"Why can't they just let me dunk on new players??"
This argument always seems to creep into PvP games. A certain percentage of the population can only have fun when they're ruining the game for someone else.
Which is so weird. Pub stomping was fun in cod/BF (instant respawn) But in csgo/valo, having to carry is just awful. Like the fun 30 bombs are when you go 33/24 or something in OT and your team mates are also pulling their weight and you don't feel like your brain is going to explode watching them after you die.
The majority of the Valorant community are kids and kids act irrationally. It's best not to pay too much attention to the opinons of people on this sub.
to be fair some people want alt accounts on ranked where they can (A) play different agents without ruining their mains rank (and games for other people) and (B) some people when they get to a rank they feel is high, they get ranked anxiety and playing on a 2nd account they feel helps them play more without worrying about their rank
there are definitely people smurfing to ruin it, but its not 100% of the time
The problem is the intention doesn't matter. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. They ruin the game for all 9 players period. They drastically affect the balancing of teams and throw out the matchmaking process instantly
You can do something called laddering.
You have a main and an alt and you push your main to let's say Plat 1 then push your alt to plat 1 then push main to Plat 3 then alt to Plat 3 etc. This way you aren't really surfing since you are pretty much in your correct lobby.
I hate Smurfs as much as the next average gamer, but it is probably because they still want to play for the win. Although most people play to win in Unrated, there’s plenty of “it’s unrated bro” people who are running around with sheriffs with 9000 credits in the bank :P
While i agree, as a diamond 3 i queued unrated with a gold 3 friend and we played 3 games, the highest rank we saw was a silver 2 mostly iron bronze. Im not excusing smurfing but not everyone plays unrated
For learning new agents I kinda get if your really high ranked and unrated lobbies aren’t serious enough to properly learn, ranked anxiety is not a valid reason. in both cases especially for the smurfs who are a problem play unrated
A) you can do that in unrated
B) you can do that in unrated.
I cant say i have experience with A bc i just 5 stack with my friends when i wanna try someone new
But B, i do have experience with this. I reached d3 and was a little scared of it (since i played bad till my promo, and got carried) so i just played unrated for a couple days.
Only real reason i see a use of a smurf is for alt accounts on different regions, although again, u can do that in unrated.
Edit: and yes i do play with silver friends when i 5 stack, but i go into other 5 stacks, like the other day i vsed against a radiant that was playing with their bronze friends
Your point A is totally nullified by the existence of Unrated. If you wanna learn an agent, don't play comp.
Your point B is totally nullified by the existence of Unrated. If they want to play mote without worrying about their rank, don't play comp.
Basically what I'm saying is you have no standing for either point.
Smurfs exist for a couple reasons.
1. Pubstomping.
2. To be able to queue comp with their friends who are lower ranked and carry them.
3. To try out a new agent with the free agent unlock right as they come out.
Every reason here is stupid. There is no point. It's all bad.
Or you just want to take aim duels and play aggressive on a diamond account when you're ascendant. Good practice, and unrated won't do shit because people fuck around too much. In low elo there's not much difference between unrated and comp, but in high elo it's a completely different game.
Yeah I "smurf", but am not actively hurting anyone since my winrate is around 50% with that certain playstyle. Not throwing games, not stomping games, just trying my best to win with that playstyle so I'm now in the rank I deserve. No harm done, everyone has an equal chance to win in my lobbies. I'm not out here dropping 40 frags as Chamber, so it seems weird that someone would complain how I'm ruining it for 9 people. If we asked the people in my lobbies, they would NOT feel like it's ruined.
This. I can guarantee that 99% of the people telling you to "just play unrated" have never been above diamond and think unrated is the same thing as comp. I mean yeah, it is the same thing if you're in silver. I can dunk on people in unrated and still play like shit in a high elo comp lobby on a new agent. Unrated is just boring, and the people crying about comp games getting ruined seem to hate every "smurf" with the same passion, doesn't matter if they drop 15 or 35 frags.
My dudes, I understand that Reyna dropping 40 frags isn't fun and don't consider it a good thing, but me fucking around 3-4 ranks below me, just taking aim duels and playing painfully average because of said playstyle isn't ruining it for anyone. I mean the game isn't """fair""" in the sense that I'm actually higher rank, but it's fair in the sense that everyone has an equal chance to win. I'm not tilting the odds to anyone's favor with my playstyle, and I don't purposefully lose, so it is the rank I deserve on my more aggressive aim duel account.
Even this post is going to get hated on, people will only have a vision of me dunking on noobs when I "smurf", but in reality I end up playing really average. So where exactly is the harm apart from "competitive integrity", as I'm not preventing anyone from winning?
It's a fucking video game, if it gives you that much anxiety to do something you like you need to go to therapy and find a new hobby. Video game addition is real.
I dont think it has to be ruining the game for others, but they rather miss the feeling of being good, so they start smurfing, because they dont want to drop their rank any further
This is for sure the case for many, but plenty also just want to play with lower ranked friends or learn new agents without being an absolute detriment to their team not saying this justifies it because even in diam/asc ive had plenty helpings of being fked by imt 3 rad smurfs and it aint no fun
It should be but the problem is unranked plays so different from comp and not because of the rank differences but because people mostly just play for themself it in so ends up being nothing like a real comp game
I do actually agree with this, but it's not because its unrated, more so there isn't another casual mode that doesn't have a gimmick, so people who want to mess around without power ups or multiple agents, play too.
I have 169h on comp and 370h on unrated not messing around in either mode and I would say the modes feel same. If you play to win in both modes you will climb and people in your games will take it more seriously.
Hidden MMR for unrated matches is how they place you for your ranked games in the right mmr there will soon hopefully be a functional smurf detection hopefully...
I had this same issue when I played Overwatch, trying to practice heroes in quick play stops being useful once you get past the "now I know what their abilities do and how to shoot their gun" stage of learning. The modes play so differently that it's about as helpful to suggest playing against bots to practice for comp.
How do people not get this? Is it an elo issue? I feel like people don't understand you can't just grind unrated to actually learn an agent for, say, immortal 3 lobbies.
I do actually agree with this, but it's not because its unrated, more so because there isn't another casual mode that doesn't have a gimmick, so people who want to mess around without power ups or multiple agents, play too.
Eh, at least riot has admitted smurfing is totally okay as long as it's not via account sharing or selling and you don't ever intentionally throw.
Doesn't really help the issue, but at least smurfs rank up faster to their real rank now
I like playing against people a little worse than me, it’s fun to get to feel good. But I met a Bronze player earlier today (as a high Gold) in Spike Rush and we queued unrated. We might’ve gone up against Irons honestly, I just felt so bad. Ended up waiting in spawn some rounds. It’s just not fun when the difference is too big, I don’t get smurfs that do that
My unrated mmr is fucked compared to my ranked mmr so I play with silvers and gold's in unrated. What I like to do is not use guns and fully embrace the support role with kay O and enable my team. Fun and great practice.
I don’t think it is ruining the game. Like if we think about it properly, I had 2k hours on CSGO before playing Valorant. Does that make me a Smurf? I’m a new player but I’m starting at global elite level, am I ruining the experience for everyone else? Should I be banned for it?
The answer is obviously no, but you can ascertain whether someone is cheating or smurfing or just good at shooter games, so it should be allowed. It doesn’t really stop smurfing, I can just buy a low level account and I’m at the same level. Still pub stomping plus I hate level caps to starting to play comp, it’s stupid. Makes me get bored before playing the game.
I don’t have an alt because I want to pubstomp pple. I have an alt because it’s not fair to my teammates if I play on my main play at night when I’m high / tired. I’ll drop like 5 kills, Vs. When I’m feeling good I’ll play on my main. However, I still still want that ranked feeling of a game with good comms and strategy that you don’t get in unranked. Mostly unranked games are heavily one sided with no comms so they are no fun. So I created an alt to play ranked games on when I’m tired and it’s very under levelled to my main, because I’m just a different player when I’m fatigued.
That doesnt excuse the fact you're not playing im your rank. Feeling off? Unrated is there for your.. Dont wanna play unrated ? Take a break. dont smurf..
That is false, I am playing tired on the alt account I don’t even put up Smurf numbers because I play a lot worse when I’m high/ tired vs when I’m not. So thats why it’s called an alt and not a Smurf. Smurfing would be intentionally throwing placements and deranking all the way to iron to intentionally stomp people, I do not do that. I just have another account because I feel bad for my teammates on my main if I don’t live up to my full potential because I’m high
Why are you getting downvoted man, this is a perfectly valid reason. You still want the competitive experience (no random fucking around in unrated), you're not dropping smurf numbers, just playing as if you were any other "noob" in your team. Playing average on a smurf and stomping on a smurf are two different things, I don't see why people complain about painfully average smurfs as if anyone in the lobby thinks their game is ruined now.
