Smurf Accounts

[CheW]

Damn right.
My ELO wasn't even high and I still got teamswappers every single game. Must be so bad for 2k+.

Alias command was meant to be a moderation tool, never public access.
And anyways it only showed like the 5 most recent.
And there are reasons why you might not want people to know who you are.

Alias does work off IP. It may or may not work on a fresh account; depends on when ENT logs the player's IP address.
Also since it works off IP, it's inaccurate for those with dynamic IP. This is the biggest reason to keep it private; people won't understand that.
For example, there are plenty of people who show up as aliases of each other each with like 6k games, lots of them played with each other, clearly they're not alts. IP is not a unique person identifier and never will be so it's silly to rely on it as such.

This isn't with 2k. LoD is different than DotA but the threshold for getting crap games is usually ~1500. There has been many times where I join a game that was 20/10 with 9/10 players and I swing the elo to something like 14/16 and everyone dodges and the game turns into a long wait and 3 elo

[nitromon]

Here is how smurfing works.

See a bunch of stackers in game.
Join game.
Get good game with actual better players.

Best. Explanation. Ever.

I have to admit, recently I've been pleasantly surprised by multiple 600-800 elo players, even with bad KDRs. One game in particular, it was 900 elo player with good kdr. It was AREM, he get SF and he... was pro. He was quick, alert, and most importantly, knows how to use SF's nukes very well.

Well, if you hate smurfs, you'll love this one. In one of my recent games, 2 smurfs joined my team. One had a 14-2 kdr or something and 1-0 game. The other 4-0 and also good kdr. Our opponents were a team of 800-900 elo players. We got trashed. As expected, the 2 smurfies went agil carry and played solo game. One picked drow and every time he went after an enemy, only to find out he was baited.

Teamwork always win the game against solo players.

[Dhamma]

Here is how high elo works.

More accurate version:

Join game vs decent enemies.
Decent enemies dodge/flock to your team.

Keep joining the underdog team so you don't end up playing for less than 7-5 elo (over 2k elo, OR at least 9-10 if 1700-2k)
If the whole game is full of 800 eloish and the elo gain sucks on either team, leave and try your luck next game.


Unless you have no balls and you play for <4 elo regardless of your elo. Or if you're 2700+ where it's acceptable to play for 3-4 elo at times.

[CheW]

Here is how high elo works.

More accurate version:

Join game vs decent enemies.
Decent enemies dodge/flock to your team.

Keep joining the underdog team so you don't end up playing for less than 7-5 elo (over 2k elo, OR at least 9-10 if 1700-2k)
If the whole game is full of 800 eloish and the elo gain sucks on either team, leave and try your luck next game.


Unless you have no balls and you play for <4 elo regardless of your elo. Or if you're 2700+ where it's acceptable to play for 3-4 elo at times.

I have joined many underdog teams only to have people leave from the opposing team. They were going to play their 20-10 game but when someone comes and makes it 16/14 it's just too stacked against them. After the higher elo players leave that were on the original stacked team more people join and the elo swing changes greatly. People see that the elo is now 20/10 and don't play. You then end up waiting 10 minutes for a couple 800 elos to join. After the 800 elos join the remaining one player over 1000 on the other team sees that he has a team full of low elo players and leaves. You then wait another 5 minutes for the last 800 elo player to join while people join the game and type !scores and then proceed to tell everyone how they are trash stackers before they leave.

Smurfing is actually beneficial to the game IMO. Lots of lobbies get stalled out because one team is premade or stacked and people don't want to try and play a 5/25 elo game, but smurfs come along to help move the lobbies along.

[brent]

Just for some perspective, Valve recognizes smurfing as a problem and has taken steps to eliminate it in DOTA 2 and CS:GO:

http://blog.dota2.com/2017/04/matchmaking-update/

https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/21/val ... in-dota-2/

Excerpt:
Players using multiple accounts create a negative matchmaking experience at all skill brackets, so our goal is to add just enough friction to this process that the number of players doing this will be noticeably reduced. Having more players using their primary accounts will have a positive effect on both Ranked and Unranked Matchmaking.

[WolfPackMama]

With the difference that they have resources and means to do that. Warcraft 3 is an old-ass game.

[EdgeOfChaos]

Completely different game, why compare the two? Stacking doesn't exist in DotA 2. Get rid of stacking and we'll talk about getting rid of smurfing.

[brent]

RE: Means and resources:
ENT already has a functional ban request / reporting system. Making smurf accounts against the rules then using the existing forum ban request system would be the implementation.

RE: Stacking:
Stacking is mitigated by the ELO ranking system. As I'm sure you know, teams that are stacked will gain very few ELO, usually even less than 5. Have a read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

Excerpt:
This means that this rating system is self-correcting. A player whose rating is too low should, in the long run, do better than the rating system predicts, and thus gain rating points until the rating reflects their true playing strength.

RE: Different games:
I have no response to this. Calling DOTA 1 "completely different" from DOTA 2... I mean come on people.

The resistance to change is so strong here. Stop seeing change as negative. It is so clear the quality of dota games is decreasing. I have been playing dota for years, and never before have I felt so little enjoyment from it. And I am not the only one. If you do not keep it entertaining for the casual players, then you will lose us.

[EdgeOfChaos]

Lol, never happening dude. Your explanation of how you would ban it is so high level as to be useless when it would come to implementing. Even if it was possible, much of the userbase thinks smurfs are good or smurfs themselves. Make a Suggestion with a poll if you want.

ELO is actually a rating system for 1v1 chess and was never meant to be used for team games. The system is already hopelessly inaccurate and anyone who thinks ELO = skill is silly.

It does not self correct. Why? Because, say we have a team of five very skilled players vs. very noob players. Say 1200 elo vs 800 elo average. Probably 5/25 game However, do you really think the noob team could ever take a single game off the skilled ones? They couldn't. They would lose a hundred games in a row before winning anything, and even then they would only win if the entire other team drops by some fluke. This is why stacking works. This is why people get to 2500+ ELO by stacking. Because DotA is not chess, and good players can consistently beat bad players. Smurfs add a minor risk to stacking. Still not nearly enough to counteract the benefits of hard stacking for your ELO, but at least a little.

The bottom line is that there is no way to accurately gauge people's skill in DotA 1. Some people think KD = skill, but that's even stupider since many of the best players I've seen go negative since they tank and support, and I've seen absolute scrubs go 10-0 with their attackmove carry.

If you don't enjoy DotA anymore, either 1) stop taking it so seriously and get salty when you lose 20, or 2) move to dota2. It's free. There's no point in playing something you don't enjoy. I seriously don't get why people treat a 15 year old game like it's serious business.

[Burnt]

i am darth vader.! chew = chewbaca.
edge of chaos = professor X

No ur the skywalker coz ur flags change every day. U must be walking in the sky or something