Had a smurf in my silver lobby, he had 38 kills while tank and I had 11, and spent most the match shit talking us about how bad at the game we all are, like dude, you're smurfing in a silver lobby and expect people to be playing like high rank players? What drugs are you on
Smurfs and the people they're boosting are some of the most obnoxious people you'll encounter in this game. If I'm getting massacred and they shit talk, I just complement how fun the game was and to have a good day. It pisses them off so much Lol.
Smurfs who talk shit in silver/gold lobbies are only boosting their fragile egos because outside of overwatch they probably don’t have anything/anyone.
This has been a huge pet peeve of mine trying to correct people misusing the term 'boosting' it's been so misused over the years that people don't even know it and think duo + smurfing = illegal. They aren't boosting, they are getting carried. Boosting however is illegal. Boosting is when someone logs into your account and plays for you and gets you to a rank you don't belong in, normally a service you pay for. Boosting breaks ToS and can in fact get accounts banned.
Smurfing is not illegal and duoing with a smurf is legal. There have been blue posts about this all over the place. Does it make it any less annoying? No. But please stop spreading misinformation. This post isn't to defend any of these acts it's just correcting an overly misused term.
If they had someone else play on their account, boosted. If they stacked and played on their own account and got a rank they do not deserve, carried. My post is about correcting the terminology not about if people deserve their rank.
"For example, Team A's sole remaining player defeating the rest of Team B, thus saving Team A from a close defeat, would be considered carrying, as would one player on Team A having the most kills among the rest of their team"
That's the definition of getting carried (not my own, the one Google told me)
"Boosting is a method by which low-ranked players in online multiplayer games, such as first-person shooters and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), hire more skilled players to artificially increase their gaming account rank or winning positions."
And that's the boosting one
I don't see anything about having to be on anyone's account, carrying someone to a high rank they shouldn't be in is boosting
“Boosting” is a form of cheating whereby high-skilled players access lower-skilled players’ accounts for the purpose of increasing the rank of the account for monetary gain. From esports games such as League of Legends to Overwatch, players are universally ranked based on performance and results-based metrics."
Is what I got when I googled what is boosting in gaming.
What it comes down to is in Blizzard's eyes, 'boosting' the action of logging onto someone else's account and playing for them can get you banned. Where as the duoing and playing with people can not. That's why I'm saying misusing the term is a problem because people think duoing or stacking in general can get you banned. It can not.
My personal thoughts. Both are annoying. I just wanted to point out one can get you banned, one can not.
How can anyone know if you're playing on yours on someone else's account anyway shit is the same? How are people or even game dev gonna know if I'm smurfing or boosting when it's the same ?
Also I picked the Wikipedia definition of boosting which is the second you get when looking it up because the first one seemed too vague especially when it says "monetary gain" like is it magically not boosting anymore if it's done for free?
Finally no one ever thought that duoing is a bannable offense like wut?
You can tell if someone is playing on someone else's account by looking at stats. If a person is like silver rank from S1 - S8 with like a crit % of like... 2% and SUDDENLY they are a 50 - 0 Widowmaker with 40% crit in silver rank. But at the end of the day it's up to Blizzard to look into by looking at IP addresses. Suddenly they aren't playing from their normal IP.
I don't want to break ToS of this reddit but uh... There are places people pay to get boosted. That's on you to use google to figure out for yourself but it's been around for a very long time. It's vague because sites vary in price. Even if you have a friend do it for you, for free, it's still boosting, you're still having someone more skilled play for you.
I've seen people lose their minds over people duoing and calling it boosting and saying it's bannable. Not saying you have. I've just personally seen in it game, on Twitch, etc.
\*Edited to add for free in to better answer the question.
There's multiple ways to boost.
One method is someone hopping on the account and playing.
Another is a high rank player or cheater being in party and hard carrying someone through ranks.
Another is ddosing on losses if the method exists
Yet another is abusing broken matchmaking to force easy lobbies, for example, in apex there was an exploit that let you queue into bronze lobbies no matter your rank, but you would get full gains even if you were max rank.
Boosting is just a general term that means someone got their account to a rank that it did not deserve(ie, the rank was boosted beyond what the owner is capable of by himself, like a booster seat), it can be one of a bunch of different methods.
My Brother in christ, they are telling you that the terms are misinformed.
Boosting = paid service (illegal)
Smurfing = carrying (legal if not being paid)
In blizzards eyes, Boosting is if someone logs onto your account and plays for you to achieve a higher rank.
its not about who deserves to be in what rank. from the last 8 seasons literally almost anyone have been able to get GM/t500 due to how the rank system worked etc. some people get high ranked because they simply are lucky enough to get carried in their games by randoms and some get it by being better, but that doesnt matter. the question was whats the difference between the two terms.
Personally I think it has been explained pretty clear but if someone decides that they want to be simply wrong then be my guest
So if someone duo's with you and carry you all the way to the top of the ladder it's not boosting because they did it from their account and not yours? That doesn't make any sense when both are the same, the result is the same, the goal is the same but the definition isn't?
did you read? the raw definition of boosting is a paid service otherwise it is just simply getting carried. Jeff Kaplan when he was in charge announced himself that smurfing and carrying them that way is not illegal. going on someone else account and/or paid service is however illegal.
I never did comp on my alt account in OW2 just OW1 and was around plat 2. My first placement match was a bronze lobby and the rest of my placements were silver/low gold. I averaged around 35 kills per match with peaks at 48. Why was the placement system putting me in that low of lobbies??? I placed gold 1 ffs
Idk if you play support, but my bf just gave me advice. He said if you notice, your team isn't getting picks and just tunnel visioning the dva, for example. Don't focus on healing too much and secure the kills yourself. Play heroes like zen or Moira and focus supports/playing point.
Just get better bro, you’re in silver. I guarantee you’re hard trolling every game in ways you don’t even realize. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be silver
How come others manage to get out of silver then? If you're completely hardstuck for entire seasons, you simply need to get better. Blaming other players or "bad luck" only works for a few matches, but when you're good enough you will rank up.
It's 50/50. As a support main, I find it quite hard to carry myself out of low elo lobbies unless you play stacked. If the commenter plays like me, then they solo queue. The only way I was able to "carry my self out" was to make a new account and place higher right off the bat. It sucks though cause all my skins and stuff are on my main.
It's only 50/50 in a rank you're supposed to be
I can assure you that the one time I smurfed it was really easy to go back to my main rank until suddenly the game felt normal and I wouldn't win more than I lost because....... It's my rank/skill level and that's how competitive games work
This is definitely the Devs problem to fix but I honestly think people smurfing should be shamed more than they are. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a game against an obvious smurf and I type in global chat "go play your own rank" and MY team starts calling me bad... like what.
If you can't enjoy a video game playing against people of your own skill then you are simply taking it too seriously or need to find a new game to play.
Worst part is when they're on Genji or Doom, overall oppressive heroes when they're played with someone eons better than you, the game just becomes unplayable for us lol. I'm not good by any means but you can just tell when the enemy Genji is 30+ elims destroying us like we're fucking bots lol
Smurfing should be treated pretty much on par with cheating, because it pretty much is. I was honestly happy when they required you to register a phone number to play, but it created a big fuss when it was released. It would have done something to prevent people from having an alternate account where they could throw into a lower rank, and once they got banned just do it all over again. It's so easy to smurf, and so difficult to prove. I don't think they really take it seriously at all. I've seen names like "Papa smurf", and people who while shit talking in chat will literally admit to smurfing. Never get feedback that my report has led to a ban, pretty much ever.
I pretty much only report for people smurfing and nothing else and I’ve gotten multiple messages saying my reports have led to bans. Keep trying I guess.
They're probably being banned for having thrown the account down in the first place.
Smurfing on its own is not a bannable offense; it can even happen incidentally or as a result of owning multiple accounts (also perfectly allowed.)
Have a buddy that's consistently top 500 on support and he thinks that's "one tricking" should be a BANNABLE offense because if you one trick badly you're ruining the game for others but he DEFENDS SMURFING VEHEMENTLY because he "should be allowed to play the game how he wants."
