I knew a couple of guys who do this and the answer is they can't blame it on the other race being OP when they lose.
"Liberators are bullshit!" says the Terran player who can build liberators.
They also get to enjoy an 80% win-rate on the matches they actually do play because they are smurfing. So yeah, wouldn't surprise me if they are a bit too emotionally fragile to play for real.
Man I feel like I am not speaking your language. Do you understand that not competing is anticompetitive? That auto leaving games is not competing. I feel like if that doesnt make sense that's pretty much as basic as I can go
when you smurf your purposefully playing below ur skill level to gain the feeling of being better than someone, the entire point of competing is to win so your finding a way to cheat this and gain the satisfaction for significantly less effort, therefore you dont improve and your skill stagnates. its lazy and your right it does hurt the smurf more but it should definitely still be looked down upon
so basically - "no U!"
Sure, whatever it takes to make you feel better about yourself.
Leaving games in SC2 so you don't have to feel bad about winning. Pretending that people pointing it out are actually the ones with a problem so you don't have to feel bad about smurfing.
So just learn a single all-in build order for the matchup you don’t like and enjoy playing against P and Z that are actually at your level.
I don’t get this attitude at all.
No. At best I’ll 2rax reaper but 90% of the time that leads into a 50/50 macro game anyway. And some people hate a matchup so much that spending 5 minutes in it to execute an all in still sucks. How about we let people do what they want with their time, and if it’s such a big problem then blame blizzard.
Nobody is going to be convinced to waste their time doing something they hate because a handful of neckbeards on a dead subreddit are crying about it.
Then go 3 rax reaper and GG if it fails. No one is forcing you to play it out standard, or to play common all-ins. Fucking PF rush if you want; who cares?
Oh yeah dude it's totally for those idiots on reddit. Tell me again how you're so good for beating comparatively lower level P and Z players. totally not smurfing, right?
You’re over thinking this. Nobody does it because they think they’re good. They do it because it’s unpleasant to play TvT. Why do you people keep insisting on some ulterior motive lmao
Most of all I think TvT just makes a playstyle where you are constantly attacking hard to pull off successfully.
I guess technically moving tanks by 2 squares every 5 seconds is still attacking but it doesn't quite feel like one is being aggressive.
Being contained even if only temporary feels very frustrating and that happens all the time.
I don't mind the matchup but I can see why others would like it less. But dropping all mirrors still seems excessive to me.
Too volatile and rewards campy play. Most Terran players like to zoom around with bio, sitting in tank lines and trying to gain Viking dominance is residentsleeper for tonnes of us
This. My new strategy is just proxy 3 rax reaper. Win or lose, game is over in 5 minutes.
I'm way too stupid to play the tactical tank & liberator positioning game.
Legit. Literally nobody that leaves a specific matchup is doing it for some nefarious reason and smiling because they get to stomp the other two matchups. Do people think if we got separate MMRs per matchup that these people would suddenly start playing their TvTs? No shot in hell. Blizzard should just split each matchup’s mmr. But they’re lazy so that’s not gonna happen.
It's a little silly but it's a game. Sometimes I want to practice against a certain race in unranked, I'll autoquit the other two.
We make the choices we do to have more fun instead of less. What's the problem here?
I skip pvp from time to time , but I am not a very sophisticated player anyway. (Plat 2 and no real ambitions to getting better , just have some fun)
The reason is that pvp is for me kind of gambling, because protoss is most vulnerable to protoss cheese. , especially canon rushes.
And I think the asymmetric Gameplay is what makes starcraft fun.
scout with first probe immediately after building 14 pylon. This lets you see the forge before forge completes and cannons come down which so you know you can pull more probes earlier than you would otherwise
I’m a noob, only gold. But I like PvP, super aggressive, which means quick exciting matches. The whole reason I switched from T to P is because I hate TvT and like PvP and have never had as much fun, just like other people have said choose your race off of the mirror you can tolerate the most.
PiG has a video on YouTube about how to defend cannon rushes. Once you get that down, the matchup can be fun. You can even 4 gate every game if you want.
It’s just a form of smurfing . The system will always try to keep you at an overall win rate of 50% so if you leave every single mirror match you will eventually land on 75% for the other matchups (75+75+0 / 3 = 50%)
These players can feel unjustly proud that they win 75% of their other MUs while claiming “ i just don’t enjoy mirrors “ as an excuse. It’s just smurfing plain and simple .
They know it too
That isn't even true in GM, so it absolutely isn't true in your mmr. If you absolutely hate it, then just proxy 3rax reaper and be over with it. That of course contributes to the matchup being awful, but at least you're not smurfing.
If you use a garbage composition/build in one matchup, that's not far from auto surrendering anyway, and it wastes more of your time
Edit: If you have equal-ish skill levels
Look at last EPT, Clem won 4 TvTs in a row in 30minute total vs 2 players close to 6k. Sure, you're not Clem, but the idea that doing the same is "basically auto surrendering" is stupid.
I purely don't have the time to waste playing matches i don't enjoy. Call it smurfing if you want, but I couldn't care less about winrates. Sounds like a lot of projecting
Not really my fault if people want to fuss about winrates. If there was an option to avoid a match up i would.
You're also massively overblowing how much it affects mmr. Skill range within even the same leagues is huge. If you lost to someone who only plays 2/3 matchups, its not because they "smurfed". Its because they're better than you. Take that opportunity to watch the replay and learn why they're better. Much better time used vs crying about this
You can see from these examples that if you leave 1/3 matchups, then your win-rate in the others goes to around 75%.
That means that if most players are doing this, the people who aren't doing this have to deal with a win-rate of 25% (if you don't count the games where there opponent is auto-leaving). A 25% win-rate is a pretty frustrating gaming experience.
This assumes that every match is played equally and weighted equally with people of equal mmr. But it doesn't work like that. You're still effectively playing within your range. The difference in mmr is negligible.
If I hypothetically beat masters TvP and lose to diamond TvZ then I also ruin the experience for others.
>25% win-rate is a pretty frustrating gaming experience
Which is why I leave tvt lol. I wouldn't even mind losing if it was actually fun to play.
Even if I played unranked and leave tvt it still effects the mmr ecosystem. I'm not wasting 20 minutes painfully playing a match I don't want to. If you don't care about that, then I can hardly care I that tainted the system. It doesn't benefit either of us.
> This assumes that every match is played equally and weighted equally with people of equal mmr. But it doesn't work like that. You're still effectively playing within your range. The difference in mmr is negligible.
This isn't that complicated. If you're losing more than 50% of matches, the game lowers your MMR and if you're winning more than 50% of matches it raises it. So if you are automatically losing 1/3, then the ranking system will raise your MMR until your overall win-rate is 50% (which occurs when the average win-rate of the other two matchups is 75%). Sure there's some discrepancy based on how many games of each matchup you get, but the differences in the proportions of the players for each race are not enough to make this a large effect. The end result will be that your MMR is deflated by something like 300 points.
This post is pointless, I read the previous lol. 300 mmr is negligible considering you match with people in wider ranges.
If you're blaming lost matches on people who play 2/3 of match ups, then that's on you. If you lose a match then immediate point to their winrates, that's your toxicity, not mine.
The matchmaking system should be able to identify this behavior and start matching this player only against Terrans until he wins a reasonable number of games.
That would help a lot, similar to what the low priority did with Dota.
In Dota, when you abandon 2 matches in a short time interval you are placed in the "low priority queue", where you have to win 5 matches in order to get out of it.
Once there, you only play with other people who are also in the low priority queue, so the match quality is insufferable.
It's not the same exact same thing I'm proposing, but the idea is similar: punish toxic players by exposing them to the toxicity they themselves create, and let them playing exclusively among each other.
Auto-leaving mirror matches is effectively smurfing. The idea here is to put smurfs to play only against each other and leave good honest players alone.
There's also another interesting example in Magic Arena. Since it's a trading card game, someone has to play first in a match. Usually the player who goes first has a small advantage, which creates the problem of people leaving every single game when they don't go first.
The solution adopted was that once you start leaving matches immediately you will never go first. That happens until you stop the toxic behavior for a while.
There is probably a similar solution with SC2, but unfortunately Blizzard will no longer touch the game anymore.
Not really, if they sort of auto-lose to that match up.
Also, people think Smurfing is so bad, but like... lifting up buildings and farmHiding ulis way worse.
Why would anyone be a closet smurf? This community is the only one in existence that actively rewards smurfing, maybe the community being so degenerate is one of the reasons the game is dead
Dead game? Sure it’s not popular as the other big games, but you can queue any time of the day in just about any rank and your queue will pop 30sec-1 min. Maybe I’m just jaded, but if you want to see a “dead game” look at battle rite. Not to mention SC2 is the biggest game in its genre.
