EPTHow is this different from if I'm starting a new account as a master3 player, just to cheese bronze, silver, gold players as a "challenge"
uThermal is smurfing with cheeses and it's cringe
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661
71 Posts
How is this different from if I'm starting a new account as a master3 player, just to cheese bronze, silver, gold players as a "challenge" | ||
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iaguz
1 Post
I'll bring it up with him first chance I get. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24152 Posts
Not so much SC but the proliferation of skill-based-matchmaking into absolutely every game means you play somewhat serious or you lose, dicking around or playing with silly weapons and chars against players as good has you isn’t destined to work out as too good a time. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany15875 Posts
On September 14 2023 22:17 WombaT wrote: Is it really smurfing if you’re just playing silly things? Not so much SC but the proliferation of skill-based-matchmaking into absolutely every game means you play somewhat serious or you lose, dicking around or playing with silly weapons and chars against players as good has you isn’t destined to work out as too good a time. Yeah but cannon rush isn't really a "silly thing". it's a widely used strat, that people usually find obnoxious to play against. I usually enjoy watching his challenges but this one leaves a bad taste | ||
zatic
Zurich15314 Posts
Of course it's smurfing, and normalizing this is a great contribution to destroying the ladder and that game for others. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6761 Posts
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Vindicare605
United States16053 Posts
Want to actually stop shit like this? Stop supporting content creators that smurf. Donate more to content creators that don't. Vote with your wallet. If content creators are continuing to smurf, that just means that the SC2 viewerbase condones smurfing. | ||
BisuDagger
Bisutopia19175 Posts
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Philippe
347 Posts
In short, do not post about it, it goes against the OP's goal there. Seconding Vindicare605's post there. | ||
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Highwinds
Canada955 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24152 Posts
On September 14 2023 22:37 Charoisaur wrote: Yeah but cannon rush isn't really a "silly thing". it's a widely used strat, that people usually find obnoxious to play against. I usually enjoy watching his challenges but this one leaves a bad taste I mean I hate it myself I just assumed there was some kind of flavour or additional gimmick, like anything else in this vein I’ve seen him do. | ||
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Sound1
France93 Posts
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. | ||
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Durnuu
13319 Posts
On September 14 2023 23:59 BisuDagger wrote: How do we know the OP isn't a smurf account? Next thread should be "Uthermal is smurfing on TL to troll high post TL accounts" For all we know OP's account is an Harstem smurf trying to slander uThermal because he's stealing his youtube viewers (jk Harstem is way too nice for that) | ||
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Slydie
1906 Posts
I remember learning the SC2 basics from a Filters bronze to master series. It was basically all smurfing, but learning the basics of good macro and gameplay along the way. Since then, he made another, and Vibe, Pig and probably others did their own smurfing Bronze to Gm series, with plenty of others doing challenges like 11-11 rax only climbs. It does not feel great for the players being smurfed against, but what can you do? Some times, playing against somebody good can be inspiring! | ||
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BisuDagger
Bisutopia19175 Posts
On September 15 2023 01:35 Durnuu wrote: For all we know OP's account is an Harstem smurf trying to slander uThermal because he's stealing his youtube viewers (jk Harstem is way too nice for that) I wouldn't put it past Nerchio doing it on Hartsem's behalf cause he knows Harstem won't do what needs to be done. | ||
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Cricketer12
United States13961 Posts
On September 15 2023 02:17 BisuDagger wrote: I wouldn't put it past Nerchio doing it on Hartsem's behalf cause he knows Harstem won't do what needs to be done. "#YearOfHarstem" - Nerchio probably | ||
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papapanda
Taiwan326 Posts
Since when did 4.4k players know how to hold CRs? | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2508 Posts
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luxon
United States109 Posts
i also dont like the fact that uthermal particularly gets off on people raging, he'll laugh at them and use them in his thumbnail, whereas i feel that these people have a good reason to rage. but do i also love seeing a ghost get 60 kill nukes? yeah.... ideally everyone just does what harstem does, he has a cheese account and cheese at his actual mmr, and does this for all 3 races. | ||
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Pentarp
210 Posts
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kaby
Russian Federation194 Posts
On September 15 2023 03:33 luxon wrote: ideally everyone just does what harstem does, he has a cheese account and cheese at his actual mmr, and does this for all 3 races. But this is way harder, right? You have to put work into getting good enough with different strategies of different races at nearly your real MMR. Intead, you don't have to put a fuck into going 2k MMR below and make spectacular videos easily. While viewers are ready to watch this shit quality content that doesn't require to put any efforts to be made, the majority of the streamers will go this easier way of smurfing 1k+ MMR (hiding it with switching the scene if required). If you don't accept it — do not watch it. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24152 Posts