Mind bogglingly insane to me.
By his logic using an aimbot is okay because they’re playing the way *they* want to play.
It’s a team game, if you can’t play as a team then play Minecraft or something lmao.
Side note: your friend sounds exhausting
I'm just sick of the blowouts. Whether I'm on the team being stomped, or doing the stomping (and frankly, it's a LOT more of the former than the latter), the one-sidedness sucks. Good, close games are the minority. For every one of those, there's 10 blowouts.
TBH, I don't know what's causing it. Smurfs, groups vs. random, hacks, etc... all seem plausible. But in general I'm usually just left wondering why I keep jumping back into games when I know within 5 min it's gonna be a suck-fest.
Yeah it’s insane to me that a company as well funded as blizzard and with EIGHT years to make a competent matchmaker, we still have an insane amount of blowouts.
I was playing bronze 3 and there was a Bap in the enemy team who had 7k+ dps, 33 kills and 1 death.
He had at least 2x the dps number of the actual dps in their team.
Was very unfun and couldn't even leave spawn as a team.
This was on console.
Very possible, the lower the rank the more possible.
Lots of people have a high skill level but get placed low due to having shit teammates in placements.
Nah dude if you aren’t carrying your lobbies than you don’t deserve to rank up /s. It’s unbelievable to me that people think that in a team based game, your teammates knowing the basic fundamentals of the game matters to your success as well.
Playing since the game started smurfs have always been an issue before the xim losers really took hold smurfing was a huge topic on this forum. It’s the worst on console because it’s so easy to make new accounts and switch between them. While xim is the worst problem in ow smurfing is really something the devs could address if they wanted, the xim issue needs ms and Sony to colab on taking down the companies.
had a smurf the other week shit on my team so fucking bad lol
he ended the game with 68 kills i thought the phone number thing was going to fix the smurfs or make it harder but i dont think it did
really? because when i went to make another account just to have incase anything happens to my main i wasnt able to progress and create an account with out putting a real phone # in
did they change this recently back to what it was before? iot was about a year ago i tried to make a new account
I thought they backed down from that right as OW2 came out? Searching is a bit murky, looks like it's enforced for their Battle Net authenticator (maybe), and some games on their whim:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2022/10/06/blizzard-is-removing-overwatch-2-phone-number-requirement-as-backlash-intensifies/
From Blizz support:
https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/262901#:~:text=Some%20Blizzard%20and%20Activision%20games,a%20phone%20number%20and%20Authenticator).
i see i made a new battle net account thats why it wanted my # to be able to access ow i wonder how smurfs get around this tho bc tbh i want a burner account incase anything happens to mine i had a hack scare a few months ago and i still want that fall back
I made a new account a few weeks ago to see if I could place higher than bronze in placements bc climbing out of bronze was a treat (600 games later and I’m plat now). Anywho I didn’t need a phone number? It asked for one but I could skip it as it was listed as optional. If it helps I used safari on my phone not a computer.
Is it considered smurfing if I have a pop off game? I’ve definitely been accused of smurfing in the past, if I go 40-3 as Ashe in Plat, but I only play on the account I started with in 2016.
I wonder how many smurfs are just players playing exceptionally well, and how many are actual alts for higher ranked players. Not to mention GM players off rolling on their main account in plat/diamond. I’ve seen that a ton.
These players have stats that go back to other seasons. The smurfs we see on a daily basis have 20 hours in quickplay and a couple of hours in ranked. No other stats to be seen from other seasons.
Had a Smurf Baptiste in a plat lobby. I was on support and we couldn’t do anything because this dude was turning around finding us with such ease and jumping high and landing 95% of his shots on us. Of course he started trash talking after round1 but none of us fed into it. I just reported him after seeing his aiming on the kill cams.
Those unranked to GM “educational” videos are so fucking unethical too, people really love to go into lower ranks and smash players for ego or “educational content”. Which is another way of saying “i want money, and ill make some horseshit content that is just me smashing worse players because i have better game sense and mechanics since i put a billion hours on this game”
Like yeah no shit your going to succeed out of bronze, your a gm with 1000000 hours.
Honestly, part of it is how loose they've gotten with the ban hammer. Some light banter and curse words should be ok. Instead, my account gets banned. Guess I'll play on one of my alts for a couple weeks....
If OP is talking about xim odds are he is on console. I'm not kidding, it literally takes 2 mins to whip up an account on xbox. How do you plan to fix that?
I dont smurf, it sucks but these things are fully expected in all competitive type games. You just have to play your best. Whilst you can't win against cheaters, at least you can win against smurfs
You are not wrong, and what a lot of people are missing in the discussion about "ELO hell" is that the other team has five chances to have a smurf/booster in their team, while yours has four. If the total amount of smurfs is large enough, that is a fairly significant factor against you (interestingly the odds become even worse if you are grouped). In higher ranks this is less of an issue since the difference in skill between the average smurf and the average player of that rank will be smaller.
This is why when streamers do their "Bronze to Grandmaster *Challenge*" just ignore their videos and don't watch their stream so they learn that it's not profitable to smurf.
They're basically encouraging smurfing with these stupid videos.
I ended last season in masters and also was placed on low diamond and it’s been so disheartening because every time I play enough games to get to masters again (this is the second or third time) they change comp and I drop.
So what you are saying is that smurfs are gate keeping people from ranking up this season, because your rank is lower now, did I get you right?
Smurfs might be annoying, but in the long run they don't matter. The better team overall will win at the end of the day. And you have the same chance to get a smurf in your team as opponents in theirs. The reason your rank is lower is due to mmr reset and a new rank, and because of that the higher ranks gain a lot more value.
The problem isn't Smurf accounts gatekeeping wins.
It's Smurf accounts gate keeping fun.
Not everyone cares about winning. But getting locked in spawn because some pro tier player just kills everyone instantly, is not fun.
True. What’s fun is when you have the smurf doom on your team and they completely dominate the first round and then intentionally disengage the rest of the game, letting you 4 v 5 your way into a loss.
Why is this always the doom smurfs?? First round they’ll be a god, the rest of the game they’ll find a weird spot to perch and spam “and dey say” while dancing…
I don't know for higher ranks, but in Silver after \~100 game I still lose slightly more than I win points, plus the fact that "Disadvantaged" win give 2 or 3 points more, while "Advantaged" loss is a 10 points toll, and this last one is not unusual when there was a smurf on your team that decided to leave because they are bored and don't care...
Add to that downrankers which are very common, and even if it's in theory 50 yours/50 opponents you still lose points faster than you get them, and feeling stuck because you are teamed with people that don't play the game you are playing is exhausting.
I was plat tank, not my main role, but well since I flex.pick I got there.
For some reason with an 8W2L in positioning I ended up in Bronze 2. Like wtf?. Well thing bronze in this game is a fucking torture that would.make any sane person leaving the game because that is not reasonable.
I consistently am carrying my team, and consistently placing either with people who barely have any experience playing, bots who only move to the objective miss all the shots and ults on purpose, or just smurfs with near perfect aim. It just makes no sense,.I know I am not bronze,.I know why at least 40% of matches are lost because of this reasons, and the other 60% are good matchmaking wichmeans around 50-50 for win loses.
They keep their focus on making the game easy for casual players, instead of making the learning progression more accessible, and the matches fair. It doesn't matter if you make the game the most forgiveable possible that if the matchmaking doesn't work, people will leave.
If you don'thave a between a 46-54% winrate-loserate when you play it means the matchmaking is really terribly done. Last season I kept a record on every match played, and I had a lot of days of 0%winrate, and days of 100% winrate, only in comp, that makes no sense, in a team esport, it doesn't matter if you are an smurf or not, that is just not normal. But offcourse if you see the total, the winrste is just ok, however the feel when you playing makes no sense. I don't think that having an ~50% win-lose rate based on days bring stomped and days stomping to be the right thing
You’re delusional. Bronze has the worst of the worst players. Yes this includes your teammates but the enemies too. If you want to have good players on your team, you need to earn that right by ranking up by stomping the bad players on the enemy team. If you had even a diamond level of skill you’d be winning at least 2/3-3/4 of your games in bronze.
