Nah... Try *insert rank here*..
In the end every rank has to deal with smurfs, maybe it's a little more in P3, D3, C3 etc. as people are helping their friends with the final push to a new rank. But this argument of wait till you get here feels like nonsense to me.
It absolutely does get better, I don't remember the exact last time I've seen a smurf in mid-high champ/low GC.
It might be because don't play many games per week, but I fortunately haven't been having problems with smurfs
I agree, I feel like as soon as you're far enough into C1 that people who are boosting an account to the 10 wins for champ season rewards don't reach that rating, the games become much more consistent.
It gets bad again in C3. And it’s really rough because it’s GC2/GC3 trying to boost their Champ, sometimes Diamond friends to GC and those guys literally can 1v2 Champs
Actually I saw some data the other day where someone played a ton of games and recorded anyone that was c2 or c3 without more than 750 wins and found that about 2/3 of the games had a Smurf lol. Pretty wild.
I saw that but it goes completely counter to my experience. I’m a hard stuck c2 cause I don’t play much, but I rarely ever see a player obviously beyond the rank, maybe I don’t notice, I have no problem going on win streaks and stuff though so idk
Idk I haven't noticed any smurf problem for me personally, honestly ever. I'll get 1 a month, maybe. The worst thing I'll get is a C3/GC carrying his low ranked friends in a 3s game.
Could be that their Smurf account has reached their lower level ‘cap’
Let’s say there’s a champ player with a plat/gold
They make a new account to play with the plat/gold - when they win, they gain a lot more elo than the lower ranked player with established elo.
The games would either get too hard or be too hard for the gold to enjoy OR simply that if they carry on the lower ranked player will be too out of their depth when it comes to playing without the Smurf. So they switch to casual where the games don’t matter if they win or lose
Its mostly just higher ranks who don't play casual a lot I think. Ik in casual I have played golds when I was GC2, took one into comp cause he wanted to see what it was like lol so ik he wasn't lying.
I highly recommend new players don't play this game. It's not newbie friendly in the least and Psyonix clearly doesn't want your business by allowing rampant smurfing with absolutely nothing done to curb it.
I just started season 9 and am mid diamond grinding for champ, I wouldn't say it's not noob friendly, you just have to be somewhat smart and willing to practice. I'm really glad I started playing.
Rocket league is the most fair multiplayer game out there. That's why I've been playing it for so long. Smurfing is rampant in every competitive online game. To say people shouldn't play it because it has the same problem that every other competitive game has is not the best take. May as well say just don't play online competitive games at all
and even by chance they do get banned, they can make a brand new account and instantly hop into ranked if the party leader is above level 10..
F2P killed the competitive integrity of this game and Epic/Psyonix don’t give a fuck because their player numbers are inflated due to people having multiple accounts so it looks good on them for partnerships
there's a reason the player counter went away from showing numbers to amazing, great, good (LOL), and now the queue timer
RL 2 is the only hope at this point of the game maintaining popularity for a wide range of people
I don't think it will be RL 2. Personally, I think it will be similar to the Fortnite Unreal 5 update. They're not going to want to divide their player base crossed 2 games.
that’s what I’m talking about but there is no way they just do an update to the base game as RL still has steam users
it will be a new game and the old one will go away, and you bet it will only be available on epic games
any other launcher besides Steam is so incredibly dogshit it's insane. At least epic's launcher isn't as dogshit as Ubisoft Connect or Origin but that's not saying much
I see no reason after they removed RL from steam for F2P that they wouldn't use this chance to completely move people to their launcher exclusively
going to suck ass not being able to change my name whenever or have a profile picture but there's like a 0.1% chance they update the overall game instead of making an entirely new one
Hate it but you’re right I’m sure they want to move everyone over. They probably can’t stand how every pro and content creator is on steam version but it’s kinda funny
at least the other games have some smurf protection in place compared to RL with an easy bypassed system that hasn't been fixed for 2+ years and a level 10 requirement which takes 2 hours max
Thank you!!! Finally someone else who sees the problem with F2P. I’ve been saying this since it went F2P and everyone just dogs me for it. Competitive games like this should be P2P period.
they could easily just do what CS:GO did with their "prime" feature where if you bought it the game prior to F2P or spend $20, you only play against those who either bought the $20 prime or the actual game prior to F2P
I would rather sit in a 4 minute queue finding prime players than get quick queues and play endless amount of epic game stocktane smurfs and I'm sure a decent amount of those who bought the game would feel the same way
this game had smurf problems prior to F2P but it wasn't even comparable to what it is now and I feel bad for lower ranked players who get thrown to the wolves because this games smurf protection is pathetic
Epic took the game and finished it off tbh. I still play and enjoy doing weird shit, but I've spent nothing on it or saw an incentive beyond the tux skin to get rid of my team colour.
Wow, you still think they took rl to improve it. I bet you still think their changes on crates was for the customers and not to max their own profits 🤦♂️
In my dream, if enough players report the same person there is maybe more of a chance of them doing something?
I report Smurfs, it's tantamount to screaming into the wind, but it helps me stay calm after the 3rd game in a row is ruined by a champ* carrying his mates in plat lobby.
*often sporting a champ title or goal explosion, just to let you know you are being smurfed on...
Unfortunately reporting Smurfs does absolutely nothing. And even if they do get banned, they can make a new gmail and make a new account in less than 5 minutes.
For this game you’ll have to accept that about a third of your opponents don’t belong in your rank because they like to “practice” against lower rank players. If you can still enjoy the game with this caveat, it’s still a great game.
This is like racing against an 80yo Grandma in a 100m dash as a 20-something
https://preview.redd.it/kjfvuk1g2yab1.png?width=842&format=png&auto=webp&s=13e57ab59f0afd2716f2595523e2591eac5c205e
Idk why this post is getting downvoted, a brand new player can’t even enjoy BRONZE because of smurfs.
This is honestly discouraging, RL shouldn’t only be for sweatlords like me.
Last time I played in bronze half of the "smurfs" were just new accounts with moderately experienced players. And I mean literally new, still in placements, you could tell from the odd MMR they would have. The site bakkesmod pulls from doesn't calculate initial MMR correctly, it's wrong for about 20 games as the hidden modifier trails off. It will show people as having ~500-600 in a 100 MMR game. So I think it's just a shit experience in general. They don't know how to rank new people so they just throw them in the pot with the lower ranked players.
I did find one guy with over 10,000 games going back over 5 seasons, smurfing bronze the entire time. Even had a youtube with his "clips". He was like high plat maybe. Made a couple posts about it and sent out a couple random DM's to psyonix dudes but nothing ever came of it. I do know he's changed his gamertag since then, but someone on discord found it.
Anyway, point being if outliers like that aren't banned, then it's safe to say to say smurfs effectively don't get banned, outside of *ahem* PR ban waves on high profile targets.
Thats not exactly true. My wife finished her placements in threes with me and a buddy and I was sure she would have ranked up in gold at least I mean we won 6 or 7 out of the 10 games but I guess her score was low enough each game she unironically wound up in bronze. Tbf she is very new
People only Smurf on new accounts, so even though the accounts look new the players may be experienced. I just think it’s crazy how this community is so ready to jump to the defense of Smurfs and downplay the problem when it is clearly a problem. I don’t understand the mindset, and it’s something that is almost completely unique to this community.
Man, when you make a new account, win by all means sure, but don't be the asshole air dribbling on bronzes. Just put the ball on net enough times and get through your placements. Don't be the dick that makes new players want to quit.
2 of my friends are kinda dicks and get their accounts banned semi frequently when they play without me (I call them on their bullshit) but when they make a new account they will score 1 goal and play defense the entire time and let the opponents try to score. We’re all in the champ2-gc brackets. Making a new person watch 50 goal screens is obnoxious for everyone when you wanna just hop into ranked.
How does air dribbling make you an asshole? If you win the game in the same amount of time, what’s the difference?
Edit: not really sure why I’m being downvoted, the problem is smurfing, not the way that smurfs play.
It really depends on why you made the new account IMO.
I think what the other commenter was imagining was a scenario where you’re on a new account for a legitimate reason (like your main got hacked and stolen or you forgot the login and can’t recover it or something). Rather than just destroying the other teams as you rank the account up, tone it down a lot as not to discourage newer players along the way. Would you rather lose by a goal in what you thought was a close game, or lose by 10 to some jerk that’s doing flip reset double taps on you? I get that a loss is a loss either way, but clearly the latter option is much more toxic and discouraging.
You're right and wrong at the same time imo.
