Aren’t you already are for use mobile authentication security? Or your email? 
Good idea, I think smurfing is one of big reasons why the game is suffering with shedding of the player base, at least in lower leagues.
why would i use that
For better security? It is in the name.
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You may have several accounts for valid reasons. But that’s irrelevant from being suspended. And it only stops you from playing SL, so no problem there.
Again, only affects competitive. And if they got suspended. It’s their problem.
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i use this email only for this game so i dont care
This is why I came up with my Idea connecting the participation on SL Games with the battle.net ID using the Blizzard Mobile Authenticator.
I’m from the EU and very aware of invasive actions in my privacy. That’s why I use two-factor authorisation when ever I can.
And this is the reason why something has to be done. No offense intended!
2FA is very safe and good. I just don’t think European or American players would tolerate the heavy identification requirements needed to have a Korean account at all.
Which includes real life ID through a mobile app or logging in with e-banking. It is quite a hassle to create a Korean battle.net account, and impossible for a foreigner.
Oh definitely, I think national ID would be too far.
2FA is if not the best security until you lose your phone, it literally makes it impossible to get into your account, however it is also uses a very uncommon resource, which is a phone number, unlike emails where i can make infinite of them, phone numbers aren’t handed around for free and phone numbers as burners are usually pricy and not free.
I totally agree with you in this point. But I think this level of idenfication isn’t necessary in Europe or in America since the korean solution is the only way to get the problem with the pc-bangs under controll without shutting them completely down. The Carrier of those Bangs have to offer cheats and hacks to compete in this hard fought business. And the player have been probably just curious to try out hacks in the first place without any risks in this absolute anonymity.
not taken im not comfortable to leave my information online especially to blizzard and in eu you can buy number for dollar that dont stop surfs .
The problem is smurfing is allowed by Blizzard. It’s not against the rules to have multiple accounts.
Unless blizzard changes their own rules, I don’t see anything like this happening.
The best thing Blizzard can do is to make things to incentivize players to play on one account only, like having a better ranked gamemode for example.
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The best way to eliminate it, and actually decrease Que times is very simple:
Every season, every play starts from ZERO. This takes away the need to smurf since all players will start from level zero. Your account that has bad MMR? Reset! Every season!
Honestly i smurf because its fun to climb ranks, so if everyone started fresh every season i think it would help with this.
App based 2FA: Yes.
SMS based 2FA: You may as well publically post your login details everywhere.
SMS based 2FA: You may as well publically post your login details everywhere.
Is it really that easy to hijack someone’s mobile number or intercept text messages in real time? I have my doubts. I’m sure skilled hackers can do anything within the limits of physical reality though.
Of course if your phone gets stolen, that is a different matter (but the thief has to also know your login credentials). If the thief has physical access to the phone and can unlock it, then even an app wont help.
So what happens when I change numbers? I can’t play SL anymore?
No number = No SL
Banned number = No SL
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Get rid of Storm League grouping, go back to HL and TL (or restrict the three division apart grouping) I think you would find smurfing decline dramatically. Raise entry to play SL back to 16 owned heroes played to level 5.
I appreciate ideas to discourage smurfing, but I simply don’t trust Blizzard with sensitive information such as my phone number. This will also be a problem for households and people who are under 18, who many not have permission to give away a telephone number associated with their account.
This idea raises privacy concerns for me and considering the ease of prepaid burner phone numbers, I don’t see it addressing the problem of smurfing.
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I’m okay with text message based authentication, verification e-mails, what have you. I don’t want to install yet another 2FA app (Blizzard Authenticator), however, just to play a game.
As long as this suggestion is about bans, I don’t really care.
I’ve seen people silenced with level 30 accounts. The system works.
What I would prefer to avoid is people starting a new account every couple weeks, to run yet another bronze to GM challenge or merely stomp newbies after a frustrating week, and make ranked more of a random experience in the process. Those interested can absolutely afford throwaway virtual SIMs just to start an account anyway. It’s only a problem in the 4th world.
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I’m using the Blizzard Mobile Authenticator App on my iPhone. It does not only secure the login in the Battle.net Launcher, it also secures the login when ever my Battle.net ID is necessary (for example to buy anything in the Blizzard-Store).
So if anyone ever gets to know my password, I still get immediately a notification on my Mobile knowing what is going on and can intervene the attempt.
With very good I mean it’s a Two-factor-authorisation that uses an own reverse channel which rises the security-level even more.
Yes the authenticator is (only) tied to the mobile-Number but you still have to use a physical device to access the authentication. Authentication via SMS isn’t sufficient. There are many Portals allowing Users with minimum effort to send and receive SMS‘s just using the web. Therefore it’s easy to create new accounts over and over again even with a two-factor-authorisation.