It’s a plague, it’s constant. There are multiple smurf accounts in every single game in QP, Comp, Arcade, everywhere. It’s ruining any fun in the games. Please, for the love of whatever you hold dear, do something about this because it is absolutely killing your game.
21 Likes
Killing their game but lining their wallet.
12 Likes
Do what, though? What could possibly fix it?
1 Like
Require phone authentication, raise the minimum level for competitive, and make smurfing against the rules.
That would remove the majority of it. Blizzard isn’t willing though.
13 Likes
If anything will kill this game, it’s Blizzard’s refusal to actually acknowledge problems, or at least communicate about it with their community.
So far, we know the devs don’t like buying accounts from third parties. Which was most likely already stated in their terms of service
progress is slow ..
2 Likes
Not everyone who plays Overwatch has reliable access to a phone (especially in countries outside of the United States).
While this idea is not inherantly bad, the biggest disadvantage is that it greatly discourages legitimately new players.
How can it be truly enforced, even with the first two ideas in action, that doesn’t necessarily stop someone, and how can you truly tell when a player is smurfing or not (and “he pugstomped me” is not valid answer).
15 Likes
I would like to point out that Jeff Kaplan has addressed smurfing multiple times. The most recent being in this statement:
7 Likes
several things could be done:
- make an optional verified queue (via an app)
- make more rewards playing on your main account (grind hard to get one skin)
- start to clean up twitch and ban bronze - GM runs, boosting streams
- finally adress account sharing… many people share accounts its even against their rules they could easily punish this
2 Likes
New players are far more likely to be more intrigued with the casual side of the game than streaking for the competitive side.
There are also many people, myself included, that don’t like the idea of our team having a lv 28 who doesn’t fully understand all the characters yet trying to play main tank a very important role to say the least while the enemy team has a lv 31 4200 peak widow main.
fun
Blizzard can not stop smurfing as a whole, that is just asking for too much. But the start to fixing a problem is…you know…addressing the fact that there is a problem to be fixed.
This saddens me that they still don’t see smurfing as a genuine problem
Why you had that quote on hand, idk, but I was not saying they have never talked about smurfing, they just never recognize it as a problem.
5 Likes
Yes yes yes :3
Why this is actually allowed is beyond me
1 Like
its not a problem, your refusal to understand what jeff is saying is
5 Likes
I recognize that not everyone has a phone, so it would limit certain people from playing, so I understand why it’s an unappealing option, but there’s no denying it’s effective.
As for making smurfing against the rules, it’s impossible to truly enforce but that’s not the point. It’s lets people know that it’s wrong and acts as a deterrent. It’s at least something, which is more than we’re getting now.
1 Like
the problem with this is that many streamers throw outside of their stream on new accounts to get their account ranked gold or silver…
play lucio with a very high sense all day… never heal, only speed boost…
many new players do not notice this throwing…
the goal is to play that badly to get ranked gold and then go make an “unranked to GM” stream with a horrible qp-mmr which has great influence on your first rank and placements
not mentioning that people share accounts… just let one of your viewer play the account to level 25 who is bronze and plays terrible so you get a rubbish mmr account from him… account sharing is really bad… go in discord and you see it, people sell this rubbish accounts all day…
i have even one friend who is sharing one account with 6 others…
3 Likes
That they don’t like throwers, a player that blatantly ruins a match for 11 people, or boosters, players that probably are causing blizzard to lose money by selling their accounts, making money off their game without including blizz in the profits if they are queuing with who they are boosting or because boosters most definitely had to throw to get an account at a boostable level to queue with who they are boosting?
Or because it involves sharing accounts, even temporarily, to boost? Yeah, we been knew they don’t like business that doesn’t give them money.
But smurfing? Playing at a range outside your own to stomp or soft throw or hard throw if you want to keep going down in ranks or stay at a rank you are about to climb out of to effectively ruin any fairness of a match? Oh not a problem!
If smurfing was rare, their complete lack of action would be fine. But you go far more games with at least 1 smurf than without.
3 Likes
The problem is that I could make a new account, play exactly as I do now, and get placed thousands of SR below where I belong. It would take several seasons for a regular player’s SR to correct itself, and until then I would be playing outside of my rightful skill level.
2 Likes
How can you get an app to truly work. Apps are great to prove any given identity, but I don’t see how they work to sort out multiple identities from one to another.
Competitive rewards are not likely to be increased.
Source: Old Overwatch Forum Archives
Blizzard already is addressing “Bronze to GM” challenges and those should be reported if you see them. From what I understand you can report that as a form of cheating to hacks@blizzard.com. However, the act of “unranked to GM challenges” are a little more of a gray area. This is because, technically if that player is playing to the best of their capability, they should reach their true skill level very quickly. Now there are things like deliberately one-tricking a hero or playing in a matter that incapacitates you (i.e. playing drunk) that I feel is not appropriate, but I don’t have a specific answer to that.
How could they easily punish this? I have seen evidence to know that Blizzard already does have technical safeguards to realize when an account is being accessed from multiple locations if that matters. However, there can be things like a household sharing an account (which to some extent is allowed in the case of parents to minors).
2 Likes
SMS
1 Like
If you buy a new account the MMR gets automatically linked to your main account. So you basically just create a copy of your main, but you arent “new”.
2 Likes
I am REALLY against splitting the playerbase more. Queue times are getting worse even for tank and support. The only mode that I actually get reasonable queues for, including PvE, is QP classic.
The other ideas are not terrible.
1 Like
I am not necessarily going to say this is true for all players for all games. I myself recently got into playing Hearthstone seriously. Now I have been playing it on and off sparingly over the last few years, but this year I started to build up my collection for one purpose, to play Ranked. Sure the game has a lot of fun ways to be enjoyed through Solo Adventures, Tavern Brawl, etc. but I get my thrill through Ranked and it took a lot of effort to prepare myself to be ready, but I might have been discouraged if there was even bigger barriers.
I like playing Heroes of the Storm on occasion, but I am still not qualified to play its ranked mode but I don’t have enough heroes leveled up. I think they have a far more serious curve to reach the ranked ladder in that game, and it leaves me somewhat discouraged to try.
I agree there are problems to be fixed, but I think it is important to challenge does a solution to make another problem worse. One could argue that Role Queue is such an example, it’s a great way to guarantee a stable 2-2-2 team comp, but now queue times for the preferred role of damage is through the roof.
Don’t get me wrong, they see deliberate tanking a problem and they work to stop that behavior. They just don’t see an issue if someone starts a new account and tries their best to play at their true skill.
I maintain an archive of all developer statements. This is done to help guide conversations here on the forums and work to deliver a stronger discussion that can generate the best ideas that can improve the game.
4 Likes