It also makes the game in general so unfriendly for new players. You’re really likely to run into smurfs when you’re just starting to play the game.
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As a new player. I see where you are coming from. But I think it also depends on the attitude of the new player.
Me personally. I don’t expect anything to be handed to me, I expect to have to grind and practice and get better. So playing against better players is exactly what I want.
The problem I’m talking about is when a new player runs into a GM smurf. You’re not going to actually learn anything getting spawn camped because neither you or your team know how to deal with it. It’s why the learning progression is meant to be incremental, it’s designed to be a curve.
I’ve played with a friend who just started playing the game and just run into stacks of smurfs. In my experience smurfing is more likely to lead to frustration before it actually leads to learning about the game.
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I can see your point. But I have learned things from those games.
The way I see it, the better players punish mistakes more consistently. So I’ve been looking to see what mistakes they punish, and trying not to make them.
Smurfing isn’t a good thing and should be dealt with. But a lot of times I am seeing people being accused of smurfing when they are not.
While you’re claiming that I’m wrong, you do not bring any proof with your own claim.
“Activision Blizzard” already stated that they do not have any problem with smurfs (which means - guys go buy as many game copies as you wish). They do have problem with boosters and throwers tho. But we all know how long it takes to them to take care of those.
If you go to ActivisionBlizzard dot com, you can read the next thing:
So yeah.
They have never said they have no issue with smurfs.
They have said they don’t mind how many accounts people own. But having more accounts doesn’t mean smurf.
You can own 1 account and smurf
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I took my time to find the old thread where Jeff gave his answer to this, but the thread is unfortunately gone, tho there’s a reddit thread with what was there:
Text:
I think there are two separate concepts:
- Smurfing. I would define this as an experienced player buying a second account to reset their account progress and internal matchmaking rating (MMR)
- Boosting. This is behavior some players engage in in Competitive Play where one player is more skilled than their partner and attempts to “carry” the lower skilled player to a higher skill tier.
Boosting is bad and we are very actively working on preventing and punishing this behavior. Rules like the 500 SR differential in Comp above Diamond exist because of Boosting. There is nothing about Boosting that is acceptable and we want you to know that we are taking great efforts to minimize the impact on “fair” players. Smurfing – and I know this isn’t what you want to hear – isn’t really that big of an issue. For example, a few weeks ago one of the Pro Overwatch players created a smurf account and was streaming from it. We were able to watch his MMR internally and compare it against his “main” account. Within 15 games, the MMR’s were equal. I know there is a very bad perception of Smurfing. But the reality is, skilled players are moved rapidly out of lower skill situations.
I’ve also personally witnessed a few cases of players assuming someone is smurfing when they are not. One of the people I play with is highly skilled. He played a ton in the beta. He works on the Heroes of the Storm team and plays Heroes most nights. But occasionally he comes and plays OW with us because he really enjoys the game. As a result, he is way lower level than we are. Most of us are 3-5 stars… and he is about level 30. Every time we group with him, someone accuses him of being a smurf. But he’s not.
Anyway, we will always monitor deviant behavior and if we feel like there is behavior occurring that hurts honest, fair players, we will take action. We are definitely working on the boosting issue.
So no, they did state that smurfing isn’t that big of an issue.
“https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/64ru7u/jeff_kaplan_talks_about_smurfing/” link.
who determines whos a smurf? because i was called a smurf and im like 1000+ level…
if people decide its going to fail and blizzard will never put a human to work on that…
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That is because he has come up with his own definition for smurfing so he can answer the question with out giving a decisive answer. That is called managing expectations and basic PR.
He is describing alt accounts, not smurfs.
Smurfs - " An alternative computer account used by a known or experienced user in order to deceptively self-present as someone naïve or less experienced."
So having another account abnd playing normally, it will do as Jeff says and be fine. Zero issues.
But a smurf will actively manipulate his SR to “fool” people.
