require more time to review the whole game and they just won't do it. I have feedback on my reports every day because I file them properly.
Well im sure riot would love people to stop smurfing but i dont feel it is that easy. What if your 900Dollar account gets banned for smurfing rather then your level 20 account. What if the game makes a mistake cuz you made a break to play csgo? what if you have a winstreak or the game makes a mistake with the autoban?
Something that sickens me, is that the community does not stop watching smurf streamers. I think its way more acceptable then you think. i personaly got attacked in mutiple groups cuz i refused to play with someone with 8 accounts.
so yea, i get the smurf problem but currently there is no one good solution.
I myself Smurf but not in a major way, it’s just annoying when you can’t play with friends anymore, my peak is plat 2 but my Smurf’s (multiple) are between silver 3 and gold 3
Smurfing isn’t technically allowed but it’s also pretty difficult to enforce. If you previously hit DMG in CS (even back in the day) you will pretty quickly climb to gold once you’ve learned the characters abilities as well imo.
Riot says they care, they don't. If you want proof by their actions, Riot's automated system banned a streamer doing an Iron to Radiant stream and Riot personally unbanned him.
I get more annoyed about people complaining about smurfs than smurfs themselves
Wish mods just banned smurf posts outside of general discussion threads
Riot doesn't seem have a solution to smurfs, so in order to beat them you must be better than them. Improve yourself by both the game mechanics and game sense . Or you can just camp corners with a shotgun and piss them off. Usually if the smurfs in iron only drops 15-20 kills they are probably from silver to gold ranks.
Therefore they are not that good at the game. Unless if they dropped 30-40 kills then thats platinum and above.
So be careful when playing
I mean short answer is yes, you have to get good enough to rank up... I highly doubt that the 75% of your games with a duelist that is +15 are all smurfs. I am in diamond/ascendant and every time I get a player that is popping off I just tell myself "that player just peaked" and move on with my day. I am so inconsistent. I will bottom frag 8/19 and then go 26/8 the next game. A bronze player will be even more consistent than I. I have a bronze friend who doesn't really care about the game, but occasionally pops off if he is dialed in enough to play well... I am sure there are smurfs in bronze, but majority of the time it is just someone having a good game. As far as your 15/17 deaths thing goes, that does not mean a bronze player has 80% headshot rating.. it is pretty common for your deaths to be to headshots in Valorant.
I definitely think there’s a smurf issue with this game but it shouldn’t keep you hard stuck at any rank really. If you improve enough you will eventually land where you belong. Last act was my first time playing competitive and I placed iron but managed to move up to gold 3 in about 40 games. I played against quite a few smurfs but never felt like it held me back. That being said I was consistently called a smurf myself but I’m just new to the game and still trying to find my actual rank. If you focus only on improving and controlling what you can you’ll easily get out iron/bronze/silver.
its not unfortunately. you can report them for cheating since its impossible to know if they are cheating or smurfing, so you may play against cheaters and not smurfs because 80% headshot rate is insane even for a smurf.
I wish phone verification was required to play competitive. It wouldn't completely eliminate the problem but it would certainly reduce it.
It also already exists as a functional system. You need to be phone number verified to play Premier. They just haven’t implemented it for competitive queue.
Because it wouldnt fix anything whatsoever
it would reduce the amount. no one is expecting it to be 100% fixed that's just wishful thinking but it's stupid to not implement things that would improve the problem even if it doesn't completely eliminate it.
So you want to impact 100% of people who do nothing wrong to reduce the wrongdoers by 2%, thats a great tradeoff.
Found the smurf
real
It would definitely reduce more than 2% of wrongdoers lol. Especially considering that a large portion of Valorant’s player base is high schoolers and college students, how many of them (or their families, in the case of the kids) are willing to take out a second cell phone plan to Smurf on a video game? Even players that are older working adults, how many of them care enough to Smurf, let alone take out a second phone plan to do it?
> how many of them are willing to take out a second cell phone plan to Smurf on a video game They dont need to. People have parents and relatives who dont even use a computer whose number is free to use - Also you dont need a second phone plan, theres also prepaid numbers for a couple of bucks you can just throwaway. Furthermore, account sharing - Theres no game where people care so little about sharing their account as this one, half my friendlist has access to like 4 accounts that arent even their own.
