Any Combat Measures Against Smurfs?

The definition of a “smurf” that I’m working under is a high ranking player (typically that is ranked Diamond or above) that purchases a new account and throw matches up to level 25. Their main goal is to be placed in skill tiers far lower than their main account in order to have fun winning easy matches at the expense of other players in that rank.

There have been reports of players being actioned on their smurf accounts for general “disruptive gameplay”, but outside of the reporting feature, what is it can be done about this behavior? There are already instances where notable streamers buy new accounts for the explicit purpose of smurfing without any action being made, as far as I’m aware.

In a specific case, a high ranking Overwatch streamer TimTheTatMan threw his matches on a new account up to level 25 in order to play with another streamer, DrDisrespect, to try and boost him out of silver. Not only is the behavior of boosting against the ToS, but no action has been taken against either player for smurfing or this attempt at boosting. As an added bonus for those who are appalled at this behavior, neither player is advancing up the comp ladder, leaving them with nothing to be gained by this attempt at boosting.

Let me know your thoughts. As always, I wish you all a Torbtastic day! Thank you :slightly_smiling_face:

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Require a unique phone number for each account. That would solve some of it.

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It would definitely limit the amount of duplicate accounts users can buy. As a means of playing devil’s advocate, young children who don’t have a phone yet may be unable to play due to parents being apprehensive about disclosing their phone number, and low income households without smartphones will get locked out.

Regardless, I’d still be in support of this idea as I believe that amount of players and potential consumers negatively impacted would be negligible.

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I’ve suggested raising the level cap too. While it won’t deter people that passionately want to smurf, it might thin them out. It’s a huge problem on console. :frowning:

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and for kids that don’t have phones?

Absolutely agree. Plus raise the comp lvl to 100 and if account is caught cheating or smurfing, ban all accounts connected to the credit card used to buy the account.

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I don’t know, I mean it works for CSGO. I think they should add a whole “trust factor” thing they have in CSGO. Looking at different types of data. Phone nr, bans in all blizzard games, reports, endorsements, disconnects/leaving etc.

Valve never said what exactly they are looking at when setting trust levels but Im sure the devs at Blizzard can figure things out.

They tried this to stop people having multiple accounts in T500, people just bought burner numbers or used the phones of friends or family.

The best way to stop smurfs would be to limit the number of accounts per device to one, and it could theoretically be done since Blizzard can hardware ban someone if there’s proof they’ve commited violations on multiple accounts, but the problem is what if people share a computer?

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Credit card is probably a step to far. I know they do that In china for some games, like your credit factor even goes down or something if u get banned.

it’s about time blizzard called up the cyberpolice to backtrace all these smurfs so consequences will never be the same.

Jeff has said that they consider smurfs a problem and are working on solutions.

https ://i.imgur.com/i42TkmB.jpg

One account per device - impossible, if this kind of data could be used against players, there would be no cheaters in the game.

Phone number - impossible, you can easily buy a pre-paid SIM or use family members’ phone.

Move up the level cap - wont solve anything - most smurfs dont even level up their accounts, they buy a level 25 unranked account.

Credit card - no comment needed, ridiculous.

Smurfing to purposely play in lower ranks is a bad thing, having alts is okay as long as you try your best in the games. Big problem is the role queue boost. If you were a GM dps, you would place GM on tank and support regardless of your playtime on those roles, that might be a reason for people to get an alt and place and paly in correct rating on other roles.

Solution to smurfing? None. Accept the fact that you have equal chance to have a smurf on your team as against you. Blizzard won’t stop people from paying them dollas.

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i have reported that streamer before and blizz does not care.

he used to derank on stream all the time. i sent links to blizz they did nothing.

i cant say this enough that blizz doesnt care about deranking, throwing matches, or ruining games if the streamer is popular enough and plays ball with the devs.

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and the hardware. scorched earth on cheaters

I like how they acknowledge it to be a problem on consoles, where additional accounts don’t generate any revenue but they consider it to be not a problem on PC, when it clearly is… maybe not as big as consoles but a problem nonetheless

This game is T for teen. Gotta be at least 13 and up. If you aren’t old enough to ask your parents to tie their phone to it, then you aren’t old enough to play it.

This should be 18+, or at least 16+ game.

I don’t know the specifics but I did see part of that Stream.

  1. Doc has no idea what is going on. He is Silver only by decent aim.

  2. Tim the Platman is boosted AF. Plat is likely his true rank anyway.

Game is 16+ anyway…