I thought that by requiring an active SMS (phone number) was to limit or remove multiple accounts from being created. Aka. The SMURF issue with higher caliber players creating multiple accounts to play at lower levels.
October 7th this is being removed
Can we expect more of the same with multiple accounts being played on?
Throwers to keep these alt accounts at lower levels (to either play with their friends, or to keep people from climbing?)
THE SMURFS for the sheer joy of just winning and beating up on lower accounts…?
Love to hear some thoughts
Probably. At least until those accounts get banned, which may take quite some time.
I honestly thought they were removing SMS for old Overwatch players, new accounts still require SMS right?
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Yep. Still needed for new accounts.
The issue is the old players that already had 30 alts and smurfs.
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What will realistically happen is over the next several months the account attempting to smurf will be banned because, in theory, they will be caught throwing games via the new system and as such the problem will resolve itself over time.
At least I will be able to play since the support team does not answer to any tickets thus not being able to change country settings
Bold of you to assume they will get banned.
I’m going to do a test and throw hundreds of games on some of my ~20 smurf/alt accounts and see if any get banned. As an OW1 console player, I can guarantee none will be banned. I’ve seen people throw on accounts from bronze border to silver border with multiple stars and never be banned, despite being reported 100s of times. <10 winrate on wrecking ball btw with like 1000 deaths per minute (jumping off the map all game)
Welp. An infinite amount of time does technically fit what I said: “which may take quite some time” 
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If you had an account connected to Battlenet prior to June 9, 2021, you don’t need a number. Notice the year there… your account has to be well over a year old. That won’t solve existing smurfs, but it will stop new ones. Hopefully they will be more aggressive with banning real smurfs (those that keep their ranking artificially low to stomp lower ELOs). Alt accounts are not smurfs.
Alt accounts, smurfs, throwing accounts and drunk accounts are share the same core issue. It isn’t the person’s main so they don’t care to try and win. I could easily swap off genji (which I suck at, hence the alt/smurf) to my 3700 Mei and win easily, but i’m not going to, because I don’t care. It negatively impacts the match for others on my team.
Nah.
(people still whining about her BTW, they just hate her, i’ve seen people asking to revert the spray damage without giving back freeze… i’m pretty sure that would be the same DPS as moira lol)
Don’t tell me that I received a message yesterday it was the support team but the only thing they said was we are deleting the SMS but bro I still want to change my location
Now with every account getting an sr reset and being able to immediately jump into comp. Well played everyone asking for this. You just gave everyone with lots of accounts enough gold or lower smurfs to smurf almost indefinitely.
One of the worst be careful what you wish for moments I’ve seen for quite a long time.
Bro you are lucky to even receive an answer lol, I have been waiting for 4 days still nothing…
I wanna change my location as well
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