Are smurf accounts disrupting the curve?

I’ve honest to god met a lot of masters and gm players in gold to plat ranked. It’s kinda insane. I can often tell when someone’s diamond + and I usually add them to ask. Yesterday a tank player at 2600 sr with 48% wr for the season told me they used to be on a semi pro team and met some famous pros (famous in season 4-5 or something I didn’t recognize them) in qp and partied with them for a while. We had a pretty interesting chat and he added me momentarily on his main which had indeed peaked 4208 and was like 38xx. I’ve met and added. The mains of several 3800-4100 players that had smurfs in the 2400-2800 range. I have no idea why this is the case or how but I’ve seen it pretty often myself.

These semantics seem unnecessary, and don’t actually address the point I made. A person is “hardstuck” when they can’t win their games and don’t know why. Everyone “can” get better, but by definition, a hardstuck person does not know how to. That is the difference between them and a smurf; a smurf does know how to win the game (or, at least, they would on their main). A hardstuck person is trying their absolute best, with their absolute best character, but do not know what they’re doing wrong or what factors they could change.

I haven’t proposed or advocated for any “solutions” to the issue. I’m simply explaining why it is an issue, and why I don’t agree with arguments stating that it isn’t.

As a personal anecdote, I’ve created three separate accounts to learn specific characters or to experiment with SR mechanics. One day, I was grouped up with a friend and they suddenly blurted in chat “Hey, could you go…oh wait, this is your Brig one-trick account, right? Nevermind” and after that, the entire team immediately became toxic toward me. They now knew that since my goal was to use Brigitte and ‘‘only’’ Brigitte, I would not swap even though I was aware that our healing seemed insufficent. Even though I was using Brigitte to the best of my ability, the fact remained that I was deliberately handicapping and this rubbed the team the wrong way.

That being said, that doesn’t mean I was “the problem” within that game. But they are correct that I was deliberately handicapping myself (and thus my team) for the sake of an SR experiment.

You’re assuming what “my desire” is, and what I want, but I’ve stated multiple times that I’m speaking from experience about this issue. I honestly am not sure what could be done to “fix” the problem or if it should be fixed in the first place, but I also don’t want to deny that it is a problem or downplay its detriments.

Easy way would be what they did with top 500 make all ow accts linked by phone number and other things why they did this with top 500 only and not the reat i dont know… but it is a simple fix and could be implemented today if bliz wanted to fix MOST of the smurfs/alts

Well, for one I don’t know what the point of making a “hard stuck” comment about this in regards to smurfs, because it assumes someone being hard stuck doesn’t know why.

A smurf could be hard stuck with their handicap (if it is only the hero base) much like anyone else. You assume that it isn’t possible to hard carry on any hero… especially at lower ranks where I think there has been a bronze to gm done for every hero on the roster. The smurf may not know how to win the game with their hero either.

Much like a lot of “hardstuck” people… they seem to think they are better then theu are… the knowledge that something should be going a certain way for them to win and climb. Hardstuck people externalize. This is a trait not unique to one acct folks. However, what is more likely is that the smurf is not externalizing and learning/improving. However, that does not make his SR wrong for the game they are in at the moment.

Just because someone has the ability to change the balance of the game on another hero, doesn’t make him throwing. A hardstuck person could very well know what needed to be done, but can’t physically do it. It could be hardware, it could be his character selection (or someone on their hero), or some personal limitation that makes them unable to perform.

The difference is that the smurf has proved they are able to climb the ladder when performing a different way.

So question. Lets assume that the console and pc ranks are equal and translate equally. I’m gold/plat on xbox. (am at 3400 on my otp account) I just started playing with a mkb on pc. I am bronze with a mkb. I know I cannot do what I want to do… I am physically restricting myself by forcing myself to learn mkb. I will be hardstuck if I can’t physically use the keyboard (my fingers cramp up after two games).

Am I throwing because i refuse to plug in my controller? Is my PC account a smurf? I mean, as soon as my account stablizes and puts me in bronze with mkb… and if I go use a controller I could easily get gold on pc (gold is way to easy for me on console).

By your definition, I appear to be restricting and handicapping myself artificially. I would be ruining games for bronze people on PC if I played… even with a mkb?

I am trying to explain to you that it isn’t working. You are not getting your point across because you fail to address the opposing arguments and have fatal flaws in your reasoning.

You make the case that you feel as though a certain playstyle is throwing in comp. I explain how legitiment play that does no harm gets swept up in your definitions. You have also failed to point out where the harm is in the particular match where a smurf is trying their best, but on a hero selection that they were properly ranked on by the system.