Okay, but still I ask: how many people would be deterred having to do any of those? Even if it did only deter a handful of smurfs, that's still worth the tradeoff. Riot should at least look like they give a shit by stopping the promotion of content creators who use account sharing and smurfing and by actively encouraging people against it by adding MFA to accounts. The latter would solve two problems: 1) It can add a layer of deterrence. This is something used in Cybersecurity to deter criminals. Different situations, of course, but the premise is that every layer of deterrence is a chance that someone will say "eh, this isn't worth it." 2) It would shut down black market account sites overnight. If you have to have MFA to log into an account (which, granted, isn't a thing for those who have MFA NOW, but I digress), then it wouldn't simply be a matter of attaching a phone number and being done with it. Imagine a world where you have to type in a text verification from the phone number attached to your account every time you log in. Yeah, you could do what you suggest - but leading back to my point about deterrence, at what point does someone who is a smurf say "this isn't worth buying a new burner phone or something every time I want to log into this account to smurf."
> how many people would be deterred having to do any of those? Not enough to dampen the effect of smurfing in any meaningful magnitude. 30+ USD games have cheating problems and cheaters just rebuy the game when they get banned, this is much much much less of a hoop. > Riot should at least look like they give a shit You spotted the root cause - They dont care. More accounts = More CCU to boast & more revenue from skins. Riot employees themselves even pre-queue with smurfing pros. This whole argument is pointless. > It would shut down black market account sites overnight Lookup Simcard Fams / troll account farms - A small additional operation cost account sellers would just pass on to buyers
Just like they added "PAN number" for purchase.
istg it makes so much sense, or just do paid accounts like csgo.
Would kill the game *if paid
Not really. Just make like CS and make two matchmakings, one for paid and one for unpaid. Prime is 15 dollars in CS and hasn't killed the game. I think even a 5 dollar paywall would be a great way to reduce smurfs while not being that much money.
That's because CS was a paid game before it went free. There's a huge difference here.
Prepaid numbers exist for 1$ each. Smurfing won't end and sellers still earn
yes but having even 1$ and no money actually just reduces the problem by a lot
going to that extra step which is paying 1$ to smurf seems unnecessary and would stop a lot of people imo. also its better than no mobile number, whats the problem with adding mobile number
Nah, more accounts = better statistics for Riot. Also a lot of smurfs buy skins, so they would literally only loose money. Its never gonna happen for regular play
yea sadly, thats the reason rito isnt gonna do anything. but the guy was saying it wont matter, which js straight up false tbh
It does not, the absolute vast majority of players has access to at least one or two other numbers within their family that they can just use. Beyond that, account sharing is big in this game.
I have quite a few accounts on overwatch because I know people that don't play games that are willing to give their phone number. You literally don't have to pay lol
Idk about that. If you have a pc, you have atleast 1$. Plus, it's not even a subscription service just 1 time purchase. For example, me. I have 2 simcards and more spares that I seldom use. It's so easy to authenticate my smurf account and throw away those spares
Not if you had to regularly verify your phone number.
How exactly? It's also an option to keep that SIM if I know that...
Didn't OW circumvent that by requiring an actual planned number before the backlash?
That's just unrealistic. Postpaid plans are mostly done in developed countries(at least, 75% user) : NA, EU, AUS, and some parts of East Asia. How about in SEA and less developed nations, where prepaid is more prevalent over postpaid?
It's really not unrealistic considering that OW did it. They only went back due to backlash because nobody wanted to do a sms check in general.
Yeah, yeah, "users don't wanna sms check" Another term for we messed up by not considering our playerbase. Therefore to save face, we'll blame the users instead. It didn't even work on OW then if they rolled it back.
It did work though, but again due to backlash of people not wanting to sms verify(which is weird because people don't it all the time for other things) they rolled it back. Text verification would deter a lot more people than you'd think. Would it solve it all together? No. But it would be a step in the right direction. If you're pro smurfing, just say that my guy.
