I agree. Not sure why family shared is available in this game but free for play is not available.
People like what they like. Its annoying on this forum how people cant complain about issues with the thing they like without someone telling them to just like other things.
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Family share/play just needs new accounts under the highest elo to start at the highest elo gained - 100 points.
Eliminating family share is a huge disservice to the community.
@HeBroGaming
@wonderhd11
And if those new accounts lose elo- let them.
Simply improve the system to heavily reduce the quick ability to lose elo purposefully rather than through proper gameplay. Make it fun to lose elo the long way round, and make it a pain to remove elo quickly - constantly creating new accounts to have them be low elo squashers would deteriorate and became much harder to create and further still unrewarding.
Adding this from a previous post of mine:
I’m on the side of keeping family sharing. The things that need to happen are simple to change the current environment for the better.
- instate a 500-regular-elo difference limit in ranked*team games for ally disparity in elo. (does not take into account additional red elo)
- Reset team game elo.
- provide an elo cieling, about 2k(and keep gaining elo without it effecting who they get set up with, say 2k regular, 200 red elo, lose the red, go below 2k elo, etc) would be fine. (Players will recieve a healthy pushback to their proper elos.)
-elo ceiling method may be added to 1vs1 as well, but no need for a reset, just place those above 2k to have 2k+red elo, etc.
- Add a ranking elo for non-ranked lobby games(random map, regicide, death match, etc) and have it visible to players upon mousing over the player portrait as current ranked elos are.(the unranked elo already exists, just reset it followed by it becoming visible)
This will allow for better player moderation as to who they wish to play with/against as well as lobby balance in general. It’s hard to figure that out if people have 0 ranked games played.
-adding in the ranked lobby system for multiple game modes, regicide, death match, nomad, random map, mega random, feudal wars, etc.
currently above 1100 and people either figure out how to get around my defenses in key ways or get wrecked. While I improve from each win/loss, there’s either more offensive players, defensive types or the in-betweens, I don’t mind any of them; I’ll fight them all seriously.
I’ve been asked if this was my smurf account before. Honestly, I don’t get it.
I’ve also been asked if I’m a noob quite a few times before the opponent fails to take me seriously and loses for it. (Because I don’t rush, and my setup is strange to them)
Then there’s the salty bunch who call my style boring yet lose to it, and those I’ve gotten close to beating in a fairly even match gloat over their victory saying ‘gg ez, noob, dumb playstyle, one trick pony,’ etc.
I’ve been called a memer, troll, and a whole slew of other things even in team games.
I’ve had random teammates x my base and then resign after calling me a troll(base tends to be fancy, neat and well defended, but I guess it’s strange to randoms even tho my eco is good and military well on the way)
smurfing comes mainly in two forms
- teaming with a much lower elo player (which the devs are attempting to fix by stopping players from just spam resigning to allow their higher elo selves gain a low elo so they may fight lower elos in random teams or team with another high elo for a further advantage - which again appears to be an issue the devs are attempting to tackle actively by adding key features such as the insta resign = suspension for time, and they will refine this feature given time.
(Adding in a 500 elo difference limit will further combat this behaiviour by severely limiting the disparity effect on what opponents you get queued with when allied with someone with much higher elo than you - more often friends will queue together and won’t be too far apart in elo.)
- refusing to play ranked or having an alternative account just for lobbies - proceeding to join noob lobbies while not having a rank so you can enjoy a calm game for yourself(not so calm for the noob opponents, but the odds of having an opponent do the same thing is pretty high.
Most of the time I imagine some players are tired of being kicked from lobbies for being ‘too high elo’
(Instating an unranked ranking in the lobby system goes to fix this problem in a wonderful way, and if someone repeatedly attempts this behaiviour, - let’s just say making new emails constantly gets tiring quickly just to make a new account - and while this may be abused using the family share system, it’s also not feasible for long once the lobby system, both ranked and unranked, gain a ranking system to verify players by which heavily reduces the amount of games they may try with said account, and it is my beleif that they will tire of it quickly.)
The third way of the smurf is less prevelant, that being in ranked 1 vs 1, and the devs are tackling that issue with the early resign suspensions, and further methods will likely be explored, but removal of family sharing in its entirety should not be one of them. Keeping family sharing away from ranked is a possibility, but not outright removal.
That being said, if no unranked lobby rank comes forth, it will only worsen things for the lobbies.