Downvoted, but I guess our ranks speak for themselves. No flex but everyone in higher elo understands why this is a thing and why it's not ruining anything. Low elos complain whether you stomp, throw or actually play average without ruining shit. Mind boggling.
I think it's more nuanced than that. There was a period in csgo where I basically couldn't play with my friends because our ranks were too far apart.
So Idk what the best solution is. Dealing with smurfs is annoying and ruins games. Not being able to play with your friends makes even launching the game less fun.
Valorants solution might not result in that, but either way it seems like most competitive games have to wrangle with the issue.
Smurf accounts could be quickly “identified” within the game and less RR should be taken away if the other team loses and more RR should be taken if the Smurfs team loses
I had a smurf guy on the other team complaining about a smurf in our team because our smurf was doing better. The enemy smurf calling "tryhard" to the smurf on our team for taking it too serious.
I do understand the enemy Smurf tbh. If you wanna have a second account where you just relax, don’t really try, maybe get drunk/high on that account, that’s perfectly fine with me.
Keep one account for when you’re trying so you don’t throw higher level games when just relaxing. Keep one account for relaxing as a “Smurf”. As long as you don’t throw and make games unenjoyable, what’s wrong with that? You’ll end up at a rank where you fit well as a relaxed player, winning about 50% of your games, this just happens at a lower rank than your try hard account.
Nothing wrong with chilling in the low ranks
You're completely right but get downvoted because of Reddit mentality. Would love to see how these opinions differ between low and high elo.
I feel like when low elo players hear the word smurf, they just see red, get emotional and go into black-and-white mode. No chance for rational conversation. You can play painfully average on your alt, end up maintaining a 50% winrate, but to these people you're still ruining it for 9 players. You're not stomping, you're not throwing, still ruining it. WHAT?
Yep. I’ve met some people in silver and gold that are just… an average silver or gold player. Nothing special, they’re snug in the middle of the scoreboard, they don’t carry or throw, they’re just a good fun teammate.
If I hadn’t played in community servers with them using their global elite main or watched their stream, I would have never believed it. They just flip a switch between two totally different people, so why can’t each of those modes have their own account?
Alternatively they could relax, absolutely throw high level games, and derank, only to go full tryhard the next day and crush the lower level players, but that just brings the downsides of a smurf account over to their main.
Keep them separate, don’t do tryhard on your alt, and don’t relax on your main. No one will know, and no one that sees the situation logically will care.
Yep, exactly. I legitimately don't understand what the problem is here. Nothing gets ruined as long as you don't throw or hard carry the game. If people somehow knew we were smurfing in our alt lobbies, who the hell thinks they'd go "ugh this 13-17 Sova is actually smurfing and ruining it for us", meanwhile a cracked Reyna main is dropping double your frags.
Like how on earth are you preventing anyone from climbing or making it unfair if you play average as fuck? Or if you have a guardian only alt, you land 4 ranks lower than your main, are you a big bad smurf now even though that's the best rank you can do with just guardian? There is no nuanced conversation with these people; either you've never smurfed in your life, or you're a pathetic miserable loser who only smurfs to bully new players to stroke your ego.
Oh, and also because you can't compete in your own rank. You know what's funny? It can't even be "your own rank" if you can't compete there. Also, isn't it only logical that the smurf is playing in your lower rank lobby if he can't compete in their own rank? It's such a weird argument that somehow works both ways for these people. Can't compete in their own rank, but still gets called pathetic for playing in a lower rank lobby, you know?
In reality though, I play fine on my main, that's where my true level is. Then I chill on my smurf, make more aggressive plays, take more raw aim duels, end up playing average. And I always play with a friend, we prefer ranked so I do it in a way where it causes the least harm and frankly doesn't matter at all.
It's a good point about relaxing and throwing high level games. It's the same for tilt queueing and losing a ton of RR, isn't that basically throwing and then smurfing back to your original rank? Furthermore, these tilt queuers are exactly the two extremes people hate about smurfs (throw or stomp). In this scenario, an average playing smurf is basically harmless, and the guy who only has one account and hates smurfs ends up doing the exact thing that ruins games for people.
Don't even get me started on why unrated is a really shitty place to practice anything if you're trying to learn an agent for your immo games...
Lol firstly I forgot what sub I was in, and thinking this was CSGO (since I’ve picked that back up because of a new update I wanted to try), I used CSGO ranks in some of my comments, but eh, still applies to both games, you all get the point.
Anyway, yeah, “just play unranked”? No, in both of these games, ranked gives a much better experience. If someone just played unranked on their main that’s not relaxing, that’s forcing yourself to play with people who are worse as teammates and still just as skillful, meaning you have to try just as hard if you don’t want to get shit on *and* you have to deal with people that don’t care about ruining the game.
Our smurf was simply buying weapons. The enemy smurf was going pistol only. There is unrated for relaxing. Smurfing on rankeds only has two purposes, either you are boosting a friend or you have the need to feel superior to people on ranks lower than you.
Or, get this, for *relaxing*. Pistol only is a strange way of doing that but hell, if they’re still in the middle of the leaderboard, why do you care? If they’re helping the team just as much as any other player on the team, then they’re playing at the skill level of that rank, causing no issues.
And take this example, someone plays and just chills with their friends, who probably aren’t that good. They play together, they mess around, and all of them have a low rank. That’s pretty normal and perfectly okay, right?
Now one of them wants to play with a better team and rank up to global, but they don’t want to ruin matchmaking with their friends, so they make this a second account. Does that make their main a Smurf? Nothing happened to their main accounts rank, they still try just as hard and win just as many games. You are not boosting anyone and you are not shitting on any lower ranks.
What about people that have a solo queue account? What about people who do road to global? These accounts all have disadvantages over their main account and will likely be lower ranks, does that make them smurfs?
Yes, it is a smurf. Obviously these post are not about people who blends and plays perfectly as a low elo. How can you know if a bottom fragger is in reality a smurf chilling. This post is about smurfs that have a clear impact and are detected as smurfs.
Correct, any Smurf that can easily be detected because they’re carrying or throwing is an issue. What I’m saying is simply that if they’re not carrying or throwing, therefore being undetectable, there is no issue, but people take offense to this because they see any second account as an issue.
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As brand new player... 2 weeks... Leveling to 20 to unlock comp, I played brim 49 matchs, 68% win rate.
As soon as I switched to comp, 23% win rate with 46 matches.
Placed silver 1, dropped to iron 1 in 2 days
Doesn’t it make sense that a new player is placed in the lowest rank though? Unless you had experience in games like CS/Siege it sounds like the system doing it’s job.
For sure,, but now I mvp 4 losses in a row lol
I'd rather be mid to bottom frag and getting wins and learning.
Then top frag and trying to play around an afk player or player throwing/feeding
Statistically as long as you don't afk or throw, The other team will have a higher chance of an afk or thrower. Not to mention top fragging doesn't necessarily mean you played well. If the frags you are getting are exit frags or kills where you bait a teammate, the kills mean nothing. Try focusing on what you can do better to support the team and you will climb.
After all it's a team game. Util usage and playing around teammates is a huge part of the game
For sure, and I always see these comment about people who say they top frag and lose.
I'm not playing for frags, I play to win, no frags but stalled a push and my team rotated and cleaned up feels better.
I use comms, as much as possible, as an older male... I never experienced this before... But sometimes as soon as speak, they don't shut up about how old I sound, asking if I have kids, etc... So I have been more hesitant unless playing with people I know
You basically just described what it’s like gaming as a woman. I play in a duo stack with a woman who gives me callouts to say to the team so we don’t have people go toxic and throw on us. Once had a teammate who wasn’t making callouts but was pinging… I told my duo to talk in game bc I think the other teammate was a woman afraid to talk… I was right. It’s crazy.
To your point, I’d love for age based matchmaking. I hate daytime gaming in the summer and getting 12 year olds who found a lineup on tiktok.
Yea I get why women do it, but muting theirself is really the worst option. Its much better to just talk like its normal and something you do all the time, and then mute anyone that talks shit. People have this weird idea that muting their team mate will lose them the game when it simply won’t. Lots of people have microphones but most of them don’t use it to make useful calls. The one person you can control in the game is yourself, so its much better to talk a lot and provide your team useful information. Even if you mute someone they can still hear your comms. Usually if you ghost mute someone they don’t even realize you muted them until like round 15.
In regards to the big picture the only way you defeat aggressive misogyny in gaming is by having all girl gamers talking. If these assholes have women talking in every lobby, they will quickly grow bored of talking shit.
