So please explain something to me. Why are higher, more skilled players allowed to make alt accounts to “practice” in competitive mode against lower rank players? Why can’t they just stay in their own SR rank and practice against players of their rank? Why even have an SR and MMR system if this is allowed?
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Agreed.
You should only be able to play competitive on one account.
If you want to “practice”, there’s the training room, custom games, and Quick Play.
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Completely agreed, it ruins the whole roots of what comp should be of players in the same skill brackets playing together. Even if they’re not great at a hero the game sense they have can make them far outshine those if they’re in a much higher tier.
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My guess is because Blizzard makes money off people buying additional accounts.
Why shouldnt’ they sell it? They are a business after all.
I do agree that it is a problem, but I understand why Blizzard allows it.
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“why have sr and mmr system if this is allowed” …what?
i…
what?
Sr and mmr, more specifically PBSR, are literally in place in lower ranks to COMBAT such activity.
there’s 0 way a matchmaker can tell for sure if someone is a smurf, don’t pretend there is. and if someone makes an alt account to play against lower ranks, either
A) They play worse than their actual skill level (still trying to win of course) and maintain that rank, meaning they aren’t accomplishing anything special and aren’t affecting anyone in any specia way either
B) They play WILDLY worse so they can keep deranking, in which case theyll just get reported and banned for throwing games
C) They play as good as they actually are, and PBSR hoists them up to their own real rank fairly quickly.
there’s no solution to this issue, a maxhine cannot tell who is a smurf, and humans cam easily lie to other humans. This is the literal BEST way possible to combat smurfs, and you’re upset about it?
25 Likes
See this last weeks post with reasons stats problems and sources / you will see that the problem you noted is far more complex and dangerus
TILE
Increasing FREE ALT accounts Endanger: COMP, MMR, SR ,BLIZZ PROFITS , LOOT BOX SALES , NEWCOMERS. We are STILL A SMALL COMMUNITY
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They don’t on console.
Accounts are free to make on Xbox and PS4 and you can have as many as you like without needing to buy extra copies of the game.
That’s why smurfs are in plague-like numbers on console.
Blizzard need to make consoles like PC - if you want to play on another account, buy another copy of the game.
That wouldn’t get rid of all smurfs, but it would get rid of the vast majority of troll/thrower/toxic smurfs.
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The above post i mentioned for all to see is Especially for console were more than 50% of acc are alt acc if you accept the figures pressented 50% of all OW players must be alt accounts
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So practice at your own sr? People have different levels of skill on different roles would you like a support main in your comp game to say im practicing dps and get 2 kills the whole game no. Smurfs can be used for practice and thats fine the problem is people who smurf to troll or derank not normal smurfs.
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A) Maybe they play worse, but heh, they can switch when it goes south and they warp the game for all the other players (11). There are so many smurfs, that the game warping is real.
B) Hum… match warping again?
C) No. Because you rank up by SR. And getting 1000 SR is gonna take a while still. And warping games around them again…
What I mean by warping games : discouraging people to try to carry and tryhard at their correct ELO because a master with already better gamesense is there, thus disallowing them to improve (because only tryharding can make you a better player, where you influence the game the most, taking risks to know how to manage them better).
And your D) about impossible to check. Well give a phone check by account, unique. Solved for a big part. Humans lie, but hey they still need phones.
Smurfing should be quickplay obviously or arcade or custom games. Not other people competitive games lol. It is so selfish by definition, if you don’t see that, well this is sad.
Federer at your local tennis competition, but heh he is only trying to do right hand winpoints to “improve”. Fair smurfing?
7 Likes
Gotta love your exaggeration a normal smurf would be maybe a rank lower for example a diamond tank like myself may be a plat dps so there is nothing wrong with a smurf at that rank with that role. Your example in game would be the equivalent of a top 500 vs a silver when in reality it would be someone a few hundred sr higher playing a different role. Use a better example don’t exaggerate to make a invalid point 
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Why? If a point is right then it can be generalized and remain true (Kant).
Even if it is a “small” effect, it is still unfair, interfering with fair players not smurfing is warping the games. Effects add up by the way, there are lots of smurfs so lots of warping, even if they are individually small, it creates a big mess right now.
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Smurfing has become a real big issue in high silver. There is no way to justify how in the 17-1800 range you literally go from widows that cant hit anything at all to headshot headshot headshot headshot. Dont give me that crap they got the hot hand.
I understand the whole ladder has gotten a lot better and it has without a doubt. But Mid silver hasnt gotten THAT good. YOu can easily tell a difference between a normal run of the mill hit scanner such as mcree vs a higher elo one.
1700 mcrees dont get 30+ crit headshots after a say 6 minute stomp match. This game has gone on sale so much as of late it’s no wonder it’s become an issue.
Only way to really fight this going forward is to raise the comp level requirement to say 50.
They also need to red flag accounts that lose an abundant amount of SR. If you lose say 800 SR it needs to be red flagged cause frankly outside of the most bizarre circumstances that crap is deliberate.
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A machine should be able to tell who is a smurf. If I can spot smurfs in my games with a grade 10 education. Then a machine with the technology we have today should be able to figure out who is a smurf
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No, it’s really not.
Even when not playing their main, a master player on a platinum smurf still has master level experience and game knowledge/sense which affords them an unfair advantage (which is cheating per the reporting system).
When I play in platinum, I expect that the people I’m playing with and against are around the same level as me, not several tiers higher but playing on a lower ranked smurf.
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I say make it 100 at least.
Either that or have it so that you can only have one account in competitive. Your other smurf accounts can then only play arcade.
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Because I do stay in my SR rank and practice against players of my own rank, I simply use this account to practice heros I prefer not to use on my main.
Will higher rank people abuse the system and pub stomp lower ranked players? Yeah, can’t really do anything about it though.
Link to phone. Buying a smurf account with a phone number should be high enough to stop the spread. Bliz can do something against it, like many other game companies already did.
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Funny. I have an alt account and it is higher then my main. Its a one-trick account that I play for placements every season on my favorite hero to give me an ego boost because it is ranked almost 1000sr higher.
Sometimes it feels good to know that the SR system is janked up and there is no reason to worry about it.
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