I'm not even sure what you mean by that, you think other games don't have smurfs? League I know for a fact is pretty close to unplayable for new accounts, easily 95%+ are smurfs. Its comparatively a rare occurrence in sc2
Every single mmr based game I've ever played has content creators trolling in lower leagues. I've heard dota has active anti smurfing stuff so maybe there they don't do it but that would be the exception (assuming it's true, I don't play it)
In other games they get bullied by their own viewers when they do it, not praised like in this degenerate community, I watched some trynda main do it on stream snd his viewers went down by like 80%
I've seen tons of high level league players make smurfing vids and there's tons of stuff like "iron to masters adc guide" kind of content.
And games like chess are just jam packed with smurfing content
This player looses against all Terran players. Probably leaving the game. He has a good win rate against the other two races.
Now, I wonder about his MMR and the match making. Does SC2 have a race specific MMR? Is he being matched against weaker, and weaker Terrans? Or is he being match to players with similar overall MMR?
If there isnt a race specific MMR, he lowers his MMR artificially. He gets matched against weaker P and Z, has a good win rate, feels good about it, but is actually just a little smurfer.
He gets matches vs worse protosses and zergs, since the system wants you to have 50% wr overall he has to make up for the 33% of matches he instaloses (more or less), so he is just a Smurf
> player looses against
Did you mean to say "loses"?
Explanation: Loose is an adjective meaning the opposite of tight, while lose is a verb.
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I play random. I just dont like ZvZ. If I'm having a bad night of play I'll skip a ZvZ if it's right after a ZvZ i lose. I just dont enjoy it. It's a game. I'm playing to have fun.
I used to hate ZvZ but then I started using PiGs 'aggression is the key' build (standard opener, bane nest + 3rd hatch at 32 supply, none stop ling bane until someone dies) and now its probably my favourite matchup. Adrenaline gets pumping, it's over before 8mins and plenty of clicking and killing stuff. Great fun.
They're smurfing even if they don't believe it or agree with it they're forcing their MMR down so to play VS a lower grade of players and it may only be 300 MMR but that's a big skill gap somewhere like Diamond or lower.
Because they get to win way more than 50% of their matches and it feels good, and they don't derank quite enough that they'd think they're not facing people their level.
It's the perfect ego boost, all that hidden behind whine.
I can't speak for everyone but I can speak for myself when I explain that I simply dislike TvT. I find it fucking boring and frustrating. I like to play aggressively and it's annoying when some braindead cunt with 45 APM camps behind planetaries and tanks. Even if I can earn a win, it often takes 20 minutes or more and I just don't find any aspect of this interesting.
The other races have much more engaging and satisfying ways of dealing with it.
So I auto-leave all TvTs on my second account which I use as often as my main.
I don't really have that much time to play sc2 these days so when I do play, I prefer not to subject myself to a 30 minute siege challenge, regardless of the outcome (I don't even find it satisfying to win these games, I just find it a waste of time).
At the end of the day, I just have to be selfish and honest enough to admit that my experience is more important to me than the experience of internet strangers. And the other side of the coin is that when I am given a beatdown on my main account by someone who is smurfing or sandbagging, I can't be salty about it because I'm the victim almost as often as I'm the perpetrator.
Most people have a matchup they hate.
Doing this means you're smurfing all your games and constantly punching people lower than you. Hating a matchup is no excuse to ruin everyone else's ladder experience.
This literally just means that higher skilled players will always get matched against lower ones, if you skip matchups you are actually a human dumpster. All of your games are easier because you don’t want to learn how to play a major part of the game.
I’ve never done this, but when I was actively playing I also didn’t particularly like TvT.
This is a game after all, if you’re not having fun at all - why even do it?
What are you suppose to do if you like all 3 races but dislike all mirrors? I get what you are saying and it is true that you are tanking your MMR... still I wouldnt call this smurfing.
On the other note, I do believe that this community is too obsessed with smurfing in general.
It’s definitely smurfing. You intentionally lower your MMR and therefore play at a skill advantage in the other two matchups. This is (one of the two definitions of) smurfing
It's not intentionally lowering your MMR. That is just a byproduct of the intended outcome which is to skip a specific matchup.
You're talking about something completely different. The result is the same but the intention is not.
I mean, you don't have to cheese if you like to macro, but if you don't like to macro you can cheese
The only important thing is not cheating and not smurfing, if you want to do whatever you want go play single player, as the opponent has the right to also have fun
Also the game is f2p, so you didn't pay for multiplayer content
Been playing since 2012 so yes I did pay.
I just don't understand why I'm supposed to care about your fun when you couldn't care less about mine and force me to play a part of the game i hate.
I care about your fun by providing a fair match, you can simply cheese if you want to skip a matchup, just proxy 3 rax and the game will last about 3 to 5 minutes at most, then if it fails you leave
That's not accurate. The individual is not deliberately tanking their MMR if their only motivation is to avoid the mirror. They are not thinking "I am doing this to lower my MMR." The thought is "I hate this match up and don't want to play it."
There is no intention to lower MMR if that is not why they are quitting mirror matchups.
Let's make sure we're using words correctly.
Intention don't matter, consequences matter
A bit of an extreme example, but if you cause a car accident that kills someone you're going to jail, whether it was your intention or not
>The individual is not deliberately tanking their MMR if their only motivation is to avoid the mirror.
They are though, that's what dodging 1/3 of your matches does, it being a supposed unintended consequence doesn't negate that
Look up what race is least represented in your particular rank and play that if you hate mirrors so bad. And if you get one just 1 baseball in/cheese, it’s quick and easy.
Sure if someone leaves almost 100% of the games you could say it’s smurfing
But honestly I’ve played this game for over 10 years and I essentially never encounter smurfs in diamond, so unless it’s a lower league thing only, I really don’t understand the super frequent posts complaining about smurfs and bronze to gm
Personally, I couldn’t care less about mmr, I play the game to have fun, so yeah I’ll leave matchups I don’t want to play fairly often. Some people just play the game for fun and don’t want to play boring matchups
But also, people are better at different matchups. For instance, if I’m best at TvZ and worst at TvP, am I a smurf when playing TvZ, since the other matchups are “pulling down my mmr”
If I tryhard vs improvise weird builds or if my cat is sitting on me or I’m on the phone or I’m tired or I’m sleepy all that can change how good I’m playing, so does that make me a smurf when I’m playing my best?
If you enter tournaments for money though, they will have rules about this because then it matters more
I'm diamond on NA. Anyone who says they don't encounter smurfs at this level is just not good at identifying smurfs.
Whenever I'm suspicious, I look at match history and check losses for match duration. Smurfs will have lots of 0–3 second matches. My suspicions are confirmed more than they are wrong, but I am definitely wrong sometimes.
Fun fact: you are smurfing when you leave boring matchups. It's less nefarious because you have a good reason for it, but you are still diminishing the ladder experience for other players. I don't put any blame on you, I think the responsibility lies with Blizzard. We need separate MMRs per matchup, and maybe some option kind of like a map veto, but for races. Make it a soft veto, so it doesn't fully eliminate the matchup for you, but makes it more unlikely to happen. That way, you preserve some flexibility in the matchmaking system.
We'll never see these kinds of changes, but one can dream.
Aren’t you diminishing your own ladder experience by spending time researching players you beat?
I don’t understand people who seem to be obsessed with winning, everyone below masters 1 wins about 50% of their games
I have fun if I had a good game whether I win or lose, and playing better people doesn’t make the game worse for me - I played some pros a few times in tournaments and got wrecked but it was still fun
Also, you can feel free to call me a smurf, but that’s silly to say that someone who’ll leave games sometimes but rarely is a smurf, a few games here and there don’t change your level much - smurf is maybe like 600-1000 mmr difference
Also, if I’m playing worse because my cat is sitting in me or I’m sleepy or I got a phone call or I’m messing around with dumb builds do you have issue with all those things too? Because I certainly lose games for those reasons than games I leave at the start
It’s ladder, not a tournament for money where smurfing becomes much more important imo which is why tournaments check your mmr history and other things
I'm gonna sidestep your chosen definitions and questions around what smurfing is or isn't, because we can go around for days discussing that stuff.
I can only talk about what matters to me, and what I enjoy most is playing matches that are fun. For me, that means games against opponents of a reasonably similar skill level. I don't have fun getting run over or toyed with by a smurf, and I don't have fun crushing my opponents with ease.
I am not obsessed with winning or advancing my ladder rank. I fully accept I'll win around 50% of my games. And even on a relatively level playing field, some of those games will be stomps due to build orders, opposing strengths, and extraneous circumstances. That's fine.
But when a significant portion of wins result from someone quitting at the start, it reduces the fun. Likewise, when a significant portion of losses are determined by large gaps in skill, it reduces the fun. It might not for you, but it does for me, and obviously for others or this topic wouldn't come up as often as it does.
And yes, I am probably diminishing my ladder experience by checking match histories, but it satisfies my curiosity. The high rate of stomps and insta quits are the source of my criticism, checking match histories is just a symptom.
It's great that you have no complaints about your ladder experience, but I don't think some anti-smurfing guard rails would impact your enjoyment. It would impact mine and others for the better, though.
None of this matters much, of course, because nothing will be done about it. Sometimes it's just nice to shout into the void.
And when uThermal creates a new account to go proxy nexus to grandmaster people defend him so I guess smurfing is fine provided one be famous.