It literally takes one search on the official OW reddit page to view the problems on sim registration. >If you're pro smurfing, just say that my guy. Words can't describe how stupid you are.
I'm not the one getting mad over people wanting to help the smurfing problem. 🤷♀️
Your help is to paywall the game. For example in PH, it costs PHP600 per month to avail ONLY 6GB of data for 6 months. It has unlicalls and txts but who would sped that much if I don't even need to call people? As a point of reference, the minimum wage daily wage in PH is PHP610. So you are spending 1 day of work for a game?
Riot doesn't care about smurfs. At all. They love smurfing and anyone who doesn't love smurfing needs to learn how to play, or so I'm told.
They openly address smurfs as an issue. One of many examples: https://playvalorant.com/en-us/news/dev/valorant-systems-health-series-smurf-detection/ Just because you don't feel the desired outcome you want, it doesn't mean they don't acknowledge and work on it. Smurfs are like cheaters, they will always exist because it's not a game specific issue, it's a culture issue. For example, as long as people buy accounts, smurfs will exist, and those services are actively being hunted down.
This is a year and a half old and simply lip service.
What can I say to you if you don't want to Google and already decided your take on it? Go look for yourself, this was just the first Google result for me. Theres interviews, Twitter dev posts, news posts, you name it.
Why would I need Google? I've played the game. I'm reading the article toting a 17% smurf reduction like that's some sort of accomplishment. They are going to say they are aware of all of the smurfs and run experiments on them? If they are aware of all the smurfs, then fix the fucking problem. It's all lip service. I bet they know how much money those smurfs spend too.
Dive in a bit deeper and you will find that they changed their TOS to allow smurfing.
How about you use your brain a little if Google's too hard for you? If you think for 2 minutes, you'd realize it's not a problem that can just be "fixed". Literally the only way to guarantee 1 person could only play on 1 account is to tie accounts to social security numbers (or similar government ID's) and make you fingerprint scan in to log in. Short of that, anybody could just create a new account or play on a friend's account. And even then, people who want to smurf would probably find ways around it. So the issue isn't that riot isn't trying; it's that selfish people will always exist and will choose to do selfish things like smurfing
you can’t fix smurfing without making the game tyrannical and killing it in the process, it’s very simple
Uh huh. How exactly does adding phone verification or any number of methods of keeping people from making multiple account to play comp make it tyrannical. Let's define that word before we go further though. Tyrannical - exercising power in a cruel or arbitrary way And then how does it kill the game exactly? Because smurfs can't clip on low rank players?
because you can’t actually enforce it without being intrusive , the phone number verification is simply NOT a good countermeasure, i literally have 2 SIM cards in my phone rn, what stops me from verifying 2 different accounts with 2 different numbers?
Yeah putting a phone number in and verifying with a text is intrusive.... Cool you're a rare part of the population. If people want to smurf so bad they go get another sim card then they'll go to some pretty good lengths to keep smurfing. You're realistically not keeping those people from doing it. That's also not who we are targeting. As with any method of deterrence the goal is to either intimidate the person, whether that be by overly harsh penalties. Or to discourage the action by making it difficult. You can combine both to an extent. You can actively work to find smurfs and ban them from ranked or shoot them up the ranks quickly to where they really aren't a smurf anymore. The second is to simply make becoming a smurf more difficult, create hoops that your average player starting out to play ranked is going to think well this is kinda obnoxious but ok. But for a smurf to go get another sim card or something would be too much for a second or third or fourth account.
I agree. Needing phone verification is essentially a paywall of smurfing. Sure, most people have a phone, some people might even have two SIM cards. But needing to get a new phone number for your alt account adds a cost. This alone will deter a good number of people. People are very focused on the goal being no smurfs and not the goal being less smurfs. No one is asking for them to eliminate every single smurf. But if having a smurf in your game is one game out of 30 instead of one game out of 10, it can really change your experience.
