Poll: Smurfing

[windlenot]

So, on a Tanakh [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.829625-Stepping-out-of-your-gaming-comfort-zone] brought up the moral questions about it, so now I'd like to get other people's opinions about it.

Is playing on a lower leveled account to play with lower leveled friends fair and acceptable?
NOTE: This does not include creating a new account to play against newer players for personal benefit.

 

[Ickorus]

I'd say yes under the condition that the player smurfing try to play with characters they don't normally use and may not be so good at, keeps it a bit fairer that way and it can be very interesting.

 

[Clowndoe]

I'd say yes under the condition that the player smurfing try to play with characters they don't normally use and may not be so good at, keeps it a bit fairer that way and it can be very interesting.

If you're so garbage with a character or a faction in an RTS that it's like you're a beginner, then it's not smurfing. Smurfing implies that you're purposefully matching up against people with less skill to win games, and that's not ok.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Is playing on a lower leveled account to play with lower leveled friends fair and acceptable?

NOTE: This does not include creating a new account to play against newer players for personal benefit.

Your level/experience is taken into account when the matchmaker tries to balance the game. Regardless of your reasons for doing it, by doing it you're skewing the matchmaker and giving yourself anything from a mild to massive advantage depending on your (hidden) skill level.

Is it acceptable? I guess so, people do it all the time. Is it fair or sporting? Not particularly.

 

[Abomination]

The more people who get upset at bad practices in MOBAs results in less people playing them. The less people who play them the less likely studios are to make them. The less are made the higher chance studios will make something I actually like.

So, I'm going to go ahead and say "Yes" for purely selfish reasons... also because what're you going to do? Ban the F2P smurf account?

 

[hazabaza1]

It's kind of a shitty thing to do but sadly needed if you want to get new people into games without them getting mauled to pieces.

But if you're just doing it by yourself and making a new account whenever you start not stomping that kinda makes you a bit shitty.

 

[Username Redacted]

Well I had to check Urban Dictionary to see what people where talking about but it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me.

For reference I had heard the term 'smurfing' in reference to a variation on antiquing. Except instead of flour you use a blue colored Jell-O or Kool-Aid so that when they take a shower to try to wash the powder off it'll (in theory) dye their skin blue.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I don't know what to think about this: on one hand, my username is being abused, on the other hand it seems like a cheap way of getting ahead.

 

[Kevin Lyons]

I think that the presence of smurfing players helps keep the game's matchmaking exciting and interesting for lower-leveled players. If they see somebody doing exceptionally well, and they're interested in the game, the smurfing player may inspire the lower-leveled player to do better in his own games. Losses are an important part of a new player's experience, and I'd hate to see the skill level of players stagnate because they weren't faced with higher-skilled players.

 

[Gennadios]

It's kind of the price you pay for having a highly competitive system with rigid rankings.

All it does is shift the suckiness of being a new player among pros. Their friend doesn't have to experience the frustration of being matched up against really good players and is more likely to stick to the game, but instead new players on the unaffiliated team will get to experience that frustration.

My personal view on competitive gaming is "whatever's clever." Until a problem gets worked out, it's open season.

 

[Siege_TF]

Oh... I thought this was about switching to those bloody Space Marines (they just got a new Codex)... But yeah I guess playing SMurfs ... I mean smurf account is okay.

 

[KeyMaster45]

Oh thank the FSM, Smurfing is just another suggestive piece of gaming jargon. For a minute there I thought it was going to be some kind of horrible twist on twerking. (for some reason I pictured a fat person painting their ass blue and then *shudder* twerking)

 

[Smooth Operator]

I think the phrase you are referring to is actually "pub stomping", highly skilled players warping the system to pray on novices.

It is ok in a case where it's done to help players but otherwise you are just being a prick, you wouldn't want to be stomped by someone way out of your league every time and neither do others.

 

[AuronFtw]

I don't know what to think about this: on one hand, my username is being abused, on the other hand it seems like a cheap way of getting ahead.

This is kind of a misconception; you don't actually "get ahead" with smurfing. The majority of benefits in your typical Moba game are simply for playing a long time. Over time, by playing thousands of matches and accruing in-game currency, you get access to lots of champs, access to different skins, access to rune pages, access to Summoner-level-universal skills, etc, all of which affect how the game is played.

