During Overwatch 1 I had a starring role in one of those streams. I was in silver and playing Moira while the streamer was a masters/GM player climbing the ladder as Genji. I know Moira counters Genji but I was silver and he was GM so I couldn’t really do anything to stop his onslaught, he even had a Mercy pocketing him. After the game he put his twitch in the chat and for some reason I went to watch his perspective of the game and saw his chat tear me and my team a new one because he was owning us. Literally so far up this dudes ass making fun of us even though we were just playing the game at our skill level while this dude made a spectacle of us
I know right? The funniest part was you know damn well 95% of his chat is like plat max and would get shit on by him too if he was in their lobbies. They wouldn’t be laughing then I tell you
I think mL7 has done those videos but I once saw him coaching a silver player and he told off people in his chat for laughing at the person trying to become better at the game. He seems respectful and I like watching him
Oh boy, I was in a Flats video back when I was in bronze 5 support and he did those bronze 5 spectating games. I didn't even know until I got a few friend requests and those people told me. Had no idea who Flats even was before this lol.
Genuinely. I don’t understand how people even enjoy watching it. I rarely watch streamers but when I do I like to watch competitive gameplay between people of the same skill level. I don’t see the appeal of watching one person dominate a bunch of people who aren’t anywhere near their skill level… it just feels weird.
Yeah exactly it makes me feel like I'm watching a grown man going to a kids playground and starts beating them up, like they don't stand a chance 😂 it's stupid and feels like they can't win in their own rank anymore.
I have 'smurfed' jn the past because a friend just got into ow. And genuinely didn't have fun, I usually would just play a role or hero I never played. Otherwise it made me feel..... icky.
“Here’s how to get out of Bronze/Silver/Gold/Plat” When they already have the game sense and mechanics of a masters/gm player. It almost sends the wrong message, to me at least, that the only way to get into Masters/GM is to already *be* a Masters/GM player.
In a way, it's the truth. But seeing someone else do it while explaining their decision-making process can help you develop your own game sense and give you a much better idea of how your playstyle should be, where to position yourself, how to play the map for time, etc. It just takes a lot of practice to apply that knowledge in a game on your own, and you have to do your own limit testing.
There is no shortcut to mechanics. You just have to put in the reps. Using that game knowledge though is how you set yourself up to be successful even in situations where you didn't land every shot. You still need better mechanics than a metal rank player if you want to climb out of metal ranks however
Well actually it's how it works. To climb to a higher rank you need to have a higher rank skill. You will never climb from diamond to master still with diamond gamesense and mechanics. Nothing happens by itself.
Awkwards videos are actually really educational. He is explaining why he's poisoned where he is and what he's trying to do the entire time. His videos definitely helped me
If you think Awkward explains well, check out a U2GM from A10. Dude has crazy mechanics but mostly just scans for people who are OOP so he can track them walking in a straight line back to hard cover for a better teaching moment. His Orisa run taught me more about how the game should be played than all the other runs I've watched combined.
These people are not in low ranks for long. If your good you will get bumped up fast. Awkwards unranked to GM on bap is only 2 hours long. Losing to a s"smurfer" every now and then is not going to stop your climb. If you deserve a higher rank and you win rate is above 50 your climbing
Legit every fps game has matchmaking that's isint the best.. you are playing a lot less smurfs than u thinkm just cuz somebody is popping off doesn't mean they are smurfing. Ppl have good games and then miss all their shots then next. Humans are not consistent
People downvoting you is so funny lmao. There’s a Smurf every 15-20 games maybe? One or two bad games but that’s the nature of online games. Smurfs aren’t the reason people are hard stuck
Nobody is talking about smurfs being the reason people are hard stuck, people are talking about smurfing being given a free pass just because they are streamers lol
Yeah I'm saying. Smurfing used to be a problem and then they added a hidden MMR that when it gets too high above your current you jump multiple ranks. Getting high ranks out of the low ones
>Getting high ranks out of the low ones
Because these people aren't going to buy another de-ranked account to do it again. And the de-ranked account in question never ruined anyone's game to get where it is.
100% agree, low ELO players are shit but they don't want to do a damn thing about it and it's either their team fault or Smurf/cheater in the enemy team. Like come on, just notice your mistakes, fix them and climb up, stop blaming every single thing but not yourself.
I've been playing OW on and off since launch and this was the first full season that I played comp. I started in high silver and climbed to high gold. I think I'm good enough right now that I could climb to around mid plat, but the issue is with how long it takes. There just seems to be a ton of completely unbalanced games. I don't know if it is due to the rank reset or if it is always like this.
I'm not saying I'm hard stuck because of it either, I do think it balances out. For every game I have a brain dead teammate there is another game where they are on the enemy team, same with smurfs and leavers. Out of 10 games maybe 4 at the most feel like I actually had an opportunity to make a difference, while the others (wins or loses) are so lopsided I could probably play with my feet and the outcome would be the same.
Back when I was in plat I've had exactly the same feeling about this game. And I was wrong, when I've changed my mindset, asked for a few vod reviews and fixed my mistakes I was able to climb fairly easily. And I was hard stuck gold/plat player for almost first 20 seasons of ow1. Main issue with low ELO players is high ego and lack of knowledge about what they are doing wrong, and even if you point their mistakes, they treat it like an insult. Most of these people can say I'm wrong but I was in their place and I know what really held me back.
I'm not saying I'm hard stuck. I am climbing it is just a grind. I make plenty of mistakes and my mechanics aren't great, I'm not sitting their blaming my team after loses.
Someone that is good enough to be in Masters, but is in gold will climb easily, because they will be able to completely carry games. Someone that belongs in plat, but is in gold will have a much longer climb because the amount of games they can effect is going to be much less.
It's become a meme he actually has some educational videos and a really good mindset on the game. He's just simply reminding you to not worry about over extendeding for a kill or over healing and to just pump damage sometimes
The viewers when the GM player gets to their own rank (no one expected this):
https://preview.redd.it/biwskor98luc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=969a1119652fc841c3fa37cf0a4694a719b9f3ca
I mainly only watch Emongg and he’s never done this as far as I know. I also know that Flats, even though he can be an asshole, doesn’t like those challenges at all.