It is an age old trick. Everyone has played pool against or gone bowling with that one guy who pretends to be a novice and claims to have no clue. Only for them to completely wipe the floor.
Exactly.
There are so many false accusations because people have made up their own definitions of what a smurf is.
Not helped by popular streamers and the likes making an alt account and calling it a smurf.
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And I don’t disagree with you. My point is that there was a statement and I presented it.
They think that their system works great and that all “smurfs” will get yeeted out to their original rank, so they don’t see a problem with it. Unless, like you said, they will manipulate SR to stay lower than where they should be.
Given that it is one of their limited revenue streams, they are hardly going to tell people not to buy accounts.
They want them to buy all the accounts you can afford and all the loot boxes.
If it goes F2P (which I think it will, and will be an excellent idea). They can step up the rules with more draconian actions.
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You can not ban booster lul, you can ban boosted accounts, but who cares if demand would be still there, if accounts are free to play. Valve pepega perception. Instead of making actual profit out of it like blizzard, they just went full pepega, which will never help, cause of streisand effect: you restrict more, you gain more what you’ve restricted. Smurfing is the healthy way to enjoy the game, you want to smurf or boost you have to play the game professionaly and that would be your reward in the end.
It is only a game, ranks are not real, you are not cpt or pvt or something else like in milittary. You want play actual ranks ? Go pro, sit on scene and play like that vs equal players. It is freaking matchmaker, the main purpose of it is to beat pepegas, and be better than them. If you have an issue playing better, may be just stop competeing and go some chill games instead? Why each game I’ve played I am okay to improve through any smurfs, and get to their ranks eventually? If I do not succeed that means I suck, not smurf issue or anything else excuses like that. Find a reason why you suck first, then fix it for yourself. You probbably just do not want to.
I would want something to be done about smurfs in most games I play. However, I also understand it’s somewhat unrealistic in most cases.
Which is why, going forward, I’d love for games to be designed in such a way that they dervice some metrics from how someone plays, and if two players metrics are too similar (and they also play from the same IP) then they are marked.
If marked often enough or if a GM manually checks the case, the smurf can be “linked” to the main account:
- It sees it’s on rating.
- However, it is matched by the main account.
- It modifies the main account on wins/losses.
- In fact, other players see the main account in their matches.
So for all practical purposes, they are the main account. So yeah if someone wants to smurf they can, but they cannot break the matchmaking with it, they just get an “empty” account for it.
How are they trying to stop it? you can just go in LFG and see people openly saying they are deranking. Blizzard are doing nothing.
The thing that seems to go over a lot of peoples heads is that not all smurfs are there to boost and ruin games. I’ve made new accounts wanting to learn new heroes. I can’t just pick up a hero like doom and dominate in 4K elo lobbies and QuickPlay isn’t a real learning environment. Sure I’m going to be above average for the placements because of normal game experience, but it evens out in like 6 games and I’ll sit around where I belong. People that intentionally troll and throw to get into low elo lobbies I agree with banning- people that just place accounts to learn heroes they otherwise couldn’t play I don’t agree with. It’s the same as a new player picking up a hero just with a bit more game knowledge and the learn quicker.
What you have described there is an alt account and not a smurf account.
Again, part of the problem is people don’t know what a smurf is.
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Which is why many ppl have an issue with it. Look at the amount of ppl doing unranked to gm, or call it an alt acc.
All of them do the same thing, ruining games and the only difference is whether you are doing it on 1 account or doing it on multiple accs.
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This is where my opinon differs.
Is a masters player gets new accounts. Plays normally and gets placed mid-plat, and then goes on to play normally and win a lot of games. They are not “ruining” games.
If they were throwing and griefing. Then yes they are ruining the game.
Being beaten by a better player is not a ruined match.
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No matter how you want to call it, it’s still a problem that no one wants to deal with.
They are not supposed to be mid-plat if they would play normally. They are ruining games for those who are actually mid-plat players because they don’t play on their skill level.