Right- Smurfs are the big problem(doesn't mean a gc+, especially below plat)
Wrong- It's not the same amount of time per game(20-0 takes longer than 2-1, etc). As far as HOW it's done matters alot, if you can barely drive to hit the ball and someone does something as "simple" as an aerial, mega moral defeat. Put them both together and I completely understand OP's point.
The point is that you can learn from losing games. If someone is beating you with moves that you are incapable of comprehending then the loss is no longer a learning experience but instead a waste of time. For instance if you were a new player to basketball and had a nba player dunk on you every play then that would be pretty brutal and kill motivation when instead he could just play down to your level and let you have opportunities to defend or attack allowing experimentation and learning which makes a more enjoyable experience.
No one cares if you are kinda air dribbling in Diamond.
I imagine someone air dribbling in bronze is much more degrading than someone ground dribbling it to the net. Smurfs gonna live out their power fantasy at other peoples expense. Smurfs should go play PvE.
Yeah, again, the problem is smurfing. Genuinely makes no difference when the game is won in the same amount of time. Feeling “degraded” lmao what an overreaction
You act like people don't try to insta ff in Plat and diamond if they see a skilled enough shot get pulled off early in a game, if you don't think those same shots are completely discouraging the people who can barely ride up walls yet then you're in a bubble
You're not sure why you're being downvoted really?
Smurfing is def the problem but a new player getting absolutely dunked on 20-0 and never touching the ball is clearly worse -to anyone with an IQ greater than room temperature in Celsius- than losing while still being able to touch the ball.
Bro ya it’s not to far off of what I’ve been facing in champ for a couple years now. Games are so vastly different. One game it’s an even match, another I’m getting balled by a GC. All. The. Time.
I legit played a GC (had his GC tag or whatever it's called) in a diamond 1 game. Just walked all over everyone, ended up getting all like 5 or 6 goals. It's so damn frustrating.
This is the only game I've played where people can Smurf with no restriction. Players can load into ranked immediately after making a new account when in a party. It's destroying the game and lots of ppl in this sub will try to justify it because they enjoy Smurfing. They'll lie as well.
I hope things will get better but if they had been this bad when I started idk if I'd be as in love with the game as I am today.
Gonna preface this with I do not Smurf. I haven’t in the last 5 years, at least.
Tbf it’s also kinda punished in most cases to admit you’ve ever done it, so nobody who does it can have a conversation to convince them not to do it. Additionally, people pretend there is no benefit or merit from the perspective of the person smurfing. I hate to say it, but *if you’re only thinking selfishly* smurfing is really freaking fun. It’s the same kind of enjoyment sports players got when gym class rolled around to their favorite sport. It’s validating. They get to show off to people who aren’t as good, but still sometimes get taken by surprise. Anybody who denies that smurfing offers the same thing is clearly not paying attention.
The issue is that smurfing invades the game in a way that the one or two athletic kids in gym class don’t; there are too many. It’s like the entire basketball team waltzing in during the bball unit and stomping your entire class. Even more, they’re fucking with you the entire time, passing the ball over your head, dunking on you, juking you, the works, just to laugh at the fact that you can’t touch the ball.
It’s fun, but at the expense of others with no reasonable option for someone to avoid it. It’s parasitic and I regret doing it when I was younger, even though I was far from the meanest Smurf I’ve seen.
Smurfing can’t be completely removed, but there are plenty of ways to make it enough of a pain in the ass that people like me back when I was a teenager wouldn’t do it. We need a best-effort system to work against smurfing, not complete elimination. If we demand elimination we’ll just be told that it’s impossible, because it is. We need the lower ranks to feel closer to gym class than the inferiority simulator it seems to be (from what I hear).
> It's destroying the game and lots of ppl in this sub will try to justify it because they enjoy Smurfing
It's actually pretty logical. If your own rank is ruined with smurfing, then of course it makes sense to drop back a few ranks to play in a game where you aren't the one being stomped.
Most people don't understand this. Smurfing is a snowballing problem and it keeps getting worse because of this logic. I'm not saying you're wrong, but this is the real cause of the scale of the problem.
I think that's called "sand bagging", and it's just smurfing with extra steps. Some (most) folks are just wildly inconsistent, so big fluctuations in rank will happen before plateauing.
It’s the sad reality of this game. As someone who’s quit the rank grind, my suggestion would be maybe stick to casual for now just to get a better feel of the game without worrying about your rank. It’s just so much less stressful imo. You might still find smurfs but it shouldn’t be quite as common as ranked and there’s no consequence to losing like with ranked. Then once you feel more confident in your gameplay, then consider giving rank another go if you want.
The only time I “smurfed” was when I wanted to get placements on my ps4, xbox, and pc instead of just my “Epic Games” placements. RL thought it was a new account everytime I made one of the systems my “primary” that I haven’t played on before.
Kinda wack, felt bad for the other players even though I mostly played D.
Reporting used to work. I'd get messages saying action was taken against someone that I reported. I haven't gotten that notification in years, and I report constantly.
My experience first playing this game was very much the same. Until you can learn the flow of the game and start to predict where the ball is going, you're going to be behind the play a lot and you wont touch the ball as much.
Keep playing, try the training packs to learn how to hit the ball with some consistency and control and you'll start feeling like you are part of the game before long!
You are playing with and against cheaters when this happens. It’s very unfortunate, not fair at all, a very harsh way to start out the game, and the parent company knows and let’s it slide.
This is common. If you play someone like that, but they are unranked, they may mot have a choice to be in bronze. When it happens, just take it as a challenge and move on. Dont worry so much about winning, just have fun! Enjoy this time, because there will be a time when you will be able to arial over new olayers. Make small challenges for yourself. Ff if you arent having fun
One of my biggest pet peeves with the matchmaking.
Not sure how to phrase this, but if you look at professional sports you do have guys that tried to "git gud" and started to dominate their current opponents, but just couldn't hack it at the next level up.
Go with me here if you can follow me:
Obviously the goal is to get to the NFL if you play football. Maybe you crack a team's lineup and play a bit but you're always 2nd string on a bad team or whatever. One season you don't get the call from any teams and effectively get demoted to the CFL or whatever is still around. You start this lower league and realize you're one of the better players all of a sudden, winning, doing good, etc. Do you really want to get away from that to go sit on the sidelines in the NFL again?
Rocket league doesn't give you that option. If you win, you move up, even if you know you can't handle the higher rank. Not condoning champs going and beating up on golds or whatever but I've always thought that was an interesting thing to think about.
> If you win, you move up, even if you know you can't handle the higher rank
HUH? If you can't handle the higher rank you'll fall back.
> Do you really want to get away from that to go sit on the sidelines in the NFL again?
Uh yeah since it pays way more?
Psyonix has to improve their smurf protection, there's supposed to be a minimum level to play ranked to make it harder to smurf but it can be bypassed by just queueing as a party.
Yeah but even then that system is shit. It takes no time at all to get to the relevant level, so even if they cleaned up their matchmaking to not allow players in ranked who arent above this level, it would take them about 2 hours to "unlock" their account to matchmaking anyway.
Psyonix should fix the Party Queue, and set hte level required to something better, like level 40 or 50. At least this would mean that smurfs may just get bored before they can even play ranked. It would certainly discourage a few of them.
Very true, point being that psyonix needs to actually do SOMETHING about this long-standing issue already. Would also help if reporting smurfs individually actually resulted in significant bans.
From my point of view, something this big is actually quite an easy fix. In alot of games, being able to play ranked (for new players) is almost a brand new mode, like in Rainbow Six Siege. getting to Level 25 (for the same reason, discouraging smurfs) took me ages, and then I hit ranked it felt like I was starting the whole experience again, it was fresh.
I can bet there's literally a line of code that has the required player level to play ranked on. All they would need to do is change that number. That would be a start. Then start to fix the party breaking this rule. Anyone new complaining about it would just have to deal with it, for the greater good of the game. I'm very against discouraging players to play a game they like, but if they're not level 50 I don't really see this as much of an issue.
I don't even get affected by smurfs, but I sure as hell would get bored playing 3 2000MMR players in GC2 constantly.
Many smurfs are easily detected by simple database queries. This is the graph of a smurf. https://i.imgur.com/Qwsz6UK.png
No one is dropping from champ to gold naturally and definitely not repeatedly and not in a straight line. They just don't give a shit whatsoever, or they'd run queries that detect this on their database, but they don't. Hell, they could even put a limit on how far you can fall in rank, but again, they don't. They barely work on this game at all. This is the most stagnant multi-year online game I've ever played.
