Well searching evidence about it, gathering it into stats, and then confronting it to the feelings one may have is an interesting exercise. As you can see, I felt like there were 1 smurf for 4 regular users (once youâve played a few in a row, you tend to see them everywhere ^^), but those I could confim were closer to 1 over 6. Which estimate seemed closer to your experience ?
The other thing is that the amount of smurfs (specially freelosing ones) must vary with the MMR. I think the problem must be more acute in silver-gold than in diamond-master, platinum probably being somewhere between those.
hahahahaha now smurfs are good, they are destroying the game since many time ago. Now please explain why natural disasters are good or not eat for a month is good and so on
Itâs about the same than natural disasters as you said : isolated ones, as destructive as they can be, will create brief damage, and the locals will most of the time deal with it.
Too frequent ones however would be a whole other story, as local life will be incited to move on to others, more favorable areas. If you get flooded once in 50 years, you wonât react the same than if it happens once a month.
Itâs the same for smurfs. As long as they were only Bronze to Masters tutorial makers, they were so infrequent than some leagues never even realized they were there. Now, at 16-20%, they are beginning to be a cancer that significantly deteriorate the experience of play of intermediate levels, but also of beginners. And Iâm not convinced that demonstrating toxicity to beginners will be good for the community on the long term.
Yet, since youâre talking about natural disasters, people do use lightning rods and lightning arrester systems to prevent their electronics being damaged by it. Addressing the repeated freelosing issue would be easier than that, and just as effective.
Soemthing between i think:)
Usually i feel like for 15 games i encounter smurfs 1-3 times.Also some guys im not sure if they are smurfsâŠThe ones 100% are the one throwing ing ames at start, and you can see fromt heir history streak of wins, then throwing in games at start.
But the unranked ones im not sure. Some are really much better then me, and got a alot fo games despite unranked but i dont know reallyâŠ
Itâs indeed obvious when they just freelose in your face. Yet for the others, checking their game history and profile could provide you with answers significantly often.
Thatâs also the impression Iâm under as well. If I included the ones I sure are smurfs but for whom I didnât spot the freeloses at the time I played them, I think weâd reach 20%.
Iâm going to define some objective criteria for those in the future.
22,39% of confirmed smurfs
(19,40% of freelosing smurfs + 2.99% of non freelosing smurfs).
77,61% to 59,7% of regular players.
I ended up defining criteria for non freelosing smurfs, as even if quite in minority, there are some of them which were definitely not regular players :
Total career games too low for MMR ( < 50 for platinum, < 100 for diamond)
â„ 2 leagues â„ 2 times with the same race.
†2 leagues of his opponent outside of provisional MMR.
â„ 75% global 1v1 winrate with â„ 20 games played.
I have also revised my criteria for freelosing smurfs, as in the future, I will only take in account those with â„ 3 freeloses in recent history (rather than â„ 2 previously), to better differentiate smurfs from raging players.
And now, for the fun facts :
A lot of smurfs go for the default avatar, but when they donât, they interestingly often go for female avatars, and choose female names as battletags (such as Monika, or Marion for example). Youâre being matchmaked with a player with Thatcherâs avatar and âCindyâ as battletag ? You can already guess youâre being trolled.
.
Iâve become quite efficient at spotting them, so efficient that I could with a reasonable accuracy sometimes guess that my opponent is a smurf right since the loading screen. And so, as I mentioned in the first post, go for extra risky strategies in order to defeat them. And⊠well it worked more often than I would have guessed : Smurf GG â Postimages Smurf G â Postimages
The last one in particular made my day : he had such a particularly stupid battletag that I remembered having confirmed him as a smurf a few months ago. So I decided not to play into his web, and went for my first ladder proxy 3 rax ever. It succeeded better than I thought it would (though the transition was trashy AF), and so the guy, who was from a higher league, started to doubt that I, myself, was from my displayed league.
He cried about it for about 5 whole minutes ingame, and then continued afterwards. He just couldnât accept the idea of being defeated by a regular player of one full league under his real level ( Bakana ! Yurusanai ! ).
