With out fail, people come on the forum to vent their frustration over smurfing.
And without fail there are people defending smurfing stating things like ‘Blizz have said smurfing is not an issue’ or ‘playing with more skilled people can only help you’.
What they dont realise is Jeff Kaplin has acknowledged smurfing as an issue as far back as May 2020, all be it within Blizzards own definition of smurfing. But that is how bad the issue is, Blizz had to make up a definition to minimise the issue of smurfs within the game and to justify their lack of action and then 4 years later they admit to there being a problem.
Jeff has admitted to the issue to the point of confirming that Blizz are looking for resolutions to address the matter.
So I’m not sure how anyone at this point can deny that surfing as a problem.
Edit: spelling
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Smurfing implies throwing games to lower your MMR below what you are actually capable of, which is already bannable
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Sadly a lot of people still don’t know what smurfs are. I don’t know how often I got called a smurf for having a good game on Hanzo in gold while my main is a low plat D.va/Flex Account.
Jup sry but I’m not smurfing but using an alt account. Never threw games on purpose to be where I am and I still hope people who report me actually get punisged for false flagging 
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This only really applies to someone who is looking to improve, and to an extent. There are a lot of players who play comp to primarily have fun in a “more serious setting”. Smurfing hurts their enjoyment of the game because their primary goal isn’t to improve.
It can however be beneficial for players who are looking to improve, but within reason. If the smurf is 1000 or more sr above, you, there’s not much room for improvment, because the game doesn’t tell you after the fact what you could have done to outplay them. Yeah you might learn a small thing or two, but it’ll be overshadowed by the horrible experience you went through, leaving you to not actually remember what you learned. More often than not you’re just left knowing that you got overpowered and nothing else. Because you don’t have the actual tools to improve from the experience. Now if it’s a more reasonable sr difference, then yeah, definitely. But a high/plat diamond smurf in a bronze/silver game isn’t going to teach players anything. They’re there to learn the fundamentals of the game first and foremost.
Depends on your definition of smurfing:
If it’s “throwing to intentionally derank” then it’s already bannable
If it’s “owning more than one account” then I don’t think you realise just how many people they would have to ban (It’d probably be better to think about how many they wouldn’t have to ban)
Really dude theres a video on where the term smurfing came from so your people don’t know what smurfs are is bull , an you can feed you bull alt account to your ego owning an alt accout is the same as smurfing you have experience yet your pressing the reset button because you weren’t happy with your stat’s
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It’s against Blizzard’s financial interests to ban smurfs from the game, otherwise why would people buy 5 new alt accounts every time? IMO to get rid of smurfs Overwatch needs to change monetization, let’s see how they will handle it with OW2
Free to play might fix it as most things will cost money
Nah, it will bring problems that are worse: a lot of cheaters, hackers, toxics, etc. etc.
Why will you be afraid of ban if you can make a new account and spoil others’ fun further?
Theres a big difference between challenging yourself, failing and working out ways to improve. Compared to being destroyed by a 4.2k peak widowmaker onetrick that doesnt even allow you to play the game.
That’s like putting a bronze person in the overwatch league and saying its okay because “they’ll improve because theyre playing with better players”. Like how can you actually justify someone that purposefully plays in lower ranks just to stomp players that are worse than them? Players like those are the types of people that get satisfaction by physically bullying people that are 10 years younger than them.
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Sadly I have to dissapoint you. I’m still playing withthe same 2 people on their same accounts as always. Which means there are pretty much exactly the same people in my games and I’m most of the time the only low level Account in that game. Sometimes there is another one but thats not toooo common imo.
You can rage all you want but it just makes you look bad. I’m not doing this for my ego or anything like that I just don’t like people telling me to switch off.
I have been against 4k widows…Guess what?
I simply befriended this player and guess what happened next?
She showed me what I was doing wrong and what my team should’ve done.
Its simple people…Smurfs are not going anywhere.So you might as welll accept the fact…Either ask the better player for helpful tips or suffer…I prefer to improve
I never said they were. I’m just explaining to you why the idea of smurfing is incredibly immoral and extremely bad for the competitive integrity of the game.
And i assume after that, you magically jumped to 4.2k? Yeah probably not. If I wanted to hear what I can do to beat a 4.2k widow I can search for high rank player guides on youtube, i dont need my games ruined by someone that doesnt deserve to be in my rank. If i want to seek out someone high rank to coach me, then I WILL do that. The point of the ranked queue system is to queue with players that have similar ranks to you. Not borderline proffesionals digsuised as gold players.
As I said, I think everyone has accpected the fact that smurfs will always exist in overwatch (or any game with a similar ranking system). The point i’m trying to make is that its incredibly immoral and is a large reason why the competitive ranking system of this game does not favour the casual player and is a big reason why this game is hemorrhaging alot of its causual mid/low rank players.
You can defend it all day but its a large contributor to the reason that this game is barely hanging on by a thread currently.
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I have already stated that this is not my main account…High masters/low GM on Xbox and high diamond/low masters on PC…Now…If you dont want to improve,so be it…You all complaining about something that will never go away is futile.
When in Rome…
How is this relevant to the conversation
Again, irrelevant to the conversation.
You also acting like players in bronze shouldnt be frustrated at being stomped by someone 3,000 SR higher than them is also extremely ignorant and proves you dont really care about the competitive health or integrity of the game. Don’t you think it would be better if everyone just played in the rank they should be at?
Why do smurfs find it so hard to just play in their own rank? Maybe you can explain that to me
I can understand if you onetrick support, but you want to learn dps. But the people that are 4.2k in support for example, then just go on a bronze account and play support in bronze? what’s the thought process. How is playing against people so bad in comparison fun or educational to them in any way? what do they gain from it?
If you want to win easy games, just go play against bots.
I care about the competitive health…Which is why I spread the word on improving instead of whining and crying that I get stomped by better players…This way I dont get stuck with these kinds of players
Yeah, you aren’t getting the point everyone is trying to explain to you. Just forget it.
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The lot of you dont get it…Which is why you guys will always be low ranking players
Thats mostly because for xbox you can create infinite(?) accounts, but still have access to all your games
Unless you are an alt account, you are also low rank
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You’re missing the point. People don’t mind losing the game as long as they lost fairly.
You say you care about the competitive integrity of the game but the competitive system literally does not work if people that are at the top of the ladder can play games at the bottom of the ladder and not get banned for it. They are literally circumventing the barriers put in place which stop high ranked players from playing in low ranked games and you think that’s the system working correctly?
You’re deluded. You truly don’t know what you’re talking about.
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