tl;dr Enforce the requirement of a (*real number) mobile authenticated account to play Storm League.
* e.g not Voice Over IP Number and all those stuff
With a phone numbers are limited resource, a complete waste of time to change and generally handy solution against smurfing, with it can purge smurfing or just make it even less and less frequent to an extent that it is right now.
Phone that was associated with a suspended account from competitive cannot be used on a smurf account, denying players from playing competitive even after banned on their main account until expiration of the ban (or if perma banned then bye).
inb4 “but what if i use my moms phone?!?!?”, yes I know, it would definitely improve the game and garner less smurfing abuse in general to a greater degree.
20 Likes
What about players who play on 2 accounts for legitimate reasons and have spent money on both accounts?
I know friends who have an account where they try to play only their best heroes to maintain a good winrate, and then a second acount where they play more casually with a wider hero pool.
Smurfing is not the only reason to have multiple accounts, I know people with multiple accounts who do it to get more gold from daily quests and unlock more heroes across multiple accounts too.
And what about people who have spent real money across multiple accounts, suddenly they lose access to some of these accounts?
Doesn’t sound like you thought this one through…
6 Likes
You can use that phone number on multiple accounts until one of them get the kick, thus causes a chain of effects.
Also since when 2 people have the same phone number?
Also this only affects competitive, are you sure you reading specifically in what I’m writing? Your comment sounds like you haven’t thought this one through…
Also lol @ the gold farming, not like AI or QM or Unranked exists, if you do something bad in competitive and get banned from it you are not allowed to play competitive until that expires.
Please I beg you people read the tl;dr again.
1 Like
Blizzard uses right now a really good two-factor-authorisation.
Why not make it a requirement of playing ranked and block it when a player gets suspended?
You can even use different Levels of Suspension:
- After first Suspension (literally as a warning) Blocking of playing ranked in HotS for a week
- After second Suspension / first severe Suspension, Blocking playing HotS at all for an amount of time.
- Next Step can be a complete shutdown of the Battle.net-ID
4 Likes
Decent idea, though there is still the issue of virtual online phone numbers.
People can generate and buy a thousand new unique numbers for $19 dollars a month from the various providers people can find with the google search “buy phone numbers”.
Allowing them to practically make as many smurfs as they’ll ever need in a lifetime. The company sends voice mails/text messages there as usual and has no way to discern them from any other type of phone number, because they are legitimate phone numbers ordered from operators like AT&T.
It’s easy to blacklist all the free number services online, but what about the ones that cost money? Though it would definitely decrease smurfing, as I’d imagine most smurfs mental pay cap to pay for playing HotS is at around $0.
edit - if smurfs start distributing the hundreds or thousands of numbers they bought for a few bucks to friends or randoms then that can be an issue, but I doubt most smurfs would bother.
1 Like
Those who cost money are technically wasting money to play again, additionally phone changing is a tedious process.
This should negate a lot of smurfing.
2 Likes
It wouldn’t completely remove smurfing as said above, but I’d say it would cut down in at least half.
But I still prefer korean system. Ever tried to make korean battle.net account?
They put you through hell just to begin to play (multiple mobile real life verifications, with apps that only work if you uploaded national id).
Good luck trying to evade bans as a korean.
Would we people in the “west” accept that? I think many would complain.
I still think there should be higher requirements for league to make smurfing less rewarding. Like adding 2 more bans, making it 8 bans in total. That would increase the amount of heroes people need to have to 18 heroes. And only heroes above level 5 be usable.
No, new accounts and new players should be level 100+ when they first enter league.
In addition to that I would add mobile authenticator.
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I know, only an insane troll would keep buying new phones. But the virtual numbers and the phone boxes are online on a website, allowing you to check dozens or hundreds of numbers at once without a phone. And they are legitimate operator numbers the user can create on demand after paying.
There is a chance 1 smurf would buy a few hundred of these for 10-20 bucks then distribute it to his friend list who want to smurf. But like you said it’s still a waste of money = decent deterrent.
2 Likes
Don’t think that would fly well with US/EU players who are very privacy conscious. If you had to verify an account with banking credentials or risk your account being deactivated, many people would plain quit HotS.
The phone number suggestion excludes a lot less players. Giving a phone number is much more casual and acceptable for most people.
South Korea is a very different society that places high value on personal honor, if you troll or grief people in a battle.net game it can have real life negative consequences (like other companies refusing you service if you were banned).
3 Likes
I suppose so.
Though the penalty is pretty much tedious and time wasting just to get back into competitive again.
As a reminder this is only affects SL, you don’t really need it for Unranked, as SL is the most competitive environment.
Valve does this to all their games, especially their trading section of their Steam system. (e.g if no phone verification the trade will be confirmed in 2 weeks instead of instantly)
Not a perfect solution. Even phone numbers can be changed relatively cheap.
But I’m supporting the idea that limits ppl into one acc if they want to play the competitive, while they can still multiacc for casual fun.
This was done specifically due PC bangs which are popular in Korea and easy to exploit for cheating purposes, as you can get a throwaway account easily and go on to the next.
2 Likes
I wish it is, this is why I said it will just do a tremendous downgrade in smurfing but not annihilate it entirely.
Ya, maybe it just wouldn’t work in the west. I didn’t think it correctly. Probably here, the strictest thing people will settle for is phone number .
If blizz started asking more than that, like an upload of your passport, people could quit playing instead of giving it. Net banking korean style is probably out of limits too.
1 Like
From what I skimmed over the dota 2 reddit, their phone requirement doesn’t seem all that much a deterrent.
I saw an offer for a burner phone + first prepaid card for (with coupon) $8.24; there’s outright burner phone services that allow people to keep an existing phone and essentially set up a second number akin to running a vpn.
The idea of requiring a phone number seems attractive in terms of people thinking of the hassle of a smartphone, but for just having a number, a scrap phone + a card for prepaid minutes for maintaining a phone that otherwise doesn’t see much use to spend that time is a minor inconvenience if people want to smurf.
There would probably be a bigger cost deterrent by just requiring a paid stim Booster (similar to dota + when that did it) or outright having an Entry fee for ranked. If players expect rewards from a ranked season, it could help support the game by having some sort of entry free to unlock the season; even if people then smurf, they paid to support the game to then get more content added to it rather then shelling out money to a burn/phone subscription. (oh no, a $1 a month fee for my burner :O)
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Ironically enough they already ask for National ID via customer support, cannot confirm if it still a thing but they want to make sure it is “you” who’s making a very sensitive request like disable parental controls or changing names, etc.
Though Mobile authentication is popular and honestly can used for multiple advantages, not only it maximize security but also make easier to limit exploitation for users by enforcing them to use authentication in the first place.
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Works in Dota2 for some reason, and 25% of the fees go to The International prize pool which is gigantic now, like 25 million dollars ($5m of it to the team who wins).
But if they sold ranked passes for HotS, would they be able to raise even 50 thousand dollars with the current population and enthusiasm for Storm League?
Pure speculation but I think very few people like current HotS enough to pay for Storm League.
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Again, this normally not the best solution but a phone number as a resource is not or nor infinite, those who try to get a new one will go through hell depends on what they are getting this from additionally you have pay everytime, people like things free, unless you are insane and buy 12 overwatch accounts and spent 360$ and more to get banned in 20 minutes due hardware ban (yes this happened to someone) then it should work, maybe even enforce better behavior.
i dont want to leave my personal information.