A 100% confirmed regularly freelosing smurf⊠who whined about being trolled by a league even above his (which was already one tier or two above played MMR). I had found, a smurf whining about smurfs.
That remembered me about one user who claimed on another thread that smurfing was fun. Well in fact, I think that for smurfs winning is fun ; while being trolled is just as unpleasant to them than to regular users. Proof being the sore whining specimen I just encountered.
We recently debated about the harass/mechanical aspects of SC2 compared to the strategic ones. Well, though the mechanics are the most part of what define a playerâs level ; if I hadnât this strategical aspect to exploit (by faking macro while aggressing, but also by faking aggressiveness while going macro), there would be no way for me to threaten and sometimes beat mechanically superior players.
I must also add that this small write-up about some of my successes against smurfs, kinda reminds me of Van Hellsing , since in vampire hunters stories the direction of the hunt is reversed, with usual predators becoming the target of the usually hunted regular people. Iâma proxy wooden sticks next game. XD
Anyway, I do see that last report was quite liked ; I think Iâll try to keep up with the fun facts/anecdotes part, to balance out the seriousness of the stats.
I have an account where I play against bronze and silver, and is really fun play against people that I can see have a really good mechanics being in bronze, when I see that it makes my day, because I can see how this is.
As smurf is not a bad behavior I really recommend to everyone create an account to smurf, because is fun, you can relax and you will get many surprises. I have to say that is a very interesting exercise, just try it.
Itâs been quite some time since Iâve been studying this phenomenom by now (which isnât exclusive to SC2 btw), so I will give more global answers to your points. However, Iâd like to make I sure I really understand your statements first, without possibly influencing you beforehand.
A few questions regarding that :
â Is it fun to be opposed to another smurf because :
Of unmasking him, not being abused by the false league ?
Of finding someone doing the same than you, sharing a sort of feeling of complicity ?
Of the unexpected challenge ?
Several questions again :
â When you say itâs not a bad thing, for who or what is it good or bad ? For the smurf himself ? For the regular players ? For the matchmaking system ?
â Itâs not the first time the relaxed play argument is mentioned. Does this implies your feel tensed when facing equal skill opponents, or that there are frustrating aspects to your level ? Why exactly is it relaxing to face less experimented players instead ?
â Itâs not the first time the fun aspect of it is mentioned. Do you feel itâs not fun to face equal skill opponents, when not smurfing ? What exactly is more fun when facing less experimented players ?
*Kind of, is fun unmasking the other player and also is good not being abused, basically thatâs one reason to surf
*Yes thatâs the fun part, its like give me five and bye, next game.
*No, when I see the other players is a smurf too, I donât play the game I laugh and leave
I mean, I say it is not bad because Blizzard allow it, if they allow it hence is not bad, right?. Obviously I think is bad for everyone, but blizzard donât care, because it helps its ladder system to keep players in same league.
-SC2 is very stressful game, thatâs why ladder anxiety exist. Basically you play ladder to climb and reach next league, thatâs the goal for everyone, but letâs be honest most of the time you dont play equal skill opponents, there are many smurfs, many hackers, even more; the ladder is not meant to be fair, ladder wants to keep you in you current league to keep you playing more and more. Many times when I am about to reach diamond 3, next opponent are always an unranked master player or a diamond with a big different in mmr, for instance I have played people with 3700 mmr when I am attempting to reach 3200. Even this happened to Ragnarok too, a top Zerg player, he was smurfing in some videos where he went from diamond to master, he lost one game to a no one, how can a top korean gm can lose a game in strong textdiamond league? how a top gm korean can lose a game in diamon?? how? well he lost while trying to climb the ladder, imagine what happens to a regular player, thatâs what ladder is, it wants to keep people the most time it can in its current league, and this tend to frustrate people, simple because is not fair, thatâs why I encourage everyone to smurf, if blizzard dont want a fair ladder lets break the system.
-Its fun because you can play without the stress and frustration the ladder gives, and also you can try many things, just having fun, and seeing how your opponent reacts.