While you may not have proposed a solution, you did in fact propose an ideal that is a solution. Everyone must play on one account and be ranked accordingly. Everyone must play only their best heroes and are not allowed to be placed by the system on anything other than those in comp… because if they are not playing on their best heroes, they are ruining the experience for others.

It is funny you use this example of your play to explain why you think restricting your character choice on a smurf is bad for the game and toxicity. It shows off that it is the player base’s external toxicity toward controlling what others play.

Frankly, I don’t think this type of attitude should be rewarded and encouraged. Those type of players are just wrong… and here’s my example of my experience which leads me to that conclusion.

I have this acct that was always around 2500-2600. Played all roles to varying success… but primarily Symm. I’m a Symm main.

Through some coaxing by friends I created a one trick account we were gonna use to play together. We disbanned before we hit 25. So I decided to take that account into comp as a one-trick Symm account.

As you can imagine… I got a lot of toxicity regarding being an off-meta one-trick. I also routinely got the same attitude on my main for picking and maining Symm in pretty much her off meta situations.

I placed that account higher on initial placements then my career high on this account. I continued to play that account off and on… and stopped playing on it when the Symm changes happened and I hit 3400.

I got toxicitity all the way… some games I got people actually thinking I was a GM smurf going through diamond on a one-trick account. I let them continue to think that… because had they known the truth, that I was a otp that his main was actually lower… it would have killed team moral when otherwise they thought they were being boosted by a GM and were playing better because of it.

Despite this… I would still play the majority of the time on this account playing my main, Symm. With a new found confidence that I was actually a high diamond Symm main, that had his account stunted and stuck in plat for some reason outside of my Symm play…

However almost every game I picked symm (usually on attack) my team would flame me.

See. Players will hate on character selection regardless if you are a smurf playing your main, or if you are playing your best hero. It all comes down to THEM and if they BELIEVE you are helping them.

So when we talk about a systemic issue, such as smurfing’s effect on the SR system… you have to heavily discount player perception of smurfs ruining games. Unless you can objectively say that they are purposefully manipulating the SR system for an “advantage” in the game. If the manipulation actually ruins games for the other people. Those are the things you have to look for… and not feelings. Because players are historically and routinely wrong with their perception of the cause of their losses.

I have addressed this several times. A “hardstuck” person is losing and does not know any way they can currently fix it within their power. By definition, a smurf is a person who can only consistently lose or be challenged at a lower rank if not playing in a character style they are familiar with.

Calling a smurf using one character “hardstuck” is like calling a smurf who only uses McCree or Mei right-click in Gold “hardstuck”.

Yes and no. “Practice” smurfing is sacrificing short-term winning for long-term practice or acclimatization.

At the same time, though, the vast majority of people learning a new setup are doing so with the intent of playing this way from now on. This is not the same as temporarily one-tricking or limiting oneself. Once my Brigitte experiment was over, I stopped using Brigitte and moved on. Once someone has gotten proficient enough with the character they’re learning, they tend to move back to their main or switch to a different character to practice.

Again, I don’t find these semantics meaningful. Whether a hardstuck person knows what to do or not, the fact remains that the option is not a possibility for them. A Mercy main may know that her team could win the game if she could swap to Widowmaker and kill a Pharah, but she knows that her aim is not good enough. This doesn’t change the fact that she doesn’t know how to deal with the Pharah killing her team as Mercy or any other character she can currently play.

Being hardstuck means you do not know how to currently win, no matter what character you switch to. Every hardstuck player “knows” that they could carry if they had aim like Pine.

I am addressing the opposing arguments. The reason my points are not “getting across” is because you’re nit-picking arguments I’ve already addressed and then smugly calling them “fatal flaws”.

No it does not. By definition, a smurf is NOT helping a team more than they could on their main. That is a fact. It is the definition of a smurf. Whether or not the team believes it is irrelevant, because they may not even be aware that the person they’re playing with is smurfing. But a fact doesn’t stop being a fact just because someone isn’t aware of it.

I do not believe smurfing has a long-term impact on the ladder, but it can most certainly have a short-term one. Climbing or falling on ladder is nothing more than a question of time, but there are several factors (such as playing with or against a smurf, a leaver, a thrower, etc.) that can lengthen or temporarily skew how ranked works.

Regardless of whether they eventually end up where they “belong”, no one likes having their time wasted.

Ok, let us recap our convo and the points you’ve made.

These are the points you’ve made. Besides calling my objections to such things as symantics that doesn’t have a place in the conversation… you have pretty clearly been against the notion of smurfing for practice, despite both of us having done so in the past.

