One of the reasons the game receives so much negativity is because of you. Imagine that, imagine if instead of being a scum everybody played on their own accounts at their own SR.
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Unfortunately there is no clear cut way of catching a smurf
Make a report option for smurfs. Every sub 100 player with incredible stats and win rate is eligible for being reported. In the end 99% will be smurfs and 1% will be legit players.
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What if someone buys a new account to learn new heros?
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I think Smurfs are over exagerated. I flanked enemy team with Tracer and was able to kill three of them out of spawn (luck more than anything) the other three got picked of by my team very quickly. Next thing, player has left match will be cancelled, probably thinking we had smurfs on our team but in reality if they had played on they had a chance, don’t think I could pull off the same move again.
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Dang, not another thread of this…
Do I have to copy and paste the other 50+ threads about smurfing? These dublicate threads are getting ridiculous.
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they can, i dont know, PRACTICE IN QP WITH THE LFG SYSTEM!
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QP is low quality to prepare with a hero for Competitive. Regardless if I choose QP or Comp, the system places me into a match with my MMR based on my best heros so it is much higher than my actual MMR with the new hero I’m learning. For this reason it is almost guaranteed to be a loss.
On my new account I play only with my new heros so it’s MMR is set accordingly and I can safely go even into competitive. When you recommend someone to learn a new hero on their main account you basically recommend them to “throw”.
Sometimes I recruit with LFG specifically for learning purposes (so everyone on the team knows that every other player will be worse than their actual MMR) but that usually doesn’t simulate real fights well because the enemy can be much stronger.
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Bustar, the famous Hog main who was telling everyone to git gud and not blame anyone else, now blaming his teammates?
You’ve come a long way pal.
Most smurfs I’ve run into are just people practicing a new role at a lower rank. Usually it’s snipers trying out projectile heroes. That’s just my experience though.
smufs is not the problem. the players that get boosted is
Depends on whether you look at it from a low or high rank player’s perspective. Gold and plat have a lot of players to dilute the bad boys but I can imagine having bigger issues closer to bronze and grand master where the number of players is much lower.
They aren’t an issue, most smurf will not get put that high above their main account. (Example: someone has a gold main and plat smurf) I don’t see the issue.
Smurfs are still a problem. There are four possible scenarios:
-Smurf on your team, tanking their SR: Your comp game is now 5 (you) vs 6 (them).
-Smurf on your team, carrying: Usually noone complains about this, but you’re not playing a fair game, the SR ranking system is being abused.
-Smurf on the other team, tanking their SR: Game is now 6 (you) vs 5 (them) - not “competitive”.
-Smurf on the other team, carrying: This is usually when it gets complained about - you’re not playing a fair game, the SR system is being abused.
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Smurfs are a problem still after blizzard gave lower skilled players so many crutches? brig for example overwatch is a game where you can counter skill with a hero pick so just do that maybe?
enemy team has a smurf widow? run goats and sit in a corner always hold shield at her.
enemy team has a smurf tracer? run goats and stick together.
what else?
Oh st, you would lose SR because you arent playing your main role. Welcome to the life of EVERY ONE WHO PLAYS THE GAME LEGITIMETLY.
YOU SHOULD lose SR if your performing worse, rank is about know your true skill. with every character. If you onetrick, fine go ahed your putting yourself at a disatvantage yes, but the SR you achieve is legit.
It is however Not legit if you Play your main role, get GM then buy a new account to play another role performe extremely well because of generall mechanics, game knowladge and make a few oh idk 100-200 games? toxic af and unballaced , un fun to play.
Hey you ruined a few peoples competitive experience, but atleast you learned a new role climbing back to your original rank aye ?
Thank you. I’m also playing it LEGITIMETLY.
Or did you mean a different definition of “LEGITIMATE”?
Please tell this to my teammates too who would report me for “throwing”. After “throwing” enough please make it possible for me to play with my higher rank friends too when they are online.
A lot of higher rank people want public profiles and want to label players based on their most played heros. They don’t want you to play anything else other than your best heros with good reasons.