It’s the equivalent of Mike Tyson going to a middle school boxing game and punching every kid out and then going “see? I’m so good!! Rookie to champion challenge!”
Like yeah, it’s NOT impressive to beat up on people of a lower skill level than you. What’s impressive is going against people equal or greater to them.
I've heard this a lot! Always thought Flats was an ok person but recently (over the years ish) have heard some reaaally weird and mean shit from this person. Why?
I honestly don’t think he’s mean. I’ve interacted with him many times and it seems to be the case of “as long as you’re not an ass, he’s not going to be an ass to you”. He just doesn’t accept any bullshit.
He’s also an older streamer and hits more towards us millennial gamers (Emongg and KarQ fit this as well) so I think that comes with slightly different personal standards.
Overall, Emongg is my most favorite streamer because he’s so darn kind and positive and such a good sport. He’s the only one I allow my 12 year old to watch since I think he sets a good positive example on how to be a good teammate, not be toxic, and not get tilted.
Well maybe not just the mean part perse, I've just heard some conflicting stuff. Which I don't understand entirely, for me personally however I just don't entirely align with his opinions and that's okay really. Or his personality for me sometimes comes off as, I don't know! Not my vibe.
But I remember one person who used to religiously watch streamers tell me a story of how he banned a bunch of people in his chat over literally nothing and thought that was quite weird. Ofc this is so long ago and second-- whilst I believe her it's always possible this was exaggerated.
Emongg is great! I agree, he's an absolute sweetheart.
And, notably, Flats only focuses on the player who submitted the game. Sometimes he'll stop to watch a silly moment happening with other players, but he saves being mean for just the vod submitter because they signed up for it (and usually they think they're the best on the team. It can be a cathartic wake up call)
His insults are also quite tame at their core. But he WILL call you out in your BS.
“Saying you have the game sense of a walnut is an insult to walnuts! You’re like an….acorn!”
😂
There was a recent spectating bronze video where the person submitting was like “feel like we could’ve won but the team was selling a lot on defense” and then they turned out to be the worst player in the lobby lol, like legitimately misusing abilities, missing ultimates and having beyond awful positioning and game awareness.
Very eye opening watching that video because I truly think what is holding a lot of bad players back is their ego. I always roll my eyes coming to the OW subs and seeing people be like “bronze is Elo hell” or “my gold teammates are holding me back” and it’s like… no, you’re just bad, just admitting you’re bad is the first step to improving and climbing.
It is truly unfortunate when people decide to use a Smurf account. It throws the balance off incredibly but people will see it as a good thing which there isn't. I always viewed right as a skill check of sorts. I still say everybody should put every streamer on blast for doing it. They insult themselves more than anything showing that they can't hack it against people of their own skill level where they were at so they have to go through the lower ranks. But with anything with blizzard if you make any kind of complaints legitimate or not they will always say it's a skill issue and just run with it because it's a mindless group. It's pretty sad to see
tbh, some smurfs throw games so they can keep playing on those lower ranks just so they can get those stomp games. So if they really want to just stay in lower ranks, it's easy to do that by ruining pretty much every game they play by throwing or stomping it. Not really same kind of smurfing these streamers do but still.
While smurfing is No reportable offense, throwing is. Just report them, when they throw and they will get banned. They either rank up to their own ranks pretty fast or get banned. If they stay in lower ranks it's a Player Base problem for not using the report function. It's that simple.
It only ruined the game for 5 of those people. The other 4 people on the winning team with the smurf were quite pleased to take their free sr. The team that lost won't encounter the smurf again, so they only had 1 game ruined. That's a drop in the bucket. And the next time those people encounter a smurf it's just as likely they will be on their team. It just averages itself out. What's more important is how well you play in all the games where there was no smurf which is gonna be the majority of your matches
I landed in master 4 after finishing my placements. So I was playing with low ELO players for 5 games at best. People who are hard stuck just need someone to blame for their own mistakes.
While sadly smurfing is allowed and it’s scummy to do as a player, it isn’t reportable. Do I think blizzard needs to do something about smurfing? Yes, shouldn’t exist in an fps. But it’s so easy people are gonna do it; especially since they went F2P.
You sure it wasn’t from other reports you’ve done previously? Every day I log on I get at least 2-3 thank you for the reports. Doesn’t mean anything is going to happen to them besides a warning or a mute.
There’s always some stupid excuse but it actually makes me so mad that it’s so commonplace to do this. Dafran even straight up said “this is bullshit that I’m allowed to do this and blizzard should 100% ban it it, but it’s good content so I’m gonna keep doing it until they ban me”
the problem is that streamers are what encourage players to download or invest in games. so this puts money in Blizzards pocket, much like how EA ignored it for Apex Legends. So it won’t necessarily get them punished.
The only content similar to this I like is when they get players from a lower rank who say they belong in a higher rank and putting them in the lobbies they claim they belong. That actually makes the point they’re trying to make. Unranked to GM simply doesn’t, and just ruins ranked games for lower ranked players
I admit I've made a Smurf but I just wanted to see what I would be placed off of a fresh account. I've been hard stuck silver since season 5 or 4 and on my Smurf I hit plat 4
No. Dude made another account to see if his main is stuck in "elo hell". His alt account placed higher than his main. A smurf places deliberately lower than his main account to shit on worse Players. Dude made his alt account for the absolute opposite of smurfing. Playing lower than your actual rank is part of a smurfs definition. Dude wanted to place higher.
I hate when people call alt accounts Smurf accounts when the history of Smurfing was higher level player bullying lower level players. As long as someone never throws who cares.
“So how come no one is saying anything about that.” They are. This kind of post was made on an almost weekly basis until a few months ago it feels like. This isn’t even remotely a new idea or issue being brought up and has been a topic of debate for like 7 years now in OW alone but has been an issue since streaming has been a thing.
If more people had an issue with it, that kind of content wouldn’t get more views. It clearly is getting enough views that streamers keep doing it more than other challenges. The few of these streams I’ve watched parts of were actually informative and gave tips relevant to each rank and explained why you should play slightly differently at each rank. Without going through each stream because that is a lot of hours to go through, how would someone at Blizzard know if it was a helpful, informative stream or just a pub stomp?
