I don’t play a lot of online games so I had no idea what smurfing is so I looked it up. Hopefully this is a decent definition.
** Smurfing in an online game refers to the practice of experienced or skilled players creating new or low-level accounts to play against less experienced opponents. This allows them to dominate matches and achieve an unfair advantage due to their higher skill level. Smurfing can negatively impact the gaming experience for new or casual players.**
Yeah, this is a very good definition of what smurfing is. Just in case you had any apprehensions. There's a whole discussion about smurfing and other ways people try to ruin a game. Nice job on learning, and I mean that unironically, something new. I could elaborate on how smurfing works and how games handle it, but are you interested? Just don't wanna throw a wall of text at you if you're not.
Oh joy! I do love ranting, so apologies if I run on. You see, smurfing is just as described, 'a skilled player creating new or low-level accounts to play against less experienced opponents'. This happens all over the place, from highly competitive games like League of Legends and Overwatch, to games aimed at casual matches and more classic experiences like Halo and Call of Duty. However, the systems they use and even genres are completely different. I'm sure you can understand that players get used to a game's quirks, learn valuable skills like decision making, metas (an acronym standing for Most Efficient Tactic Available) and prioritization.
However, a lot of games, including the ones mentioned, understand that it's an issue, and it impacts the most important members of that game's community: the new people, as like any game, without new people sticking around, there won't be anyone to actually have a match with, and this is typically a sign that the game hasn't solved that critical underlying problem for far too long.
Games like Overwatch and League of Legends have a hidden mechanic called 'ELO'. Think of this like a numerical ranking amongst all other players. This is a complicated formula that takes into account multiple things, from your individual performance like Kills, Deaths, and Assists that match to other metrics the game might think is important. In a FPS game, this might include your accuracy, or even compare movements to other players. Games like the above mentioned Dota, this might include gold earned, or how quickly you earned that gold. You may also have heard this referred to as 'skill based matchmaking, or SBMM for short.
Most multiplayer games implement this kind of system, whether they declare that overtly, like a ranking system or they hide it to avoid players abusing the system. You may have heard in the past of developers filing copyrights for such systems, and there is a stigma for what this kind of system can do, as the potential for abuse is very real, but I'll leave that for a different time.
Now, games do try to combat smurfing, as well as other bad behaviors to avoid the worst case scenario of a game dying out, but even games in the same genre do try to innovate on approaches to this strategy. Like I mentioned with ELO, it was a system that tried to identify a good player and 'balance out the teams' so to speak. It was a system, in the purest sense, to balance out matches as evenly as possible.
This is part of the reason why if you've ever talked to someone who's played multiplayer games recently, or watched videos about it, they might refer to games with people 'tryharding' or the lobby being full of 'sweats'. Because every game is balanced, it's not like the game has that natural flow to what would be a minorly imbalanced game, so people have to literally 'try harder', hence the moniker in order to win. As an aside' tryhard' is an old term but been kind of warped in recent times because the old focus was that they were too focused on trying harder to win and not enjoying the game, while today's definition more alludes to people taking a game too seriously, which is ambiguous and has mixed connotations, for me at least.
Regardless, These systems are actually kind of varied. Take Call of Duty's leveling system with new guns and attachments being unlocked as you play. Now, a good player might be able to play really good with just a basic gun given to a starter account, but the different guns and attachments do give a edge to that less experienced player, and if the smurfer does stomp as they intended, they'll level up rapidly and won't be playing against newer players for long.
Other games that make use of the SBMM system I talked about earlier take note of the kind of performance that indicates smurfing, and rapidly pushes that player up the ranks until they suffer losses, ensuring that even if they do play a easy game, it once again, won't be for long. That, 'won't be for long' isn't a common reoccurrence by chance, by the way. These systems are mostly used in what would be competitive games as a whole (not going to get into how lobbies are changing as the people who are in them are either adults now, or new children being shown directly what doors this hobby can open, but it is worth pointing out). This is partially because competitive games need that constant influx of new players to keep popularity surrounding the game and interest generated for the competitive leagues that these companies try to generate, as it presents a massive revenue stream if it works out, as Overwatch and League of Legends have shown directly.
Pt. 2 since my response was longer than the 5000 characters alloted for a reply.
Anyways, back on topic, because these games are so competitive in nature, it requires them to have those new players, and to avoid potential newbies from trying it out, the barrier to entry should be as low as possible. Meaning, that most new accounts shouldn't be restricted necessarily from an older account. This seems kind of counterintuitive, but if they make the game where time spent playing directly correlates to their power and ability to dominate, new players drop off sharply as time goes on. Think of it like a brand new MMO that comes out, where if you're not the first one discovering something or being the first in something, some people will just quit because 'there's no point', or, 'I've already fallen behind and can't catch up'.
There are a few games that don't implement the SBMM system like TF2. In these instances, the idea is that if the skill imbalance is too great, players will just leave the server themselves until they eventually settle into a server where games are at the player's intended experience, whether that's a casual just shoot things and have fun, or they opt to test their skills.