(Players can no longer just lose upon making a new account, they will need to keep playing for a time, which heavily slows down their speed run into the lower elos, which, with smurfers, would likely be a heavy drain on their want of continuing to waste time.)
Further, if there are 1500+ elo smurfs, there aren’t very many of them, at 1100+ there’s only like, 13k players above me? If that. Out of those it’s highly doubtful many of them smurf, and if quite a few of those are duel accounts? Then that just means there are even fewer possible actual smurfs from that elo range. Which means the ones most in danger would be the 700-900 elo ranges, which appears to be the ones the devs are attempting to protect by instating those early resign suspensions. (New accounts start at around what, 1k elo? ) and the perpatrator smurfs are most likely anywhere from 1k elo to 1.3k elo just going off of player number density.
Team game elo is highly inflated and should not be used for referance. A 1700 might as well be near in skill to a 2400 in team games as it stands - it’s constantly inflated with little to no actual skill gap and would do well with a ceiling and a reset.
Again. If family sharing is taken from ranked play - it must be done at the same time as adding unranked lobbies into a ranking system to reduce possible smurfs there lest the lobby system just get worse.(allow fam share in lobbies, but their accounts will still become ranked by the lobby system allowing for better player to player moderation)
Just saying it’s a problem and ‘remove fam share’ as a knee jerk reflex would do much more damage to the playerbase than good.
It will take time to figure out proper fixes that don’t screw everyone over.
The other problem is the opposite of the player spectrum; The player that claims or labels others without really knowing, those who get wrecked and instantly feel like they’ve been smurfed and decide to attempt to get that player banned.
It is detrimental and hurtful to the playerbase to allow this behaviour just because ‘smurf bad’
It is much more efficient to just change the environment in certain ways like with the suggestions I posted a few comments above which brings the game closer to being smurf unfrendly while not hurting players by false accusations and unfair bans or removing a nice feature, being family sharing, or restricting in certain ways without proper consideration as to the effects of said restrictions and without thinking of additional measures that should go to compensate the playerbase.
I’ve been called a smurf before. I have no wish to become banned because some pleb feels falsely cheated out of a proper game.
It also adds too much strain on the devs to review incoming reports of said false claims of smurfing and takes away too much of their time that could be placed towards the game as whole; it’s much better to focus on things that change the environment for the better and focus on the game as a whole rather than waste studio funds/time on individual possible smurfs or even paying someone else to do it which leads into false bans with far too little context only because a player felt cheated or salty without reason beyond ‘got wrecked’.
__
My little brother currently uses family share to play, sure I could buy him a copy and likely will if we want to play together at the same time, but for the time being it’s a good to use feature. And he loves to play with people online.
Family share/play just needs new accounts under the highest elo to start at the highest elo gained - 100 points.
It do not solve anything. those smurf still go and lose their game to low down their ranking. I am pretty sure that you are not a rank game player and you definitely don’t know how much the issue of smurf is disservice to the community.
Prevent account sharing from accessing ranked. 1 serial key 1 ranked profile.
Punish repeat offenders much more harshly, but punish non repeat offenders less harshly than currently (due to bugs, server errors, ultra lag etc)
Actually I’ve been playing ranked for a long while now, thanks. On top of playing the game in general since childhood.
You likely won’t find my rankings atm cause I’ve not played for a while, cause I’m taking care of some irl stuff, so there is that. Highest elo reached was around 1236 or so. Average about 1150 with variances of the 1 vs 1 elo.
And no, smurfing in 1 vs.1 ranked is far less of an issue and far less common than, say, smurfs with no elo at all in the unranked lobby system.
You are far more likely to ‘get wrecked’ by a player casually going up and down in elo normally at all elo levels. And that is entirely normal and acceptable.
As for ranked team games, even just placing a ceiling to that elo system would go a long way to bring about removal of any inflation.
Doesn’t mean it isn’t an issue
This is an unsolvable problem. There is literally no way to stop it because it goes against the lobby system.
Whereas ranked, is meant to match players fairly. Otherwise it defeats the purpose. I always check my opponents stats for every match I play.
And to varying degrees I encounter a smurf at least every 2 days(and sometimes more often) Obviously some of them aren’t that extreme, but many others are simply +200 elo players that resign at 0 to 5 min(to avoid the ban after repeated drops) over a very high number of games, to keep their elo down
That is still smurfing even if it isn’t to the extreme that people generally associate smurfing
Don’t worry you don’t need to prove anything. Elo shaming is vile. And conversely we have a certain player here that repeatedly likes to say how “high” their elo is when they clearly don’t understand the game (gurjaras are underpowered apparently)
The devs have already started making just dropping elo an endeavor unto itself, and no doubt their process will improve.