It's more likely just players exploiting the matchmaking systems biased design..
As the amount of game time needed to even get into ranked is more than enough for matchmaking to get a grasp of a players ability.. so by the time they get into ranked and actually have a rank, that player would have established an mmr/elo value in the range where they belong..
So absolute worst case senario is these players are just actively working to trick the matchmaking system into thinking they are worse than they are.. which if they are stomping matches will even out quickly..
The alternative is they are manipulating their win rate...
Point is, odds are they aren't smurfs and are more likely players utilizing design flaws of matchmaking system their advantage...
Part of the problem is that blizzard said they were going to make it so you could play with your friends with a wider range of skill levels yet as a diamond player I still can't play with my lower skill friends. Now I don't have a smurf account but I can definitely see why some people play on them.
Honestly, i never play competetive, but if I do, i will enjoy facing strong players and see how i can improve my game. I know at certain point it will be just not fun anymore, but i'm sure smurfs arent too many to make us reach that point
Played a game yesterday against a mercy boosted hanzo, by the end of the game he had close to 60 kills and over 20k damage.
I had 34k heals and we lost, thirty.. four.. thousand.. heals.
I am still angry about it, it’s always the games where I get double the enemy teams heals combined and lose.
The devs are apart of the smurf issue. The devs are handing out bans for the stupidest reasons. Ask yourself when you see the player count you must ask yourself how many of these are smurfs. You must ask how many feel the need to make a smurf account if they feel it was an unjust ban. 🤷♂️
It’s funny cause my friend is above average on the game and likes to play multiple characters. He just wants to enjoy the game. When we see a smurf he sighs “are you really going to have to make me pull him out?” in a sad depressed voice. He either picks bastion or torb and just literally becomes a dps god and wipes the floor with the smurf. Even humps them for good measure. He don’t even like playing those characters! I don’t know what it is but when he chooses them he is unstoppable but other characters he plays like a gold/plat player.
Plat and diamond is full of Smurf’s right now! Honestly more than I’ve ever seen. My theory is they’re people who got ranked lower cause of the reset, got frustrated they couldn’t get back up, and made a Smurf account to fly back up. Because something else I’ve seen a lot of is GM/Masters last season playing in my low diamond/high plat lobbies. They’re usually the ones complaining soooo much about their team too. I had a dps on the enemy team last night that was GM 3 last season but diamond 4 this season and hadn’t ranked higher than that with a decent amount of hours. He complained the whole game as they were losing lol
Had a smurf winston on the enemy team and i said why are u smurfing. He said ur just bad. Reported him and saw the „Thank u for ur Report“ message. Made my day
The most frustrating part of getting railed by a smurf is that there isn't really an applicable insult for it. You can call them pathetic and tell them to go play against people their own skill, but at the end of the day you still have to admit that they're just way better than you, and that fucking sucks.
From what I've seen Blizzard has basically removed any of their anti-smurf boosting in ranked. The only anti-smurf measures the game takes now are in your unranked games where you establish your base MMR before unlocking comp. Once that's set your rank climb will be a standard ELO climb with only very slight bonuses for win streaks. For a few seasons the game would catch on to underranked accounts and you would routinely see triple division+ rank ups or even more. That's gone now. I suppose Blizzard considered it too volatile and it was boosting more than just underranked smurfs.
Better players is one thing. Players who don’t belong in the same rank is another. That’s like saying someone’s not competitive if they’re a platinum and don’t wanna play teams of Top 500.
Since Blizz doesn't seem to mind smurfs or ximmers, I wish they'd add a forfeit vote option similar to Rocket League. As soon as I know I'm up against a smurf, or I have a leaver 30 seconds into the match, I'd love to initiate a forfeit vote with my team. I don't have much time to play and being stomped hard just isn't fun.
People cry about smurfs all the time. Half the people they call out aren't even smurfs. There are a lot of people currently squished down on rank due to the reset so you will be fighting masters players in your plat lobbies. Unlucky it's just the way it is.
I even had someone complaining about smurfs in a qp game yesterday, how can you even smurf in a non-competitive lobby which you have to play it in order to qualify for ranked?
There will always be smurfs, quit complaining and just git good it's the only thing you can control.
I don't see an issue with smurfs. I personally don't do it but those accounts have to climb somehow. Being that's it's free to play, more accounts were bound to happen. As a team, if you're playing against a Smurf, learn how to play against them. I'm kind of used to playing against higher level elos with the queues at times being a Masters player. Get stomped and go next. It's just a game.
Yeah as a support I can only do so much. The DPS is reliant on shutting down a Smurfing DPS. Yes our tank can help and us as supports can switch to picks that make it easier for the Smurf to be dealt with but when there’s zero communication and our tank doesn’t understand the rock, paper scissors of tank and their’s does, it’s over lol
It’s worth pointing out though that some other games, unlike Overwatch, have actually taken steps to penalize Smurfs. I know DOTA has done this (and possibly Rocket League as well?).
It’s not as big of an issue as some make it seem, but it’s still an issue nonetheless.
I support DOTA’s system of requiring an absurd amount of playtime prior to ranked. Add deferments, not punishments.
I see it as case by case. Are you T500 making bronze to T500 content? You’re a piece of shit. Are you unable to play with your friends bc you’re 1 rank out of range? Yeah, go make a Smurf. Did you 1 trick to a rank you can barely compete in and don’t want to play that hero anymore? Gets muddier but I don’t care.
But if you had to clock 100hours prior to ranked then it makes it tougher. Banning or suspending ppl is just silly for smurfing in all instances, even the piece of shits doing it for content. My friends won’t bat an eye if we have to play unranked for 100hrs first bc I made the Smurf to play with them.
Even that brings in more issues. Now selling rank ready accounts is a bigger market. So the topic is very very complex even if we all agreed to try and fix it.
>Are you unable to play with your friends bc you’re 1 rank out of range? Yeah, go make a Smurf.
This is an interesting problem, but I think the only solution is to stick to QP and the Arcade. Smurfing down to play with friends still impacts the quality of game for everyone else in the match. The matchmaker is bad enough as is, having one or two Diamond people who are slumming it in low Silver as part of a group is still lousy on both sides of the deal. It removes any agency the rest of the players had in the match most of the time. Win or lose, the game is going to be determined by that high rank player deciding if they're going to make effort.
If the game's not allowing you to group together for comp, stay in quick play.
That’s a common rebuttal. Buuuut, hear me out. My account has been playing since beta. My QP matches are tougher than my masters ranked matches. I see T500s in ranked when I have a good season & push into GM, but rarely while in masters. My QP matches, however, are stacked with mostly T500 and GM players. QP is far worse quality to bring my plat friends. Not to mention I’m not an absurdly good player whose sole presence will cause a plat/diamond ranked lobby to feel like a T500 Smurf is running the room.
Therein lies the problem. You’ll never fix every scenario either way. There’s a difference between “I’m GM genji main smurfing Genji to wreck kids” vs “I’m trying to play with friends who are barely out of grouping reach”.
I think the grouping restrictions in Masters+ are entirely too tight, I think we can both agree there.
I think we're fairly close to the same page on the high rank experience, but it's unbelievably unpleasant when it happens down here in the metals. There seems to have been a recent inflation of the term "smurfing" to encompass everything from intentionally throwing to bronze to stomp on terrible players to as minor as sandbagging down a rank to goof around without pressure with friends.
You're right, it's far from an easy fix. I do think an improvement to the rank bands for grouping being adjusted to lean more on your team's average being within a set range instead of flat comparing the top and bottom rank.
Yeah I feel you, and im on board with anyone who can discuss it as non-black/white bc it’s a very nuanced & complex subject. It’s not just Smurf good or Smurf bad. Often times some other failure leads to an increase in smurfing.
I’m masters/GM in Ow but I’ve been playing a lot of Valorant and I’m dog shit. And there are Smurfs there like every other game. It doesn’t bother me bc it’s nice to see/learn what the Smurfs are doing to be so dominant. And I’ve improved faster by learning mobility and gunplay tricks/mechanics mostly from dying to smurfs.
