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[rant]
As a lower level player (silver league) that is trying to get better, I have been finding it rather annoying the number of smurfs I have encountered on the ladder.
In 1v1 it is a bit less frequent that in 2v2. In 1v1 I will find that I am on a good winning streak and facing continuously slightly better players that provide new challenges. This is a good feeling because it is a gradual increase and then I face a player that will just ROFL stomp me. Being suspicious of the great skill difference I will check their profile and look them up on SC2ranks. Very often they are a Masters or Diamond player that has been demoted all the way back to bronze. Checking in SC2gears they are typically tapping their hotkeys in a good rotation with high APM.
While I realize that this is an opportunity to step up my game, it just feels demoralizing to get ROFL stomped. It almost leads me to want to rage, though I never will.
The other thing that confuses me is, any time that I give them a decent challenge, many feel the need to BM me by telling me exactly how bad I am or call me a scrub or a noob. If only I could stroke my own ego so easily by intentionally beating people that I knew were not as good as me at something.
The real kicker is in 2v2 where I play with a RL friend that is not so committed to improvement. Out of the last 10 matches at least 6-7 were smurfing players. Typically Platinum or Diamond in 1v1, with a Silver level 2v2 team. While we take the losses in stride it sometimes makes it difficult to keep laddering.
I realize that a lot of these players are just frustrated that they are stuck where they are at in the 1v1 ladder and want to see some of their strategies actually work. But at the expense of players trying to get better it is really annoying.
[/rant]
Ok now I feel better. Sometimes a good QQ really does help =)
On the other side of the coin, I have had some games that were very clearly one sided. I always wonder how that person felt, seeing their entire base melt with no army to defend.
Hopefully they take it better than I do.
  
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Germany2896 Posts
Smurfing itself, i.e. playing with an unknown name is perfectly fine. And IMO the right of every player. If a strong player wants to play without everybody gossiping about what he does, or wants to practice without giving away the strategy he wants to play in the next tournament you shouldn't complain about that.
Sandbagging on the other hand, i.e. deliberately playing strongly under-ranked in order to stomp weaker players is not.
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Yeah, I don't get why people quit games to destroy their record. It's kinda a douche move to stomp people they know they're better than. I just play with my friends if I want to do that. ;]
If it's a one-sided game but your rank and MMR aren't changed by you auto-losing games, then it's fine. Some games just end up being one-sided, that's not your fault. Those games are frustrating if you're on the losing end though.
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I have a few lower level teams with less skilled friends. If you face them when you are on a win streak it's even less suprising. It dont take "that" many games until you get to face really good people.
I dont really think they are smurfs either, more likely they just dumped their main acc (as you said) and that is not a smurf.
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I don't understand intentionally demoting an account. Someone messaged me after a game asking why I gg'd out, because he was going to surrender to demote himself despite having the game won. I really don't understand that.
Going inactive for awhile and playing lower level players who have caught up on mmr was not a good experience for me, simply because the margin for error they provide led me to play lackadaisically. If you want these sandbox-style, mismatched games, there's always team play.
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You're going to run into a LOT of higher level players at all ranks of team games. Don't feel discouraged; many of these guys don't have any idea how team games work aside from "I'M GOING MUTAS", but have the mechanics to compensate. You'll get those guys back soon enough =D
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On February 22 2011 04:34 MasterOfChaos wrote:
Smurfing itself, i.e. playing with an unknown name is perfectly fine. And IMO the right of every player. If a strong player wants to play without everybody gossiping about what he does, or wants to practice without giving away the strategy he wants to play in the next tournament you shouldn't complain about that.
Sandbagging on the other hand, i.e. deliberately playing strongly under-ranked in order to stomp weaker players is not.
agree.
way too many people act like these two are one in the same -__-
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What.. People demote themselves to silver from master to get super soft opposition? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. :/
I know sometimes when I go laddering with irl friends in 2v2 or 3v3 we'll be faced against random silver/gold/plat/anything so in that case I guess I would be one of those players, but that's not smurfing and it aint deliberate either. 
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Try getting a practice partner  cause you can consistently practice with a set level player and really see how you are growing. Ladder can be frustrating sometimes!
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i'm a diamond player and i have a ton of gold/silver/bronze multiplayer teams
it's not that i'm smurfing, it's just that my partners aren't as good and we usually dick around and do something stupid like mass reapers
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I agree with your first point. Tanking your rating by intentionally losing so you can play lower level players is pretty lame. I don't understand why people would even want too in the first place.
