An Overwatch 2 developer is begging players to stop smurfing.
Smurfing, if you didn’t already know, is the act of creating a new account in an online game in order to engage in easy matches against lower-ranked competitors. It’s also something competitive gamers love to do: grab a new “unranked” account or the equivalent of the top tier of competitive online gaming to prove their skill.
An Overwatch 2 developer really hates this. “To be clear: please don’t do this,” meta-designer Scott Mercer said in a recent smurf stream (thanks, computer gamer (opens in a new tab). ) “The situation we don’t want is like, ‘Hi, I’m a new Overwatch player,’ and we totally misunderstand your skills and you lose a bunch of games because we think you’re so much better than you are. you are,” Mercer continued.
It’s easy to see Mercer’s point: if the Overwatch 2 devs go after the Smurfs, they risk catching very new players in the crossfire, punishing them by accident. In theory, this would completely disable newcomers to Overwatch 2 if they already know they’re in trouble before they even start the game.
Smurfs also discourage newcomers to online gambling, if newcomers know there are smurfs from the start. No one will want to play an online game for the first time if there are potentially pro-level players out there waiting to beat them as soon as they start.
One measure the Overwatch 2 developers have taken to avoid smurfing is to reduce the number of matches to rate new players. We hope this method will really pay off for the Blizzard development team and make their lives a lot less painful.
Overwatch 2 also punishes friends for cheaters nowso be careful if your allies are known to be using one of the exploits.