The real question remains:
if i beat diamond smurfs and get to master, will i get smurfed by… GM smurfs ? 
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There is always someone like Beastyqt, who can bet u with smurf)
My favorite player Uthermal has some accounts for fun strats. Yes, he is smurfing and making videos for youtube. Fun to watch i must to say)
Thing is, I was one of the WORST players in sc2 at one point…I went from being terrible to being fairly good (not pro, just good…I don’t have time to practice enough to make pro).
If I can go from worker rushing every game to macroing better than some pros…you can too. It just takes efficiency and focusing on improvement.
Probably, lol but it’ll be rare.
As I like to put it: boys make excuses, men look for solutions.
I understand your rage Vulpes, however :
- There is nothing in the terms of service that forbids leaving a game that you haven’t lost. It’s true this cheats the MMR system, but as it does not directly affects your ingame performance, it’s not on the list of cheats Bli² forbids (such as maphacking, botting, drop-hacking and so on ).
- Get good is typically what a smurf will answer upon being discovered, the other possibilities sorted by probability being to ignore, to deny, to ask you if you’re crying, or straight insults/other forms of taunts. For your information, Vulpes, it might interest you to know that a long time ago, on another debate on the matter, DankTemplar admitted smurfing. Hence why you’ll find him trying to justify the phenomenon.
About the concrete effect of “getting good”, it could seem silly at first as only the very best player (Serral ?) could reach an MMR at which he could effectively prevent anyone freelose in order to troll him. However, there is a discrepancy in the proportions of smurfs among the different leagues. And so, by getting better, you could indeed reach leagues where there’ll be less freelosing smurfs.
A lot of solutions, some not that complicated to implement have already been suggested, including by myself. However, while I’ve been listened to several times by the devs regarding balance (via community feedbacks), there hasn’t been a single word of them on the smurfing phenomenon in years. Plus there is no dedicated team, no extra financial means in anything other than maintenance.
So having the devs implement a fix is highly unlikely. It just won’t happen. We have to deal with this ourselves. 
One cannot base himself on only his own experience to appreciate a phenomenon that applies on a fullscale gaming population. However, there are other means to appreciate those, such as randomized studies. You’ll find some on the part III-2 of this thread. They were done more than one year ago though ; but as far as I know, there hasn’t been other serious surveys on the phenomenon. 
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Is not a solution in anyway, cause all players deserve to use the service in the same efficiency. I can workaround (if I’ve time, and abilities), but nothing would be solved, all players since bronze to gm deserve the same service. I know you are completely aware and probably agree, so this is not a critic but a completion to your argument.
This is correct, but if you are a GM, or a Diamond and do it intentionally to being placed in a lower elo for earn easy victories this is malicious. I did not read the completely the sc2 terms of service, but I did a deep research some years ago for another business, and lol, rocket league, overwatch (they share the same page for the tos with sc2), dota 2, chess etc. have all a note about that (or for blizzard product an umbrella note). I desume starcraft 2 has in the same way.
Jeff Kaplan too specified that creating another account is not a violation, doing for gain easy victories, saboting placements is (and not only for ruining the placement matches for others). Since the terms of service are the same i desume is not regular also in sc2 (but both in sc2 and overwatch they don’t do, and don’t want do, aything against it).
Yeah, very obvious. What happens when they leave at 1:01? How about they idle until 2:00? Maybe they play the game into a won state and then surrender? Not so obvious. Blizzard will 100% never hire staff to moderate this game, so the task requires an automated system that cannot be abused, cannot make outcomes worse, cannot false flag, etc. Design such a system. Oh, and ‘ban anyone’ on a free to create infinite accounts game is basically just a free name change and an MMR reset to begin with.
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This is the way, I love trolling low leagues.
Yes, it’s very obvious, and you’re nitpicking. 1 minute… 2 minute… There is a time frame starting from 0 seconds to some theoretical time stamp (give or take) where it’s 100% obvious someone is quitting just for the sake of quitting. Also like I said - throws games. That’s plural - so it would have to happen multiple times in a row, say 5. So it’s not like they’re automatically going to get flagged if they have to quit a single game early for whatever reason.
IF this scenario happens to play out, then there’s no way to catch it on one premise alone. And personally, I would say at that point, just leave it. If a person is committed to throwing, say, 10 games in 10 minutes each, that’s 100 minutes of their day that they have to spend to drop their MMR.
