Smurfs are killing this game. I think we can do something

General Discussion
1

Spicy title? It’s a spicy topic.

Blizzard could pretty easily set up an automated system to filter out many of the smurfs, but lets be frank here. They don’t care. All Blizzard cares about now a days is money, but, I think we can work within that limitation and possibly make a change.

Blizzard may be at the EOL for development but they still have GM’s who go through customer service reports and tickets. Blizzard has told me several times through the website support ticket system that they will not comment on their policy on smurfs, but I’ve tracked some of them and they often have very old accounts as well as new ones. They cycle through their accounts.

How do we bring our fight to Blizzard? Through the in game reporting system. CS time is money to Blizzard. Blizzard doesn’t want to waste money, as that’s less money earned.

The GM’s through the website ticket system told me I should report smurfs through that system, and I’m asking everyone to start doing it.

I wouldn’t even use the word smurf in the report. I would just describe it as people purposely losing games to lower their rank, and other such variations, along with some that outright use the word smurf. Why? Because they can use an automated system to filter some tickets out (AKA, delete) by a keyword like “smurf.” I report under the cheating/botting/hacking option, and I’ve never received any complaints about my reporting.

I’m not suggesting people spam reports for games that aren’t likely smurfs, only games that truly seem to be smurfs. There are still enough people who play and hate smurfs to make a difference. The issue is that Blizzard has convinced the community that they can’t do anything about it.

I say we should try. We have absolutely nothing to lose.

How do you find out if they’re a likely smurf? That’s pretty easy. You look at their game history after a match if you suspect they may be a smurf. If you see several dropped games as losses, especially if they have 3 or more losses in a row in games that are instantly dropped. One thing to watch out for though is for people who simply refuse to play a certain race. Usually it’s mirror match-ups. Other then that, several dropped games is probably a smurf.

Report them. Smurfs waste our time. If Blizzard truly thinks that they don’t need to care about our time, then we are under no obligation to care about theirs. Their CS team will get bogged down. This will cost them time, money, and generate angry customers. You know, kind of like how we feel…

Communities have pulled together to make changes happen in games in the past. All it takes is a focused effort to force a company to care about the trouble it’s now causing them, instead of it just being a case of it troubling us.

Spread this to forums. Spread this to Discord servers. We’re already having our time disrespected. What’s a few more seconds?

If Blizzard deletes this post, it’s just more proof that they don’t want my suggestion to happen. Lets take the fight to them for a change!

2

Wake up, dude. Nobody gives a hoot about StarCraft 2. Their StarCraft team’s got like one guy on it. How’s such a huge company not find a squad to run the show for StarCraft? :upside_down_face:

3

I wish there were as many smurfs as this kind of topic make you feel.
That way I could just launch games and wait for the opponent to leave, and I could get wins to unlock the stuff locked behind this kind of scoring.
The issue is that unless there are REALLY enough smurfs, I would appear as a smurf myself for quitting when I realize the other party is not quitting.

That’s why I don’t even try to play so far (besides, 2000 victories needed and other things of that scale? That just is depressingly high)

4

You can’t kill something that’s fully dead, and SC2 certainly is, due to bad balance.

5

Smurfs are the reason why ladder is dead. SC2 as a whole maybe is not dead…yet, but ladder definitely is. Population is plummeting down with every month.

However there is one small problem due to reason above: SC2 population is so small now that most of your opponents aren’t really smurfs but simply what’s left of ladder community. It gives false impression of playing against smurfs but reality is most of plat/diamond players left the game and if you are diamond yourself you’ll be mostly playing against ex dia -1 or M3/M2 opponents simply because there is not enough players.

6

I check number of games that a person leaves, especially in a row, before I look as them as a possible smurf.

Unironically, it’s worse when the kids get out of school. /shock /s

Also, ex Masters players generally aren’t hanging around in Silver and Gold leagues…

2 Likes
7

First, I’m not talking about their poor unpaid intern. I’m talking about the burden on their customer service team. Of course, as I said, I only would want actual highly suspect cases reported.

Second, if nobody gives a hoot, why are you here?

I’m not saying SC2 isn’t on a serious decline. Obviously it is. But it still gets its fair share of people playing ladder.

It isn’t that they can’t “find” a squad. It’s that they don’t want to pay for it. Blizzard only cares about money these days. Which is why people actually reporting what is basically online bullying, just through a video game, will bother them if it impacts them enough.

8

So I was playing a game yesterday, hopped on unranked for a quick funsies game and what do I get?

A 400 APM gold Terran using a well executed GSL build. Still wiped the floor with them because I was the better player. Point being? Smurfs are a chance to test your mettle and get better.

1 Like
9

Yes and how much more experience do you have in the game than a typical 1 year gold league player that has to face this same opponents. It’s nice to say there is no problem when it doesn’t hit you at all.