We’ve established that we both agree that a player smurfing at a lower rank is handicapping themselves. You disagree that it is a legitament exercise for comp. My only assumption posting such a thing in this thread leads me to believe that you believe that the idea of creating a smurf for the idea of practicing messes up the player distribution on ladder. This is backed up by saying that this “hardstuck” definition you created… these players are hindered by smurfing that has a net neutral effect on games (on a micro level winning and losing individual games).

So now you come around and say that smurfing pretty much has no impact on the ladder in the grand scheme of things… which has been my point all along. I have no idea what we are going back and forth about “hardstuck” people… You’ve changed your definition a couple times… both of which are incorrect. First the one I quote earlier, that they don’t know what it takes to win… to:

But…

So…

Doesn’t that then make the Mercy not hardstuck by your definition? Or is it just cause its not physically possible for her to do as Mercy or any other hero? Which definition are we sticking with, because it makes a big difference when we start talking about smurfs, I guess.

Because, if the mercy player is limiting herself from playing and getting better at a hitscan to deal with future pharah’s… how is that different then a mercy smurf learning mercy but refusing to swap to widow even if they know how to deal with pharah.

I mean, we both agree that there is no such thing as being hard stuck. It is all about educating yourself or just practice. Which to me, depending on the character, go hand in hand.

Your definition of hard stuck… is basically… the player is full of ignorance.

So… a smurf… is harming ignorant players who can’t climb… because they are ignorant of how to get better. These are the people complaining about smurfs. Ignorant players, who don’t know what their problem is in getting better, blaming incorrectly another player who is practicing at their rank to actually GET better through practice. These smurfs, who have been placed there by the very system we are relying on to determine what “skill” in this game is.

So. When a smurf is placed by the system at the same level as one of these ignorant players who have plateaued… they are somehow ruining the game for them? Even though the game has determined that the self-imposed handicap that the smurf has put them on, is the same as the “hardstuck” player’s handicap of ignorance.

This mind you, with the idea that you’ve stated that these players can’t climb. So how is it wasting time?

If they are placed at the same skill, because the game said so, then having a smurf playing with whatever handicap does not waste the player’s time. This is because if you didn’t play with or against the smurf, you would have played with another player with some other equally as restrictive handicap to their gameplay.

You have yet to explain how having a restrictive player pool… is more destructive to the ladder and SR system… then any other hardstuck person at a particular rank. If anything, you’ve reinforced the idea that hardstuck people can similarly be restricted by player pool in your mercy example. Both are the same, with them both being unable to swap to widow.

As long as the smurf doesn’t swap to widow and thus throwing off the balance of the matchmaker, the game will be fair and equal to any other game the “hardstuck” person would be playing in.

That of course, is why I also agreed with that a smurf could fly off the chain and want to “teach these noobs a lesson” and seap to their main.

I proposed a solution instead of just sitting here and arguing. Instead of addressing it and discussing how you didn’t think it worked, continued on along with this hardstuck thing and how smurfs could do better so they “should” do better because…

Simple thing is that you can’t even agree with yourself as to the problem with smurfs. My example of my mkb issue shows exactly your conflict… as you can’t give me a yes or no as to if I’m throwing.

So yeah, I have no idea what point your trying to make. As I’m trying to say, you are all over the place.

A smurf has the intention on practicing and adding that player to their main hero pool. So, if they eventually get good enough with the hero to climb up to their main… then… havn’t they accomplished the goal without ruining anyone’s game if they stuck to their goal? The opposite would have been true had they started to learn the new hero on their main… lowered their SR because they were bad… then eventually climbing back up while also playing their main at the same time in lopsided matches?

What if I try learning mkb… and give up? Should I always be restricted to mkb on PC… and never be able to test to see if the PC ladder is the same as console? or where i place on the PC ladder with a controller? Or I could buy another account, not to ruin the games of the bronze people as I stomp them with a controller. Wait… no… you said that isn’t allowed to have more than one account. I should just leave PC and have wasted my money?

I mean, these are legitiment reasons to have multiple accounts and then drastically change playstyles that would have the same effect as smurfing. In fact, I’m sure once my account stablizes then if I switch to controller to see how it is… I will be accused of smurfing. My stats will look like I’m smurfing… so some automated Bliz ban would be justified in banning me?

I think that smurf accounts are making players better, more smurfs the better the players in that rank are going to have to be to combat it. Also increases the requirements to climb. Took me over a year to climb 1000 sr, you can do it too!

