Understanding the Smurfing and Throwing Issue in VALORANT
VALORANT players are speaking up about the neverending issue of smurfing and throwing, with many agreeing Riot Games needs to make one simple change to combat the problem.
The Frustration of Facing Smurfs and Throwers
If you play enough VALORANT, you’ve encountered smurfs who one-tap you before you have a chance to react or players who intentionally sabotage the team and throw rounds. Both types of players are frustrating to play with, and it’s an issue that never seems to go away. In a May 2 Reddit thread, players discussed why they believe smurfing and throwing continue to be such a huge issue and what Riot could do to minimize it.
The “I don’t care” Mentality Behind Smurfing and Throwing
According to players, bad behavior like smurfing and throwing boils down to an “I don’t care” mentality when playing on alt VALORANT accounts. For a variety of different reasons, some gamers will have extra accounts outside their “main” profiles where they often take games seriously and abide by the rules. Since these alt accounts usually don’t have any sentimental or financial value to them via hours of playtime or paid skins, they can be used for breaking the rules without suffering from the consequences.
The Challenge of Addressing the Issue
“You can report them all you want. But it doesn’t matter,” one player stated. Because if their alt account gets reported, they could always go back to their main account or create another alt to continue causing problems for others. I’ve run into players who proudly exhibit bad behavior by using offensive slurs or sabotaging their own team after mentioning their previous account had been banned. It feels as though players like this will continue to break the rules by creating new accounts whenever they get banned. That’s why it’s so common to run into a least one player who should be reported in your match.
Unfortunately, there’s no perfect solution to eliminate every single rulebreaker from the game, but players believe Riot can at least minimize the issue by forcing all players to link their accounts to their phone numbers. That alone would cut the number of alts floating around, and in doing so, it would also discourage players from reoffending.
Sure, you can argue players could find ways around this with multiple numbers, but it’s still a deterrent that people may not want to bother with. As other players pointed out, phone verification is already a required feature in Premier, so it shouldn’t take much on Riot’s end to also implement it in other modes. Some people just want to enjoy and play the game fairly, and this could be a huge step in that direction.