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Northern Ireland26873 Posts
Would more genuinely unranked modes help?
May be talking out of my arse but SC2 doesn’t really have one, it’s just ranked without the shiny badges, decaff ranked for those with ladder anxiety.
Perhaps you split a relatively small playerbase up too much.
Coming from many older games with different setups you could have a pretty wild variety of skillsets, sometimes you’re the beneficiary, sometimes it’s you getting stomped.
It’s a pretty consistent complaint I hear a lot from older gamers, especially in games I used to play that didn’t have tight SBMM that now do, CoD being one.
Making it that wild variety is obviously not a great idea as the core matchmaking system, but as an option?
If you’re good, sometimes merely from playing a game for years and years, you’re kind of locked in to playing on-meta and trying pretty hard every game. Fine if you want to do that, if you wanna just pick up an old favourite for an hour or two after work it can feel like work.
So you’re kind of stuck between grinding reasonably hard, or slacking off enough that your rank drops, but then you have the problem of stomping on others you’re a level above and detrimentally impacting their experience.
I have an issue with smurfing within a ranked ecosystem, don’t get me wrong but part of the problem is that ranked play is really the only ecosystem that games increasingly build matchmaking around.
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I don't know if there was a sharp change recently, but while uthermal 'challenges' don't make competitive sense, his attitude was always spotless in the few vids I watched. None of the 'this guy is bad lolz', but rather pointing out when the positive points of his opponent's play. He also oozed fun and was likely inspiring for more players to hit the ladder than destroying experiences.
For smurfing in general I don't really care. Had a few auto wins and a few hopeless losses but nothing experience breaking (was a low fraction of games). Sure, I would not like it if it was more than 10%.
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On September 15 2023 23:54 teapot_ wrote:
I don't know if there was a sharp change recently, but while uthermal 'challenges' don't make competitive sense, his attitude was always spotless in the few vids I watched. None of the 'this guy is bad lolz', but rather pointing out when the positive points of his opponent's play. He also oozed fun and was likely inspiring for more players to hit the ladder than destroying experiences.
That's exactly my feeling - I remember the youtube thumbnails being cringe/clickbait but the attitude in there was always top notch.
It's true the first ~10 games of each challenge are clear smurfing though. If he was doing it with a stable account starting at mid master level, I would have zero issues with it.
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On September 15 2023 01:32 Sound1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2023 23:09 Harris1st wrote:
Smurfing is never entertaining IMO. It's just weak I am not totally agree with you. Neuroswarm has an interesting opinion about it too. I'm used to smurf because of one important thing : that's erase my ladder anxiety, and I can (finally) play seriously. When I play at my real level, my ladder anxiety forces me to put some critical mistakes in my games. Fear of my opponent prevent myself to have some good mechanics, and clean moves. Noticed that I have playing this game since more than 10 years, and I am stuck at 3.3K MMR. I don't play below 3K MMR, because it is not really interesting, but I like to play against 3K MMR people. Always I learn a lot when I am doing it. As I want to stay at this MMR, even if my game turns to my advantage, I leave before my opponent does it. OFC sometimes I stay, and sometimes I lose (protoss imba  ) I like Uthermal very much. I didn't see this particularly vids. I saw some of his "challenges". The idea is pretty good, he puts a fresh approach of sc2 but that's clear a cannon rush way below your MMR is not a challenge at all. Hope he will realize that's not fun for his opponent neither the viewers.
have you thought about not tying your ego to a meaningless number ?
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but nothing experience breaking (was a low fraction of games). Sure, I would not like it if it was more than 10%.
It's true the first ~10 games of each challenge
These are probably the dumbest things I've ever read on this forum lol I dont know why people think everyone above diamond is the same level. I cannot fathom how you can reconcile that he has a 95%+ win rate in his challenges whereas his professional wr is ~64% and he's never won a major event but sure "it's normal and not smurfing for him to play masters or low gm" lmaooo. If you extrapolate from chess, a 1k mmr difference is 90% of games. He should win 90% of games against people who would win 90% of games against people he is queued up against.
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I was thinking there are two different components to the problem:
One is smurfing. That is: having an alternative account that makes you anonymous or non recognizable.
The other completely different thing is streaming. Because you are exposing the other player to an audience which may or may not include being ridiculed and looked down while playing someone already established as a better player.
So, in my view you shouldn't get to do both, either you smurf privately, without having the profit from the streaming with an audience or you should reveal yourself as a known player if you want to stream, so the other less accomplished player at least has the chance not to partake in your experiments if he chose to.
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I m really worry about smurfers because they are a proof of the toxicity of a game. SC2 is ill obviously, anxiety + stress when playing.
Then what comes first in my mind when it comes to describing a game with smurfers is the lack of replayability. So there s aproblem, and indeed a big problem of various gameplay and the reason are :
- Maps mines pattern looks like the same
- Minerals and gas income are the same from one map to another (same increasing)
- Some units are only used for specific part of the game (reapers, adepts and even stalkers which are expensive in end game compared to other protoss units).
