Smurfs neeed to be bannable! No excuses, that’s one of OW’s biggest problems and nothing is done about it.
41 Likes
Blizzard does not consider smurfing a punishable offense.
1 Like
If making their playerbase less and less cuase of the obvious problems in the games fun factor, yeah nice.
5 Likes
Most money they gain is from smurf and unless they do manual bans it will be extremely difficult to do it.
5 Likes
overwatch police system, community system? could help alot.
How would you know someone is a smurf. What if he came back after a pause and went to an other game and got better ? What if he was just having a good day? and oh he did his placement on a bad day and place lower. There is only one way to eliminate smurf without Blizzard doing something about it but will they do something? no.
3 Likes
You don’t need to, instead of banning too good players, they get SR Boosts when the OW Police reconized it as too good player in elo. This helps putting them to their level when the system isn’t fast enough, and it defentily isn’t often. And if someone has a too good game, they will drop naturaly. This could be done the other way around too btw.
1 Like
Exploitable. Boosting exist. It will be even worst. I see only one solution to this problem and it will be near impossible. Also people can just have a good day get more sr and throw after.
3 Likes
ok how 
tell me. Cause there are real humans behind it, it is not expolitbale, cause in this one game you need to be much better, and if a booster takes 100 games or 10 games for his goal, which is worse? I actaully think the first.
People will give account to a higher level player and get his account to like 2+ ranks above. They will after throw some games. Also I really don’t think people will watch a lot of game just to spot a smurf there is way too much.
1 Like
Expecting real humans to gauge whether someone belongs in their SR is absolutely ridiculous. People who play the game can barely tell half the time, why would a call center rep do any better?
It needs a combination of skilled review and machine learning to be remotely viable, and nobody is investing that kind of resource. There’s a reason every game with a matchmaker is plagued by smurfs.
That said, the team oriented nature of overwatch combined with MMR handicapping make it feel much worse than most games. They should focus on that aspect, since they can’t(won’t) get rid of smurfing entirely.
7 Likes
Money is important for blizzard. Actual smurfs (if you are using the right terminology), are bannable. To be a smurf you have to get/and stay at a low rank. So smurfs either buy low ranked accounts (account sharing is bannable) and/or throw games to go lower (throwing is against the rules). So yes smurfs are bannable (unless it’s an unranked account that just got placed and is going to go up in a couple games).
1 Like
Unfortunately it’s really easy to copy how a lower rank player plays.
2 Likes
Well yeah, if they are not playing their best, then it’s considered soft throwing.
2 Likes
yes he would, look this system is used by xbox and it works, it’s called ambassdors.
What about dps players like me? When I’m playing well I absolutely dominate and there isn’t a lot that the enemy team can do about me. But when I get into my own head I can’t hit the broadside of a barn.
It’s hard to tell when a player is throwing to stay at a low elo because a lot of low elo dps players are inconsistent.
5 Likes
Smurf/New accounts aren’t a problem. Smurfs that throw to remain in a rank is a problem. Blizzard needs to solve for that.
People have to stop using smurf everywhere. It’s not called a smurf if a person gets a second account to play their hardest on. It’s called an alt.
2 Likes
A lot of people still don’t know this, but Blizzard officially announced a few months ago that they had actually began considering Smurfing as a “problem” and that they have been trying to find a solution.
So let’s please put an end to this ““Blizzard doesn’t consider Smurfing as a bannable offense”” narrative that is nothing but utterly false at this point.
3 Likes
Doesn’t matter if they ‘consider’ it a bannable offense, matters if they ban them in a timely manner. They don’t.
1 Like