On September 15 2023 03:29 Fleetfeet wrote: Grubby does this kind of stuff all the time in WC3. It's entertaining if done right. Been a while since I watched the Grubster but didn’t he used to play pretty straight up doing whacky stuff relatively close to his actual MMRs? I think WC3 is a little more forgiving/unforgiving in this regard like a player of Grubby’s calibre can still beat a good ladder player with all his races/even doing silly things. | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1081 Posts
On September 15 2023 07:01 WombaT wrote: Been a while since I watched the Grubster but didn’t he used to play pretty straight up doing whacky stuff relatively close to his actual MMRs? I think WC3 is a little more forgiving/unforgiving in this regard like a player of Grubby’s calibre can still beat a good ladder player with all his races/even doing silly things. Lately, Grubby just does some really whacky stuff, though he does it on BNet. Last one for example was a "counter yourself"-challenge, so he always build something that was bad against the stuff his opponent had. Or he tried to do a Wyrm-Chimera rush | ||
BluemoonSC
SoCal8908 Posts
On September 14 2023 23:59 BisuDagger wrote: How do we know the OP isn't a smurf account? Next thread should be "Uthermal is smurfing on TL to troll high post TL accounts" can't wait to see the thumbnail for this video | ||
Waxangel
United States33128 Posts
To come to these conclusions, they must clearly think the benefit of their game being streamed/youtubed is outweighed by negative experiences of the actual players. | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2508 Posts
On September 15 2023 07:01 WombaT wrote: Been a while since I watched the Grubster but didn’t he used to play pretty straight up doing whacky stuff relatively close to his actual MMRs? I think WC3 is a little more forgiving/unforgiving in this regard like a player of Grubby’s calibre can still beat a good ladder player with all his races/even doing silly things. Like post above mentioned, it's more super silly stuff as the equalizer between MMR. He's not playing fresh accounts as far as I can tell, but garbage like "paladin only no units" etc combined with him talking through his movements/decisions in unusual circumstances makes it entertaining and 'close'. At the end of the day he's stomping people he's much better than, but not doing so in a maliciously stompy way. I also agree that WC3 is a better landscape for this kind of thing than sc2 for a number of reasons! | ||
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Blargh
United States2101 Posts
But one thing that Chess.com (and I think also Lichess?) has done is make it so smurfing / challenge accounts provide no negative rating to opponents who lose. So Hikaru can do his silly queen sacrifice 0 to GM speedchess runs, but none of his opponents will suffer any rating loss if they lose, they can only gain from it. It's still not a perfect solution, but I think this removes the bitter taste of GMs ruining the ladder. Sure, the game wasn't "authentic", but I think it's a reasonable compromise. You could argue that any time a pro player decides to try an off-race, that's the equivalent of smurfing, since they're probably GM with any off-race, but would not be immediately placed in GM MMR with a new race. I'm sure there's other somewhat comparable scenarios that are similar. | ||
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Husyelt
United States822 Posts
if you want to do the same premise, invite your twitch/discord subscribers to 1v1 match as Uthermal or Harstem or whoever proceeds to dunk on them and its all fun and games. you do this on ladder, and im afraid im going to have to become a Marxist against you capitalist pigs like really, starcraft 2 is one of the most durable games of all time, stop poisoning the well | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6761 Posts
On September 15 2023 09:28 Waxangel wrote: It's settled business in StarCraft II since Blizzard have taken their hands off the issue, but it's worth noting that other prominent games are 'officially' anti-smurfing. Dota2 took a very hard stance recently, League of Legends is at least nominally looking for solutions, and Blizzard attempted a phone number verification system in Overwatch at least partially due to smurfing. To come to these conclusions, they must clearly think the benefit of their game being streamed/youtubed is outweighed by negative experiences of the actual players. I mean, why would I queue for 1v1 ladder when I know there is a high chance of a smurf not only stomping me but also making fun of me with his viewers? Like "look at this guy, only 100 apm and supply blocked again. what a loser" . No thank you! So yeah, smurfing is actually killing the player base and to be real, there is a shitton of smurfs active these days, probably more than people playing at their actual MMR. What I really want to see is a Reynor smurf destroying a Uthermal smurf. Now that I would watch | ||
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Waxangel
United States33128 Posts
On September 15 2023 15:55 Harris1st wrote: I mean, why would I queue for 1v1 ladder when I know there is a high chance of a smurf not only stomping me but also making fun of me with his viewers? Like "look at this guy, only 100 apm and supply blocked again. what a loser" . No thank you! So yeah, smurfing is actually killing the player base and to be real, there is a shitton of smurfs active these days, probably more than people playing at their actual MMR. What I really want to see is a Reynor smurf destroying a Uthermal smurf. Now that I would watch I think saying "killing" is going to a hard extreme. But, I have to say, the PERCEPTION of smurfs being rampant could be bad for your game, regardless of the reality. | ||
Poopi
France12760 Posts
I would much rather be cannon rushed, or only ghosts TvT or whatever silly strat by a competent player like uThermal, and even have the opportunity to have my replay on youtube, than by random strangers. Usually, he gains MMR fast enough not to "farm" the same people over and over again. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20277 Posts
On September 15 2023 00:26 WombaT wrote: I mean I hate it myself I just assumed there was some kind of flavour or additional gimmick, like anything else in this vein I’ve seen him do. It's kinda transitioned over time from stuff like ghosts to grandmaster (which was more legit and a good addition to the game IMO) to games without relevant limitations which are just stomping newbies for fun. Doesn't feel like it belongs in the same category when instead of killing somebody with 30 ghosts he is doing fast expand > 3gate adept prism drops against the same guy who has a projected <=10% winrate. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6761 Posts