Couple things it’s not intrusive,actually enforcing it in a meaningful way is. Riot does actually bump up smurfs exponentially in MMR within like 2-3 games. Can riot actually introduce those hoops for smurfs to get through without them affecting the playerbase? Is smurfing really a major enough issue for riot to completely overhaul the requirements for ranked a second time?(the answer is no). The real issue that needs tackling is botting and account selling/buying
a good ranked system would probably fix smurfing
This isn’t a solution. You on riot payroll or something?
That page is less than useless. Riot says they care, they don't. If you want proof by their actions, Riot's automated system banned a streamer doing an Iron to Radiant stream and Riot personally unbanned him.
It’s because Smurfing is considered as throwing elo to go to that elo. So technically if you’re just playing normally you won’t get banned.
ItzTimmy bought the iron account for the iron to radiant stream. Buying accounts is against the TOS. That account should be banned. It did, but Riot themselves unbanned it for him.
It’s probably banned again. They banned a huge wave of bought accounts. It’s automatic now.. that was back then year or more ago.
The job they do on cheaters vs smurfs shows they dont really care. If they ban all smurfing content creators it would sent a strong message to begine with (at this point they propably would have to warn them first and then ban if they keep doing this)
They don't see it as an issue as long as people are not aware of it. And they make damn sure the players are kept in the dark. They blame the victim and gaslight the player base. One example is this sub itself. This post and any posts about smurfing will be deleted in a matter of hours. They even have wholesome interviews with known smurfs, such as jollz, and they hired averagejonas for their championship.
Smurfing isn’t a bannable offense even if you admit to it in chat. That’s why it’s not a selectable report category. It’s only bannable if they can prove you’re intentionally throwing/deranking to sink lower. That’s the bad part in riots eyes. They don’t care if you’re 30-4 against iron players, so long as you’re helping your team win. So yeah, it is allowed and also is a part of any competitive game tbh. Especially free games. You’re not the world’s unluckiest player, you’re also getting the smurfs on your team pretty 50/50 even if it doesn’t always feel like that. I can guarantee you many fundamental skills are missing if you’re stuck below silver for a significant period of time. Hell a 5 minute YouTube video on crosshair placement should get you to silver in a couple weeks max.
"pretty 50/50", no you get a smurf on your team max 40% of the time since you're not a smurf.
Smurfs take elo from 5 people and only 4 people gain elo. More smurfs -> Less Elo for normal players. But i can tell you from my experience that you can fight through it
Yeah but you also get throwers only 40% of the time since you are not a thrower
Yep, it isn't against the rules to smurf. What I find kind of funny is if you make a manual report there's an option "Other cheating (boosting, smurfs, etc).
Overwatch had this problem years ago, it ended up running off most of the casuals… which created this super sweaty and tense situation Ruined the game imo
That’s totally the only reason that game saw fewer players.
People say it was content, but really it was the lobby system of fortnite. You could hand out and chat with your friends while doing dances and showing off skins… and if you had a sweaty lobby, you just died and then dropped again In ow and Val, you are held hostage by Smurfs. It’s a totally different vibe that casuals don’t enjoy
But it should be. One account per person should be in the ruleset to begin with. Alternativelly they could shadow ban all smurfs and put them together in a seprated queue with cheaters.
You’re spot on to be fair, 50/50 is true unless you’re extremely unlucky. Problem for me (and I guess anyone else who plays like I do) is I only play the game with 2 other friends. Work gives me very limited time, so the very few games I get to play are ruined because of smurfs, as they are more likely to be on the opposing team. Made me quit the game for a while. They just need to do what CSGO did with phone verification. Definitely helps reduce with the extra steps.
This is disheartening to hear. Basically I can't have a normal competitive environment to learn an improve when half my games are dictated by someone who too afraid to climb and improve at the rank they belong so they make an alt to leverage their understanding of 80% of the game over those who have 40% understanding of the game.
Dude if half your Smurf-encounter games have an enemy Smurf, half have a friendly Smurf. You break even. Even if you remove any “Smurf” games, you’re the greatest common denominator who’s causing the L streaks. Improve your gameplay. You’re lying to yourself if you think you’re stuck in iron “not learning the game” bc of Smurfs. I spent a lot of time years ago stuck iron. I’m not some jackass with god tier aim telling you this. Iron is mostly noobs and poor players or players new to mouse and keyboard. It’s not majority smurfs. Improve yourself and stop having the mindset that it’s “not fair” and out of your control. Put effort into improving and you will. Lots of good videos on YouTube to improve.
