Ban the smurfs. Ban 'em all

General Discussion
1

Had a charming Comp game just now. My Bronze team was up against one of those smurf crews. Everybody knows the kind. We were on Busan, and the map type required one team to take the objective and hold it to 100%. In other words, if the objective wasn’t taken by one of the teams, the game theoretically has no end.

Well, in reality, it ends in one hour, when the server terminates the game.

These were not bronze players. They had meticulous control over basically everything that happened. We were gunned down at camp like 500 times, or allowed to take the objective for like a second, or they’d let us NEARLY take the objective and then kill us all. Or, they themselves would take the objective, millimeter by millimeter… and then let it expire just before the objective was there and the timer would kick in and end this idiocy.

We had the choice of leaving the game and incuring the Leaver penalty, or stay until these scumbags got sick of their 3rd grade bullying. From what I understand of smurfs, they get stomped at their true difficulty level so they switch to their smurf accounts and bully bronzies to feel like big macho tough guys. It’s freaking pathetic, except we have to put up with them.

So, whoever gets the misfortune of being matched against them gets 60 minutes of horse manure after which the game is terminated automatically. The very definition of proper Comp.

I just wonder, what do these guys actually ADD to Overwatch? And why are they not permanently banned? I’ve run into this crew before, and they’re either roflstomping bronzies or throwing matches and Leaving matches.

I was getting back into Overwatch, but an hour of this… yeah. I think I am going back to Starcraft II coop.

Overwatch has the best art, the best music, and some darn great characters. I understand Blizzard can’t fully fix the fact that this game has a lot of bad apples, but at the point where people are doing THIS all day, you really need to get in there and start banning.

116 Likes
2

I believe you can report this for gameplay sabotage or something. Pretty slam dunk easy if you describe what they did; it doesn’t matter if they’re Smurfs even, since they’re clearly sabotaging the game experience.

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3

I’d upvote you more than once if I could.

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4

Report them all, make a video of it and send it to the CS. It’s the best you can do here. The Video is for added evidence as just reporting might take a while till it actually triggers.

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5

Thank you guys for suggesting this. We did report them for gameplay sabotage but what worries me is – my group can’t possibly be the first to have done so, and bronze is literally overrun with this stuff. They’ve been around for a while, and even I personally had some of them in my group in Comp placements, and I lost that match because they threw.

It kinda sounds to me like they’re not getting banned. I have no idea why.

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6

Set entrance to comp at lvl100, and if discourage any smurfing.

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7

This blatant kind of activity should see them banned within days at most.

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8

I am looking at their levels as I report them, most of them are above lvl 100. Like, one has two bronze stars and 13.

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9

It’s extremely easy to get level 100.

1 Like
10

And getting to level 25 is 4 times easier.

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11

Technically even easier as you level faster for the first twenty or so levels.

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12

Oh, you do? D:
I wasn’t aware of that.

Still, increasing it a little ought to be better than not increasing it at all. That’ll atleast slightly annoy smurfs, and those that are truly new to the game will have more time to learn the game before jumping to competitive.
I, at least, definitely wasn’t ready when I entered comp at lvl 25.

3 Likes
13

Just add a 10$ fee to play a ranked match if you can’t prove you have only one account.

14

Yes report them. Report those disposable alt accounts. I’m sure in 9 months they might have enough reports to get a silence on them, and their owners will be very sad.

Look.

Blizzard do not care a jot about smurfing. The players smurfing do no care about their smurf accounts. Smurfs are the ‘cool kids’ of the game. Their main accounts are coddled and protected by Blizzard. Their alt accounts do not matter to players and simply provide revenue for Blizz.

Nothing will happen. There is nothing you can do. There is nothing Blizzard will do. And it will only get worse as players leave and alt accounts get cheaper and more accessible.

Blizz could do something. They hard ban cheats. But that is not something that will ever happen to smurfs and boosters because it risks banning streamers and pro players.

3 Likes
15

First you get a warning.

Then you get a short suspension.

Then you get a long suspension.

Then you get a season ban.

Next season you repeat the process. At 3 season bans, you get a permaban.

On the account. Hardware bans are only given to hackers/aimbotters, not smurfs.

So you buy a cheap account (~$7) and derank it, or buy an already bronze account ($50 I think?), and repeat.

As long as the process is this slow, and they don’t mind spending money a few times a year, they’ll still be there.

6 Likes
16

Because playing “too good” for their rank is not against the rules. You’re submitting false reports and false reporting is a bannable offense.

17

Saying “Ban all the smurfs” is like saying “Arrest all the bad people”

Easier said than done. That being said, I’m sure there is plenty of steps they can make to make things better.

1 Like
18

Stalling the game for an hour is not playing ‘too good’ for the rank. It’s playing to deliberately not win, which is clearly not playing ‘good’ at all. It’s playing to harass.
Which is gameplay sabotage. Which is not a false report.

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19

Quote the part of the description under gameplay sabotage that supports your interpretation.

20

“Actively harassing or disrupting your own team through the use of game mechanics or player actions.”

They were taking the player action of leaving an uncontested point. Which disrupted their team’s progress towards an easy victory.

5 Likes