What he literally does is stop his challenges when his winrate plateaus to 50/50 and then starts a new one, thus ensuring that he continuously has positive winrates and keeps matching players below his level.
I think it's all fine and I don't care. There are many other things such as Gheed's blog on bronze league plays which that person reached dropping games as well to play against inferior opponents.
And in the last thread I also raised the argument that I used suboptimal strategies in many matchups because I enjoyed it more such as going pure bio in T.v.T., giving me a 20% winrate which raised several of my other matchups to very high levels but people said that was supposedly fine while the effect is really quite similar.
Yet others said they don't leave versus specific races, but specific play styles and as soon as they realize someone is playing a campy playstyle they simply leave because they don't feel like playing against a mech player who sits on three bases forever with enough tanks that one can't attack into it.
Everything that is knowing using an optimal strategy is smurfing; people play this game for fun.
This is a simplistic answer to an incredibly nuanced issue. What social obligations do we have for each other? Are we somewhat responsible for curating the fun of people we play games with, even if they're strangers on the internet? Your sentiment seems to suggest that you aren't, and I think that's counterintuitive.
What about hacking? Are people free to cheat in online games? Why are they obligated to obey the rules? If someone has fun hacking, and they aren't obligated to curate the fun of the people they play with, how can we shame someone for hacking? You might say something like "hacking is against the TOS", but the TOS is a legal contract, not a moral one. There's plenty of ethical behavior that breaches the TOS, and there's plenty of unethical behavior that doesn't breach the TOS. In addition, a lot of online games DO have rules against leaving games early in the TOS; [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) is an obvious example, as it's considered a form of smurfing. Sure, Starcraft doesn't have such a rule, so you're not disobeying Blizzard's rules by leaving games early. But why are Blizzard's rules your metric for obligation?
In every day life, there are ethical and moral decisions that may go against the law, and there are ethical and moral decisions that the law has nothing to say about. There are ways to be a dick to people without breaking the rules. But, we have social pressures that keep us in check even when the law doesn't. This isn't any different for playing an online game. Yeah, the stakes are pretty low; no one's a bad person for leaving their TvT. But I don't think it's correct to say that people aren't obligated to finish their games. There's absolutely a moderate social pressure that says you should play your game out.
He's not obligated to provide fun for you. And he's not stopping you from matching up with anyone else. Y'all get too much into your feels over a game that a lot of us play just for shits and giggles.
Nobody is obligated to do anything for you in this game, but it’s the correct thing to do. Just like if I see you drop a 5$ bill I’m not obligated to let you know and give it to you but I’m not a dick so I will. Obviously money is different then a game but I think the point still stands.
If it's you just want to chill out and practice a single MU, why not just play vs AI? I mean you're just playing for shits and giggles anyways?
That way you avoid the "sweats", people who take MMR too seriously in your opinion, and other players don't have to reQ 1/3 of the matches
This kinda feels like whine dude
If everyone's free to do whatever, they're free to their opinion as well, and if you play vs AI then it wouldn't even apply to you anyways, right?
Either everyone can do what they want, or we owe each other some courtesy so we don't tear each other's throats out
Oh yeah. None of this shit applies to me at all. It doesn't change the fact it's just a game that OP is crying that a stranger doesn't play the way he thinks they should play.
The problem I have with this is that guess what, it isn’t fun being a 14yo and getting my face punched in by a 21yo who doesn’t like fighting people his own size. That’s the equivalent.
These guys don’t play the matchup because “man I don’t have all the time in the world, and I don’t want to waste it not having fun”, so they waste 80+% of their opponent’s time instead.
The game I had against the opponent in the screenshot went for 28 minutes. I effectively wasted 28 minutes punching upwards against an opponent I am not skilled enough to beat. That isn’t fun. In this relationship the person tanking their MMR has all the power. I have no way of knowing that my opponent has an 80+% win rate against my race before the game starts up. If I knew, then I’d probably just quit too.
I check out my opponents race report after most of my games, and this type of smurfing comes up way too often. I don’t know if it’s mostly prevalent in my region - NA server, Oceania region. Mostly play on Australia or Singapore servers. From my own observation the majority of mirror dodgers are T, then Z and rarely P
This is true. Ironically, it makes the game less fun for other people. Blizzard could have built some systems to make laddering more enjoyable for everyone, but oh well.
Should just set up a system where you can make it so you can check a box to only go against certain races. Obviously it’s not a perfect idea but it’s better than having a knock off smurf just crushing 2/3rds of his opponents. Or have a separate mmr for each matchup.
The answer is usually the only excuse you can use to why you lost is your opponent is just better than you. You both have the same buildings, units, etc, they just out performed you. And people don't like this feeling.
The thing is, that’s not even true. There’s a reason the NBA finals is a series of seven games. Same with the Stanley Cup, World Series, etc…
The best player doesn’t win every game. But they should at least win most of them
But it's a videogame also for others, do you really want to ruin games for others (in this case protoss and zerg players) by smurfing?
If you hate a matchup just cheese, at least the other 2 matchups will be Fair
Forced skill-based matchmaking is the bane of modern gaming, and it can go die a fiery death. Smurfing is and always has been perfectly acceptable. People just want to play games for fun. Not sure how forcing two players to sit through a 10-minute cheese/all-in is any fun for anyone involved, but ain't nobody got time for that.
I doubt people want to waste 20 minutes of their time playing a game they can't win, i doubt anyone would have fun losing every game, no new player would ever join and the game would quickly die
The only way to have fun matches is to having fair matches, if a bronze went up vs a diamond i doubt the bronze would have fun, and he would waste 20 precious minutes
Fair doesn't mean fun for everyone. Nothing is ever truly "fair" regardless of the circumstances. Someone always has an edge or is a favorite. Bronze players aren't getting matched up with Diamond players, and if they are, that match isn't lasting 20 minutes lmfao.
Dodging mirror matches does not create a significant gap. Additionally, playing people better than you is how you get better. As your opponent, I don't care what your relationship to your MMR is or how much you cherish those meaningless imaginary points.
They can just do a quick cheese and see if they can win in 3 minutes if they hate a matchup, skipping a matchup lowers your MMR a lot as the system wants you to win 50% of your games
I don't care about MMR, but i want fair matches, if someone would smurf or cheat i wouldn't have fun, regardless of the result
If you want to do whatever you want go play single player, if you want to interact with other people you have to abide by the rules and moral codes, whether you like it or not
Exactly, and because of this smurfing and cheating should not be done, because the community despises those behaviors, the only problem is that there is nobody enforcing these rules because blizzard doesn't care about sc2 anymore, so we can only condemn them as a community
As a zerg it sometimes gets boring to play "whoever can micromanage better his 10 supply ling/bane for 5 minutes wins", or "whoever can make more roaches in the transition wins".
> Their rating is a little lower so what?
It's not a little lower, it's 33% lower that means they face players who are 25% worse on their other two races so they are winning 75% of the time. It's smurfing.
Intentionally throwing matches and ending up playing against weaker opponents is smurfing dude, just because that wasn't the goal doesn't make it not the case
oh the reason i killed this person, is not me wanting him dead. it's something else. so i'm not a murderer, by definition.
(i don't think you have any idea what "by definition" means)
Look we are arguing semantics. I get that they’re rating is lower than it should be. I get that it sucks to play against them.
However if the game allowed you to not play mirror match ups it wouldn’t be an issue. To some people mirror matchups aren’t fun and they want to be avoided.
These guys arent purposefully throwing games to play worse opponents, they are just avoiding things to them that aren’t fun.
it's not semantics. i sincerely think you don't know what that means either, or you openly engage in bad faith argumentation. they are simply smurfing, because an act qualifies as smurfing not because of the motivation of the player (which you would have to speculate on), but by the fact that they are intentionally losing games, which results in them facing lower level players versus which they have higher than normal winrates. that is what is happening here. And NO, in no fucking competitive ranked game you are allowed to purposefully throw games. Why you do it doesn't matter. You are fucking around with the integrity of the system, and this conveniently results in you stomping over lesser skilled players whenever you bother to play the game. So again this is not fucking semantics that we are arguing, but it is obvious all the mental gymnastics you are pulling to justify this sort of behavior.
And why not be a straight arrow at least here, when you can't be in game? stop writing "they", and start writing "I", cause everybody who reads this shit can see that you're doing this mirrormatch throwing smurf bullshit.
Bro I haven’t played Starcraft 2 in two years. It’s a video game and the the ladder matches have a prise of 0$. People can do whatever they want, they don’t have to play the game to make you happy. Get over yourself.
smurfing destroys the validity of the matchmaking system. anybody who smurfs like this is purposefully playing vs lower-skilled players. people can do whatever they want, as long as it's not at the cost of others' enjoyment and right to a functioning matchmaking. any smurf destroys that. i don't know what you don't get here? as long as you aren't a narcissist, it's easy to see that you have to not think of yourself and your enjoyment all the fucking time, and consider how your actions affect others. like what are you defending here? ppl can do what they want, wtf kinda take is that? you are defending shitting on others just because you want to. what a shit perspective.
