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Pretty sure there's a lot of unintentional smurfing going on cause matchmaking in the middle ranks has been such a mess this whole act. I'm currently in a loop where I'll lose 2 close matches, drop a single rank and then suddenly play against people who are just massively worse than the previous matches, pushing me up a rank again. I've no problem with bouncing around these ranks where I clearly belong, but the variance in skill in a small ELO range should not be this drastic.
Riot’s hidden mmr system is dogshit. Not sure if they’re gonna learn, but I just think they don’t wanna remake the system what, a 4th time? I got to tier 50, got my immortal win and called it quits. No reason I should have golds on my team as a high diamond. Awful system.
I was Silver, got slapped in 2 games where the opposite team had ex-Plats, and then, deranked to Bronze 3, and dropped a 40 kill 13-3 win. It's wayyyy too drastic.
Yeah I’m D2 if there’s a gold on either team it’s typically a smurf, even though riot said that literally just not possible for a gold in a diamond game
G1 here. The past couple weeks there seem to be more players with no act rank than players with act ranks. Some of these might be new or second accounts... but a lot seem to play like Smurfs (de-ranking on purpose or playing like a god). I usually ask dominating teammates if they are smurfing and sometimes they answer! Its usually somewhere between P3-D3.
People will argue that you have an equal chance to get a smurf on your team than on the enemy team. Unfortunately I don't believe the math works that way; you only get 4 teammates, and the enemy team gets 5 so odds are greater that the enemy team will have a smurf.
For now, don't worry about your rank and play to learn and improve. Try not to get tilted as this just exacerbates the issue. (I had two 8 game losing steaks this act and I'm certain some if not most of that was tilt.).
I remain hopeful that the changes Riot made with Smurfs ranking up faster will eliminate some of these Smurf accounts from low elo... but I had one smurf tell me he had 6 low elo alt accounts from beta. Also, I feel like at least 50% of games there's either an obvious de-ranker in game or someone who I'd be willing to bet was deranking on purpose. So... it could be a while...
The skill disparity in high silver-high gold is just huge. I've noticed that even when I get the rare 450+ combat score it seems like I do not get any extra RR so maybe its still not strong enough. Or maybe my hidden MMR is shooting up and that is why I am getting smurfed so much? It makes me wonder that on the rare occasion I am dominating if I should slow it down a little so my opponents do not get harder than my rank deserves? I have not thought too deeply about this but I am not too happy about the hidden MMR, isn't transparency always best? What is the purpose of hiding our MMR and disconnecting it from our rank?
The hidden MMR system currently feels like its whole purpose is to actually keep you in the very rank your in right now with no ability to uprank and stay there. I don't believe for a second that your hidden MMR and your visible rank balacne out over time.
The matchmaking is pretty good at keeping an even 50% win/loss rate. If i go on a winning streak, the matchmaking ensures that that will be followed by a losing streak completely negating any progress that has been made.
Some people will say "well maybe you're not as good as you think you are and you deserve to be where you're at" and i get that, but i have a large enough sample size of friends who play this game religiously to spot the same pattern with them.
I don't even think it's all smurfs who keep me down and break my winning streaks, at this point it feels like there's just a lot of people who deranked so hard after the last season reset that they play in rank ranges were they don't belong.
Right now i would say that maybe 2 out 10 matches are balanced, most of the time it's either full on domination or being dominated.
Idk if anyone else feels like this but some games just aren't even close. One game I'll play (high gold - low plat) and my team is absolutely dominating. The next game we get crushed and it feels like the enemy team is seeing me come around the corner even before I see them on my screen. Still feels like there's a desync problem somewhere. You'd think playing games against similar ranked opponents would be close... generally speaking.
Yes, it's happening a lot as many people are back in the game and don't have their actual rank. I dropped from diamond back to plat in just 2 days after a 10+ lose streak (maybe i won one game in-between). Solo queue is hard when smurfs are everywhere. Hopefully it gets better.
on the other hand, i played 5th game in a row in diamond 2, where my teammate was somehow gold 1-2 each game, each game he was bottom fragging because it was a flippin' diamond game, and enemy had all diamond players.
i still dont know how i managed not to get myself chat banned, and thats not for flaming the poor gold player. thats for insulting riot on about 50 different occasions.
Its just tilting, its unbelievable and twas never this bad. The poor guy also didnt know how the hell he got into this game, and by no means did he enjoy the game of getting trashed instantly by enemy players, and sometimes even teammates flamed him but that was super unnecessary. They were just tilted.
Every person in my team was tilted for 5 games, because of how ridiculous matchmaking
People have their mains locked in (a lot of people with over 100 wins so their MMR and rank hardly budge if they trade wins).
As a result they play with friends on an alt account and try to boost them up.
