[2021] i feel like actually bad at the game now.

About 4% of all ranked players are above plat, about 7% of players are plat.

I've seen people say there are a "ton" of smurfs, when we investigate we see that players just have a good game. I've seen players with consistent 10 kill games, randomly, have a 30+ kill game for reference - these are players with less then 40% winrate as well.

Even if every single player above plat smurfed, they wouldn't even be able to fill half of all games that occur in plat - let alone all the ranks because they are only 4% of all players. Yes smurfing occurs, I'm not denying it, and we also have systems in place to try and reduce their frequency and how long they can sit in low ranks. I think it's just overblown, because in tac shooters players can have insanely good games. I am about Plat/Diamond, and play against immortal/radiant players every day in playtest - even I have games where I'm 20-30+kills in those games(against players way above my skill level).

That being said, the perception is the problem so we still do investigate smurfing concerns in case there are issues. We won't ever stop, and hopefully we can help players feel like smurfs aren't as common as they think!

I never said there wasn't smurfs, but I also think it's unfair to not give credit to players who have a good game. I say this because I've seen posts claiming that every single game has a smurf, when realistically that's impossible.

Even using your past season triangle example, we have a group of devs that constantly have been radiant and play 3-4 hours every single day, that have been playing more unrated then ranked. Some of those devs don't have an act rank triangle this act.

Also, most smurfs will struggle to stay at low ranks. It's very hard to have an account maintain a rank, while also smurfing on low ranking players. It's kind of a complete counter to how ranked works, because if you are truly smurfing you would increase your MMR and no longer be smurfing. We can detect this very quickly, for example TenZ getting radiant MMR in less then 20 matches. It would happen for anyone below radiant in even shorter time(the extreme high ranks, like radiant, take the longest to shift MMR into). This is even harder in our system because we don't put barriers on ranked/MMR - and match you based on your MMR. On top of us having a performance MMR which can tell if you are performing outside of your current matches.

So then if players are going to be pushed to a higher MMR, due to smurfing and having "insane" games against low ranking players, they would have to make an another account. Which again people will do, but becomes less frequent because at some point making multiple smurfs takes a lot of time not playing the game(or money to buy a botted account that will just get banned eventually). It's just another barrier that reduces how many people smurf.

I'm just being completely open, and honest, in saying that when we investigate smurfing it's not as big of an issue as people think it is. It comes down to wanting to find a reason why you may have lost a game. Again, I'm not denying that you will encounter smurfs - it's just unrealistic to think it's as often as the community believes it is.

I used plat as the example, because that was what this player refrenced when talking about smurfing. But even if you tried to argue about smurfing in silver and below, that's 50% of all players. Not only would that require a sizeable chunk of players, ranked gold and above, to smurf. That would also take players out of the higher ranks, and you would see issues like increased match making time, worse match making due to skill gaps in MMR(due to missing players), etc. Because you would need those players to constantly be smurfing, and you would need to maintain a large % of those high ranking players constantly smurfing to maintain even a 1 in 5 games smurf occurance.

Like I said, every decision we make also takes into account how it may help reduce smurfing. And even if I say "Smurfing isn't as big of a problem as it is" I understand there will be edge cases, or you can just straight up not believe me. Because when you are in game, encountering these issues(or feel like you are), it's counter to what I'm saying. That's why, we focus on design decisions to reduce smurfing as a whole. We will always try to help reduce the need to smurf, or reduce the ability for players to smurf.

You also have to remember that Valorant is young, and is constnatly getting new players. The community is learning together, so you not only have to improve, you have to improve faster then the community and those around you. This becomes more of an issue when a game is younger, because 1 month of playing Valorant right now is about 10% of the total time the game has been out. Even playing less, or not at all, for a month is giving the community 10% more time then you potentially.

So I think a lot of pain also comes from the game is new, people are learning, skill is wildly shifting across all players - while also getting new players that may have lots of CS experience. That's why I think some high rank players are running into "My teammates don't know how to use abilities". Because we have these players from CS that have immortal/radiant aim, but not game sense yet.

Sorry, I was using your post as a step off to discuss smurfs partially because you said there are way more smurfs now.

I wasn't attacking you, or saying you were wrong. I just wanted to be realistic about it. My main point being, smurfing is not the reason you aren't ranking up was where I was trying to end up.

Sorry if I came off as hostile, or attacking your view. I know it's hard to convey emotion, or tone, through text. I never was upset, or blaming you for anything. I just haven't really talked about smurfs and felt like responding to you was a good chance to do so.

The problem is when one person says "smurf" if I don't target that comment with a response, my response gets lost or you just get chain comments blaming smurfs for why people are not climbing ranked.

I'll definitely try to word things better, and I'm sorry!

For sure, just providing context.