Smurfs Problem Ranked

Stop saying Smurfs don’t exist they do I play in Gold I am fine playing at my rank it’s just a game but every single game I get PM’s from Smurfs making fun of my gold border rank then showing me ss of their smurf ranks many diamond, one had 2 master smurfs and was on a 3rd. I asked why he doesn’t just playing his own rank and stop bothering me he laughed and says he doesn’t want to wait for a queue. So much for the grand sorting system that puts them in the correct rank.
You can spot them immediately every match on accounts under level 50 Genji/tracer/widow and there’s some really good actual silver and gold players that should be able to move up to at least the next rank tier but the games are filled with diamond and above smurfs.
I am sick of it, it is making the game toxic more so than it already is and these smurfs are going around harrassing every lower ranked player. THEY NEED TO BE BANNED at least be able to report the evidence they are deliberately playing at a lower rank.

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Blizzard do not give a f… about smurfs and your opinion, it is probably the problem with more topics here and until a year ago they do not even acknowledge it is a problem.

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Incorrect.

Early last year, before COVID and before the dev team went radio silent, Jeff acknowledged smurfing was a problem and said they’re working on a solution but not to expect anything until at least Overwatch 2, if not later, due to it being a complex problem to fix.

nah…will be overwatch 3 or 4, lol they do not give a s…
about it for 6 years and will not solve it like never

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Yeah noone cares about world hunger, not because it’s hard to fix but because everyone doesn’t give a damn.

Maybe an extreme example, though that something is hard to fix does not mean it’s being ignored.

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State of denial has been the case and those arguing for it not being a problem guaranteed is because they are offenders it’s worse that these smurfs stack usually with a higher ranked pocket support and sometimes a tank.
It means nobody knows if they are truely playing at the correct rank as the arrogant “you belong at your rank” shouters would have us believe I’m not saying a bronze will magically become a GM but maybe at least progress to silver if there isn’t plat+ alts/smurfs floating around the rank either throwing or try harding to skew the match.

If the amount of players I run into that show me they are diamond+ smurfs and some of the just mouthy ones are to be believed anything plat and below is half masters. Even worse on console the higher end players tend more to M+kB iv watched replays of the mouse flicks in kill cam.

As for Blizzard/Jeff I think the denial is in that they don’t want to admit their perfect performance base system is inherently flawed.

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I agree with smurfing beeing a big problem. But I just want to bring up one thing to consider: As the chance of having a smurf is given on both teams, it doesn’t hinder you to climb at all. And it’s not uncommon to beat smurfs, because after all it’s team effort that wins games and a smurf can’t make up for it at all times. Also it’s a lot smarter to think about your own plays than to get tilted because you loose a game to smurfs. Tilt and playing even when it’s not fun anymore is a bigger enemy for most people than smurfing enemies. You not giving 100% because you already gave up on a match and spam chat with insults is much more impactful when it comes to loosing that match.

And for me personally the one thing that annoys me the most is not an enemy beeing better than me, it is the toxicity in text chat and voice chat. There is not a single thing in the game that makes me more depressed than team mates spreading bad vibes all game long. Even to a point where I just turn it off completly even tho communicating is the key for teamplay. It’s just sad.

So please: If you encounter a smurf: Calm down, don’t spam chat and double your effort to still win, there is always a chance!

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Jeff has said smurfs are a problem though? Aren’t denying anything.

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I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The problem with smurfing is that it is lopsided. A high rank player can make a new account and “infiltrate” low rank games, dominating or throwing at their leisure to maintain a certain rank. But low-level players CANNOT “infiltrate” high level games by creating a new account. It’s garbage and it is 100% gameplay sabotage. If the ability for everyone to do this thing (smurfing) is not equal, then it is inherently unbalanced and the unfair advantage is essentially cheating.

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The reason why you cannot do that is because all “new accounts” are placed in Goldish kinda rank, hence why when you make a new account the System does not know whether you are completely new player, a Silver wanting to learn a new hero or an OWL player wanting to have your 10th account placed in T500.

As much as I personally disagree with it, and how much I dislike the fact that Gold has became a Miscellaneous pile where everything is put in it, but there is no way in hell that any kind of System no matter how good or bad would start new players in Master’s +. Only way to “infiltrate” high ranks as a low elo player is to actually buy a higher ranking account.