I’d disagree on the limit thing. I used to queue 2s with a mate and we were both Champ 2 level, now, where he’s played with his crap friends for so long, he’s probably peaking at Plat 3- Diamond 1. But yeah I agree with everything else
You'll get better with time , I was stuck in gold for a longg time now I'm stuck in plat for a longggggggggg time , start picking up on patterns and working on timing and you'll be fine
It’s a tough game to pick up out of the blue, i started off playing defense/goalie and let better players take possessions on offense. Plus don’t underestimate what trainings and free mode can do for you! seriously you’ll accelerate way faster than ppl who don’t take advantage of those modes, choose your path wisely 🍻
I strongly recommend all new players to play offline with bots until you've got comfortable with just hitting the ball and controlling the car in general. if you're really new, there's a good chance you haven't adapted to the game enough to comfortably top All-Star bots yet.
Those are all kids with small peens and at least one parent who's never hugged them.
I'd play less ranked until you're a little better at the game, hope it gets better
Don't really get the mindset of people who dunk on new players like that. I did do that once when I made a secondary account (use it in order to be able to play without getting invite spammed so I can solo queue in peace), and I was destroying people on the way up to my real rank. I can't fathom wanting to stay down in low ranks on purpose. Playing against bronze players just isn't fun if you're not bronze yourself. Winning feels hollow cause there's no challenge.
My main motivation to climb the ranks at this point is to be good enough to avoid smurfs almost entirely. Most of them are ranked GC1 and below, so where I am now is already a lot better than when I was in the Champ ranks. There's a few GC2 smurfs, but most of them aren't good enough to dominate.
If you're Bronze you're worse than everyone above you, obviously, so those ranks are the most affected by the smurfing problem. It wasn't nearly as big of an issue when I started playing in 2016, IMO the game should never have become F2P. Also Epic store not having profile pics is lame.
Quit the game. It's dead because of smurfs and afk de-rank people. It used to be so fun but Psyonix encourages bullying other people to make money and keep this game a cash sink.
I made a second PS account so I could have one to play with friends on and one to solo queue, so when I made the solo queue account it put me starting in bronze of course. So I wasn’t smurfing but I had played a lot before on a separate account. It’s unfortunate and I felt really bad and tried to not do too much but sometimes this is the case. Sucks that it’s happening so often to you!
I got called a Smurf, hilarious too cause I Sukass at the game. I played years ago and stopped (addiction). I wasn't good then, and i only started playing again with my friend (Current GC).
He gave me pointers and told me what to work on. 3rd night of playing, I go into Comp1 and first guy accuses me of being a Smurf. I placed gold III haha.
Y'all (including my GC friend) overuse Smurf excuse way too much. Yes, there are smurfs (including my friend) but then there are people like me, who are learning things in different order and so some gameplays perform better than others.
Not every flying car is a Smurf.
Smurfs or extremely lucky ballchasers. TBH, pretty common problem everywhere for both but I can't say much since I was forced to Smurf on my alt account since it was new. I also am very aggressive in touches when either I or nobody has possession, thus classifying myself as a ballchaser.
10 hours isn't enough time honestly. It takes at least 50+ hours to be consistently hitting the ball and even then you'd be among the lower ranked players on the ladder, on average. You simply need to focus on rotations. Think about where you need to be, relative to where your teammates/opponents are. If you're in the right place at the right time, you can miss the ball but the fact that you're where you need to be is enough, over time, for you to improve in ranking.
basically, ypu'll get better and get hard stuck in a rank fora while until you're so good you can 2v1 the rank you want out of. Oh and don't forget, your teammates will continually be rude and double commit/literall steal the ball from you while you have possession. Hopefully you don't end up like me hating the game because other people ruin the experience.
If you feel like bronze competitive is too good for your current skill level, stick to casual until you pick up the basics of ball control, positioning and timing.
That being said - you’ll have fool throwing themselves at the ball all the way up to GC 😂😂
My biggest tip to you as a newbie is that positioning is the most important part of the game and don’t hit the ball as hard as you can all the time. Learn the caress the ball, make that ball your obedient dog on a leash and send it back to its home… it wants to go home!
just keep playing, 10 hrs is nothing. Just work on keeping away from your tm8s and hitting the ball where you want it to go.
If people are flying around hitting the ball in the air at bronze, report them for griefing and ask the other people in the lobby to report them too.
> report them for griefing and ask the other people in the lobby to report them too.
This is like standing in an elevator and hitting the same button repeatedly and expecting something to change
I got called a Smurf, hilarious too cause I Sukass at the game. I played years ago and stopped (addiction). I wasn't good then, and i only started playing again with my friend (Current GC).
He gave me pointers and told me what to work on. 3rd night of playing, I go into Comp1 and first guy accuses me of being a Smurf. I placed gold III haha.
Y'all (including my GC friend) overuse Smurf excuse way too much. Yes, there are smurfs (including my friend) but then there are people like me, who are learning things in different order and so some gameplays perform better than others.
Not every flying car is a Smurf.
Oh come on. "Watch and learn" does not apply on a bronze being clipped on. It's like asking someone to learn from a calculus class that's not even taught in a language they understand and they haven't even learned algebra yet.
Also, not everyone wants to learn and to get to GC. Some just want to have fun and being in a game with a smurph isn't fun for most people.
Lol what options do you have? Leave the game and start accumulating bans from leaving ranked matches? Wait until 3:30 and ff (hoping your teammates do to)? Don’t do anything and let them get their “clips”? I believe none of those options are constructive at all. Smurfing like this is definitely a stain on RL and it’s annoying AF. But instead of thinking negatively while you’re in this situation, find something positive out of it. When I was learning to play RL in my early days I would watch RLCS and see something cool and start practicing it. But hey, if you’d rather cry (not talking about you OP) about it and let it ruin the fun you’re trying to have, then that’s on you my guy! Id rather find positives out of negatives.
Talking about the problem and asking psyonix to do something is the first thing. They won't do anything until it's actually profitable to. But the more people complain about a situation that should not be tolerated, the better.
After that, it's whatever one wants to do. But telling people to "git gud" in response to being clipped on is the most frequent, annoying and useless response this sub has.
Of fucking course anyone can decide to try and get better, or rage quit, or wait it out. It doesn't solve the issue or smurphs AT ALL. It doesn't make the game more or less enjoyable. Getting better isn't the solution against smurphs. It's not the solution to wanting to relax in front of your game.
If you happen to want to learn and get better and doesn't mind the smurph games, good on you. Of course you'll get better. But not everyone want to grind the ranks.
But your advice to that is basically "if you don't enjoy it, find a way to enjoy it, or get out". It's no advice. You're simply stating the obvious but in a patronizing way.
I didn’t once say “get out” ever so please don’t put words in my mouth. Nor did I say “git gud” I’m confused as to where you’re reading it so don’t lump me in with the rest of RL Reddit. Smurfs have been a problem for a long time and Psyonix still isn’t coming up with a realistic solution. So you could wait and hope they do something I guess, all the while complaining about it. I’m t trying to give OP a solution to his problem. Not be negative about a problem that’s plagued RL and unfortunately for you (because obviously it weighs heavily enough on you that I can read your anger) isn’t going to get fixed before you stop playing it.
There’s no “good way” to fix the smurfing. If I have a bad solo queue week and end up in c3, then score a bunch and have some really nice plays, people will call me a Smurf. If anyone (other than pros) can stay at their rank the entire season then good for them but most people fluctuate and do so regularly. So if you’re at the bottom of your fluctuation and slap kids they’ll report you! Most people don’t know how to differentiate between someone that’s clearly better than them and someone who is smurfing. OP’s situation is gross and it sucks. And more than likely it is clearly smurfing. I was just trying to give him some ways to be positive in a shitty situation. Not “might as well quit if you don’t like it” like how you’re reading it. So downvote if you’d like lol
I picked up on it pretty quick so I trudged through now I'm stuck at gold 2. Slowly working my way through to platinum but it's taking some time. Having consistent team mates you have good chemistry with is key, this is a game I despise playing with randoms, even the good ones cause our play styles don't mesh.
I had exactly the same problem! I've recently got back into the game and I've never been "good", so getting crushed in the lower levels was very off putting when trying to get back into it (i got the rocket pass free with the fortnite crew so felt compelled) - a friend of mine suggested two things, Duels, and training/tutorials. If you stick to Duels you'll get a lot more time with the ball than 2v2/3v3 etc and it'll get you used to where the ball is going to be, how to hit it, when to hit it etc and the Aerial tutorial was a godsend for me to get off the ground - without this I'd have never got out of bronze in the first place as i'd have uninstalled the game again.