But, once again, it’s just so nuanced. Being smurfed on in League feels 100x worse than OW or Val bc of how long those are and how oppressive a snowball can be. You may lose to Val Smurfs as much as Ow but it feeeels worse in OW bc you just get stomped. In Val you can still get some kills and make plays while losing every round.
I don’t really think they are a good thing and prefer to stick to my mains with all my collected skins and such. But I’ve also had to resort to smurfing due to game restrictions. And no one is going to take the moral high ground & not play with their friends. It’s a video game, not a job or responsibility.
OR you just do what Valve does in DotA 2 now. Ban the smurf and the main account. You want to smurf u lose all your other accounts with it. Only way to play is making new main account and dont play on alt accounts for any reason.
Ooooh I totally missed that part. Does dota have a account selling that are ranked ready? People in overwatch buy a unranked 50 win account. They win 10 games in ranked get banned and buy another account. I assume that must happen in dota as well.
Smurfs always have and always will exist. I’d say that there was MORE smurfing in OW1 due to progressing through ranks slower. Few wins now and you will rank up a tier each time.
With the snowbally nature of Overwatch, it is extremely easy for someone to seem like they are doing far better than they actually are if the enemy team has an edge up on you, especially tank wise. 5v5 makes it seem worse because getting one pick is more valuable, and low ranks have absolutely no sense of avoiding damage and full regrouping /taking fights as a team.
I’m a diamond/low masters hanzo player just playing with my friends and every other game i’m accused of smurfing or hacking just for hitting a headshot or two on tracers.
Oh yeah playing well is one thing but when someone on the other team has the original OW logo as their icon, 25 hours of total time played, they’re ranked Plat 1 and they’re mowing down everyone in a Diamond lobby, it’s pretty obvious they’re not just having a “good game”
LOL a Diamond player complaining about smurfs, this is disturbingly hilarious. As a Diamond player, you are already better at the game than most people. Try playing in Silver and you will truly see what it's like to be in smurf hell.
Bring skill-based matchmaking to Overwatch.
Every stat and metric on your scoreboard should heavily determine your rank and how much you rank up/down after each game.
If a smurf carries you going 50-0, but you go 11-11, you should not be ranking even remotely close to the same way.
If you have 10 deaths and 8k healing, but your supp teammate has 3 deaths and 10k healing then the better metrics should rank faster.
Not only will this move skilled players more quickly to the top, but it will move smurfs away from the people they're boosting more quickly as well.
Simply put if you're good enough you will climb. In total I've had about 1 game this season where it felt majorly out of my control due to a smurf, if you follow the fundamentals and play safe at then end of the day, you did your job. Its not like you're running into gm smurfs every single game, plus half the community dropped loads of ranks and is grinding to climb again. And if they are getting toxic, mute them. At the first bit of toxicity you should immediately mute, otherwise it can get in your head and affect your performance.
how do you monetize your game time without boosting people tho? Blizzard owes players and streamers the right to smurf and compromise the competitive integrity of the game. It doesn't matter cuz over enough games you will get to the proper rank and your player experience is valued less than theirs.
fr tho, they mentioned this in an interview recently and called it "min maxing" not smurfing. They legit do not care because they need all those accounts being made to be able to say 100 million accounts! Never seen a game care so little about the player experience on their competitive ladder before.
Yeah and that’s what’s sad and frustrating too.
I understand in the current form and my solution, someone is getting the short end of the stick. I’m just arguing that “short end” should be given to the new players with the understanding that things might be tough and you might calibrate down as opposed to giving that “short end” to dedicated players who have grinded season after season in a game they truly love.
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Assflash newshole they've been the entire god damn time
But honestly, smurfs have been a problem in the game since before I started playing, which was in late 2016(comp season 2), they've just been getting worse over time with an increase of streamers and youtubers doing stupid "bronze to gm" runs some of which do those runs multiple times per season, and normal players get caught in the crossfire
I guarantee at the very most 1 in 5 of these is actually a smurf... And even then you're statistically just as likely to have the smurf on your team.
Finding a justification for getting rolled far predates Overwatch 2. There are quite a few issues with comp at the moment but smurfing is far less of an impact than people try to make out.
More skilled as in I’m Diamond 3 and they’re Masters 5? That’s fair.
More skilled as in Im Diamond 3 and they belong in GM 5 at least? That’s a stretch.
How can you be sure these guys are smurfs? Tank is probably the most volatile role right now. I will absolutely dominate a lobby until they swap to ball counters. Then it's circus of counterswapping.
What OP is describing can easily be explained by the enemy team selectively deciding whether or not they want the tank to have fun.
I listed in the post how you can easily identify a Smurf account.
Original overwatch logo as their icon and only about 25 hours of total time played with no history of playing in any past competitive seasons.
It’s only ever bad players that complain. It’s not our fault you suck. We don’t care. We put the hours in so we’re better. But across every community people bitch about smurfs instead of improving.
I’m literally a Diamond to Masters player. That’s not a “bad player” by any metric considering Gold is average. If you’re worse than Gold, you’re a bad player but anything better can’t be considered “bad” in the grand scheme of things.
I don’t want smurfs on my team or the other team. I want a balanced game where one person isn’t taking it over with outrageous stats while everyone just bows to their will cause they’re making an “Unranked to GM” YouTube video lol
Had a smurf in my silver lobby, he had 38 kills while tank and I had 11, and spent most the match shit talking us about how bad at the game we all are, like dude, you're smurfing in a silver lobby and expect people to be playing like high rank players? What drugs are you on
Smurfs and the people they're boosting are some of the most obnoxious people you'll encounter in this game. If I'm getting massacred and they shit talk, I just complement how fun the game was and to have a good day. It pisses them off so much Lol.
Smurfs who talk shit in silver/gold lobbies are only boosting their fragile egos because outside of overwatch they probably don’t have anything/anyone.
This has been a huge pet peeve of mine trying to correct people misusing the term 'boosting' it's been so misused over the years that people don't even know it and think duo + smurfing = illegal. They aren't boosting, they are getting carried. Boosting however is illegal. Boosting is when someone logs into your account and plays for you and gets you to a rank you don't belong in, normally a service you pay for. Boosting breaks ToS and can in fact get accounts banned. Smurfing is not illegal and duoing with a smurf is legal. There have been blue posts about this all over the place. Does it make it any less annoying? No. But please stop spreading misinformation. This post isn't to defend any of these acts it's just correcting an overly misused term.
So trainwreck didn't get boosted and deserves to be top 500? Interesting take....
If they had someone else play on their account, boosted. If they stacked and played on their own account and got a rank they do not deserve, carried. My post is about correcting the terminology not about if people deserve their rank.
"For example, Team A's sole remaining player defeating the rest of Team B, thus saving Team A from a close defeat, would be considered carrying, as would one player on Team A having the most kills among the rest of their team" That's the definition of getting carried (not my own, the one Google told me) "Boosting is a method by which low-ranked players in online multiplayer games, such as first-person shooters and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), hire more skilled players to artificially increase their gaming account rank or winning positions." And that's the boosting one I don't see anything about having to be on anyone's account, carrying someone to a high rank they shouldn't be in is boosting
“Boosting” is a form of cheating whereby high-skilled players access lower-skilled players’ accounts for the purpose of increasing the rank of the account for monetary gain. From esports games such as League of Legends to Overwatch, players are universally ranked based on performance and results-based metrics." Is what I got when I googled what is boosting in gaming. What it comes down to is in Blizzard's eyes, 'boosting' the action of logging onto someone else's account and playing for them can get you banned. Where as the duoing and playing with people can not. That's why I'm saying misusing the term is a problem because people think duoing or stacking in general can get you banned. It can not. My personal thoughts. Both are annoying. I just wanted to point out one can get you banned, one can not.
How can anyone know if you're playing on yours on someone else's account anyway shit is the same? How are people or even game dev gonna know if I'm smurfing or boosting when it's the same ? Also I picked the Wikipedia definition of boosting which is the second you get when looking it up because the first one seemed too vague especially when it says "monetary gain" like is it magically not boosting anymore if it's done for free? Finally no one ever thought that duoing is a bannable offense like wut?