Having family share accounts start at -100 elo of the highest elo gained under the family share system at a minimum of 1k elo to remove possible abuse will ensure that every account is well and able to be scrutinized and unenjoyable to reduce elo on purpose.
Having unranked lobbies gain a visible ranking is important as well to increase player to player moderation and balance.
Not a chance.
You’re playing a game for free when you normally shouldn’t be able to.
And even worse, it’s a cheap game. Most games nowadays don’t allow family sharing and this also prevents the levels of abuse that family sharing allows.
If the family wants to share the game, then share the steam login details. At best, one ranked profile , everyone else can use the lobby/play SP.
There’s many issues that come with this. Smurfs can still smurf(so problem isn’t solved) While you get the negative stigmatism of ranking in open lobbies. It’s no where near as simple as you think it is
Many people don’t play ranked specifically because there is a rating system and they artificially put pressure on themselves
Family share is perfectly well and good for the community to have and use. Moderating its uses to heavily reduce any possible abuse is a good way to go, but never by restricting features to accounts made under family share which may still gain a copy if a family member actually wants to play alongside the original owner at the same time.
Family share is a glorified sharing of a single game disk.
This is perfectly normal and reasonable and rightful to have and enjoy.
@PlumpDucklin
It is important for lobby hosts to have a rating on each account visible to go by in-game and without being forced to go to a website via clicking on each name just to figure out what an unranked player may be like in skill. That should be well and visible in-game, so that the host can better serve the balance of their lobbies.
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You did quite a long post there. Your brother has a ton of modes he can play. He can go to lobbies, he can go to Quick Match, etc. If he wants to play ranked just buy the game for him, it’s not that expensive.
This kind of situation it’s not a good reason to allow everyone to have 4 or 5 smurfs accounts for free. If they’d have to pay in order to have a smurf account the amount of them would reduce drastically.
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Totally agree. If they really want to have a smurt account then they have to pay for the developer, which is actually good for the game.
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I think that removing family shared accounts from ranked games is the most reasonable solution so far.
I dunno how viable is that technology wise.
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Uninstalling one of the greatest games ever because you faced 2 smurfs
mega facepalm
Well i have played 5000 hours of aoe2 de in total and yes I am a bit bored with it but the main reason is the amount of smurfs I have faced in the past year has been steadily climbing. It is not a one day thing. I remember in 2020 all of my friends were playing aoe2 happily. Starting from mid-2021 till now smurfs are on the rise. This year I haven’t played a lot of aoe2 but every 2 or 3 team ranked I played with friends were against smurfs. It is just not fun anymore. This smurf culture has ruined it. After this recent patch I downloaded aoe2 back after 3 month but the first 2 games were against smurfs too. You know the frustration? That’s why I really don’t enjoy this game anymore.
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Wow I didn’t expect my thread to be so popular. Seems like smurfing is a common issue and it is attracting attention. So far I agree the best solution is to ban family shared account from ranked. If you family share to play with family as intended, you can always play lobby games.
Family share is the reason why so many players create new accounts. They can have up to 5 smurf accounts at the same time. After that they can delete some high elo accounts to make room for new ones. It is practically unlimited.
Elo is inflating also because of new accounts from family share. Whenever you register a new account you are adding 1000 elo to the pool of rating, since new accounts don’t start from 0 but from 1000. Over time the elo inflates in total.
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After a 1 or 2 years I came back and still see that guy defending smurfs, hilarious.
smurf in 1v1 is not that common so it can be ignored? really, is that what your logical thinking is?
How about ###### / murdering in my country is not serious so we just let it go?
it’s totally non-sense.
We are talking about right and wrong, talking about gaming sportsmanship, we are discussing how to improve the fairness in game.
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some argue that smurf should be allowed for those “returned player” to practice otherwise there will be huge elo drop.
This is what I have done, let it drop, it totally fairly reflecting what my elo currently is.
open a new account to beat the noob, destroying other ranking experience and wasting the time, wasting lots of people time to fullfil your own desire? I feel ashamed on those behavours.
And I am only talking about 1v1, for TG, everyone knows that how smurf ruining the TG in these years.
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