So I’ve seen many people group with smurfs and I was thinking that it’s technically boosting, now is it reportable and would they get banned?
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I don’t think Blizz actually care. They say they do, but they won’t do anything.
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Let me just clearly define what is and what is not acceptable in Overwatch
Account boosting is when a player is deliberately playing with another account or accessing an account that is not their own in order to advance that player into a higher rank. Blizzard says they have measures in place to find and locate this behavior.
Throwing is using ANY account you have access to deliberately tank your rank.
Owning an Alternate Account is acceptable as long as you are playing your best.
Smurfing is a very loose term, just like the word toxicity so hopefully this clarifies what is and what is not acceptable usage of alternate accounts in Overwatch.
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Of course it is. Anything is bannable if people feel like reporting you. They don’t verify reports which makes rules irrelevant.
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It’s not boosting if they are playing heroes they aren’t super good at. Remember that the vast majority of ‘smurf’ accounts are actually alt accounts. I’m a high plat support main. If I play Genji on my silver account, am I smurfing/boosting a friend? No, because I’m a terrible Genji, that’s why that account is silver.
It is not reportable as long as they are actively trying to win
Yeah, but where is the evidence of action taken? It’s absolutely rampant, because no one gets caught.
I see a lot of players who are low ranked yes. But I judge players if they are deliberately throwing games or not. If they are, I report them for Gameplay Sabotage. Players who beat me in battle, beat me and that is fine. This is because in my opinion, skill rating is not a true direct representation of skill.
Also players complain of smurfs due to the perception of “one-sided matches in Competitive Play.” Scott Mercer himself have specifically stated:
Source: Overwatch Forums
Don’t bother with this guy. He just spews PR nonsense like a tool.
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It never will so long as the system is so horribly polluted with this behaviour.
I’ve reported many boosters/throwers, and I have seen them get banned. I know that they have been banned because after I get a ‘thanks for your report’ notification, I look at my ‘recent players’ list and can see that those players suddenly have no endorsement level. Not a level of 1, but no endorsement level at all.
Tbh it depends if they just so happen to be on a lower SR because they play a different hero pool on that account they’re not as good as. If they’re throwing to keep the account low in order to facilitate wins for their lower ranked friends, then that’s a definite no-no.
People who treat alts as casual accounts for playing comp without having to worry about their main comp SR are kind of a big problem, because how do you determine if they REALLY are trying their best? This is why role queue and different SR for different roles is something we really need so people who want to play off-role can do so without throwing or playing in a MMR they can’t compete in on their role.
Yeah, that’s not a ban. That’s at best a suspension, on an alt account they care little for.
Does that really mean anything?
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I’ve seen for-sure bans as well, such as when the person lost all endorsement levels and their name became a random mix of numbers.
Suspensions come before bans, typically. And people who do this will keep doing it after their suspension, until they are banned permanently. And honestly, seeing as how you can be suspended for up to a year, that’s just as good as a ban.
I mean sure they might run out and buy another account, but they were probably going to do that anyway. Of course, the person they were boosting probably cares about their account, that’s why they were getting boosted in the first place, so the suspension or ban means something to them. They won’t try to get boosted again for fear of losing another account, thus lowering the demand for boosters.
I mean we could sit around and be bitter all day but it’s not going to change anything. It’s far more productive to just deal with it and learn different ways to deal with smurfs/boosters. I spent so much of my time whining about smurfs, hating on smurfs, wanting to murder every smurf I saw irl… and it did nothing for me. Not a thing except make me upset with a game that I really actually love.
So I decided I wasn’t going to do that anymore, and now I just go out of my way to kill smurfs/boosters on the other team. And that actually has become more fun, I get some GREAT duels out of it and learn new 1v1 skills which help me when I’m fighting people my own rank.
Answer to all questions in the structure of “Is it bannable to ______?”:
If you have to ask, it’s probably better to not do it.
The answer is always “yes” because of the automated player controlled report system. You can get banned for nothing or you can get not banned for 3 years of aimbotting.
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To be fair, he JUST stated that SR was not a true and direct representation of skill which a lot of people here believe it is 100% accurate and Blizzard is quite confident as well. So idk. Maybe a lot of his opinions genuinely fit the PR structure. But that opinion right there is HIGHLY unpopular.
There is no way it is Blizzard’s stance that SR is a completely accurate representation of skill. Otherwise MMR wouldn’t be a necessary component to the equation.
Either way, it isn’t like he doesn’t have free will. They would just tell him to stop doing things they don’t like if he did. The guy is still a total sellout tool with nothing of value to add.
Everything is bannable i’ve come to realize.
Pick off meta character? ban.
Ask team to group up? ban.
Play game and have fun? ban.
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I just mean as a whole they believe they can track your skill accurately and implying that SR is not indicative of that is largely contesting their point which is not something a complete shill would do.
If you ask me, just having that one opinion sets him apart from even some vocal critics and that is just sad. I still see where you are coming from, I do; however, I have been here a long time. That opinion is not vaguely popular and directly goes against a foundation that Blizzard asserts to justify smurfing, arguably one of the most talked about issues with the game. A drone would do what the vast majority of the forums would say, “you are rated where you belong.”
And that is just false given how much I hop between gold to diamond. I should not be in 3 different skill brackets. I have half a dozen accounts, so I can definitely see weird SR shenanigans at play and the MMR should not be that different either.