AFAIK Blizzard is okay with people creating fresh account, because if they are playing normally, the MMR system quickly puts them where they belong.
I would like to know where they said that it is okay to throw matches on purpose to get lower MMR.
That does not make sense. Can you back the statements with something?
hilarious how kids that are not good complain about smurfs
its like they dont want to get any better
i wish i could play against a high gm smurf every game instead of this diamond garb so i could get good super fast and less grindy
you are so lucky if ur playing against smurfs that will help you improve way faster than people at your skill level
??? i dont understand why kids act so dumb when it comes to smurfing
you get to watch somebody play the game correctly in a way where you as a lower mmr player would be making mistakesâŠ
its just extremely hypocritical to say people are âfreelosingâ because of ladder anxiety and then you write a damn essay bc a smurf gave you ladder anxiety
instead of acting like smurfing is a âdiseaseâ why dont you just improve at sc2
for example i was getting extreme ladder anxiety from playing against the worst horrible trash diamond builds every game but in the end they have really good teamfighting (ravager / marine / disruptor) micro
and then i met a protoss smurf, rush adept into mass blink stalker, single collussus, looked like some parting at gsl stuff
made me feel better about the game and showed me a way to get betterâŠ
And I would like you refer me a blizzard post where they said is prohibited and they are going to do something against it
I dont think you can learn that much when a GM can bet you in many ways that you wont be able to recognize exactly what u did wrong, maybe you did all wrong, unless they coach you, they will point out.
To me is not fair, you can see I have reached diamond 8 times, not sure how many time that is, today I doubt I can reach diamond again, so instead of become better I become a worst player, that can discourage to anyone. But thatâs fine, I really donât care, June 19, tomorrow GGG releases harvest league so hope I wont come here again.
There are pros and cons to everything, but I think that for a matchmaking system and its players, itâs indeed more of a bad thing to have too much users bypassing the system (increased MMR instability, longer queue times, increased frustration, etc. cf. first post for more detailed explanations).
The devs havenât taken measures yet ; which doesnât means they encourage it, but either that they are not aware of the issue, or that they are aware of the issue but not of its extent, or that they are aware of both but have more pressing matters at hand.
Letâs keep in mind that smurfing in itself was primarily a tool for pro players to train anonymously, which is completely legitimate. Itâs its massive association with freelosing which creates issues, not just playing on another account.
You are absolutely right about SC2, as an asymetrical game with fog of war, being sometimes quite frustrating. The problem with refusing that frustration created by the quite challenging ladder, is that you will deport that frustration felt by one user on many, as what you felt as a regular player, will be felt even more acutely for those meeting you as a smurf. In other words, by smurfing, you selfishly choose to transfer your frustration, as a single player, on a multiplicity of other players, who didnât ask for their ladder to be any less nor any more challenging than what itâs supposed to be.
And so if they reacted the same way, they would smurf leagues under theirs, and amplify the dysfunctional aspects of freelosing smurfing.
The other issue if that if high league players spend their time trolling lesser leagues, theyâre not there anymore to be matched in their own league while doing so. And so that induces the system will have less users to match in those leagues : longer waiting times, and increase MMR mismatchs for those still playing the ladder regularly (as you said in your 3200 â 3700 MMR example) â more frustration â more of what you just described.
Anyway, thanks for the honesty of that second post, Raynor. Most smurfs wouldâve tried to deny those in the first place, at least youâre being honest with yourself.
Indeed.
Itâs what great amounts of smurfs would induce though, as increasing your MMR would be harder when being matched to increased amounts of higher league players. That might be what he was wanting to say by that.
â Define âgoodâ.
â What level are you playing at. Do you consider yourself âgoodâ ?
About the âkidsâ thing, you would be surprised how much older is SC2âs gamer base compared to other, simpler multiplayer games. Or how highly qualified some of the users you could meet here are into real life. And, if you had oldened enough, youâd realize that your fingers and reactions in fact tend to get slower with time, just like in regular sports. So by calling others âkidsâ, I wouldnât be so sure youâd be displaying a lot of maturity yourself. But if you need self reassurance, by any means, suit yourself.
