Yeah, AFTER the damage has been done. Even if the game puts you back in slot G after you hop out of line and go to slot B, you still were IN SLOT B for a match. I’m not sure what about this you’re not getting? Just because the system is fast and recalibrates quickly doesn’t change literally anything about the process of deranking and smurfing. It’s still happening, you see that right?
It’s not ‘a few games’ at this point; there’s a quantity of players doing this at such a volume that I’d say easily 30% of my matches are in some way impacted by this. Either a Smurf on their way up or down, it doesn’t matter.
30% of my matches being ruined is not ‘nothing’. Heck, when I play I’d say over half of my matches are absolute trash, but you can’t guarantee someone is throwing just because they’re mad about something else or not. I tend to judge this based on how low level the account is; someone with no stars who got put into my rank clearly at one point in time was playing at a skill level on par with me, aka NOT a new player. So when they’re doing nothing to contribute I can only assume that it’s a smurf; why else would they have been put in my rank at all? They would have needed to play games well enough to be placed with me, so they can’t be brand new, yet they’re playing like they’re half drunk. And this happens all. the. time.
So what, am I supposed to think the Matchmaker just gives me absolute potatoes sometimes and then other times I’m playing against characters who I can’t even touch, and that’s just what, ‘fair’ matchmaking? Because that’s not what I’d call fair.
If you want to see a statistic then we’d need actual information from blizzard, but I don’t have that. You’re hiding behind this ‘show me statistics’ argument in order to dismiss the sentiment I’m putting forward; that’s not helpful to the game either. I honestly don’t give a crap about convincing you about anything, but your assessment of the situation and the impact it has on the game and the community at large is dead wrong, whether or not you want to see it as it is.
If you have endless people on the forums coming, regularly, to make frustrated posts about smurfs then why, WHY, would they do that if there wasn’t some kind of issue in the matchmaker? Even if they were wrong about it being smurfs, which I don’t think they are but you want to- even if they were wrong? It still shows evidence of a problem. I’ve been on these forums off and on for literal years now, and I’ve seen more posts about smurfs and frustrating experiences in the last 6 months than I did in the previous 2 years.
But yeah sure stick your head in the sand and tell us we’re wrong or we gotta just ‘git good’ and trust everything is hunky dory because, y’know, why would we want to talk about the issues in a game and fix those issues so it could continue to be successful and stop bleeding viewership and players like a stuck pig, that’d just be silly.