1 Like

This point here sums up where you are fundamentally incorrect. I am not “against” it–I am stating its positives and negatives. Positively, it is a great (and sometimes) necessary exercise for both self-improvement and testing things about the system while at the same time having (mostly short-term) negative effects. The point I’ve been making is that you can’t simply parrot the positive effects of smurfing while ignoring or downplaying these negatives.

No it does not.

You made the point that a person cannot be “hardstuck” because improvement is always possible. The reason I called that semantics is because that, aside from the hardcore “You can’t carry in Overwatch” crowd, nobody actually believes they could not escape low ranks if they possessed aim like Pine or mechanics like Shadowburn. “Hardstuck” began as a term used by better players (usually perjoratively) to refer to weaker players–for instance, I know a support main that was called a “hardstuck Silver Mercy” as an insult. That does not mean she will never get better or that she will never rank up; it just means that at her current level, she lacks either the skill or the knowledge to rank up Mercy or any other hero.

I never said this. Saying there’s “no such thing as hardstuck” would be like saying there’s no such thing as a good or bad player. In both cases, it’s a descriptive term: it simply puts a label on a character’s current performance. It is NOT prescriptive (a “bad” player may not be bad forever, and a “hardstuck” player may not be stuck forever, but they were at one given point.

This is why I called your argument a “Fallacy of the Beard”–which is an argument that because a concept is very nebulous that it must not exist at all. The fallacy gets its name because no one can clearly define the point at which “stubble” becomes a “beard”, but that doesn’t mean stubble doesn’t exist. There is a clear difference between the two, just like there is a clear difference between a “bad”/“hardstuck” player who does not know what to do in order to win and a smurf who does.

I’m putting these all together because they are all talking about the same issue: short-term versus long-term.

As I’ve repeated ad-nauseam at this point, smurfing creates a conflict between long-term gains and short-term ones. Practice smurfs are inherently focused on the long-term gain of learning a particular character or mechanic at the expense of an increased likelihood of losing in the short term. This is the entire REASON the smurf account exists: because if they learned said character on their main, they’d lose for sure.

If you have five people on the team and one smurf, the smurf is the only one of the five that is not stumped as to what could possibly be done to win this game. They may know that a good Widowmaker could kill the Pharah killing them all, but that is an option they cannot take due to lack of skill. Their distress is “how do I win this game right now”?

The conflict of winning right now vs winning over time is the core conflict that causes toxicity within the game. As I mentioned before, the games I played one-tricking Brigitte helped me on a personal, sefifsh level because it gave information I could carry forward. It did NOT help my team, nor was it MEANT to help them directly. Practice smurfing in general works under the principle of “this is meant to help me specifically; if the team wins, great, but that is an unintended plus”.

My point (since you are apparently baffled) is that this is a perpetual conflict in Ranked as a whole. Everyone wants to play as a team and do what it takes to optimize their chances to win, but at the same time will need to work around people working on their on personal goals which will usually exclude them from playing optimally. Again, when I knew the team was struggling due to low healing and decided to stick on Brigitte no matter what, I have pretty much handicapped the team.

But I’m not saying this is right or wrong, because no matter what happens, something has to be sacrificed. Either I temporarily sacrifice playing Brigitte to fulfill the team’s short-term goal, or someone else sacrifices the character they play to make up for the handicap.

This doesn’t change the original intent.

And before we argue over why “intent” matters, as I said before, there exists no game code that stops a smurf player from changing the intention or purpose of their smurf. The difference between a player choosing a character to troll (right-click only McCree) or choosing a character to practice (one-tricking Widowmaker to perfect aim) is intent.

I’m confused why you continue to claim that I said things that I never said. Other than to set up an easy strawman to claim you have debunked, of course.

The real issue/problem that is disrupting the curve are groups/stacks of players.

The stacks usually will have a mercy damage boosting someone,(say a soldier), and that soldier will have a much higher damage per 10 min output than someone single queing (without a boost), so now that same damage boosted soldier is inflating the stats and causing himself and stack to rise in mmr and sr due to them setting a high “damage per 10 min” record.

This is just an example, but stacks in general are more better organized and can coordinate abilities better. Either they need to seperate the queue (sr and mmr) into singles and stacks, or they need to force everyone who wants to play comp to stack

To be honest, I’m having a good time with this back and forth. I want to put that out there even as we disagree.

The negatives of… short term… game… yeah… I’m not seeing the negatives if… IF the player is not nefarious. I pointed out previously why I don’t agree that the negatives you presented had merit, or that they could be explained by another usage of accounts that people do not have a problem with, or that the negatives are associated with a different player behavior that is not unique to smurfing.