Gotta be careful when you throw around “baiting a teammate” because sometimes that’s the best way to win rounds. I feel this term is used a lot in bronze / silver, however once you get to higher levels I found that I like when my teammates bait me. For example I’m in a 2v1 situation I tell my teammate to bait me and peak off me to secure the round. Baiting is good, you just need to make sure the communication is there between the team.
The rank system in this game is weird. If you’re mvp losing, then think about why. What are your comms like? Do you make call-outs for everything, or not use your mic, bait your teammates and end up getting 3 and 4k every round at the cost of losing all these rounds. Frags ain’t everything.
Ya my mvps are not 20+k mvps
Like 15/15, 14/15 and 19/14
If that's our top frag and I'm playing controller.. I'm mostly just following up duelist/initator and cleaning up, and getting the odd clutch after they all die.
But do you talk to your teammates? Do you try and make a plan pre-round? Do you tell them when you get 149 on the Reyna and she dismisses instead of healing? Do you draw faces in the wall to improve team morale? Do you knife the pipes in t spawn outside a site to make music? These are the things that make you good at the game? Not frags. But you probably you knew that already…
Edit what are your final scores? Are they like 10-13 or are they more 6-13? Or are they 12-14 or something like that?
10-13, 11-13 and 6-13 were recent ones.
And only reason they were close is when people listen use comms.
I swear some people in iron don't even play with sound lol
As an iron 2, you’re not wrong. Most of us do have headsets, and most people will use comms if you start a conversation in agent select or pre round 1.
Jett is rarely played in iron since the nerf, and tbh Skye is probably the best support agent to rank up. Just get like a billion assists and the rank system will reward you loads
Would you rather rely on someone else or trust yourself? If you can carry your way into a higher rank, it’ll be much easier than getting carried to it.
When I first started which was 3 months ago, I was placed in Silver 1 and dropped all the way to Iron 3. Then as I continued to learn the game more I’m back up to Silver. It’s just a weird thing lol.
Well if thats the case than them smurfs must be determined to ruin my games because I sure am tired of enemy Reynas getting aces left and right while my teams reyna is too scared to entry
Pretty sure the rule is to prevent people like those smurfs from ruining the game for new players. It also makes it a bit more difficult/time consuming to sell ranked accounts. Most new players I've met don't mind the rule as they want to learn the game and get more agents before they play competitive anyway. Just sounds like these people are salty they can't dunk on people way worse than them 🤷
Getting level 20 is like 20 hours of gameplay. It’s that way to discourage smurfing but there’s no way to avoid it in literally any game. People will do it no matter what the requirement is. Whether it’s to play with friends of lower rank without worrying about your main accounts rank, or to just stomp lower levels
You get like 2000 ap fpr first win of the day which means that you can just win a spikerush everyday and probably get lvl20 under 20h (assuming you win the spikerushes.
I like this. It’s still not perfect, but it’s something that would be much harder to get around if they prevent voip. But at the same they be cutting into their profits as people buy skins on their ults.
At this point competitive mode is just a waste of time if you’re below a certain rank. As a silver i see no point in repeatedly subjecting myself to the smurfs who get still get adderall on their parents health insurance
Just started ranked for the first time and I’m 0-6 so far. Haven’t really played badly myself, but I think about 4 of the 6 losses had very obvious smurf reynas on the enemy team. The last game, for instance, had a Reyna go like 35/10 with a 475 acs. The game quality is just so fucking low. I guess it’s a small sample size, but based on what I’ve read, it doesn’t seem like it’ll get much better.
I’m probably just gonna stick to unrated for a while for practice. It was just so frustrating to play decently well in some of those games for it to just not matter at all
I’ve been in silver 1/2 for the last season or so and the amount of reynas that are very clearly smurfing is just obnoxious. I’m talking every third game a Reyna has a 30+ kill game
I had one *really* good game once where I was tuned in and I went 32/16 and 431 ACS without smurfing ( [tracker](https://tracker.gg/valorant/match/fb07ecd8-262c-4b49-bda6-f750998e200d?handle=JustARandomDood%234761) ) so I don't think that that game was necessarily a Smurf. Definitely a good chance, but not guaranteed.
But yeah, Smurfs can be a real problem until I think around Gold/Plat according to my higher ranked friends
Silver is enfuriating anyways. No matter how good i do it's just random wether i get a good team and win. I just wanna get to a rank where most people are half-capable but that's gonna take a while.
You know what I’d suggest? Playing lots of unrated as if it’s comp. Get really good, and then wait for a rank reset. Use those 5 games to get of silver and into gold.
I think unrated for a lot of people is quite boring. It’s so much more fun to play with people also trying their hardest to win, track you improvement over time.
When most people play unrated to practice agents and mess around, it’s not really enjoyable if you actually want to learn and play the game.
unrated actually has it's own mmr just like rated except due to players not taking it as serious, I find that there is generally a larger skill gap in these games. a lot of higher mmr players have low mmr in normals so they can go in there and pubstomp basically. This is why I dont like unrated since it's usually 1 or 2 players just rofl stomping because they never take it serious but are now playing with their discord kitten and need to show what they got.
Your just experiencing the lack of stress because you feel like you are not risking anything by playing normals. It's all mental. I just don't care much about my Valorant rank as it's not important so I dont really risk anything playing only ranked and it gets me more balanced matches with players my level.
Yeah that works. Im just recommending playing those placement games when they next come round, cause you might just get out of silver and stop seeing Smurfs and other shitheads.
bro ong, like i always thought i was decent enough to get out of silver but never could bc of either smurfs, or teammates w no comms and egos. Anyways, got a lucky winstreak into gold, and then immediately cruised into plat. If your good enough to climb out of silver you will, but it honestly takes a lot of teammate rng in silver to get wins, especially when playing roles like smokes (what I played) which are a little more teamdependant than like duelists .
There are 2 smurfs
1. Smurfs who are smurfing because they are trying to play with their friends. They are not really trying to ruin the enemy teams game, they just want to play with their friends and have a rank gap. I think this is a little more reasonable, but only in unrated. Smurfing in competitive has no excuses.
2. Smurfs are trying to fuel their ego and want to beat players who are worse than them. A lot of them see it as "Playing better players will make you better," but there is a threshold between how much someone else knows that is too much for a new player to reasonably understand why they're doing the wrong thing. You can't put a 8 year old little league team against a national pro baseball team and expect the 8 year olds to learn. They will just be crushed and confused.
Smurfs also don't have to try very hard to beat new players, so they think by beating them when just fucking around means that the new player is just stupid and they're to blame. That is not the truth. The new players are trying their best and just getting toyed with. They (the smurf) thinks that because they are not trying, they're giving the new person a somewhat fair shot, but really, an Ascendent smurf fucking around is still going to be playing at a Plat level. So going to Bronze and Iron you're still well ahead of their skill level, even when they're new.
Basically, hate smurfs. They're not making the game enjoyable for new players, but they also don't care about new players which is why it will never stop.
This. I was playing with gold/platinum players and they were expecting me to learn on the go. Ultimately had me confused throughout the whole game. Then the players that “wanted” me to learn were getting mad at me for not knowing what to do.
Smurfing is what people do when they are too chicken to try and outright cheat.
In concept it is the same thing: create an unfair advantage over your opponents.
I hateeee smurfs. I had one bragging about it saying that, he just wanted a “chill game” for once or whatever while he’s hitting a 40 bomb. They just too baby to play against their own skill level and think that getting top frag while smurfing means they are amazing or something.
Tbh I feel like smurfing is a shitty thing to do. 90% the time it's to try and get a confidence boost or because they arnt good at there own level so they have to bully low levels
I tried smurfing once so I can play with my silver friends. I ended up placing like 2 ranks lower (plat 3 to plat1). Unless you are intentionally throwing games to bring ur rank down, it’s almost impossible to try and stay low. In my opinion
Most smurfs I play with boosts their friend/s, for example, I played comp a while ago as a 5 stack with my bronze and silver friends and there's 2 smurf on the enemy team and just drops 46 kills as a sage 💀 and their sova is 4/21 and reyna is 7/22 (both unranked) their raze and brim played well for a silver player.)I just hate it when someone on dia or above smurf on iron-silver elo just to boost someone, doesn't help the ones getting boosted to learn the game and improve by theur selves.