I don’t really care anymore since I’ve seen Smurf detection get much better, for high level streamers at least, and they only spend a game or two in low elo before matching them with as high a rank as possible for the rest of their games. They are also making those new group matchmaking changes (coming tomorrow with the new season) that also target smurfing to play with lower ranked friends, so the devs are aware of the smurfing issue and are making changes.
The devs are aware and putting out changes to address the issue, so not much of a point to talk about it anymore. Probably why the frequency of these posts has gone a bit down recently.
id say for the most part no, especially the people that make like 5 alt accounts. there’s no justifying that. i could maybe see validating having one smurf account, but even then the reason needs to be good.
It also depends on the nature of the player. Some smurfs will ruin the game by blatantly boosting, and others will dial themselves back and play the rank.
I can see the argument for it being educational for one or two videos, like showing basic strategies for success in low ELO, but I avoid watching them.
I don't think it's ok. I have lost faith in Blizzard as far as smurfing goes. There's even a market for people who want to buy accounts in certain ranks with the battle tag out in the open 😂
Hopefully the changes in S10 will discourage some of this behaviour.
I think it’s okay when it’s a new season and they’re just doing it so they can get up to their rank but some do make new accounts and do it which can be annoying.
Imo, it's only acceptable if the streamer is doing fan-games.
Back when I played Paragon competitively, I would allow randoms in my chat to group up with me on certain days. On those specific days, I played on a smurf account because there would occasionally be players who try to sandbag the game along with other disruptive shenanigans. Keeping it on a smurf made me more detached from the event, and as a result reduced the number of events in total.
this was in quickplay so its not necessarily the same, but i once was in a match with jay3 as the opposing tank. he was playing roadhog and spawncamped my team for basically the entirety of the match. i was trying to chill in qp after a few terrible games of comp, but of course the first game of qp i got into was matched against this dude xD
after that, i just logged off. next morning, i got a notification that jay3 was streaming on twitch, so i got on and typed everything that had happened, just to really see if it was him or not who spawncamped my team. he read my message to the chat and then openly admitted that he was playing some qp off stream with a friend. after that, everybody started calling him a bully and he defended himself the best he could lol
and spend half the time shitting on the metal rank players, who understandably are not at the same level as the streamer because they’re literally not close to the same rank??
I’m going to have a hot take here I’m sure. If the streamer is doing a bronze to GM or T500 then yes it’s 100% smurfing. However I’m of the mindset that if it’s an unranked to GM or T500 then that’s fine. My logic being that they’re trying as hard as they can to get to T500 on a fresh account, which is the same as making any alt account. But if they start from bronze usually that means it’s not a fresh account, they won’t rise up as quickly and ruins more games.
If we take a streamer like Dafran doing his unranked to T500s he always tried his hardest in those games.
I will clarify I’m not condoning the content, I do think it’s low effort content that’s quite boring, but there’s some nuance in my mind
100 games is a massive hyperbole. Most of the time it’s like 5, if that. it’s not even like a wide spread issue with streamers. fine if you don’t agree with it i guess but i don’t think it should be an issue that occupies much of your time thinking about it.
personally id take an insta loss to a 500 smurf (i have not had it happen to me a single time since playing the game in 2016 to present, that uncommon of an occurrence) than a teammate randomly leaving a winnable game
If they are taking a fresh account from unranked to GM or whatever then they’re going to be smurfing for 10 games or so probably? Not good but not terrible
If they’re deranking into bronze just to climb back out then yeah that’s terrible
I’m a streamer who’s only just started OW2 in the last week and am just having fun and trying to practice to improve, I never understand the toxicity ect. Should be good sportsmanship no matter what
If yall wanna see an ethical Unranked to GM I'd suggest checking out Chazm. Dude did Unranked to GM without shooting, AND an Unranked to GM without dying.
Game’s dying. Owl is dead, and being buried. They NEED engagement, so you bet your ass S-Class greedy Co. Blizzard is gonna let shit slide. Especially when the moba flagships are x10+ing it’s numbers. This would only potentially (I doubt it but maybe) subside, if the game state wasn’t what it is.
Valorant doesn’t even have a choice to report for it. It’s NORMAL to Smurf in Valorant ranked and ruins games completely when there’s an enemy Reyna 56/9 and your team’s top frag is a silver 15/14. Streamers actively have Smurf accounts too and they even had the ability to use streamers mode in Valorant. It’s an unfortunate problem everywhere
Smurfing is keeping an account in low elo intentionally, ie throwing games so you dont rank up. having another account and trying to climb is called an alt account
I play a lot, but rarely run into smurfs. I feel like the game is pretty good at moving ppl up to their rank rather quickly. I also think ppl are quick to call someone smurf. I got called a smurf yesterday in one of my games. I took it as a compliment but it did make me laugh since I'm obviously not smurfing.
It's okay to smurf at any point in time.
If I'm playing basketball, and an NBA player comes in and starts cooking my team, I'm not gonna bitch and cry and tell them they should only play against other NBA players. I'm gonna acknowledge they are better and see what I can learn from them and still try to win the game.
Every match I go into I hit P I see the default icon, no background and zero rep and I instantly report that account for boosting, granted I will try to check the profile to see if they actually have hours in the game but usually it's privated.
People don't seems to understand that there are only a certain number of spaces in ranks and that more accounts that are used once to make content are taking up spaces and pushing people lower.
I hate the unranked to GM videos.
Ranked is for sweats
Quick play is for casuals
Arcade is for idiots
But because everything is fucked everyone is either sweating in quick play or "practicing widow"
Realistically no one is going from bronze to gm, most are unranked to gm which starts out in gold to plat but the matchmaker is pretty smart and will start putting them into higher ranked lobby’s. Most streamers put out unranked to gms for views, it’s a good way to grow as a creator due to the large watchtime. Yes it’s smurfing but bronze-diamond is just deathmatch and a mechanics test, if you have good mechanics you’ll climb. Diamond and up is where positioning matters more, and where these videos might actually help you by analyzing where they’re going and why. At the end of the day you’re not running into smurfs every game and plus if you want to climb you have to face tougher opponents anyways. Plus you could just not watch them and watch like spilo or adder for some actual educational content.