Still, intentionally smurfing is considered a harmful activity, and while most games try to avoid directly punishing this behavior, there are some, like Dota 2, where it is a reportable offence. Most games do try to take a softer approach to this. I'm of the opinion that this is due to two reasons.
One, they are trying to dismantle the reason why someone would smurf in the first place (e.g. if they just wanted to have fun playing instead of playing seriously) and ensure that the hassle of repeating these steps (creating a new account, going through new account tutorials) becomes not worth it when compared to the pleasure generated from playing that first match, two, or five of easy wins.
Two, I also think it's because that it is a new account. Because there's no good way of ostensibly saying that an account is a smurf before they've even demonstrated the skills that are the calling card of the smurf, it's tough to say if if they're a smurf or a new player. It's hard to say if a new CS:GO account having great aim is because they're a smurf, or because they played 5000 hours of TF2 and the skills are transferrable.
A lot of this is just observations and conjecture with a little bit of actual learning I did when SBMM became talked about due to its implantation in more casual games aiming to be competitive like Call of Duty and Battlefield, so this might not be the most objective piece, but then again, I am just a random stranger on the internet, so grain of salt and all that.
This is part of the reason why if you've ever talked to someone who's played multiplayer games recently, or watched videos about it, they might refer to games with people 'tryharding' or the lobby being full of 'sweats'. Because every game is balanced, it's not like the game has that natural flow to what would be a minorly imbalanced game, so people have to literally 'try harder', hence the moniker in order to win.
I want the matchmaking to find me balanced games as much as possible, because anything else isn't fun. Winning against players much worse than I am isn't fun at all since neither side really learns anything and can't improve, and it's the same for losing against someone who is much better than I am. It's curious that some may consider this 'tryharding' when a balanced matchup also is the most fun, at least when I'm playing a game like a fighting game.
When you're playing a fighting game, like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, sure. It's in the best interests to have both sides be similar in skill level so the matches don't end with one side steamrolling. But the games that suffer from completely even matches are the ones that aren't meant to be competitive. This could range from a casual game mode in a game like League or Dota 2, to more commonly accepted casual/ for fun games like Call of Duty. The whole point of even matches means that there will never be situations where skill levels are imbalanced. In a fighting game, that's good since it can let you develop skills and really push your gameplay to shine or be memorable.
But in a more casual game where you're playing with a team of players, it can really hurt if you're attempting to make progress. In the case of Call of Duty's progression based unlock system, not having a game where you have an advantage means that it's difficult for the average player to make progress on certain goals. This could be something as simple as 'get 10 headshots' or 'knife kill 10 enemies in a round'. If you're in an even match, you likely aren't going to be incentivized to actually try for those goals, as by handicapping yourself like that, you give the enemy team an advantage and thus put you even further away from completing that goal.
In the above example, it creates a sort of negative feedback loop, where the only way to complete a goal like this is to basically get lucky. Whether that's just luck from being in the right places at the right times, or from the matchmaking service messing up or accidentally DC'ing an enemy player, the only other method you have besides 'get lucky' is just sheer brute forcing the situation or playing long enough that such a thing happening is a statistical inevitability.
I'm not saying you're wrong for feeling that way, but what I said doesn't really apply to fighting games, since htere isn't a distinction of 'casual' or 'competitive'. By the genre's very nature, arcade fighters are competitive. In other games, if improvement is your goal, you're aiming for competitive play, and that's where SBMM really does shine. In casual matches, it can become a sort of double edged sword. People don't really like losing, but any multiplayer game really will always have wins and losses. The important part is making those wins fun enough to offset the negatives of the losses.
@ChatGPT What the hell is smurfing in the context of gaming?
Edit: It seems like a lot of you don’t see the bot’s reply (possibly because this is Kbin which doesn’t federate Lemmy bots), so here it is:
Smurfing in gaming refers to when experienced players create a new account to play against less experienced players, usually with the intention to dominate or win games easily. This term originated from the gaming culture of games like “Starcraft” or “Warcraft”. It’s generally frowned upon within gaming communities as it disrupts the balance and fairness of the game. However, the view on smurfing can vary between different games and communities.
From the article: “Smurf accounts are alternate accounts used by players to avoid playing at the correct MMR, to abandon games, to cheat, to grief, or to otherwise be toxic without consequence,"
Not sure if it’s supposed to reply to your comment or what, but smurfing is when a skilled player makes a new account specifically to play against low skilled players and absolutely demolish them.
See also: twinks. Players in Dark Souls who run as a low level character to get powerful weapons much later in the game, either by using shortcuts or just skillfully defeating bosses at a low level to access the sections of the game containing the weapons. These weapons can only be upgraded with a rare resource called twinkling titanite (hence twink) which they also get, then come back and invade low level players who don’t stand a chance.
“Smurfing” in gaming refers to the practice of experienced or skilled players creating new or low-level accounts to play against less experienced opponents. This can give them an unfair advantage and is often done to win matches easily or for other reasons like trolling or boosting lower-ranked friends. It’s generally considered unsportsmanlike behavior and is often discouraged or prohibited by game developers. The term originated in the early days of online gaming, when a player used the alias “PapaSmurf” to hide their true identity while dominating less skilled players.
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