I think you're a bit off with the teams though. I usually end up in lower leagues than I am in 1v1 when playing with friends. It's not that I'm trying to smurf or anything, it is just where we get placed. I would say more often than not the people you're playing are in the boat. The obvious exception is people who purposefully tank their placements, but I don't think that's all that common (at least I think).
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On February 22 2011 04:49 hifriend wrote:What.. People demote themselves to silver from master to get super soft opposition? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. :/ I know sometimes when I go laddering with irl friends in 2v2 or 3v3 we'll be faced against random silver/gold/plat/anything so in that case I guess I would be one of those players, but that's not smurfing and it aint deliberate either.
I think most of them do it to get portraits fast. If all your losses are 2min (search,start & leave) and the rest of the games are fast wins you'll get them more than 2x faster.
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Last night we got a diamond and platinum player in 1v1 that were a combined Silver rank team and we got them as us being slightly favored after we were on a losing streak already. After the match both players were indicated as playing their most played race when checking the profile. They were both playing zerg. We both play Terran.
They BM us from the start saying BL and they hope we lose and crap like they are 12 years old. So the game runs out for 35 minutes before it becomes clear that I don't have the end game skill to close it out and we are going to lose. So we agree over Skype to GG it with both our mains and naturals intact after losing most of our army and they just go on about how we are scrubs and other garbage.
As for smurfing or sandbagging, my beef is more with the sandbagger. Although, I would think that anyone that was smurfing would want to train at a minimum of platinum league and leave us mechanically challenged bronzies, silvers and golds be in all of our collective terribleness.
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On February 22 2011 05:07 Eeryck wrote:
Last night we got a diamond and platinum player in 1v1 that were a combined Silver rank team and we got them as us being slightly favored after we were on a losing streak already. After the match both players were indicated as playing their most played race when checking the profile. They were both playing zerg. We both play Terran.
They BM us from the start saying BL and they hope we lose and crap like they are 12 years old. So the game runs out for 35 minutes before it becomes clear that I don't have the end game skill to close it out and we are going to lose. So we agree over Skype to GG it with both our mains and naturals intact after losing most of our army and they just go on about how we are scrubs and other garbage.
As for smurfing or sandbagging, my beef is more with the sandbagger. Although, I would think that anyone that was smurfing would want to train at a minimum of platinum league and leave us mechanically challenged bronzies, silvers and golds be in all of our collective terribleness.
???
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This is bullshit. Nobody loses on purpose to fall down from diamond to bronze. You are just facing low level player that are better than you. It would take like 50 losses to get from diamond to bronze and only 20 to get back up, this doesnt make any sense.
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On February 22 2011 04:53 awu25 wrote:
i'm a diamond player and i have a ton of gold/silver/bronze multiplayer teams
it's not that i'm smurfing, it's just that my partners aren't as good and we usually dick around and do something stupid like mass reapers
Do this all the time ^_^
I hate how higher level people play seriously in team games. What's the fun in cheesing all your 4v4's?
If they're deliberately losing 1v1's though I think that's kinda wrong, but with the ladder system there's no way around it.
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On February 22 2011 05:44 seRapH wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2011 04:53 awu25 wrote:
i'm a diamond player and i have a ton of gold/silver/bronze multiplayer teams
it's not that i'm smurfing, it's just that my partners aren't as good and we usually dick around and do something stupid like mass reapers Do this all the time ^_^ I hate how higher level people play seriously in team games. What's the fun in cheesing all your 4v4's? If they're deliberately losing 1v1's though I think that's kinda wrong, but with the ladder system there's no way around it.
Thing is that every ladder allows people to deliberately lose 1v1s to lower rank, not just SC2 ladder. Of course, if it were a reportable offense, then the players might be slapped on the wrist. I don't know if it is or isn't for SC2.
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Well I meant that anything with a ladder inherently has this problem. But really it's still better than not having a ladder at all.
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Smurfs were such a big problem in WC3. A friend of mine, who was decent at the game, said that he made new accounts just for fun to smack around newbies like myself...
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On February 22 2011 05:43 Slunk wrote:
This is bullshit. Nobody loses on purpose to fall down from diamond to bronze. You are just facing low level player that are better than you. It would take like 50 losses to get from diamond to bronze and only 20 to get back up, this doesnt make any sense.
Here you go:
http://www.sc2ranks.com/team/7577461#alltime
http://www.sc2ranks.com/team/3684934#alltime
A couple of sandbaggers. You can find more checking through SC2ranks. It is easier to find them after you play one. I don't keep track but you can see it does happen.
