Why aren't smurfs bannable?

General Discussion
1

I know you all probably hear this a lot. I don’t know the exact reasons why they aren’t bannable so please feel free to let me know why , or your thoughts on the matter. Here are mine.

Honestly though the amount of smurfs this season has risen greatly. I can’t even play a competitive match without having a smurf or the other team having a smurf. Here is the tea.

There are 2 types of smurfs:

The Tryhard - These smurfs try as if they are in their elo, either to win multiple games in a row because they are sad in life, or carry a platinum teammate, because they are in masters. These smurfs are the ones you want on your team.

The Carefree - These smurfs play either because their main account got banned, if they want to play Overwatch to meme around on a different account, or just to flat out troll.

I obviously always get the Carefree Smurf on my team, and even the Tryhard on the enemy team AT THE SAME TIME.

Now I’m not saying it’s always my/their smurfs fault for me winning/losing, I’m just saying, there is literally a report option called “Cheating” and in the description one part of it says “… or engaging in any activity that grants an unfair advantage.”

This game is filled with people who do this for pleasure, and would rather either carry their alienated elo teams, or tilt players on their own team.

I classify a smurf as someone less than level 100, or having something Overwatch related in their name, under a decent level, like 200.

It’s getting almost unbearable at this state, and it has definitely made people quit this game, and I might be next.

I find it SO dumb how they are just allowed to buy other accounts just to win, or troll. It’s literally because Blizzard need to make money and frankly doesn’t care about their community. The more smurfs, the more copies of Overwatch sold. The action of being able to ban smurfs, less people smurfing, which means less money people spend on this game.

I’m also not saying I wouldn’t report people on my team for smurfing either if they are the Tryhard. It still sucks to get destroyed by someone that shouldn’t be in your rank. And it’s purposeful too? EXTRA tilting and aggravating.

11 Likes
2

Context matters that’s why smurffing not bankable offense.

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3

Because they make them money but they should still be able to fix it by increasing the level from 25 to like 100 or at least 50 to stop smurfs and noobs to join in comp

4

Not really they don’t make money of console smurf’s.

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True, I definitely agree this would be a great way to at least slow down the numbers.

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6

Smurf is a useless term that is so diluted and means many different things to many different people.

It is unhelpful.

Deranking and boosting are bannable and people are banned for it regularly

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7

because how can you tell if someone is a smurf

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8

Well it’s quite obvious when someone named “INEEDHEALING” Level 34 Playing genji getting sextuple kills every 30 seconds is a smurf.

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but you have nothing solid

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10

Well, that’s when Blizzard needs to have the players in mind and actually look into these things. It’s hard to get banned for doing that I understand, but something like that scenario I just played out happens regularly and SHOULD be seen by the auto banner.

If there even is one.

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Even if he is a legitimate “Alt account”, then he is ranking up on said alt account as intended. The same way everyone else is, he has no option to tick “i want this account instantly in GM”.

Smurfing is a term made for and only means, players who actively seek out unfair fights on purpose. The players that invented the word, was two high ranked Warcraft players, that had no one to play with, so they made new accounts, called themselves “papasmurf” and “smurfette”. Acted like they were new and bad players to fight vs newer unsuspecting players to then completely destroy them, usually starting the game out by making loads of mistakes on purpose.

In OW this is not an option since, the only thing related to this, would be deranking and throwing, both punished with bans.

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Console is only a small portion but f the player base PC is the biggest

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Because it makes money for the company? Would you sell your golden goose?

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Auto Banners are extremely flawed at this time, this could potentially ban people popping off at one game or ban newer players for playing extremely well. Or the team that keeps getting sextupleted is just bad and the genji is getting away with it. If you really want to get rid of smurfs, switch to heroes that counter genji, go Brigitte and prevent Genji from getting close. Go Moria for the autolock, or get better at the game.

I had to deal with smurfs to get to diamond, and every game has smurfs. Simply banning them wont solve anything and will probably get actual accounts banned too. If you truly want smurfs banned, Jeff and his team could try CSGO’s version of Overwatch where the community looks at clips of people playing the game to see if they are cheating or griefing, I’d much rather have this, but for high ranked players.

Yes CSGO is extremely toxic, but their version of Overwatch has been working well considering the community usually has more time to watch clips about smurfing/cheating/griefing than the developers. Yes, it is flawed but a good counter would be 3 people would see the same clip, and if 2/3 decide if they’re smurfs or cheaters, the person gets a warning or a ban.

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Simplest answer is $$$$$.
Each smurf (I always wonder if it had a less cutsey name for it would it kerb it somewhat) has multiple paid accounts (PC, i don’t know how it works on console and frankly don’t care). As long as the cash rolls in they could care less. They say hey don’t see it as a problem even though players hate it and are vocal about it because the money coming in, in their opinion outweighs player concerns.

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As a friendly reminder Game Director Jeff Kaplan has clarified that there is nothing wrong with owning an alternate account, but boosting and throwing is not permitted:

Realistically I don’t see any productive ways of killing off alternate accounts.

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I’ve reported groups with “Looking to throw” in their name and have never gotten any response from Blizz about it, so I feel safe in saying that they could not care any less if they do it.

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Say Wyoming, what’s your opinion on Counter Strike’s Overwatch? Having the community deal with cheaters.

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Actually smurfing is a “bankable” offense :smiley: cause Blizzard be making Bank off them :smiley:

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20

My personal opinion? I am not too fond of it because players are not trained and practiced team members like that of Blizzard Game Masters (Customer Service Representatives). Blizzard also does not want to implement such a program as they foresee complicated legal issues involved.

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