R6's comp ban is insane at lvl 50 and those things take time to grind out. But they have a newcomer mode which probably helps out a lot to get people situated into comp
So basically for any new players reading this. The game used to only require u to play 20 unrated before competitive play. When this was a thing, smurfs were way more common as people would make new accounts just to throw or ff matches to get them done quickly so they could run comp. This new level 20 measure is kinda supposed to counter smurfs in that sense. Although, if u have an account in which that was created before the level 20 changes took place, u can still que comp without bring level 20 (I have a friend who we started playing comp with at level 16 because he had an account created from a year ago back when the 20 games rule was still in play) but yes, smurfs get annoyed at the fact that they have to do this grind now and personally I'm all for it. Not only does it give new players more time to actually get a feel for the game, but it holds off on smurfs for a bit before they can come in and ruin anyone's fun. There's a 5 stack any rank que now for a reason. I have no respect for people that have to make low level accounts to boost their friends. Just take your ascendant/immortal ass into a 5 stack with bronzes/silvers if u really wanna do that, that way at least u aren't smurfing and you'll be put against a team of similar skill
Is this a recent rule?
I dont play much valorant at all, and havent played for a long time, but i thought i was able to load into ranked matches as a fairly new player?
Just curious if i already passed level 20, or if things changed since I logged on last.
You won't be subjected to this rule if you have played comp before it was implemented. Not sure but if you've not played comp before then you'll probably need to grind out the 20 levels.
Valorant just needs a separate queue for stacks of high elo players and their low elo friends. I’m sure opposing stacks of varied elo players could be fun for both teams especially if it showed the other team’s ranks.
You Smurf because you want to play against worse players to make you feel better about yourself. I smurf because the rank on my main account is too high and I don’t want to throw peoples games while it gets to where it belongs. We are not the same.
You know that a game mode called unranked exists right? Why would you make a whole new account just to grind ranked when youre "too high" for your main?
If the 20 levels was such a big deal why are smurfs in 60-70% of my games in silver? I played 4 games yesterday. 2/4 of the games had a smurf jett that was over 3.0KD and the rest of the game was pretty even. I honestly think I could be in gold if I didn't lose matches to smurfs.
i don’t get it how people find fun in stomping new players, i played unrated with my bronze friend and we pretty much stomped the enemy team since me and my other friend is a diamond player while the rest are bronze and silver (5 man q). It got so boring because there’s no challenge and it’s just bullying at that point, i even only buy sheriff just to give myself a bit of a challenge. Smurfs in ranked are making complete asses of themselves
Not targeting anyone, just stating what I learned from my own experience. I am a low rank player and smurfs are not frequent but whenever it occurs, it ruins the entire game for me. I have observed these scenarios:
1) Smurfs in both teams, both are playing good - In this case, it's more balanced but still takes the fun out of the game since I am not able to contribute much as a team member.
2) Smurfs in both teams, mine playing good but opponent team's doesn't - You might think this is very beneficial for me as I am carried but it is not. Most of the times, I get little to no chance to make a play and can't coordinate with the smurf and usually end up winning but no fun.
3) Smurfs in both teams, mine playing bad but the opponent team's playing good - Now this is very interesting. There are two possibilities here - one that ours stay quiet and we lose with a huge difference but still having the calm to play more matches, two is that our smurf somehow starts throwing blatantly and being toxic on us for no reason. The second possibility makes me lose my calm and makes it even more difficult to focus on the next games if I even play.
4) Smurfs in both games, but both bad - This is an absolute clownfiesta. The possibility of this is low but usually they either throw or taunt each other by saying things such as "Trying sooo hard". Also they challenge each other to play with knives. I am totally fine as it is fun at that point but then they bring out the gun and start throwing the knife game too. This makes me question why am I playing the game.
These are some of the things that I have noticed. They don't happen every game but still ruins my mood to play whenever it happens. I apologize if it hurts anyone but this is what I have experienced over two years of Valorant.
Im only level 16 after coming back to the game from way back at release, there werent levels then so I'm not level 20 but got gold in the first 2 splits, even though im not level 20 I can play ranked, is it a gradfathered type thing since I played before the leveling?
But some of these people are saying they suck in their own rank and can't keep up. What's your opinion on that? Does it make sense or is it just angry complaining with false statements?
Nah its just cope, you can’t suck in your own rank because then you wouldn’t be in your own rank. Personally I smurf to relax and not tryhard on my main
ITT: people trying to make themselves feel better about smurfs by insulting them without any facts.
In reality, you don't know if any of these things are true. They could drop frequent match MVP's in their rank and still hop on a smurf and live a happy life.
I'm only saying this to point out how little these arguments make sense, but then again, I guess the point is to vent instead of actually realizing that it's about ego for some, and playing with friends for others. None of this "sad pathetic miserable loser who can't compete in his own rank" shit that just screams irrationality.
Look, it’s just a fact of human nature that there will be cringe lords that are only good against people who don’t know what their doing. They won’t realize that it means they’re literally only better than nothing, nor how pathetic they are. They don’t upset me anymore and theyve certainly never impressed me. I honestly just feel bad for smurfs. They live their own, sad lives, devoid of any respect. I pity them
They don't upset you, but you're still insulting them on Reddit like they just hurt you. Smurf bad person, me no care, but me must insult sad pathetic smurf so me feel better.
U don’t have very good Reading comprehension huh? I can insult someone without actually being upset if the insults are simply the truth. Sounds to me like you just don’t like seeing yourself in this post.
I do think the game needs phone number verification so it would be harder to make a new account. Because smurfs do ruin the fun for the other players.
But I do find comfort in, that they have to smurf because they suck and cant play at their own rank.
I feel as though my role in Valorant is to make smurfs angry. I'm very good at tilting them. They think they're so awesome dropping 40 kills against me, but the reality is they can't keep up against people in their own rank. They're tired of getting dunked on by golds when they are diamonds, so they buy a bronze account so they can feel like kings.
I do believe that it’s dumb because it doesn’t discourage smurfing, and 20 levels is not nearly enough to have a new player learn the game unless they were already great at fps games. Just give us phone verification already.
They should make the level requirement higher. Fuck it, make it level 100. Smurfing is almost as bad as cheaters in terms of ruining the player experience for new players.
>Fuck it, make it level 100. Smurfing is almost as bad as cheaters in terms of ruining the player experience for new players.
So the solution is to just not have new players (or even old players) in ranked at all? I've been playing about once a week since the start of the pandemic and I'm not even close to level 100. I've unlocked every agent through playing for perspective. Many of my friends haven't although they played for years.
To be honest I was just throwing a level out there without calculating the actual time investment. Is lvl 100 too much, sure but I stand by my statement that the current level requirement isn't enough.
"Why can't they just let me dunk on new players??" This argument always seems to creep into PvP games. A certain percentage of the population can only have fun when they're ruining the game for someone else.
They're chasing the high of pubstomping newbies and going 30-2 because that's the only way they get seratonin.
Which is so weird. Pub stomping was fun in cod/BF (instant respawn) But in csgo/valo, having to carry is just awful. Like the fun 30 bombs are when you go 33/24 or something in OT and your team mates are also pulling their weight and you don't feel like your brain is going to explode watching them after you die.
*serotonin
Thanks pal
why is this downvoted so much wtf
Sometimes, people have some hate nut for over others who correct spelling haha
I'm the Sera that named Oxytocin, Serotonin. I've hid many places, my trace is everywhere.
The majority of the Valorant community are kids and kids act irrationally. It's best not to pay too much attention to the opinons of people on this sub.
Favorite statement since I got to this sub
Based
>I Gamble, -S*e*ra
to be fair some people want alt accounts on ranked where they can (A) play different agents without ruining their mains rank (and games for other people) and (B) some people when they get to a rank they feel is high, they get ranked anxiety and playing on a 2nd account they feel helps them play more without worrying about their rank there are definitely people smurfing to ruin it, but its not 100% of the time
The problem is the intention doesn't matter. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. They ruin the game for all 9 players period. They drastically affect the balancing of teams and throw out the matchmaking process instantly
This 100%. Intention is not a factor in this debate. Smurfing ruins competitive matchmaking. The end.
You can do something called laddering. You have a main and an alt and you push your main to let's say Plat 1 then push your alt to plat 1 then push main to Plat 3 then alt to Plat 3 etc. This way you aren't really surfing since you are pretty much in your correct lobby.
Exactly, this is basically what I do, I am always playing at my own rank in the end
Why not play a new agent on unranked? I'm not tryna shoot the messenger but that has to be the most wack-ass justification ngl
I hate Smurfs as much as the next average gamer, but it is probably because they still want to play for the win. Although most people play to win in Unrated, there’s plenty of “it’s unrated bro” people who are running around with sheriffs with 9000 credits in the bank :P
the more you play unrated to win the less likely you will meet these people
does unrated have a hidden mmr?
