In Fortnite, developer Epic has announced that players will be banned for engaging in “smurfing”. What lies behind the cute term “smurfing” and why does Epic now consider smurfs to be annoying?
What is smurfing? “Smurfing” is derived from “Smurf” – the English word for Schlumpf.
In gaming, “smurfing” refers to a player creating a new account in a game to intentionally compete against weaker players.
They do this with the intention of finding an easy match and shooting weak opponents for fun. Players who do this say things like: They wanted to play to relax and not “sweat,” meaning they don’t want a serious match, but just want to have fun.
Smurfing occurs in “skill-based matchmaking” – one that Fortnite introduced a few weeks ago.
What is skill-based matchmaking? In a matchmaking system, players are assigned opponents who are roughly at their level. This level is determined by the matchmaking ranking (MMR). It decreases or increases in the background of the game, depending on how a player performs.
If a strong player creates a new account, they will have a “neutral matchmaking ranking” on that smurf account and will compete against players who also have such a neutral matchmaking ranking. Usually, these will be beginners.
He will then be hopelessly superior to them and slaughter them. That’s why smurfs are a problem in many games.
Especially in Overwatch or League of Legends, smurfs are a constant topic. Recently, in League of Legends, a Twitch streamer was banned during a marathon stream – likely because he “smurfed” with a purchased account.
Smurfing is “Bannable Behavior” in Fortnite
This is what Epic says: They made a statement on the topic in a blog post (via epicgames).
We are currently seeing many discussions regarding the creation of smurf accounts to get into easier matches. Creating smurf accounts is a bannable offense. We believe that creating smurf accounts brings negative behavior and poor effects on gameplay. If we receive repeated reports and find that you continuously disrupt the play of other users, we will take appropriate action.
What do you need to do to not get banned for smurfing? Just play with the account you usually use.
Why is this currently relevant? Epic introduced a “skill-based” matchmaking with patch 10.40 and thus such MMR rankings. They say there are some issues arising, but they want to stick with the system.
Fortnite has already banned the first players for “smurfing”. One even live on Twitch:
