Apex Legends players have once again raised their opinions that the smurfing issue in the game’s various Ranked modes is getting out of hand.
Smurfing is a widespread problem in the online gaming community and players have claimed the problem has affected games like Apex Legends and Valorant for years now.
For Apex Legends specifically, the community has called on both EA and Respawn to take steps to mitigate the game’s smurfing problem ahead of Season 15.
Unfortunately, it seems some players are still encountering smurfed in Ranked modes, and players are getting fed up with the lack of changes.
Apex Legends players fed up with smurfing problem
A post on the Apex Legends subreddit once again sparked a conversation in the community about smurfing issues persisting in Season 15.
For those who may not be familiar with the term smurfing, it’s essentially when a player who is already high-ranked in an online game creates a new account starting at a low level and gets put into games with other new or low-level players for an easier time.
A user named flippity_floppity18 made a post titled, “This game has a serious smurf problem especially in ranked arenas.” The post sparked a discussion with other players joining in to share they experiences with smurfs as well as changes to mitigate the issue.
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“My biggest problem with smurfing, is when I play with my friends who are earnestly trying to climb to platinum, and we get w-keyed way outside the circle, into the storm by a 3 stack of new accounts with default banners, 3k badges, and rolling us in 10 seconds. It just ruins the flow of the game and the experience,” said one fan, who claimed they encountered smurf accounts “every other game.”
The original poster shared a suggestion on how Respawn could fix the issue and said, “They need to do introduce a system so that you only get put with people who are similar level and recent performance so smurfs get put with smurfs they have no fun so they quit.”
Of course, others pushed back on the suggestion and noted that it’s quite difficult for a developer to quantify skill in a numerical value for matchmaking purposes.
“….It’s not as simple as these people are trying to make it out to be to create a numerical value for skill. We as players can look at another player and say ‘they are good’ the game can’t unless we teach it. Which isn’t as easy,” noted one fan.
While any fan of competitive multiplayer games will tell you smurfing is a frustrating issue to deal with, it’s also frustrating to stamp out on the development side. Hopefully, developers like Respawn can take strides to mitigate smurf accounts in the future.