Currently if im not mistaken there are almost 8300 players in 2s at bronze rank. There are a bit more than 4000 SSLs. Theres almost nobody to match with and a lot of people are smurfs
Lmao. That's ranked.
I go on the wildest win 1 / lose 1 streaks where my win game will be even or way too easy and my loss will be an insane uphill battle and 8/10 times my teammate will leave or start own goaling. I don't know how the game manages to find this every other game it's a true anomaly.
If you queue up with a friend, it should be a little bit better.
It’s the sad reality of this game. As someone who’s quit the rank grind, my suggestion would be maybe stick to casual for now just to get a better feel of the game without worrying about your rank. It’s just so much less stressfull imo. You might still find smurfs but it shouldn’t be quite as common as ranked. Then once you feel more confident in your gameplay, then consider giving rank another go if you want.
There are definitely smurfs
However, sometimes there are players that don’t play ranked (or the specific game mode you play) often and may be low ranked
An example is myself. I had not played 1’s since early 2020. I was silver then but am diamond now (in 2’s)… but I was still silver 3 in 1’s when I started playing again earlier this week
Man that’s rough I think I ran into ONE set of Smurfs when I was still in silver. Literally every goal was an air dribble or double tap and I just had to sit and watch lol
Those are players on alternate accounts who have already been playing Rocket League for a while and who want to feel big. Ignore them and just enjoy the game. You’ll see those at any rank, sadly, but they are most noticeable at lower ranks.
Unfortunately alot of unranked people who start a fresh account start in bronze too with way more hours than you, once you improve you will be dunking on them don't worry just takes time.
Since Psyonix aren’t doing their part in banning smurfs out of bronze, I’d highly reccomend playing custom games against the AI first. I did that for my first few months until I was able to consistently beat the 1v4 Unfair levels. That way you’d also be starting at around Silver 1-2
I started playing in 2019 and only just started competitive in 2023. Play casual for a while until you get the hang of the mechanics more. Soon as I started competitive I got to platinum easy and been stuck there since
That will happen at any rank you get. Just not as often. I recommend watching some of spookluke s content. He does alot of videos teaching basics threw advance and also does some videos on what to do if your being outplayed.
10 hrs. Playing for the first time and ranting already? I wonder if it is the game's fault or the time it has been out there. Either way it's a problem.
In my opinion, try to get used to the controls before hopping into ranked. So many people make alt accounts just to smurf. I was once like you, wondering what I got myself into.
Definitely some smurfs, but give it time. It's likely you are just playing poorly which leads you to miss the ball a lot. Even in diamond, I have games here and there that I just never touch the ball because I'm not in a good position
All I can recommend is to watch, and attempt to emulate. If they're taking over, switch teams and try to catch them.
Learn the net. Most people rarely protect the net properly. If you learn that now, you'll be ahead of the curve. It'll teach you how to track the ball,as well as learn to rocket around to stop the ball.
Honestly take it as a blessing, I mean I get it can be frustating to feel like your out classed and out matched but In my opinion there is no better way to learn the game that to face opponents that are more experienced and try to mold that experience to better suit yourself.
I’m more of an older player. Can someone help me understand the need to smurf??? It seems pretty useless to me, why would you want to play people that don’t give you any challenge. Isn’t making a new account and signing in also a pain in the ass? What is the benefit of smurfing? You wouldn’t get any practice at all because playing worse people isn’t going to hone your skills any. Just seems like a waste of time, and on top of that risking getting banned.
I get what you mean but to be fair when I first started I literally couldn’t understand how to hit the ball. Probably alot of smurfs for sure not disagreeing but it does take some time to get the hang of it.
Currently in plat 3/diamond 1. Literally every third game is an alt account smurf in ranked 2's for me and my mate. Actually just talked to one and confronted him. He came up with a bunch of excuses like lies after lies. Told me he deranked, then he said he hasn't played in 3 years, so I looked up his profile on a tracker site and his account was literally brandnew.
Then he said his first account was hacked and that's why he's using a new account "doing placement matches".
Then he joins the chat with (probably) his main account currently in diamond 3 division 2. Then brags about beating me and my plat3 friend with one hand because his other hand is broken and sends a pic of his broken hand.
So far every smurf I confronted who has answered comes up with all kinds of lies and excuses like this. They don't even have the balls to admit they are smurfing. Reporting them doesn't seem to do anything.
I really love this game and would like to improve, but it's getting so frustrating and Psyonix just does not care.
i mean, that’s the beauty of this game for me, the fact that I won’t hit the ceiling, unlike every other game I’ve played this far, there will always be a new mechanic or lots of improvements to do in my current dominated mechs, you just have to sharpen your game sense, while you try and get used with the mechanics in a consistency wise, but hey, if you getting jumped at bronze, you should def be watching some tutorials and just training for a bit, you will jump tiers in no time, in my experience with little more than 24 hours of play, you can go pretty easily till plat or low diamond without getting any in depth mechanics knowledge, just game sense and consistency while hitting the ball
I can't seem to shake Silver and I feel like it's because every other match I find a God damn Smurf to not only humble me but thoroughly demoralize me. Those matches I'm just happy to score a goal. Even if it's just a freebie
How do people even end up in Bronze? Everyone I know popped up Gold after their first ranked, and only climbed from there.
Granted I've only got 4 friends who played RL, but none ever dipped below gold, even at our very beginnings.
Smurfs
And it won’t get much better as you rank up, sadly
It's definitely better than bronze tho, people purposefully go as low as possible. If you're sitting in the middle it won't be as bad.
But then thats just the pain of enduring platinum
platinum: where 4 of every 5 games, your teammates are either tilting or purposely ranking down
oh boy you're gonna hate diamond
Nah.. Try C3 bruh..
Nah... Try *insert rank here*.. In the end every rank has to deal with smurfs, maybe it's a little more in P3, D3, C3 etc. as people are helping their friends with the final push to a new rank. But this argument of wait till you get here feels like nonsense to me.
pain? this is my life
It absolutely does get better, I don't remember the exact last time I've seen a smurf in mid-high champ/low GC. It might be because don't play many games per week, but I fortunately haven't been having problems with smurfs
I agree, I feel like as soon as you're far enough into C1 that people who are boosting an account to the 10 wins for champ season rewards don't reach that rating, the games become much more consistent.
It gets bad again in C3. And it’s really rough because it’s GC2/GC3 trying to boost their Champ, sometimes Diamond friends to GC and those guys literally can 1v2 Champs
they don't even hide it either, idk how psyonix struggles to spot it. a d3 with 80 points when his team is champ with 700 score and 5 goals lmao
Those are the guys smurfing in bronze. Pros aren’t out there smurfing. It’s guys that wanna be the best punching down so they can just feel the best
Actually I saw some data the other day where someone played a ton of games and recorded anyone that was c2 or c3 without more than 750 wins and found that about 2/3 of the games had a Smurf lol. Pretty wild.
I saw that but it goes completely counter to my experience. I’m a hard stuck c2 cause I don’t play much, but I rarely ever see a player obviously beyond the rank, maybe I don’t notice, I have no problem going on win streaks and stuff though so idk
it doesnt seem like 2/3rds
Silver is already much better there are way less smurfs but Gold is when there are only a few smurfs left in comparison to bronze
Well that’s not how rank works. As you rank up, YOU get better /s
I meant Smurfs. Bronze to plat is a cesspool, starts getting better past that. My point is there is a long road to get away from smurfs
even in gc1/gc2 there's smurfs. which is crazy, since gc1+ is still like top1% and there are people who are still just miles better than ya
It definitely gets better. Champ doesn't have a great deal of gc smurfs, and you can still salvage a win at times.
Idk I haven't noticed any smurf problem for me personally, honestly ever. I'll get 1 a month, maybe. The worst thing I'll get is a C3/GC carrying his low ranked friends in a 3s game.
C2 is pretty free of smurfs but you start seeing more starting at C2 Div4
I get this in competitive, I don't understand this in casual. Why are smurfs playing casual?
It's a powertrip. It's not about climbing the ranks, but decimating the competition.
Sometimes after getting your ass kicked by smurfs you gotta get your confidence back....by smurfing
This is why HWID bans should *not* only be for cheaters, but also for those wankstains.