You have read the forums before, right? Lol. Hardstuck, I can agree (like you said) means different things depending on how you use it. I did not take your usage to mean the same as the example you gave of being disparaging like a lot of high ranked streamers might describe someone lacking the… history… of climbing out of the rank they currently find themselves in and unable to pass. This is why I have been applying the meaning used by sympathizers of someone that has plateaued that we often see on the forums to your usage of hardstuck.

See, I personally believe using the term “hardstuck” to describe someone that has peaked… or plateaued… is a bad way of describing someone. Hardstuck carries a connotation that it is beyond someone’s ability, permanitely to rise out of the rank… or like you’ve said… they don’t know how… and because THEY don’t know how to do it, it is impossible… hence they are “stuck” in their spot. Prescriptive like you say. To use that term in a sympathetic way, carries the idea that the player is right and that there is a factor out of their control that is preventing their accomplishment… which, I don’t believe you agree with (or maybe I’m wrong). That is why I said you don’t agree that anyone is hard stuck as a verb, not an adjective.

Not clearly at least in this thread. I may have missed some other threads you are talking about the same subject. I don’t fault you for feeling that way… I feel like I repeat myself a lot of the time myself.

I’m not exactly sure I agree that is the driving problem behind the smurf debate. It is the driving force behind a lot of toxicity toward one-tricks. It is a driving force behind the golden gun debate. It is the driving force behind keeping casuals out of comp debate. It is the driving force behind people wanting to force the meta on their teammates…

Smurfing complaints generally seem to stem around the appearance that they don’t care about their account… which kinda goes toward the whole winning thing… but I think it is more about the appearance of caring about their SR or caring about being reported for toxicity. You have to acknowledge that not everyone cares about their SR in comp… it is not something unique to smurfs so it is illogical to attach it to only them, there are a lot of smurfs that do try to get higher and win. I would even say it is a vast majority that play comp to improve… and the way they view themselves as being “improved” is by their little number going up.

If a smurf didn’t care about the SR number, there really wouldn’t be a point in protecting the number on their main… is there? Once the number fails to hold meaning toward the individual… then there is no point in smurfing is there? So a smurf is actually someone that generally (not always) puts a higher emphesis on their smurf account’s number because to them, that number holds meaning and is an indicator of progress to their goal of improvement.

Again, the win now or win later thing isn’t a smurf problem. Had the player not been on a smurf account, he would never have been matched up with the team he did. Some other person with some other handicap would have been matched up. There would have been just as much equal chance to win regardless of smurfing or not smurfing (again, assuming the matchmaker even does that correctly). So it is ALL player perception on if the team is being “cheated” out of a win by a teammate artificially handicapping, or just being well… plateaued in some very deficient way to the ability for the team to accommodate.

Again, I don’t think this is a unique thing to smurfing. It is more about playing around each teammates strengths and abilities and optimizing what the team brings to the table. Every team has to “work around it” just like all of jjonak’s teams build their team around his zen, regardless of meta.

So, each teammate brings handicaps to the team. I don’t see how personal goals conflict with team goals for optimization. The only time selfishness plays a role in the team unique to smurfing is when the alt account player nefariously loses games to keep or drop their SR low artificially. That percentage of the smurf population is actually quite low and will always occur in any ranked environment.

Your brigitte example is flawed. You said you should have been the one to swap because your team’s healing was low. However, you had 5 other people on the team and if they decided to play brig as a main heal instead of a DD, that is a team comp issue and not yours to solve. They didn’t play to the strength of their team… you certainly weren’t a resistance to an “optimal” meta pick. They certainly didn’t play within the strength of having a otp on their team. I don’t see how that particular example is unique to the smurfing issue at hand. Are ONLY smurfs otp’s? Are smurfs the only ones that stubbornly play their mains into teams that they don’t fit into?

Its kind of an unsaid statement, like I explained. Did you say, you shouldn’t have a 2nd account? No, but you did in all the quotes above say that smurfing under just about all circumstance is a negative to other people and up until your last post, did not claim there were positives… and that now we have to weigh both sides? I mean, was there a different conclusion I was suppose to draw from all the negative comments you made regarding smurfs and how uncooperative said smurfs are for being selfish? I mean, if your not smurfing and/or protecting your main’s SR, what is the purpose of having another account that I could infer from your statements would be acceptable to overcome such negatives as being so detrimental to the game’s comp mode?