Activision doesn t help, if a new ladder is created to improve permanently the game with these obvious good changes, then the game has a chance to survive.
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On September 16 2023 03:36 luxon wrote:Show nested quote +but nothing experience breaking (was a low fraction of games). Sure, I would not like it if it was more than 10%. These are probably the dumbest things I've ever read on this forum lol I dont know why people think everyone above diamond is the same level. I cannot fathom how you can reconcile that he has a 95%+ win rate in his challenges whereas his professional wr is ~64% and he's never won a major event but sure "it's normal and not smurfing for him to play masters or low gm" lmaooo. If you extrapolate from chess, a 1k mmr difference is 90% of games. He should win 90% of games against people who would win 90% of games against people he is queued up against.
IEM Shanghai doesn't count for your highness?
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Justifying smurfing in the name of challenges is not cool. Try to do this with an account where you leveled it properly and try the challenge over and over until you finally pull it off, time consuming yes, but a comp of it failing is also entertaining. But making a new account not properly bringing it to your skill level first is not cool. Chances are players can successfully pull off challenges only a few hundred mmr lower than what they normally play at, instead of 2k!
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Northern Ireland26873 Posts
On September 16 2023 04:32 Vision_ wrote:
I m really worry about smurfers because they are a proof of the toxicity of a game. SC2 is ill obviously, anxiety + stress when playing.
Then what comes first in my mind when it comes to describing a game with smurfers is the lack of replayability. So there s aproblem, and indeed a big problem of various gameplay and the reason are :
- Maps mines pattern looks like the same
- Minerals and gas income are the same from one map to another (same increasing)
- Some units are only used for specific part of the game (reapers, adepts and even stalkers which are expensive in end game compared to other protoss units).
Activision doesn t help, if a new ladder is created to improve permanently the game with these obvious good changes, then the game has a chance to survive.
Is there a thread on any SC related topic that you don’t try to interject your particular vision of the game?
Ffs give it a bloody rest once in a while
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On September 16 2023 05:48 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2023 04:32 Vision_ wrote:
I m really worry about smurfers because they are a proof of the toxicity of a game. SC2 is ill obviously, anxiety + stress when playing.
Then what comes first in my mind when it comes to describing a game with smurfers is the lack of replayability. So there s aproblem, and indeed a big problem of various gameplay and the reason are :
- Maps mines pattern looks like the same
- Minerals and gas income are the same from one map to another (same increasing)
- Some units are only used for specific part of the game (reapers, adepts and even stalkers which are expensive in end game compared to other protoss units).
Activision doesn t help, if a new ladder is created to improve permanently the game with these obvious good changes, then the game has a chance to survive. Is there a thread on any SC related topic that you don’t try to interject your particular vision of the game? Ffs give it a bloody rest once in a while
I don t need rest, thks.
Personnally i don t care what people think about Uthermal and the fact he is a smurfer, but i care why there are smurfers in SC2. U are discussing about bullshit, and Uthermal is laughing at this kind of thread
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What else he can do? He's not good player and never won anything major in years, that's why he's compensating it by bullying on ladder. Look at pro players in BW: korean pros also do such things on stream but not against bronze/silver/gold (D rank on Remastered) noobs but against GM (S rank) players because their knowledge is million times above and it looks entertaining.
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I mean let's be honest he attempts to make clickbait video thumbnails and he tries to make people rage because it makes for good content , because people LOVE to watch people rage a lot so it will hopefully keep people coming back for more rage. Basically he is a bully trading your rage for clicks so he can pay for his rent.
Is he an adult behaving like a child? Yes in my personal opinion he is and its kind of pathetic , however it is not against the rules to smurf in SC2 from what I know.
Anyway there is an easy solution to this, do like chess.com. Some kind of mechanic that makes smurfs not take points from the people they beat and this problem would be solved , at least it would help a little bit.
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On September 16 2023 08:09 outscar wrote:
What else he can do? He's not good player and never won anything major in years, that's why he's compensating it by bullying on ladder. Look at pro players in BW: korean pros also do such things on stream but not against bronze/silver/gold (D rank on Remastered) noobs but against GM (S rank) players because their knowledge is million times above and it looks entertaining.
Stick to sc2 and do not talk about what you do not seem to know in BW or do yourself a favour and do basic research before stating blatantly false information.
But allow be to enlighten you;
There were a lot of pros doing guides starting at F rank on fish server, and F/E/D nowadays on remastered. There are foreign players doing it too. A quick google search would have told you this.
The difference is BW has multiple accounts available, and always had, so it feels a bit different to sc2 smurf.
Also BW s algorithm is totally messed up resulting in some hilarious pairs, for instance i played Rain's terran offrace a few years ago and ss1nz recently.
Ladder is a means (practice/qualifiers) to an end (tournament play). If smurfing is rare, it statistically affects you little, if smurfing is very common, it actually negates itself and pushes the ladder a bit down for everyone else.
The level changes overtime too, as the weaker people typically stop, while everyone else steadily gets better.
