Thanks for all the smurfs ruining new player experience!

Competitive Discussion
1

I bought this game just before christmas since I love Blizzard games I thought Im going to give it a try.
To be fair Im not so good with FPS games so I didnt expect much from myself.
Low ranks would be totally fine for me I wouldnt even bother if its fair.

So with the new year a new season has begun so since I had fun in arcade and quick match I thought Im going to go to ranked play since thats the only way that you get credits to buy stuff.

So Im hittin ranked and in a single week I learned the term of deranking and smurf. Pro players just come in and ruin the game for us, the new players, I wish I had this experience right at the beginning so I could ask for my money back but to be fair I had some fun with this game also.

I would love to play with this game but rolling around with wrecking ball at start point is no fun at all ( and not because Im throwing but because the game is controlled by pro players the game ends the way they want)

You can argue with me all you want but Im disappointed and will not go to ranked until this is sorted out because the competitive is not competitive at all!!!

(I might made a few mistakes but english is not my primary language)

Please Blizzard fix your game! Thank you!

3 Likes
2

This will never be sorted out, alt accounts are money for blizzard. Not sure what your exact rank but i doubt you saw pro player in your games. Most likely plat or Diamond people who have alt accounts there. Occasionaly thrower. Situation in low rank is not that critical as people there are saying.

I play competitive from beta and i still enjoy it. I believe it can be stressfull for new player but here is my advice to you.

Play for fun and to improve, stop watching your rank. Dont stress it too much, its just a game. If you focus on you, how to improve, how to evade mistakes, you will get better and better rank will come naturaly in time. Just keep in mind you have a lot to learn as new player. Yes games could be bad or toxic sometimes but you will have great moments too and i met a lot of very friendly people in games, you just have to be nice to others too. If you see smurfs in games, watch them carefully , how they play, you can learn a lot from them.

4 Likes
3

Best way to get better, they punish you, these lessons will be much valuable.
You see how they do it differently, its how the better players do it.

What really shouldn’t be happening, is actually good players, throwing games.

I was one of these pro players in low elo was gold, made a new account, gold.
Played on my main to 2.8k aaand i rushed to plat on my alt account with 100% winrate.
It wasn’t my intention to be in gold after seeing i could maybe be diamond. But wanted the account higher. And the rule is to try to win🤔 so i gave 100%

10 games, and i was 1 elo higher (around 2200 - 2400 until 2600 or higher)

Take it as a opportunity to see it done by better players, it can happen across all the ranks.
Don’t get salty, use the stomp.
Worse case if your team gave up, follow him as sombra and watch the kill cam.

1 Like
4

There’s a handful of reasons people “smurf” and so an understanding of it may clear things up because a lot of people complain about it but don’t actually understand why.

Firstly - it’s not usually because someone’s bored and wants to “own noobs”. because that in itself is boring.

I have 2 accounts, on my main I played Pharah for the longest time. Pharah is a bit of a niche hero, and doesn’t make it easy to transition to other heroes, and so instead of “throwing” by picking different heroes, I created an alt where I would just play some other heroes that I wanted to get better at.

Now I started low, as expected, but my knowledge and game sense is was still considerably higher than that of the people I played with, so I did quickly climb up the ranks to close to my main account, but there was still a grind where I was learning the hero (Orisa by the way) but for the most part, my aim, positioning, game “sense”, and ability to stay alive was still better than most when playing a the lower levels.

Some other reasons why people may smurf
Positive reasons

  • To play with their friends. It’s a team game. It’s more fun when you can find a community of friends
  • To get better with other heroes
    Negative Reasons
  • Boosting bad team mates
  • To sell accounts on player auction websites

Smurfing is a bitter sweet thing in games. On the one hand it can cause discrepancies in ranks, and on the other, shows there’s still a huge demand for the game, as people are playing, sharing accounts, Overtime 2 things are going to happen (OW is still somewhat of a new-ish game)

1 - The game will considerably die down, and there will be no demand for smurfs - friends move on, people don’t buy the accounts e.t.c.

2 - The ranks will even out, because people that are better, will climb (as they always have) and people that have been boosted or bought fake accounts, will continue to fall.

I suggest you play the game for a good 3-6 months to get a proper idea of your experience, and make use of forums on here to find like minded players, and the grouping filters online to get the best experience, if you do not like solo queuing, or if you take the game too seriously.

Part of climbing for me is accepting 1 - you will lose games, 2 the game cannot match make for every scenario.

1 Like
5

I understand these, but its disappointing that there is no punishment for doing this.

Like literally just before I made this post I had 3 games against/with the same people and they were denying the fact that they were deranking but when I was with them we lost, when I was against them we won but there were no interaction from my part, either because I got devastated or they left me to die when I tried to cap. Its very very frustrating! And they laugh at you when you try to make them play the game.
I reported them for sabotaging the game but I doubt that - lets say - a 30 day suspension will end this issue. It wont!

Looking around with Sombra is just as much fun as rolling around with the hamster. I want to play the game end of.

I do find quck match and arcade a lot more fun than the competitive, yeah you can say dont play it then but first I want to get credits too that you can only get in competitive and the second is that I bought the game too why should I forbid myself from playing a game mode only cus of these idiots?!

3 Likes
6

There isn’t a problem of having alt account(s).
At the moment the SR/MMR system is bad. Because of this the matchmaker is also not perfect creating games that are unbalanced.

Jeff confirmed this and he said they are working on a solution

The problem is the current system takes the SR/MMR over all your heroes.
So a master widow who never played rein suddenly has to play rein. But on rein he would be plat rank… This means the group SR is completely wrong. And the group will probably get overrun.