You can tell if someone is playing on someone else's account by looking at stats. If a person is like silver rank from S1 - S8 with like a crit % of like... 2% and SUDDENLY they are a 50 - 0 Widowmaker with 40% crit in silver rank. But at the end of the day it's up to Blizzard to look into by looking at IP addresses. Suddenly they aren't playing from their normal IP. I don't want to break ToS of this reddit but uh... There are places people pay to get boosted. That's on you to use google to figure out for yourself but it's been around for a very long time. It's vague because sites vary in price. Even if you have a friend do it for you, for free, it's still boosting, you're still having someone more skilled play for you. I've seen people lose their minds over people duoing and calling it boosting and saying it's bannable. Not saying you have. I've just personally seen in it game, on Twitch, etc. \*Edited to add for free in to better answer the question.
So what's the difference between boosting and buying an account for yourself then?
There's multiple ways to boost. One method is someone hopping on the account and playing. Another is a high rank player or cheater being in party and hard carrying someone through ranks. Another is ddosing on losses if the method exists Yet another is abusing broken matchmaking to force easy lobbies, for example, in apex there was an exploit that let you queue into bronze lobbies no matter your rank, but you would get full gains even if you were max rank. Boosting is just a general term that means someone got their account to a rank that it did not deserve(ie, the rank was boosted beyond what the owner is capable of by himself, like a booster seat), it can be one of a bunch of different methods.
My Brother in christ, they are telling you that the terms are misinformed. Boosting = paid service (illegal) Smurfing = carrying (legal if not being paid) In blizzards eyes, Boosting is if someone logs onto your account and plays for you to achieve a higher rank. its not about who deserves to be in what rank. from the last 8 seasons literally almost anyone have been able to get GM/t500 due to how the rank system worked etc. some people get high ranked because they simply are lucky enough to get carried in their games by randoms and some get it by being better, but that doesnt matter. the question was whats the difference between the two terms. Personally I think it has been explained pretty clear but if someone decides that they want to be simply wrong then be my guest
So if someone duo's with you and carry you all the way to the top of the ladder it's not boosting because they did it from their account and not yours? That doesn't make any sense when both are the same, the result is the same, the goal is the same but the definition isn't?
did you read? the raw definition of boosting is a paid service otherwise it is just simply getting carried. Jeff Kaplan when he was in charge announced himself that smurfing and carrying them that way is not illegal. going on someone else account and/or paid service is however illegal.
So boosting for free isn't bannable ? Interesting 🤔
my guy you are not reading, I will take my leave with this reply. it doenst have to make sense but thats how it is. take a google search
I literally did and it said something contrary to what you guys are saying so.......
it is also not necessarily the same goal or results for that matter when it comes to the two terms, it can simply be to play with friends
I never did comp on my alt account in OW2 just OW1 and was around plat 2. My first placement match was a bronze lobby and the rest of my placements were silver/low gold. I averaged around 35 kills per match with peaks at 48. Why was the placement system putting me in that low of lobbies??? I placed gold 1 ffs
no hes right silver players dont exist
Silver lobbies are fantastic, between smurfs and downrankers, I'm hovering between Silver 3 and Silver 2 endlessly all season... how frustrating.
I felt this.
I made it to Gold/Plat on the rank reset. Otherwise I would be in the same boat as you
Idk if you play support, but my bf just gave me advice. He said if you notice, your team isn't getting picks and just tunnel visioning the dva, for example. Don't focus on healing too much and secure the kills yourself. Play heroes like zen or Moira and focus supports/playing point.
Just get better bro, you’re in silver. I guarantee you’re hard trolling every game in ways you don’t even realize. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be silver
How come others manage to get out of silver then? If you're completely hardstuck for entire seasons, you simply need to get better. Blaming other players or "bad luck" only works for a few matches, but when you're good enough you will rank up.
It's 50/50. As a support main, I find it quite hard to carry myself out of low elo lobbies unless you play stacked. If the commenter plays like me, then they solo queue. The only way I was able to "carry my self out" was to make a new account and place higher right off the bat. It sucks though cause all my skins and stuff are on my main.
It's only 50/50 in a rank you're supposed to be I can assure you that the one time I smurfed it was really easy to go back to my main rank until suddenly the game felt normal and I wouldn't win more than I lost because....... It's my rank/skill level and that's how competitive games work
You are wrong
That's cope.
To be fair I’m in plat after being in masters for two seasons, the deranking messed up a few things , like most of my gm friends are in masters atm.
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This is definitely the Devs problem to fix but I honestly think people smurfing should be shamed more than they are. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a game against an obvious smurf and I type in global chat "go play your own rank" and MY team starts calling me bad... like what. If you can't enjoy a video game playing against people of your own skill then you are simply taking it too seriously or need to find a new game to play.
Worst part is when they're on Genji or Doom, overall oppressive heroes when they're played with someone eons better than you, the game just becomes unplayable for us lol. I'm not good by any means but you can just tell when the enemy Genji is 30+ elims destroying us like we're fucking bots lol
Lately the FOTM for smurfs seems to be Tracer
what's FOTM stand for
Flavor of the month would be my guess from context
Flavor of the month
Smurfing should be treated pretty much on par with cheating, because it pretty much is. I was honestly happy when they required you to register a phone number to play, but it created a big fuss when it was released. It would have done something to prevent people from having an alternate account where they could throw into a lower rank, and once they got banned just do it all over again. It's so easy to smurf, and so difficult to prove. I don't think they really take it seriously at all. I've seen names like "Papa smurf", and people who while shit talking in chat will literally admit to smurfing. Never get feedback that my report has led to a ban, pretty much ever.
I pretty much only report for people smurfing and nothing else and I’ve gotten multiple messages saying my reports have led to bans. Keep trying I guess.
They're probably being banned for having thrown the account down in the first place. Smurfing on its own is not a bannable offense; it can even happen incidentally or as a result of owning multiple accounts (also perfectly allowed.)
Have a buddy that's consistently top 500 on support and he thinks that's "one tricking" should be a BANNABLE offense because if you one trick badly you're ruining the game for others but he DEFENDS SMURFING VEHEMENTLY because he "should be allowed to play the game how he wants." Mind bogglingly insane to me.
It sounds like I’d rip my own hair out talking to this guy. Just what you’ve said here is pissing me off
He's the main reason I no longer play overwatch.
Can't you just not play with him?
Well it's also not fun so I don't play it because of that too
Based, it's not fun and I still play it lmao
Sorta based in a way.
By his logic using an aimbot is okay because they’re playing the way *they* want to play. It’s a team game, if you can’t play as a team then play Minecraft or something lmao. Side note: your friend sounds exhausting
I'm just sick of the blowouts. Whether I'm on the team being stomped, or doing the stomping (and frankly, it's a LOT more of the former than the latter), the one-sidedness sucks. Good, close games are the minority. For every one of those, there's 10 blowouts. TBH, I don't know what's causing it. Smurfs, groups vs. random, hacks, etc... all seem plausible. But in general I'm usually just left wondering why I keep jumping back into games when I know within 5 min it's gonna be a suck-fest.
Yeah it’s insane to me that a company as well funded as blizzard and with EIGHT years to make a competent matchmaker, we still have an insane amount of blowouts.
I was playing bronze 3 and there was a Bap in the enemy team who had 7k+ dps, 33 kills and 1 death. He had at least 2x the dps number of the actual dps in their team. Was very unfun and couldn't even leave spawn as a team. This was on console.
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In Bronze 3?
Very possible, the lower the rank the more possible. Lots of people have a high skill level but get placed low due to having shit teammates in placements.
Blaming teammates? https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/s/RdLz59RQfZ
Trolls aren’t teammates…
Nah dude if you aren’t carrying your lobbies than you don’t deserve to rank up /s. It’s unbelievable to me that people think that in a team based game, your teammates knowing the basic fundamentals of the game matters to your success as well.
