'Smurfing' on the ladder... very un sporting!

I know this isn't my place to discuss smurf-ing because I'm not even uber but i think that Mot concluded this thread pretty elegantly in that no one is going to agree. In psychology there is a thing called radical acceptance. Maybe instead of arguing, just 1v1 each other until someone gives in. PA is such a lovely game and it seems awful everyone is arguing over something for so long. Anyways, hugs for everyone and i hope you guys will find the understand to empathize with others even though you don't agree because really, neither parties can change it.
<3 Teddies and hugs! <3 =)

edit: sorry i just had to post, it seems such a shame everyone is arguing for so long and it makes me awfully sad >. <

The problem, at bottom, is that the anti-smurfers don't want to play against the smurfers. And the smurfers will keep changing their smurf names in order to force people who don't want to play with them to play with them. Imagine if a kid in the playground told you "I don't want to play with you". He would add "because you are a cheater", but even if he provided NO EXPLANATION, you yourself should be ashamed to keep trying to trick him into playing with you.

Ego and bragging rights. It's just that these things aren't important enough to justify the severity of the emotions in this thread.

More seriously, it's that I can play at two totally different levels depending on the kind of day I am having. If I play on one account all the time, my rank will drop so far on bad days that my good days will be spent grinding back up through easy wins and I won't get to the interesting battles.

lol which is exactly what cdrkf is complaining about. Him having to grind up the 25 spots that elodea's smurf kicked him down.

But that's the entire point of the ranked system isn't it?

To find you a mid point between your bast and worst to find you equal opponents.

You can't just cut out your losses because you don't want to lose your rank.

Yeah if elodea really played at one level against most people and then played seriously when he saw cdrkf I agree that would be wrong. I haven't watched those games and can really only comment on myself. My own smurf was an account that I used for a day or two playing mostly casually but it won a lot of games anyway. From the rank it currently has, it can really only go down and give away free points.

I just think you have created an imaginary scenario where people are all over the ladder trolling other good players for sadistic pleasure when that's not really the case. If you were just talking hypothetically that would make sense, but since you are calling for people like me to be banned it seems you confused yourself a bit by your own hypothetical scenario.

I can concur. I saw the original posts.

If my games followed a normal distribution, sure. My skill curve likely has two peaks if you were to chart it, though.

mot is not playing ranked 1v1s because of you. cdrkf is considering the same. If I ever got anywhere near the top I would do the same. There is nothing hypothetical here.

I just doesn't feel like you should get two ranked accounts for when you feel like you aren't going to win.

That feels slim shady.

But yeah, we have discussed this to death, and the idea of non-ranked matchmaking would be how I feel we fix this, more or less.

Along with that idea of point decay.

So ill stop hollaing at ya.

Good day cptconundrum, best of luck on the ladder!

Another idea is a mod for an alternate ladder for declared non-smurfers.

This would be instructive, because if you gave players a choice on which ladder to play on, everyone would choose the one without smurfers, even the smurfers. Which shows up the self-contradiction and the pure selfishness in their arguments.

I am not saying that the new ladder wouldn't have smurfers. But its domination would show that everyone hates smurfing. No one would be playing on the smurfing ladder after a while, if Uber made both officially available.

People didn't read what I posted. You have to accept that smurfs will be here. always. They are in SC2, Supcom, Dota, LoL, any multiplayer game for that matter with a ladder and matchmaking. You cannot stop it. Please just accept that.

Icycalm, banning players is not an option as they will start using proxy servers etc etc and it will be an armsrace. Uber vs the world with the world having an infinte amount of resources to spend and Uber only a limited amount. They will never win. It will strike fear yes but you don't see crime stop when a huge maffiacartel is shot down by the cops.

If for some reason people here thought that smurfs are non-existant in any multiplayer game they've played.. then they're wrong. You cannot do anything about it. Just like taxes.. we all want them gone, but they will be always here.

The point we need to focus on is how we can ensure that smurfs have as little impact on the ladder as possible.

Well you see this level of hostility you can encounter on-line is why I personally avoid playing MP in things like FPS games and such. This was why (apparently mistakenly) I thought bringing up the point and trying to reach a 'gentleman's' agreement was a good idea. I never asked people to disclose their smurfs (I used one player as an example as I had some pertinent data for him, I guess I shouldn't have named anyone specifically and for that I apologise).

The thing is- there are issues with how the ladder is implemented, and being honest I doubt anything will get changed quickly as Uber have other things their working on. Having played TA, Spring and now PA online I find 99% of players very nice and we have one of the better communities out there imo, hence I thought we could discuss this in a fair and rational manner. Maybe there isn't anything we as players can do to make what we have work better? I thought it was worth discussion however.

No matter how I look at it though, I really don't like coming up against fake accounts. You may have noticed from other discussions I am a big believer in treating everyone in a fair and respectful manor irrespective of skill (which is why I clashed with a couple of very aggressive types going on the lines of 'if your not top 5 you can't play' and such). Someone playing a fake account, beating you with a silly strategy, and then calling you names *isn't* courteous or respectful (this isn't referring to anyone specifically involved in this thread btw however is something I've come across all too often). Any 'smurfs' who have played me you will note I will never have said anything rude to you irrespective of the outcome of the match, beyond asking what your real account name is (actually *kudos* to @cptconundrum for giving me the respect to identify himself in our game).