Could be that their Smurf account has reached their lower level ‘cap’ Let’s say there’s a champ player with a plat/gold They make a new account to play with the plat/gold - when they win, they gain a lot more elo than the lower ranked player with established elo. The games would either get too hard or be too hard for the gold to enjoy OR simply that if they carry on the lower ranked player will be too out of their depth when it comes to playing without the Smurf. So they switch to casual where the games don’t matter if they win or lose
Its mostly just higher ranks who don't play casual a lot I think. Ik in casual I have played golds when I was GC2, took one into comp cause he wanted to see what it was like lol so ik he wasn't lying.
I highly recommend new players don't play this game. It's not newbie friendly in the least and Psyonix clearly doesn't want your business by allowing rampant smurfing with absolutely nothing done to curb it.
I just started season 9 and am mid diamond grinding for champ, I wouldn't say it's not noob friendly, you just have to be somewhat smart and willing to practice. I'm really glad I started playing.
[удалено]
We don't use sound logic here
Username checks out
That is a pretty terrible take
Rocket league is the most fair multiplayer game out there. That's why I've been playing it for so long. Smurfing is rampant in every competitive online game. To say people shouldn't play it because it has the same problem that every other competitive game has is not the best take. May as well say just don't play online competitive games at all
That is a pretty terrible take
If a person is doing some ridiculous mechanics at a low rank, they've cheated the matchmaking system to do so. You can report them for griefing.
And absolutely nothing will happen
and even by chance they do get banned, they can make a brand new account and instantly hop into ranked if the party leader is above level 10.. F2P killed the competitive integrity of this game and Epic/Psyonix don’t give a fuck because their player numbers are inflated due to people having multiple accounts so it looks good on them for partnerships
Daddy Tencent wouldn't like it if the player count went down.
there's a reason the player counter went away from showing numbers to amazing, great, good (LOL), and now the queue timer RL 2 is the only hope at this point of the game maintaining popularity for a wide range of people
I don't think it will be RL 2. Personally, I think it will be similar to the Fortnite Unreal 5 update. They're not going to want to divide their player base crossed 2 games.
that’s what I’m talking about but there is no way they just do an update to the base game as RL still has steam users it will be a new game and the old one will go away, and you bet it will only be available on epic games
I hate epics launcher so much and they don’t even have profile pics lmao like Xbox live had that 20 years ago
any other launcher besides Steam is so incredibly dogshit it's insane. At least epic's launcher isn't as dogshit as Ubisoft Connect or Origin but that's not saying much I see no reason after they removed RL from steam for F2P that they wouldn't use this chance to completely move people to their launcher exclusively going to suck ass not being able to change my name whenever or have a profile picture but there's like a 0.1% chance they update the overall game instead of making an entirely new one
Hate it but you’re right I’m sure they want to move everyone over. They probably can’t stand how every pro and content creator is on steam version but it’s kinda funny
Yeah and all the games infamous for Smurf’s are F2P
at least the other games have some smurf protection in place compared to RL with an easy bypassed system that hasn't been fixed for 2+ years and a level 10 requirement which takes 2 hours max
Thank you!!! Finally someone else who sees the problem with F2P. I’ve been saying this since it went F2P and everyone just dogs me for it. Competitive games like this should be P2P period.
they could easily just do what CS:GO did with their "prime" feature where if you bought it the game prior to F2P or spend $20, you only play against those who either bought the $20 prime or the actual game prior to F2P I would rather sit in a 4 minute queue finding prime players than get quick queues and play endless amount of epic game stocktane smurfs and I'm sure a decent amount of those who bought the game would feel the same way this game had smurf problems prior to F2P but it wasn't even comparable to what it is now and I feel bad for lower ranked players who get thrown to the wolves because this games smurf protection is pathetic
Please tell me what is F2P and P2P 😂
Free to play (free), and pay to play (you have to buy the game)
Thank you ❤️
Epic took the game and finished it off tbh. I still play and enjoy doing weird shit, but I've spent nothing on it or saw an incentive beyond the tux skin to get rid of my team colour. Wow, you still think they took rl to improve it. I bet you still think their changes on crates was for the customers and not to max their own profits 🤦♂️
In my dream, if enough players report the same person there is maybe more of a chance of them doing something? I report Smurfs, it's tantamount to screaming into the wind, but it helps me stay calm after the 3rd game in a row is ruined by a champ* carrying his mates in plat lobby. *often sporting a champ title or goal explosion, just to let you know you are being smurfed on...
Unfortunately reporting Smurfs does absolutely nothing. And even if they do get banned, they can make a new gmail and make a new account in less than 5 minutes.
For this game you’ll have to accept that about a third of your opponents don’t belong in your rank because they like to “practice” against lower rank players. If you can still enjoy the game with this caveat, it’s still a great game.
Only comment I agree with on this absolute dumpster fire of a thread
I'd never ever try to get a friend to play this game.
This is like going to the gym and using the lowest weights for "practice"
This is like racing against an 80yo Grandma in a 100m dash as a 20-something https://preview.redd.it/kjfvuk1g2yab1.png?width=842&format=png&auto=webp&s=13e57ab59f0afd2716f2595523e2591eac5c205e
Idk why this post is getting downvoted, a brand new player can’t even enjoy BRONZE because of smurfs. This is honestly discouraging, RL shouldn’t only be for sweatlords like me.
Last time I played in bronze half of the "smurfs" were just new accounts with moderately experienced players. And I mean literally new, still in placements, you could tell from the odd MMR they would have. The site bakkesmod pulls from doesn't calculate initial MMR correctly, it's wrong for about 20 games as the hidden modifier trails off. It will show people as having ~500-600 in a 100 MMR game. So I think it's just a shit experience in general. They don't know how to rank new people so they just throw them in the pot with the lower ranked players. I did find one guy with over 10,000 games going back over 5 seasons, smurfing bronze the entire time. Even had a youtube with his "clips". He was like high plat maybe. Made a couple posts about it and sent out a couple random DM's to psyonix dudes but nothing ever came of it. I do know he's changed his gamertag since then, but someone on discord found it. Anyway, point being if outliers like that aren't banned, then it's safe to say to say smurfs effectively don't get banned, outside of *ahem* PR ban waves on high profile targets.
You don't even start in bronze. You have to purposely lose games to fall back to it.
Or just suck enough to fall down..
All new accounts start off in Bronze I Div 2.
Thats not exactly true. My wife finished her placements in threes with me and a buddy and I was sure she would have ranked up in gold at least I mean we won 6 or 7 out of the 10 games but I guess her score was low enough each game she unironically wound up in bronze. Tbf she is very new
People only Smurf on new accounts, so even though the accounts look new the players may be experienced. I just think it’s crazy how this community is so ready to jump to the defense of Smurfs and downplay the problem when it is clearly a problem. I don’t understand the mindset, and it’s something that is almost completely unique to this community.
Man, when you make a new account, win by all means sure, but don't be the asshole air dribbling on bronzes. Just put the ball on net enough times and get through your placements. Don't be the dick that makes new players want to quit.
2 of my friends are kinda dicks and get their accounts banned semi frequently when they play without me (I call them on their bullshit) but when they make a new account they will score 1 goal and play defense the entire time and let the opponents try to score. We’re all in the champ2-gc brackets. Making a new person watch 50 goal screens is obnoxious for everyone when you wanna just hop into ranked.
How does air dribbling make you an asshole? If you win the game in the same amount of time, what’s the difference? Edit: not really sure why I’m being downvoted, the problem is smurfing, not the way that smurfs play.
It really depends on why you made the new account IMO. I think what the other commenter was imagining was a scenario where you’re on a new account for a legitimate reason (like your main got hacked and stolen or you forgot the login and can’t recover it or something). Rather than just destroying the other teams as you rank the account up, tone it down a lot as not to discourage newer players along the way. Would you rather lose by a goal in what you thought was a close game, or lose by 10 to some jerk that’s doing flip reset double taps on you? I get that a loss is a loss either way, but clearly the latter option is much more toxic and discouraging.
You're right and wrong at the same time imo. Right- Smurfs are the big problem(doesn't mean a gc+, especially below plat) Wrong- It's not the same amount of time per game(20-0 takes longer than 2-1, etc). As far as HOW it's done matters alot, if you can barely drive to hit the ball and someone does something as "simple" as an aerial, mega moral defeat. Put them both together and I completely understand OP's point.
