Similar situations have happened in the NFL. For example, the Colts and “S**k for Luck”. (Not sure if that is against ToS)
Also, I don’t think that is a fitting comparison. However, to answer the question, the fans care. They are buying tickets to see the best product on the field. Not to see a team throwing away a season. Sponsors care. They are paying to advertise to people watching the game. When there’s a sub-par lineup, for reasons such as intentionally losing, people aren’t watching. This means the advertisers aren’t getting the exposure they paid for. My opinion is that the fans and the advertisers should get a refund because the pretenses for accepting the money was not met.
I think the same should go for game publishers when boosters, smurfs, and other forms of cheating are allowed. The product isn’t what the customer intended to purchase.
The problem with this argument is that no one can definitively say what is contributed toward SR because of performance.
Meanwhile there’s been evidence that proves otherwise… It’s a lot harder to prove now, because of hidden profiles, but before then many people did so. Multiple people, myself included, showed their stats being in the top percentile of the player base, and video evidence of their team’s average SR being significantly worse.
The players showed that they were being put onto teams were the average SR was 200+ below their current SR. If Joe Schmo is a 3000 SR player, but the team’s average is 2750, there’s something going on.
If that were true, all of these “Bronze to GM” runs would have ended with no losses until high masters. However, that wasn’t the case with any that I am aware of. Games in bronze, silver, gold, platinum, and diamond could be lost as well.
Now, going back to an issue that I have already pointed out… If Player A is 250 SR above their team’s average, that means the rest of the team (in some way) has to be 250 below the average. If the opposing team is made up of players that are closely ranked around their team’s average, they have an advantage. The 5 players on Player A’s team are not as skilled as the players on team B. Once Player A dies, even if that requires focus by 2 players, the rest of Player A’s team dies too.
Be happy that it was only 3 SR. Many people could have easily been down 30-40 SR.
The biggest issue is the mindset of a large percentage of the people playing games. Many have little to no experience in anything competitive. It’s why you sometimes see the flawed argument of “people just aren’t competitive. If they were, they’d welcome the chance to play against smurfs and rise to the challenge.”
Think of how flawed that concept actually is. These people are cheating in order to play against lesser skilled people, but then want to turn it on the people who call them out. Some how, their “competitive nature” makes them not want to play against people of equal or higher skill. Meanwhile, they want to say someone else isn’t competitive because they want a fair and balanced match.
Take a look at any real competitive sport, and you don’t see those types of things going on constantly. Why don’t you see LeBron James dunking on high school kids, and then telling them that they suck because they aren’t doing the same to him? There’s no competition there. Also, there’d be repercussions from the NBA and team owners because of the negative impact that it would cause. Another reason is that he doesn’t feel a need or desire to do so. It’s not as if this game, or whatever game, will likely be his only chance to be successful.
We don’t need to know the way the system works. We simply need a dev, team that takes action and holds cheaters accountable.
With the number of cheaters playing in the incorrect ranks, what do you think has happened with performance based SR?
The problem isn’t performance based stats, hidden MMR, or not knowing how every single game played out. The issue with this game, and all other games, is people.