What I am suggesting is a basic system that catches people from easily and blatantly farming smurf accounts in a matter of minutes. I am not suggesting a 100% solution - no game has that. But what I am suggesting will go a long way in significantly reducing the impact of smurfing on the ladder.
I feel like you’re going to hit me with some line like “oh your system doesn’t account for this very niche and specific condition? well then it doesn’t work at all and it’s bad.” I know there’s a logical fallacy for this. It’s so petty that I know you’re bringing up these stupid points just for the sake of being petty - you know full well this is a good solution. You just want to play devil’s advocate with all the “oh… but what if…” and act all smug about it. I really don’t want to play along if you have nothing meaningful to counteract with.
- Cannot be abused - yes, it cannot be abused. Why would you want to quit multiple games in a row within the “first minute” (quotes because you’re being petty about an arbitrary time stamp I chose on the spot to make a point)? Emphasis on multiple. So if you have an emergency, lost connection, or had to go to the bathroom? Whatever. It happens. Do it multiple times in a row? Get flagged. And before you mention something petty again like “ohh… but what if they spread it out over so and so hours/days,” I’m just going to tell you to stop right there and ask yourself this: are you bringing up something to be stupid for the sake of being stupid or do you have a genuine and valid point you want to raise?
- Cannot make outcomes worse - Yep. Only person this affects are people who want to throw multiple games to intentionally lower their MMR. Has no effect on the other player whatsoever. Next.
- Cannot false flag - Yep. Set a threshold for the number of games quit in a row in the “last minute.” And before you bring up something stupid like “ohh… but what if they do it once every 5 games,” I’m going to ask you to refer to the last question I raised on my first bullet point.
League of Legends is free. They have a system in place, very much like this, where if you’re doing (insert condition here), then your account gets flagged and gradually leads to a ban. It’s (almost) all automatic. It’s simple. It’s easy. It’s effective. It has no effect on anyone that is innocent. So, your argument is invalid.
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It does no such thing, just waste development time for a near zero effect and development time is not free even though this game is.
So you aren’t interested in solving the problem, just wasting an arbitrary but ‘adequate’ amount of someone’s time.
Your system doesn’t even account for very basic conditions and reflects your inability to think things through.
I’m not, it’s not. Very defensive and emotional poster.
pure projection
You would prefer an automated system that is abusable I take it. Funny response; are you being stupid just for the sake of it?
What argument? I asked for an actionable solution. You’re still just railing on the “ban them automagically cry” suggestion you made. Sorry your idea sucks!
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The new dota 2 “overwatch” system could be useful: expert and endorsed players becomes “semi-game master”, they can review some replays of a reported player and address him as guilty or not. Sadly in valve did not allow to review smurfing reports, but only throwing, cheating and other stuff. They implemented also phone authentication and increased the penalty for smurfing activity in any form (they did marketing about that new patch). I don’t play dota, but friends who still play said that now is better but far from being solved.
If they allow the endorsed “users-gamemasters” to review also the smurfs reports could be a good (or legit to try) solution, you would have enough hands to handle the plague. The real issue is smurfing means money and none really wants fight it.
The problem with that is Dota 2 is a team game, smurfs imbalance team games massively because regardless of your skill level and will to improve, you can’t say the same for your allies - and a smurf will capitalize off of this by smashing the weakest link on your team. Heroes of the Storm has this exact problem and it’s effectively killed the game’s ladder.
In a 1vs1 game like sc2 ladder, it’s all on you and your personal performance. There’s no team to drag you down or elevate you, the smurf is preying on your inexperience and mistakes. Is it fun? Not really, getting smacked down super hard is never fun but there are learning experiences to be derived from getting smashed and those lessons can elevate your play if your perceptive to the point where you’ll win vs smurfs.
That’s the thing that most of you don’t seem to understand: the way to deal with smurfs is to get good enough at the game where the smurfs lose. If you’re losing to smurfs consistently then 1) you probably suck in some major way and are confusing players who are simply better than you for smurfs or 2) you are one unlucky mother because there aren’t a lot of smurfs in sc2 to begin with.
It’s literally a problem that fixes itself due to how MMR brackets work.
And yes, I too lose to smurfs sometimes, difference is when I lose and they didn’t just cheese a win, I’ll watch the replay to see what I can learn. I don’t go onto the sc2 forums and whine about it, I focus on self improvement.
As I said: boys look for excuses, men look for solutions.
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You’re more than welcome to point out why I’m wrong rather than crying about how wrong I am without providing any reasoning behind your thoughts
It solves the problem by a great amount. Feel free to start listing reasons why I am wrong as you have yet to have done anything other than just point at things and say it’s wrong for the sake of saying so.