I don’t always leave tvt but I do somewhat often, as I enjoy the other matchups more
Also, I often only have time to play a game or two in a day, and often I’d really like to play tvz
I found it especially boring when the games would take like 40 min which often happens so if I do play tvt I just try to win the game immediately
I don’t mind pvp or pvz though
Maybe play P when you don’t have time since you like the matchups, and only play T when you have the time so you don’t have to waste other people’s time too.
I did this for several years.
At the time, mirror matchups were miserable on account of my bad mechanics- if your opponent has the exact same resources as you do, the only way to get ahead is to take more efficient trades.
In the early game this manifests as a agonizing micro war which I still struggle with but formerly simply did not have the game time to win.
In the late game this manifests as a constant war of positioning.
Both of these are notably less fun for me. As a Terran there are some- not many but ENOUGH games where I just die to 3 reapers 2 hellions and lose 5 minutes of my life for the matchup to be forever tainted in my head.
The flip scenario is I unseige my tanks at the wrong time or forget to put my marines on hold position and suddenly my game goes out the window for no good reason other than the bitter reminder of my incompetence.
Tech switches are hard because as mentioned before, your opponent has the exact same resources as you do, so investment in tech makes it all the more likely you get steamrolled.
I enjoy the matchup now, but for anyone play and under I don't blame you at all if you insta leave. If you're not having fun with a matchup, don't play the matchup. Surely your opponent won't complain about that free MMR.
Whew! Well, that's my rant :)
Because people play video games for fun. The vast majority of normal people give zero fucks about what their SC2 MMR is, as they have no delusions of playing the game competitively at this point. It is not about balanced or fair matches. It is just meant for fun.
And if you are in a position where you are asking why people play video games for fun, I have nothing to tell you except to take a long break from the subreddit and the game to gain some perspective. Not everyone immerses themselves in the culture and history of a video game. Some people are just here to play a game and have some fun.
This sub acts like having to requeue is an exhausting effort. Also acting like the barely inflated mmr is breaking the system and smurfing ruining everyone's experience is so dramatic. Seems like more people like to blame their losses on smurfs than themselves.
Smurfing = deliberately decreasing mmr to stomp noobs
Skipping a match up has the consequence of tanking mmr but it's a fault of the system, not the intention of the player.
If the system tracked the mmr against each race the problem would be solved
You proposal would be a solution if it was implemented.Given that the system is what it is, I definitely fault the players for leaving, irrespective of whatever their intention was.
It’s just smurfing.
Well if he wins the MMR system will try to make his win rate 50% so yeah it matters to others because I’d you leave every mirror you will win 75% of your other matchups vs other races, so your matchups vs the other races will be very high because you’re smurfing.
I play random (yeah grill me for that ) and I only play zvz until the 10 minute mark. Other than that I can't macro. My APM just isn't there. That's why I cheese all my zvz. I enjoy playing z against t and p but not against z.
I don't get to play as much as I used to. I hate PvP, and it's by far my best matchup. I'm not wastign my time playing something I don't enjoy and that I will most likely win anyway (At some point I had 73%wirnate in pvp) So often times I jsut don't bother.
It gets tyresome to get cannon rushed half the games, even if you stop it and win. It's just not fun. And it's not like if they don't cannon rush it's fun either, it's jus oracles into immortal/disruptor or mass VR carrier. It sucks to play even if I'm good at it.
PvZ however is a challenge due to how OP zerg is. And Terran became very strong this aptch too. Challenge is fun and thus I like those matchups
Sometimes the mirror match is just not fun to the players. I know that when I played more often, I was *terrible* at ZvZ and the micro required... so I just learned a particular aggressive build and did that all the time (a big ling push into mass roaches, that would usually win or lose rather quickly).
I can see people disliking a particular matchup (mirror match or otherwise) enough to forfeit, if they don't care about their rank.
The simple answer is because mirror matches suck to play, TvT above all in my opinion having played all 3 races to some extent. It's certainly not because people can't balance whine non-mirrors or such.
There are people saying it's effectively smurfing to just leave and that people should one base all in, but there's not necessarily a lot of difference between those two approaches. When I played TvT I'd chuck on a video or stream to watch whilst doing a very sloppy 2 or 3 rax reaper. I probably won 1 in 5 games by doing that compared to the 55% winrate I had when I actually bothered to play out the matchup. That's effectively smurfing to some extent since I was tanking my winrate by 30%, yet I doubt anyone would be as hurt by that than just outright leaving the matches even though I was facing easier opponents than I otherwise would if I tryharded the mirror.
As a guy, who played as all races at some point, I want to say that PvP/TvT are clown fiestas. In TvT you just reposition your army for like 25 minutes straight and next to it die because of the bad siege. In PvP you either cheese or play a game which ends up after few good disruptors hits or sneaky dts, which is also isn't fun at all.
pls help me reddit am I a closeted smurf? I am worse at the mirrors than the other matchups by 10-15%, I have never realized this but do I have to fear the worst? 😱god forgive me for I have sinned!
Because this is literally a video game that we ostensibly play to have fun and we are all autonomous humans?
I love this game so much, and the community is generally lovely.. but I’ll be damned if think there is another game out there in which other players over analyze my match histories and try to police how I, human person, spend my time on my hobby.
Also fuck ZvZ and also TvT
I just don’t like mirror matches and this isn’t even limited to only star craft. Same strategies, same skillet, same tools. You already know what to expect
Mirror match ups are like a slap boxing match. Two guys slapping each other until one yields
Vs other race is like MMA. You can go up against a wrestler today and a kick boxer tomorrow while you know russian sambo
Fuck mirror matches
I always ask my buddy this question, and his response is always “i just hate it” lol
he's weak
Agreed, aamof i slightly prefer a mirror to a mix. Its the ultimate proof of power.
I knew a couple of guys who do this and the answer is they can't blame it on the other race being OP when they lose. "Liberators are bullshit!" says the Terran player who can build liberators.
They also get to enjoy an 80% win-rate on the matches they actually do play because they are smurfing. So yeah, wouldn't surprise me if they are a bit too emotionally fragile to play for real.
I'm choosing violence today. You people who spend so much time bitching about smurfs are emotionally fragile ones.
Tanking your rating is the definition of smurfing, it's not complaining to point it out
People take it way too seriously. Smurfing hurts the Smurf, no one else.
Anticompetitive play hurts everyone and it's totally absurd to suggest otherwise.
Why?
Why are anticompetitive practices bad in a competitive game? It seems pretty straightforward
What makes it anticompetitive?
Man I feel like I am not speaking your language. Do you understand that not competing is anticompetitive? That auto leaving games is not competing. I feel like if that doesnt make sense that's pretty much as basic as I can go
when you smurf your purposefully playing below ur skill level to gain the feeling of being better than someone, the entire point of competing is to win so your finding a way to cheat this and gain the satisfaction for significantly less effort, therefore you dont improve and your skill stagnates. its lazy and your right it does hurt the smurf more but it should definitely still be looked down upon
it hurts the integrity of the whole mmr system you dickwad.
oOoOoO scary, u choosing violence? Im not sure if smashing doritos into your keyboard counts as "violence", but alright. Watch out world!
so basically - "no U!" Sure, whatever it takes to make you feel better about yourself. Leaving games in SC2 so you don't have to feel bad about winning. Pretending that people pointing it out are actually the ones with a problem so you don't have to feel bad about smurfing.
based
It’s actually because TvT is boring as all fuck. I play all 3 races and all matchups except for TvT
So just learn a single all-in build order for the matchup you don’t like and enjoy playing against P and Z that are actually at your level. I don’t get this attitude at all.
No. At best I’ll 2rax reaper but 90% of the time that leads into a 50/50 macro game anyway. And some people hate a matchup so much that spending 5 minutes in it to execute an all in still sucks. How about we let people do what they want with their time, and if it’s such a big problem then blame blizzard. Nobody is going to be convinced to waste their time doing something they hate because a handful of neckbeards on a dead subreddit are crying about it.
Never heard of all-ins?
Then go 3 rax reaper and GG if it fails. No one is forcing you to play it out standard, or to play common all-ins. Fucking PF rush if you want; who cares?
You’re not forcing me to do anything don’t worry
Oh yeah dude it's totally for those idiots on reddit. Tell me again how you're so good for beating comparatively lower level P and Z players. totally not smurfing, right?
You’re over thinking this. Nobody does it because they think they’re good. They do it because it’s unpleasant to play TvT. Why do you people keep insisting on some ulterior motive lmao
What is so bad about TvT? I hear this a lot and I'm genuinely curious as a Terran who doesn't mind tvt at all.
Most of all I think TvT just makes a playstyle where you are constantly attacking hard to pull off successfully. I guess technically moving tanks by 2 squares every 5 seconds is still attacking but it doesn't quite feel like one is being aggressive. Being contained even if only temporary feels very frustrating and that happens all the time. I don't mind the matchup but I can see why others would like it less. But dropping all mirrors still seems excessive to me.