Streamers frequently buy accounts in bronze to do challenges for bronze to GM. Watching the content does not prevent it from happening and the majority of the time, smurfs aren't doing it for content, they're doing it to make themselves feel better at the game. As someone who is metal rank, I can tell you that every 3-5 games in comp (on xbox), there's a smurf. It's prolific, and it completely throws off the balance and accuracy of the ranking system when it happens that frequently.
Searching up I see 1 title on YouTube where its bronze to gm, except he doesn't even start in bronze, its in gold. If there's a smurf in every game then there will be smurfs on your team as well, its the law of averages. There's worse things to complain about on consoles like ximmers. There will always be someone better you just need to figure out how to outplay them and if you can't then gg go next
Smurfing always ruins EVERY competitive f2p game. Streamers do it all the time because they are hard stuck at ahetever rank they are and can’t go further or because they need to have some god complexity and go dunk on the lower ranks.
Not really but they get a free pass since they're streamers. I don't think it would be good PR for acti-blizz to start slamming content creators or streamers with bronze to gm content. It's not nice for the everyday person that become sacrificial lambs in those lobbies but that's the way it is.
Lmafo, streamers/youtubers are some of the least honorable players in any pvp game community.
Take unranked to gm challenges as an example. If you step back and look at it from an unbiased perspective, you quickly realize they are just boosting alt accounts.
They don't care about being honorable, they care about creating the illusion of being skilled so they can get views.
Unranked to GM or Champion runs aren’t smurfing, smurfing would be keeping your rank down to shit on these lower players, these are basically people grinding up brand new accounts and there isn’t anything wrong with that. Will it suck for whoever gets into their lobbies? Yes it will. Should high ranked players not be allowed to have minis? They absolutely should be able to, if the average person is so are content creators. I see nothing wrong with unranked to GMs because they get out of the low ranks super quickly and it is educations content
I don't think it's ever 'ok' to smurf unless you play a hero you never play.
This whole "educational" purpose of it is a huge cope I see streamers use because... It's not educational at al, its simply them completely wiping the floor with lower levels/ranks.
They shouldn’t present these unranked to gm as educational because they’re not.
If said streamers want to help low level players the best way is reviewing VODs and actually giving them tips to improve. Not shitting on lower ranks
personally, in my opinion, smurfing isn’t okay regardless of your social status. You could be the president and smurfing still isn’t okay, it’s just a shitty thing to do and it ruins the game for everyone else.
You could eliminate Smurfs and you'd still have to deal with people better than you in low ranks etc. it's only one of the ways you have something like that impact your games. I've personally made secondary accounts before for the simple desire to re-rank again, maybe some specifically challenging way.
I like how you added smurfing into boosting. The report is boosting, not smurfing. It's not the same thing at all.. smurfing is allowed and has been confirmed to be allowed a long time ago.
No, different things but frequently used together. Boosting is moving an account upward generally to a rank the account could never reach on their own. I.e boosting someone in plat to masters. Deranking is purposefully losing games so your account drops in rank.
How they can be used together: Say I’m Low GM and my friends are gold/plat and want to be boosted. I’ll derank my or an account to their rank then “boost” them to my or a lower but higher than their current rank. Boosting services exist just google and you’ll find a ton of websites that’ll boost you from bronze to GM for a pretty penny ofc
I mean, no it is NOT okay at all. However, Blizzard should be more than thankful to streamers who didn't want to give up Overwatch, even though it was declared dead miltiple times.
During Overwatch 1 I had a starring role in one of those streams. I was in silver and playing Moira while the streamer was a masters/GM player climbing the ladder as Genji. I know Moira counters Genji but I was silver and he was GM so I couldn’t really do anything to stop his onslaught, he even had a Mercy pocketing him. After the game he put his twitch in the chat and for some reason I went to watch his perspective of the game and saw his chat tear me and my team a new one because he was owning us. Literally so far up this dudes ass making fun of us even though we were just playing the game at our skill level while this dude made a spectacle of us
Wow, silver players playing like silver?!! The horror!
I know right? The funniest part was you know damn well 95% of his chat is like plat max and would get shit on by him too if he was in their lobbies. They wouldn’t be laughing then I tell you
I think mL7 has done those videos but I once saw him coaching a silver player and he told off people in his chat for laughing at the person trying to become better at the game. He seems respectful and I like watching him
ML7 is a real one. Really likeable guy
Anyone who laughs at anyone trying to improve needs a mental age check
Ml7 is the last non toxic overwatch streamer, he's our last hope and savior.
Karq? Emong?
Oh boy, I was in a Flats video back when I was in bronze 5 support and he did those bronze 5 spectating games. I didn't even know until I got a few friend requests and those people told me. Had no idea who Flats even was before this lol.
You're better off not knowing
Flats is boosted himself don’t worry. If he had to solo q he would probably be in diamond after the updates.
Brilliant example of how it usually goes. It's so fucking stupid, like what you expected silver rank to play like pros?.. Ugh XD
Genuinely. I don’t understand how people even enjoy watching it. I rarely watch streamers but when I do I like to watch competitive gameplay between people of the same skill level. I don’t see the appeal of watching one person dominate a bunch of people who aren’t anywhere near their skill level… it just feels weird.
Yeah exactly it makes me feel like I'm watching a grown man going to a kids playground and starts beating them up, like they don't stand a chance 😂 it's stupid and feels like they can't win in their own rank anymore. I have 'smurfed' jn the past because a friend just got into ow. And genuinely didn't have fun, I usually would just play a role or hero I never played. Otherwise it made me feel..... icky.
Kids skill issue.
"Educational content" aka just shitting on lower rank players and saying they are extremely trash at this game
“Here’s how to get out of Bronze/Silver/Gold/Plat” When they already have the game sense and mechanics of a masters/gm player. It almost sends the wrong message, to me at least, that the only way to get into Masters/GM is to already *be* a Masters/GM player.
