I realize this is closed, and for good reason ( sorry @hazeleyes ), but I just wanted to add to this part - I have an alt from a couple years ago because I couldn’t log on to my older email.
Now, both my accounts are sitting pretty even, usually mid/high tier 9. But at the time, I felt terribly guilty for smurfing, since some 15-20 games I was destroying lower tier players.
Vainglory is not unplayble - despite the laundry list of things that need changed, it’s still rather enjoyable. However, smurfing is an issue I believe needs to be addressed.
Again, sorry for commenting on a locked thread but I have some strong feelings toward smurfing
Smurfing is generally regarded as a bad thing in most games, but SEMC has never seemed to care if players have alt accounts. I wonder if part of the reason they didn’t discourage smurfing is that it gave the impression that there were more people playing VG than actually were. That would likely have been a good thing when they were looking for VC funding.
I think smurfing was more detrimental to the game a year or two ago, when the matchmaker functioned better. With the terrible matchmaking we get most of the time nowadays, I don’t think it matters much any more.
I think another reason smurfs are tolerated is that they are likely to spend a little to unlock heroes and any revenue is greatly received as SEMC are basically desperate.
As to smurfs impact on the game? As a player stuck in mid tiers I can say that I personally feel they have a very bad impact in my games. I get that they randomly appear in either team, but that’s not the point. It’s the carrying of players and just general pointless nature of the games when you’re against them. You can feel it and it’s really not fun.
I do however concede that they are created and used for a reason and understand the justifications. I just wish there were more players and thus less need for people to smurf.
It’s not fun when they are on your team either, as you feel useless watching them 1vs5 the enemy team and literally can go to make some tea and you will still win.
In T10 is no different, there are some players that literally make real t10 bronze look like t5, destroying them alone. Add 4 real T10 to their team = fun game. Especially when they are for example poa silver and you receive in your team real poa silver. People don’t realize that a lot of the top top players creates a lot more than 1-2-3 smurfs account and they destroy games one after another + the boosting is not that strong in T10 around 2500 elo and they will destroy quite a few high tier games where the competitive spirit is high and tilting real when you lose because someone cheats (in some games this is referred as cheating, btw).
@hazeleyes got a point tho, the MM is so bad currently that it really doesn’t matter that much. When the MM pairs you while soloq vs 2 duoq silvers or even full party or combine in the same team players from t8 to t10 silver… won’t go in details as the things that the MM do wrong are quite a lot, let’s just say that it surely (currently) creates 75% not balanced match that is mostly known how it will end from the start. This is seriously valid for 5vs5.
Thats the thing, without smurfing those top tier players get matches with lower people, so the only difference is the VST you see them having. When creating smurfs It doesnt really change that experience while offering at least 3-4 matches in equal skill where they dont give a bad experience. Again, this is because of how bad the MM is currently. When MM is good the main accounts dont destroy everyone’s experience meaning there is actually a difference, but currently there isnt to the point smurfing even seems like a good thing for the game at those high levels (3-4 matches that doesnt destroy the experience >0), which is pretty sad to say.
As long as the MM is that bad top players will create smurfs, and i will defend smurfing until there is actually a difference. In a normal game, smurfs should be punished, but currently they are even good.
If the top players are matched with lower tier people when they are t10 silver/gold while at the same time they are matched with lower tier people again when smurfing - then isn’t the only reason to smurf to protect their precious ELO + EGO, really? And isn’t this super selfish? Most of the time t10 silvers are paired with t10 bronze… After all, I don’t see t10 silver paired in the same game with t6… the smurf t10 silver is.
Also I am sure that t10 silver that is on his main profile will get more than 3-4 matches in equal skill. How you expect a smurfing t9 silver currently to get more decent match vs 2650 elo account? I mean, when the game can’t find another t10 silver it will put him in t10 bronze game… just not enough players or vs duoq silvers. But I think it’s better to have 1 t10 silver and 4 t10 bronze vs 2 silvers and 3 bronze instead of smurf destroying some t7 scrubs 30/0/3? Ofc I am sure that the single silver feels unfair vs duoq silvers, right? This is the EGO part, instead of doing his best and maybe lose, he prefer to play on smurf account vs weak players and win win win protecting his ego and elo.
Smurfing people can say what they want, but it’s ELO protection… their precious elo and ofc the feel to be a pro going 30/0/10 in most games. Everything else are excuses and this is something I am sure of as I played on the highest level a lot of games like quake (2,3,4,QL) competitively and I can tell you what happens if someone smurf in a tournament to get a better seeding, hide identity so the enemy won’t know who he is and what to expect and so on - ban for quite a lot of next tournaments or for life. Or the feel to lose 300 elo because of smurfing pro (yep, there was statistics sites, etc). This is the same, I play ranked, I play competitively, I want to win, I want fair field.
