I had a really close match of strongholds last night. I saw some suspicious behavior from one of my team mates (constantly showing up in the kill feed for suicides, I saw the player a few times spawn then immediately run for the nearest cliff to jump off, running to the enemy and just standing in front of them). This made me want to make sure to check their stats at the end of the game.
Unsurprisingly, they had 0 kills and ~23 deaths. (Literally replacing this player with a recruit level bot would have been enough to secure us the win). My attempts to report for unsupportive behavior proved unnecessarily difficult as always. In the process of doing that I discovered that this player had literally 0 gamer score. This was surprising to me since you get achievements for basically looking at the menus.
Obviously you canât completely stop Smurfs and griefers, but some deterrents would be nice. For new accounts I think it makes sense to require them to go through the training and complete 20 or so bot matches. Just something to keep them from jumping straight into ruining everyone elseâs experience. For true new accounts they shouldnât be too bothered by doing these tasks.
What do you all think? Do you think this is an issue? How might you solve it?
No. Pubg has this. You have to go through training in order to play the game. Iâm never opening the game again after seeing that. This will push new players away. The smurfs, hackers and cheaters will find ways around this.
I donât think they should have to do bot matches as such, but I did always like Call of Dutyâs training lobbies, that was just for up to level 10 players to play around in without worrying about being dominated by higher level players. And while I like the thematic qualities of the tutorial, it sure does drag. I did it for an achievement and even knowing what to do took a while to get through it.
But yes, some deterrents are needed. One match with a player who doesnât get the gist of the mode and jumps into the water for funsies is one match too many.
I played a game with a 1er on my team (they have the default armour and the â1â nameplate). They killed themselves once, then proceeded to die 10 times. They then quit the match about halfway through.
I checked their stats and they had 80+ games played, no campaign progress yet had the platinum anniversary armour coating. So theyâve clearly been playing since November. Iâve no idea what they were doing but they were worse than a bot.
Running into walls, shooting nothing and not working towards the objective. The most bizarre thing Iâve ever seen. Literally worse than a bot.
I could have sworn there was a suicide ban. Apparently not. Iâve been kicked in MCC maybe twice for suicides which were not intentional, like falling, or blowing myself up. Infinite probably also needs a kick/ban system for intentionally bad players. They should never have even gotten to 0 kills 10 deaths, if most were suicides as you suggest. Maybe Iâm misremembering accidental betrayals, but I swear there was a suicide kick. If not, there should be.
If Iâm new to a game and the game tells me I have to waste my time playing 20 games to unlock multiplayer, I am going to ditch that game without playing 1 match. You are right that this would keep smurfs out, It would also keep a lot of actual people out too.
If youâre new you the game then wouldnât you want to learn how to play before you offer yourself up to all the experienced players?
Also, Iâm not taking about established accounts trying out halo for the first time, Iâm talking about literally brand new accounts. Brand new xbox or steam accounts.
No. I would rather play the game with my friends right away. Plus, 1 million bot matches would not teach you anything of worth compared to most players, so those 20 games would really be a waste of time.
The issue is that games only detect new players, not new accounts. Even if it detected new accounts, if I buy an Xbox, make an account and a game I got tells me to play 20 or whatever matches before I can play with my friendsâŚscrew that game. Lord know I already spent like an hour or so downloading and installing the game, now I should have to wait even longer? No thank you.
Donât get me wrong. I get the issue you are talking about, I think having the BP a requirement for ranked could help this smurf issue instead of a system that limits all of the online for new accounts.
this is a semi common thing in games with high sbmm its called reverse boosting where a person does terrible for a few games in a row so the game thinks they are worse than they really are and puts them in lower skill lobbies, it was most likely a smurf account too.
Thereâs a Josh Menke presentation on YT somewhere about match making systems. In there one of the topic points was that the system needs to be able to have a really solid idea of the players general skill within one match.
Assuming this principle is probably true about TrueSkill 2.0 since he (iirc) was the design lead at the time it was first developed, I do think new accounts should have to get 25 kills in the bot matchmaking playlist before unlocking PvP.
This would prevent them from being able to cheese games by not killing anyone or only killing themselves the whole time until they finish the required# of games.
For ranked only. Since that is the sweaty playlist and the one people generally say matters.
If access to ranked was limited to those who bought the BP it would remove a lot of smurf accounts. Since now each account would need to pay $10 to play ranked.
Destiny implemented a similar system when cheating got out of hand and it cut down the griefers by a large amount.
too bad this game doesnât have a progression system outside of the BP, or else they could run ranked like R6s does and not have it accessible till like rank 30 or so
Just because youâre too lazy to play through a few preliminary bot matches your very first time playing the game doesnât automatically mean that everyone else is too.
I donât see an issue with making players learn the game before hopping into online play where their lack of experience can negatively effect other players experiences. The positives outweigh the negatives here. It doesnât put brand new players who know literally NOTHING about the game onto my team thus negatively effecting my gameplay experience AND it provides a barrier of entry for smurfs and cheaters. âWasting your time,â - this isnât your career. Youâre literally wasting time by playing video games to begin with, god forbid something wastes your time while youâre actively wasting your time.
No doubt that would stop pretty much all smurfs and cheaters, but I certainly feel like that would be too far. It does have the trade off of only applicable to ranked, though.
Itâs the making people do something that is the issue. Most of the people today have played video games and already understand how they work. Some of the most popular games are shooters. Not to mention that almost all of us started as noobs and got better over time. It makes no sense to gatekeep new players with bot matches. No amount of matches against bots is going to make a new player good in multiplayer.
After 100million bot matches, those same players will still suck major balls in a real game when they join your team. And thatâs ok because this is not your job and you lose nothing by losing a game here and there. Heck even you did not start out being as good as you are now and you did not get better by playing bots, you got better by playing others.
Yes. Itâs not my career. So why do I (or anyone) need to go to bootcamp before I can play with my friends or other people online. Can you imagine how dead a game would be at launch if everyone would need to play 20 bot matches before they can play a real game. Thatâs like 5 hours of nothing. I want to waste my time with something fun, not with a game that treats itself like a job by putting me in an internship first.
True. I feel like people generally are more relaxed in social matches so the effects of smurfs would not be as bad just by the nature of the environment. Wouldnât be perfect mind you, but still.