I do admit, your latest post did clarify your position a lot better then your previous posts in this thread. Unless you’ve been also posting with one of your alt accounts. Ok, so you’ve been trying to play devil’s advocate and you havn’t liked me assuming that you are taking the position of a “hardstuck” sympathizer. You just wanted to present based on your experience what kind of toxicity you experienced while on a otp alt account. Thats cool. But do you see that you could have done a better job of explaining your position, like you did in your last post a lot clearer so that it wasn’t misinterpreted? And if I still got it wrong, I give up trying to understand the point you are trying to make.

You can disagree, of course, but I likewise don’t have agree with the reasons you’ve given to do so.

If you’re going to quote me, quote the entire sentence. I specifically said before that: “aside from the hardcore “You can’t carry in Overwatch” crowd”

Partially quoting just to reply to something already addressed with a “lol” is probably the most irritating way to debate.

The way you “personally” think a word should work is irrelevant to the way that most people use the word. Especially when the word is informal and not something with a specific scientific or academic meaning.

If you put the words “short-term” in the search bar, you can see two separate occasions I’ve referred to it.

Again, going over things already addressed, that you could have easily read or looked at yourself is getting irksome.

Nobody has done this. But the only other people who play Comp and don’t carea bout their SR are trolls or super casual players.

What are you talking about? The SR they don’t care about is the one on their alternate account. The entire point to making an alternate account is to use it for whatever purpose they want without caring what happens to it. I’ve had several people smurfing tell me this.

Nobody said it was.

Again, I didn’t say this. I was playing Brigitte as an off-healer, but even in that role, Brigitte’s healing is statistically low and extremely situational. I could have played any healer aside from Zen and given the team the healing they need.

Again, you keep making unreasonable assumptions.

Because you already know what the positives are. Assuming that just because I focused on the negative aspects that this all I care about is absurd. It’s like two people talking about their favorite food and one says, “As much as I eat it, I have to admit it’s rather unhealthy” and then the other replies, “What, so you think they should stop making it?”

Nobody said this.

Only if you see that you have continuously misrepresented everything I’ve said from the start, as demonstrated in what I’ve quoted above. Apologies if you take offense to this, but you’ve come across as someone more interested in arguing and being right than someone actually bothering to read what the opposition is trying to say. You’ve retreaded or misquoted things I’ve said so many times that that’s an easy conclusion to draw.

I quoted as a start to the reference, not the entire thing as everyone is aware of what you said, no point in rehashing the whole thing when it is back to back in the thread.

Also, the “reading the forums” was a joke in reference to the people that actually THINK they have the mechanical skills of Pine and are plateaued because they genuinely think they are better then they are and don’t understand why they can’t rank up or “hardstuck” as you have coined.

It has nothing to do with the “can’t carry in OW” crowd… because those aren’t the people I’m referencing. I am specifically referencing a group of people you have not excluded from the claim:

If you read the forums everyone’s mechanics and decision making are top notch and it is the system, or their teammates, or Bob the builder that is holding them back. Yet, you only specifically excluded the “you can’t carry in ow crowd”. Your statement thus includes these forum people that really do not have the mechanics and awareness of Pine and Shadowburn, but are delusional to think that they do… and still wonder why they don’t have a higher number.

I’m sorry I didn’t fully explain my joke, but I thought it was obvious to anyone that spends a lot of time on the forums discussing things like SR. You seem to follow the community, so it was an assumption I seem to be incorrect in applying.

I also fall into the you can’t carry in ow crowd, if the matchmaker is an accurate indication of skill. However, if you are actually misplaced, you can have a very large impact on the game that will offset the enemy team’s player’s ability. You can’t “carry” as the definition many think of as single handedly winning the game. You can very easily still lose, even with a strong performance in your role. Then there are the people in the “carry” crowd who misinterpret what a strong performance is… especially when they lose.

This could have an effect on player percpetion that smurfing is actually a problem. I like to think of the video someone posted of a GM losing in a bronze match. If smurfing itself is such a problem… and rank is accurate… how on earth could it even be possible for any GM lose while being on a bronze team against a bronze team, regardless of hero pick? If it was so bad that a GM playing on his worst hero would ruin a bronze game… then he wouldn’t of lost.

So the idea of just a GM as a player… somehow by the matchmaker have put them in bronze (i know the clip was a custom game, but I’m now talking as if he was a smurf in a comp game) would ruin a game… is just not accurate.

It is the mindset of the players that ruins games. Those bronzes went into the game up for the challenge. They didn’t just give up when they found out a GM was on the other team… or thought a GM was on the other team. It didn’t ruin the game. The GM wasn’t throwing.