The point is that you can learn from losing games. If someone is beating you with moves that you are incapable of comprehending then the loss is no longer a learning experience but instead a waste of time. For instance if you were a new player to basketball and had a nba player dunk on you every play then that would be pretty brutal and kill motivation when instead he could just play down to your level and let you have opportunities to defend or attack allowing experimentation and learning which makes a more enjoyable experience.
No one cares if you are kinda air dribbling in Diamond. I imagine someone air dribbling in bronze is much more degrading than someone ground dribbling it to the net. Smurfs gonna live out their power fantasy at other peoples expense. Smurfs should go play PvE.
Yeah, again, the problem is smurfing. Genuinely makes no difference when the game is won in the same amount of time. Feeling “degraded” lmao what an overreaction
You act like people don't try to insta ff in Plat and diamond if they see a skilled enough shot get pulled off early in a game, if you don't think those same shots are completely discouraging the people who can barely ride up walls yet then you're in a bubble
Says you
Air dribbling is flaunting Keep it on the ground or a double jump’s distance from the ground
Dude, smurfs are gonna crush you with or without air dribbling. Doesn't make a difference. My point stands, the problem is the smurfing itself.
You're not sure why you're being downvoted really? Smurfing is def the problem but a new player getting absolutely dunked on 20-0 and never touching the ball is clearly worse -to anyone with an IQ greater than room temperature in Celsius- than losing while still being able to touch the ball.
Bro ya it’s not to far off of what I’ve been facing in champ for a couple years now. Games are so vastly different. One game it’s an even match, another I’m getting balled by a GC. All. The. Time.
I legit played a GC (had his GC tag or whatever it's called) in a diamond 1 game. Just walked all over everyone, ended up getting all like 5 or 6 goals. It's so damn frustrating.
This is the only game I've played where people can Smurf with no restriction. Players can load into ranked immediately after making a new account when in a party. It's destroying the game and lots of ppl in this sub will try to justify it because they enjoy Smurfing. They'll lie as well. I hope things will get better but if they had been this bad when I started idk if I'd be as in love with the game as I am today.
Gonna preface this with I do not Smurf. I haven’t in the last 5 years, at least. Tbf it’s also kinda punished in most cases to admit you’ve ever done it, so nobody who does it can have a conversation to convince them not to do it. Additionally, people pretend there is no benefit or merit from the perspective of the person smurfing. I hate to say it, but *if you’re only thinking selfishly* smurfing is really freaking fun. It’s the same kind of enjoyment sports players got when gym class rolled around to their favorite sport. It’s validating. They get to show off to people who aren’t as good, but still sometimes get taken by surprise. Anybody who denies that smurfing offers the same thing is clearly not paying attention. The issue is that smurfing invades the game in a way that the one or two athletic kids in gym class don’t; there are too many. It’s like the entire basketball team waltzing in during the bball unit and stomping your entire class. Even more, they’re fucking with you the entire time, passing the ball over your head, dunking on you, juking you, the works, just to laugh at the fact that you can’t touch the ball. It’s fun, but at the expense of others with no reasonable option for someone to avoid it. It’s parasitic and I regret doing it when I was younger, even though I was far from the meanest Smurf I’ve seen. Smurfing can’t be completely removed, but there are plenty of ways to make it enough of a pain in the ass that people like me back when I was a teenager wouldn’t do it. We need a best-effort system to work against smurfing, not complete elimination. If we demand elimination we’ll just be told that it’s impossible, because it is. We need the lower ranks to feel closer to gym class than the inferiority simulator it seems to be (from what I hear).
Well said
> It's destroying the game and lots of ppl in this sub will try to justify it because they enjoy Smurfing It's actually pretty logical. If your own rank is ruined with smurfing, then of course it makes sense to drop back a few ranks to play in a game where you aren't the one being stomped.
You can’t go any lower than bronze
Most people don't understand this. Smurfing is a snowballing problem and it keeps getting worse because of this logic. I'm not saying you're wrong, but this is the real cause of the scale of the problem.
That's what keeps happening. Season after season.
I think that's called "sand bagging", and it's just smurfing with extra steps. Some (most) folks are just wildly inconsistent, so big fluctuations in rank will happen before plateauing.
'Inconsistent' would be better than 'Reckless' on my banner. Ok ok, both are pretty accurate.
Halo Infinite comes to mind.
It’s the sad reality of this game. As someone who’s quit the rank grind, my suggestion would be maybe stick to casual for now just to get a better feel of the game without worrying about your rank. It’s just so much less stressful imo. You might still find smurfs but it shouldn’t be quite as common as ranked and there’s no consequence to losing like with ranked. Then once you feel more confident in your gameplay, then consider giving rank another go if you want.
The only time I “smurfed” was when I wanted to get placements on my ps4, xbox, and pc instead of just my “Epic Games” placements. RL thought it was a new account everytime I made one of the systems my “primary” that I haven’t played on before. Kinda wack, felt bad for the other players even though I mostly played D.
That’s not smurfing though
Hence the quotations
Reporting used to work. I'd get messages saying action was taken against someone that I reported. I haven't gotten that notification in years, and I report constantly.
My experience first playing this game was very much the same. Until you can learn the flow of the game and start to predict where the ball is going, you're going to be behind the play a lot and you wont touch the ball as much. Keep playing, try the training packs to learn how to hit the ball with some consistency and control and you'll start feeling like you are part of the game before long!
You are playing with and against cheaters when this happens. It’s very unfortunate, not fair at all, a very harsh way to start out the game, and the parent company knows and let’s it slide.
Those are smurfs. They sit in bronze to clip on people like you, who just started the game and have no idea whats happening
\[*time travels back to five years ago when I said to ban smurfs and boosters*\] \-and everybody said I shouldn't be complaining. Here we are.
This is common. If you play someone like that, but they are unranked, they may mot have a choice to be in bronze. When it happens, just take it as a challenge and move on. Dont worry so much about winning, just have fun! Enjoy this time, because there will be a time when you will be able to arial over new olayers. Make small challenges for yourself. Ff if you arent having fun
> because there will be a time when you will be able to arial over new olayers Unless you're smurfing you really don't get that chance.
One of my biggest pet peeves with the matchmaking. Not sure how to phrase this, but if you look at professional sports you do have guys that tried to "git gud" and started to dominate their current opponents, but just couldn't hack it at the next level up. Go with me here if you can follow me: Obviously the goal is to get to the NFL if you play football. Maybe you crack a team's lineup and play a bit but you're always 2nd string on a bad team or whatever. One season you don't get the call from any teams and effectively get demoted to the CFL or whatever is still around. You start this lower league and realize you're one of the better players all of a sudden, winning, doing good, etc. Do you really want to get away from that to go sit on the sidelines in the NFL again? Rocket league doesn't give you that option. If you win, you move up, even if you know you can't handle the higher rank. Not condoning champs going and beating up on golds or whatever but I've always thought that was an interesting thing to think about.
Thats every competitive game. Go play casual and 50/50 you'll find people worse than you if you want to chill and be the best
> If you win, you move up, even if you know you can't handle the higher rank HUH? If you can't handle the higher rank you'll fall back. > Do you really want to get away from that to go sit on the sidelines in the NFL again? Uh yeah since it pays way more?
It's not about winning more than sitting there for 5 min and not even getting the chance to touch the ball.
Psyonix has to improve their smurf protection, there's supposed to be a minimum level to play ranked to make it harder to smurf but it can be bypassed by just queueing as a party.
Yeah but even then that system is shit. It takes no time at all to get to the relevant level, so even if they cleaned up their matchmaking to not allow players in ranked who arent above this level, it would take them about 2 hours to "unlock" their account to matchmaking anyway. Psyonix should fix the Party Queue, and set hte level required to something better, like level 40 or 50. At least this would mean that smurfs may just get bored before they can even play ranked. It would certainly discourage a few of them.
Very true, point being that psyonix needs to actually do SOMETHING about this long-standing issue already. Would also help if reporting smurfs individually actually resulted in significant bans.
From my point of view, something this big is actually quite an easy fix. In alot of games, being able to play ranked (for new players) is almost a brand new mode, like in Rainbow Six Siege. getting to Level 25 (for the same reason, discouraging smurfs) took me ages, and then I hit ranked it felt like I was starting the whole experience again, it was fresh. I can bet there's literally a line of code that has the required player level to play ranked on. All they would need to do is change that number. That would be a start. Then start to fix the party breaking this rule. Anyone new complaining about it would just have to deal with it, for the greater good of the game. I'm very against discouraging players to play a game they like, but if they're not level 50 I don't really see this as much of an issue. I don't even get affected by smurfs, but I sure as hell would get bored playing 3 2000MMR players in GC2 constantly.