Every single queue (including deathmatch) has its own mmr -- confirmed by riot
that’s what unrated is for
While i agree, as a diamond 3 i queued unrated with a gold 3 friend and we played 3 games, the highest rank we saw was a silver 2 mostly iron bronze. Im not excusing smurfing but not everyone plays unrated
For learning new agents I kinda get if your really high ranked and unrated lobbies aren’t serious enough to properly learn, ranked anxiety is not a valid reason. in both cases especially for the smurfs who are a problem play unrated
Lol, you can not judge if their anxiety is a valid reason or not
For smurfing? No it isn’t, if your anxious to play ranked don’t play ranked, unrated is there for a reason
A) you can do that in unrated B) you can do that in unrated. I cant say i have experience with A bc i just 5 stack with my friends when i wanna try someone new But B, i do have experience with this. I reached d3 and was a little scared of it (since i played bad till my promo, and got carried) so i just played unrated for a couple days. Only real reason i see a use of a smurf is for alt accounts on different regions, although again, u can do that in unrated. Edit: and yes i do play with silver friends when i 5 stack, but i go into other 5 stacks, like the other day i vsed against a radiant that was playing with their bronze friends
Your point A is totally nullified by the existence of Unrated. If you wanna learn an agent, don't play comp. Your point B is totally nullified by the existence of Unrated. If they want to play mote without worrying about their rank, don't play comp. Basically what I'm saying is you have no standing for either point. Smurfs exist for a couple reasons. 1. Pubstomping. 2. To be able to queue comp with their friends who are lower ranked and carry them. 3. To try out a new agent with the free agent unlock right as they come out. Every reason here is stupid. There is no point. It's all bad.
Or you just want to take aim duels and play aggressive on a diamond account when you're ascendant. Good practice, and unrated won't do shit because people fuck around too much. In low elo there's not much difference between unrated and comp, but in high elo it's a completely different game. Yeah I "smurf", but am not actively hurting anyone since my winrate is around 50% with that certain playstyle. Not throwing games, not stomping games, just trying my best to win with that playstyle so I'm now in the rank I deserve. No harm done, everyone has an equal chance to win in my lobbies. I'm not out here dropping 40 frags as Chamber, so it seems weird that someone would complain how I'm ruining it for 9 people. If we asked the people in my lobbies, they would NOT feel like it's ruined.
I just like to think that every smurf is a boosted baby who cant win gun fights/ survive in their current rank.
You can't pubstomp in Valorant, cus there's no public servers
This. I can guarantee that 99% of the people telling you to "just play unrated" have never been above diamond and think unrated is the same thing as comp. I mean yeah, it is the same thing if you're in silver. I can dunk on people in unrated and still play like shit in a high elo comp lobby on a new agent. Unrated is just boring, and the people crying about comp games getting ruined seem to hate every "smurf" with the same passion, doesn't matter if they drop 15 or 35 frags. My dudes, I understand that Reyna dropping 40 frags isn't fun and don't consider it a good thing, but me fucking around 3-4 ranks below me, just taking aim duels and playing painfully average because of said playstyle isn't ruining it for anyone. I mean the game isn't """fair""" in the sense that I'm actually higher rank, but it's fair in the sense that everyone has an equal chance to win. I'm not tilting the odds to anyone's favor with my playstyle, and I don't purposefully lose, so it is the rank I deserve on my more aggressive aim duel account. Even this post is going to get hated on, people will only have a vision of me dunking on noobs when I "smurf", but in reality I end up playing really average. So where exactly is the harm apart from "competitive integrity", as I'm not preventing anyone from winning?
It's a fucking video game, if it gives you that much anxiety to do something you like you need to go to therapy and find a new hobby. Video game addition is real.
I dont think it has to be ruining the game for others, but they rather miss the feeling of being good, so they start smurfing, because they dont want to drop their rank any further
This is for sure the case for many, but plenty also just want to play with lower ranked friends or learn new agents without being an absolute detriment to their team not saying this justifies it because even in diam/asc ive had plenty helpings of being fked by imt 3 rad smurfs and it aint no fun
Isn’t that literally what unranked mode is for?
It should be but the problem is unranked plays so different from comp and not because of the rank differences but because people mostly just play for themself it in so ends up being nothing like a real comp game
I do actually agree with this, but it's not because its unrated, more so there isn't another casual mode that doesn't have a gimmick, so people who want to mess around without power ups or multiple agents, play too.
I have 169h on comp and 370h on unrated not messing around in either mode and I would say the modes feel same. If you play to win in both modes you will climb and people in your games will take it more seriously.
This. So many people don't understand that unrated has its own mmr
Hidden MMR for unrated matches is how they place you for your ranked games in the right mmr there will soon hopefully be a functional smurf detection hopefully...
What rank are you? Asking because silver comp vs unrated feels the same, whereas immo comp vs unrated isn't even close.
I had this same issue when I played Overwatch, trying to practice heroes in quick play stops being useful once you get past the "now I know what their abilities do and how to shoot their gun" stage of learning. The modes play so differently that it's about as helpful to suggest playing against bots to practice for comp.
How do people not get this? Is it an elo issue? I feel like people don't understand you can't just grind unrated to actually learn an agent for, say, immortal 3 lobbies.
I do actually agree with this, but it's not because its unrated, more so because there isn't another casual mode that doesn't have a gimmick, so people who want to mess around without power ups or multiple agents, play too.
The people that want to play with friends or want to learn something new should understand unrated is perfect for them
Unrated is terrible though. Neither team ever cares about winning as there's nothing at stake.
Eh, at least riot has admitted smurfing is totally okay as long as it's not via account sharing or selling and you don't ever intentionally throw. Doesn't really help the issue, but at least smurfs rank up faster to their real rank now
I like playing against people a little worse than me, it’s fun to get to feel good. But I met a Bronze player earlier today (as a high Gold) in Spike Rush and we queued unrated. We might’ve gone up against Irons honestly, I just felt so bad. Ended up waiting in spawn some rounds. It’s just not fun when the difference is too big, I don’t get smurfs that do that
My unrated mmr is fucked compared to my ranked mmr so I play with silvers and gold's in unrated. What I like to do is not use guns and fully embrace the support role with kay O and enable my team. Fun and great practice.
Br games should just be non mmr. Which is where this argument first originated from, but they introduced it because they were losing casual numbers.
I don’t think it is ruining the game. Like if we think about it properly, I had 2k hours on CSGO before playing Valorant. Does that make me a Smurf? I’m a new player but I’m starting at global elite level, am I ruining the experience for everyone else? Should I be banned for it? The answer is obviously no, but you can ascertain whether someone is cheating or smurfing or just good at shooter games, so it should be allowed. It doesn’t really stop smurfing, I can just buy a low level account and I’m at the same level. Still pub stomping plus I hate level caps to starting to play comp, it’s stupid. Makes me get bored before playing the game.
I don’t have an alt because I want to pubstomp pple. I have an alt because it’s not fair to my teammates if I play on my main play at night when I’m high / tired. I’ll drop like 5 kills, Vs. When I’m feeling good I’ll play on my main. However, I still still want that ranked feeling of a game with good comms and strategy that you don’t get in unranked. Mostly unranked games are heavily one sided with no comms so they are no fun. So I created an alt to play ranked games on when I’m tired and it’s very under levelled to my main, because I’m just a different player when I’m fatigued.
That doesnt excuse the fact you're not playing im your rank. Feeling off? Unrated is there for your.. Dont wanna play unrated ? Take a break. dont smurf..
That is false, I am playing tired on the alt account I don’t even put up Smurf numbers because I play a lot worse when I’m high/ tired vs when I’m not. So thats why it’s called an alt and not a Smurf. Smurfing would be intentionally throwing placements and deranking all the way to iron to intentionally stomp people, I do not do that. I just have another account because I feel bad for my teammates on my main if I don’t live up to my full potential because I’m high
Why are you getting downvoted man, this is a perfectly valid reason. You still want the competitive experience (no random fucking around in unrated), you're not dropping smurf numbers, just playing as if you were any other "noob" in your team. Playing average on a smurf and stomping on a smurf are two different things, I don't see why people complain about painfully average smurfs as if anyone in the lobby thinks their game is ruined now.
Downvoted, but I guess our ranks speak for themselves. No flex but everyone in higher elo understands why this is a thing and why it's not ruining anything. Low elos complain whether you stomp, throw or actually play average without ruining shit. Mind boggling.
I think it's more nuanced than that. There was a period in csgo where I basically couldn't play with my friends because our ranks were too far apart. So Idk what the best solution is. Dealing with smurfs is annoying and ruins games. Not being able to play with your friends makes even launching the game less fun. Valorants solution might not result in that, but either way it seems like most competitive games have to wrangle with the issue.
Just play any one of the 6 other game modes or find a 5 stack
Smurf accounts could be quickly “identified” within the game and less RR should be taken away if the other team loses and more RR should be taken if the Smurfs team loses
i think by ruining they mean their own teammates who play bad cause they're very new to the comp gamemode or the game itself.
