I just saw this clip on Reddit. The dev says that smurfing is against ToS towards the end. People who claimed that smurfing is not against the rules were wrong afterall, but Blizzard should’ve been more clearer from the start that smurfing is a bannable offense.
If they are serious about smurfing then they should clearly state in the next Defense Martix article that smurfing is against Terms of Service, and they should start cracking down on it as well.
keep in mind that hes not an authority on ToS, he is one of the guys behind the ranked mode and matchmaker
if smurfing was actually against ToS they’d ban the streamers
if i had to guess why he says that its because the “gm4 account” is intentionally keeping their rank lower then where it belongs, which has always been against tos forever because that requires throwing.
this also counts as boosting which has been against ToS for equally as forever
I will say that I do think this sort of extreme smurfing should be against the rules, but this clip doesn’t say that.
The thing they’re talking about is manipulating the match maker by
Making groups of the maximum SR range but the lower end player is on a smurf.
The game thinks it’s a high level and a low level player matching together and places them middle of the pack, when really it’s two high end players so they have an easier game.
After a while they swap whose on a low end account, boosting their main accounts with easy games
Then either selling the lower account or throwing games to bring it back down to use later.
This isn’t necessarily the same thing as just using a smurf account, it’s doing it specifically to manipulate the matchmaker that’s against the rules. A GM1 having a GM5 account is not by itself a TOS violation.
Though by this logic it should ban most normal smurfs as well. The reason this manipulation is against the TOS is because it makes the matchmaker think the players are less skilled than they are… which is what normal smurf accounts do. A long time ago there were valid reason for smurf accounts but that’s been hasn’t been the case ever since role queue.
The other part of the problem is that this is really hard to enforce. The manipulation is pretty easy to see. A lot of high rank players within a region know each other so they can spot it when it’s happening, and seeing two accounts log off, then re-log on different accounts from the same IP and machine IDs and immediately re-queue together is a dead giveaway. You can’t do this with normal low rank smurfs because whose to say someone isn’t just logging off and letting their lower rank sibling play.
Just report and let the algo do its thing. They won’t listen cause smurfing is only a problem from bronze - gold. Most Smurfs can’t solo any higher. I use to eat duo Smurfs for breakfast in ranked. They rely heavily on new players.
Who cares if it’s ToS or not, the report system is all automated, you don’t like how somebody is playing / smurfing? Report them for everything you can
They did say this in one of their blog posts last year, along with one where they said the same about using XIM, for example. Still do nothing about it, though. And they just made smurfing easier because new accounts don’t get boosted as quickly by high win rate patterns.
He can say whatever, until there would be anything that can actually tell how do you play, which is impossible, considering we have human psychology, terms: win/lose streaks, pop-off and so on. Moreover, this game is designed for smurfing, so they ToS themselves with that. What’s the point to play in the highest rank if you already are?
Just report Smurfs. The community ultimately makes the rules not the devs. If we think something is bad just go against it. If they makes rules that are bad we ultimately can just leave and all of a sudden the rules don’t matter since no one is there to follow them.
That’s right, provide more smurf accounts just like that Smurfs are the part of community, don’t forget that, and they have more brains to withstand any of these issues.
With other studios starting to acknowledge they are an issue they will be forced to make a decision soon. Also Microsoft would be wise to root out problem players in order to build a more positive community that allows for people to actually play the game and not be stomped in the name of a small group of people’s fun.
Smurfs are the part of community, don’t forget that, and they have more brains to withstand any of these issues.