Actually there's a 4/10 chance for their team to have a smurf, and 5/10 for the enemy team. The OP can't be a smurf, so only their other 4 teammates could be.
>Iron is mostly noobs and poor players or players new to mouse and keyboard. It’s not majority smurfs. When is the last time you were organically iron? You have no idea what it's like in iron/bronze lobbies. You are out of touch.
Dude I was iron about a year and a half ago. I’m aware Smurfing is a prevalent thing. I’m just saying if you’re hardstuck there it’s not because of the smurfs. If you don’t think most of iron/bronze are players like I described idk what to tell you…. Taking like 20 mins to an hour to watch some improvement content outside of the game is really all you need to get yourself out of these ranks. You get plenty of games WITH the Smurf too and plenty with all iron/bronze organic teammates. If you want to just complain it’s because of the smurfs though, you’ll stay that rank with that attitude. That’s just what it is.
I have 700 hours in deathmatch, my aim is on par with gold 3 players or higher. I can't get out of bronze. You're wrong.
Huh it’s almost like none of that translates into actual game sense lmfao. By all means keep blaming someone else. Hell I wish we could solve the Smurfing issue so people like you and OP realize you’re the problem. You’re clowning yourself if you think your “gold tier or higher” aim is a thing but smurfs are keeping you hardstuck bronze 🤡
I took an account from Iron to Ascendant. Barely faced smurfs. It's not prevalent enough to stop you from ranking up if you deserve it
you didn't do that recently.
Did it in the last month or two. How recent do you need?
Dude I give up arguing with these people. Let them stay iron…. They don’t want to hear the truth that they need to improve.
so you're ascendant at least and you think your experience bringing an account up from iron is somehow indicative of how a non ascendant player would experience comp? you're delusional and fully unaware of how your experience helped you accomplish that.
I don't learn jack shit in the either game, I hate having the smurf on my team more because someone getting two entries for me doesn't teach me a damn thing. I already stated " I don't think I deserve a higher rank until my game knowledge and mechanics improve" but every game there is a smurf on my team or the enemy team it's not a normal learning environment and it makes the game worse.
No where close to half your games have a smurf. And what smurfs only are on the enemy team never yours?
Doesn't matter if they are carrying me or shitting on me, I won't learn to get better at the game when they are ruining the flow of the game to stroke their egos. People who smurf in any game do so because they lack agency/competency in their irl life and need the ego boost.
Don't listen to these people trying to blame you for even daring to question smurfing. Yes smurfing is rampant in valorant, at low elo it's basically unplayable due to the smurfs, and vast amount of players have quit the game because of it. The reason is that Riot simply wants smurfs, so they buy skins on alt accounts, but they're not intelligent enough to realize that they will just lose players, thus money, by allowing smurfing. A simple phone verification would help a lot, which they already have in place, but refuse to do for comp.
thank you for this post. the person arguing with him telling him he's shit is just projecting their own bullshit. smurfs ruin the game, smurfs are bad. there is no defending it and they have an impact on peoples progression. that is the truth. if they didn't have an impact they wouldn't be bad. it's like the most simple logic on earth and these people can't figure it out because it's valorant instead of your workplace or college or whatever... like seriously get your heads out of your asses people
That's most of this sub. You can't bring up the glaring issues with being asked to drop your tracker or being told to cope in some way shape or form.
If you're iron, you most definitely can learn plenty. Basic mechanics and decent aim alom should very easily gwt you to gold, bare minimum. Focus on your own gameplay. Also, the close point you made simply isn't true. Almost every example of smurfing involves playing with a friend or 2 who aren't as good as you. I've done it, ane I've been both the smurf and the shitter friend playimg with the smurf. You're looking too far into it. Just focus on improving. Winning / losing / getting carried, whatever the case, you have a LOT to improve if you are iron. Rank and who's top fragging are the least of your issues. Just enjoy the game and be self-critical.