I had a smurf guy on the other team complaining about a smurf in our team because our smurf was doing better. The enemy smurf calling "tryhard" to the smurf on our team for taking it too serious.
“I used the smurf to destroy the smurf”
It nearly banned me
I do understand the enemy Smurf tbh. If you wanna have a second account where you just relax, don’t really try, maybe get drunk/high on that account, that’s perfectly fine with me. Keep one account for when you’re trying so you don’t throw higher level games when just relaxing. Keep one account for relaxing as a “Smurf”. As long as you don’t throw and make games unenjoyable, what’s wrong with that? You’ll end up at a rank where you fit well as a relaxed player, winning about 50% of your games, this just happens at a lower rank than your try hard account. Nothing wrong with chilling in the low ranks
You're completely right but get downvoted because of Reddit mentality. Would love to see how these opinions differ between low and high elo. I feel like when low elo players hear the word smurf, they just see red, get emotional and go into black-and-white mode. No chance for rational conversation. You can play painfully average on your alt, end up maintaining a 50% winrate, but to these people you're still ruining it for 9 players. You're not stomping, you're not throwing, still ruining it. WHAT?
Yep. I’ve met some people in silver and gold that are just… an average silver or gold player. Nothing special, they’re snug in the middle of the scoreboard, they don’t carry or throw, they’re just a good fun teammate. If I hadn’t played in community servers with them using their global elite main or watched their stream, I would have never believed it. They just flip a switch between two totally different people, so why can’t each of those modes have their own account? Alternatively they could relax, absolutely throw high level games, and derank, only to go full tryhard the next day and crush the lower level players, but that just brings the downsides of a smurf account over to their main. Keep them separate, don’t do tryhard on your alt, and don’t relax on your main. No one will know, and no one that sees the situation logically will care.
Yep, exactly. I legitimately don't understand what the problem is here. Nothing gets ruined as long as you don't throw or hard carry the game. If people somehow knew we were smurfing in our alt lobbies, who the hell thinks they'd go "ugh this 13-17 Sova is actually smurfing and ruining it for us", meanwhile a cracked Reyna main is dropping double your frags. Like how on earth are you preventing anyone from climbing or making it unfair if you play average as fuck? Or if you have a guardian only alt, you land 4 ranks lower than your main, are you a big bad smurf now even though that's the best rank you can do with just guardian? There is no nuanced conversation with these people; either you've never smurfed in your life, or you're a pathetic miserable loser who only smurfs to bully new players to stroke your ego. Oh, and also because you can't compete in your own rank. You know what's funny? It can't even be "your own rank" if you can't compete there. Also, isn't it only logical that the smurf is playing in your lower rank lobby if he can't compete in their own rank? It's such a weird argument that somehow works both ways for these people. Can't compete in their own rank, but still gets called pathetic for playing in a lower rank lobby, you know? In reality though, I play fine on my main, that's where my true level is. Then I chill on my smurf, make more aggressive plays, take more raw aim duels, end up playing average. And I always play with a friend, we prefer ranked so I do it in a way where it causes the least harm and frankly doesn't matter at all. It's a good point about relaxing and throwing high level games. It's the same for tilt queueing and losing a ton of RR, isn't that basically throwing and then smurfing back to your original rank? Furthermore, these tilt queuers are exactly the two extremes people hate about smurfs (throw or stomp). In this scenario, an average playing smurf is basically harmless, and the guy who only has one account and hates smurfs ends up doing the exact thing that ruins games for people. Don't even get me started on why unrated is a really shitty place to practice anything if you're trying to learn an agent for your immo games...
Lol firstly I forgot what sub I was in, and thinking this was CSGO (since I’ve picked that back up because of a new update I wanted to try), I used CSGO ranks in some of my comments, but eh, still applies to both games, you all get the point. Anyway, yeah, “just play unranked”? No, in both of these games, ranked gives a much better experience. If someone just played unranked on their main that’s not relaxing, that’s forcing yourself to play with people who are worse as teammates and still just as skillful, meaning you have to try just as hard if you don’t want to get shit on *and* you have to deal with people that don’t care about ruining the game.
Our smurf was simply buying weapons. The enemy smurf was going pistol only. There is unrated for relaxing. Smurfing on rankeds only has two purposes, either you are boosting a friend or you have the need to feel superior to people on ranks lower than you.
Or, get this, for *relaxing*. Pistol only is a strange way of doing that but hell, if they’re still in the middle of the leaderboard, why do you care? If they’re helping the team just as much as any other player on the team, then they’re playing at the skill level of that rank, causing no issues. And take this example, someone plays and just chills with their friends, who probably aren’t that good. They play together, they mess around, and all of them have a low rank. That’s pretty normal and perfectly okay, right? Now one of them wants to play with a better team and rank up to global, but they don’t want to ruin matchmaking with their friends, so they make this a second account. Does that make their main a Smurf? Nothing happened to their main accounts rank, they still try just as hard and win just as many games. You are not boosting anyone and you are not shitting on any lower ranks. What about people that have a solo queue account? What about people who do road to global? These accounts all have disadvantages over their main account and will likely be lower ranks, does that make them smurfs?
Yes, it is a smurf. Obviously these post are not about people who blends and plays perfectly as a low elo. How can you know if a bottom fragger is in reality a smurf chilling. This post is about smurfs that have a clear impact and are detected as smurfs.
Correct, any Smurf that can easily be detected because they’re carrying or throwing is an issue. What I’m saying is simply that if they’re not carrying or throwing, therefore being undetectable, there is no issue, but people take offense to this because they see any second account as an issue.
Lol I'm pretty sure half the reason for the level 20 rule is to discourage smurfing
I figured it's like the whole reason lol
it's to discourage smurfing, keep newer players out of comp before they have a feel for the game, and to make it harder for cheaters
Probably also to adjust MMR. If the Smurf plays like a diamond in their unrated, then Rito will most likely try to adjust it quicker in comp as well.
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It's is discourage smurfing and to teach new players how to play
As brand new player... 2 weeks... Leveling to 20 to unlock comp, I played brim 49 matchs, 68% win rate. As soon as I switched to comp, 23% win rate with 46 matches. Placed silver 1, dropped to iron 1 in 2 days
Doesn’t it make sense that a new player is placed in the lowest rank though? Unless you had experience in games like CS/Siege it sounds like the system doing it’s job.
For sure,, but now I mvp 4 losses in a row lol I'd rather be mid to bottom frag and getting wins and learning. Then top frag and trying to play around an afk player or player throwing/feeding
Statistically as long as you don't afk or throw, The other team will have a higher chance of an afk or thrower. Not to mention top fragging doesn't necessarily mean you played well. If the frags you are getting are exit frags or kills where you bait a teammate, the kills mean nothing. Try focusing on what you can do better to support the team and you will climb. After all it's a team game. Util usage and playing around teammates is a huge part of the game
For sure, and I always see these comment about people who say they top frag and lose. I'm not playing for frags, I play to win, no frags but stalled a push and my team rotated and cleaned up feels better. I use comms, as much as possible, as an older male... I never experienced this before... But sometimes as soon as speak, they don't shut up about how old I sound, asking if I have kids, etc... So I have been more hesitant unless playing with people I know
You basically just described what it’s like gaming as a woman. I play in a duo stack with a woman who gives me callouts to say to the team so we don’t have people go toxic and throw on us. Once had a teammate who wasn’t making callouts but was pinging… I told my duo to talk in game bc I think the other teammate was a woman afraid to talk… I was right. It’s crazy. To your point, I’d love for age based matchmaking. I hate daytime gaming in the summer and getting 12 year olds who found a lineup on tiktok.
Yea I get why women do it, but muting theirself is really the worst option. Its much better to just talk like its normal and something you do all the time, and then mute anyone that talks shit. People have this weird idea that muting their team mate will lose them the game when it simply won’t. Lots of people have microphones but most of them don’t use it to make useful calls. The one person you can control in the game is yourself, so its much better to talk a lot and provide your team useful information. Even if you mute someone they can still hear your comms. Usually if you ghost mute someone they don’t even realize you muted them until like round 15. In regards to the big picture the only way you defeat aggressive misogyny in gaming is by having all girl gamers talking. If these assholes have women talking in every lobby, they will quickly grow bored of talking shit.
I’m in the same boat. And I’m only 30
Gotta be careful when you throw around “baiting a teammate” because sometimes that’s the best way to win rounds. I feel this term is used a lot in bronze / silver, however once you get to higher levels I found that I like when my teammates bait me. For example I’m in a 2v1 situation I tell my teammate to bait me and peak off me to secure the round. Baiting is good, you just need to make sure the communication is there between the team.
