Literally every game there’s a new one. Many games have 2-3. I’m sick of this. I don’t care that they get adjusted to their proper SR, I still face new accounts constantly. I don’t care that it costs money, that’s not stopping people. It’s a plague and it’s killing this game.
DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT FFS.
They’ve already confirmed that Smurfing isn’t against ToS.
But throwing is, and most of the time, people who are complaining is about people who have thrown their smurfs down ranks to stomp.
Otherwise how could they tell they were smurfs?
If you play in a way which no one can TELL you are playing a smurf (because you haven’t engaged in SR manipulation) - then it is all good.
But the moment that people know? it is because you HAVE broken TOS (expect in the case where you are in Masters / GM, and the game just won’t place new accounts there, so you have to play your way up from the plat / diamond border)
It should be. The fact that it isn’t is a slap in the face to their playerbase.
OP mentioned that they face new accounts. It’s unlikely that these are players that have been throwing for a while, it’s probably a smurf who is still on their way up.
Your first game isn’t in your real rank. Nor your second. Probably not your third either. It takes a few games to place you.
I don’t know their rank. if OP is in Diamond, then sure.
If they are in bronze - gold? then no - the smurf has broken TOS.
I’m not bronze-gold.
Most of the ones I see are on their way up. They are smurf accounts suffocating QP, ruining the matchmaking on their way to get to 25 so they can go ruin comp games instead.
Then, the real answer is for Blizzard to push out levels till you can comp to 75, and use the data from there to be able to place people in the right games.
I’m not sure what they can do around the QP games - unless you can “tie” the account to your current one, so it starts with the same MMR (which would fix the QP problem AND the always place below masters problem)
My suggestion is making it mandatory to tie it to a mobile phone number, and if the phone number is already in use, start the person at their true account’s rank.
Yep. that solves a LOT of problems.
Smurfing, which I define as the act of using an account to intentionally play in skill ratings below your actual skill is a violation of the Blizzard Code-of-Conduct. That being said, you should report players for gameplay sabotage if they are intentionally throwing the match regardless of account level or experience, but you must use very careful judgement about this. Sometimes legitimately new accounts play very, very badly, and there is no crime in that.
Owning an alternate account as long as you are trying your best and working to improve on it is technically not a violation.
They aren’t throwing. They’re exploiting the fact that they haven’t been properly adjusted to their true MMR/SR quickly enough to stomp on the average player. This is a flaw inherent to the system.
One thing to point out is that it has been proven that if you start a new account as an experienced player, the system in most cases will sync quickly to the true skill of the player:
Source: Overwatch Forums
This is more, a high ranked player get a new account, and the system can’t place them correctly for a longish time.
The solution they are after is tieing accounts together, so the new account starts at the same MMR as the old one.
Which means they can place in masters rather than stomp up to masters.
Can it place people in masters when they first enter comp?
Not directly, but if their MMR is so completely skewed toward masters, it is very likely they will climb to it within a matter of a few games.
That seems pretty fair.
I’m pretty happy with that answer.
And I’m telling you that the syncing process takes way too long and people can ruin dozens of games before they’re even up to their true SR.
The one thing, I must absolutely emphasize, that one perception of “smurfing” is when games feel badly mismatched. The truth is that such games may have no players actually smurfing, but it was just a skewed game.
Remember that matchmaking compares each player’s MMR/Skill Rating to each other and try to put together two teams with as close to an average SR as possible for the players available in the search queue at that time. Remember that MMR and Skill Rating is just a number. It does not account for what heroes you play, your playstyle, your experience of playing the game as those are non-quantifiable values that can’t be mathematically compared.
Quote: Overwatch Forums
You can place masters in 10 games
Dafran did it etc