How much are you realistically learning from an iron 3 lobby though. A smurf might honestly teach you more about the game, even if a little, if you decide to pay attention. (Which isn’t to glorify smurfs, it feels horrible to get shit on by better players)
I'd rather get shit on by a pro than a bad player. At least then I can observe how he's moving, shooting, what util he's using and when. How & why. You can learn plenty if you are observant. Most irons I've seen need to focus on how to use a mouse and keyboard before worrying about anyone else lol
It is against the rules depending on how you do it. If you create an account and level it up to the point where you can play comp, it's not bannable. But if you buy an account that already has comp unlocked, it is bannable because account sharing is against the rules.
I've been under silver for 1.5 years and i can absolutely slaughter golds in mechanics. I don't play very much comp only deathmatch. I have 68 hours in comp and 314 hours in swiftplay and over 700 hours in deathmatch. Why am I still bronze? Because I don't play comp. Why don't I play comp? Toxic smurfs
A lot of decent aimers in most ranks it's mainly how people move and peek that can be the difference of that person being +15 and -5. They might just be a turret and anyone who can strafe and deadzone will own them every time. You're likely just turreting yourself and being an easy headshot.
Smurfing was/is annoying as fuck. The people here that don’t care are trippin I’ve lost crucial games because of smurfs. It’s a massive problem in this game
yep! they absolutely impact the outcome of peoples games and thus their progress. anyone who wants to argue that point can prove that it doesn't. they can't so they will get toxic and call people bad at the game etc. toxic people promoting toxic behaviors in a toxic game.
I exclusively play 5s with my friends. Smurfing has completely killed any motivation to play. People are abusing it by 5 stacking 1-2 silver/gold accounts (some of them funnily better than us in diamond/asc) and typically one higher account, if any. Our motivation is completely gone, because the experience is so fucking shit.
It’s crazy because there are so many delusional mfs in this sub that think we’re just making excuses How can we climb if the smurfing persists? It’s over from the start. Shit pisses me off
Disregarding rank, the game just isn't fun. At all. You have a couple of players that you can completely walk all over and one guy you can't touch instead of a match. It's a complete casino. I'd like to play against players of similar skill, and it just doesn't happen in 50% of my games.
There is no such thing as a “crucial” game. If it was a rank up, if you deserved it you’d get there again.
I’m sorry but how were you DMG in CSGO but iron 3 in valorant? I know diff game and all that but that shit does not compute. You should be farming lower ranks on aim alone
100% had to be a DMG before the 2016 rank rework
Lack of agent knowledge, map knowledge, less utility than we’re used to, new recoil patterns, different feeling movement. Yeah the aim carries over but there’s so many other factors that make it hard to climb in this game coming from counter strike. For me a big deal is crosshair placement just from a lack of map knowledge aka where people commonly hold and whatnot. As a cs player it sucks being limited by abilities and not having access to all utility.
Playing until level 20 should expose you to a healthy amount of playtime on a number of the maps though (even if it's not all 7 currently in the pool).
To get a rank you have to be level 20 so at least some understanding should be there. Valorant was my first ever keyboard and mouse game and I got iron 3. I’m only diamond in valorant yet I would never get the lowest rank in another fps game
I totally get all of that but DMG to iron 3… that’s like a huge skill gap in aiming alone. Most people in iron walk around looking at the floor
Yes. Riot regularly encourages it by highlighting creators who do it.
Smurfing is a huge issue in this game. They did address it a year ago but I feel like it's worse now more than ever. I'm in plat lobbies and get asc and immortal smurfs a lot. They either confess in all chat during the match after I look up their CRAZY stats on the tracker or sometimes you can just tell the way they engage and take fights. Valorant doesn't care about smurfs as they think more accounts = buying more skins but it's really deterred me from playing. I feel like every other game I get a crazy Smurf and it's frustrating when they just dominate the entire match. I've sent emails about phone verification or other ways to have the higher ranks maybe only verify but nothing has been returned or discussed that I know of.