Anyway I'm not asking for anyone to be banned or anything heavy handed like that at all, and I actually think we've identified some related problems with the ladder that could hopefully be tweaked quickly:

1: Top players have very long waits for games (e.g. @Yaegz having to wait 1 hour + for a game). I think Uber should relax the requirements a bit here, imo anyone in Uber / Platinum is good enough to give the top players a decent match as these are all players who aren't going to make basic mistakes. These players *shouldn't* have to make up new accounts to get these games.

2: Inactive accounts should drop slowly overtime to promote more people playing. Part of the problem is apparently people get a top account, can't get a game so start a new lower account. I can sympathise with this, solving 1 would help, however this would increase the number of higher level people playing on these accounts which will also alleviate the problem.

3: Make players name hidden until after the match. Another issue raised by the Smurfers is they like some anonymity- well fine hide the name until the end of the match, or maybe give them the option to hide their replays (only applicable to top 3 but worth a though) if they want to try out a new move without it becoming widespread knowledge immediately.

I play 1v1 ranked because its a super easy 1v1 matchmaking, if instead @cola_colin opened back up PAStats Ladder 1v1 matchmaking and for PAStats Ladder by @Illmaren did a decay feature i would abandon Uber's ladder in an instant if i could find a game in reasonable time. on uber ladder anytime of day i can on my main only get a game between 2-10 minutes because of being in uber, on my smurf i have around 2 min queue times. My gandalf account had a 30 game win streak mainly vs plat and uber players and i went from 24th to 23rd, tell me how in the world ranked is not already skrewed up. I know i could be top 10, its not because of smurfs, its because with this system unless i play 1000 games i dont think i could ever grind even the 13 slots. I might even give up caring for my rank at all and just keep making smurfs for the fast match making.

Yeah like I said I think almost everyone that posted in this thread has been polite and has contributed to the conversation. I think this thread has done a lot of good.

I disagree on your #3 if only because I enjoy the personal aspect of running into someone I know during a game and having a nice chat.

Now you see why I was frustrated to loose so many spots- the ladder is *almost* impossible to climb as it is. I must admit I put the very large drop down to the fact the account I was playing against was lower than me although maybe the problem is more fundamental than that? I was actually ranked #13 at my highest, 3 losses (including 2 against Elodea which isn't really surprising given his skill, cheese tactics or not) and I was #55.

Well maybe #3 should be split into "allowed to hide names" and "allowed to hide replays" The latter would allow for a bit more anonymity for the top 3 if they need to practice for a tourney.

The reason you guys don't see me proposing "sensible", practical solutions like cdrkf did above is because I am more interested in the ideological dimension, as opposed to the practical. Naturally enough, since I am not high enough in the ladder for the practical aspect to be a big issue for me yet, if ever, and also because I am a very theory-minded person, and that's the dimension that draws my mind immediately, when considering a problem.

So, my solutions have been focused in showing the smurfs the ethical error of their ways. Did I convince anyone? Apparently not. But that's the story of my life lol, and you are welcome to have a good laugh at it on my expense. I am used to it and really don't mind it, as long as I have at least the chance to set down my views for the world to see and consider.

On that note, there's something else I feel the need to bring up here. I am in the middle of writing a couple of articles/reviews that will explore at length the ideas that the mods saw fit to exclude from this thread. I will even be using quotes from this thread to support my arguments, and even people's usernames, as case studies. I am sure none of you will go looking for these articles, but believe you me, they will be passed around. I myself will never link them in this forum, but they will be linked, sooner or later. It's unavoidable. My review of PA will be 20+ pages and will be featured in a collection of essays titled "Videogame Art", which will be printed and available on Amazon. Jon Mavor will receive complimentary copies, and a few months from now it will be the only review of the game being talked about. I know what you are thinking, "He's a deluded idiot and someone please shut him up already", but nevertheless the things I am saying here will happen, and if any of you guys end up reading my review, or that other essay I am talking about (which will be featured in another book, the first volume of which is already available), you will hate me. You probably hate me already, for the aggressive tone I used in this thread, but if you think my tone here was aggressive, you've no idea what the word means, and when these essays come out I am afraid you'll find out.

In all honesty, I don't see how your community can continue to tolerate my presence here, and once those essays are read, or even merely skimmed, by some of the senior members, I fully expect to be banned, and probably even excluded from competitive events. I have even already asked colin and garat to ban me, because even though I have sworn off posting in this forum several times, I still keep reading it to remain up to date on the game, and still end up posting in it despite myself, when I see a subject being discussed on which I have strong feelings. So I am merely asking them to help me stop posting, but so far no dice.

I don't want to derail the thread and make it about me, and I considered starting another thread to say this, but then I would have been accused even more strongly of "attention-whoring", so I chose to make this post in this thread instead (which is were all the unpleasantness happened). I just feel the need to put everything out in the open. It's better this way than people thinking "But I thought we were friends now", and then reading what I really think of them, and feeling betrayed.

If the mods would prefer to spin this post off into another thread, or to move it into an existing "drama whoring" thread, please do so. Or the other users can simply read it, and then continue talking about smurfing. I do not by any means desire to derail the thread, but I felt the need to state the above somewhere regardless.