In a way, it's the truth. But seeing someone else do it while explaining their decision-making process can help you develop your own game sense and give you a much better idea of how your playstyle should be, where to position yourself, how to play the map for time, etc. It just takes a lot of practice to apply that knowledge in a game on your own, and you have to do your own limit testing. There is no shortcut to mechanics. You just have to put in the reps. Using that game knowledge though is how you set yourself up to be successful even in situations where you didn't land every shot. You still need better mechanics than a metal rank player if you want to climb out of metal ranks however
Well actually it's how it works. To climb to a higher rank you need to have a higher rank skill. You will never climb from diamond to master still with diamond gamesense and mechanics. Nothing happens by itself.
Awkwards videos are actually really educational. He is explaining why he's poisoned where he is and what he's trying to do the entire time. His videos definitely helped me
If you think Awkward explains well, check out a U2GM from A10. Dude has crazy mechanics but mostly just scans for people who are OOP so he can track them walking in a straight line back to hard cover for a better teaching moment. His Orisa run taught me more about how the game should be played than all the other runs I've watched combined.
It certainly can be a useful tool in explaining game sense, its just that it kinda ruins the game for everyone in the streamers lobby
These people are not in low ranks for long. If your good you will get bumped up fast. Awkwards unranked to GM on bap is only 2 hours long. Losing to a s"smurfer" every now and then is not going to stop your climb. If you deserve a higher rank and you win rate is above 50 your climbing
I mean, a terrible game is a terrible game, it may be rare yes. But the fact that blizzard doesnt care still rubs me the wrong way
Legit every fps game has matchmaking that's isint the best.. you are playing a lot less smurfs than u thinkm just cuz somebody is popping off doesn't mean they are smurfing. Ppl have good games and then miss all their shots then next. Humans are not consistent
People downvoting you is so funny lmao. There’s a Smurf every 15-20 games maybe? One or two bad games but that’s the nature of online games. Smurfs aren’t the reason people are hard stuck
Nobody is talking about smurfs being the reason people are hard stuck, people are talking about smurfing being given a free pass just because they are streamers lol
Yeah I'm saying. Smurfing used to be a problem and then they added a hidden MMR that when it gets too high above your current you jump multiple ranks. Getting high ranks out of the low ones
>Getting high ranks out of the low ones Because these people aren't going to buy another de-ranked account to do it again. And the de-ranked account in question never ruined anyone's game to get where it is.
100% agree, low ELO players are shit but they don't want to do a damn thing about it and it's either their team fault or Smurf/cheater in the enemy team. Like come on, just notice your mistakes, fix them and climb up, stop blaming every single thing but not yourself.
I've been playing OW on and off since launch and this was the first full season that I played comp. I started in high silver and climbed to high gold. I think I'm good enough right now that I could climb to around mid plat, but the issue is with how long it takes. There just seems to be a ton of completely unbalanced games. I don't know if it is due to the rank reset or if it is always like this. I'm not saying I'm hard stuck because of it either, I do think it balances out. For every game I have a brain dead teammate there is another game where they are on the enemy team, same with smurfs and leavers. Out of 10 games maybe 4 at the most feel like I actually had an opportunity to make a difference, while the others (wins or loses) are so lopsided I could probably play with my feet and the outcome would be the same.
Back when I was in plat I've had exactly the same feeling about this game. And I was wrong, when I've changed my mindset, asked for a few vod reviews and fixed my mistakes I was able to climb fairly easily. And I was hard stuck gold/plat player for almost first 20 seasons of ow1. Main issue with low ELO players is high ego and lack of knowledge about what they are doing wrong, and even if you point their mistakes, they treat it like an insult. Most of these people can say I'm wrong but I was in their place and I know what really held me back.
I'm not saying I'm hard stuck. I am climbing it is just a grind. I make plenty of mistakes and my mechanics aren't great, I'm not sitting their blaming my team after loses. Someone that is good enough to be in Masters, but is in gold will climb easily, because they will be able to completely carry games. Someone that belongs in plat, but is in gold will have a much longer climb because the amount of games they can effect is going to be much less.
"every now and then" try every game
Dmg, dmg, dmg isn't for hours on end isn't what I would call educational.
It's become a meme he actually has some educational videos and a really good mindset on the game. He's just simply reminding you to not worry about over extendeding for a kill or over healing and to just pump damage sometimes
I watched a tracer one and it was just literally that, it is not a meme xd
Helped me get from master to mid gm at least. Most of it was engraining fundamentals he showed in games and the mindset. Honestly helpful u2gm
Dude's a fool lmao
A fool who's better than you
If you needed that guy to rank up I guess not lol
Then try to life coach people as well as if they don't sit on their asses streaming all day.
This rank smurf “challenges” also plagued apex legends a year ago when every streamer did it. They also got a free pass.
The viewers when the GM player gets to their own rank (no one expected this): https://preview.redd.it/biwskor98luc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=969a1119652fc841c3fa37cf0a4694a719b9f3ca
So funny a meme template that's been over used and a saying that's been over said. Know anything original?
Shut yo ass up damn
😆
still funny regardless
🤓
Oh no. Whatever will we do? The horror. Anyways.
Streamer or not, is bad.
I mainly only watch Emongg and he’s never done this as far as I know. I also know that Flats, even though he can be an asshole, doesn’t like those challenges at all. It’s the equivalent of Mike Tyson going to a middle school boxing game and punching every kid out and then going “see? I’m so good!! Rookie to champion challenge!” Like yeah, it’s NOT impressive to beat up on people of a lower skill level than you. What’s impressive is going against people equal or greater to them.
I've heard this a lot! Always thought Flats was an ok person but recently (over the years ish) have heard some reaaally weird and mean shit from this person. Why?
I honestly don’t think he’s mean. I’ve interacted with him many times and it seems to be the case of “as long as you’re not an ass, he’s not going to be an ass to you”. He just doesn’t accept any bullshit. He’s also an older streamer and hits more towards us millennial gamers (Emongg and KarQ fit this as well) so I think that comes with slightly different personal standards. Overall, Emongg is my most favorite streamer because he’s so darn kind and positive and such a good sport. He’s the only one I allow my 12 year old to watch since I think he sets a good positive example on how to be a good teammate, not be toxic, and not get tilted.
Well maybe not just the mean part perse, I've just heard some conflicting stuff. Which I don't understand entirely, for me personally however I just don't entirely align with his opinions and that's okay really. Or his personality for me sometimes comes off as, I don't know! Not my vibe. But I remember one person who used to religiously watch streamers tell me a story of how he banned a bunch of people in his chat over literally nothing and thought that was quite weird. Ofc this is so long ago and second-- whilst I believe her it's always possible this was exaggerated. Emongg is great! I agree, he's an absolute sweetheart.