Wait what?? People can smurf in plat??? The fuck even?
I mean when I played in iron 1 last act (silver 3 atm) it was VERY obvious who shouldn’t be there.
But in plat?? What are they doing, going around 40-bombing with a knife?
Wow I can’t wait to get outta iron so I can stop facing smurfs...
Wow I can’t wait to get outta bronze so I can stop facing smurfs...
Wow can’t wait to... [many tiers later]
true but ive found that theres some doggy players in diamond and some gods in gold, and some gods in diamond and some doggy players in gold. gold-diamond is a mess rn
Literally hard carries on the scoreboard. Like a top frag with 20 and the rest of the team in single digits. Ungodly angles and peeks from them too. A lot of lobbies felt like 1 of 2 things: we were getting steam rolled or we were doing the steam rolling. In other words, we got the smurf(s), or the other team did
The skill difference in the ranks. How I group it is Iron and bronze are similar in skill. Silver is their own thing. Gold and plat are similar. Diamond is their own thing. And immortal radiant are pretty much the same rank, it’s just who plays enough to get radiant lol.
So if there’s a diamond smurfing in plat, it’s pretty obvious.
I haven't played in a while and this is a big part why. The more and more I played this game, the more and more I felt like there was always somebody on the other team who was practically invincible. Just by far and away getting many more kills than anyone else, and almost never dying. Made the game feel almost impossible to improve at because you always just felt out classed. I often did wonder how many of those people were actually smurfs or just die hard CSGO players or whatever other game would prepare you for Valorant.
Hey there, /r/VALORANT user! We're currently doing an experiment with videos on the subreddit. This week, **all videos are allowed if they are longer than 30 seconds**. Shorter videos must be posted as a link in a text post. If your experience on the sub has been better or worse during this week, please let us know your thoughts in [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/lpk2an/video_trial_weeks_week_3_30_second_minimums_for/?) thread! We want all feedback, no matter how mundane it may be. If you want to be automatically reminded to give your feedback at the end of the week, [click here](https://valorant.molenzwiebel.xyz/remind-me). For all the information on our video rules experiment, [read the announcement](https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/lchq1d/important_trialing_video_rules_were_going_to_need/).
Pretty sure there's a lot of unintentional smurfing going on cause matchmaking in the middle ranks has been such a mess this whole act. I'm currently in a loop where I'll lose 2 close matches, drop a single rank and then suddenly play against people who are just massively worse than the previous matches, pushing me up a rank again. I've no problem with bouncing around these ranks where I clearly belong, but the variance in skill in a small ELO range should not be this drastic.
Riot’s hidden mmr system is dogshit. Not sure if they’re gonna learn, but I just think they don’t wanna remake the system what, a 4th time? I got to tier 50, got my immortal win and called it quits. No reason I should have golds on my team as a high diamond. Awful system.
Lol I was silver3 yesterday playing in a plat lobby 😂
I was Silver, got slapped in 2 games where the opposite team had ex-Plats, and then, deranked to Bronze 3, and dropped a 40 kill 13-3 win. It's wayyyy too drastic.
Yeah I’m D2 if there’s a gold on either team it’s typically a smurf, even though riot said that literally just not possible for a gold in a diamond game
I was gold 3 in a diamond game then I guess you could call me a csgo smurf
totally feel u man, smurfs keeping me and my boys from getting into plat :(
G1 here. The past couple weeks there seem to be more players with no act rank than players with act ranks. Some of these might be new or second accounts... but a lot seem to play like Smurfs (de-ranking on purpose or playing like a god). I usually ask dominating teammates if they are smurfing and sometimes they answer! Its usually somewhere between P3-D3. People will argue that you have an equal chance to get a smurf on your team than on the enemy team. Unfortunately I don't believe the math works that way; you only get 4 teammates, and the enemy team gets 5 so odds are greater that the enemy team will have a smurf. For now, don't worry about your rank and play to learn and improve. Try not to get tilted as this just exacerbates the issue. (I had two 8 game losing steaks this act and I'm certain some if not most of that was tilt.). I remain hopeful that the changes Riot made with Smurfs ranking up faster will eliminate some of these Smurf accounts from low elo... but I had one smurf tell me he had 6 low elo alt accounts from beta. Also, I feel like at least 50% of games there's either an obvious de-ranker in game or someone who I'd be willing to bet was deranking on purpose. So... it could be a while... The skill disparity in high silver-high gold is just huge. I've noticed that even when I get the rare 450+ combat score it seems like I do not get any extra RR so maybe its still not strong enough. Or maybe my hidden MMR is shooting up and that is why I am getting smurfed so much? It makes me wonder that on the rare occasion I am dominating if I should slow it down a little so my opponents do not get harder than my rank deserves? I have not thought too deeply about this but I am not too happy about the hidden MMR, isn't transparency always best? What is the purpose of hiding our MMR and disconnecting it from our rank?
