Too much smurfing

I have the feeling smurfing has increased a lot lately. I can tell for sure about quite a lot of smurfs. Its so easy to spot them.. playing very well in their first or second game with 1200 Elo. Then asking why they already have all maps, they say that they downloaded some 1500 maps mappack. Of course they don't even really deny that they do smurf.

One very funny occasion was this: some smurf referred to me as in "you always do that", though his account was just 2 days old and I've played my first game with him together in this time.

What makes you smurf? I simply don't get it. If you wanted to win without resistance then play against CAI. If you win a game by smurfing you basically win by cheating. You cheat your whole team. They might think that they did particularly well. Maybe even making them think their bad tactic is good, when it is really not. You spoil everyone by doing it!

PS: I love the smurfs that complain about me complaining about smurfs the most.

maybe players feel it is akward to be seen playing 8v8 in "newbies welcome" ;)

We could also manually adjust elo

TickMan: fail.

quote: I love that burp loves when smurfs complain about him complaining about smurfs Why do I smurf? To make a clear differentiation between noobteamgames and serious 1v1 because those teamgames are so random that don't play them seriously, i just play for fun (weird tactics and rushes for instance) You are complaing about smurfs, but i haven't seen you complaining about dota/silly maps players, they fuck elo in the same way... I'll stop smurfing when we get a different elo for each kind of game... playing big teamgames with high elo is a pain, i think my bigteamgames elo is about 1650

This. Altough I'm currently not using an alternate account the current system can be quite annoying. I've won most of my ELO with playing 1vs1 games or 2vs2 small games, but lately I'm playing more big games like 6vs6 and it's really a completely different ballpark. I now often get like two coms because I'm a decent 1vs1 player and then I somehow have to be able to use two coms/facs effectively on large maps while I'm more specialised in smaller games on smaller maps.

I believe that TickMan's/Warlock''s use of his alternate account is justified because of that because he uses one solely for 1vs1/serious games and the other one for big teamgames where he's not always being mr. serious. Of course when he just created the account it was a bit odd since he started with 1250 ELO but at level 18 I think his ELO has pretty much stabalized and his playing style seems to be in fact worth 1650ELO for team games, which means that he makes up for having one inadept player in the team, in the contrary to "Warlock" who would make up for having like 3 inadept players in his team. TickMan however in no way makes up for 3 inadept players because quite likely he won't be of much use due to a silly tactic that doesn't work out. I'd even dare to say that altough Warlock has like 2,000 ELO in a big team game I weigh in about as much as TickMan as our ELO's suggest.

A way to soften this problem would be too have an option when you are making account to chose it's a "Smurf" account and then maybe having that account not have 1250 starting ELO but 1500 starting ELO or something so that the ELO get's to the intended level faster. This might also allow people to see who is a Smurf. I believe most Smurf's don't have a smurf because they want to have easy wins but because they might want to try a different play still in a comfortable way without having the stress of high ELO because when you have high ELO you MUST make up for your stupid teammaters or you'll lose, so you'll have to rely on tried and true tactics instead of having time to effectively try new tactics.

As penguin says, separate team and smaller games. And also, like Warlock says, separate competitive and lol-games.

Another reason ppl can smurf is to play anonymously. Just play online without others knowing who you are. The internet isn't very private you know.

Now, especially for you burp, i stayed away from team games with this account (mostly) so i wouldn't screw up the balance. Because according to Licho's stats i should be the #3 teamplayer (but that's bs) My team elo is somewhere around 1800-1950 if i try to play seriously. So if i'd join a team room with 2130 elo i'd be doing my team a massive disfavor I guess you'll see me more often in the team room from now on now that i have reached a respectable elo.


Oh, in case you didn't know [0C]Tandstickor

[GBC]Spring

[GBC]llII. Tandstickor was my original name before the spr*ng joke :P

quote: And teamgames are so random cause of smurfs and trolls

And not because of insanely high skill gradient between 1200 nubs and 2400 godde?

It is an illusion that elo can be used to make balanced random team games. Elo doesn't say anything about the players intention of how he wants play a game. (do silly stuff, play drunk, try new factory all of which are common and legit)
Compare to Starcraft, they recognize this. You have the ladder/ranked games and the non-ranked. You can play seriously or do practise/ play silly in these modes. Here in ZK they are merged. Those two types of games are mutual exclusive, they cannot exist at the same time within the same ranking system!

I'd say assume every player can be a smurf/isn't worth his elo value and don't record results from big random team games. Make another host for serious team play. Planetwars is ideal for this, use it's clan system for non-pw clan battles. Make those games ranked, record results, calculate elo's etc etc.

quote: I am like 250 elo below teamgames-normal by testing Dota and playing some 1v1's and ffa. But I hardly notice any easier way of winning.

This is just as bad for balance as smurfing. You can play at 1800+ level but count as 1500. That's a huge difference. Don't test on an account you also use for multi player, if you take elo seriously that is.

"It is an illusion that elo can be used to make balanced random team games."

Its the best tool available that I know of. You have a better one? Teams has to be balanced some way.

"Elo doesn't say anything about the players intention of how he wants play a game. (do silly stuff, play drunk, try new factory all of which are common and legit)
Compare to Starcraft, they recognize this. You have the ladder/ranked games and the non-ranked. You can play seriously or do practise/ play silly in these modes. Here in ZK they are merged. Those two types of games are mutual exclusive, they cannot exist at the same time within the same ranking system!"

So how does this prevent me from trolling on the ranked server excactly? I can team up with some randoms and troll the entire game. No difference to zero-k.

"I'd say assume every player can be a smurf/isn't worth his elo value and don't record results from big random team games. Make another host for serious team play. Planetwars is ideal for this, use it's clan system for non-pw clan battles. Make those games ranked, record results, calculate elo's etc etc. "

You want planetwars or clanwars to calculate elo for battles? lol
most players are not trolling in teambattles. And big team battles are the most favorite gamemode, so they have to be balanced some way.

"This is just as bad for balance as smurfing. You can play at 1800+ level but count as 1500. That's a huge difference. Don't test on an account you also use for multi player, if you take elo seriously that is."

Its completely legit, easy way to prevent by seperating teammodes but not seemed nesessary. While trolling is not, as people have been banned or punished in some other way. And as I said I did not feel 250 elo difference has made winning much easier.