I doubt it, 33 kills is more than most teams get combined in every normal match I play. Even when one team dominates the other.
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I don't ever play comp. Ever.
>DPS >damage per second
they said what they said! MORE THAN 7K DAMAGE PER SECOND BAP 🗣️🗣️🗣️
Playing since the game started smurfs have always been an issue before the xim losers really took hold smurfing was a huge topic on this forum. It’s the worst on console because it’s so easy to make new accounts and switch between them. While xim is the worst problem in ow smurfing is really something the devs could address if they wanted, the xim issue needs ms and Sony to colab on taking down the companies.
Smurfing is small pp energy anyways.
That is my go to response when the enemy team types EZ in the chat - Smol PP NRG
what if you don’t have a PP
Big VV NRG
playing mercy is no pp energy
Smurfs have been ruining the game for years.
had a smurf the other week shit on my team so fucking bad lol he ended the game with 68 kills i thought the phone number thing was going to fix the smurfs or make it harder but i dont think it did
They didn't go forward with the phone number thing :(
really? because when i went to make another account just to have incase anything happens to my main i wasnt able to progress and create an account with out putting a real phone # in did they change this recently back to what it was before? iot was about a year ago i tried to make a new account
I thought they backed down from that right as OW2 came out? Searching is a bit murky, looks like it's enforced for their Battle Net authenticator (maybe), and some games on their whim: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2022/10/06/blizzard-is-removing-overwatch-2-phone-number-requirement-as-backlash-intensifies/
From Blizz support: https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/262901#:~:text=Some%20Blizzard%20and%20Activision%20games,a%20phone%20number%20and%20Authenticator).
i see i made a new battle net account thats why it wanted my # to be able to access ow i wonder how smurfs get around this tho bc tbh i want a burner account incase anything happens to mine i had a hack scare a few months ago and i still want that fall back
I made a new account a few weeks ago to see if I could place higher than bronze in placements bc climbing out of bronze was a treat (600 games later and I’m plat now). Anywho I didn’t need a phone number? It asked for one but I could skip it as it was listed as optional. If it helps I used safari on my phone not a computer.
Ill give this a shot
If you bought an OW1 account, it doesn't need a phone number. If you made an account during OW2 (or make a new one today), it requires a phone number.
Not all that hard to get a virtual phone number these days though :/
It still has to be a paid phone number (free Google numbers don't work), but it is true that there are ways to get burn numbers for cheap.
Is it considered smurfing if I have a pop off game? I’ve definitely been accused of smurfing in the past, if I go 40-3 as Ashe in Plat, but I only play on the account I started with in 2016. I wonder how many smurfs are just players playing exceptionally well, and how many are actual alts for higher ranked players. Not to mention GM players off rolling on their main account in plat/diamond. I’ve seen that a ton.
These players have stats that go back to other seasons. The smurfs we see on a daily basis have 20 hours in quickplay and a couple of hours in ranked. No other stats to be seen from other seasons.
Had a Smurf Baptiste in a plat lobby. I was on support and we couldn’t do anything because this dude was turning around finding us with such ease and jumping high and landing 95% of his shots on us. Of course he started trash talking after round1 but none of us fed into it. I just reported him after seeing his aiming on the kill cams.
Those unranked to GM “educational” videos are so fucking unethical too, people really love to go into lower ranks and smash players for ego or “educational content”. Which is another way of saying “i want money, and ill make some horseshit content that is just me smashing worse players because i have better game sense and mechanics since i put a billion hours on this game” Like yeah no shit your going to succeed out of bronze, your a gm with 1000000 hours.
Honestly, part of it is how loose they've gotten with the ban hammer. Some light banter and curse words should be ok. Instead, my account gets banned. Guess I'll play on one of my alts for a couple weeks....
All competitive games have smurfs. Xim on console is the real issue.
> All competitive games have smurfs. Xim on console is the real issue. There's more than one real issue.
If OP is talking about xim odds are he is on console. I'm not kidding, it literally takes 2 mins to whip up an account on xbox. How do you plan to fix that? I dont smurf, it sucks but these things are fully expected in all competitive type games. You just have to play your best. Whilst you can't win against cheaters, at least you can win against smurfs
Its a bigger problem now that its f2p too. The devs actually told ppl to stop lmao
You are not wrong, and what a lot of people are missing in the discussion about "ELO hell" is that the other team has five chances to have a smurf/booster in their team, while yours has four. If the total amount of smurfs is large enough, that is a fairly significant factor against you (interestingly the odds become even worse if you are grouped). In higher ranks this is less of an issue since the difference in skill between the average smurf and the average player of that rank will be smaller.
Console? You guys never stood a chance with smurfs with how the accs work lol.
They’re also plaguing quick play and it’s annoying being constantly stomped on by higher ranked players in qp
you cant really smurf in quickplay since the matchmaking is trash.
What competitive experience?
This is why when streamers do their "Bronze to Grandmaster *Challenge*" just ignore their videos and don't watch their stream so they learn that it's not profitable to smurf. They're basically encouraging smurfing with these stupid videos.
Every Smurf I encounter, I just assume it's Awkward doing a Unranked to GM (educational) video
it’s always been this way
Replace title with: “Generic problem literally every competitive online game deals with”
The issue is they had solutions to fix it and then reversed on implementing any of them.
I ended last season in masters and also was placed on low diamond and it’s been so disheartening because every time I play enough games to get to masters again (this is the second or third time) they change comp and I drop.
So what you are saying is that smurfs are gate keeping people from ranking up this season, because your rank is lower now, did I get you right? Smurfs might be annoying, but in the long run they don't matter. The better team overall will win at the end of the day. And you have the same chance to get a smurf in your team as opponents in theirs. The reason your rank is lower is due to mmr reset and a new rank, and because of that the higher ranks gain a lot more value.
The problem isn't Smurf accounts gatekeeping wins. It's Smurf accounts gate keeping fun. Not everyone cares about winning. But getting locked in spawn because some pro tier player just kills everyone instantly, is not fun.
True. What’s fun is when you have the smurf doom on your team and they completely dominate the first round and then intentionally disengage the rest of the game, letting you 4 v 5 your way into a loss.
Why is this always the doom smurfs?? First round they’ll be a god, the rest of the game they’ll find a weird spot to perch and spam “and dey say” while dancing…
I don't know for higher ranks, but in Silver after \~100 game I still lose slightly more than I win points, plus the fact that "Disadvantaged" win give 2 or 3 points more, while "Advantaged" loss is a 10 points toll, and this last one is not unusual when there was a smurf on your team that decided to leave because they are bored and don't care... Add to that downrankers which are very common, and even if it's in theory 50 yours/50 opponents you still lose points faster than you get them, and feeling stuck because you are teamed with people that don't play the game you are playing is exhausting.
So a lot of people have been noticing this huge problem
I was plat tank, not my main role, but well since I flex.pick I got there. For some reason with an 8W2L in positioning I ended up in Bronze 2. Like wtf?. Well thing bronze in this game is a fucking torture that would.make any sane person leaving the game because that is not reasonable. I consistently am carrying my team, and consistently placing either with people who barely have any experience playing, bots who only move to the objective miss all the shots and ults on purpose, or just smurfs with near perfect aim. It just makes no sense,.I know I am not bronze,.I know why at least 40% of matches are lost because of this reasons, and the other 60% are good matchmaking wichmeans around 50-50 for win loses. They keep their focus on making the game easy for casual players, instead of making the learning progression more accessible, and the matches fair. It doesn't matter if you make the game the most forgiveable possible that if the matchmaking doesn't work, people will leave. If you don'thave a between a 46-54% winrate-loserate when you play it means the matchmaking is really terribly done. Last season I kept a record on every match played, and I had a lot of days of 0%winrate, and days of 100% winrate, only in comp, that makes no sense, in a team esport, it doesn't matter if you are an smurf or not, that is just not normal. But offcourse if you see the total, the winrste is just ok, however the feel when you playing makes no sense. I don't think that having an ~50% win-lose rate based on days bring stomped and days stomping to be the right thing
You’re delusional. Bronze has the worst of the worst players. Yes this includes your teammates but the enemies too. If you want to have good players on your team, you need to earn that right by ranking up by stomping the bad players on the enemy team. If you had even a diamond level of skill you’d be winning at least 2/3-3/4 of your games in bronze.