I’d rather avoid introducing not too well defined things like “true skill”. Many people would have their own definition.
By level 5 I was playing against players with several hundred levels.
I performed my best with those heros and I was placed accordingly after only a few matches.
By learning on my higher rank account I’d have ruined other players’ competitive experience perhaps in a bit different way and possibly through more matches. Do those players matter?
All of these points you’ve made, all have the same root cause dont they?
You dont want to put “your own main account” at risk. Why should you have that “safety net” in therms of another account just so your “mind is at ease” knowing that regardless of the outcome of the games you play you know your “true rank” with your desired role.
The “legitimate” way i ment that you dont have that “back up”. This sounds trivial but you must agree that this “back up” as in your main account allready affects your desire to win any game on smurf.
This is why we have those “i only x” or throw attitude from a lot of people since they simply dont care as much.
“lul why care about competitive such a loser”
Yea, Ive had multiple experiences with said “smurfs” who “dont care” and just play to spite any one challangeing their “superiority” in this game. It usually means they go their main role - carry then spam ggez in chat / “aww so close”/ “git gud”. Do you understand this is baisicly rubbing salt in the wound ?
I am frustraited by people like this. At the rank i am currently people “know” this and they focuse me endlessly even if they lose the game in the process.
This sounds egotistical, but i am going to start uploading my games as soon as i get a replay system in this game. Just to prove how “competitive” smurfs / my games are.
You could say this could be because im unlucky / i do it to myself by calling them out on smurfing, but why should they get to play against lower skilled people?
Let me a mid diamond player play vs golds for my own egotistical … of “learning another role” even tho i play ana / moira / Mcree / solider / genji / reaper / Orisa / hog / Zarya all on my own account and have constantly climbed higher. I’ve allways been this flexing DPS player but what do i get for it ?
I get smurfs all day that play dps and just keep calling me out on how bad i am at whatever i play.
TL;DR
You dont want to put your “main account at risk” of de-ranking so you use the " i dont want to throw games" as a shield to ruin the competitive integrity of lower ranks.
I suck and i gotta git gud. Im half expecting to get banned at this point.
Edit: just played a game. Enemy team had a dou Q with smurfs a mercy + genji/hanzo and a trio smurf queue.
Yea there’s no smurf problem at all.
Edit 2 : got the trio + dou with with me. They all went support’s and we drew the game. Blaiming our hanzo for throwing. Second game of the night.
The fact that I have a backup that I can reach with my current skillset is indeed comfortable not only because of the safe rank but makes it possible for me to play with my friends. But I wouldn’t say it has a negative effect on my desire to win. Even in case of learning the only outcome that makes sense is victory. BTW, throwing a lot and sinking into the mud on the main account would also make people less serious. “My rank is gone anyway, meh… It doesn’t anymore matter before climbing back.” In a way trying to climb on a separate account might be more serious than throwing on the main if the alt account is used for learning and not some other activities.
I met some players you were talking about but probably much less of them because I mostly play in the two most populated ranks (gold, platinum - 33% and 25% of all accounts). They might be a bigger issue in ranks with much less players.
I don’t like the smurfs you described either but they are much less of a problem for me than some other things (like toxic players, silly matchmaking, etc…).
The “aww so close” and “git gut” smurfs aren’t learning. They have an account they don’t care about and use it to destroy low ranks or to boost their low rank friends.
I’m happy to play on 1 account if they solve the hero learning issue. The fact that my alt account is higher ranked makes me think that their ranking algorithms and matchmaking (the solo queue one, not LFG) might also need a face lift. My main can be ranked up only with careful LFG team building which is too much work in most cases when I want to play. There were some (imperfect) proposals on some other threads to solve the hero learning issue but having in-game hero switching as a fundamental part of this game makes things very difficult. Until they solve the learning issue, having an alt account is the best way to learn for many reasons. It’s a fact that alt accounts are used for many other things too. Sad but true.
