Quick play MMR and Competitive Play MMR is separate, the games played before reaching level 25 should have no influence. More details here:
Besides whether it is throwing in quick play or throwing in competitive both are violating the Code of Conduct and both should be reported of you see it.
Cheating would imply that one is breaking the rules to win.
None of that is happening. You just can’t stand being bested by a player who is better than you.
On a sidenote, i care very little about what others on here think of me.
They obviously don’t work though.
I know they PLANNED to have such systems in place, but it is super obvious they never implemented them.
Or every Bronze to GM run would eventually be caught, and they are not.
From my perspective, deliberate Bronze to GM runs are never really seen in today’s day and age, unranked to GM yes, but not throwing to get as low as possible first. That behavior stopped around season 3.
And they do have system actively in place and continuing to build more. Most of it is behind the scenes because they don’t want people to game any systems in place. However, as long as you are reporting anyone throwing, then you are helping Blizzard.
Maybe. Maybe not. Not that I am going to call anyone out on it, because that would be against TOS, but I am sure it happens still.
Myself, I think that roleQ and the DPS queue times did more to stop bronze to GM runs than any other system they have put in.
I believe that player did get actioned, though I cannot confirm that obviously.
Maybe they did, but they did get to GM first, and a background system would have spotted that rather than the large number of people mentioning it to Blizzard.
Tomorrow they could create a new account and do it all again, and if they didn’t broadcast it, I would be HIGHLY surprised if it would be punished.
Like, I get that they WERE working on machine learning back in the day, but that was before the layoffs.
They were more than willing to talk about it, and then, just silence. The kind of silence which dead projects have. Nothing about using machine learning to detect anomalies at dev conferences, just nothing.
Like, IF they had a working system, they would be shouting it from the rooftops. Not the details OF the system, but sure as hell they would be talking about the people they banned.
Their silence speaks pretty loudly.
Wyoming don’t you get tired having to debunk this every single time?
I will continue to post what public developer posts and resources I have to help shape a positive discussion. I will also share my own opinions. Like all of you I want a fair and balanced game, however, I really work hard in researching my own games to figure out if there is a legitimate issue of players systematically throwing and boosting accounts. I don’t see the evidence consistently enough to believe the perception of “smurfing” is an epidemic issue for the community. Like the video shared above, yes someone did attempt to throw and boost and if possible I will dig into it to see what may or may not have happened, but that is just one person. I browse through the Twitch results and I do see videos, but only from a handful of users. Should those players be punished? Yes. Is there enough to create a complete collapse of the matchmaking system for the entire community? I don’t think so.
Granted, I am just a player like all of you, and from my personal experience as a hard stuck gold/plat brat. I rarely see any behavior to me that suggests the throwing/boosting behavior. This is my own opinion and you are all welcome to disagree with me, because it continues the discussion. The discussions on these forums really are seen by Blizzard and that helps them make decisions to move the game in ways that make it better. Role queue is such an example (which in the early days I was skeptical of that being a good idea).
They’re manipulating an integral part of the matchmaking system to get easier games. That’s cheating.
No freaking shiz dude. You should never be placed against someone that is significantly better than you, BECAUSE IT’S A COMPETITIVE GAME. Getting gutter stomped game after game is only going to teach you so much.
They’re also ruining the game for a hell of a lot of people. It’s all good and well for you to have your opinion on the matter, but playing it down like it’s nothing is just disingenuous as hell.
And I 100 percent agree with you. As for me personally, I do not support boosting whatsoever but I understand where it can come from. Usually people who are good at the game won’t say no to an offering of making ez money for playing the game they love. Even safran boosted back in 2016 for the same reasons. For them it’s not seen as wrong or good but as a buiseness. I do not believe the the booster is the one in the wrong because he’s basically ranking up without throwing, but the person buying a boosted account because he will ruin many high ranked games for simply being too trash to play at that elo. You are free to disagree with me tho
“Smurfing – and I know this isn’t what you want to hear – isn’t really that big of an issue.”
Well that was before they gave away, what, 50k copies of the game for free?
They removed the ability to see that, back when I was a bronzie.
We USED to be able to see the highest rank someone had in the season, since it was their icon.
At end of season, the lower ranks would FLOOD with plat+ players, to the point where you had a couple in every game. I played 4+ hours a nice, all week, and recorded each set of people in the game.
When I posted it, with the icons, I was firstly told that it was against TOS to do so (which it was, to be fair), and they removed the icons showing the highest rank someone got in the season.
I am pretty sure, if you altered the badges so people could see it, you would see people posting a week of games badges, and you would get a pretty clear view of the problem or lack of.
RoleQ DID remove a good deal of it, since who was going to wait that long to stomp newbies?
But, I haven’t seen anything else which seems to do say the problem is gone. I’m not in the low ranks, but I help plenty of players who are, and I see their games.
What I am SURE of, is there is no background system watching for this kind of behavior.
I’ll try a different approach.
There is a widely held perception of smurfing damaging the game, and you would think the developers would be keen to get on top of that as well.
ESPECIALLY with OW2 about to come out.
If people don’t believe they are getting fair games, they won’t retain the new players.
I would note, direct account selling/trading is a violation of the EULA and the Blizzard Global Insights team does a lot of investigation into this to find organized and unorganized practices of the behavior. Of course if anyone else sees any website, listing or offer, that can be sent to hacks@blizzard.com.
