I see a lot of people complain on the forums about smurfs, myself included, and get told that the games are still fair because smurfs can be on your team and the other team. Of course this is debatable because no one knows how the system works underneath, but something needs to be announced.
Saying that the game is still fair with smurfs on both sides is completely missing the point. The point is that there shouldn’t be smurfs on either side. When you say its fair because both teams get smurfs, you’re basically saying, “All players have terrible games equally, so it’s fair for everyone!”
How about we have great games equally? Why can’t there be no smurfs and then people get good games equally? When you say things like, “both sides get them, so it’s equal”, you’re actually encouraging terrible decisions made by Blizzard because it applies equally to everyone.
I’ve lost hundreds of SR in a couple days just from accounts under level 100 with obvious smurf names and I know I’ll eventually get them on my team and get launched back up. I never know if I’m actually deciding a victory or not for my team because of the amount of smurfs. Everyone experiences this; but just because everyone does doesn’t mean that everyone should. Please stop ignoring this fact.
I usually just ask “Hey X, what’s your peak”. People have been pretty straight with me. Sometimes peak is just a few hundred SR above. Sometimes people say masters or GM and often I kinda doubt that. Sometimes I believe it and I’ll ask to be added. I’ve been added by peak 3600-4200 people who friended me on their main and who I originally fought playing on low plat accounts lol. People seem surprisingly open about it if you approach it casually.
If you get mad at them being a smurf or if you ask them directly “are you a smurf” you’re gonna get meme’d and told “what’s a smurf?” or some other crap. If you friend them to dm and ask you get mixed results. But if you ask peak they usually just tell you and often it’s true.
But anyways I don’t believe there’s a real elo hell. The reason is I never fight someone who I’m like “holy crap this guy is literally incredible” who doesn’t end up being low level or some smurf account. A lot of times I get told “wow you’re the first one to notice I’m smurfing” because they’re tank or support or not popping off. But there’s a different quality to those really high tier players. I often notice it in kill cam from the level of prediction, or just good exceptionally good and consistent decision making or baiting. Or just a grabbag of particular tactics and spots just for the map we play on that I’ve never even seen.
Anyways smurfs absolutely keep people at lower tiers. There’s no way a game without any smurfs wouldn’t be easier to hit a higher tier in. The reason is that we’re in a percentile tier based system. Smurfs are disproportionately in higher tiers. The existence of smurfs will always occupy disproportionately higher tiers than regular accounts which means they make higher tiers harder to reach by definition. This is more true the higher you go. T500 is literally half smurfs of main T500 accounts which keeps another 250 people out of that tier.
But that said there’s no elo hell. Cause you do fight with and against smurfs. And if you’re good enough to be better than the other legit golds you rise up over them in the games you don’t have any smurf influence in. Being diamond might be harder with smurfs in existence then without them in existence, but atm there is a threshold of skill to reach each rank and it applies to everyone. They do add a lot of noise and make the grind up more random though - which means more games to hit your actual tier.
I’d aruge smurfs are a blessing they show you how much you need to improve.
Just playing in a match with them regardless of what side they are on you can learn something.
If they are on your team take note of what there doing that your not ask yourself why they do it and you don’t.
If they are making callouts pay close attention.
If they are on the other team see how they respond to your gameplay what they do to kill you it will show you a ton about what your weaknesses are.
I’d aruge smurfs are healthy for a game like overwatch in older games we didn’t even have rank based matchmaking people just got better playing in lobbies with people better than them nothing can teach you faster.
There have been plenty of good ideas about how to get rid of smurfing. The only problem is that Blizzard is prioritizing profit from micro-transactions over player comfort.
Did they ever stop and think that there is probably little or no difference in what someone spends whether they have 1 account or 5? It also skews the total player base numbers by a huge margin.
“There are 30 million players!” When in reality that could really be as low as 20 million when say 5 million people have 2 accounts which accounts for that total 10 million. Just as an example.
A Plat smurf playing in bronze does not teach anyone anything except that there are cruel and childish people who have alt accounts JUST so they can avoid getting actioned for deranking and trolling on their main account.
If a Plat is playing their main at a skill level 4 TIERS BELOW THEIR TIER the match isn’t fair which makes your point invalid.
The Gold rank queue pool is over 30% of the community!!! The frequency of bad players is astronomically HIGHER than it is in Plat Diamond or higher ranks!!!
How is that? My entire argument is that you should consider smurfs in your game a blessing regardless of what team there on because they are the best tool in the world to learn from.
It’s not a matter of the game being “fair.” It’s that your rank is where it is regardless of smurfs. Why is that? Because if you were better than your current rank (which means you ought rank up), your team has the natural advantage every game because they have a 100% guaranteed smurf every game (you). If you are not better than your rank, then you are reliant on luck of the draw and hope you get someone on the way up on your team. Else, if matchmaking was 100% “fair” and everybody belonged in the right rank, the match is a dead 50% odds of winning and you will never rank up anyway.
Negative. It’s very simple to ask what someone’s main is at and they will almost always respond nicely. I can tell the difference between a smurf and a non-smurf.
Remember, they’re a multi-million dollarcompany. They can figure something out. It’s not impossible. Many games have much better competitive modes.
But now you’ve fought the argument I wasn’t making. I never said anything about improving. The original post was about having fun in a system that tolerates smurfing.
You literally proved my post which means that you completely missed the point. This exact same scenario could happen without smurfs, but, “because everyone gets them, then it doesn’t matter and you’re in the rank you belong.” You even acknowledged this by saying “It’s that your rank is where it is regardless of smurfs.” If the game functions the same with smurfs, then why don’t we take smurfs out for people to have actual fun?
Every thought of having multiple matches in a row where you can say that everyone on both teams were in the same rank? Feeling like you’re actually having fun against players of your own rank?
Also, being slightly better than your own rank does not qualify you as a “smurf”. Many smurfs I’ve met have main accounts in the upper diamond to low masters area. If I play like a mid diamond in plat on my main, and get placed against a high diamond smurf, the chances of me losing are still higher than the chances of winning, regardless of if I’m better than the current rank.
And with the recent influx of smurfs due to the sale, it feels like they’ll never stop showing up. I don’t care if they’re on my team or the enemy’s team or whatever, I just want them to be gone so I feel like I’m actually playing a competitive game mode.
Want to hear what I’d tell people if I hear them complain about smurfs!?
Get good.
I’m a diamond Junkrat 1 trick, yet I decimated a GM Pharah smurf/Booster. If I can do that when I know I’m not of a GM skill level than so can everyone else if they stop complaining and actually put in the effort.
I didn’t realize you could decide what my argument is. Cool.
I already saw it… And said it in my text.
Stop deciding what my argument is or isn’t. I don’t care if smurfs do or don’t decide my rank. I just don’t want them in my games, and supposedly if they weren’t, it would have no difference on my rank, so why not make every game at least look like both sides are equal?
Name a solution then. We have multibillion dollar pharmaceutical industries unable to cure HIV or Cancer; do you see how pointless their coffers are is as an argument? What can one even do?
Yes, they are. But it’s a fair comparison to illustrate my point: just because they have deep pockets doesn’t mean they currently (if ever) can cure every issue. How do you deal with players who play to lose so they can have a god complex stomping lower players? They game the system, they buy a new accoubt if banned, and any authentication process has huge drawbacks or outright won’t work. If no one here has a workable solution what makes you think Blizzard suddenly has one?