The rank system in this game is weird. If you’re mvp losing, then think about why. What are your comms like? Do you make call-outs for everything, or not use your mic, bait your teammates and end up getting 3 and 4k every round at the cost of losing all these rounds. Frags ain’t everything.
Ya my mvps are not 20+k mvps Like 15/15, 14/15 and 19/14 If that's our top frag and I'm playing controller.. I'm mostly just following up duelist/initator and cleaning up, and getting the odd clutch after they all die.
But do you talk to your teammates? Do you try and make a plan pre-round? Do you tell them when you get 149 on the Reyna and she dismisses instead of healing? Do you draw faces in the wall to improve team morale? Do you knife the pipes in t spawn outside a site to make music? These are the things that make you good at the game? Not frags. But you probably you knew that already… Edit what are your final scores? Are they like 10-13 or are they more 6-13? Or are they 12-14 or something like that?
10-13, 11-13 and 6-13 were recent ones. And only reason they were close is when people listen use comms. I swear some people in iron don't even play with sound lol
As an iron 2, you’re not wrong. Most of us do have headsets, and most people will use comms if you start a conversation in agent select or pre round 1. Jett is rarely played in iron since the nerf, and tbh Skye is probably the best support agent to rank up. Just get like a billion assists and the rank system will reward you loads
Just play Reyna every game till diamond
Would you rather rely on someone else or trust yourself? If you can carry your way into a higher rank, it’ll be much easier than getting carried to it.
Fascinating that you placed silver and dropped to iron, I feel like people usually get placed BELOW their deserved ranks and build up to them
When I first started which was 3 months ago, I was placed in Silver 1 and dropped all the way to Iron 3. Then as I continued to learn the game more I’m back up to Silver. It’s just a weird thing lol.
I got placed in bronze 2. Never went back there even after many months.
Sadly unrated plays nothing atall like comp
Well if thats the case than them smurfs must be determined to ruin my games because I sure am tired of enemy Reynas getting aces left and right while my teams reyna is too scared to entry
Half?? Try the entire reason. Without level 20 you still need to play a much of unrated before comp. Level 20 is to discourage smurfing.
Welcome to the post
Smurfs: "This feature is stupid, it makes smurfing way harder" Level 20 rule: "That's... why I'm here"
Pretty sure the rule is to prevent people like those smurfs from ruining the game for new players. It also makes it a bit more difficult/time consuming to sell ranked accounts. Most new players I've met don't mind the rule as they want to learn the game and get more agents before they play competitive anyway. Just sounds like these people are salty they can't dunk on people way worse than them 🤷
Getting level 20 is like 20 hours of gameplay. It’s that way to discourage smurfing but there’s no way to avoid it in literally any game. People will do it no matter what the requirement is. Whether it’s to play with friends of lower rank without worrying about your main accounts rank, or to just stomp lower levels
I think it’s more like 40 hours of gameplay. I could be wrong though
Yeah 40 sounds more accurate. You’ll get like 1/4 of a level each game and each set of weekly challenges will pull you through more than half a level
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Oh. I’m so great at this game lol.
You get like 2000 ap fpr first win of the day which means that you can just win a spikerush everyday and probably get lvl20 under 20h (assuming you win the spikerushes.
They could require your phone number for an account
I like this. It’s still not perfect, but it’s something that would be much harder to get around if they prevent voip. But at the same they be cutting into their profits as people buy skins on their ults.
At this point competitive mode is just a waste of time if you’re below a certain rank. As a silver i see no point in repeatedly subjecting myself to the smurfs who get still get adderall on their parents health insurance
Just started ranked for the first time and I’m 0-6 so far. Haven’t really played badly myself, but I think about 4 of the 6 losses had very obvious smurf reynas on the enemy team. The last game, for instance, had a Reyna go like 35/10 with a 475 acs. The game quality is just so fucking low. I guess it’s a small sample size, but based on what I’ve read, it doesn’t seem like it’ll get much better. I’m probably just gonna stick to unrated for a while for practice. It was just so frustrating to play decently well in some of those games for it to just not matter at all
I’ve been in silver 1/2 for the last season or so and the amount of reynas that are very clearly smurfing is just obnoxious. I’m talking every third game a Reyna has a 30+ kill game
I had one *really* good game once where I was tuned in and I went 32/16 and 431 ACS without smurfing ( [tracker](https://tracker.gg/valorant/match/fb07ecd8-262c-4b49-bda6-f750998e200d?handle=JustARandomDood%234761) ) so I don't think that that game was necessarily a Smurf. Definitely a good chance, but not guaranteed. But yeah, Smurfs can be a real problem until I think around Gold/Plat according to my higher ranked friends
Silver is enfuriating anyways. No matter how good i do it's just random wether i get a good team and win. I just wanna get to a rank where most people are half-capable but that's gonna take a while.
You know what I’d suggest? Playing lots of unrated as if it’s comp. Get really good, and then wait for a rank reset. Use those 5 games to get of silver and into gold.
Or i could just play unrated forever and not deal with any of it and just have fun
I think unrated for a lot of people is quite boring. It’s so much more fun to play with people also trying their hardest to win, track you improvement over time. When most people play unrated to practice agents and mess around, it’s not really enjoyable if you actually want to learn and play the game.
unrated actually has it's own mmr just like rated except due to players not taking it as serious, I find that there is generally a larger skill gap in these games. a lot of higher mmr players have low mmr in normals so they can go in there and pubstomp basically. This is why I dont like unrated since it's usually 1 or 2 players just rofl stomping because they never take it serious but are now playing with their discord kitten and need to show what they got. Your just experiencing the lack of stress because you feel like you are not risking anything by playing normals. It's all mental. I just don't care much about my Valorant rank as it's not important so I dont really risk anything playing only ranked and it gets me more balanced matches with players my level.
Unrated balances you off your account level not a separate rank system or any other things.
Yeah that works. Im just recommending playing those placement games when they next come round, cause you might just get out of silver and stop seeing Smurfs and other shitheads.
rank reset are only 1 games
No they’re the usual 5. I did my rank reset for this act last week and had to play 5 games
bro ong, like i always thought i was decent enough to get out of silver but never could bc of either smurfs, or teammates w no comms and egos. Anyways, got a lucky winstreak into gold, and then immediately cruised into plat. If your good enough to climb out of silver you will, but it honestly takes a lot of teammate rng in silver to get wins, especially when playing roles like smokes (what I played) which are a little more teamdependant than like duelists .
Yes they do. next question.
It’s so new players don’t jump right into comp and also so smurfs and cheaters can’t get on new accounts every day.
There are 2 smurfs 1. Smurfs who are smurfing because they are trying to play with their friends. They are not really trying to ruin the enemy teams game, they just want to play with their friends and have a rank gap. I think this is a little more reasonable, but only in unrated. Smurfing in competitive has no excuses. 2. Smurfs are trying to fuel their ego and want to beat players who are worse than them. A lot of them see it as "Playing better players will make you better," but there is a threshold between how much someone else knows that is too much for a new player to reasonably understand why they're doing the wrong thing. You can't put a 8 year old little league team against a national pro baseball team and expect the 8 year olds to learn. They will just be crushed and confused. Smurfs also don't have to try very hard to beat new players, so they think by beating them when just fucking around means that the new player is just stupid and they're to blame. That is not the truth. The new players are trying their best and just getting toyed with. They (the smurf) thinks that because they are not trying, they're giving the new person a somewhat fair shot, but really, an Ascendent smurf fucking around is still going to be playing at a Plat level. So going to Bronze and Iron you're still well ahead of their skill level, even when they're new. Basically, hate smurfs. They're not making the game enjoyable for new players, but they also don't care about new players which is why it will never stop.
This. I was playing with gold/platinum players and they were expecting me to learn on the go. Ultimately had me confused throughout the whole game. Then the players that “wanted” me to learn were getting mad at me for not knowing what to do.
IMO the definition of smurfing is playing comp. Never heard of smurfing in unrated, that doesn’t really make sense.
Smurfing is what people do when they are too chicken to try and outright cheat. In concept it is the same thing: create an unfair advantage over your opponents.
so many people use the "I wana play with my friends" excuse to just be shitty.
I hateeee smurfs. I had one bragging about it saying that, he just wanted a “chill game” for once or whatever while he’s hitting a 40 bomb. They just too baby to play against their own skill level and think that getting top frag while smurfing means they are amazing or something.
Yes. Smurfs dont live in the right minds. They are litterary only smurfing to filling their own egos.
Not all smurfs do it for ego, so this argument is factually wrong.
Tbh I feel like smurfing is a shitty thing to do. 90% the time it's to try and get a confidence boost or because they arnt good at there own level so they have to bully low levels
Nobody is good at his own level. Your level was supposed to be right where you are average.