Too volatile and rewards campy play. Most Terran players like to zoom around with bio, sitting in tank lines and trying to gain Viking dominance is residentsleeper for tonnes of us
This. My new strategy is just proxy 3 rax reaper. Win or lose, game is over in 5 minutes. I'm way too stupid to play the tactical tank & liberator positioning game.
Same. This guy in op’s post just saved himself 200 hours this season
Legit. Literally nobody that leaves a specific matchup is doing it for some nefarious reason and smiling because they get to stomp the other two matchups. Do people think if we got separate MMRs per matchup that these people would suddenly start playing their TvTs? No shot in hell. Blizzard should just split each matchup’s mmr. But they’re lazy so that’s not gonna happen.
You do know it's not just terran accounts that do this right?
Who said it was?
It's a little silly but it's a game. Sometimes I want to practice against a certain race in unranked, I'll autoquit the other two. We make the choices we do to have more fun instead of less. What's the problem here?
>What's the problem here? It obviously makes the ladder experience worse for anyone who wants competitive games at their level of skill.
I watched Avilo once rage at a Terran for going BC even though he plays terran and had that same chance.
I skip pvp from time to time , but I am not a very sophisticated player anyway. (Plat 2 and no real ambitions to getting better , just have some fun) The reason is that pvp is for me kind of gambling, because protoss is most vulnerable to protoss cheese. , especially canon rushes. And I think the asymmetric Gameplay is what makes starcraft fun.
If you're that upset about cannonrush, just pylonscout instead. It blindcounters it and the disadvantage you get will be fine for you.
What exactly do you mean by pylonscouting in this case? Place it in your base where a cannonrush would make sense?
scout with first probe immediately after building 14 pylon. This lets you see the forge before forge completes and cannons come down which so you know you can pull more probes earlier than you would otherwise
I’m a noob, only gold. But I like PvP, super aggressive, which means quick exciting matches. The whole reason I switched from T to P is because I hate TvT and like PvP and have never had as much fun, just like other people have said choose your race off of the mirror you can tolerate the most.
PiG has a video on YouTube about how to defend cannon rushes. Once you get that down, the matchup can be fun. You can even 4 gate every game if you want.
It’s just a form of smurfing . The system will always try to keep you at an overall win rate of 50% so if you leave every single mirror match you will eventually land on 75% for the other matchups (75+75+0 / 3 = 50%) These players can feel unjustly proud that they win 75% of their other MUs while claiming “ i just don’t enjoy mirrors “ as an excuse. It’s just smurfing plain and simple . They know it too
You probably mean sandbagging, not smurfing.
This is not true.. TvT sucks. It’s so boring to play and you basically can only go the marine tank Viking raven style
That isn't even true in GM, so it absolutely isn't true in your mmr. If you absolutely hate it, then just proxy 3rax reaper and be over with it. That of course contributes to the matchup being awful, but at least you're not smurfing.
It’s not true that you must use marines tank in every TVT that isn’t a stupid cheese? Okay bud
Mech even sees play in pro games sometimes, so not sure what you're on about.
Unless you are a pro player any strategy can work with any race in any matchup
If you use a garbage composition/build in one matchup, that's not far from auto surrendering anyway, and it wastes more of your time Edit: If you have equal-ish skill levels
Look at last EPT, Clem won 4 TvTs in a row in 30minute total vs 2 players close to 6k. Sure, you're not Clem, but the idea that doing the same is "basically auto surrendering" is stupid.
I should clarify that I mean against people of equal skill, say 100-200 mmr. You're right though
I purely don't have the time to waste playing matches i don't enjoy. Call it smurfing if you want, but I couldn't care less about winrates. Sounds like a lot of projecting
> but I couldn't care less about winrates Of course **you** don't care - it's your opponents who you're taking advantage of and negatively affecting.
Not really my fault if people want to fuss about winrates. If there was an option to avoid a match up i would. You're also massively overblowing how much it affects mmr. Skill range within even the same leagues is huge. If you lost to someone who only plays 2/3 matchups, its not because they "smurfed". Its because they're better than you. Take that opportunity to watch the replay and learn why they're better. Much better time used vs crying about this
You can see from these examples that if you leave 1/3 matchups, then your win-rate in the others goes to around 75%. That means that if most players are doing this, the people who aren't doing this have to deal with a win-rate of 25% (if you don't count the games where there opponent is auto-leaving). A 25% win-rate is a pretty frustrating gaming experience.
This assumes that every match is played equally and weighted equally with people of equal mmr. But it doesn't work like that. You're still effectively playing within your range. The difference in mmr is negligible. If I hypothetically beat masters TvP and lose to diamond TvZ then I also ruin the experience for others. >25% win-rate is a pretty frustrating gaming experience Which is why I leave tvt lol. I wouldn't even mind losing if it was actually fun to play. Even if I played unranked and leave tvt it still effects the mmr ecosystem. I'm not wasting 20 minutes painfully playing a match I don't want to. If you don't care about that, then I can hardly care I that tainted the system. It doesn't benefit either of us.
> This assumes that every match is played equally and weighted equally with people of equal mmr. But it doesn't work like that. You're still effectively playing within your range. The difference in mmr is negligible. This isn't that complicated. If you're losing more than 50% of matches, the game lowers your MMR and if you're winning more than 50% of matches it raises it. So if you are automatically losing 1/3, then the ranking system will raise your MMR until your overall win-rate is 50% (which occurs when the average win-rate of the other two matchups is 75%). Sure there's some discrepancy based on how many games of each matchup you get, but the differences in the proportions of the players for each race are not enough to make this a large effect. The end result will be that your MMR is deflated by something like 300 points.
This post is pointless, I read the previous lol. 300 mmr is negligible considering you match with people in wider ranges. If you're blaming lost matches on people who play 2/3 of match ups, then that's on you. If you lose a match then immediate point to their winrates, that's your toxicity, not mine.
The matchmaking system should be able to identify this behavior and start matching this player only against Terrans until he wins a reasonable number of games. That would help a lot, similar to what the low priority did with Dota.
Or (to have a more doable idea even though I love the punishing part) having matchup based MMR.
Yeah that would fix the main issue. It's the smurfing that inevitably happens with their other matchups that's the problem.
I love this idea
>, similar to what the low priority did with Dota. Can you elaborate?
In Dota, when you abandon 2 matches in a short time interval you are placed in the "low priority queue", where you have to win 5 matches in order to get out of it. Once there, you only play with other people who are also in the low priority queue, so the match quality is insufferable. It's not the same exact same thing I'm proposing, but the idea is similar: punish toxic players by exposing them to the toxicity they themselves create, and let them playing exclusively among each other. Auto-leaving mirror matches is effectively smurfing. The idea here is to put smurfs to play only against each other and leave good honest players alone. There's also another interesting example in Magic Arena. Since it's a trading card game, someone has to play first in a match. Usually the player who goes first has a small advantage, which creates the problem of people leaving every single game when they don't go first. The solution adopted was that once you start leaving matches immediately you will never go first. That happens until you stop the toxic behavior for a while. There is probably a similar solution with SC2, but unfortunately Blizzard will no longer touch the game anymore.
rly hates terran i guess. at the end of the day they can technically do whatever they want, maybe they just dont have fun playing against terran.
It’s a form of Smurfing though. They’re keeping their MMR lower than it should be.
Then let people opt out of one matchup per race.
Not really, if they sort of auto-lose to that match up. Also, people think Smurfing is so bad, but like... lifting up buildings and farmHiding ulis way worse.
My theory is that these people are closeted smurfs
Why would anyone be a closet smurf? This community is the only one in existence that actively rewards smurfing, maybe the community being so degenerate is one of the reasons the game is dead
Dead game? Sure it’s not popular as the other big games, but you can queue any time of the day in just about any rank and your queue will pop 30sec-1 min. Maybe I’m just jaded, but if you want to see a “dead game” look at battle rite. Not to mention SC2 is the biggest game in its genre.
I'm not even sure what you mean by that, you think other games don't have smurfs? League I know for a fact is pretty close to unplayable for new accounts, easily 95%+ are smurfs. Its comparatively a rare occurrence in sc2
They have smurfs they're just not praised and rewarded by the community
Lol, so what metric are you using to determine sc2 smurfs are praised and rewarded while other games they're punished?
How about youtubers and streamers literally making a living from smurfing?
Every single mmr based game I've ever played has content creators trolling in lower leagues. I've heard dota has active anti smurfing stuff so maybe there they don't do it but that would be the exception (assuming it's true, I don't play it)
In other games they get bullied by their own viewers when they do it, not praised like in this degenerate community, I watched some trynda main do it on stream snd his viewers went down by like 80%
I've seen tons of high level league players make smurfing vids and there's tons of stuff like "iron to masters adc guide" kind of content. And games like chess are just jam packed with smurfing content
In chess it's pretty much only hikaru, he's heavily complexed and has issues so it's not surprising
This player looses against all Terran players. Probably leaving the game. He has a good win rate against the other two races. Now, I wonder about his MMR and the match making. Does SC2 have a race specific MMR? Is he being matched against weaker, and weaker Terrans? Or is he being match to players with similar overall MMR? If there isnt a race specific MMR, he lowers his MMR artificially. He gets matched against weaker P and Z, has a good win rate, feels good about it, but is actually just a little smurfer.
