Smurfing may be annoying, but Blizzard isn’t going to do anything about it.
MaTcHmAkEr WiLl RaNk ThEm PrOpErLy
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Actually Hardware bans is a large part of the anti cheat system, go back to the last few ban waves and you will find people crying that even though they started a new account that the new account was also banned.
first of all, probably get in a ton of trouble if they banned smurfs now.
Better thing to do is get a two step verification requiring your phone number to play ranked, that would drastically reduce the amount of smurfs.
but that wont happen as smurfs = money.
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Blizzard has said that smurfing is not bannable. Unlikely that their stance will change on that topic anytime soon.
Difference between smurfs and alt accounts.
Alt accounts are okay. Just people who wanted an SR/MMR reset and play other heroes in competitive without tanking their main account’s SR.
Smurfs are people who intentionally play poorly so as to stay at a lower SR so they can pwn some noobs every other game. They should be reported in games they are throwing.
But even that is hard to detect perfectly, because it might also be a non-smurf that is just having a bad match.
And then you also need to understand that new gamerules can not be retroactive. Doing that would open up the possibility of people asking for a full refund for their secondary account(s) that were legal when they were purchased. If blizzard does not do the refund, some consumer watchdogs will likely have a field day with some class action lawsuit.
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its been reported that activision-blizzard made $4 billion in micro-transactions alone last year.
you have something to back up your opinion ??
what about…when you bought an alt account but it’s a higher rank then ur main… should ur main get banned…? also how would blizzard know the difference between my account and say… my nephews account when he plays at my house hmm? you can’t base it on IP because siblings live in the same house play together too. heck would ban entire gaming cafe’s then.
That’s probably true, but they have several games with micro transactions. I’m willing to bet OW’s haul is peanuts compared to their other games. Besides, my point is that OW game sales are easily more lucrative than loot boxes now.
Already posted my reasoning. Meanwhile you can’t effective point to anything suggesting OW is making more money with loot boxes than game sales. There’s nothing to suggest that loot boxes are the big bread winner in OW. On the other hand, there’s plenty of evidence to support that alt accounts are.
There is no way to solve the smurf problem:
- As stated IP bans don’t work. In addition to College Dorms, Internet Cafes, etc. VPN’s are free and change your IP address.
- Account bans obviously don’t work.
- Hardware bans would be the biggest hit to a smurf, but Overwatch is playable on the cheapest modern day laptops and many people have spare older computers.
- SMS requirement wouldn’t work since prepaid phones are as cheap as $10 with service as cheap as $25
It would be a huge investment of time and resources from Blizzard that ultimately wouldn’t solve anything. It would, at best, slow it down.
where is this evidence ??
Why should people be banned for something that’s not against the rules?
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Realistically, i have multiple computers and accounts. Unless i’m doing something wrong (which i’m not…) there is no reason for this. I find the “ban smurfs!1!!!” Argument pretty funny.
Smurfing is not against the ToS. It is just a very objectively scummy thing to do that also (further) ruins match-making thresholds.
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Smurfing is against TOS because that’s someone who is intentionally losing to get placed in lower ranks (bronze, silver, gold etc).
Simply having an alt account and playing to the best of your ability (never throwing or intentionally feeding) is not against TOS.
Someone who is Diamond or higher will never get placed in bronze, silver or gold when they do placements if they’re actually trying. But if they’re trying to do poorly, then yes they’ll be placed in lower ranks.
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If there were IP bans, people wouldn’t be able to play with others in the same house. This kind of problem happened to me on a TF2 trading website many years ago.
Technically it is. Smurfs actively try to use new accounts to play (or practice) against lower tier competition. If you’re a Diamond tank main then you have Diamond level game sense. Even if you don’t play DPS that game sense (should) carry over. Playing DPS on a smurf in gold is abusing players in gold regardless of your mechanics.
This is why something should be done about it. The matchmaker is already bad enough to begin with. Smurfing adds even more problems and doesn’t bring any positives to the game. I play on console and let me tell you smurfs are everywhere. Playing on an alt account hurts the game. Players care less and drastically alter game play as a result.
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Here is Jeff’s answer.
Nope. Smurfs are just alt accounts. Throwing or boosting is however. See the link above.
I mean if you give any F about actual competitiveness and not skins you would do it. Not everyone is here for stupid Azs cosplay BS.
They dont have to ban existing smurf accounts. Just prevent the creation of new ones as its harming the integrity of the product.
i.e banning existing ones would be like saying “you did something that was legal and then a new law was implemented and now what you did a year ago is against the law now and thus you go to jail (banned)”.
Banning by IP or hardware effectively bans gaming cafes and thousands customers.