I know there are plenty of these types of posts on the forums, but absolutely nothing is being done against smurfs and now Competitive Mode isn’t one in which you can reasonably climb in anymore. Every match is a gamble where GM’s, Masters, Diamonds, and Platinum skilled players are matched in Silver and below and ruin all semblance of an even playing field.
Let’s be frank, the reporting system is so slow and doesn’t correct this type of behavior. These smurf accounts are throwaway accounts where they don’t just stomp on lesser skilled players, but they also don’t mind being incredibly toxic or outright throw if their team members tick them off. I just had a match with a player with a Korean name who said he wasn’t going to shoot anymore or do anything until the team adhered to his micromanagement, and he had a bronze border account and filled up the kill feed with McCree earlier in the match.
They can get suspended for a day, but this is a throwaway account, so they don’t care. They may even come back and throw some more for being suspended out of spite. If a GM player has deliberately thrown their matches to trick the system into putting them in Bronze in an alt account, it needs to be closed permanently. How can anyone justify the amount of matches that are ruined because of just this one single person? Aren’t the developers bothered if they play in the lower ranks in comp and come across players that are way more skilled than where they should be? And if this player isn’t a smurf and is just a really good new player, shouldn’t the system be adjusted so that these players are moved out of their rank quicker?
I just don’t believe members of the Overwatch Team are playing comp and think smurfing is fine. These players throw matches, they deliberately leave matches so the system knocks their SR lower to keep dropping in rank, and then they spawn camp Silver/Bronze Mercy players and teabag their dead bodies. And how many ruined matches does it take for these players to receive a penalty? And how long is this penalty? Just one day? For a player that has no intent in following the Code of Conduct? THAT is expected to correct their toxic behavior? So when they ruin more matches and get enough reports again, then what happens? A two day suspension? Yeah, like they’re going to change their behavior going from a one day suspension to a two day suspension.
This is just unreal. The report system isn’t cracking down on disruptive players (it’s also punishing innocent players over hero choice for example) and higher ranked players on alt accounts or doing Bronze to GM challenges aren’t being moved out fast enough. Can’t the team just permaban players from comp only if it’s determined players are using the account to disrupt comp matches exclusively?
Members of the Overwatch team play their game in a closed session to test changes, and that’s probably the extent of it. Their Payroll and Accounting departments check their budget and funds and then make recommendations up the chain of command, and then we get $10 Overwatch discount accounts from Humble Bundle.
It has to be clear by now, Big Daddy Jeff isn’t interested in fixing smurf accounts because they fund his game. In fact, it wouldn’t matter if anyone actually played the game, as long as people kept buying more accounts. Playing the game is entirely incidental at that point. I’ve given up trying to climb in competitive. My new “End Game” goal is to simply achieve my 5th diamond portrait star. That’s my “I Beat Overwatch”. Not a whole lot much else I can do with the septic tank games that come my way. Complaining doesn’t work, trying harder just gets me frustrated… Only thing I can do is level up, max out my portrait and uninstall. Because F*** this game.
I want to begin by saying that I agree with you. Competitive mode’s integrity is non-existent for the reasons you mentioned. BUT…let that realization free you, don’t let it drag you down.
OW is flooded with smurf and alt accounts, and nothing will ever be done about it. Work on your own game and manage your expectations accordingly.
Some people are terrible, but know that their desire to smurf, bully, grief, troll, and throw is because their real life sucks.
Don’t let the miserable people in the world bring you down. If you don’t find OW fun, take a break from it.
I told someone else on these forums something similar, and the topic was about the game’s taxation on mental health. I may just play for arcade lootboxes for a while, then jump on the Super Mario 64 PC port.
Life’s too short to be chasing after gold weapons in Overwatch…
A few months ago Jeff admitted smurfing is a problem and said they’re working on a solution but that it’s not an easy fix because they have to factor in how account creation works on consoles.
If you’ve stagnated at your rank, then two things are important to keep in mind:
you’re going to stay there, and you’re going to lose half of your games.
If you get an obvoius smurf on the enemy team, start screwing around on torb or somethin. have some fun, go for stupid flanks, make jokes, get your team to BM their smurf, gg go next. You can’t win all of your games.
You admitted to smurfing on a different thread. You are part of the problem and thus, your advice is useless. I personally think smurfing is a selfish move by people with very low self esteem. Can’t switch to Pharah when things seem hopeless in real life though. That’s gotta sting.
Yeah I’m kinda hesitant to believe Jeff on this one after his promise long ago that they were looking into a way to detect keyboard & mouse on consoles. Still waiting for an update on that…
It’s outdated at this point. There’s a more recent video that is from a discord conversation he had with content creators where the topic also came up. Basically said they have no problem with people having extra accounts but they hate when people manipulate the matchmaker and sr.
Yeah, last night, I played around 15 matches, and I think there were smurfs in all of them but 3. Those 3 matches actually had more high level players than I’d ever seen in single matches, which was good. But all of the other 12 matches were filled with players between level 33 and 350. At least 4 of the matches had genji smurf on each team. So every fight was decided by which genji is better. Genji, Mccree and Roadhog are the 3 heroes I saw smurfing the most, last night.
Well, smurfs comes with every FPS, that’s an unavoidable ‘‘package deal’’.
What can make it frustrating is that a smurf can’t be detected until we meet one, we can live with this reality or find a solution or stop competition.
I really don’t know which option would be best
It’s beyond me why you expect that you can gradually climb like you are switching from normal to hard difficulty like in some adventure game. How do you gradually climb against naturally better performing players than yourself?