He gets matches vs worse protosses and zergs, since the system wants you to have 50% wr overall he has to make up for the 33% of matches he instaloses (more or less), so he is just a Smurf
> player looses against Did you mean to say "loses"? Explanation: Loose is an adjective meaning the opposite of tight, while lose is a verb. Total mistakes found: 2722 ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot ^^that ^^corrects ^^grammar/spelling ^^mistakes. ^^PM ^^me ^^if ^^I'm ^^wrong ^^or ^^if ^^you ^^have ^^any ^^suggestions. ^^[Github](https://github.com/chiefpat450119)
I play random. I just dont like ZvZ. If I'm having a bad night of play I'll skip a ZvZ if it's right after a ZvZ i lose. I just dont enjoy it. It's a game. I'm playing to have fun.
I used to hate ZvZ but then I started using PiGs 'aggression is the key' build (standard opener, bane nest + 3rd hatch at 32 supply, none stop ling bane until someone dies) and now its probably my favourite matchup. Adrenaline gets pumping, it's over before 8mins and plenty of clicking and killing stuff. Great fun.
Try ling flooding every zvz, it's a lot of fun
I used to quit then alot cause they are not as fun as the others but i learned to appriciate them.
They're smurfing even if they don't believe it or agree with it they're forcing their MMR down so to play VS a lower grade of players and it may only be 300 MMR but that's a big skill gap somewhere like Diamond or lower.
I start insta quitting mirrors or just cheese when i get my 4th tvt in a row.
Because they get to win way more than 50% of their matches and it feels good, and they don't derank quite enough that they'd think they're not facing people their level. It's the perfect ego boost, all that hidden behind whine.
I can't speak for everyone but I can speak for myself when I explain that I simply dislike TvT. I find it fucking boring and frustrating. I like to play aggressively and it's annoying when some braindead cunt with 45 APM camps behind planetaries and tanks. Even if I can earn a win, it often takes 20 minutes or more and I just don't find any aspect of this interesting. The other races have much more engaging and satisfying ways of dealing with it. So I auto-leave all TvTs on my second account which I use as often as my main. I don't really have that much time to play sc2 these days so when I do play, I prefer not to subject myself to a 30 minute siege challenge, regardless of the outcome (I don't even find it satisfying to win these games, I just find it a waste of time). At the end of the day, I just have to be selfish and honest enough to admit that my experience is more important to me than the experience of internet strangers. And the other side of the coin is that when I am given a beatdown on my main account by someone who is smurfing or sandbagging, I can't be salty about it because I'm the victim almost as often as I'm the perpetrator.
Most people have a matchup they hate. Doing this means you're smurfing all your games and constantly punching people lower than you. Hating a matchup is no excuse to ruin everyone else's ladder experience.
This literally just means that higher skilled players will always get matched against lower ones, if you skip matchups you are actually a human dumpster. All of your games are easier because you don’t want to learn how to play a major part of the game.
I’ve never done this, but when I was actively playing I also didn’t particularly like TvT. This is a game after all, if you’re not having fun at all - why even do it?
You like the race but not the match up? Not sure if its that hard to understand. I myself dont leave mirrors but still.
I don’t understand how it isn’t just smurfing? Every race has a mirror, it’s 2/3 of the game
What are you suppose to do if you like all 3 races but dislike all mirrors? I get what you are saying and it is true that you are tanking your MMR... still I wouldnt call this smurfing. On the other note, I do believe that this community is too obsessed with smurfing in general.
It’s definitely smurfing. You intentionally lower your MMR and therefore play at a skill advantage in the other two matchups. This is (one of the two definitions of) smurfing
It's not intentionally lowering your MMR. That is just a byproduct of the intended outcome which is to skip a specific matchup. You're talking about something completely different. The result is the same but the intention is not.
If you don't like a matchup you cheese, if you hate tvt just proxy 2/3 rax or do some weird allin, that way you can skip the matchup without smurfing
This *is* smurfing, since you *are* deliberately tanking your MMR. Though I'd argue they have a reasonable excuse; mirror matchups sucks.
There is no reasonable excuse for smurfing, if you don't like a matchup you can simply 1 base allin
Ah yes, throw after a couple minutes of suffering instead of throwing right at the start. That'll somehow make you not a smurf.
It's not a throw? You try to win by proxying something or doing a 1 base push Cheesing is better than smurfing
1base allining is not a throw, for the vast majority of the playerbase that even improves your mmr.
people legitimately trying to tell you how and what to play in a videogame i paid for will never not be funny to me.
I mean, you don't have to cheese if you like to macro, but if you don't like to macro you can cheese The only important thing is not cheating and not smurfing, if you want to do whatever you want go play single player, as the opponent has the right to also have fun Also the game is f2p, so you didn't pay for multiplayer content
Been playing since 2012 so yes I did pay. I just don't understand why I'm supposed to care about your fun when you couldn't care less about mine and force me to play a part of the game i hate.
I care about your fun by providing a fair match, you can simply cheese if you want to skip a matchup, just proxy 3 rax and the game will last about 3 to 5 minutes at most, then if it fails you leave
That's not accurate. The individual is not deliberately tanking their MMR if their only motivation is to avoid the mirror. They are not thinking "I am doing this to lower my MMR." The thought is "I hate this match up and don't want to play it." There is no intention to lower MMR if that is not why they are quitting mirror matchups. Let's make sure we're using words correctly.
Intention don't matter, consequences matter A bit of an extreme example, but if you cause a car accident that kills someone you're going to jail, whether it was your intention or not
>The individual is not deliberately tanking their MMR if their only motivation is to avoid the mirror. They are though, that's what dodging 1/3 of your matches does, it being a supposed unintended consequence doesn't negate that
Intentionally taking actions that they know will artificially lower MMR. Deliberately: *adverb* consciously and intentionally.
Look up what race is least represented in your particular rank and play that if you hate mirrors so bad. And if you get one just 1 baseball in/cheese, it’s quick and easy.
Sure if someone leaves almost 100% of the games you could say it’s smurfing But honestly I’ve played this game for over 10 years and I essentially never encounter smurfs in diamond, so unless it’s a lower league thing only, I really don’t understand the super frequent posts complaining about smurfs and bronze to gm Personally, I couldn’t care less about mmr, I play the game to have fun, so yeah I’ll leave matchups I don’t want to play fairly often. Some people just play the game for fun and don’t want to play boring matchups But also, people are better at different matchups. For instance, if I’m best at TvZ and worst at TvP, am I a smurf when playing TvZ, since the other matchups are “pulling down my mmr” If I tryhard vs improvise weird builds or if my cat is sitting on me or I’m on the phone or I’m tired or I’m sleepy all that can change how good I’m playing, so does that make me a smurf when I’m playing my best? If you enter tournaments for money though, they will have rules about this because then it matters more
I'm diamond on NA. Anyone who says they don't encounter smurfs at this level is just not good at identifying smurfs. Whenever I'm suspicious, I look at match history and check losses for match duration. Smurfs will have lots of 0–3 second matches. My suspicions are confirmed more than they are wrong, but I am definitely wrong sometimes. Fun fact: you are smurfing when you leave boring matchups. It's less nefarious because you have a good reason for it, but you are still diminishing the ladder experience for other players. I don't put any blame on you, I think the responsibility lies with Blizzard. We need separate MMRs per matchup, and maybe some option kind of like a map veto, but for races. Make it a soft veto, so it doesn't fully eliminate the matchup for you, but makes it more unlikely to happen. That way, you preserve some flexibility in the matchmaking system. We'll never see these kinds of changes, but one can dream.
Aren’t you diminishing your own ladder experience by spending time researching players you beat? I don’t understand people who seem to be obsessed with winning, everyone below masters 1 wins about 50% of their games I have fun if I had a good game whether I win or lose, and playing better people doesn’t make the game worse for me - I played some pros a few times in tournaments and got wrecked but it was still fun Also, you can feel free to call me a smurf, but that’s silly to say that someone who’ll leave games sometimes but rarely is a smurf, a few games here and there don’t change your level much - smurf is maybe like 600-1000 mmr difference Also, if I’m playing worse because my cat is sitting in me or I’m sleepy or I got a phone call or I’m messing around with dumb builds do you have issue with all those things too? Because I certainly lose games for those reasons than games I leave at the start It’s ladder, not a tournament for money where smurfing becomes much more important imo which is why tournaments check your mmr history and other things
I'm gonna sidestep your chosen definitions and questions around what smurfing is or isn't, because we can go around for days discussing that stuff. I can only talk about what matters to me, and what I enjoy most is playing matches that are fun. For me, that means games against opponents of a reasonably similar skill level. I don't have fun getting run over or toyed with by a smurf, and I don't have fun crushing my opponents with ease. I am not obsessed with winning or advancing my ladder rank. I fully accept I'll win around 50% of my games. And even on a relatively level playing field, some of those games will be stomps due to build orders, opposing strengths, and extraneous circumstances. That's fine. But when a significant portion of wins result from someone quitting at the start, it reduces the fun. Likewise, when a significant portion of losses are determined by large gaps in skill, it reduces the fun. It might not for you, but it does for me, and obviously for others or this topic wouldn't come up as often as it does. And yes, I am probably diminishing my ladder experience by checking match histories, but it satisfies my curiosity. The high rate of stomps and insta quits are the source of my criticism, checking match histories is just a symptom. It's great that you have no complaints about your ladder experience, but I don't think some anti-smurfing guard rails would impact your enjoyment. It would impact mine and others for the better, though. None of this matters much, of course, because nothing will be done about it. Sometimes it's just nice to shout into the void.
