For any competitive multiplayer, one of the biggest evils (apart from hacking) is smurfing, and Valorant is no stranger to this very fact.
Since its release, the shooter has been plagued with countless smurfing and griefing incidents, often highlighted in many subreddits.
Riot introduced significant changes along with penalty systems that helped to curb a portion of the problem. However, smurfing is still a major issue in Valorant. High-elo players often find loopholes in the system to exploit by creating alternate accounts and ruining the competitive experience for players in the lower ranks.
In a recent Reddit post, Valorant u/mlalssid suggested a viable solution to counter smurfing. With the number of upvotes that it received in just a short while, it seems that this is something the community wants to get behind.
Disabling ranked queue before level 25 can help counter smurfs in Valorant
In the post, the Redditor suggested that by capping when new accounts will be able to access ranked matches, smurfs could be stopped from creating alternate accounts.
Moreover, with the Valorant MMR system coming into play, smurfs getting 25+ kills in every game will automatically get placed in a higher rank when they queue up for their Competitive games.
The Redditor elaborated,
“Requiring players to be Level 30 (or 25, whatever works) will definitely decrease the number of smurfs. I'm not totally sure how MMR really works but I'm assuming they would be forced to play unrated (to get XP) which would increase their MMR as they do well. I know 10 wins are required to unlock ranked, but there should also be a level requirement.”
“No one level 12 or level 5 should be able to play ranked. It's insane how people can just freely make accounts and hop into ranked at such a low level so they can shit on people 2-3 tiers below them.”
Indeed, restricting when a smurf account can queue up for a ranked game in Valorant will ensure that the frequency of smurfing reduces in the game significantly.