So whatâs more important⊠losing a couple SR in a GAME. Or paying $40 for a new account just to annoy some people in comp. Think about it, whoâs really losing out? Honestly, I doubt this idea would work because the majority, if not all of the Smurfs are above the age of easily being able to bypass this system. I doubt any kid would have a spare $40, and I doubt their parents would let them buy a game⊠theyâve already bought again. So youâre dealing with adults here, who can easily bypass this. Just report, wait before joining another game and remember. You lost 30 SR, they lost $40.
Its not an offence as well. So what good is reporting, if anything its false reporting and abusing the report system. In what world is it ok to report someone who did good, for what you know maybe the dude had bad teams and dropâd in rank.
And left face if 90% of the people who will post here donât have a legit proof that the other guy is boosted or a smurf. People can have good games and bad games. The other team can just be playing better.
Smurfs donât hurt the game as much as you guys make it look like. If you canât win at the game at hand then you donât deserve to win. No matter how good you are in Ow they are dumb easy counter in this game at the moment with the only exception being a team with Brigitte and Hanzo. At that point the better Hanzo will win.
I hope you face the streak I faced the past 2 days with all the boosted people on your team and boosters on enemy team, that will definitely change your mind, as it changed mine.
Yes I am not good enough to compete with a pocketed GM Widow whose entire team is playing around keeping her alive, I donât think you are either.
Also, where are your competitive stats? This is not about qp mate.
On my tank main account, And this is in general discussion anyone of any rank can share an opinion here. What proof do you have he was a pocketed GM Widow ? Some people have good games.
This is not an offence since you can by chance punish someone who pooped off for a gameâŠ
Iâm not against the idea of forcing people to indentify via a phone number, but isnât it just forbidden by European Privacy Laws ? Iâm not sure about that, but I think I heard someone say that for example in League of Legends, the only thing preventing Riot from forcing people to authentify was European Laws on privacy.
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Please do you even think anyone will bother to think that far ?
They canât even make smurfing an offence since most will abuse the automated report system to report anyone of higher skill.
A level 28 Widow pocketed by a mediocre mercy who only hid behind walls and ressed her after the few times she died was one of them. I sadly have no footage for that, yet I donât think I need to prove it to anyone, feel free not to believe me, but many others and myself can tell this kind ofstuff when we see them ingame.
Point is I felt exactly how you are feeling right now and thought that people are exaggerating but they were not, this is why I wish for you to experience what I did the past two days and be sure it will change your perspective towards the whole matter.
Thatâs for sure, and I wouldnât say otherwise. I asked about your stats cz it didnât seem like you played comp and this issue is not available in qp.
It doesnât matter if i believe this or not.
And its not an offence as far as i know.
Not even sure if boosting people is an offence but selling boosted accounts it. I donât know what you can make of this but its hard to form a case and punish a player thatâs ânot in his rankâ.
And fyi having multiple accounts doesnât make you a god player and for the most of it people canât even tell the difference one of my dps account is hard stuck in gold but on my tank account i had it easy to get in low diamond. Just the rare cases when someone is pooping of vs a team that low key refuses/canât to do anything about it. And if that game happens there is still the chance that the other team just had a good game. On widow i have games that im just randomly flicking and getting kills and some that i just look like trash for example. And i can say as well that iâm glad that a hero like widow is a thing that can solo carry games if played well.
Its good to pick up some aim since they are heroes that get stopâd by it.
Idk of course i will lose vs anyone whoâs top 500 or below but still if they have the skill to win i canât really blame them for using it.
This problem is noted and we can only hope that blizzard are thinking of a way to solve it.
But looking at how other games like LoL that are free and âesportâ ready like Ow, smurfing is really accepted there as well at this point every Lol streamer has at lest 10 accounts.
And they do stream low rank games making them one-sided like the Ow streamers do sometimes.
As bad as it looks idk what blizzard can do about it.
Sorry OP but this is not a good idea at all. Already countless people in the world want to have privacy, and many donât want to link their phone numbers to something that isnât really necessary especially in this world of hacking and data breaches. It also doesnât fix the console situation where anyone can have as many accounts as they want, as itâs through Sony or Microsoft and not Blizz.
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No, Riot already has this mobile verification in place for anyone to play their Tournaments within the game. They call it Clash. Their version is stricter, whereby if a mobile number was used to authenticate an account it cant be used for 60 days on another account verification.