On September 15 2023 16:19 Waxangel wrote: I think saying "killing" is going to a hard extreme. But, I have to say, the PERCEPTION of smurfs being rampant could be bad for your game, regardless of the reality. Fair enough. | ||
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[Phantom]
Mexico2170 Posts
"I'll have fun at the expense of these other people" "they tried their best to het to this mmr?, well to bad, I spend 10 hours a day playing, I will cheat the system so we are matched together when we shouldn't, and I will make fun of them by publicly trolling and cheesing them in front of my viewers". Whenever I play, I want a challenge. If I lose due to bs I hate it. If I win due to bs I'll take it, but I won't like it. To the point I sometimes apologize for winning due to luck. If I play vs a person who completely outplays me and also trolls me by using shitty builds, I'll hate it. I can only play very few games per week now, and I don't want to spend them in a doomed game being made fun of. And then the viewers see that and start smurfing themselves. It's completely selfish, "I don't care" "People watch it" "get good and this won't happen" I don't care, it's objectively an asshole thing to do, and ruins the experience of the actual players. And like Valve Realized and Waxangel hints at, having the perception of rampant smurfs (or actually having them), could very well be bad for the game, in a game that already doesn't have that big of a playerbase. | ||
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RickyHorny456
7 Posts
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Haighstrom
United Kingdom194 Posts
If you're looking for someone to blame for why you have ladder anxiety, look in the mirror, and work on yourself. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany15875 Posts
On September 15 2023 16:47 Haighstrom wrote: It's pretty obvious that these people complaining about smurfing don't actually play ladder. The number of smurfs you actually encounter is unbelievably tiny in 1v1. And if you occasionally encounter one... so what? You don't even get your feelings hurt for losing, as they were bound to win, maybe you played someone famous on stream which is cool, and you have a nice replay of how to play much better than you do. I really don't get the objection to pros making this type of content. If you're looking for someone to blame for why you have ladder anxiety, look in the mirror, and work on yourself. Yeah I agree that this is way overblown by people with a toxic mindset who want to blame something other than themselves. Uthermal is usually pretty quickly facing high master/low-mid gm players who he could face even on his normal accounts, and who definitely can beat him on his challenge accounts. If you are salty about losing to a uthermal smurf it's on you | ||
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Poopi
France12760 Posts
On September 15 2023 16:47 Haighstrom wrote: It's pretty obvious that these people complaining about smurfing don't actually play ladder. The number of smurfs you actually encounter is unbelievably tiny in 1v1. And if you occasionally encounter one... so what? You don't even get your feelings hurt for losing, as they were bound to win, maybe you played someone famous on stream which is cool, and you have a nice replay of how to play much better than you do. I really don't get the objection to pros making this type of content. If you're looking for someone to blame for why you have ladder anxiety, look in the mirror, and work on yourself. Basically this. People dropping games to lower their MMR and actually smurf is an issue (albeit I don't think there are that many of them), but pros ranking up new accounts for challenges is not a particularly big deal, as long as they only try to rank up and don't drop games on purpose to lower their MMR | ||
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Vision_
848 Posts
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RandomPlayer
Russian Federation379 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24152 Posts
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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teapot_
39 Posts
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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VladSlymor
80 Posts
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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Erasme
Bahamas15899 Posts
On September 15 2023 01:32 Sound1 wrote: 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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luxon
United States109 Posts
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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Malongo
Chile3471 Posts
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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Vision_
848 Posts
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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Riquiz
Netherlands402 Posts
On September 16 2023 03:36 luxon wrote: 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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Mutaller
United States1049 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24152 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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Vision_
848 Posts
On September 16 2023 05:48 WombaT wrote: 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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outscar
2832 Posts
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Drahkn
186 Posts
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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WGT-Baal
France3337 Posts
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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moonsjde
48 Posts
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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80skidswillknow
1 Post
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Pentarp