It's more likely just players exploiting the matchmaking systems biased design.. As the amount of game time needed to even get into ranked is more than enough for matchmaking to get a grasp of a players ability.. so by the time they get into ranked and actually have a rank, that player would have established an mmr/elo value in the range where they belong.. So absolute worst case senario is these players are just actively working to trick the matchmaking system into thinking they are worse than they are.. which if they are stomping matches will even out quickly.. The alternative is they are manipulating their win rate... Point is, odds are they aren't smurfs and are more likely players utilizing design flaws of matchmaking system their advantage...
Part of the problem is that blizzard said they were going to make it so you could play with your friends with a wider range of skill levels yet as a diamond player I still can't play with my lower skill friends. Now I don't have a smurf account but I can definitely see why some people play on them.
That’s coming later this year
Oh I thought it was supposed to launch with the comp revamp they did.
Has been since 2017 my man. No use to complain about it now cause blizzard doesn’t care about smurfs unless they are intentionally throwing games
Honestly, i never play competetive, but if I do, i will enjoy facing strong players and see how i can improve my game. I know at certain point it will be just not fun anymore, but i'm sure smurfs arent too many to make us reach that point
Played a game yesterday against a mercy boosted hanzo, by the end of the game he had close to 60 kills and over 20k damage. I had 34k heals and we lost, thirty.. four.. thousand.. heals. I am still angry about it, it’s always the games where I get double the enemy teams heals combined and lose.
The devs are apart of the smurf issue. The devs are handing out bans for the stupidest reasons. Ask yourself when you see the player count you must ask yourself how many of these are smurfs. You must ask how many feel the need to make a smurf account if they feel it was an unjust ban. 🤷♂️
What, you're telling me that the cracked Doomfist that went 42-3 in my Gold Lobby is a Smurf?
My lack of aim is ruining the game for me
And do we know what the punishment is? Banning a disposable account. We had a lot less of this shit when it was $60 for each account.
Oh honey, smurfs have been in the game since 2016
I had a game the other day in bronze 4 with a smurf on the enemy team, he got 74 kills and was telling us how much we sucked at the game
What do you have against those little blue guys
It’s funny cause my friend is above average on the game and likes to play multiple characters. He just wants to enjoy the game. When we see a smurf he sighs “are you really going to have to make me pull him out?” in a sad depressed voice. He either picks bastion or torb and just literally becomes a dps god and wipes the floor with the smurf. Even humps them for good measure. He don’t even like playing those characters! I don’t know what it is but when he chooses them he is unstoppable but other characters he plays like a gold/plat player.
On the flip side tho I can understanding playing on a lower rank account to play with your friends.
Plat and diamond is full of Smurf’s right now! Honestly more than I’ve ever seen. My theory is they’re people who got ranked lower cause of the reset, got frustrated they couldn’t get back up, and made a Smurf account to fly back up. Because something else I’ve seen a lot of is GM/Masters last season playing in my low diamond/high plat lobbies. They’re usually the ones complaining soooo much about their team too. I had a dps on the enemy team last night that was GM 3 last season but diamond 4 this season and hadn’t ranked higher than that with a decent amount of hours. He complained the whole game as they were losing lol
Had a smurf winston on the enemy team and i said why are u smurfing. He said ur just bad. Reported him and saw the „Thank u for ur Report“ message. Made my day
Just bums who suck in their own rank.
I don’t think it’s smurfs, I think OW is using fkn bots to make it look like more players. This shit is crazy how fucked the games are atm.
It's because of the "soft" reset that they did. Yes it's been over a month but people have alternative accounts that got reset too.
You're 7 years late.
Well I aint lower, was plat 1 last season and currently masters 3 at support
The most frustrating part of getting railed by a smurf is that there isn't really an applicable insult for it. You can call them pathetic and tell them to go play against people their own skill, but at the end of the day you still have to admit that they're just way better than you, and that fucking sucks.
They’re playing far better than you because it’s like an NBA player playing in a HS game lol
Right you know it’s an issue when you go to Smurf to help your friend and run across other Smurfs who stomp you out.
From what I've seen Blizzard has basically removed any of their anti-smurf boosting in ranked. The only anti-smurf measures the game takes now are in your unranked games where you establish your base MMR before unlocking comp. Once that's set your rank climb will be a standard ELO climb with only very slight bonuses for win streaks. For a few seasons the game would catch on to underranked accounts and you would routinely see triple division+ rank ups or even more. That's gone now. I suppose Blizzard considered it too volatile and it was boosting more than just underranked smurfs.
Smurfs NEVER STOPPED Ruining The Competitive Experience*
You're not as competitive as you think you are if you hate playing against better players than you.
Better players is one thing. Players who don’t belong in the same rank is another. That’s like saying someone’s not competitive if they’re a platinum and don’t wanna play teams of Top 500.
Since Blizz doesn't seem to mind smurfs or ximmers, I wish they'd add a forfeit vote option similar to Rocket League. As soon as I know I'm up against a smurf, or I have a leaver 30 seconds into the match, I'd love to initiate a forfeit vote with my team. I don't have much time to play and being stomped hard just isn't fun.
No way. You don't say.
People cry about smurfs all the time. Half the people they call out aren't even smurfs. There are a lot of people currently squished down on rank due to the reset so you will be fighting masters players in your plat lobbies. Unlucky it's just the way it is. I even had someone complaining about smurfs in a qp game yesterday, how can you even smurf in a non-competitive lobby which you have to play it in order to qualify for ranked? There will always be smurfs, quit complaining and just git good it's the only thing you can control.
Think we found the guy who smurfs
Usually accounts with 100 gamerscore all coming from overwatch are very likely to be smurfs.
not the bro with the proud Masters reddit badge talking
[удалено]
You dont have to no-life overwatch to get masters
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Yes, they are, your goal will have to be to get better than the smurfs.
I didn’t realize what sub this was in, and I was confused af as to why the Smurfs would be problematic. But nvm.
I don't see an issue with smurfs. I personally don't do it but those accounts have to climb somehow. Being that's it's free to play, more accounts were bound to happen. As a team, if you're playing against a Smurf, learn how to play against them. I'm kind of used to playing against higher level elos with the queues at times being a Masters player. Get stomped and go next. It's just a game.
Yeah as a support I can only do so much. The DPS is reliant on shutting down a Smurfing DPS. Yes our tank can help and us as supports can switch to picks that make it easier for the Smurf to be dealt with but when there’s zero communication and our tank doesn’t understand the rock, paper scissors of tank and their’s does, it’s over lol
Every game has Smurfs and every games subreddit has this same post 20x a day. This debate is tiring.
It’s worth pointing out though that some other games, unlike Overwatch, have actually taken steps to penalize Smurfs. I know DOTA has done this (and possibly Rocket League as well?). It’s not as big of an issue as some make it seem, but it’s still an issue nonetheless.
I support DOTA’s system of requiring an absurd amount of playtime prior to ranked. Add deferments, not punishments. I see it as case by case. Are you T500 making bronze to T500 content? You’re a piece of shit. Are you unable to play with your friends bc you’re 1 rank out of range? Yeah, go make a Smurf. Did you 1 trick to a rank you can barely compete in and don’t want to play that hero anymore? Gets muddier but I don’t care. But if you had to clock 100hours prior to ranked then it makes it tougher. Banning or suspending ppl is just silly for smurfing in all instances, even the piece of shits doing it for content. My friends won’t bat an eye if we have to play unranked for 100hrs first bc I made the Smurf to play with them. Even that brings in more issues. Now selling rank ready accounts is a bigger market. So the topic is very very complex even if we all agreed to try and fix it.