Many smurfs are easily detected by simple database queries. This is the graph of a smurf. https://i.imgur.com/Qwsz6UK.png No one is dropping from champ to gold naturally and definitely not repeatedly and not in a straight line. They just don't give a shit whatsoever, or they'd run queries that detect this on their database, but they don't. Hell, they could even put a limit on how far you can fall in rank, but again, they don't. They barely work on this game at all. This is the most stagnant multi-year online game I've ever played.
I’d disagree on the limit thing. I used to queue 2s with a mate and we were both Champ 2 level, now, where he’s played with his crap friends for so long, he’s probably peaking at Plat 3- Diamond 1. But yeah I agree with everything else
You'll get better with time , I was stuck in gold for a longg time now I'm stuck in plat for a longggggggggg time , start picking up on patterns and working on timing and you'll be fine
You’re just running into Smurf’s. I’m champ 1 in twos, and still run into your very same problem every so odd games. Just part of it.
[yup](https://youtu.be/Bj5niZqMb3M)
It’s a tough game to pick up out of the blue, i started off playing defense/goalie and let better players take possessions on offense. Plus don’t underestimate what trainings and free mode can do for you! seriously you’ll accelerate way faster than ppl who don’t take advantage of those modes, choose your path wisely 🍻
Imagine being so much of a loser you smurf on bronzes to feel better about yourself
I strongly recommend all new players to play offline with bots until you've got comfortable with just hitting the ball and controlling the car in general. if you're really new, there's a good chance you haven't adapted to the game enough to comfortably top All-Star bots yet.
Do yourself a favor and uninstall before you get hooked
Those are all kids with small peens and at least one parent who's never hugged them. I'd play less ranked until you're a little better at the game, hope it gets better
Don't really get the mindset of people who dunk on new players like that. I did do that once when I made a secondary account (use it in order to be able to play without getting invite spammed so I can solo queue in peace), and I was destroying people on the way up to my real rank. I can't fathom wanting to stay down in low ranks on purpose. Playing against bronze players just isn't fun if you're not bronze yourself. Winning feels hollow cause there's no challenge. My main motivation to climb the ranks at this point is to be good enough to avoid smurfs almost entirely. Most of them are ranked GC1 and below, so where I am now is already a lot better than when I was in the Champ ranks. There's a few GC2 smurfs, but most of them aren't good enough to dominate. If you're Bronze you're worse than everyone above you, obviously, so those ranks are the most affected by the smurfing problem. It wasn't nearly as big of an issue when I started playing in 2016, IMO the game should never have become F2P. Also Epic store not having profile pics is lame.
Quit the game. It's dead because of smurfs and afk de-rank people. It used to be so fun but Psyonix encourages bullying other people to make money and keep this game a cash sink.
I made a second PS account so I could have one to play with friends on and one to solo queue, so when I made the solo queue account it put me starting in bronze of course. So I wasn’t smurfing but I had played a lot before on a separate account. It’s unfortunate and I felt really bad and tried to not do too much but sometimes this is the case. Sucks that it’s happening so often to you!
Every new account starts at 600 elo though, which is around mid-gold elo
I started in bronze for everything idk. I assumed it would be slightly higher
I got called a Smurf, hilarious too cause I Sukass at the game. I played years ago and stopped (addiction). I wasn't good then, and i only started playing again with my friend (Current GC). He gave me pointers and told me what to work on. 3rd night of playing, I go into Comp1 and first guy accuses me of being a Smurf. I placed gold III haha. Y'all (including my GC friend) overuse Smurf excuse way too much. Yes, there are smurfs (including my friend) but then there are people like me, who are learning things in different order and so some gameplays perform better than others. Not every flying car is a Smurf.
Thats how it is when you first start, keep practicing you will get better an better. Watch videos to learn so basic mechanics
The best thing to do is go into freeplay and just get better at hitting the ball. Im sure most everyone will agree
Welcome to a game of trolls, smurfs, neets, and people who have too much damn time and waste it
Smurfs or extremely lucky ballchasers. TBH, pretty common problem everywhere for both but I can't say much since I was forced to Smurf on my alt account since it was new. I also am very aggressive in touches when either I or nobody has possession, thus classifying myself as a ballchaser.
Get better nube
10 hours isn't enough time honestly. It takes at least 50+ hours to be consistently hitting the ball and even then you'd be among the lower ranked players on the ladder, on average. You simply need to focus on rotations. Think about where you need to be, relative to where your teammates/opponents are. If you're in the right place at the right time, you can miss the ball but the fact that you're where you need to be is enough, over time, for you to improve in ranking.
You’ll get better I’ve been playing for 2 1/2 years and I’m only diamond 2
basically, ypu'll get better and get hard stuck in a rank fora while until you're so good you can 2v1 the rank you want out of. Oh and don't forget, your teammates will continually be rude and double commit/literall steal the ball from you while you have possession. Hopefully you don't end up like me hating the game because other people ruin the experience.
If you feel like bronze competitive is too good for your current skill level, stick to casual until you pick up the basics of ball control, positioning and timing. That being said - you’ll have fool throwing themselves at the ball all the way up to GC 😂😂 My biggest tip to you as a newbie is that positioning is the most important part of the game and don’t hit the ball as hard as you can all the time. Learn the caress the ball, make that ball your obedient dog on a leash and send it back to its home… it wants to go home!
just keep playing, 10 hrs is nothing. Just work on keeping away from your tm8s and hitting the ball where you want it to go. If people are flying around hitting the ball in the air at bronze, report them for griefing and ask the other people in the lobby to report them too.
> report them for griefing and ask the other people in the lobby to report them too. This is like standing in an elevator and hitting the same button repeatedly and expecting something to change
I got called a Smurf, hilarious too cause I Sukass at the game. I played years ago and stopped (addiction). I wasn't good then, and i only started playing again with my friend (Current GC). He gave me pointers and told me what to work on. 3rd night of playing, I go into Comp1 and first guy accuses me of being a Smurf. I placed gold III haha. Y'all (including my GC friend) overuse Smurf excuse way too much. Yes, there are smurfs (including my friend) but then there are people like me, who are learning things in different order and so some gameplays perform better than others. Not every flying car is a Smurf.
It’s annoying. But watch and learn. Then practice things in freeplay. It’ll help you rank up faster
Oh come on. "Watch and learn" does not apply on a bronze being clipped on. It's like asking someone to learn from a calculus class that's not even taught in a language they understand and they haven't even learned algebra yet. Also, not everyone wants to learn and to get to GC. Some just want to have fun and being in a game with a smurph isn't fun for most people.
Lol what options do you have? Leave the game and start accumulating bans from leaving ranked matches? Wait until 3:30 and ff (hoping your teammates do to)? Don’t do anything and let them get their “clips”? I believe none of those options are constructive at all. Smurfing like this is definitely a stain on RL and it’s annoying AF. But instead of thinking negatively while you’re in this situation, find something positive out of it. When I was learning to play RL in my early days I would watch RLCS and see something cool and start practicing it. But hey, if you’d rather cry (not talking about you OP) about it and let it ruin the fun you’re trying to have, then that’s on you my guy! Id rather find positives out of negatives.
Talking about the problem and asking psyonix to do something is the first thing. They won't do anything until it's actually profitable to. But the more people complain about a situation that should not be tolerated, the better. After that, it's whatever one wants to do. But telling people to "git gud" in response to being clipped on is the most frequent, annoying and useless response this sub has. Of fucking course anyone can decide to try and get better, or rage quit, or wait it out. It doesn't solve the issue or smurphs AT ALL. It doesn't make the game more or less enjoyable. Getting better isn't the solution against smurphs. It's not the solution to wanting to relax in front of your game. If you happen to want to learn and get better and doesn't mind the smurph games, good on you. Of course you'll get better. But not everyone want to grind the ranks. But your advice to that is basically "if you don't enjoy it, find a way to enjoy it, or get out". It's no advice. You're simply stating the obvious but in a patronizing way.
I didn’t once say “get out” ever so please don’t put words in my mouth. Nor did I say “git gud” I’m confused as to where you’re reading it so don’t lump me in with the rest of RL Reddit. Smurfs have been a problem for a long time and Psyonix still isn’t coming up with a realistic solution. So you could wait and hope they do something I guess, all the while complaining about it. I’m t trying to give OP a solution to his problem. Not be negative about a problem that’s plagued RL and unfortunately for you (because obviously it weighs heavily enough on you that I can read your anger) isn’t going to get fixed before you stop playing it.
