Ban smurfs faster or even instantly!

I don’t have an issue with people trying to win on alt accounts, although more than one account in a competitive environment undermines competitive. But that’s is Blizzard’s issue not the individual’s.

If you are legit playing to win, the system will place you where your abilities are.

Just report them anyway. The system is automated and with enough reports maybe Blizzard will actually implement some changes or do anything to stop this nonsense.

OP: BAN SMURFS!

also OP: posts on new account. could end up smurfing at 25

That’s NOT a smurph. Simply having someone more skilled than you in a game isn’t smurphing. If he follows the rules the game will automatically rank him out of your bracket within 10 games or so.

A smurph is someone who “purposely” loses games to keep his rank artificially low solely for sake of griefing players down the road. That’s unfair to both teams. Unfair to yours because he arbitrarily throws games to derank and unfair to the other guy because he solely plays to grief him.

See the difference? Unfortunately one game alone isn’t enough to tell if that guy really is a smurph or just someone ranking on through.

lol welcome to this horrible community where blizzard themselves have stated

“community reports, deem what is ok and what is not within the community”

meaning they won’t post official rules for there own bloody game

how pathetic is that ?

this is why the random bannings and abuse of the report system happen

I don’t think most of the smurfing players that are being complained about here would necessarily have to be GM. The skill gap is wide enough that even a plat/diamond with good mechanics could “noob-wreck” enough to disrupt the game.

They just feel like GMs to those of us in the slums.

OP, I’ve written about this at length, but I’ll throw it in there one more time.
Steps to Overwatch happiness at lower ELO:

  1. Report smurfs for Sabotage or Cheating and move on. Let it go. Realize that not every game is winnable, but getting tilted by human nature will make them all unwinnable.
  2. Stop caring about SR. Stop caring about SR. Stop caring about SR. Rinse and repeat.
  3. Find a group of people you enjoy playing with and play with them. Play QP, play PUGs and customs, play ranked, but play with them.

I still run up against players who outclass me all the time, especially when I’m playing QP with friends who are in higher tiers. When I manage to stay alive and contribute it feels good. When I’m not, I thank my lucky stars that the game will be over shortly and I can queue up again in no time.

I continue to have fantastic experience after fantastic experience, but I don’t expect Blizzard or my teammates to do anything for me. I am fully in control of my experience.

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And Jeff said that boosting and throwing are reportable. Jeff also said that smurfs, or what he called alts, are not reportable.

You literally cannot establish whether they were smurfing or simply on another account.

I think the perception of the amount of smurfs in the game is inflated due to illogical reasoning like this.

Just because someone is low level does not mean they are a smurf. I have an alternate account and I try just as hard on that one than I do on my main account. The only thing you can worry about is your own play. Stop worrying about what other people are doing and stop blaming people for your losses.

By the time you reach level 25 the matchmaker has a good idea where you belong if you play the way you always do. I tested this out long ago back in like season 4 and 5. Being on PS4 I can make as many accounts as I want.

So I set up 5 accounts. One to play just like I always do, one for each role only so a tank account, healer and DPS. Then the fifth one I tried to play terrible. Heroes I never touch, wiffing widow shots on purpose.

When I did the placements on them, the first four were all placed between low diamond to high diamond, back when I use to play much more and just better. The fifth, I was able to get placed in high silver.

So I played that one a bit more to see how the Sr gains worked. Play a game like normal, gain almost 40 sr, play like crap and lose, lost 30 Sr. If you keep mixing it up, sooner or later the system just assumed you belong there and the gains and loses just equaled out to about 25 either way.

So yes a Smurf can do that if they put time in. Now before people attack me, I have not touched that account or any of the alt accounts since like season 6.

So yes you can mess with the match making before you even reach level 25 to give you what you want. That’s not even counting people that might just use FFA to level up.

Why do you think pro level players and top 500 are able to start so low? Because they don’t try at all when leveling so when they do placements they don’t try and get bronze then do their bronze to GM thing.

The matchmaker should already have a good idea where you belong by the time you hit level 10

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I honestly don’t trust most players to accurately tell the difference between a smurf and a nonsmurf.

I’ve been called a smurf a few different times. I only own one account, and it has a gold border now.

Yeah thats true, and i only have a problem with that, cause of the masses and basically every new account playing on false rank the first placements and around double the games after.

thats the reason why we need hero based SR :slight_smile:

Look, both options you said are bad, but one is happening much more often, cause the people don’t like to loose their precious SR.
As such, many accounts are incredibly low ranked for what SR they get.
One solution could be Hero based SR, another one that you can play in Masters and above only if you are over level 150. But that ignores the plats in silver or the dia in gold.

Thats true, and i’m not speaking about these :wink:

To everyone: Smurfs or Alt accounts aren’t only a problem for SR, not everyone plays for SR! The bigger problem is, that it’s decreasing match quality, and this gets lower and lower. Getting steam rolled, ok, but getting a clear win or loos every 3 games is frankly said really really poor match quaility. Even if the SR Rating of both teams is the same, sometimes it acutally ends up that you get steamrolled or you clearly win. Thats mainly caused by alts and smurfs, for different reasons, only a incompletel list of them:

  • Not minding about this account win/loss ratio
  • Deciding games one sided, cause you feel like you want to demonstrate them how better you are
  • Tilting games, cause if your alt account looses, you don’t mind it, even if its getting banned, who cares
  • Being overly toxic ingame, not chat or voice. Harrassing people only to tilt them, cause you want to have fun, and you poor little ***** need to have it on the cost of others

Thats a incomplete list, but it comes down that Alt Accounts need to be linked to their main account, or they need to be bannable.

I actually think I’m going to either quit or take a long break from Overwatch because of Smurfs. As a Junkrat main that is trying to learn heroes and has only ever had 1 account, It seems as though more than 30% of my losses are against genji, pharah or widow smurfs or account sharers. These players completely shut down my entire team and there’s literally nothing we can do.

I’m certain that the reason I’ve been unable to hit diamond this season is because every time I’m 1 win away from diamond, I end up fighting against smurfs until I drop to 2450 again. There is a huge and noticeable difference between Good Plat Genjis, Widows and Pharahs and actual smurf ones. Smurfs are Extremely consistent. There is no reason for me to try to climb ranked if it’s impossible due to smurf abundance. I should just quit this game. Smurfs will not be addressed and I’m damn tired of fighting against multiple smurfs per night.

I’m curious how many other people have either quit or are on the verge of quitting because of Smurfs. Please share your thoughts. I’m not asking for opinions from Smurfs, only opinions from people who are being pushed to the edge by Smurfs.

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Why is this so hard to understand you know?

Why bump this… WHY?

The community supports smurfs, alt accounts, boosting and dropping rank. When it comes to high ranking smurfs, everyone only hates it when the OTHER team has them.

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Its only a problem if it hurts YOU
That’s basically what reddit has done to this game.

Well, the problem with that is when they buy accounts that are already at level 25, or they basically throw games until level 25.

What to understand with this? It’s not talking about Smurfs, it’s talking about 2nd accounts allowed but boosting and throwing forbidden.

Exactly - I am surprised people can’t grasp the distinction that alts are allowed, smurfs ie. throwers and/or boosting is not…

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