If you would choose to do that you would be banned sooner for gameplay sabotage than smurfs ever would or do when smurfing in low ranks. I do not even want to begin describing how unfair the System is in this regard. You will get punished sooner for playing on a bought account in higher ranks, since everyone will report you, including the enemy team, instant 23 reports right there, while when ppl smurf in low elos your team might report them, but the enemy will not, since they are so hungry for SR they will claw at every chance they can get to get free SR without actually putting any effort into their games.

Another thing I would like to point out is, the smurf issues has been plaguing this game since the beginning and still I have not even seen a single post about someone saying “I’ve learned from them”. If you are too tilted to refuse to learn how they do it, I do not understand how you cannot learn how not to do smth.

“I got killed by a smurf 3 times in a row while trying to through the same route I always do ever since I started playing this game”. How many more times do you have to die to them to learn that maybe you should change smth in your gameplay.

At this point Blizzard should just label low ranks as “endangered species” and let them run into tight corridors where the enemy Junk is spamming as much as they want and let them fight it out between themselves who is at fault for them loosing the game.

Afterwards maybe make a Docu with David Attenborough narrating “here we see a specimen of a Gold player running into a spamming Junk for the last 5 times, taking the same route over and over again and surprisingly dying. In the next scene we are going to see that same player raging at his teammates to do smth. A marvelous specimen that is. And in about 10 mins ladies and gents we are going to see a topic posted on OW forums how Jeff has put them on his black list, never to rank up”.

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The problem here is that even if you are individually good enough to deal with the smurf, it doesn’t mean your teammates are. If your teammates are inept, the smurf can just farm off of them. So maybe YOU can learn, and call shots and try and direct your team, but they may not listen or may not understand, etc. It’s not just a matter of the other person being so much better, but also your teammates being so much worse in any given match.

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I wonder what kind of solution they will come up with.
The way I see it, one good way of severely reducing the number of new smurf accounts is to require people to register and confirm their phone number to the account, and of course only allow one account per phone number.

The phone number would also have to be registered in the same country as the payment method that was used to purchase the game license, to prevent people from using accounts from other regions. There would also be a requirement to re-confirm the phone number with an SMS code monthly or something like that.

With this system in place, if someone wanted to smurf, they would have to not only buy a new Overwatch license every time, but also a new phone number. This system would also prevent account trading because if you wanted to buy an account from someone, you would also need to buy their phone number, to be able to verify your account monthly.

But I don’t ever expect Blizzard to introduce such a restrictive system like the one I presented here, no matter how effective it would be.

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The problem of its fair because both teams have a chance of rolling the smurfs is I don’t want them in my games if they aren’t meant to be at my skill level. It’s like going to play club level sport and having them put pros in your league how cheated you gonna feel not only that but the federation allows it every season until you just give up playing.
It breeds toxicity. Not only that but my original post these smurfs full on bully/harass low rank players not just in gameplay but in chat and pm, because they are on some sort of high horse delusion about their own grandure.

I have played with enough plat rank games and seen them pull the same stupid crap some of the silver/bronze do like a Reign that runs full head on into spam without the team or some that still don’t understand no shield no heals because support just got sniped or dive tank that doesn’t dive, ball and zen… Ball and zen… Hog and DVA… And they will be in chat ripping at everyone else for why it’s going south, target priority? What’s that? They use the rank to justify poor behaviour and breed toxicity.

It wouldn’t be effective. I have: a cell, work numbers (easily 3 i could use), parents home number, grandparents home number, etc. Easily I could sustain six even under such s system. SMS is easy to bypass. It is not some panacea despite folks touting it as such.

I have only this account but am illustrating such a system would have minimal to no effect.

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It certainly gives toxic people another reason to say something toxic. But it’s not causing toxicity.

ppl think the challenge is to block smurfs, lol this is way simpler at least they could do small incremental things to make smurf hard, but they will not because it is a source of queue time and money, do do not give a f… about lower ranks get rolled by smurf. The complexity is not in rly bad customer experience of lower ranks getting rolled out. The complexity is not lose relevance, top tier player and the stream of money. The lower rank player are cattle for them.

Congratulations mr. griefer, have some bad news for you, there is no such a term “my rank” there is ladder for climbing through ranks, and if you are hardstcuk it is your problem, not smurf’s. Willing just to sit there at “my rank” caused matchmaking punishment via smurfs.

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In other words: If someone wants to get better and puts in effort to do so, he’d need to throw to not rank up.

no other words. Direct meaning, exactly what I’ve said! No other way. Don’t overthink it, that’s my job © KringeJoy from valorant.

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Lol the account booster trying to teach lessons, go back to you filthy world