Playing against a higher league metagame can give you valuable information about the validity of your own strategy.
Playing against aggressive vastly superior mechanics will lead the game to an end in the very first minutes, without you realizing more than that there is a problem in your mechanics, which you probably already knew.
Furthermore, you act as if smurfs announced themselves as superior leagues beforehand, while they are in fact concealing it. Most players do not know how to confirm smurfs. And most smurfs do disable communications outside of the game itself. So the âeducationalâ part of that experience is most often not sought by either sides.
In fact, the reasons Raynor gave are the incentive behind most smurfing : frustration at their current level. And that is backed up both by the increasing proportion of match-up smurfs I do find (who do freelose only specific match-ups), and by the ârelaxedâ and âfunâ arguments the ones who accepted to communicate about if often gave (which strongly implies they do feel quite the contrary at their true level).
For my part, I do not have ladder anxiety. Since the 6 last months, I have more than doubled my army value at 8â45 in TvZ (moment of my timing push) and greatly increased the workers count. I am able to GG even against people who freelosed 800+ MMR in order to get easy, relaxed wins (which is in fact proof they had more trouble dealing with frustration themselves btw).
So for my part, I believe I am improving at this game. However, this forums alone are evidence of how overwhelming the frustration generated by this game can be to other players. And we do not need smurfing to worsen that. Hence the existence of this thread :
Where regular, fair-play users can learn about smurfing and how to deal with it at their own levels. Weâre not here to complain, but to assess how to best deal with the issue by ourselves.
Where the issue is defined and its extent monitored, just in case sometimes, somewhere, official eyes decide itâs not good for the community to have players bypass the matchmaking system.
I would argue mass blink stalkers +collosus is a very bad build for anyone below GM prolly. You need extreme apm. And if against zerg, you need a lot of sentries, mass blink stalkers + colossus alone are garbage.
And thats part fo the problem you dont improve playing against smurfs, that argument is pure nosense. Smurfs will do some weird builds that are âfunnyâ and they will pull it off because they got much higher micro skills then you. But it wont teach you anything really, if you try that build yourself you will get demolished.
And smurfing is a disease,by sad individuals who dont have the balls to compete at their level, so they beat up much weaker opponents.
It negates the whole mechanic of mmr and matchmaking.
You have a point there. Though some smurfs will play as they would normally do (hence providing some higher metagame experience to attentive opponents), a significant proportion will decide they have freelosed enough to try overly greedy strategies. And some will sometimes go for complete trolling. Talk about getting something useful for it.
For example :
â The âGG smurfâ I posted a screenshot in my recent smurfs report tried to rax first CC factory CC. The only one who learned something in that game is him, as he could deduce the league he had lowered himself to still didnât completely allow for such trolling in TvT.
â In the first post, we have JustMonika, a master Z, who proceeds, as a Zerg, to build a whole skytoss fleet by having neural parasited a probe from a gold player.
The training value for the opponent in terms of useful metagame information of both this examples is close to absolute zero.
Fact is the âgitgudâ usual speech coming from players who refuse to play a regularly challenging ladder seems a bit unbecoming. If they were trying to improve, they wouldnât be freelosing in the first place.
Anyway, if one wanna play against different levels of skill, or stakes, he could always go for custom games lobbies ; there is no need to pollute the matchmaking system. Unless the aim is rather to win without effort.
Just to make myself clear, i am ll the time talking about smurfs who freeloose to stay at the same, lower level, to abuse low skill players. Smurfing as having a different account for different tactics or different races is no problem for me, if you normally progress.
thats the issue with salaries in sc2, the consumers are watching games that are easy for them to play and luck out at, theres not enough demand for skill and intense competition and games that require deep and motivated learning yet
people are still new to video games / esports and dont appreciate why the starcraft franchise is so great yet (skill ceiling instead of being rng luck dependent)
