Ok then, I am going to make an experiment. I count the games where there is a smurf on either team, then I count the smurfless games. I am absolutely sure the games with smurfs are more than the ones where everyone is high level.
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just out of curiosity. How do you identify a smurf? Is it everyone who beats you? Or do you ~just know it when you see one~?
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It’s hard to do but usually if someone is below lvl 50 and is in mid diamond or above he’s a smurf
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Completely agree with the automated mmr system pairing players with hugely different skill gaps they’re unable to avoid.
Yes in the times of QW, CS 1.6 and TF2 there were always people of higher skills who sometimes joined lesser skilled servers for giggles, but mostly people tended to naturally gravitate to servers of their own skill range (at least in Northern Europe). There were also private servers you weren’t allowed to play in if you didn’t meet the skill requirements.
Dedicated servers or pick up game were so much better, because if you had the balls and felt confident enough, you could go to a high skill server to receive a beat down, but maybe learn a thing or two at the same time. At the same time you could also join servers that you felt comfortable playing in, so you wouldn’t lose your nerves immediately after a few games.
I understand that this is not how OW works, but it’s still amazes me how bad the mmr is coming from those scenes. It is, at worst, infuriating.
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Because Smurfs ruin the rank they force people to keep ladder as it is? its true smurfs should be banned
Which is why I said there needs to be a community uproar, they would have to bring some form of action against it if the community actually stopped dealing with blizzards crap, yes smurfs have always been a thing never said they weren’t, but if player numbers drop and sales drop that would force them into dealing with this, that’s what im saying.
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im telling you unless the pros complain nothing will change. And seeing as the pros more than likely would never have to deal with a smurf (mostly because its people like them that have alt accounts) nothing will be done about it… its kinda sad that blizzard likes to listen more to the top 1% of players instead of the other 99% but its their game at the end of the say and if they want to run it like that they can because they know more people will still play regardless
Since joining Overwatch (Played on PS4), I’ve never had my MMR go below mid-plat, in any comp. I’ve only participated in 3 seasons, the first two ending with me hovering around 2900. This season, I jumped right up to 3440 within the first week. Since my precise aim is awful, I usually play support, or a damage like Reaper or Bastion. My friends usually take on Tank-Roles.
Since the first week, my rank fluctuates anywhere from 3150 to 3400 by the daily. Playing on a weekday, when I have a coordinated teams that communicates, I’ll jump right up. Or I’ll encounter a 1-star widowmaker or Hanzo who lands every shot and shuts down our entire team, almost by herself. This could happen 2-3 times a day, and I could lose all the rank I gained that morning or the previous day in just a couple of hours.
There was one time, playing with a group of three, where we encountered this other group of three, three or four games all right around the same time as one-another. A Junkrat/Mcree/Hanzo, an Ana/Mercy, and a Roadhog/Winston/Widowmaker, played perfectly. Their accuracy was incredible, their positioning and timing ensured complete map domination. Our group actually won our first game against them, but that was only because the three solo queue players they received were bad enough to be a liability (At one point, their Solo-Lucio booped me while I was sleep-darted, and that was the only reason I survived widow and our team was subsequently able to hold the point). The other games, they steamrolled us, absolutely. Our team was not bad. Everyone on it absolutely deserved the rank they were in. But the difference between Diamond and something like the top 500 is huge, and you can tell it pretty quickly once playing with or against them. Especially when you have three people who perform so flawlessly, and there is only four stars between them.
And that’s all discounting the fact I have confirmed that two people in my friends list right now are top 500 smurfs, and I suspect I have one more.
Combine that with playing during the weekend, where, at least once every three games, I will see one of the following, on either team:
-Four-Five DPS on the same team. Someone (Almost) always ends up switching, but only after 4-5 team fights, and sometimes, not even then.
-One person just messing around, either suiciding, feeding, or just doing whatever they can to try and de-rank. Had one hog who played so incredibly well the first match, or team got rolled, only to have them suicide continuously the following two rounds, completely throwing the game.
-What I swear was the same young child on three different accounts (Same sounding voice), who would get mad we weren’t winning fast enough, switch to Ana, and just refused to heal anyone on our team.
Blockquote Well, this was a bit of a mess. Hope my point came across.
It didn’t really, you seemingly jumped from one point to another after which you came to the actual point.
I don’t remember this thread and I’m not bothered to read through comments so I’ll just go off of the original post, my last post and your post which was a response to my post.
My last post was telling a guy that he exaggerates the amount of smurfs that he encounters. I did this by pointing out his anecdotal evidence by giving my own anecdotal evidence.
You’re doing the same thing so there isn’t really much of a point to argue over as we’d just be discussing whom’s anecdotal evidence is more correct than the other
If they are diamond or higher then they are no longer smurfing, smurfing is when you’re a diamond or above and you play gold to plat
1k hrs, rookie numbers.
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Smurfs can be frustrating but it can also be a chance to play with/against a higher ranked player and learn/experience something new. I’m personally much more frustrated by simply bad/toxic teammates. “Why do I have 3 gold medals?” - who cares? Frustrated players flashing their complete lack of understanding of the game…
If been hardstuck diamond for many seasons until last season that i hit masters i am now around 3,7k on my main while on my alts if i play same heroes i would not climb to 3,7k cos the ranking system is unfair and broken.
i don’t see why smurfs are bad in high tiers… sure you can’t see their main stats but… what’s wrong with it?
in bronze, silver and maybe gold… smurfs are a pain…
If it wasn’t broken then it’d assign ranks to specific teams not individuals because OW is a team game. If you played in 10 different teams then those teams could be listed on your account with their respective ranks. Unfortunately this system would work only with fairly stable teams that are usually online and play together frequently which would make it very difficult to sell OW competitive as a “1-click anytime semi-casual game”. Most people don’t want to bother with teams and team building, hence the broken per-player rank that is highly dependent on random teams of 6.
I usually call them pathetic
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Do you play on console? If you’re on PS4 it is actually pretty bad because people can make smurf accounts for free.
Delete widow, problem solved
let me be clear with you, a top500 one will get atleast gm after 30 lvl
But above a certain rank they wouldn’t be able to solo climb with any hero in opinion.
I’ve seen extremely good smurfs who could influence the outcome of the match significantly with tracer, genji, doomfist, widowmaker, hanzo, zarya (and unfortunately I’m not very good with any of those heros… 
).
I have seen some higher ranked players with other heros too (like pharah, orisa, rein) but they weren’t as influential - though they were much harder to kill, had noticeably better aim/damage, positioning, flanking skills, etc…