Boosting and Smurfing: Is it wrong?

won_vee_won_skrub · 1時間前

Smurfs annoy me to no end. I've lost too many games to smurfs. I'm close enough to champ that I could hit it in a few games with a smurf friend and it sure does feel like everyone else is doing it.

I don't get angry in video games under normal circumstances...

Homonavn · 1時間前

Sorry if this comment seems harsh, but i really have no respect for smurfs. You have been warned.

Smurfing has been a part of every single competetive game there is for the longest time and it has ruined a lot of games for me. When i played CS:GO i met so many toxic arrogant smurfs it's not even funny. Me and my friends want to play a fair game and have fun, but thats quite hard when we meet people 10 ranks above us just stomping us like we are bots. All you are doing is wasting our time and ruining our experience.

Do you really have to play against lower skilled opponents in order to feel good about yourself? Do you have to ruin the game for X amount of people for YOU to have fun? It is such a selfish thing to do IMO. If you don't think its that bad, just look at how many people complain about smurfs and how many are affected by it.

Also, no offence to Gibbs, he makes very usefull videos and has helped me a lot, no doubt he is a great guy in real life. Just so thats said.

But one excuse i keep seeing to justify smurfing is "Oh, i am only doing it for a youtube video!!" or "I am doing it because i stream and try to entertain" etc. But please... I see your point, but that does not make it fair in anyway. There are many other ways to help out, replay analysis of lower skilled players for example, like Gibbs already do. These videos are way more informative IMO. /u/Chaupt72 has a great point below and i will quote him:

Basically, it's ruining the experience for 2 new players every single game and only helping out 1 guy. Just think about that in a utilitarian way, imagine how many people are negatively affected throughout the day and only 1 guy gets help

Thats exactly what smurfs do and why it is wrong.

I will stop now before i get to triggered, but smurfs is ruining the experience for others, just like it did for me in CSGO

Mr_Lovette · 1時間前

Boosting/smurfing is the reason I've left other competitive games. It's just not fun trying to get better when you face people leagues ahead of you. The difference is too drastic for you to effectively learn anything aside from seeing that you are way behind the curve.

As someone that has done smurfing/boosting. It made me feel like shit. Here I was ruining these people ranks for what? For my ego? For a friend that couldn't reach a rank due to their inability to do it in the first place?

IMO, it's a disease that should be killed off. Good on Psyonix for reacting. Bad on them for taking so long to do so.

PoeInaBottle · 1時間前

this probably explains why since the 2 week mark countdown to the end of the season, i havent gotten a single serious teammate in doubles, also explains why i dropped a full rank and couldnt reach rising star...

Propertinny · 40分前

I've tried my very best since day 1 to never use an alternative account or artificially increase my rank.

Not many know this, but I did have an alternative account I've used in the past. I used it for about an hour and forfeited almost every game because it just didn't sit right with me. I played as my friend and I thought it'd be fun to crush noobs, but it wasn't.

Smurfing is, in my opinion, pointless and a waste of time. Not only are you in a game with people well under your own level, leading to no improvement, but you're also not getting any progress with your own account. People have a multitude of reasons for using smurfs, almost all of them are misguided, things that you can already do on your main account. The reasons I've heard have been:

want to feel good about your play
"just to chill and not have to try" (what a sponge)
"want to get another account into top 100"
"my MMR is broken" (AHAHAHAHAHA)

Now, boosting. There are so, so many accounts both in grand champion and top 100 that shouldn't be there. There are a great deal of grand champions in 2v2 that are clearly boosted and are attempting to play well beyond their level. There are also a plethora of players, even top players, who use boosting to climb the ranks artificially. IMO this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. There is no benefit to being in the top 100 in season 2, its literally just for ego. These people are the true problem IMO, as they're doing nothing but taking points from genuine accounts and feeding them to accounts that aren't going to be used, and the accounts they're boosting. They're also preventing the top 100 from being a useful and interesting leaderboard, instead turning it into a mini-game of "guess the 20-30 genuine accounts out of these 100".

There are some days where I lose a lot, or am so close to top 100, and think to myself "hmm, I could probably rank up tons with a few games boosting" but I've never resorted to it.

MayanApocalapse · 29分前

As somebody who has smurphed in other games, it was usually due to some combination of not being able to find games with friends (who were lower), boosting to help friends get rewards, or due to my own self-obsession with public advanced game stats (and some cheap enjoyment derived from carrying the team, immaturely). I think a lot of the incentives can be designed away, and RL has a pretty active non-competitive playlist that eliminates some of the other reasons to do it.

Smurphs do take a lot of enjoyment away from the game, and looking back I feel bad for doing it when I did. I haven't noticed it being a huge issue in RL (though every once in a while I feel like there is a total badass in the game as like a challenger I that is just shredding everyone), but if there are sensible steps to reduce it from happening I think they should be investigated. Honestly I am mostly happy that overall the community (even ranked) is so less toxic than other games I play. Sure, every once in a while there is that one game where your teamate wants to forfeit down 0-2 after you make ONE mistake, but overall I feel like the trolling is mostly infrequent.