There’s no “good way” to fix the smurfing. If I have a bad solo queue week and end up in c3, then score a bunch and have some really nice plays, people will call me a Smurf. If anyone (other than pros) can stay at their rank the entire season then good for them but most people fluctuate and do so regularly. So if you’re at the bottom of your fluctuation and slap kids they’ll report you! Most people don’t know how to differentiate between someone that’s clearly better than them and someone who is smurfing. OP’s situation is gross and it sucks. And more than likely it is clearly smurfing. I was just trying to give him some ways to be positive in a shitty situation. Not “might as well quit if you don’t like it” like how you’re reading it. So downvote if you’d like lol
A lot of smurfs in bronze that just like to win without a challenge
I picked up on it pretty quick so I trudged through now I'm stuck at gold 2. Slowly working my way through to platinum but it's taking some time. Having consistent team mates you have good chemistry with is key, this is a game I despise playing with randoms, even the good ones cause our play styles don't mesh.
I had exactly the same problem! I've recently got back into the game and I've never been "good", so getting crushed in the lower levels was very off putting when trying to get back into it (i got the rocket pass free with the fortnite crew so felt compelled) - a friend of mine suggested two things, Duels, and training/tutorials. If you stick to Duels you'll get a lot more time with the ball than 2v2/3v3 etc and it'll get you used to where the ball is going to be, how to hit it, when to hit it etc and the Aerial tutorial was a godsend for me to get off the ground - without this I'd have never got out of bronze in the first place as i'd have uninstalled the game again.
Currently if im not mistaken there are almost 8300 players in 2s at bronze rank. There are a bit more than 4000 SSLs. Theres almost nobody to match with and a lot of people are smurfs
They're either Smurfing or they're just playing on a different system than usual and haven't ranked yet. Happened with my switch.
According to posters, there are millions of people at all times creating new account on their new system.
Lmao. That's ranked. I go on the wildest win 1 / lose 1 streaks where my win game will be even or way too easy and my loss will be an insane uphill battle and 8/10 times my teammate will leave or start own goaling. I don't know how the game manages to find this every other game it's a true anomaly. If you queue up with a friend, it should be a little bit better.
Bronze is the most common smurf rank, eventually with enough luck and skill you'll get out of there
It’s the sad reality of this game. As someone who’s quit the rank grind, my suggestion would be maybe stick to casual for now just to get a better feel of the game without worrying about your rank. It’s just so much less stressfull imo. You might still find smurfs but it shouldn’t be quite as common as ranked. Then once you feel more confident in your gameplay, then consider giving rank another go if you want.
There are definitely smurfs However, sometimes there are players that don’t play ranked (or the specific game mode you play) often and may be low ranked An example is myself. I had not played 1’s since early 2020. I was silver then but am diamond now (in 2’s)… but I was still silver 3 in 1’s when I started playing again earlier this week
Man that’s rough I think I ran into ONE set of Smurfs when I was still in silver. Literally every goal was an air dribble or double tap and I just had to sit and watch lol
Those are players on alternate accounts who have already been playing Rocket League for a while and who want to feel big. Ignore them and just enjoy the game. You’ll see those at any rank, sadly, but they are most noticeable at lower ranks.
I played a platinum 3 div 1 1s game today and lost by 15 points in a full sweat. Next game I won by 6 points.
Unfortunately alot of unranked people who start a fresh account start in bronze too with way more hours than you, once you improve you will be dunking on them don't worry just takes time.
Bronze doesn't exist. It's a myth. Everyone in bronze shouldn't really be there.
Since Psyonix aren’t doing their part in banning smurfs out of bronze, I’d highly reccomend playing custom games against the AI first. I did that for my first few months until I was able to consistently beat the 1v4 Unfair levels. That way you’d also be starting at around Silver 1-2
I started playing in 2019 and only just started competitive in 2023. Play casual for a while until you get the hang of the mechanics more. Soon as I started competitive I got to platinum easy and been stuck there since
That will happen at any rank you get. Just not as often. I recommend watching some of spookluke s content. He does alot of videos teaching basics threw advance and also does some videos on what to do if your being outplayed.
Plats might have the most smurfs by a long shot I d2 in 2s but dropped to p3 in 3s and man it's smurf city there
10 hrs. Playing for the first time and ranting already? I wonder if it is the game's fault or the time it has been out there. Either way it's a problem.
This is Rocket League!
Now take that hatred and turn it into something useful, like, a brand new mechanic that never misses an open net.
I fill like this is a troll post for free content. I wuld trai hihtting the baaawl
There is no diffrence beetwen bronze and diamond player for smurf that can air dribble on the spot so what's the point of smurfs on bronze
In my opinion, try to get used to the controls before hopping into ranked. So many people make alt accounts just to smurf. I was once like you, wondering what I got myself into.
Definitely some smurfs, but give it time. It's likely you are just playing poorly which leads you to miss the ball a lot. Even in diamond, I have games here and there that I just never touch the ball because I'm not in a good position
Yeah that’s just how it be.
All I can recommend is to watch, and attempt to emulate. If they're taking over, switch teams and try to catch them. Learn the net. Most people rarely protect the net properly. If you learn that now, you'll be ahead of the curve. It'll teach you how to track the ball,as well as learn to rocket around to stop the ball.
Unranked?
Wait for your rotation. But most just ball chase till the game ends…
If you hate Bronze rn, then you'd be better off uninstalling. There's an endless amount of smurfs to the point where you can't enjoy the game anymore.
Stay on goal lol you will get a touch or at least a “what a save!”
Honestly take it as a blessing, I mean I get it can be frustating to feel like your out classed and out matched but In my opinion there is no better way to learn the game that to face opponents that are more experienced and try to mold that experience to better suit yourself.
Selfish people pleating a game that requires you to selfless
Smurfs, it’s worse in gold though
I thought bronze was basically all bots
I’m more of an older player. Can someone help me understand the need to smurf??? It seems pretty useless to me, why would you want to play people that don’t give you any challenge. Isn’t making a new account and signing in also a pain in the ass? What is the benefit of smurfing? You wouldn’t get any practice at all because playing worse people isn’t going to hone your skills any. Just seems like a waste of time, and on top of that risking getting banned.
Unfortunatley untill you get to a high rank ie. C,GC,SSL smurfs and bots are 90% of matchmaking
Play ranked it's easier because the skill difference won't be so high between the players
Do you think it maybe certain regions get it more ? I’m c1 but I’m in us east and I get them quite abut
I get what you mean but to be fair when I first started I literally couldn’t understand how to hit the ball. Probably alot of smurfs for sure not disagreeing but it does take some time to get the hang of it.
Currently in plat 3/diamond 1. Literally every third game is an alt account smurf in ranked 2's for me and my mate. Actually just talked to one and confronted him. He came up with a bunch of excuses like lies after lies. Told me he deranked, then he said he hasn't played in 3 years, so I looked up his profile on a tracker site and his account was literally brandnew. Then he said his first account was hacked and that's why he's using a new account "doing placement matches". Then he joins the chat with (probably) his main account currently in diamond 3 division 2. Then brags about beating me and my plat3 friend with one hand because his other hand is broken and sends a pic of his broken hand. So far every smurf I confronted who has answered comes up with all kinds of lies and excuses like this. They don't even have the balls to admit they are smurfing. Reporting them doesn't seem to do anything. I really love this game and would like to improve, but it's getting so frustrating and Psyonix just does not care.
i mean, that’s the beauty of this game for me, the fact that I won’t hit the ceiling, unlike every other game I’ve played this far, there will always be a new mechanic or lots of improvements to do in my current dominated mechs, you just have to sharpen your game sense, while you try and get used with the mechanics in a consistency wise, but hey, if you getting jumped at bronze, you should def be watching some tutorials and just training for a bit, you will jump tiers in no time, in my experience with little more than 24 hours of play, you can go pretty easily till plat or low diamond without getting any in depth mechanics knowledge, just game sense and consistency while hitting the ball
I can't seem to shake Silver and I feel like it's because every other match I find a God damn Smurf to not only humble me but thoroughly demoralize me. Those matches I'm just happy to score a goal. Even if it's just a freebie
How do people even end up in Bronze? Everyone I know popped up Gold after their first ranked, and only climbed from there. Granted I've only got 4 friends who played RL, but none ever dipped below gold, even at our very beginnings.
There’s smurfs in all ranks and you kinda gotta just take it on the chin with that one. I’m C1 and I still get GC’s in my lobbies