The MM is failing mostly because there are not enough players, I think. After all if there are millions of players it’s simple, isn’t it? Take 10 players having the same elo = balanced match. When this repeats itself there will be low number of boosted players too so the MM will improve further. Ofc when you don’t have that the fun begins.
No, because when climbing with a smurf, as they have lower elo they will be paired during certain matches against people of their true elo, which doesnt happen in their mains (high vs low, so as the smurfs are low, they will sometimes fight against high until they become high too).
Which is not equal (and the range can vary from t10B to t9 too). Now we enter in the question: whats better? Ruining the game for the t10/9 players ir for the t6 players -3/4 matches they are equal?
Watch L3oN or Hundor and you will see
Why? They end up the same against t10 players. Most of them doesnt enjoy that, they smurf to get fair matches, again high vs low.
That makes no sense. They only play ranked, even if they smurf they climb that account to VGS/G and create another one because once they reach that point they start fighting lower players, but while climbing they for some reason get paired against other VG S/G players. Hundor end up last season with 5 accounts in VG gold, how is smurfing protect his elo?
Which isnt fair even if they dont smurf.
You can put 10 Vg gold players looking for ranked at the same time, the chances of them fighting each other are near to 0.
But the current MM doesnt do that lol, otherwise they would fight each other, which if you watch their streams you will see they dont except when playing in a smurf, which makes no sense but for some reason its like that.
Thats the problem.
Watch them and you will see one thing:
Main account=lower enemies
Smurf= fair enemies for some matches.
When the MM works like that, there is no difference between a smurf and a main other than the smurf will get some fair matches, but in both cases they will destroy their enemies in unfair matches for most of their matches (and the fair ones are less than with a smurf).
I don’t know why you feel bad ?! , I made a smurf because in my main account I play soloq and most of the time roam and jungle , so the smurf is carry only and I actually got better with carries , so I ended up with the ability to fill in soloq , but the difference now between my main and smurf even with both (same elo and I fill) that I feel more relaxed playing in the smurf , because that’s why people create smurf it’s for chilling , pro players treat their smurfs as no sweat chill accounts but at some point the smurf could get more attention from the player or other players some how knew it’s you , the smurf just turn to a normal account and not that no sweat chill account anymore .
Let’s agree to disagree + the fact you actually create and use smurf accounts invalids the point to discuss the effect of the other players. I never saw a t10 silver when I was poa, so I don’t know how you they are paired with poas or even t8.
I start to get frequently t10 silvers when I am around 2500 elo, till there super rarely + when rarely I get them, they are mostly duoq or single one of them and their team wins, nothing too bad as we are team of 5 VG bronze.
Im not, im defending those Gold who create smurfs. In my case It was long ago when my friends started playing so i could play with them and teach them.
Except that pros refers as lower tier to the 2500 elo players. I checked more than one VG pro accounts during the years, never saw dominant quantity of T9 in their games and none had t8/t7/t6 (ranked 5vs5, not privates). Just a few far in between the t10 bronze/silver/gold in their match that was the norm. So dunno what you are talking about, really.
I watch youtube VODs from them or recorded from their streams. Why I should watch their stream when I see in vgpro.gg the stats and the ranking of all the players in the games? What point is proving how 2500 elo players look like a noob next to them? Seriously? You will look good vs l3on or noob like those on the streams? It’s proven that when facing really good opponent a lot of players panic and do worse trying to be better and thinking too much/trying to surprise them tactically with absurd things. As for the teammates, yeah - 4 soloq t10 bronze players won’t tick the same way as t10 gold player that is used to party with other vg silver/gold players.
Point is none of their matches are fair, smurf or no smurf, but when smurfing they have more chances of having a fair match. Point is smurfing is not a good thing and shouldn’t be allowed, but when the MM is bad enough that it doesn’t actually make a difference in the overall experience, they destroy the experience of their opponents and their team, the only thing it changes is wether those player whose experience is being destroyed are t10 or t8 and the fact that smurfs for some reason get more fair matches than their mains. Smurfs currently, for those high elo player (those good enough to make 2500 elo players feel useless aka L3oN) aren’t that big of a problem, as the experience doesn’t change a bit, like MM is. When the result of playing in a smurf is the same as in the main account, that tells a lot about the MM state in that level of elo.
Smurfs should be punished the same way MM should be improved a lot at those levels.
They don’t party up that much, in fact Hundor put his 5 accounts in gold by solo mostly. It’s both a matter of team mates and opponents.
We can agree to disagree, because this is going nowhere.