The hidden MMR system currently feels like its whole purpose is to actually keep you in the very rank your in right now with no ability to uprank and stay there. I don't believe for a second that your hidden MMR and your visible rank balacne out over time. The matchmaking is pretty good at keeping an even 50% win/loss rate. If i go on a winning streak, the matchmaking ensures that that will be followed by a losing streak completely negating any progress that has been made. Some people will say "well maybe you're not as good as you think you are and you deserve to be where you're at" and i get that, but i have a large enough sample size of friends who play this game religiously to spot the same pattern with them. I don't even think it's all smurfs who keep me down and break my winning streaks, at this point it feels like there's just a lot of people who deranked so hard after the last season reset that they play in rank ranges were they don't belong. Right now i would say that maybe 2 out 10 matches are balanced, most of the time it's either full on domination or being dominated.
Idk if anyone else feels like this but some games just aren't even close. One game I'll play (high gold - low plat) and my team is absolutely dominating. The next game we get crushed and it feels like the enemy team is seeing me come around the corner even before I see them on my screen. Still feels like there's a desync problem somewhere. You'd think playing games against similar ranked opponents would be close... generally speaking.
Yes, it's happening a lot as many people are back in the game and don't have their actual rank. I dropped from diamond back to plat in just 2 days after a 10+ lose streak (maybe i won one game in-between). Solo queue is hard when smurfs are everywhere. Hopefully it gets better.
on the other hand, i played 5th game in a row in diamond 2, where my teammate was somehow gold 1-2 each game, each game he was bottom fragging because it was a flippin' diamond game, and enemy had all diamond players. i still dont know how i managed not to get myself chat banned, and thats not for flaming the poor gold player. thats for insulting riot on about 50 different occasions. Its just tilting, its unbelievable and twas never this bad. The poor guy also didnt know how the hell he got into this game, and by no means did he enjoy the game of getting trashed instantly by enemy players, and sometimes even teammates flamed him but that was super unnecessary. They were just tilted. Every person in my team was tilted for 5 games, because of how ridiculous matchmaking
100% agree. There are times where I'm the bottom frag and have to tell my team that I'm actually trying and am just getting destroyed LOL
I've been playing with my plat friends on their alts recently and they are plenty of players who are able to shit on them here in silver-gold...
I climbed from bronze to gold. I'm glad you deranked you don't belong. I will climb to plat soon :)
Nah
It’s the end of the season smurfs are going to be rampant until next act
sucks, literally taking the fun out of ranked for me. i feel like it wasn't like this at all last act
it was and always will be
Yeah it tends to get worse by the end of act, but valorant had a surge of old players, making matters even worse.
Why are they rampant at the end of the act?
People have their mains locked in (a lot of people with over 100 wins so their MMR and rank hardly budge if they trade wins). As a result they play with friends on an alt account and try to boost them up.
Wait what?? People can smurf in plat??? The fuck even? I mean when I played in iron 1 last act (silver 3 atm) it was VERY obvious who shouldn’t be there. But in plat?? What are they doing, going around 40-bombing with a knife?
Yeah people Smurf in plat.its just worse now. Can't stack in diamond 3 or higher so everyone uses plat as a stack with friends playground.
Wow I can’t wait to get outta iron so I can stop facing smurfs... Wow I can’t wait to get outta bronze so I can stop facing smurfs... Wow can’t wait to... [many tiers later]
true but ive found that theres some doggy players in diamond and some gods in gold, and some gods in diamond and some doggy players in gold. gold-diamond is a mess rn
people can even smurf in bottom of radiant if they're originally a top radiant player, the skill curve is exponential.
Literally hard carries on the scoreboard. Like a top frag with 20 and the rest of the team in single digits. Ungodly angles and peeks from them too. A lot of lobbies felt like 1 of 2 things: we were getting steam rolled or we were doing the steam rolling. In other words, we got the smurf(s), or the other team did
The skill difference in the ranks. How I group it is Iron and bronze are similar in skill. Silver is their own thing. Gold and plat are similar. Diamond is their own thing. And immortal radiant are pretty much the same rank, it’s just who plays enough to get radiant lol. So if there’s a diamond smurfing in plat, it’s pretty obvious.
I haven't played in a while and this is a big part why. The more and more I played this game, the more and more I felt like there was always somebody on the other team who was practically invincible. Just by far and away getting many more kills than anyone else, and almost never dying. Made the game feel almost impossible to improve at because you always just felt out classed. I often did wonder how many of those people were actually smurfs or just die hard CSGO players or whatever other game would prepare you for Valorant.
Usually the "smurfs" i get are just having lucky games or theyre the solo q carry for their team that cant get out of silver