I would agree with you and other in this post though that I d like it if pro used their real account or revealed it while "smurf streaming", so that the opponent can decide whether to play or not and also have some expectations. Say i haven't played in years/months, come back for some games and get utterly rekt by a uthermal "challenge" or similar in gold/plat (extreme example), that might be the final straw to never play the game again.
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a pro player smurfing on purpose is pretty lame in theory but there are problems with trying to police smurfing in general IMO.
i play around 4-4.2k on ladder. every 50 or so games i get accused of smurfing, either because i played bad and started hitting 3.7, 3.8 players or because i had a good performance and my opponent perceived my control as "better" than our MMR range. when people are salty they imagine an opponent to be playing stronger than they really are. so at the end of the day the fear of smurfing becomes bigger than the problem actually is
so yeah uthermal is a toxic clown, that's been known for a while with or without smurfing, but it is what it is, dude can play how he wants. people make the same complaint about cheesy builds that it's "lame" and people "shouldn't do that." if smurfing is ladder abuse blizz can punish him, if it's not then just live with it and try to stay positive
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are we for real? seen a lot of talk of this ruining the ladder. the people playing now are the real fans of the game. uthermal playing a few games doing stupid things is hardly going to stop u idiot d3 and below not making enough workers
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Can we first define smurfing and set parameters?
I face uThermal on ladder, it will be once in a long, long while, cuz he'll shoot right past me while he finished the rest of his challenge.
Scum smurfers deliberately drop games to STAY at lower ELO to soothe their ego. uThermal would never do that.
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On September 17 2023 06:34 80skidswillknow wrote:
are we for real? seen a lot of talk of this ruining the ladder. the people playing now are the real fans of the game. uthermal playing a few games doing stupid things is hardly going to stop u idiot d3 and below not making enough workers
There's a few methods to spot smurfs and hackers like this guy on ladder. The single post is a dead giveaway, much like the account having less than 1k achievements (often around 500).
First the definition, smurfing setting up an account in a way where you play people below your skill level, usually either a new account or quitting lot of games in a row. At the end of the day they will waste the time of everyone they play. It's akin to an amateur/pro MMA fighter going to a small local gym, pretending he's a newbie and beating the shit out of guys who are just training and trying to have a good time with their community. And then maybe uploading the carnage to youtube for laughs and views.
Some people here claim that the number of smurfs are unbelievably tiny on ladder. I'm D2~D3 and I run into probably 1/3 smurf (and hacker) accounts on ladder. I'm just counting accounts with low achievement levels, not the people who for some reason have 300EPM and control the game from the beginning to the end in D3. If you say having low achievements is not an indicator of a smurf account, then the 13 year old SC2 scene must be flourishing with all these new legit players.
Playing against a smurf is a waste of time and energy. I'm old, and I get tiny windows in my life to play 2 or 3 games. I don't mind playing a good game and losing. I don't mind losing to a cheese. I hate playing a game where the other guy is clearly way above my level and I never had a chance. That's what uThermal does. It's entertaining to watch his videos sometimes, but it's contributes to a rampant problem. There are a lot of people in this thread giving excuses for smurfing. But think of how much of my time is wasted. Say I really had some time off and got to play a 2 hour session, small potatoes for gamers. 1/3 of my games are against smurfs, I lose 40 minutes of my precious time. If you try to claim it's way less than that and I'd only run into 1 smurf in that session, try this. The next time you go get your groceries, stand in line and let people go ahead of you for 10 minutes. Do that every single time you go to the grocery store. Every time you go you have to burn 10 minutes of your life. Don't you think there's a better way? Game companies should not tolerate this at all. I'm glad to see that other companies have looked into it, although I doubt most will follow through because they love the money that smurfs give them.
I'll end by sharing my technique for avoiding as much grief as possible on ladder, and probably screwing myself over a bit. Any time you play against an account with one of the default portraits or low achievement portraits, just leave the game immediately. 95% of the time it's a new account with a series of losses under 1 minute apart somewhere down in the match history. Since I've started doing this, I've run into mostly even games. If you're a new player and think you're falling victim to this technique, get some achievements. But it's Starcraft 2, there's very few new players. Way less than new smurf accounts.
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It's akin to an amateur/pro MMA fighter going to a small local gym, pretending he's a newbie and beating the shit out of guys who are just training and trying to have a good time with their community. And then maybe uploading the carnage to youtube for laughs and views.
MMA is not a good example, as there is physical violence involved. Martial Arts smurfing is a thing, but then the high level athlete is usually attacked. Stomps are not fun otherwise, and mismatches are avoided in fight cards.
Smurfing IS funny. How many chess smurfing videos are there on YouTube? Usually, a pretty female GM show up playing someone random in a park, pretending to be a noob. Or Magnus Carlsen wrecking someone under an alias online. Or chess "challenges" playing 10-20 noobs at once or having 30 seconds on the clock while the opponent has 2 minutes.
I don't think it is a big deal. I got destroyed by a master clanmate SO many times, but I certainly learned from it!
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EPT