This proposal is different from what they do, as in it allows a mobile number to verify as many accounts you want, to quickly land you placement games in the higher tiers. For a smurf looking to rank up fast, thatâs great because his verified account will quickly reach the higher tiers.
Most people already have their credit card details tied up to BattleNet, and many Battle net accounts already got SMS verification for account recovery in case of a lost password. All thatâs being done here is use that same mobile number for giving you an entry to competitive seasons.
I thought of an alternative solution for those that donât want to put in their mobile numbers, they could even verify themselves using the Battlenet Authenticator App on the iPhone, Android store. You just install that app on your phone and tie it up as Two-step authentication to your Battle net account. An account setup with this mechanism can also be considered verified. If you have alternate accounts you can use the same Two-step authentication for the others, and the system would consider them all verified, and linked together.
But you shouldnât have to tie a phone number to access additional content in a video game, thatâs a really bad way to sell games if you are expecting the customer to fit more requirements. Providing your system/platform etc can play the game, there should be nothing what to stop a player from enjoying everything it offers seeing as they paid the price to buy it. The SMS verification is done for security measures and not to unlock or give access to additional content, itâs a bad business move.
Also you still didnât bring a solution for console users. They donât have to connect their account at all to Battlenet, and again if there was a verification requirement itâs still locking content behind an unnecessary mechanism.
In the end one of the best ways to help control smurfs is to increase the comp level requirement, but even that seems unlikely.
LoL is doing it and they are a massively popular game with a lot more player base than OW. It works for them.
On the other hand, it could be a good business move, because the new players are having a good experience with OW, instead of being steamrolled by smurfs. That, in turn, gets more players to join the game. The barrier to entry is super low, requiring you verify your account either with 2FA or SMS Protect and having level 25.
Iâm sure console has a way for verification as well⊠Why wonât using a mobile device to receive an SMS code work there as well?
That can affect the purchase of alt accounts because people will be drawn back because you increase the barrier to entry for the new account. This in turn will result in lesser sales for Blizzard.
To be clear: its not wrong destroying bronze players, nothing, bjt really nothing is wrong with it. BUT its not allowed to throw games. You see Soon killing in gold? Fine, absolutely fine.
You see him losing im gold, not fine, thats intentionally loosing and should be banned.
But everyone is just complaining about getting destroyed. Nothing is wrong about it as long as nobody on your team was throwing.
You see?
If you follow the rules, there arenât any smurfs.
You canât bann someone bc heâs better than you.
But you can bann someone who wants to loose.
But ppl donât get the difference. They obviously try to ban the enemy carry, but donât try to bann the one guy who gets killed 60times and kills nothing. Nope, they cheer to this guy, bc thats why they win.
one question before presenting a solution to a non-issue:
Where did Blizzard ever state that they had a probem with âsmurfingâ, to start with?
Smurfs are in the first line a problem for players who cant handle being outplayed by better players. For blizzard, smurfs are a nice huge bonus cash.
I remember the times when games had no matchmaking whatsoever and it was ok to get rekt by a better player, and when awkwardly whining about these things made you look like a douche and you just silently improved yourself instead of expecting the game to serve you easy kills on a silver platter. Good times 
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Perhaps Blizzard doesnât, but the lower elo does. Itâs evident in the number of cries the lower elo brings out on these forums.
My proposed solution doesnât take away from that bonus cash.
I donât remember lol ever asking me for my number.
In reality smurfs can chose to make it a problem and itâs at their disposal. If a smurf wants to hang around in the lower elos, he can do it effectively without getting reported, by playing a weak hero and making it look like heâs trying while just not being a carry to win games. He can then switch to his strong heroes and wreck the lower elos. A smurf that wants to do this can do it as long as he wants, always costing the lower elos their games.
I donât understand how smurfing isnât a reportable offence. I mean, when you go to report someone for cheating, it says âEngaging in any activity that grants an unfair advantageâ. Smurfing grantâs an unfair advantage.
Itâs not a reportable offense to Smurf. However throwing games on purpose is. A smurf can be smart to throw games in a manner, that doesnât look like deliberate throwing.
Hence if a smurf wants to stay in bronze, he can do so and keep oscillating between the ranks.
True, but itâs a reportable offence for someone to pay money to a service in a game that did not allow it by any means (as I said previously: getting a 3rd party assistance that does not belong to his current game), and cheat his way up the ladder. Now this is debatable ofc, and has several ins and outsâŠ
I donât mind the smurfs themselves, Iâm simply pointing my fingers towards the people buying the boosts.
Imo let Blizzard decide since itâs their game/ their rules.