It is against obviously, but I personally do not see it as a mortally wrong thing. But if course this is entirely subjective, and if blizzard says they do not tolerate it, well it’s their game, so we have to abide by those rules
RobotWizard, what you refer to was the rule change that made it so that players no longer retain their tier for Silver to Diamond for when they reached that tier. They did remove it in season 6 because it caused a lot of toxicity issues in the game. That being said, let me share with you something, here is my season 2 profile…
…As you can see I got to platinum and one of my highest ranks ever. Also, I had a nightmare season in terms of technical issues, my computers (yes both of them) were constantly crashing Overwatch for some reason and it took weeks to solve. I nearly got season banned for it! (In the long run, it was those crashing incidents that started my journey to becoming an MVP) So all things considered, this something of an achievement. Now here is season 3:
I ended in Bronze… WTF right? Well the simple truth is, the meta game was changing, heroes like Mei and Tracer were not working for me and everyone was learning to get better. I even went on a massively tilted one-night 20-game losing streak, and back then there was the streak multiplier effect which compounded the issue, I think the lowest rank I got was ~1,200ish (don’t exactly remember). I took two weeks off and with a few days remaining, I started working on a new strategy to climb out of that hole. Here is season 4…
…Operation Raining Justice begins! That is right, I obsessively played Pharah, who I took time to learn how to play. I did this because I did research into learning how players behave in Overwatch, one key thing to note is that players really don’t know how to look up at lower ranks… they really don’t! It was a grind, but it was worth it. This season has my best game of Overwatch to date with 93 eliminations! I got back into Platinum. Now here is season 5…
…Not so good, but not disastrous. Probably because I was trying to be a team player and play the healer role where applicable. I am not going to lie, I am very confident in the damage role, but even to this day, my healer and tank are still pretty bad. Thankfully for role queue, I can now play those roles and improve those skills independently.
The point I want to get at is that I am proof that not everyone who reaches a certain rank stays at that rank and can fall in skill rating, if they are not staying up to date with the game. I think a lot of you think once you reach a certain level you are suppose to stay there. This is not true of any game or sport. This is one reason why I think the perception of smurfing is a bit exaggerated.
I know they did, but, like, it also meant that people couldn’t prove the issues they were having any more.
And that kinda sucked, because then you would get people saying it isn’t that bad, when before you could easily prove how bad it had gotten.
I have never been so happy to see someone have computer trouble 
- it is good having you as an MVP.
I decided one day that I would make a good widow main.
I did not make a good widow main, so I know exactly what that is like 
I agree. I went from a bronzie to playing in the trials. Then, basically burning out and dropping a fair bit. Yeah, people move around, and they can move quite a lot if they suddenly push 30+ hours a week, and have Jayne as a coach. Even the worst player will suddenly do really well.
I think it is better than it used to be, but, I don’t think it is exaggerated.
What percent of people in plat do you think throw down to trash the newbies?
Not many right?
But, Plat is a lot bigger than Bronze. So, it doesn’t take many to flood the place.
People who have had their games wrecked tend to leave for the evening, and like… out in the OCE, when Gabe starts a game, and the queue is like, super long, you know it is going to be all kinds of dreadful, because the population has dropped for a reason that evening. A 6 stack has thrown down, and in a small population server, like when they split up, they are going to be in all of the games.
So, Gabe would have a game, and he would leave for the night because this is going to be the night on there, and well… there you have it, an evening of Overwatch gone for the kid.
And, that isn’t the new player experience people should have.
Maybe it is difference on US east, where you don’t have the server flooded out, but out here in the OCE, it ends the game.
LFG died here, LONG before it died anywhere else. Unlimited is dead, you are not going to get games of that, because, again, once the population drops enough, no one is going to queue to risk just sitting there for 20 minutes to find out they are the only one queueing.
Junkenstein etc, they have to be played in the first week, because after that, unless you stack, there is no game for you - because population.
So the people here get REALLY good at knowing who the smurfs are. You could list them
But, that also lead to people feeling hopeless, because, well, there were there, week after week after week. People would ask in chat “is this a throwing or stomping game?”
It is ok for Blizzard to say there isn’t a problem, but, like, we are fighting to keep our servers, we NEED the new players, and we need to keep them.
Having people quit over smurfing is a luxury we don’t have. So yeah, I care about it, and maybe I seem to care a lot about it.
But it is because I love the game, and want to be able to keep playing it, and there have been times I have really had to wonder if we were going to make it here.
OW2 is a chance to revitalize the servers here.
But like, we gotta keep these players.
Yea smurfing is reportable.
By manipulating your mmr you destroy the balance of matchmaking. That deserves a report.
Hers the short version, feel free to get mad:
1: smurfing IS NOT REPORTABLE
2: THRoWING GAMES IS, which is what they need to do to to place low
3: just because someone is better than you doesn’t make them a smurf
4: Alt accounts and smurfs are different, smurfs are a lower sr, eg multiple ranks below, whereas alts are around the same area that the player uses to practice (LEARN THE DIFFERENCE)
5: people overuse and overreact to smurfs, everyone just seems to point fingers
6: if the player is CHEATING, (walling/aimbot) it is reportable
honestly this whole thing is crazy
Not sure who you’re referring to, but I never said it was.
Why is this always used as an excuse when it’s obvious who is a smurf and who is just playing really well? Even GMs get smurfs.
Pretty sure everyone knows the difference.