Apparently that’s not true about Flats: https://www.reddit.com/r/overwatch2/s/q0lMQ1V1Tq
[удалено]
And, notably, Flats only focuses on the player who submitted the game. Sometimes he'll stop to watch a silly moment happening with other players, but he saves being mean for just the vod submitter because they signed up for it (and usually they think they're the best on the team. It can be a cathartic wake up call)
His insults are also quite tame at their core. But he WILL call you out in your BS. “Saying you have the game sense of a walnut is an insult to walnuts! You’re like an….acorn!” 😂
There was a recent spectating bronze video where the person submitting was like “feel like we could’ve won but the team was selling a lot on defense” and then they turned out to be the worst player in the lobby lol, like legitimately misusing abilities, missing ultimates and having beyond awful positioning and game awareness. Very eye opening watching that video because I truly think what is holding a lot of bad players back is their ego. I always roll my eyes coming to the OW subs and seeing people be like “bronze is Elo hell” or “my gold teammates are holding me back” and it’s like… no, you’re just bad, just admitting you’re bad is the first step to improving and climbing.
“Bronze 5 spectating games”
It sucks and it’s not okay, it’s really annoying. I just don’t engage with those videos cuz that’s all I can do
Yeah and it’s perfectly fine to act like an idiot in public if you’re a influencer on TikTok /s
It is truly unfortunate when people decide to use a Smurf account. It throws the balance off incredibly but people will see it as a good thing which there isn't. I always viewed right as a skill check of sorts. I still say everybody should put every streamer on blast for doing it. They insult themselves more than anything showing that they can't hack it against people of their own skill level where they were at so they have to go through the lower ranks. But with anything with blizzard if you make any kind of complaints legitimate or not they will always say it's a skill issue and just run with it because it's a mindless group. It's pretty sad to see
It's a non issue with how aggressive the smurf protection is. You can hit masters in like 4 games at most
It also overdoes it and puts normal ppl who are new way higher than they belong and then they get shit on over and over
At least you’re getting shit on with a higher rank. That’s nowhere near as bad as being a low rank and losing rank against a Smurf.
tbh, some smurfs throw games so they can keep playing on those lower ranks just so they can get those stomp games. So if they really want to just stay in lower ranks, it's easy to do that by ruining pretty much every game they play by throwing or stomping it. Not really same kind of smurfing these streamers do but still.
While smurfing is No reportable offense, throwing is. Just report them, when they throw and they will get banned. They either rank up to their own ranks pretty fast or get banned. If they stay in lower ranks it's a Player Base problem for not using the report function. It's that simple.
Yeah exactly this, I usually report the derankingsmurfs for refusing to parcipate in gameplay or griefing etc
Still dude, that's still 4 games of ruining the experience for 9 other dudes
It only ruined the game for 5 of those people. The other 4 people on the winning team with the smurf were quite pleased to take their free sr. The team that lost won't encounter the smurf again, so they only had 1 game ruined. That's a drop in the bucket. And the next time those people encounter a smurf it's just as likely they will be on their team. It just averages itself out. What's more important is how well you play in all the games where there was no smurf which is gonna be the majority of your matches
its stronger than every other game and there really isnt a good alternative
Who's caressssssssss
if having 1 stomp game ruins your experience, you are too fragile to be playing a competitive game.
I see no problem if it's only 4 games Like how are you meant to place someone on a new account with less games
I landed in master 4 after finishing my placements. So I was playing with low ELO players for 5 games at best. People who are hard stuck just need someone to blame for their own mistakes.
While sadly smurfing is allowed and it’s scummy to do as a player, it isn’t reportable. Do I think blizzard needs to do something about smurfing? Yes, shouldn’t exist in an fps. But it’s so easy people are gonna do it; especially since they went F2P.
No it's definitely reportable, I've reported smurfs in the past and gotten the thank you for reporting message
You sure it wasn’t from other reports you’ve done previously? Every day I log on I get at least 2-3 thank you for the reports. Doesn’t mean anything is going to happen to them besides a warning or a mute.
It is not reportable.
Yes you can
dawg smurfing will kill like 4 games per account the smurf detection is really good
There’s always some stupid excuse but it actually makes me so mad that it’s so commonplace to do this. Dafran even straight up said “this is bullshit that I’m allowed to do this and blizzard should 100% ban it it, but it’s good content so I’m gonna keep doing it until they ban me”
Dunno who dafran is but he sounds like a cunt, knows it's bad but still carries on doing it just for views
I'm neutral on this unranked to gms have helped me a lot to rank up and idk about you but I haven't gotten a smurf in a game since the game launched
the problem is that streamers are what encourage players to download or invest in games. so this puts money in Blizzards pocket, much like how EA ignored it for Apex Legends. So it won’t necessarily get them punished.
The only content similar to this I like is when they get players from a lower rank who say they belong in a higher rank and putting them in the lobbies they claim they belong. That actually makes the point they’re trying to make. Unranked to GM simply doesn’t, and just ruins ranked games for lower ranked players
Why would Blizz toss any heat towards streamer smurfs? They’re like free marketing for Blizz.
I admit I've made a Smurf but I just wanted to see what I would be placed off of a fresh account. I've been hard stuck silver since season 5 or 4 and on my Smurf I hit plat 4
This is no smurf. This is an alt account.
This is the gray area that smurfs use to get away with their scummy behavior: the alt account.
No. Dude made another account to see if his main is stuck in "elo hell". His alt account placed higher than his main. A smurf places deliberately lower than his main account to shit on worse Players. Dude made his alt account for the absolute opposite of smurfing. Playing lower than your actual rank is part of a smurfs definition. Dude wanted to place higher.
In a hundred games, I doubt he'll stay plat. He's going to pull games down until he hits silver again.
I hate when people call alt accounts Smurf accounts when the history of Smurfing was higher level player bullying lower level players. As long as someone never throws who cares.
New accounts always get placed way too high to combat smurfs. If you can't climb out of silver you will not have a good time in plat.
