Unfortunately until they provide a way to play heroes youre not good at, then it would be extremely unreasonable to punish them since playing those heroes would be throwing in their current matches.
At least now, the distribution of smurfs in games should be pretty even. You ahve roughly the same odds of getting them on your team, so while it’s annoying, in the long run it should roughly even out.
welcome to the state of the game, people hate playing the meta so they do whatever they want on alt accounts
I don’t wish to sound rude, but is this an opinion, or is there any research to support this?
I approach matchmaking with only worrying about one controllable factor in-mind, and that is myself. I know I will approach games that I will not win, and there will be games that I will get carried. I also believe these non-controllable factors including smurfs, leavers, throwers, cheaters, chickens, para-normal roadhog hook grabs, technical issues, killer whales, etc. average out each other.
I wish more games were more competitive so that my efforts as a player make more of a difference, but I still approach every game knowing that it is my own actions that will truly determine if I can ever climb the ranks or not. So the point I wish to get at is that while there is a bad perception to having players owning alternate accounts, I do not see viable evidence to conclude that is a factor to hold anyone back from being at their own true skill level.
Research? I’m telling you my actual, real world experience. Do you want me to start taking screenshots of every lvl 1-24 account with a one-tricking Genji or Widow stomping my team?
They are controllable. A lack of meaningful reform in the system does not constitute an unsolvable problem.
Competitive games seems less and less frequent as the game gets older. Moreso just people playing on throw-away accounts these days. Hell, I do it too
But that is subjected to perception and bias from only the experience of your own games.
I specify non-controllable from your position, unless you choose to group up, you have to accept whatever teammates you are given. You must also accept whatever opponents you are assigned to. You have no control over that.
Right, I don’t have control over that. That’s the problem. Telling me to just deal with a glaring flaw in the system that MANY have complained about over and over again is very poor form.
But what exactly is the problem? Again, alternate account is not an issue. Its only if a player is throwing is where you need to report a user for violating the Blizzard Code of Conduct.
There are countless Smurf accounts boosting in Gold. Most premades of 3 or more players seem to have them.
I report them, I get notified, and I see that they do lose endorsement level (indeed it seems a fairly reliable way to spot them that they have level 0-2 endorsement level). But, the wave is absolutely endless; and ultimately is doesn’t matter if you report them as the punishments are evidently so weak that they just keep going, and nothing happens to their main account.
Last night I went 3 matches in a row against them, before having one on my own team; the final match was about who’s smurf was best.
That’s 4 out of 7 matches. The other two were full solo queue.
I know “it is against TOS”, and “we shouldn’t report it because they have systems”. But it’s very very obvious that those systems aren’t working, and are proving zero deterrent as the issue only gets worse.
And it’s self feeding. The more people get boosted; the more of us see it happen, the more people are tempted to use those services to get boosted themselves.
The problem… as I explained, is that new accounts start at a low MMR and stomp their way up to their true rank for 25 levels, ruining every game for others in the process… and people are making these accounts left and right, specifically for this low-mmr period.
But as I have explained and others have pointed out, that it takes as little as 10 games to get insync. This really is not an issue.
BUT IT IS. People keep posting on these very forums that it is an issue! I wouldn’t be posting here if it wasn’t an issue!
People are telling you their experience is bad. They’re pointing out why. Telling us “It’s not really happening, and if it is, you need to just deal with it.” is not a viable solution.
For these accounts, 10 matches hurts 100 players.
100 smurfs hurts 10,000.
It’s a massive issue.
lol. If my friend can keep his smurf account low rank by deranking with a “poorly played Reinhardt”, then many others are doing the same thing. If this wasn’t an issue then websites that sell boosting services wouldn’t exist
I saw a Mercy main with a “poorly played” 27% win rate on her dominate a match with Widowmaker last week.
Nothing weird about that at all.
That is a perceived problem. I am very aware of that myself. But a perceived problem doesn’t mean that there is a real problem that needs to be resolved. Secondly, the forums typically are the front for complaints (and it is a good place to express concerns). But time and again, this has been addressed by the devs.
Finally, what is the solution to this perceived problem? I myself can only think of actions that would dramatically harm the overall health of the game or be completely ineffective to the problem.
If it’s been addressed, why are so many people telling you it’s still happening? Why is it still a problem?
This is a case of manipulating your rank which is against the Code of Conduct. Same goes for the boosting websites which are tracked and accounts found boosting are frequently suspended or banned.
It all comes down to ratios. Legit smurfs might not take that many comp games to get close to their main (maybe just a couple dozen), but that doesn’t preclude them from being in every three games. Ultimately if for every 35 people playing in gold there’s a dude ranking up a new smurf you’re gonna have one in every three games. That’s the reality. I don’t think it’s that often but it’s definitely often enough to be annoying and I can think of several ways to mitigate the effectiveness that they haven’t bothered to do.
The real slap in the face are the Road to Bronze groups that you’ll see throughout the day in LFG. There is no legitimate reason to play in these (sorry deranking ‘to play with friends 1000SR lower in comp’ is not legit). It’s clearly intentionally throwing. If you play Road to Bronze and lose a bunch of games in a row with awful stats that should be it. Season comp ban. They make next to zero efforts to curtail malicious smurfing.
This has ZERO impact on those players’ main accounts. It does not stop them.
It’s not a deterrent. And it’s a problem so endemic now, that it’s clear Blizzard are losing and losing badly. They need to do more. A lot more.
Going around telling us “oh that is naughty, they’re bad for doing that” while nothing real is actually happening to stop it, because it’s not stopping it, and suspending and silencing alt accounts with no reprimand for the main accounts will ever do anything to stop it, is nothing but lip service. They might as well not even bother with those suspensions.
Like I say. I’ve seen accounts get suspended. That doesn’t stop those people when the suspension is over, it doesn’t stop them just picking up another account, and it has no impact on the one account they might actually care about.