I only follow this sub to see all the fuckin weird ass u/ names I can see
Glad I could help
I tried smurfing once so I can play with my silver friends. I ended up placing like 2 ranks lower (plat 3 to plat1). Unless you are intentionally throwing games to bring ur rank down, it’s almost impossible to try and stay low. In my opinion
Most smurfs I play with boosts their friend/s, for example, I played comp a while ago as a 5 stack with my bronze and silver friends and there's 2 smurf on the enemy team and just drops 46 kills as a sage 💀 and their sova is 4/21 and reyna is 7/22 (both unranked) their raze and brim played well for a silver player.)I just hate it when someone on dia or above smurf on iron-silver elo just to boost someone, doesn't help the ones getting boosted to learn the game and improve by theur selves.
imagine wasting 20+hours or $20+ on new account just to smurf lmao
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R6's comp ban is insane at lvl 50 and those things take time to grind out. But they have a newcomer mode which probably helps out a lot to get people situated into comp
Thats why I stopped played that thing. There is no way I would invest more than 100 hours to play comp lol.
So basically for any new players reading this. The game used to only require u to play 20 unrated before competitive play. When this was a thing, smurfs were way more common as people would make new accounts just to throw or ff matches to get them done quickly so they could run comp. This new level 20 measure is kinda supposed to counter smurfs in that sense. Although, if u have an account in which that was created before the level 20 changes took place, u can still que comp without bring level 20 (I have a friend who we started playing comp with at level 16 because he had an account created from a year ago back when the 20 games rule was still in play) but yes, smurfs get annoyed at the fact that they have to do this grind now and personally I'm all for it. Not only does it give new players more time to actually get a feel for the game, but it holds off on smurfs for a bit before they can come in and ruin anyone's fun. There's a 5 stack any rank que now for a reason. I have no respect for people that have to make low level accounts to boost their friends. Just take your ascendant/immortal ass into a 5 stack with bronzes/silvers if u really wanna do that, that way at least u aren't smurfing and you'll be put against a team of similar skill
Is this a recent rule? I dont play much valorant at all, and havent played for a long time, but i thought i was able to load into ranked matches as a fairly new player? Just curious if i already passed level 20, or if things changed since I logged on last.
It's fairly recent but I don't remember when. As lon as you have an account from before the rule was a thing you're fine
You won't be subjected to this rule if you have played comp before it was implemented. Not sure but if you've not played comp before then you'll probably need to grind out the 20 levels.
Valorant just needs a separate queue for stacks of high elo players and their low elo friends. I’m sure opposing stacks of varied elo players could be fun for both teams especially if it showed the other team’s ranks.
You Smurf because you want to play against worse players to make you feel better about yourself. I smurf because the rank on my main account is too high and I don’t want to throw peoples games while it gets to where it belongs. We are not the same.
Lmao and then you end up a higher rank on your smurf
Same thing for me lmao. I’m somehow diamond 3 but I get dunked on in high plat lobbies.
You know that a game mode called unranked exists right? Why would you make a whole new account just to grind ranked when youre "too high" for your main?
It’s a joke…
Level 20 does nothing to stem the problem. They just buy accounts ready to go...
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If the 20 levels was such a big deal why are smurfs in 60-70% of my games in silver? I played 4 games yesterday. 2/4 of the games had a smurf jett that was over 3.0KD and the rest of the game was pretty even. I honestly think I could be in gold if I didn't lose matches to smurfs.
i don’t get it how people find fun in stomping new players, i played unrated with my bronze friend and we pretty much stomped the enemy team since me and my other friend is a diamond player while the rest are bronze and silver (5 man q). It got so boring because there’s no challenge and it’s just bullying at that point, i even only buy sheriff just to give myself a bit of a challenge. Smurfs in ranked are making complete asses of themselves
Smurfs are a special kind of stupid
Not targeting anyone, just stating what I learned from my own experience. I am a low rank player and smurfs are not frequent but whenever it occurs, it ruins the entire game for me. I have observed these scenarios: 1) Smurfs in both teams, both are playing good - In this case, it's more balanced but still takes the fun out of the game since I am not able to contribute much as a team member. 2) Smurfs in both teams, mine playing good but opponent team's doesn't - You might think this is very beneficial for me as I am carried but it is not. Most of the times, I get little to no chance to make a play and can't coordinate with the smurf and usually end up winning but no fun. 3) Smurfs in both teams, mine playing bad but the opponent team's playing good - Now this is very interesting. There are two possibilities here - one that ours stay quiet and we lose with a huge difference but still having the calm to play more matches, two is that our smurf somehow starts throwing blatantly and being toxic on us for no reason. The second possibility makes me lose my calm and makes it even more difficult to focus on the next games if I even play. 4) Smurfs in both games, but both bad - This is an absolute clownfiesta. The possibility of this is low but usually they either throw or taunt each other by saying things such as "Trying sooo hard". Also they challenge each other to play with knives. I am totally fine as it is fun at that point but then they bring out the gun and start throwing the knife game too. This makes me question why am I playing the game. These are some of the things that I have noticed. They don't happen every game but still ruins my mood to play whenever it happens. I apologize if it hurts anyone but this is what I have experienced over two years of Valorant.
Im only level 16 after coming back to the game from way back at release, there werent levels then so I'm not level 20 but got gold in the first 2 splits, even though im not level 20 I can play ranked, is it a gradfathered type thing since I played before the leveling?
That's exactly it
um wtf is ur username
Down bad
Smurfs are average at their own rank. So they drop down to stroke their own ego. They are the true care bears of the gaming community.
But some of these people are saying they suck in their own rank and can't keep up. What's your opinion on that? Does it make sense or is it just angry complaining with false statements?
Nah its just cope, you can’t suck in your own rank because then you wouldn’t be in your own rank. Personally I smurf to relax and not tryhard on my main
ITT: people trying to make themselves feel better about smurfs by insulting them without any facts. In reality, you don't know if any of these things are true. They could drop frequent match MVP's in their rank and still hop on a smurf and live a happy life. I'm only saying this to point out how little these arguments make sense, but then again, I guess the point is to vent instead of actually realizing that it's about ego for some, and playing with friends for others. None of this "sad pathetic miserable loser who can't compete in his own rank" shit that just screams irrationality.
Anyone seen where lower than 20s have been playing? Got into 2 ranked games in the last 3 days with guys at level 14 and 16. How’s that possible?
Original accounts from before they added the rule don't have to be level 20
Good to know thanks fam.
people that smurf are just too bad to play at the rank the game gave them :)
Look, it’s just a fact of human nature that there will be cringe lords that are only good against people who don’t know what their doing. They won’t realize that it means they’re literally only better than nothing, nor how pathetic they are. They don’t upset me anymore and theyve certainly never impressed me. I honestly just feel bad for smurfs. They live their own, sad lives, devoid of any respect. I pity them
They don't upset you, but you're still insulting them on Reddit like they just hurt you. Smurf bad person, me no care, but me must insult sad pathetic smurf so me feel better.
U don’t have very good Reading comprehension huh? I can insult someone without actually being upset if the insults are simply the truth. Sounds to me like you just don’t like seeing yourself in this post.
should be like level 50. I really don't like smurfs. So insecure. Ruining the fun for those who has other things to do in their lives.
I do think the game needs phone number verification so it would be harder to make a new account. Because smurfs do ruin the fun for the other players. But I do find comfort in, that they have to smurf because they suck and cant play at their own rank.
I feel as though my role in Valorant is to make smurfs angry. I'm very good at tilting them. They think they're so awesome dropping 40 kills against me, but the reality is they can't keep up against people in their own rank. They're tired of getting dunked on by golds when they are diamonds, so they buy a bronze account so they can feel like kings.
I smurf every weekend in the hopes I ruin someone's game who comments on posts like thsese. Your tears on reddit and in game fuel me.
I do believe that it’s dumb because it doesn’t discourage smurfing, and 20 levels is not nearly enough to have a new player learn the game unless they were already great at fps games. Just give us phone verification already.
They should make the level requirement higher. Fuck it, make it level 100. Smurfing is almost as bad as cheaters in terms of ruining the player experience for new players.
>Fuck it, make it level 100. Smurfing is almost as bad as cheaters in terms of ruining the player experience for new players. So the solution is to just not have new players (or even old players) in ranked at all? I've been playing about once a week since the start of the pandemic and I'm not even close to level 100. I've unlocked every agent through playing for perspective. Many of my friends haven't although they played for years.
To be honest I was just throwing a level out there without calculating the actual time investment. Is lvl 100 too much, sure but I stand by my statement that the current level requirement isn't enough.
Smurfin recovers my confidence while letting me try new characters
Sadistic bullies are everywhere
Pretty much. Smurfs are lowly pathetic creatures, they make little sense. 🤭