It’s a basic condition in itself. If you can’t understand how simple it is, maybe you should just give up on thinking, because clearly you lack the IQ for it.
It’s impossible for this to be projection. I’ve offered up a solution. You’ve only responded with a few pointless “what if” scenarios that add 0 substance to the discussion.
If you knew what projection would mean, you would have quoted the previous thing instead - being petty that is. Of course, you would still be wrong, but you would have been onto something, unlike everything else you’ve said so far.
Tell me how it can be abused? You haven’t raised a single point at all in this entire response. I’ll give you one more chance to do so.
LOL and I gave it to you! Sorry you’re too stupid to understand it? I really can’t phrase it nicer and simpler than that.
You still havent replied to my earlier suggestion, altough its more or less a bit like Collegewings.(but my was first lol )
Yes you can go around those rules, but it will take siginificant smurf time to, for example, throw each game at 2:05 mark, or create another account when this gets suspended.
And smurfs are in for the fun of bullying low ranks, I dont think they are the patient type. If they get to work hard enough to go around, many of them might just give up, or leave the game alltogether, which would be good for the community. And the remaining persistent ones will have less times to bully since they have to spend time on going around.
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Well, thankfully, not all of us want to be cowardly a-holes.
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I did read them once or twice long ago. There is nothing about freelosing games. And, now that you mention it, the report system is another clue about it. You can report :
- Abusive chat (insults, swearing and so on)
- Inappropriate account name (trolling, defamatory user name)
- spam (sending multiple invites, spamming personal chat in order to piss of someone without insulting. A popular strategy among toxic users already silenced by Bli²)
- Cheating, botting, hacking. Are considered cheats any tool that could improve your performance over regular users, including macros.
Behaviors that would degrade your own performance (such as freelosing) aren’t mentioned nor related to that list.
And furthermore, even if they were, since about two years ago reporting hackers ceased to induce reactions. I know one that occasionally gets around my MMR (hacking often coexists with other forms of toxicity), and he didn’t even change his pseudo.
In other words, smurfing isn’t a direct infraction to the ToS, and even if they were reporting those wouldn’t change anything. Back to our initial conclusion : we have to deal with it ourselves.
Indeed, I believe I wrote something like that multiple times. Ladder is supposed to be a place where the service matches you with players close to your level ; custom games are there for those who want to play besides difference in skill.
Anyway, this is a sad thing to say, but I am now extremely experimented in spotting smurfs. I have confirmed hundreds of them, to the point I could reasonably guess if some profiles were smurfs or not even before looking for the signature freeloses. I know how they think, how they conceal, how they react. Heck, I’ve even spotted some stupid enough not to know what they were doing. Add to that my surveys, and in a way I know more about smurfs than themselves do.
I’ve designed an algorithm inspired from that, which allows me to recognize a significant amount of smurfs in the very first seconds of a game. Similar than against hackers, unmasking them early provides you with a small advantage, as the smurfs do not know that you are aware of what they are, and that allows you to make different strategical choices. Yet, as I felt my fight against smurfs wasn’t interesting that many players, once I finished surveying the smurfs proportions, I kept the algorithm for myself. But if enough people ask for it, one day, I might formalize it and share it. 
But then, what are those who create problems ? 
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Is the same for Overwatch, you can’t report smurf there too (exactly same report voices), but “malicious smurfing is not allowed” (Jeff Kaplan).
In ToS and Eula you can find some umbrella voices, “degrading experience of any player in any way” or similar (atm can’t paste the whole text). I think what Kaplan said is one of them. In any case, it is Blizzard’s responsibility (Kaplan was speaking for Blizzard at the time of course) to brag about something other than the actual regulations.
I understand your point: not inserting specific rules opens the side to the community that may require a specific rule (as in lol, chess etc.), relying on umbrella regulations (blizzard tos are extremely skimpy, especially by virtue of the fact that there are no specific rules by title) and assisting with official announcements is more useful for a policy of “putting the dust under the carpet” without having to go against your own rules.
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Good. It will make you a better player.
Back in WoL I played a lot of pros on ranking up their alt accounts. Had a blast playing Idra, he got so angry he rage-quit. I played (horribly) in MLG Providence Open Bracket. It was a blast.
Quit yer whining.
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Well, thankfully, you have the condescending prick thing down. Learn how to play, then you can stop crying about your tiny wee on the forums. The game is 12 years old, there is no reason to be trash anymore, watch some youtube vids.