How should we deal with them in real life?
Let’s assume an old friend identifies himself as a Smurf.
Should we avoid or even despise these people in real life?
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BTW. I forgot to mention that I am using: “Cheating: Account boosting”.
Should we avoid or even despise these people in real life?
You have to decide that
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Well, I think it’s a bad character trait in general and it could reveal a lot about the person’s true personality.
are they good losers? can they handle a fair competition at all? could they be narcissists or sadists? do they need this feeling of power to feel better and more valuable? have they always been so unfair or malicious towards others or weaker ones? what problems could such markings pose for a friendship? could this person turn on me or my feelings, too?
there are also other things at stake in life than gaming: job, family, friends, relationships. a lot has to do with honesty, integrity, maturity, trustworthiness or fairness.
if a person has no scruples about getting an advantage in every possible way, can i rely on them? it might just be a game, but that’s why it would be all the more reprehensible here. because it’s actually not about anything important and they still try to take away the joy of others in order to feel better.
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No, the solution is to report them for Cheating, because that’s exactly what Smurfing is.
i’ve reported THOUSANDS account boosters/smurf accounts for years, jeff never cared comp only players, i heard he left blizzard
Just get better at the game and then the smurfs won’t be better than you.
Cheating can’t work because they don’t have software to help them aim, etc.
You should report them for gameplay sabotage because they throw games to get to low rank.
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Don’t bother. People have tried to correct it several times only to be met with “WeLl BliZzARd SeYS iT!!” (Even though all they have to go off is a vague statement that never mentions smurfing in itself and in fact different people from blizzard have said before that they have nothing against people owning multiple accounts, and only don’t want people to manipulate the matchmaker/ladder by throwing/boosting. Almost like they made the statement general so they could apply it to any manner of hack that could arise so someone couldn’t say “well you didn’t say this was illegal” if they used more specific language. An example would be if they just said no aim assists/bots or wall hacks but then someone made a hack that automatically used deflect perfectly to block ults. They’d have to be constantly updating the CoC in order to keep up with it if it wasn’t vague so they keep it vague. Are smurfs annoying and a problem? Absolutely. But are they cheating? No. They throw to stay low otherwise they aren’t actually smurfing and are just where they should be and that’s what they should be reported for/when they are found throwing. After all the only “false positives” you get by going after throwing is people who just throw without the intention to smurf and I don’t think people would miss them much.)
The reality is it doesn’t matter what they want to label it as as that isn’t the issue. The issue is how to address it without causing false positives or otherwise harming the average player’s experience. Arguing about what to call it is like letting a criminal walk away because you can’t decide what to specifically call the crime. Just pick one and deal with them individually on a case by case business. There will never be a general approach to solving any of the problems of smurfs, throwers, boosting, leavers vs disconnects, or even hackers and abusive chat that doesn’t either have next to no real impact, create a lot of false positives, or even just have legal/privacy issues that get in the way of enforcement. Anyone who thinks that some simple/general/automated system will make any real impact on these problems without being exploitable to the point of creating more/bigger problems or just cause problems of its own is just not thinking clearly. Yeah it’d be amazing, if not ideal for one or two simple fixes to solve everything wrong in this or any game (since a lot of the major issues facing OW are also major issues in any other game too) but it’s just not reality.
I wish we could reasonably expect an easy fix to create a better if not perfect experience but that’s not really possible. Yeah we can say “make a better anti-cheat” all we want or “just make a system that does this and problem will be better” but the reality is that it’s an arms race. A system may work initially but the people who it works against (hackers, smurfs, or even just toxic players) will eventually figure out a way around it, often sooner rather than later. Especially with anti-cheats, the system can find a new hack but maybe a week or two goes by and the hack has either been changed to get around it or replaced with another that isn’t detectable yet.
A lot of hardcore smurfs (not just someone who either plays on multiple platforms or has a spare account that they don’t throw on in order to stay low) will do it to either boost people or test hacks/bots so it isn’t entirely impossible to say that they could have a software of some kind working in their game (after all boosting someone is a lot easier if you never miss on your character, and the person you’re boosting doesn’t have to worry about being banned for hacking since they weren’t the one hacking).
absolutely. i would have a long talk with a friend if they said they were smurfing lol.
Cheating can’t work because they don’t have software to help them aim, etc.
Ok, How account boosting should be reported? Is it a kind of cheating?
Before I used cheating: “Using ranked system bug”. I think we can go in this way. If people of much higher rank are in low games seems like we have a bug in matchmaking system and they are using that
That’s not the only definition of cheating according to Blizzard.
Emphasis mine to highlight the relevant part.
Smurfing is 100% cheating as per Blizzard’s definition of same.
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But see, smurfing isn’t engaging in any activity that grants an unfair advantage.
If skills are an “unfair advantage”, then having a faster internet connection or a better computer should also be considered an “unfair advantage” and therefore a bannable offense.
You can’t win against them not because they have an unfair advantage over you but because they’re better than you. And there is nothing wrong with that.
Throwing games is undeniable and straight up against the rules.
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It absolutely, positively, inarguably is exactly that.
It’s not just about skill, though. It’s about using that skill against players who aren’t as skilled because you’re playing in a rank that’s below where you normally play because you’ve manipulated the system to allow you to do so.
Again, it’s not as simple a case of just being “better”.
They’re only “better” because they’re actually a higher rank and shouldn’t be playing in lower rank games. They’ve manipulated the system to give themselves an unfair advantage over players actually at those lower ranks.
Ehh… that’s bait.
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That’s correct. 
That being said, I was also trying to make a point.
Exactly. And that’s why we should report them for throwing.
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But, you didn’t make a point.
In fact, it sounds like you’re in favor of smurfing.
Let me explain.
We have system that has ranks. People from different ranks don’t play each other (we don’t have system all against all). We even have restriction that people in party with difference more than 1000/500 rank can’t play ranked. It was done to avoid situations when high ranks play against low ranks. And it is a part of matchmaking system to find as equal as possible matches.
Let take a look on two cases:
- We don’t have that restriction for groups. Dimond and bronze in group are going play competetive. In this case opponents will have diamond and bronze as well. And it will be almost equal situation.
- Our case. Dimond player gains Bronze account somehow. And start search. In this case we will have situation like 5 bronze and Dimond against 6 Bronze.
In the second case we can see that matchmaking system couldn’t balance the games because Dimond player hides his true rank. And it means that this is a bug of matchmaking feature. And they are using that bug. So it is a kind of cheating anyway.
And we have to report account boosters (it is more serious than game sabotauge) and we can use that ability to fight with smurfs (we can’t detect a smurf or a booster).
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we have a system that ranks players based on wins/loss not skill so people like me can troll hard AF, thx for posting stuff no one cares about
this must be your first competitive game in your life, try playing a real sport then come back, play some video games and then try posting when you understand how a competitive game should be played because this company doest care, you may care, but lol get trolled, see you soon 