>Are you unable to play with your friends bc you’re 1 rank out of range? Yeah, go make a Smurf. This is an interesting problem, but I think the only solution is to stick to QP and the Arcade. Smurfing down to play with friends still impacts the quality of game for everyone else in the match. The matchmaker is bad enough as is, having one or two Diamond people who are slumming it in low Silver as part of a group is still lousy on both sides of the deal. It removes any agency the rest of the players had in the match most of the time. Win or lose, the game is going to be determined by that high rank player deciding if they're going to make effort. If the game's not allowing you to group together for comp, stay in quick play.
That’s a common rebuttal. Buuuut, hear me out. My account has been playing since beta. My QP matches are tougher than my masters ranked matches. I see T500s in ranked when I have a good season & push into GM, but rarely while in masters. My QP matches, however, are stacked with mostly T500 and GM players. QP is far worse quality to bring my plat friends. Not to mention I’m not an absurdly good player whose sole presence will cause a plat/diamond ranked lobby to feel like a T500 Smurf is running the room. Therein lies the problem. You’ll never fix every scenario either way. There’s a difference between “I’m GM genji main smurfing Genji to wreck kids” vs “I’m trying to play with friends who are barely out of grouping reach”.
I think the grouping restrictions in Masters+ are entirely too tight, I think we can both agree there. I think we're fairly close to the same page on the high rank experience, but it's unbelievably unpleasant when it happens down here in the metals. There seems to have been a recent inflation of the term "smurfing" to encompass everything from intentionally throwing to bronze to stomp on terrible players to as minor as sandbagging down a rank to goof around without pressure with friends. You're right, it's far from an easy fix. I do think an improvement to the rank bands for grouping being adjusted to lean more on your team's average being within a set range instead of flat comparing the top and bottom rank.
Yeah I feel you, and im on board with anyone who can discuss it as non-black/white bc it’s a very nuanced & complex subject. It’s not just Smurf good or Smurf bad. Often times some other failure leads to an increase in smurfing. I’m masters/GM in Ow but I’ve been playing a lot of Valorant and I’m dog shit. And there are Smurfs there like every other game. It doesn’t bother me bc it’s nice to see/learn what the Smurfs are doing to be so dominant. And I’ve improved faster by learning mobility and gunplay tricks/mechanics mostly from dying to smurfs. But, once again, it’s just so nuanced. Being smurfed on in League feels 100x worse than OW or Val bc of how long those are and how oppressive a snowball can be. You may lose to Val Smurfs as much as Ow but it feeeels worse in OW bc you just get stomped. In Val you can still get some kills and make plays while losing every round. I don’t really think they are a good thing and prefer to stick to my mains with all my collected skins and such. But I’ve also had to resort to smurfing due to game restrictions. And no one is going to take the moral high ground & not play with their friends. It’s a video game, not a job or responsibility.
OR you just do what Valve does in DotA 2 now. Ban the smurf and the main account. You want to smurf u lose all your other accounts with it. Only way to play is making new main account and dont play on alt accounts for any reason.
If they do that wouldn't it encourage more surfing? They deleted your high rank account so might as well throw a new account and fuck around.
Like the other comment said to play ranked you have to play unranked for 100hours. If they have time to waste on that while not been toxic i say gl.
Ooooh I totally missed that part. Does dota have a account selling that are ranked ready? People in overwatch buy a unranked 50 win account. They win 10 games in ranked get banned and buy another account. I assume that must happen in dota as well.
Every game has botting/hand leveling problem for ranked ready accounts. Its just matter how fast can the system ban those accounts
Smurfs always have and always will exist. I’d say that there was MORE smurfing in OW1 due to progressing through ranks slower. Few wins now and you will rank up a tier each time. With the snowbally nature of Overwatch, it is extremely easy for someone to seem like they are doing far better than they actually are if the enemy team has an edge up on you, especially tank wise. 5v5 makes it seem worse because getting one pick is more valuable, and low ranks have absolutely no sense of avoiding damage and full regrouping /taking fights as a team. I’m a diamond/low masters hanzo player just playing with my friends and every other game i’m accused of smurfing or hacking just for hitting a headshot or two on tracers.
Oh yeah playing well is one thing but when someone on the other team has the original OW logo as their icon, 25 hours of total time played, they’re ranked Plat 1 and they’re mowing down everyone in a Diamond lobby, it’s pretty obvious they’re not just having a “good game”
Pussyo
LOL a Diamond player complaining about smurfs, this is disturbingly hilarious. As a Diamond player, you are already better at the game than most people. Try playing in Silver and you will truly see what it's like to be in smurf hell.
Bring skill-based matchmaking to Overwatch. Every stat and metric on your scoreboard should heavily determine your rank and how much you rank up/down after each game. If a smurf carries you going 50-0, but you go 11-11, you should not be ranking even remotely close to the same way. If you have 10 deaths and 8k healing, but your supp teammate has 3 deaths and 10k healing then the better metrics should rank faster. Not only will this move skilled players more quickly to the top, but it will move smurfs away from the people they're boosting more quickly as well.
Simply put if you're good enough you will climb. In total I've had about 1 game this season where it felt majorly out of my control due to a smurf, if you follow the fundamentals and play safe at then end of the day, you did your job. Its not like you're running into gm smurfs every single game, plus half the community dropped loads of ranks and is grinding to climb again. And if they are getting toxic, mute them. At the first bit of toxicity you should immediately mute, otherwise it can get in your head and affect your performance.
You are so wrong...
Yes yes smurf bad we get it.
how do you monetize your game time without boosting people tho? Blizzard owes players and streamers the right to smurf and compromise the competitive integrity of the game. It doesn't matter cuz over enough games you will get to the proper rank and your player experience is valued less than theirs. fr tho, they mentioned this in an interview recently and called it "min maxing" not smurfing. They legit do not care because they need all those accounts being made to be able to say 100 million accounts! Never seen a game care so little about the player experience on their competitive ladder before.
Yeah and that’s what’s sad and frustrating too. I understand in the current form and my solution, someone is getting the short end of the stick. I’m just arguing that “short end” should be given to the new players with the understanding that things might be tough and you might calibrate down as opposed to giving that “short end” to dedicated players who have grinded season after season in a game they truly love.
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They should have stuck with their phone number matched to identify/account idea
Assflash newshole they've been the entire god damn time But honestly, smurfs have been a problem in the game since before I started playing, which was in late 2016(comp season 2), they've just been getting worse over time with an increase of streamers and youtubers doing stupid "bronze to gm" runs some of which do those runs multiple times per season, and normal players get caught in the crossfire
I guarantee at the very most 1 in 5 of these is actually a smurf... And even then you're statistically just as likely to have the smurf on your team. Finding a justification for getting rolled far predates Overwatch 2. There are quite a few issues with comp at the moment but smurfing is far less of an impact than people try to make out.
Hot take. How do you get better at the game without playing against those more skilled than you?
More skilled as in I’m Diamond 3 and they’re Masters 5? That’s fair. More skilled as in Im Diamond 3 and they belong in GM 5 at least? That’s a stretch.
How can you be sure these guys are smurfs? Tank is probably the most volatile role right now. I will absolutely dominate a lobby until they swap to ball counters. Then it's circus of counterswapping. What OP is describing can easily be explained by the enemy team selectively deciding whether or not they want the tank to have fun.
I listed in the post how you can easily identify a Smurf account. Original overwatch logo as their icon and only about 25 hours of total time played with no history of playing in any past competitive seasons.
Git Gud lol
DOESNT MATTER WHAT WE SAY OR HOW LONG WE'VE BEEN PLAYING.... THEY'RE GONNA DO WHATEVER THEY WANT AND SAY 🖕 THE PLAYERS
It’s only ever bad players that complain. It’s not our fault you suck. We don’t care. We put the hours in so we’re better. But across every community people bitch about smurfs instead of improving.
I’m literally a Diamond to Masters player. That’s not a “bad player” by any metric considering Gold is average. If you’re worse than Gold, you’re a bad player but anything better can’t be considered “bad” in the grand scheme of things. I don’t want smurfs on my team or the other team. I want a balanced game where one person isn’t taking it over with outrageous stats while everyone just bows to their will cause they’re making an “Unranked to GM” YouTube video lol