Community Stance

How can we as a community take a stance against alt and smurf accounts, since the devs don’t really seem to care?

I think this is a really important question that we should try and answer. It’s my firm belief that alt and smurf accounts will ruin our beloved Overwatch, and it will take a community effort to expel this plague.

Now first things first, this isn’t about my rank, but it is about ladder play. Too many alt accounts skew the matchmaking, another piece of the puzzle, and create mismatched games.

This post isn’t about why I think alts and smurf are bad for the game, though. You can check my post history if you are curious about that. It’s about taking a stance as a community against this nonsense. An idea I have is very exclusionary. It involves not friending it or smurf accounts or allowing them to join your LFG group. I don’t think this is against any rules, by the way.

TL;DR Let’s brainstorm some ways to combat alts and smurf as a community.

Most people with alt accounts have them to play with friends, so this would be pointless.

Also there is no real way to combat smurfs without also alienating new players that just look like smurfs.

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I run across numerous players that say their alt is for finding their ”true rank, ” whatever that means or when they don’t feel like trying.

Yeah a lot of people also do it because they actually believe the system is rigged and they belong in a higher rank.

report obvious smurf accounts with stylized names and shangai dragons display icons

for ab chat

see how many suspended and account closures happen due to poorly managed
off hands report system (that really is the only tool against smurfs we have)

I played against a Genji who fell into this category. He was really good, but I think he failed to realize that OW is a team game, and that Genji is easy to counter in comp.

let me guess enemy team ran Winston, moira, phara ? and he didn’t swap

It was QP. He was ranking up to 25, and I started a dialogue with him after the match. He said he was stuck in plat because he was paired with garbage teammates. He was a really good Genji from what I could tell. The giveaway that he had some skill was in his kill cam—the combination of primary and melee during close combat.

I did switch to Winston to counter him. He didn’t switch and we won. It had to be his garbage teammates, though. Haha.

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Blizz could have a Global/Regional SMS protected ladder.

The ladder shows every single player, in order from the best to the worst. Trick is, you have to have SMS enabled to show up on this ladder.

Now smurfs and alts can still exist and still get a rank just like they do today. But you could now start LFGs and make sure that your teammates are on the ladder/SMS enabled.

You could make a check box to make sure that you don’t queue with non-SMS’s on your team, but this would probably wreck queue times.

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This would probably annihilate Blizzards reputation as the griefers who now can’t grief on their alt-accounts as easily as before would now start rallying pitchforks and exploit the “Dont you guys have phones” bandwagon.

I think it would bring validity and a sense of pride to Competitive. Important qualities that it’s currently missing.

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The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging there is one. In their view, smurfing is okay and, in some ways, encouraged because more accounts = more money. I think the community stance is that we should only think about how this game can be but that’s about it. It is purely aspiration because devs do not care, people are leaving the game, and little is being done to fix it.

I don’t think there is anything the community to do. The best the devs can do is raise the comp level to 50-75 instead of 25. People make alts because it doesn’t take long to get to 25, but fewer people would be interested if they actually had to sink time into getting to the entry level.

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What you saw was a plat Genji.

No arguments here. I agree, but that fact does not change my statement at all. A plat Genji has some skill.