That said, (slight segue) I think it's fine to play doubles/standard with very mixed ranked groups and don't agree that its unfair if there is a high/low ranked mix on a team. Eventually, if everyone plays on their own accounts, everything should regress to the mean.

I also feel like for paired dual/standard (queue as party), having an individual rank doesn't make much sense. For instance, I pretty much only play doubles with 2 people, and feel like it would make more since for our "teams" to have a rank that we share. Then you could track individual rank/mmr for solo playlists (solo dual / doubles / standard), and have team playlists as well.

Chaupt72 · 1時間前

Repost of my comment from the other main thread:

Unbelievably disappointing that someone with this high-status in the scene would promote a way to cheat the rank system. I could go into a long rant about why smurfing/boosting is bad - and especially why HIM doing it is wrong - but I think you guys can put two and two together. Basically, it's ruining the experience for 2 new players every single game and only helping out 1 guy. Just think about that in a utilitarian way, imagine how many people are negatively affected throughout the day and only 1 guy gets help. AND he's doing that for 1 person because they give him $ (more on that later in the post).

~~I really hope Psyonix gives him more than just a slap on the wrist - even though I know they will not do that because he's such a public figure (which makes this situation so much worse imo).~~

Even though he says it's not for $ and he only gets ~$2.XX from each sub - this is obviously not just to help the people that support him from cheating other people out of hard-earned end-of-season rewards chances - it's also to incentivize new people to subscribe (AND all publicity is good publicity).

I like him as a person but I cannot respect this decision in any way shape or form.

Edit: I want to redact my statement above; that was a blunt reaction. I genuinely think he's a good guy and I would really be willing to forgive him if he admits his mistake and apologizes. I also really hope people don't personally attack him (Ad Hominem), but question the decision of boosting.

PeteDZ · 1時間前

Boost or smurf = get a temporary ban, do it again and get a substantial ban, third time permanent ban.

If you do either, its just pathetic, if you want to help your friends do it on your actual account. Its sad people care that much about a rank and have to cheat to win.

tyrellLtd · 1時間前

I've never done it but I guess it must be fun for the pros. They probably feel like demigods in the field with 0 penalization for them, other than having their mates lose some points from time to time. Of course it is bad, and should be considered an offence simply because it ruins the experience for some people. Even if those guys facing worse odds manage to win, the reward won't be as great.

That just goes to show why the current rank system --with or without smurfs-- is flawed and not entirely fun due the amount of pressure this system puts on the better player(s) (in terms of MMR) vs the worse player(s). There's a saying in football that all you need to do is score a goal in a quite wide rectangle (or maybe I just made that up), just a quick counter after a bad rebound and anybody after a certain level can push a ball inside said rectangle.

That's partly the beauty of Rocket League, but with this also comes the pressure of losing, for many different reasons. Chiefly, availability of players of n rank (close to yours). You will probably find yourself winning 0-8 points versus inferior opponents, 9-10 when you're actually matched against someone of equal MMR (rare occurrence), and 11-16 against higher ranked teams. And up to a certain point, and depending on your region and what time of the day it is, server stability, etc., you probably will play for 5-12 points on average. Any loss requires a bigger effort (in playtime) to get back to your previous standing. So much hard work will eventually feel repetitive and needless, esp. when you're on full tilt, so people will try to find ways to lessen these risks or simply stop playing.

This give X points - take X points algorithm is wrong for this kind of game imo.

mflood · 56分前

Smurfing isn't some new or novel moral conundrum for us to puzzle over. It's just another example of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. The Smurfs have a lack of accountability and a difficult time empathizing with people they don't know or see. That doesn't make them Jack the Rippers, just generally bad people at heart. You can't fight a lifetime of social conditioning with a few Reddit posts, though, so it's nice to see Psyonix addressing it at the system level.

Reyedyd · 17分前

If someone makes a smurf and keeps it at a low mmr then i'm all against it. But i'm not innocent... But instead of keeping it low rated I race to champion. One account has 65 hours and is champion and the other has 46 and it's champion.

jetserpent · 37分前

I have a story about this issue.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RocketLeague/comments/4o2p0l/popular_twitch_streamer_boosting_subs_to_champion/d4994fz

haewkeke · 1時間前

Well fuck, with season 3 coming smurfing needs to be okay. Not everyone plays this game to grind ranks, some people play the competitive mode to have fun with friends. I think a lot of people who before didn't smurf before will do now, if they need a lower rank to play with their friends. And if that's not okay, then you're removing so much fun from the game. It's fun to be good at a game, but it's funnier if you can share that fun with your friends.

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