It is the same thing with smurfs. People get so bent about having the game misplace a player (again, I’m excluding the throwers) and give up if they THINK the match is unfair. It is a self fufilling prophecy.

We were talking about using SR for practicing. Not other people like trolls (who I deemed nefarious)… or super casuals. Those who practice on their alt account inheriently care about the SR on their smurf, despite how much the player says they don’t.

It is called lying. Maybe they are even trying to lie to themselves and convince them that the smurf SR doesn’t matter so they don’t get tilted… but they DO care… if they are using the alt account to improve.

Now the subset of smurfs you brought up just now, the ones that have a 2nd account to play comp casually… those would be deemed as casual accounts… a different subset of the overall culture that is not exclusive to smurfs.

But alas, we are specifically talking about smurfing in this thread… and why SMURFING in itself is harmful to the ladder. If you bring up a point that is negative to smurfing in of itself, it should be exclusive to having an alt account to play to protect the SR of your “main” or the account you want to identify yourself as. If you bring up points that are actually the result of different player attributes, then it distracts from the discussion on if smurfing in of itself is bad, or if it is these other player traits that are deteimental to the mode.

Not misrepresent. I know you think i should go back and requote every single little thing that you’ve said to point out where you actually represented yourself that way, but I just don’t have time for that. That is how I read your words, the context of the conversation, and my own experiences. If you feel as though I understood those incorrectly, it is upon you to help me understand that with your words, or just not care what I think. Neither one of us can read the other’s mind. Neither one of us knows each other’s experience unless we describe them with words that the other person applies the same meaning to those words. I thinn I’ve been pretty clear stating that those are my assumptions of your opinion that may or may not be correct, because ultimately, you have not been clear and I have been confused by what you are trying to explain. I have repeated back my interpretations in an attempt at getting on the same page as you… so we can ultimately agree to disagree… or anyone else reading this can understand what in the blazes we are going back and forth about.

No offense is taken, because I don’t honestly care what your opinion of me is. I do like to debate, I do read and try to understand what people are trying to say… I also like to state my OPINION. There are facts thrown in there and I do point out where people are wrong in my view with the information I have received.

For you particularly, I even went back and reread everything you said when you first brought up that I was “misrepresenting” you… in case I had made a mistake and misapplied somethinng to you or I glossed over something you had said. I had not.

Now, this is exactly what I was talking about. You “could” have played a Zen and done more healing. Maybe. But it was not “you” that was playing her as an off-healer. It was your team that used your brig pick and put her into the off-healer slot on the team. You know, the 5 other people that took your brig pick and then chose to NOT pick another off support.

It is not an assumption to think of Brig as being a utility damage source. That is what she is used for in any meta comp. If your team doesn’t recognize that, it is not up to you to switch. Just because you picked brig, does not mean you are able to play any other off-support. It is wrong for your team to assume such a thing, especially if you were at your rank with only Brig in your hero pool.

So, if they wanted to run brig as an off healer, who can work, the team would have to play properly to utilize the way Brig off-heals. But considering you thought zen would provide better healing, it means that the TEAM was probably too spread out to take advantage of her healing.

In that regard, you could have taken control of things and help explain to your team a different strategy where the team could have taken advantage of Brig’s healing. Maybe you did and they didn’t listen, but that could have been another option in your toolkit to help the team win without swapping.

Again, it was the team that was not playing to the strength of each teammate’s playstyles to form a winning strategy. It was NOT because you were being a OTP brig smurf.

I don’t find “jokes” to be conducive to this conversation, particularly ones that only quote part of what is said to argue against a point raised by the rest of it. Given the fact that, as I’ve mentioned, you’ve ALSO misrepresented my points several times, I don’t see a reason to take this claim at face value.

This argument is a false dichotomy. Every player thinks they are better than they are, but almost no one thinks they have skill equal to Pine or Shadowburn. There is a wide berth of skill tiers between someone struggling in Bronze, or even Diamond, and Pine and Shadowburn.

In short, most people stuck where they are think they belong a tier higher. No one below Masters is delusional enough to actually believe they are an Overwatch pro.

I “excluded” the people you refer to because they are (once again) a strawman.

Again, I already addressed this. There is no game code that prevents a smurf player from changing the purpose or intent of their smurf account. A practicing smurf player typically creates an account with the INTENT of preserving the SR of their main, but there is nothing stopping them from changing their mind when tilted, when bored, or for no reason whatsoever.

Again, you are rehashing points I already made.

Talking about one subject in specific does not mutually exclude all other subjects. A group of doctors discussing possible ways to cure cancer does not mean that those same doctors aren’t also working to cure AIDS.