You give up all of this when rolling a new account. Fresh accounts are just that: fresh. You start at summoner level 1, with no runes or rune pages, no champs except the random free pick that changes weekly, no summoner skills, etc. Unless your plan is actually to buy, with real life money, the same champs over and over, the same runes and rune pages, etc, you only bring over your personal skill and experience.

That certainly gives an edge over truly new players, and is arguably more important than access to preferred champs and runes for increased performance, but then you run into the other problem; smurfing doesn't actually benefit your main account. You can't swap money between accounts. You can't swap runes between accounts (as far as I know, anyway). Everything you "gain" on a smurf account stays on that account, and everything you spend IRL money for on a smurf account stays on that account. The smurfing is merely for the sake of playing against less skilled players; you can't "get ahead" in any way. In a practical sense, you gain literally nothing from it; you waste time, and often money, on an account that is not used for serious play. All you "gain" from "smurfing" is the perverse pleasure that you're better at an internet video game than someone who's never played it before.

So... no, there's nothing inherently wrong with it. They aren't gaming the system to gain anything; they aren't using exploits to further themselves or gain prestige or even experience or currency. They're rolling a new account to pub stomp new players, which is certainly the mark of a douchebag, but is not against the rules, or even really "unacceptable."

(Side note: "smurf" typically means something other than pub stomping. In Guild Wars, it meant a high-rated guild was using a brand new team build they had no idea how to use; they'd form and play in a new guild - whose rating they didn't care about - to get experience running the build before returning to their competitive-rated guild and play it in "real" matches.)

 

[Shinsei-J]

Well I get it when trying to get a new player into the game but if someone does it for the reason of intentionally vsing lesser skilled people I find it disgusting. There's also the case with it being an account to try something new without messing up the main accounts stats which I'm ok with but only if they're max lvl and not just stomping newer players. This then leads onto the discussion of how it got to max level, which there are two ways, pub stomping people or grinding the co-op vs ai. While I'm ok with the latter I still find the former deplorable.

Funny story time!
I once had two of my friends rage over skype to me because people who were obviously skilled players were smurfing and had beaten them into the ground. All this leading to petty insults along the lines of "Fucking, ugh... Just because you can win on your own account you go and vs low levels like us! Fucking ******" now the clincher to this is they both have main accounts in silver and over 1000 normal wins.
League of Legends turns some people into terrible people.

 

[Dominic Crossman]

Isn't prestiging in COD basically this, yet people are obsessed with doing this, unless I'm misunderstanding.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Er...misread the question and accidentally said "no".

Anyways, I think it is acceptable so long as you keep it as a way to play with friends new to the game who want to learn the game before being put up against higher-level players. I know Call of Duty circumvents the new account process by allowing the lower level player to host the party and, as a result, the matchmaking is centered around that player, regardless of the level of experience of those in the party with him. To me, it is just a way to have fun with friends.

Now, if someone makes an account specifically because they want to beat up on new players, then I have a serious issue. I'm not against beating up on new players if you happen to be put in a game with them, but intentionally seeking them out is where I draw the line.

 

[Hagi]

I think it's fine.

Let's not forget that new accounts are by definition inaccurate. Most new players will be less skilled than their score reveals, they just haven't had the time to rack up the losses. Some new players will be more skilled even if they haven't played the game before due to experience with other MOBAs.

If LoL's matchmaking system is a good one then it shouldn't treat new players as anything but unknown quantities. If it treats them as anything else than that's a flaw of their matchmaking system and not an exploit. New players aren't bad players. They're not good players either. They're unknown players.

Which means, lacking any information at all, you match them with average players because that where they're more likely to fit in and adapt rapidly based on their performance.

If LoL's matchmaking puts new accounts in with known bad players then it's simply a bad matchmaking system.

 

[MammothBlade]

So, on a Tanakh [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.829625-Stepping-out-of-your-gaming-comfort-zone] brought up the moral questions about it, so now I'd like to get other people's opinions about it.

Is playing on a lower leveled account to play with lower leveled friends fair and acceptable?
NOTE: This does not include creating a new account to play against newer players for personal benefit.

It's completely acceptable. If you want to improve quickly, you have to play with or against people who are reasonably good and will teach you good habits. If you just keep newbies in the shallow end with other newbies, they will be slower to learn. So yeah, smurf away.

Not that there are any ethical concerns to begin with.

 

[Eve Charm]

Eh isn't that why they have like unranked games you can set up tho?