But that is also the main reason players have alt accounts. They only play 1 hero or role on account X etc… so the rank is more accurate.
Or they want to learn a new role/hero and do this without destroying the rank of your main account.(and destroying games for others because you play something that is far below your main SR)

There is nothing wrong with smurfs like these. It even makes the game better (matchmaker)
The problem is with players who de-rank on purpose, just to have easy games. And this is bannable. So you can report them.

And i think it is weird that blizzard not already made a statement about this, like:
Gathering all players who deranked by using the LFG for liek a month(you see groups looking for players who are also want to derank -> blizzard could easily filter them out by using their log ). And then do another massive ban and make it public that they banned like a 1000 players for deranking.
Lets hope they are still gathering names :stuck_out_tongue:
But to make sure, i look from time to time in the lfg list and report at least the leader of these groups for game sabotage/deranking on purpose.

1 Like
7

Actually trying to play competitive again, guess what?
Smurfs I lost about 5 games just because these guys smurf around in bronze.

When I ask them why they just say because its fun, yes, for them, for about 5 minutes, if they have an IQ more than a toaster.
I dont want to learn from smurfs, I want to play the damn game, if I want to learn I watch videos on youtube or whatever.

And they so proud that its not a bannable offense just wrecking players who are not good at the game. Coming in Genji and a Mercy that only heals and boost him to slaughter bronze players yet its not a bannable offense.

Imagine you buy a new game and it starts on very hard difficulty and you get no tutorial or instructions before you play and you are handicapped and die from 1 hit.

Sounds fun? It isnt…yes you get better if you try over and over again but grinding without success is not fun.

Anyone in the gaming community that has at least a tiny bit of respect for online games, know that this behaviour is disgusting and should be banned pr at least sanctioned!

8

What level did you start playing comp. No doubt to climb out you need to be better than the smurfs or atleast on par, once they start asking if you are a smurf (which happens more often than regulars asking if you are a smurf, because they are smurfs and they always suspect smurfs because they know the smurf game), you know you are doing something right. Play quickplay alot more get better, then go to comp and don’t see the smurfs as smurfs, see them as a goal, the person you need to destroy, the person you need to get better than, so that at some point you wont even know they are a smurf until they ask you “are you smurfing too?”

9

ibb/ydwkxCp

Before the slash just put .co

(I made the screenshot after the game)

So today I encountered these 3 players…
They were deranking they killed at the enemy spawn not caring about the objective we lost, thats what they wanted.

I confronted them saying that I reported them for deranking, obviously they said that they going to report me for “being toxic”.
Then I asked why soldier named Atroxxa was making the push up emote instead of capturing the objective he said he has to “warm up”.

They wanted to lose the game, his buddy called Cody was the Mercy, was standing on a rooftop with Ana named as Kitty and wait until we lose. But as I said they were all on fire from killing at spawn and then they just stopped doing anything.

And its not over, I reported them obviously and about 4 games later I got them again and they did the same thing again!
I mean how long it takes for blizzard to do something?

New players dont report this because many of them doesnt know what deranking means and they dont report them because if they are on their team they think that the team was just bad and if they on the enemy team they just happy that they won.

This is insane!!!

10

What rank are you and sorry about that, Its bad but its not too bad unless its happening to you like multiple times a day. Luckily I’ve never ran into derankers in bronze when I was climbing out, just genuinely bad teams.

11

I assume you play tracer (taken from your beautiful player portrait)

Wuth tracer you can relentless grind and improve everything in her kit.

From aim, map knowledge, etc.

Just play qp, tons of it.

Once you’re confident go and destroy comp.

If you need help hit me up. :slight_smile: Destrolock#2131

12

Why do you say to them how you are reporting them lol. Just report them and dont say a Word.

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Im in bronze as I said, I only bought the game before christmas and I never played before.
Yes I ran into them i would say about twice in 20 games, if I group up with someone then twice in 10 games so I avoid grouping up.

I do like tracer (the character) I’m just not too good with it and people always take damage and I want to be team player so most of the time Im either Roadhog, Reinhardt or Mercy basically anything but damage, if I do get damage I like tracer or Mei.

The reason why I say to them because you get frustrated when it happens to you for the 3rd time, you report them each time and like it has no use at all.
And of course Im fuming when this happens. :frowning:

14

Maybe you are just so bad that you think everyone is a Smurf?
/shrugs

15

Dont say it next time so you will avoid reports. You cant do nothing else about it. Report system is mostly automatic but believe me , they are punishing people. I know some season banned for throwing. Its just not really fast process.

Btw if you want to get better or just find new people to play with join our ow discord, we can help you, we have good community and coaching. You can find our link at playow.eu

16

Mate I dont care about losing, thats part of the game, Im talking about unfair games. When smurfs team up in trios and just prey on new players “for fun” and/or derankers who do the same but also losing the game on purpose, there is just no interactivity from our (normal, actual bronze players) part, “git gud” is not something I can fully allow myself since I have a job and other things to attend to but that doesnt mean I have to put up with this.

And life thanks for advice but I just wanted to get this out so I am 1 more player who is trying to make this great game a bit better and enjoyable, fair for everyone.

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Yeah i get that, btw try to join our discord :slight_smile:

18

Yeah that sucks. If you really have no intention of learning like you said before, i’d say just play quickplay but sorry that you feel you can’t play ranked. However if you ever decide on trying to improve, I would say good luck. Not to downplay your struggle but it is actually easier than you’d think to carry in bronze with bad teammates. I’ve won a 5v6 in bronze against a blatant aimbotter (he was on the team of 6) so you can do it. If you wanna play comp i’d say just play with an improvement mindset over anything else. Focus on improving all of the time while you play. Otherwise just play quickplay as it isn’t that bad

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U not new… U a smurf

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no way this game is getting any new players xD if you can’t stand smurfs just learn this game it’s not that hard, or maybe it is if you’re f u ck in g re ta rded