I run into smurfs from time to time and I tolerate it, but I just ran into the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.
I’m currently Plat 3 in Team Slayer and rising at a decent pace because I’m usually around mid diamond, but this guy came into the match and played like we were all bronze. He went 34-9 with 16 sniper kills and a Running Riot, finished with 65% accuracy and 4,200 damage. His entire team went negative because he headshot and stole every kill he could.
I went back and watched the footage just to make sure he wasn’t doing anything suspicious, and he wasn’t hacking… at least not obviously, but he may have been playing with a mouse and keyboard? I’m not sure. This guy would absolutely destroy Diamond 6 players, and he was in my Plat 3 game.
His account was a week old, level 25, with a 20.2 KDA in arena slayer.
He’s literally just moving through the playlists one by one until he finishes his calibration matches and then he moves on to the next one.
But I say that to say this: Maybe not now, but for Halo 6 we really need an ingame report system for things like smurf accounts. Currently it feels like we can’t do anything but sit here and take the abuse. Back when it costed $15 to get Gold on a new Xbox account it wasn’t so bad, but now it’s out of control.
EDIT: Very NEXT MATCH I ran into two more. Level 12 and 16 partied up together.
I just ran into a team of two today and both of them were smurfing, but not at the same time. These 2 people were boosting each other. It was pathetic. I lost 47-50 because 2 of my teammates went super negative, while I went 16-8. I get a message from one of them after the game telling me to go to social… WTF.
Before, I didn’t mind Smurf at all, but now that I realize that this is what people use Smurf accounts for, this has got to end!
Oh, and to answer your question, no we can’t do a thing about Smurf accounts.
As I much as I’m annoyed with smurfs, I’m afraid there’s almost nothing to do reduce the amount of people using smurfs to play against lower skilled players. It’s more of a Xbox problem as anyone who has a gold account and sets it to their home console can allow anyone on the console to play online.
There have already been some new systems put into matchmaking to help dissuade smurfing and there are still a few things planned to come that haven’t been finalized yet. If you haven’t already, see the matchmaking feedback threads in the matchmaking forums by Dr. Menke (latest and archived) for more details.
After the match the smurf in question sent me two messages: “ur trash” followed by “ur trash and will always be trash”. I responded with “at least I’m not a -Yoinking!- controller goblin with no future”. He reported me and I’m muted for two weeks. Trolling is also against the Xbox ToS but he reported me first so I guess I’m a bad boy and I’ll go sit in the quiet corner until pretty much September.
This is out of control. Why am I being penalized for responding to toxicity and this trolling smurf walks away free? I reported him back for both trolling and smurfing but I fully expect nothing to happen to him.
I am more convinced than ever that Microsoft doesn’t care about their community whatsoever and just has robots reviewing reports. This has happened to me before. They are enforcing very inhuman rules onto human interactions.
> 2535417761739301;6:
> This is out of control. Why am I being penalized for responding to toxicity and this trolling smurf walks away free? I reported him back for both trolling and smurfing but I fully expect nothing to happen to him.
Don’t respond, you only lower yourself to their level. If you receive messages in future just report them. If you get penalized for responding then that’s on you, nobody else
> 2535417761739301;6:
> After the match the smurf in question sent me two messages: “ur trash” followed by “ur trash and will always be trash”. I responded with “at least I’m not a -Yoinking!- controller goblin with no future”. He reported me and I’m muted for two weeks. Trolling is also against the Xbox ToS but he reported me first so I guess I’m a bad boy and I’ll go sit in the quiet corner until pretty much September.
You were reported for offensive language, which is a bannable offense regardless to what you were responding to.
The “but he was mean to be first!” bit only applies in kindergarten.
> 2535429593088083;2:
> Aside from reporting them for smurfing, there’s not much we can do about them. Also, calling out individuals on the forums is a big no-no.
How do you report them? Would that go under Unsporting Behavior?
> 2535440693312185;11:
> > 2535429593088083;2:
> > Aside from reporting them for smurfing, there’s not much we can do about them. Also, calling out individuals on the forums is a big no-no.
>
> How do you report them? Would that go under Unsporting Behavior?
Normally I would report them under “Cheating”, though “Unsporting Behavior” works well too.
I don’t really get bothered by smurfs, I play infection most of the time and wreck them anyway.
But for you people who frequently play ranked (I do on occasion, but I have nobody to play ranked with me so I’m just that lone guy) I can see that it can be quite a problem.
What can we do?
…nothing. If we report their account, they will make a new one. It’s all very futile. I’m not saying don’t report them, but… there just isn’t much we can do about them besides tolerate them.
> 2535440693312185;11:
> > 2535429593088083;2:
> > Aside from reporting them for smurfing, there’s not much we can do about them. Also, calling out individuals on the forums is a big no-no.
>
> How do you report them? Would that go under Unsporting Behavior?
These are the directions…Enforcement Xbox. I use Unsporting Behavior and then leave a comment.
> 2533274813317074;5:
> There have already been some new systems put into matchmaking to help dissuade smurfing and there are still a few things planned to come that haven’t been finalized yet. If you haven’t already, see the matchmaking feedback threads in the matchmaking forums by Dr. Menke (latest and archived) for more details.
I couldn’t find anything a little more recent where he talks about it but this is what I found:
> 2533274839818445;1:
> Smurfing to Boost and / or Matchmake at the Champion LevelWe saw a lot of comments last week on using smurfs to boost Champions. Some bans were given. I thought I’d chime in with some comments on this.
> In general, we don’t like any kind of smurfing being used to manipulate your ranks because it hurts the players you step over while doing it.
>
> You will always run the risk of being banned for it.I do understand that it can be super tempting to have a few teammates re-roll new accounts just so you can matchmake faster. You can still potentially get banned for this, but I would say it’s understandable and we might be nicer about it.
>
> But there’s an even worse trend that I’ve seen on some folks do. I won’t describe that “other” behavior, but those who are doing it know what I’m talking about. That type of behavior may eventually get you permabanned, so I suggest stopping now. We don’t even need fancy systems to detect it because it is really obvious.
>
> That said, I am working on some improvements to both how CSR reacts at these high levels of play, and how fast you can matchmake. The CSR improvement will make it so playing with smurfs results in a lot less CSR than playing legitimately. Champs will still eventually hit a wall because eventually their CSRs will far outstrip the skill of the opponents the matchmaker can find for them, but at least they’ll get there faster than today, and with legit teammates instead of smurfs. They also won’t have to compete with the smurfs.
>
> I will try and get these improvements in before the next season, but I can’t make any promises.
>
> Matchmaking Feedback update March 20
As individuals reporting them is your best bet. I even take the time to make a comment before clicking Report. I also make sure that they are legit smurfs. Just because they did well doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a smurf. It’s usually someone who has no stats in anything but Arena, a ridiculous KD, and no gamerscore.
If you really want to fight the smurf war then also take the time to determine who the smurf is working with on their team. A lot of times they are using it to help boost a friends rank. The account will usually only have a couple of friends, and they will be in the game with them. Once I discover who that is I report them all. Yes, it takes time but if you truly are annoyed and believe it’s an issue than put actions to words.
I understand if i see smurfs on social, thats fine to me. But in ranked its a huge no. Even if they are in my team lol. I just try to block some of them.