me and one of my mates just bought new accounts to play comp on and practice other heroes. im a rein 1 trick and hes a support player. we both bought accounts in order to practice dps on as neither of us are vey good and for some reason got placed higher on dps than I felt we should have on our main accounts. bvs we lost basically every game and the abuse from teammates was kinda insane.
anyway, we play qp in order level up… and the opponents are obviously a much lower Elo. we play Strats like sym and bastion in order to have fun. but in every game we are accused of smurfing… but we aren’t smurfing. we have to play qp in order to level up. why the hell do people get so mad? we cant play dps on mains cause we aren’t good enough and cant create an alt account cause we’re “smurfing”. like can people make up their minds.
we play to win so the qp try hard on our team stays happy and we play dumb comps so neither of us is just playing our mains and won’t stomp the entire enemy team, but we still win basically easily, and lo and behold, here comes all the comments: “trash smurfs”, “imagine smurfing”, “you’re probably bronze”.
people have warped smurfing and low accounts into this unthinkable evil so every brainded player with two iq sees a low level player and immediately goes “Duh HeS tOxIc”. I apologise for ranting but what does everyone think about this? is what im doing wrong in creating an account to practice on?
Your wall of text of which came off as a massive run-on-sentence aside. Players have a problem with smurfs because they have quite reasonably earned a reputation for going out of their way to ruin games.
You see, players will see every day “smurfing over your peak SR”, “smurfs looking to stomp in gold”, “Buying low SR accounts” in the looking for game menu. “unranked to GM” and “bronze to gm” streams.
And with these being as common as they are… the conclusion gets formed that smurfing in general is players who are intentionally playing in a pool far too small for themselves.
I feel a point of the post is that it isn’t as common as people think, what this guy does is way more common than people actively throwing games (which you never see many complaints about outside of bots) but people only ever get destroyed every game according to them, seems odd
youre not breaking any rules, separate accounts are allowed by blizzard.
just dont insult people that are insulting you, report them and continue with your games.
There’s nothing officially wrong with having multiple accounts. “Smurfing” is a specific problem where the players are intentionally keeping a low MMR, which means they often have to throw games in order to keep themselves matched with unskilled players. If you’re simply playing the game to win, even if you’re enjoying some fun along the lower ranks as you climb, it really isn’t a problem the player should be concerned with. The matchmaker is usually quite good at figuring out what level of skill a new account should be considered at after just a handful of games, so while this does mean you might “interfere” with a few low level games at the start, you’re likely to get paired up against appropriate opponents quickly enough.
So, as long as you’re not intentionally throwing, it isn’t something you should feel that responsible for. It does suck for people along the way to end up in overly difficult games when posed against you, but that’s also why the matchmaker tries to push you up quickly into more accurate games. Matchmakers always get wonky at low ranks because of this, it isn’t a problem specific to Overwatch.
Though it would be nice if competitive got some quality of life updates to, perhaps, mitigate the need for people to have multiple accounts to begin with, but that’s a more meta issue with the game.
I’m sure there are cases where the ‘smurf’ is just a guy looking to practice. But if you watch the Looking For Group for a while, I’m quite sure you’ll see exactly what I mean. And I’m not the only one who has seen it. Generally things don’t get a reputation for something that isn’t earned in some way or another.
First of all, you are smurfing and the fact you play a hero you don’t know how to play, you can use your main account to do that. there is no reason why you shouldn’t play a hero you never played on your main account. There is QP, you can practice that hero in that mode with your main account, and then when you feel like you are decent enough you can join comp, if this is your goal. Just because you are not throwing matches that does not mean you are not a smurf.
It’s not about, team composition, or playing your Main hero in lower ranks. When you play in lower ranks you will be able to see how much different players skills are. This means that even though you are playing a hero you never played, you can still be able to ruin the match for Low ranks players, and that’s because it’s a matter of the player experience.
and tbh, i don’t see why you shouldn’t want to play on your main account.
This a poor excuse to have an alt. Nothing is stopping you from playing dps on your main. So as Zenyatta says, “Look in the mirror.”
All I have to say is that Stevo, the top 10 Sym main, is currently learning Sombra…on his main account.
He’s lost about 1300 SR since he started.
He’s still grinding out the muscle memory…and then he’ll go back to playing Sym and climbing again.
There is nothing stopping you from doing the same except fear that you’ll never get your SR back.
A smurf is specifically a player that is keeping a lower-ranked account around in order to enter lower-ranked games as a far better player than the system accounts for. Hence the name “smurf” to imply a smaller, usually-throwaway account.
Because Overwatch will always pair you up against teammates based on your MMR, and your MMR is decided based largely on the few heroes you happen to have practiced and played with, it is difficult to try and practice heroes you normally wouldn’t. If someone wanted to practice Sombra for the first time when their MMR is skyhigh because they’re exceptionally good as McCree, it’ll be hard to find an environment where you can actually learn the character without getting stomped by opponents that simply aren’t handicapping themselves the way the player in question is. So it does make sense, at least for a lot of people, to buy another account and start fresh so that they can more organically learn the ropes behind a character.
Personally, I would never buy a second account for something like this, but it’s understandable why other people would. The game doesn’t make it very friendly for people to try out new heroes or explore different aspects of the game, especially those that get caught up in higher MMRs. As long as the alt account is playing genuinely, it’s no different than if someone started playing Overwatch for the first time, but due to so much experience with other FPS games, they’re able to dominate their first few series of games. Yes, this alt account does have a steep advantage, but that advantage is quickly dulled down once the matchmaker realizes they’re not actually newbies.
Lfg isn’t exactly a representation of all alt accounts
I f you start boasting about smurfing then i just start ruining your games by throwing in that i start practicing my weakest character as do the 3 other guys i play with, as we care not one bit about SR we just wanna play a nice competitive game win lose or draw
It is fun getting under a smurfs skin they can’t carry if 4 other player start messing about they always rage & start abusing us calling us cheats, i mean the nerve of them
tbh, these nonsense qp player also low elo players…I hope someday this all will become smurf playground. SHould be such a shame to be low rank and blame better players. Hope those will have smurf issue for thier life, they deserve it.
In comp it if you are 2000 to 3000 sr above where you are on you alt account it doesnt matter what role you play you are going to destroy the other team, that is what makes me mad as hell i get into matches that are impossible to win cause we are going against players that are way way above in skill, and so then i am discoraged for the rest of the night cause why even try when even on our best day a team of bronze players are not going to win against 2 or three plat or above skilled players
Smurfing is a million times more toxic than any hate you get in return.
Shame on you, be a man and play on your main.
Sorry, but you are smurfing. There’s no reason why you can’t practice on your main account - In fact, it would benefit you more because you’re practicing against players of your skill level…Luckily Quick Play exists, so you can go there worry-free. Stop making excuses.
Furthermore, you’re surprised that low ELO players are getting annoyed at the cheese-strat that is Bastion/Sym? Come on.
Comments like these don’t help your cause, either:
You are doing nothing wrong.
Just turn off all comms for those 25 levels. It is not useful at that level anyway.
Stay on your main and practice. Problem solved.
This does not compute my dude.
Part of the definition of a smurf is that they will throw to stay at a lower SR than they should be.
If so, why would a smurf care if you throw a game they’re in?
You’d literally be helping them achieve that objective without them having to lift a finger or actually throw.
Does.
Not.
Compute.
Wasn’t the whole point of separate SR for DPS/Tank/Support supposed to fix this issue? lol