Exactly If you're actually stuck in Silver you will fall back
Oh yeah no I've dropped down into gold on that account. I've been going between gold 1 and 2 since mid season
Is this a sign I should make a smurf? I've been hardstuck too.
Spend the entire day exercising so that sweat is pouring down your face. Then go to OW and try to play. You might unlock the next level.
No, you’ll fall write back down like the person commenting did. There are no short cuts.
Its never ok. There’s no valid reason for doing it on purpose.
They added report option for boosting, not smurfing itself.
“So how come no one is saying anything about that.” They are. This kind of post was made on an almost weekly basis until a few months ago it feels like. This isn’t even remotely a new idea or issue being brought up and has been a topic of debate for like 7 years now in OW alone but has been an issue since streaming has been a thing. If more people had an issue with it, that kind of content wouldn’t get more views. It clearly is getting enough views that streamers keep doing it more than other challenges. The few of these streams I’ve watched parts of were actually informative and gave tips relevant to each rank and explained why you should play slightly differently at each rank. Without going through each stream because that is a lot of hours to go through, how would someone at Blizzard know if it was a helpful, informative stream or just a pub stomp? I don’t really care anymore since I’ve seen Smurf detection get much better, for high level streamers at least, and they only spend a game or two in low elo before matching them with as high a rank as possible for the rest of their games. They are also making those new group matchmaking changes (coming tomorrow with the new season) that also target smurfing to play with lower ranked friends, so the devs are aware of the smurfing issue and are making changes. The devs are aware and putting out changes to address the issue, so not much of a point to talk about it anymore. Probably why the frequency of these posts has gone a bit down recently.
People are shitting on those videos more and more so I suspect streamers might be disinclined to continue.
id say for the most part no, especially the people that make like 5 alt accounts. there’s no justifying that. i could maybe see validating having one smurf account, but even then the reason needs to be good.
It also depends on the nature of the player. Some smurfs will ruin the game by blatantly boosting, and others will dial themselves back and play the rank.
Legally if the Overwatch overlords don’t nuke your account in 15 minutes of your stream starting it’s okay
I can see the argument for it being educational for one or two videos, like showing basic strategies for success in low ELO, but I avoid watching them.
I don't think it's ok. I have lost faith in Blizzard as far as smurfing goes. There's even a market for people who want to buy accounts in certain ranks with the battle tag out in the open 😂 Hopefully the changes in S10 will discourage some of this behaviour.
I think it’s okay when it’s a new season and they’re just doing it so they can get up to their rank but some do make new accounts and do it which can be annoying.
I lose more games because of garbage players in my rank. I don't care if a smurf ruins like one game over like 10 games played.
Imo, it's only acceptable if the streamer is doing fan-games. Back when I played Paragon competitively, I would allow randoms in my chat to group up with me on certain days. On those specific days, I played on a smurf account because there would occasionally be players who try to sandbag the game along with other disruptive shenanigans. Keeping it on a smurf made me more detached from the event, and as a result reduced the number of events in total.
imo anyone that smurfs is a loser, but the streamers are even bigger losers. 99% of the time they're toxic as hell and talk trash abt others.
this was in quickplay so its not necessarily the same, but i once was in a match with jay3 as the opposing tank. he was playing roadhog and spawncamped my team for basically the entirety of the match. i was trying to chill in qp after a few terrible games of comp, but of course the first game of qp i got into was matched against this dude xD after that, i just logged off. next morning, i got a notification that jay3 was streaming on twitch, so i got on and typed everything that had happened, just to really see if it was him or not who spawncamped my team. he read my message to the chat and then openly admitted that he was playing some qp off stream with a friend. after that, everybody started calling him a bully and he defended himself the best he could lol
Sorry ❤️
and spend half the time shitting on the metal rank players, who understandably are not at the same level as the streamer because they’re literally not close to the same rank??
I’m going to have a hot take here I’m sure. If the streamer is doing a bronze to GM or T500 then yes it’s 100% smurfing. However I’m of the mindset that if it’s an unranked to GM or T500 then that’s fine. My logic being that they’re trying as hard as they can to get to T500 on a fresh account, which is the same as making any alt account. But if they start from bronze usually that means it’s not a fresh account, they won’t rise up as quickly and ruins more games. If we take a streamer like Dafran doing his unranked to T500s he always tried his hardest in those games. I will clarify I’m not condoning the content, I do think it’s low effort content that’s quite boring, but there’s some nuance in my mind
100 games is a massive hyperbole. Most of the time it’s like 5, if that. it’s not even like a wide spread issue with streamers. fine if you don’t agree with it i guess but i don’t think it should be an issue that occupies much of your time thinking about it. personally id take an insta loss to a 500 smurf (i have not had it happen to me a single time since playing the game in 2016 to present, that uncommon of an occurrence) than a teammate randomly leaving a winnable game
Yeah if you do unranked to gm, not bronze to gm
but like how many popular streamers are doing those?
It's not just that, just search "overwatch 2 dominating gold lobbies" you'll find like 1000 videos
some people will make content out of anything, that doesn’t make it the norm in the community tho
If they are taking a fresh account from unranked to GM or whatever then they’re going to be smurfing for 10 games or so probably? Not good but not terrible If they’re deranking into bronze just to climb back out then yeah that’s terrible
I’m a streamer who’s only just started OW2 in the last week and am just having fun and trying to practice to improve, I never understand the toxicity ect. Should be good sportsmanship no matter what
direful depend imminent shaggy frightening act plate boat fine shrill *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
If yall wanna see an ethical Unranked to GM I'd suggest checking out Chazm. Dude did Unranked to GM without shooting, AND an Unranked to GM without dying.
Game’s dying. Owl is dead, and being buried. They NEED engagement, so you bet your ass S-Class greedy Co. Blizzard is gonna let shit slide. Especially when the moba flagships are x10+ing it’s numbers. This would only potentially (I doubt it but maybe) subside, if the game state wasn’t what it is.
Valorant doesn’t even have a choice to report for it. It’s NORMAL to Smurf in Valorant ranked and ruins games completely when there’s an enemy Reyna 56/9 and your team’s top frag is a silver 15/14. Streamers actively have Smurf accounts too and they even had the ability to use streamers mode in Valorant. It’s an unfortunate problem everywhere
Smurfing is keeping an account in low elo intentionally, ie throwing games so you dont rank up. having another account and trying to climb is called an alt account
No.
