Season 10 smurfs are getting out of control

General Discussion
1

Not sure if I’m the only but I have encountered to many Smurf’s this season (console ranked) there was a point where the entire enemy team consisted of smurfs. I had the worst placements ever. I think smurfs are getting a bit out of hand I could tolerate them before but now they’re in every game. Any one else think there a bit too much now.
I also know that blizzard can’t do anything about second accounts on console, but I have noticed it In quick play PC, and I know they will get placed where they have to be, but there are just too many now.

8 Likes
2

Is it really a smurf if it’s quick play?

3

That’s normal for a game that’s been out for years. People hit their peak rank, get bored because they can’t make progress anymore so start new accounts to do it all over again. It’s not their fault that the game has nothing to captivate them once they’ve already hit their skill level in rank.

4

There are so many “alt accounts” on xbox it’s almost unbearable. They insta lock some hero they think is “meme worthy”, spam voicelines, and refuse to play with the team. Plus it’s so painfully obvious it’s a smurf when they have zero hours on other games.

I just don’t see why people need more than one account. Are you a DPS main but want to learn main tank? JUST PLAY ARCADE AND QP TO GET THE BASICS DOWN AND THEN PLAY COMP. I hate that sh*tty excuse that they need a second account to “learn and new hero”. psh.

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smurfs are always going to be a thing, it’s because players are to lazy to put in the attempt to learn a new champion or hero on their main account. however what they don’t realize is that they are hurting the other players they play with or against, no one is having a good time when you are being bum rushed in a 2 minute match by a team of smurfs. however most of these players will use the excuse of “it’s not hurting anyone” or my personal favorite line of " git gud" if you want to learn a new hero ,do it on your main so you can play with players of the same skill level and stop ruining the game for new players. i have had new players quit and say they wasted 50 bucks on the game due to people smurfing so yes, it’s hurting other players and driving people away from a otherwise great game.

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6

Is it really a “smurf” if they’re only trolling and throwing the game? I believe that’s an “alt account” not a smurf account.

7

i’d rather not. Mindless game modes that do nothing to actually display the strengths and weaknesses of heroes in proper team compositions.

8

while that may be true arcade and qp allow you to practice your heroes skills before taking them into comp, so it’s a better choice then just smurfing around in compet with the hero you already main on another account.

1 Like
9

You can definitely learn the basics of any hero in quickplay. Creating an entirely new account that ends up smurfing for the first 30 levels is most certainly not the best way to learn a new hero. You end up needing to play 25 levels in QP anyways in order to play comp, which you could have just as easily done on your main account to learn the hero.

Just makes no sense.

2 Likes
10

Well, I agree players shouldn’t be “learning new heroes” in comp, I DO have another account to practice dps heroes in QP. This is because I have 600+ hours on support+tank and the game puts me vs. diamond-GM level players. If I want to practice offense in QP, I get completely stomped because I am not a diamond-GM level dps player. Again, I will never ever take this account into comp, but I think there’s nothing wrong with a 2nd account for practice if you’re just doing QP. (and aren’t doing it with the intent of crushing new players)

2 Likes
11

On consoles, I will wholeheartedly agree with you. There’s no barrier to entry to smurfing, letting people abuse the system.

On PC… if people want to pay $20-40 to play with noobs for no more than a month, I don’t really see the harm. You’ll likely only see them for a short while during their climb upwards. The enemy team has as likely a chance to get them as you do, sometimes lending to smurf battles.

I don’t play DPS at a masters level. My team would get aboslutely destroyed if I tried. Playing quickplay or arcade isn’t going to magically make me a masters level DPS. If I wanted to properly practice, I would either need to tank my rank (I’d rather not, tbh) to the point where I can compete, or have an alternate account (I currently don’t) that allows me to play with people my skilllevel. There’s just an awkward transition period of grinding my way up there.

12

I guess it’s just different perspectives. From my point of view, making new accounts to learn new heroes simply makes the games of lower ranks unfair, because you have the game sense of a diamond+ player while playing in plat/gold.

13

And what if someone in your rank decides to play a hero in competitive first time? Eitherway, it’s a game design issue we have to live with… except if they introduce seperate sr for each hero

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The game is fortunately super quick about moving people where they should belong. It only took a few games for it to start pairing me against people that weren’t fresh players. But I agree it sucks and I WISH there was a better way to actually practice heroes you’re not good at.

It’s just as frustrating for me and my garbage aim/lack of practice on offense heroes to fight diamond-GM players as it is for a new player to fight me on a new account. I’m on console too and it really really sucks when I’m on my main account and want to learn McCree or Genji in QP and I’m fighting a top 500 Tracer. I have over 300 hours on Mercy+Lucio, you think I can hit that Tracer? haha

I don’t know how else they can fix it besides somehow taking what hero you’re playing into account with match making, but even that would be impossible since you could just switch to a hero you’re good at and stomp people legit practicing :frowning:

1 Like
15

I have an alt account to

  1. Avoid people when I want to play Overwatch but don’t want to be bothered (worth noting I purchased my alt account before Offline status was a thing)
  2. Solo Competitive. I group up with others for Comp on my main, and so we don’t stray too far apart I’ll go to my alt when I want to play Comp without them.
  3. I have a silver border. People are very hip to throwing insults at you when you’ve got such a high level and are just not great with certain heroes. I’ll use my alt to practice heroes I’m downright terrible with to avoid the harassment.
1 Like
16

I like to say its the other way around. To me, a smurf is an account that people purposely throw so they stay at a much lower rank. An Alt account is just that. An alternate account. One you still do your best on, it just so happens to be an account that doesn’t have your massive amount of play hours and high level.

17

They’re not even shy about it on console either. Half of them have smurf in their name lol.

18

My Alt account is BelBeluinus, haha. I actually use mine to practice my DPS in a comp environment. As the person above said, I don’t want to get paired up with people who have experience with that when I play tank and support.

19

Greetings second class citizen, I’m also second class citizen. We’re screwed. Why even complain? Blizzard don’t care for consoles. And I have a smurf situation too, a Widowmaker as defender carried the team, just for switched to Tracer as attacker for do the same. How can a level 25 account play so damn good? A GM smurf carrying to their friends.

1 Like
20

Let’s just clarify that there are different types of smurfs and alt accounts.

  1. There are smurfs where a person that is at high elo purposefully places at a lower elo so they can dominate lower elo games. The worst types of smurfs imo. This can also be done if a high rank person wants to play with (cough cough boost cough cough) his lower ranked friends, but this is still bad. If you want to play with your friends go to quick play instead of ruining the ranked experience of lower ranked players.

  2. Smurfs that use their alt account to practice heroes they’re not as good at. E.g. tank main uses alt account to practice dps.

  3. Smurfs that just play normally on their alt account. No throwing, just playing the heroes they usually play at their best ability. This can be for many reasons. Maybe they’re in gold but have a platinum border so want to avoid toxicity during that. Personally I have an alt account so I can see where I get placed without my horrible season 1-5 stats ruining my MMR (still haven’t gotten to level 25 tho).

  4. Smurfs used for trolling.

The first and last reasons are ruining the game and they are the types of smurfs I run into the most.