3 Likes
10

I’ve been around since WoL, didn’t git gud until LotV though. I still get slapped around sometimes by smurfs, I just take it as a learning experience.

Sometimes you just need to nut up or shut up in the great words of Talahasse; complain or git gud so smurfs can’t wreck you as easily.

1 Like
11

I see. So, because you can “wipe the floor” with a lot of the smurfs you encounter, it isn’t a problem for the game as a whole. Kind of a narrow view.

Lower players don’t get that ‘good learning experience’ that many use as an argument.

Here’s the thing that I find so funny. When a couple of streamers smurfed for some of their videos, (1 I know stopped after) people were outraged! Why is it that it’s an outrage if it’s someone in the public eye, but it’s a ‘just git gud’ problem for everyone else?

2 Likes
12

If that’s your takeaway then you’re being purposely obtuse and I don’t have the patience for that nonsense.

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13

Dude, i told you. Stop defending smurfs. Nobody cares if you like getting smurfed so you can “take that as an advantage and improve”. You know SC2 community is suffering because of smurfing, especially lower leagues. There is absolutely no excuse for smurfing. Doesn’t matter if someone does it for fun, entertainment, trolling, abuse or practicing some strats. You have ELO systems which determines your league and rank and you should stick to that rank.

Smurfing goes against the rules of ladder and should be punishable. Kappa.

14

You know the toxic darksouls meme of git gud? Yeah this is exactly why that became a thing. The answer here is to get better at the game so smurfs can’t beat you anymore.

You’re not entitled to win games, there is no participation award. Everyone’s dealt with smurfs and we either git gud or we cry about it.

Food for thought.

15

What an absurd argument. The point of the ladder is to provide a fair match experience. The proposed solution in the OP is not helpful, but smurfing is bad, period, and its perfectly valid to be upset that people too cowardly to play their own level are ruining the game experience for others.

4 Likes
16

No. See the amount of disagreement to your argument ? This shows you are absolutely wrong. Think about professional soccer league. Imagine premier league teams to go down to lower leagues and obliterate any opponent in their sight. That would be unfair and considered cheating. Each competition - whether it is a video game, chess, sports etc has its own league system where players are competing against opponents of similar skill level. Going against those rules should be punishable.

Apart from all this do you think maybe smurfing has some VERY NEGATIVE impact on SC2 community ? Like ruining the game, lack of balanced competition and discouraging people to play ? Why do you think SC2 population has dropped significantly since 2020 ? Tell me please. No, it’s not balance and “end of development cycle”. It’s smurfs. Just because you enjoy “getting smurfed” does not mean others feel the same. Most people simply become frustrated eventually and quit. Something needs to be done if SC2 is supposed to maintain its playerbase.

17

What happened to being humble? Lmao. If a bronze league player ragequits because their ego was too wounded by a game against a masters player, they would have quit anyway due to way bigger issues such as balance.

If I was new at some fighting game, let’s say, it wouldn’t matter to me if I didn’t get to do anything in the game, I would still want to play the best guy I can and not other noobs, because that would lead to the fastest improvement. There are a ton of smurfs but if they’re not BMing in combination with the smurfing then there’s not a problem. Some can BM but then the new player still has others to play against including non-smurfs.

1 Like
18

Agree completely. If someone quits because they were completely outclassed, I don’t think they really care about the game. Champs play to learn. The game should be fun just to be a part of. IMO, Starcraft just isn’t that fun. People ‘smurf’ in other games, yet those are still really popular. It’s just easy to complain. Those other games are still enjoyable, win or lose.

At the end of the day, sandbagging your rating is questionable, but crying about losing is even worse. You aren’t entitled to a win.

This excludes BM. Obviously that’s bad.

1 Like
19

@guyzamiester @LimeSatyr
Sorry but no.

Progress in SC2 is gradual. You make small steps one by one - gold 1 → plat 3 → plat 2 → plat 1 → dia 3 etc.

If a bronze player plays against master player there is absolutely no way of him taking advantage or learning anything because skill gap is too big. If smurf is only slightly better than victim, say, master 3 vs diamond 1, then sure worse player can see his own mistakes and improve, otherwise no chance.

And last argument is: do you want SC2 to be alive or dead ? If the latter, then smurfing is excellent way of killing this game because victims will usually not improve and quit the game.

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20

I mean, if you are playing SC2, you should want to be the best. If you want to eventually win some money, you will have to face these players eventually.

Sure, you can learn from a pro. You will learn what doesn’t work. You can watch the replay. There is an abundance of material available.

I don’t care if the game is ‘dead’. If a player needs cheap satisfaction from a win, the game isn’t for them. It doesn’t bother me.