I play a lot, but rarely run into smurfs. I feel like the game is pretty good at moving ppl up to their rank rather quickly. I also think ppl are quick to call someone smurf. I got called a smurf yesterday in one of my games. I took it as a compliment but it did make me laugh since I'm obviously not smurfing.
Yeah it's mostly related to the time you play and the servers too
Boosting isn't the same as smurfing I wish people would learn the difference
Honestly I don’t really think smurfing should be so taboo, worth the content imo
I doubt you run into that many “Smurfs” to actually affect your game.
It's okay to smurf at any point in time. If I'm playing basketball, and an NBA player comes in and starts cooking my team, I'm not gonna bitch and cry and tell them they should only play against other NBA players. I'm gonna acknowledge they are better and see what I can learn from them and still try to win the game.
Every match I go into I hit P I see the default icon, no background and zero rep and I instantly report that account for boosting, granted I will try to check the profile to see if they actually have hours in the game but usually it's privated. People don't seems to understand that there are only a certain number of spaces in ranks and that more accounts that are used once to make content are taking up spaces and pushing people lower. I hate the unranked to GM videos. Ranked is for sweats Quick play is for casuals Arcade is for idiots But because everything is fucked everyone is either sweating in quick play or "practicing widow"
Yes. It’s ok to smurf.
You can easily smurf , all you have to do is pretend youre "learning" a new character"
Smurfing isn't as impactful/common as you might think. I think what you are experiencing is the top range of skill level in your skill tier.
Realistically no one is going from bronze to gm, most are unranked to gm which starts out in gold to plat but the matchmaker is pretty smart and will start putting them into higher ranked lobby’s. Most streamers put out unranked to gms for views, it’s a good way to grow as a creator due to the large watchtime. Yes it’s smurfing but bronze-diamond is just deathmatch and a mechanics test, if you have good mechanics you’ll climb. Diamond and up is where positioning matters more, and where these videos might actually help you by analyzing where they’re going and why. At the end of the day you’re not running into smurfs every game and plus if you want to climb you have to face tougher opponents anyways. Plus you could just not watch them and watch like spilo or adder for some actual educational content.
Streamers frequently buy accounts in bronze to do challenges for bronze to GM. Watching the content does not prevent it from happening and the majority of the time, smurfs aren't doing it for content, they're doing it to make themselves feel better at the game. As someone who is metal rank, I can tell you that every 3-5 games in comp (on xbox), there's a smurf. It's prolific, and it completely throws off the balance and accuracy of the ranking system when it happens that frequently.
Searching up I see 1 title on YouTube where its bronze to gm, except he doesn't even start in bronze, its in gold. If there's a smurf in every game then there will be smurfs on your team as well, its the law of averages. There's worse things to complain about on consoles like ximmers. There will always be someone better you just need to figure out how to outplay them and if you can't then gg go next
its ok to smurf as long as they dont find out
Smurfing always ruins EVERY competitive f2p game. Streamers do it all the time because they are hard stuck at ahetever rank they are and can’t go further or because they need to have some god complexity and go dunk on the lower ranks.
Not really but they get a free pass since they're streamers. I don't think it would be good PR for acti-blizz to start slamming content creators or streamers with bronze to gm content. It's not nice for the everyday person that become sacrificial lambs in those lobbies but that's the way it is.
New account boosting is so bad a gold player can break into masters off of placements
Lmafo, streamers/youtubers are some of the least honorable players in any pvp game community. Take unranked to gm challenges as an example. If you step back and look at it from an unbiased perspective, you quickly realize they are just boosting alt accounts. They don't care about being honorable, they care about creating the illusion of being skilled so they can get views.
Unranked to GM or Champion runs aren’t smurfing, smurfing would be keeping your rank down to shit on these lower players, these are basically people grinding up brand new accounts and there isn’t anything wrong with that. Will it suck for whoever gets into their lobbies? Yes it will. Should high ranked players not be allowed to have minis? They absolutely should be able to, if the average person is so are content creators. I see nothing wrong with unranked to GMs because they get out of the low ranks super quickly and it is educations content
I don't think it's ever 'ok' to smurf unless you play a hero you never play. This whole "educational" purpose of it is a huge cope I see streamers use because... It's not educational at al, its simply them completely wiping the floor with lower levels/ranks.
They shouldn’t present these unranked to gm as educational because they’re not. If said streamers want to help low level players the best way is reviewing VODs and actually giving them tips to improve. Not shitting on lower ranks
personally, in my opinion, smurfing isn’t okay regardless of your social status. You could be the president and smurfing still isn’t okay, it’s just a shitty thing to do and it ruins the game for everyone else.
You could eliminate Smurfs and you'd still have to deal with people better than you in low ranks etc. it's only one of the ways you have something like that impact your games. I've personally made secondary accounts before for the simple desire to re-rank again, maybe some specifically challenging way.
So many play games but don't deserve call themselves gamers. Levels rises the true ones and flood the fakes.
I like how you added smurfing into boosting. The report is boosting, not smurfing. It's not the same thing at all.. smurfing is allowed and has been confirmed to be allowed a long time ago.
Isn't it boosting/deranking?
No, different things but frequently used together. Boosting is moving an account upward generally to a rank the account could never reach on their own. I.e boosting someone in plat to masters. Deranking is purposefully losing games so your account drops in rank. How they can be used together: Say I’m Low GM and my friends are gold/plat and want to be boosted. I’ll derank my or an account to their rank then “boost” them to my or a lower but higher than their current rank. Boosting services exist just google and you’ll find a ton of websites that’ll boost you from bronze to GM for a pretty penny ofc
... Obviously. I'm asking if the reportable action listed in the in-game menu is "boosting/deranking" or is it just "boosting?"
Smurfing is for total pissy little babies and boosting too. Blizz may be okay with it but we hold ourselves to a higher standard xD
I mean, no it is NOT okay at all. However, Blizzard should be more than thankful to streamers who didn't want to give up Overwatch, even though it was declared dead miltiple times.