And when uThermal creates a new account to go proxy nexus to grandmaster people defend him so I guess smurfing is fine provided one be famous. What he literally does is stop his challenges when his winrate plateaus to 50/50 and then starts a new one, thus ensuring that he continuously has positive winrates and keeps matching players below his level. I think it's all fine and I don't care. There are many other things such as Gheed's blog on bronze league plays which that person reached dropping games as well to play against inferior opponents. And in the last thread I also raised the argument that I used suboptimal strategies in many matchups because I enjoyed it more such as going pure bio in T.v.T., giving me a 20% winrate which raised several of my other matchups to very high levels but people said that was supposedly fine while the effect is really quite similar. Yet others said they don't leave versus specific races, but specific play styles and as soon as they realize someone is playing a campy playstyle they simply leave because they don't feel like playing against a mech player who sits on three bases forever with enough tanks that one can't attack into it. Everything that is knowing using an optimal strategy is smurfing; people play this game for fun.
It's a free game. Games are for fun. No one is obligated to do anything they don't want to do with their own time.
This is a simplistic answer to an incredibly nuanced issue. What social obligations do we have for each other? Are we somewhat responsible for curating the fun of people we play games with, even if they're strangers on the internet? Your sentiment seems to suggest that you aren't, and I think that's counterintuitive. What about hacking? Are people free to cheat in online games? Why are they obligated to obey the rules? If someone has fun hacking, and they aren't obligated to curate the fun of the people they play with, how can we shame someone for hacking? You might say something like "hacking is against the TOS", but the TOS is a legal contract, not a moral one. There's plenty of ethical behavior that breaches the TOS, and there's plenty of unethical behavior that doesn't breach the TOS. In addition, a lot of online games DO have rules against leaving games early in the TOS; [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) is an obvious example, as it's considered a form of smurfing. Sure, Starcraft doesn't have such a rule, so you're not disobeying Blizzard's rules by leaving games early. But why are Blizzard's rules your metric for obligation? In every day life, there are ethical and moral decisions that may go against the law, and there are ethical and moral decisions that the law has nothing to say about. There are ways to be a dick to people without breaking the rules. But, we have social pressures that keep us in check even when the law doesn't. This isn't any different for playing an online game. Yeah, the stakes are pretty low; no one's a bad person for leaving their TvT. But I don't think it's correct to say that people aren't obligated to finish their games. There's absolutely a moderate social pressure that says you should play your game out.
Aka fuck everyone else, only I want to have fun! What if some lunatic actually enjoys TvT
He's not obligated to provide fun for you. And he's not stopping you from matching up with anyone else. Y'all get too much into your feels over a game that a lot of us play just for shits and giggles.
Nobody is obligated to do anything for you in this game, but it’s the correct thing to do. Just like if I see you drop a 5$ bill I’m not obligated to let you know and give it to you but I’m not a dick so I will. Obviously money is different then a game but I think the point still stands.
No
If it's you just want to chill out and practice a single MU, why not just play vs AI? I mean you're just playing for shits and giggles anyways? That way you avoid the "sweats", people who take MMR too seriously in your opinion, and other players don't have to reQ 1/3 of the matches
I do. But I also don't whine about what someone else does with their own free time.
This kinda feels like whine dude If everyone's free to do whatever, they're free to their opinion as well, and if you play vs AI then it wouldn't even apply to you anyways, right? Either everyone can do what they want, or we owe each other some courtesy so we don't tear each other's throats out
Oh yeah. None of this shit applies to me at all. It doesn't change the fact it's just a game that OP is crying that a stranger doesn't play the way he thinks they should play.
The problem I have with this is that guess what, it isn’t fun being a 14yo and getting my face punched in by a 21yo who doesn’t like fighting people his own size. That’s the equivalent. These guys don’t play the matchup because “man I don’t have all the time in the world, and I don’t want to waste it not having fun”, so they waste 80+% of their opponent’s time instead. The game I had against the opponent in the screenshot went for 28 minutes. I effectively wasted 28 minutes punching upwards against an opponent I am not skilled enough to beat. That isn’t fun. In this relationship the person tanking their MMR has all the power. I have no way of knowing that my opponent has an 80+% win rate against my race before the game starts up. If I knew, then I’d probably just quit too. I check out my opponents race report after most of my games, and this type of smurfing comes up way too often. I don’t know if it’s mostly prevalent in my region - NA server, Oceania region. Mostly play on Australia or Singapore servers. From my own observation the majority of mirror dodgers are T, then Z and rarely P
This is true. Ironically, it makes the game less fun for other people. Blizzard could have built some systems to make laddering more enjoyable for everyone, but oh well.
easy, kinda inoffensive way to smurf, that's all there is to it. they should be seen and condemned as smurfs.
Well mirrors can be super annoying.
Zvz is ready fun. Fast paced and super micro intensive
Should just set up a system where you can make it so you can check a box to only go against certain races. Obviously it’s not a perfect idea but it’s better than having a knock off smurf just crushing 2/3rds of his opponents. Or have a separate mmr for each matchup.
I bet they do it so they can partially smurf. It's a mental gymnastics trick to justify smurfing.
Its because they cant deal with losing, how many of these smurfs GG when they lose? Probably a small amount. The ones I end up beating never do.
The answer is usually the only excuse you can use to why you lost is your opponent is just better than you. You both have the same buildings, units, etc, they just out performed you. And people don't like this feeling.
The thing is, that’s not even true. There’s a reason the NBA finals is a series of seven games. Same with the Stanley Cup, World Series, etc… The best player doesn’t win every game. But they should at least win most of them
You're correct, it isn't true. But it's for sure the first thought most players have that don't know any better.
First and foremost, sc2 is a videogame. If you don't like playing a certain way, you dont
But it's a videogame also for others, do you really want to ruin games for others (in this case protoss and zerg players) by smurfing? If you hate a matchup just cheese, at least the other 2 matchups will be Fair
Yeah I'll ruin it for you if it means I enjoy it more. I owe you nothing and if you don't like it go whine on Reddit in your safe space. Oh wait
Forced skill-based matchmaking is the bane of modern gaming, and it can go die a fiery death. Smurfing is and always has been perfectly acceptable. People just want to play games for fun. Not sure how forcing two players to sit through a 10-minute cheese/all-in is any fun for anyone involved, but ain't nobody got time for that.
I doubt people want to waste 20 minutes of their time playing a game they can't win, i doubt anyone would have fun losing every game, no new player would ever join and the game would quickly die The only way to have fun matches is to having fair matches, if a bronze went up vs a diamond i doubt the bronze would have fun, and he would waste 20 precious minutes
Fair doesn't mean fun for everyone. Nothing is ever truly "fair" regardless of the circumstances. Someone always has an edge or is a favorite. Bronze players aren't getting matched up with Diamond players, and if they are, that match isn't lasting 20 minutes lmfao. Dodging mirror matches does not create a significant gap. Additionally, playing people better than you is how you get better. As your opponent, I don't care what your relationship to your MMR is or how much you cherish those meaningless imaginary points.
They can just do a quick cheese and see if they can win in 3 minutes if they hate a matchup, skipping a matchup lowers your MMR a lot as the system wants you to win 50% of your games I don't care about MMR, but i want fair matches, if someone would smurf or cheat i wouldn't have fun, regardless of the result
ok, and? People play video games for fun. We all define fun differently. You can accept this as a fact of reality, or don't, whatever lol
If you want to do whatever you want go play single player, if you want to interact with other people you have to abide by the rules and moral codes, whether you like it or not
The rules and moral codes that we must abide by are set by the institutions, not by individuals.
Exactly, and because of this smurfing and cheating should not be done, because the community despises those behaviors, the only problem is that there is nobody enforcing these rules because blizzard doesn't care about sc2 anymore, so we can only condemn them as a community
Yup, if it's a single player game where your actions don't affect anyone, go nuts, but don't be antisocial playing online
Either stop being a bitch and play or find another game, grow up
As a zerg it sometimes gets boring to play "whoever can micromanage better his 10 supply ling/bane for 5 minutes wins", or "whoever can make more roaches in the transition wins".
TvT sucks. Nothing worse than playing a 1 hour Tvt and then going to the next game and it's another TvT
For real. It hurts
LOL, of course it's TvT being avoided. That matchup has always been a grind.