Unfortunately I am not having luck finding any that have made two trips up and down the ladder.
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That doesn't happen too often in 2v2, for example, i'm a masters league player who plays mostly 2v2 with friends that are silver/bronze, so we're high bronze now as my friend keeps improving, but when we play two silver league players we demolish because the skill level between me and opposing players is generally quite great and my teammate is quite decent in the context of the game,
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On February 22 2011 05:43 Slunk wrote:
This is bullshit. Nobody loses on purpose to fall down from diamond to bronze. You are just facing low level player that are better than you. It would take like 50 losses to get from diamond to bronze and only 20 to get back up, this doesnt make any sense.
I've met a bronze player while I was in diamond, probably when his MMR was on the upswing.
It happens.
Not too hard to disconnect every other game, win one, quit right away, win one, quit right away...
Repeat ad nauseum.
It makes sense and it happens.
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Why would someone do that?
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It might not be sandbagging - they changed the matchmaking in 1.2.2 (very recently) and all sorts of weirdness is occurring with very unbalanced matches happening more frequently.
EDIT: Well obviously some people sandbag and OP has found evidence of this, but just because you are in Silver and going against a team with a platinum member does not mean a player is doing anything weird.
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
pretty sure your issue is more with people being dicks, rather than mysterious malicious users on bnet2 abusing the matchmaking system just to fuck with you. don't feel gipped because you are playing a team with high 1v1-rank players, because you are matched by team rating.
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Especially in 2vs2 i don´t think anybody really actively leaves games to demote himself. Like someone already said, most people who play rather "good" or competetive have friends/relatives who are rather bad, but they play with them for fun anyway (I play with my girlfriends brother occasionally, and we recently got promoted to silver leage, with me beeing at about 2,7K diamond in 1on1. It just was that we lost 4 /5 placement matches due to rushes / proxies with him doing "not so much"...
But i have to agree : in 1on1 its just stupid, demoralizing for the players who don´t stand a chance, and to me it would be extremly boring to try to play bronze all the time for a different pic on the screen.
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On February 22 2011 07:09 intrigue wrote:
pretty sure your issue is more with people being dicks, rather than mysterious malicious users on bnet2 abusing the matchmaking system just to fuck with you. don't feel gipped because you are playing a team with high 1v1-rank players, because you are matched by team rating.
This is somewhat correct. Although I find those that are being dicks much easier to tolerate if I see a Victory screen at the end.
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I was not saying that anyone in 2v2 was sandbagging. I guess I really can't understand how someone Platinum 1v1 teamed with someone Diamond 1v1 could make a main race team and place in Silver 2v2 then have a 50/50 win ratio with that team.
Perhaps if it were off-race I could understand.
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With the high level and low level friends, these teams tend not to be dicks. In fact, it is usually clear that one player is much worse and even when we get ROFL stomped by the better player, the replay and profile check after typically show this. Honestly these games tend to be fun because we do moderately well enough that if we get lucky and hit the better player with the combined attack we stand a chance in the game.
Of course when we are unlucky and kill or nearly kill the lower ranked player, it is usually death by macro. =)
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Anyway thanks for all the replys and reading my rant. I am done working for the day so thanks for helping me pass the time. =)
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Y U HAET?
![[image loading]](http://www.f.kth.se/~f97-jsc/smurf/SmurfIceCream.jpg)
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On February 22 2011 05:43 Slunk wrote:
This is bullshit. Nobody loses on purpose to fall down from diamond to bronze. You are just facing low level player that are better than you. It would take like 50 losses to get from diamond to bronze and only 20 to get back up, this doesnt make any sense.
Lol yeah they do, I have a player on my CSL team who has 2 accounts. One is primarily for "fun" which he got demoted from Diamond to Bronze.
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On February 22 2011 07:51 Catch]22 wrote:Y U HAET?
Haters gonna hate!
I thought about that when I made the topic. I never was fond of the smurfs. I never did like how the replaced 60% of the verbs with "smurf".
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One thing in favor of "sandbagging". I often screw around in team games, and going mass ghost for the lulz just isn't fun at higher levels of play, nor do you win very often. Whereas doing that kind of stuff is hilarious in lower levels. SO I often go on long losing streaks in 4 v 4 by just doing retarded stuff so that when i want to try out some ridiculous strategy I thought of, it's not against some masters level try-hards.
1 v 1, I can understand your beef....but team games.....they're for the lulz.
When I try i can beast up 4 v 4 games due to most of the players being terrid, but why try in team games?
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EPT