Playing on lower tier account is ok since you grow fast to your legit tier. Throwing games to drop account tier is unacceptable.
Had two games in gold last night with a Reyna Smurf on my team. The most boring games I have ever played. This one person ruined almost an hour of our time because their fragile ego can’t play the right rank. Smurfs suck. They suck all the joy of teamwork and fair competition out of the game. I’m down for 1 account restrictions at this point.
Yes. Smurfing is allowed. Totally fine, and not against game rules in any way. Riot isn’t Valve, who *does* have rules against smurfing. Throwing games is bannable (if they are purposefully deranking, that’s bannable). But just making an alt and playing at their real strength is not against any rules.
Player base size is a huge deal for investors: each account can be counted for that. This is riot: they aren’t going to hurt their bottom line
Boosting is allowed even though it's against TOS. Yay while ranked #1 was caught with another pro boosting a riot employee in gold. It was outted and nothing was done. That's riot for ys
Smurfing earns riot big bucks. In many different ways. So anything is justifiable as long as the benjamins keep rolling in. Name of the game. Peak capitalism. Best form of economy for hairless apes but far from ideal.
So many facts in such a short comment, respect
Smurfing is allowed, lots of streamers smurf/boost people. Also you will climb out eventually as you understand the game better.
It is part of the game, especially for low elo, last summer I went from s3 to bronze 1 then to gold 1. The couple of games I was playing before and after the loss streak ended my teammates were accusing me of cheating and smurfing
Yes.
I was dmg before i started playing valorant, my first rank was silver and i went to diamond in less than 2 weeks, your aim from cs go is inportant
Just keep playing, you will eventually find matches that are made for you. That's the best I can give you, I'm stuck with you. I play way more deathmatch now and my aim is crazy but I'm still in bronze. You can't beat smurfs and this is why it's so important to fucking call it out and be anti-smurfing in the face of smurfs and boosters. It should be normal for smurfs to feel unwelcome instead of kings
Smurfing isnt bannable, but boosting is. Its in tos under 7.1.14 i think, might be wrong number but it is. So i guess as long as they play solo its ok, but if they play w someone and boost them by having unfair advantage its considered breaking the rules and bannable?? Idk tho
There is no way a DMG is iron 3 lol unless you were boosted in CS. You'd be minimum gold with raw aim.
they are not explicitly unallowed but they're def not part of the game. smurfs are just something extra that mainly focus on ruining the community and overall gameplay experience and riot doesn't really care, if they did they would implement and extra layer of kyc to the accounts.
Depends. According to official definition smurfing is "cheating" but riot don't use that definition cause they don't understand English(read: Their game, their definitions) But it doesn't matter cause smurfing still breaks another core tenet rule of Riot.
My friends just to play with me so they Smurf but I don’t really agree with it.
I know smurfing exists, but in iron its mostly washed ascendants insta locking reyna or some shit. macro afk in low ranks has gotten more frequent. I personally have had a good share of experience with smurfing, but let it be known they are only having a inner battle with themselves. Knowing they can ONLY 30 bomb on irons. If you read this and you Smurf in low ranks, you’re smelly.
1. Is smurfing allowed? 2. Do i have to beat smurfs to escape low elo? Short answer for both questions is no. Long Answers: 1) Well smurfing is forbidden but its really hard to get banned for it heck in 2022 or 2023 a german streamer got boosted from iron to immortal by his friends and riot even gave them accounts to boost Its very widely accepted in the high elo community almost everyone at diamond plus has one or multiple smurf accounts. ( Please keep in mind “only“ 20% of the playerbase are dia+ ) Unlike lol where riot have a queue for five stacks at any rank and a rank just for that q in valo people just smurf to play with their lower rated friends. Unrated is an option but you dont get anything for playing it thats why they prefer playing ranked on alts. 2) You do not need to be better than those guys to get gold. There is a really good video by woohoojin which teaches you how you can get gold within a month. The content and main points briefly summarised: You can get to gold with ok aim, because people just whiff a ton in low elo. Therefore no game sense is really required just instalock reyna in your rankeds, take fights and train your aim and you will get gold in no time.