Similarly, just because I am talking about the potential negative effects of smurfing doesn’t I’m excluding other similar things which have equal or greater negative effects.

No. You should quote what I actually say instead of 1) assuming what you think I’m saying, 2) argue against only PART of my argument or 3) retread arguments I’ve already made.

If you can’t do that, then there is no purpose in debating.

Yet again, I already addressed this. No matter what happened, a sacrifice had to be made. Either I sacrificed playing Brigitte for my personal reasons, or a teammate aside from the second support could switch to another healer, sacrificing either a DPS or a Tank in the process. Or three, we could sacrifice any extra healing to keep what we had (which is what we did).

The point is, by refusing to swap even though I agreed with them that Brigitte was the wrong pick in this situation, I forced them to sacrifice their picks or their healing.

Again, I chose a selfish, long-term goal over the “selfless” short-term victory.

Having alts helps deals with the frustration that comes with losing points, wouldn’t be problem if no points were ever lost, In 6v6 stack only mode. When you have couple accounts at your highest sr or close, you could feel better not losing instead have something to switch too, between matches.

It would be better if there was no point deduction but points gained, so you could play all day, grind, people could see your activeness and stats through grind… probably wouldn’t help using alts, because your starting over.

I love playing Sym but the community is so toxic towards her you get flamed every time you try and lock her in.

Is this not what quickplay is for? To learn and skill up on new heroes?

But this never happens. As soon as the team starts losing 9x out of 10 this person will switch to their main because no one wants to lose. As you indicate in the next paragraph.

Yet this isn’t a problem?

Blizz likes that extra $$ from multiple account sales, so limiting to only the cream of the crop does nothing to their bottom line, I mean they are a business after all.

The system is broken down in the lower ELO. You should NEVER lose more points than you gain. Yet when you are absolutely stomped and your performance is hindered you take a massive loss in points (I have seen 30+ points lost). Yet on the contrary when you perform exceptionally, not on a consistent basis, the game does not care and rewards you with 22-25. You can make the argument that in that instance the player was carried. My question then becomes what changed? Said persons game play stayed the same, their positioning and map awareness did not change, a competent team did. So to say that doing your best will always ensure a rise in rank is invalid, it is possible to get placed on under performing teams more often than on competent, rare but possible. This is the fundamental flaw which I think a shrinking of the ladders would fix, reduce the spread to within 500 points, 250 either way. I would rather a longer wait for a truly fair game then to yo yo up and down like I have been.

Speaking from experience, QP is not a good mode for practice.

I do legitimately see it as an issue. In diamond I can expect to see at least one if not two to three smurfs just on one team. There’s no way to compensate for it either, so you could be like me and get two smurfs on the enemy team and none on your own team. Now they’re not always the best players in the world, usually they can just be alt accounts, but very often do I get set up against a godly Widowmaker that kills half the team in ten seconds. We’re then forced to play around them and have to fight through all the pocket healers they have once they realize they have a good smurf on their team just to kill that person.

It’s mind-numbingly stupid that a high masters-low gm player can be allowed to play with/against players that are in a skill level lesser than theirs (usually by a lot). That means that a player (or players depending on how many are in the game) who has nearly perfected their aim, game-sense, and call-outs, is able to easily kill people who may NOT have those all down. Yes, Blizzard may have tracked one player’s data throughout the competitive ladder and not seen it as a problem, but that’s one player vs the hundreds if not thousands of others that are also in the same games with other smurfs.

It’s essentially just luck of the draw since there’s no way to balance smurfing. It ends up having frequent moments where you get easy wins because you have two to three smurfs on your team or hard losses because they have two to three smurfs on their team. It’s not balanced, it’s not fair, and it’s not fun for people that are supposed to be pitted against players of their own skill level.

What’s the point of having ranks if players can just abuse smurfing to play wherever they want? You have t500 player’s allowed to fight gold/plat/diamond players on stream and annihilate them, making it harder to climb for those people when there’s no chance of winning. If that’s the case and Blizzard doesn’t see that as a problem, just remove ranks all-together and make a random matchmaking of randomly skilled players fighting against one another, because that’s all that it is at this point anyways.

Only place where smurfs really disrupt the curve is gm/t500, especially t500.

I can use my friends/parents/siblings phone number to link my account to it :man_shrugging:

There are a lot of alt accounts. With them being on sale all the time it’s not like is much money.
Go on them to warm up, or play when you don’t feel like tryharding, or play with lower friends. Not looking to grief, but just wanting to have fun without pressure.

Pretty sure most people are careful with their highest account.