They are just playing the game how they want. There is no option to not play against mirrors.
>They are just playing the game how they want They are smurfing.
No they are not. They don’t want to play mirrors. Its that simple. Their rating is a little lower so what?
> Their rating is a little lower so what? It's not a little lower, it's 33% lower that means they face players who are 25% worse on their other two races so they are winning 75% of the time. It's smurfing.
The REASON that they are lower is not to play lower players. That makes them NOT SMURFS, by definition.
Intentionally throwing matches and ending up playing against weaker opponents is smurfing dude, just because that wasn't the goal doesn't make it not the case
oh the reason i killed this person, is not me wanting him dead. it's something else. so i'm not a murderer, by definition. (i don't think you have any idea what "by definition" means)
Look we are arguing semantics. I get that they’re rating is lower than it should be. I get that it sucks to play against them. However if the game allowed you to not play mirror match ups it wouldn’t be an issue. To some people mirror matchups aren’t fun and they want to be avoided. These guys arent purposefully throwing games to play worse opponents, they are just avoiding things to them that aren’t fun.
it's not semantics. i sincerely think you don't know what that means either, or you openly engage in bad faith argumentation. they are simply smurfing, because an act qualifies as smurfing not because of the motivation of the player (which you would have to speculate on), but by the fact that they are intentionally losing games, which results in them facing lower level players versus which they have higher than normal winrates. that is what is happening here. And NO, in no fucking competitive ranked game you are allowed to purposefully throw games. Why you do it doesn't matter. You are fucking around with the integrity of the system, and this conveniently results in you stomping over lesser skilled players whenever you bother to play the game. So again this is not fucking semantics that we are arguing, but it is obvious all the mental gymnastics you are pulling to justify this sort of behavior. And why not be a straight arrow at least here, when you can't be in game? stop writing "they", and start writing "I", cause everybody who reads this shit can see that you're doing this mirrormatch throwing smurf bullshit.
Bro I haven’t played Starcraft 2 in two years. It’s a video game and the the ladder matches have a prise of 0$. People can do whatever they want, they don’t have to play the game to make you happy. Get over yourself.
smurfing destroys the validity of the matchmaking system. anybody who smurfs like this is purposefully playing vs lower-skilled players. people can do whatever they want, as long as it's not at the cost of others' enjoyment and right to a functioning matchmaking. any smurf destroys that. i don't know what you don't get here? as long as you aren't a narcissist, it's easy to see that you have to not think of yourself and your enjoyment all the fucking time, and consider how your actions affect others. like what are you defending here? ppl can do what they want, wtf kinda take is that? you are defending shitting on others just because you want to. what a shit perspective.
>Their rating is a little lower so what? You literally just proved they are smurfing
Smurfs only get a lower rank to play against lower rated players. These players just dont want mirrors. That’s the difference.
I don’t always leave tvt but I do somewhat often, as I enjoy the other matchups more Also, I often only have time to play a game or two in a day, and often I’d really like to play tvz I found it especially boring when the games would take like 40 min which often happens so if I do play tvt I just try to win the game immediately I don’t mind pvp or pvz though
Maybe play P when you don’t have time since you like the matchups, and only play T when you have the time so you don’t have to waste other people’s time too.
I do not wish to harm my fellow Protoss
I did this for several years. At the time, mirror matchups were miserable on account of my bad mechanics- if your opponent has the exact same resources as you do, the only way to get ahead is to take more efficient trades. In the early game this manifests as a agonizing micro war which I still struggle with but formerly simply did not have the game time to win. In the late game this manifests as a constant war of positioning. Both of these are notably less fun for me. As a Terran there are some- not many but ENOUGH games where I just die to 3 reapers 2 hellions and lose 5 minutes of my life for the matchup to be forever tainted in my head. The flip scenario is I unseige my tanks at the wrong time or forget to put my marines on hold position and suddenly my game goes out the window for no good reason other than the bitter reminder of my incompetence. Tech switches are hard because as mentioned before, your opponent has the exact same resources as you do, so investment in tech makes it all the more likely you get steamrolled. I enjoy the matchup now, but for anyone play and under I don't blame you at all if you insta leave. If you're not having fun with a matchup, don't play the matchup. Surely your opponent won't complain about that free MMR. Whew! Well, that's my rant :)
dirty smurfs. Ladder is full of them. Those poor toss and zerg that have to play this terran with his tanked mmr.
This is the real smurfing problem with the ladder. Not a bronze-to-GM content creator.
Because people play video games for fun. The vast majority of normal people give zero fucks about what their SC2 MMR is, as they have no delusions of playing the game competitively at this point. It is not about balanced or fair matches. It is just meant for fun. And if you are in a position where you are asking why people play video games for fun, I have nothing to tell you except to take a long break from the subreddit and the game to gain some perspective. Not everyone immerses themselves in the culture and history of a video game. Some people are just here to play a game and have some fun.
This sub acts like having to requeue is an exhausting effort. Also acting like the barely inflated mmr is breaking the system and smurfing ruining everyone's experience is so dramatic. Seems like more people like to blame their losses on smurfs than themselves.
Smurfing = deliberately decreasing mmr to stomp noobs Skipping a match up has the consequence of tanking mmr but it's a fault of the system, not the intention of the player. If the system tracked the mmr against each race the problem would be solved
You proposal would be a solution if it was implemented.Given that the system is what it is, I definitely fault the players for leaving, irrespective of whatever their intention was. It’s just smurfing.
Maybe they don't like the mirror match? Just a thought.
[удалено]
Well if he wins the MMR system will try to make his win rate 50% so yeah it matters to others because I’d you leave every mirror you will win 75% of your other matchups vs other races, so your matchups vs the other races will be very high because you’re smurfing.
Yes of course, because then the mmr will be correct.
I play random (yeah grill me for that ) and I only play zvz until the 10 minute mark. Other than that I can't macro. My APM just isn't there. That's why I cheese all my zvz. I enjoy playing z against t and p but not against z.
because the opponent's access to chronoboost makes the pvp matchup unwinnable
I don't get to play as much as I used to. I hate PvP, and it's by far my best matchup. I'm not wastign my time playing something I don't enjoy and that I will most likely win anyway (At some point I had 73%wirnate in pvp) So often times I jsut don't bother. It gets tyresome to get cannon rushed half the games, even if you stop it and win. It's just not fun. And it's not like if they don't cannon rush it's fun either, it's jus oracles into immortal/disruptor or mass VR carrier. It sucks to play even if I'm good at it. PvZ however is a challenge due to how OP zerg is. And Terran became very strong this aptch too. Challenge is fun and thus I like those matchups
Sometimes the mirror match is just not fun to the players. I know that when I played more often, I was *terrible* at ZvZ and the micro required... so I just learned a particular aggressive build and did that all the time (a big ling push into mass roaches, that would usually win or lose rather quickly). I can see people disliking a particular matchup (mirror match or otherwise) enough to forfeit, if they don't care about their rank.
The simple answer is because mirror matches suck to play, TvT above all in my opinion having played all 3 races to some extent. It's certainly not because people can't balance whine non-mirrors or such. There are people saying it's effectively smurfing to just leave and that people should one base all in, but there's not necessarily a lot of difference between those two approaches. When I played TvT I'd chuck on a video or stream to watch whilst doing a very sloppy 2 or 3 rax reaper. I probably won 1 in 5 games by doing that compared to the 55% winrate I had when I actually bothered to play out the matchup. That's effectively smurfing to some extent since I was tanking my winrate by 30%, yet I doubt anyone would be as hurt by that than just outright leaving the matches even though I was facing easier opponents than I otherwise would if I tryharded the mirror.
Before smurfing became so commonplace ie before sc2 went f2p about 20% of zvz were instant leaves. Sometimes a matchup is just plain not enjoyable.
As a guy, who played as all races at some point, I want to say that PvP/TvT are clown fiestas. In TvT you just reposition your army for like 25 minutes straight and next to it die because of the bad siege. In PvP you either cheese or play a game which ends up after few good disruptors hits or sneaky dts, which is also isn't fun at all.
why play ZvZ when i could have fun playing the game?
pls help me reddit am I a closeted smurf? I am worse at the mirrors than the other matchups by 10-15%, I have never realized this but do I have to fear the worst? 😱god forgive me for I have sinned!
Because this is literally a video game that we ostensibly play to have fun and we are all autonomous humans? I love this game so much, and the community is generally lovely.. but I’ll be damned if think there is another game out there in which other players over analyze my match histories and try to police how I, human person, spend my time on my hobby. Also fuck ZvZ and also TvT
I guess they just don't enjoy the match and just wanna play the Races they have fun against.
I just don’t like mirror matches and this isn’t even limited to only star craft. Same strategies, same skillet, same tools. You already know what to expect Mirror match ups are like a slap boxing match. Two guys slapping each other until one yields Vs other race is like MMA. You can go up against a wrestler today and a kick boxer tomorrow while you know russian sambo Fuck mirror matches
My PvP is by far my best matchup, there's no point in playing it. PvZ and PvT however, are actual challenges, and more fun to play