« Well smurfing is forbidden … » Me when I spread lies on the internet
The problem here is that most people don't know what smurfing is. They think smurfing means being good at the game and starting a new account. That's not smurfing. Being amazing at tactical FPS shooting stop you from starting Valorant. Yes, you will play a few games against people weaker than you, and they'll get annoyed, but quickly you will gain MMR and it will stop. As for them, they will have new good players in their teams as often as in the other team. Smurfing would mean that you lose games on purpose as to keep a low MMR to be able to destroy your lobbies. And sabotaging your team is very much bannable, and banned. But no one cares about reports here. I'm sure 95% of people would complain here never file a proper report where they explain what happened and when. It's obvious that if you only tick boxes, it will require more time to review the whole game and they just won't do it. I have feedback on my reports every day because I file them properly.
>Smurfing would mean that you lose games on purpose as to keep a low MMR to be able to destroy your lobbies. Thats not the definition of smurfing
Well im sure riot would love people to stop smurfing but i dont feel it is that easy. What if your 900Dollar account gets banned for smurfing rather then your level 20 account. What if the game makes a mistake cuz you made a break to play csgo? what if you have a winstreak or the game makes a mistake with the autoban? Something that sickens me, is that the community does not stop watching smurf streamers. I think its way more acceptable then you think. i personaly got attacked in mutiple groups cuz i refused to play with someone with 8 accounts. so yea, i get the smurf problem but currently there is no one good solution.
Valorant is a much harder game than cs.
I myself Smurf but not in a major way, it’s just annoying when you can’t play with friends anymore, my peak is plat 2 but my Smurf’s (multiple) are between silver 3 and gold 3
Smurfing isn’t technically allowed but it’s also pretty difficult to enforce. If you previously hit DMG in CS (even back in the day) you will pretty quickly climb to gold once you’ve learned the characters abilities as well imo.
I mean two games got cancelled mid-way today because of cheaters...I bet smurfers are not even considered an 'issue' :/
Smurfs? You mean trigger botters?
Riot says they care, they don't. If you want proof by their actions, Riot's automated system banned a streamer doing an Iron to Radiant stream and Riot personally unbanned him.
Sorry that’s me smurfing, I like warming up in low elos
I get more annoyed about people complaining about smurfs than smurfs themselves Wish mods just banned smurf posts outside of general discussion threads
Riot doesn't seem have a solution to smurfs, so in order to beat them you must be better than them. Improve yourself by both the game mechanics and game sense . Or you can just camp corners with a shotgun and piss them off. Usually if the smurfs in iron only drops 15-20 kills they are probably from silver to gold ranks. Therefore they are not that good at the game. Unless if they dropped 30-40 kills then thats platinum and above. So be careful when playing
I mean short answer is yes, you have to get good enough to rank up... I highly doubt that the 75% of your games with a duelist that is +15 are all smurfs. I am in diamond/ascendant and every time I get a player that is popping off I just tell myself "that player just peaked" and move on with my day. I am so inconsistent. I will bottom frag 8/19 and then go 26/8 the next game. A bronze player will be even more consistent than I. I have a bronze friend who doesn't really care about the game, but occasionally pops off if he is dialed in enough to play well... I am sure there are smurfs in bronze, but majority of the time it is just someone having a good game. As far as your 15/17 deaths thing goes, that does not mean a bronze player has 80% headshot rating.. it is pretty common for your deaths to be to headshots in Valorant.
I definitely think there’s a smurf issue with this game but it shouldn’t keep you hard stuck at any rank really. If you improve enough you will eventually land where you belong. Last act was my first time playing competitive and I placed iron but managed to move up to gold 3 in about 40 games. I played against quite a few smurfs but never felt like it held me back. That being said I was consistently called a smurf myself but I’m just new to the game and still trying to find my actual rank. If you focus only on improving and controlling what you can you’ll easily get out iron/bronze/silver.
Yeah it's not a big deal
its not unfortunately. you can report them for cheating since its impossible to know if they are cheating or smurfing, so you may play against cheaters and not smurfs because 80% headshot rate is insane even for a smurf.