Some of those evil smurfs enjoy the low-effort gameplay against much lower skilled players. Some of them could be OK with better AIs (not the very stupid ones we have ATM) when they want to relax (this is what I was doing in StarCraft where the AI is quite good) but some of them simply enjoy annoying other players.
In my experience most flexers aren’t as good as those who focus only on a smaller set of heros. Another problem with flexing is that being nice and giving more influential roles/slots to worse players also makes your win chance lower. The problem with focusing only on one or a few heros is that overwatch is based on hero switching and for this reason some heros are very situational. Mastering only some of those situational heros will get you more reports and make you less successful player when it comes to wins. I’m personally quite lucky as a mccree main because this hero is quite good in most situations. For example: I destroy most pharah mains of my own rank.
Flexing doesn’t pay off. I was stuck between 1500 and 2000SR with flexing. Without flex I can play even in platinum.
Someone on this forum told me that below diamond you rely on your mechanical skills (PBSR), from diamond and above its better teamplay that you need. According to some it’s difficult to talk about smurfing in diamond or master but I have no experience in this. I’d however mention that the difference can be huge even between 2 gold players or 2 platinum players. Partly because their hero skill levels is probably different and they worth their rank only in the right situation/environment. The guy who is skilled with more universal heros might be better in more situations. The perceived skill difference in the same match can be huge. For this reason it is sometimes really difficult to tell who is a smurf or a thrower or a boosted player or something similar. It could be detected only in extreme cases based on statistics through several matches: eg.: detecting when someone drops from plat to bronze in an unusually short period of time, or something similar.
I have many reasons to not to touch my main account and using my main account would also have several drawbacks. I don’t think I ruin the competitive integrity of lower rank players (especially because I could play competitive only after level 25 after a lot of SR/MMR calibration on my new heros) but I’d definitely “ruin” the competitive integrity of higher rank players by throwing on my main account.
Beeing honest here, thank you for humoring me.
Now onto my slaty reply.
You feel you’d be doing the same on your main (with a different role) as on a smurf.
As in ruining the integrity. Now heres the kicker.
You “represent” youself trough your account. As in your skillset as a whole is getitng judged. Just like a football player, is represented in a game like messi for example.
Now imagen Messi one day decided to try gole keeper. But he’s not good enaugh for his current league. So he starts from square one playing against kinder gardeners, then middle schooler high ect ect. Mean Now messi is close to his original League so he can play golie to a semi competent level.
Now lets think about what happened during his “learning process”. See what im getting at here? The situation is drasticly different but im sure you can see the parralels.
If for example Messi stayed in his own league, he would cost his team a few goals yes sure but he’d end up at the same place or close to as he would in the “square one” route.
A lot of people love this sentence : If you play versus players who are of much higher skill then you, you will learn faster !
Yea… why dont the smurfs then?Why are they absent from this? Why are they the ones who need to be the “better player”. Those same players who could teach you are at your own rank. They outplay you, you learn from them and you get better. Why is it so important to “easy yourself” into it by buying a new account.
FOR EASE OF MIND THAT YOUR NOT LOSEING ANYTHING OF VALUE AND YOUR ONLY GAINING.
I am 100% sure you would look twice as hard at your loses if you played on your main then on your smurf.
My point still stands, smurfs are just a scape goat for your ease of mind and in doing so you ruin lower skilled player’s experience with the game.
The whole Learning from players who are much better then you only ends up in frustrauion for the person trying to learn. I know, i tried something simmular in league when i was still playing. It was called Teachers vs Students. It ran for a week trying to teach people avout top mid adc support.
Most students quit because they where frustraited because they allways lost. And the “pity games” we tried backfired because it was obvious.
Trust me, people learn better vs simmulary skilled players then vs higher skilled ones.
And no, if you “one trick” to a rank and you want to learn a second role suck it up and accept the fact you dont deserve to represent that rank. And lose a couple of games. Might even do some good for you’r self esteem folks!
Edit : dk if i can link it but just search platin vs silver league of legends be1fa and look at the Eune one.
Edit 2 : uhh i allso want to thank you for the discussion, stuff like this untilts me. So thanks man.