210 Posts
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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Pentarp
210 Posts
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RoninKenshin
Canada97 Posts
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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Slydie
1906 Posts
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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teapot_
39 Posts
On September 17 2023 14:38 RoninKenshin wrote: 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. Interesting technique, but if we take everything you said at face value you're effectively low-key smurfing yourself. Quitting ~1/3 of games means you win ~75% of the remaining games to maintain a stable MMR, which I'm sure feels more enjoyable... | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany15875 Posts
On September 17 2023 20:21 teapot_ wrote: Interesting technique, but if we take everything you said at face value you're effectively low-key smurfing yourself. Quitting ~1/3 of games means you win ~75% of the remaining games to maintain a stable MMR, which I'm sure feels more enjoyable... he became the very thing he swore to destroy | ||
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RoninKenshin
Canada97 Posts
On September 17 2023 20:21 teapot_ wrote: Interesting technique, but if we take everything you said at face value you're effectively low-key smurfing yourself. Quitting ~1/3 of games means you win ~75% of the remaining games to maintain a stable MMR, which I'm sure feels more enjoyable... You're forgetting that everyone else interacts with the same smurfs. Either the smurf will win or lose at will, and generally their losses are also simply leaving the game. If they create new accounts constantly and tank at the inception of their account, they will likely have a higher win loss ratio before resetting. So let's say I lose 30% of my games due to quitting, 20% of that would be losses anyway. If I don't experience auto quits from smurfs, which I do experience, I would have a 10% edge before it balances out. I admit It's actually still a big edge and I become what I hate. But my MMR advantage would be 60-120 vs their 1000+. Obviously these are all estimates, but numbers matter especially the MMR difference. | ||
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teapot_
39 Posts
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-_-
United States7081 Posts
But it’s difficult for me to be too judgmental considering uThermal is a kind, respectful, well-mannered player. Intent always matters. And uThermal’s is clearly to make a living creating interesting StarCraft videos. It’s not to humiliate or demean lesser players. | ||
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jimminy_kriket
Canada5486 Posts
On September 18 2023 07:49 -_- wrote: I agree that it’s not optimal for the ladder. Blizzard should create terms of service that bar all forms of smurfing. Perhaps a player should be able to request a special, clearly marked, promotional account biannually from Blizzard… But it’s difficult for me to be too judgmental considering uThermal is a kind, respectful, well-mannered player. Intent always matters. And uThermal’s is clearly to make a living creating interesting StarCraft videos. It’s not to humiliate or demean lesser players. I'm pretty sure smurfing at face value is against the TOS. I remember when the game came out blizz had a limit of one starcraft account per person. Maybe it was one battle net account per person. Either way. This was memorable to me because every single pro had more than one account to play cross server. Including at their own events. They can TOS it all they want but that would require blizzard to actually do something. Considering how long it takes to fix simple bugs on the ladder, to hackers being able to play seemingly with immunity. That ain't gonna happen. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6761 Posts
On September 18 2023 11:20 jimminy_kriket wrote: I'm pretty sure smurfing at face value is against the TOS. I remember when the game came out blizz had a limit of one starcraft account per person. Maybe it was one battle net account per person. Either way. This was memorable to me because every single pro had more than one account to play cross server. Including at their own events. They can TOS it all they want but that would require blizzard to actually do something. Considering how long it takes to fix simple bugs on the ladder, to hackers being able to play seemingly with immunity. That ain't gonna happen. When Starcraft 2 was new'ish, making alternate accounts or smurfs cost money since you had to buy another game which only pros invested. Nowadays it's F2P and everyone can smurf as much as they want. | ||
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Infested.rine
33 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24152 Posts
On September 18 2023 17:16 Infested.rine wrote: Why do people take this stuff so seriously? Smurfs for me are the exception, meaning I get a couple of them in the ladder but that's about it. Negligable impact on my overall mmr. Ofc it is frustrating to get manhandled by someone, smurf or not. Let the semi-retired pro make some interesting content and deal a bit better with your ladder anxiety. You're playing a game, have fun. I don’t see how this isn’t better solved by having a completely unranked mode. You may encounter people way better than you who destroy you, you may encounter people you’re way better than and smash. You might get matched and smashed by some pro player and get the fun from that. Smurfing is only an issue because most modern games have no other automated matchmaking outside of ranked. Even unranked modes are just ranked but without the badges and the kudos. Let us fucking mix it up a bit | ||
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papapanda
Taiwan326 Posts
At Gold level, there are more players trying to lose mmr than win. At least 25% of the games are auto-leavers. | ||
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goody153
44033 Posts
Honestly I care more about having fun than mmr even on other multiplayer games I play on ranked. And I would relish the opportunity to play against a pro even if I get smashed. | ||
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