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

There is a lot of merit to all of what you wrote, but the one thing I would like clarification on is this. I thought the league cutoffs were based on some arbitrary threshold on the raw rating, not a percent of the players.

So that's why I had the fealing when playing ladder 1vs1 that some players are really too good to be bellow top three leves. Also one of the reasons why I stopped playing 1vs1 ladder.

I think most of that is coming from the ladder not being very active. The matchmaking will end up throwing you into a game against more or less random players if it can't find a good match. If you aren't very high on the ladder, chances are good that the game won't be fair. The rating system is supposed to handle that by making sure you won't lose many points from losing to someone high up.

I'm going to give it some more thought. If I do stop using my second account I expect that for a few different reasons I would become a lot less active on the ladder. That's sad to me because I enjoy it a lot, but I guess if other people really are having their fun ruined to the point where they can't even play ladder games then there may be a problem here. I need to decide first whether that problem is coming from the smurfing or if quitting the ladder is more of a personal issue. My immediate response was to just laugh it off as a childish overreaction, but it does seem like a lot of people here have very strong emotions tied to the way I play this game.

I don't remember ever calling myself the best. I remember saying I was one of the better players - but never the best.

Only playing 1v1s doesn't make you the best player in the game. Why you only play 1v1s........

I think you misunderstood me a bit, Cap - they don't like different game play styles. They are solely dedicated to 1v1s. It's unnecessary and bad for the game's community when they attempt to lord it over everyone else.

I loved the camaraderie of Beta - we all helped each other, it was a competition based on hard work, and few smurfed. Those who did didn't do it often, and it was usually a joke of some sort. None of this bull that I see happening now.

Something changed, Cap. It wasn't a good thing. Smurfing doesn't help. We need a closer-knit community willing to help one another, not this BS.

I think you're getting a bit off topic here. This is a thread about the ethics of smurfing, not about how awful people are if they only play 1v1. I play 1v1s because I enjoy them. I assume the other people that primarily play 1v1s also have fun playing them.

Being the best at 1v1s in Planetary Annihilation means you are the best at 1v1s in Planetary Annihilation. When did anybody in this thread try to make the claim that it meant anything more than this?

Also, smurfing leads to more smurfing eventually. This sounds ridiculous but it actually happened like that in my PA experience so please look at the other perspective too if your the smurf. If Captain would stop smurfing there is a chance he loses some kind of an advantage that he always had (or maybe not) and i can understand that you dont want to do that if its not required. I am new to competitive gaming but i like tournaments more then laddergames because there are never smurfs in a tournament (as far as i heard). This is also one of the reasons i don't ladder.

But Battlebear plays more team games than 1v1s, don't spread lies please >: ( <- very off topic comment

You're talking about a tournament though, ranking is something completely different. That is why i think best players should be determined by tournaments. Sadly atm there are not enough hosted. Ranked is nice for practice and all and playing players that are not too distant in rank. But you won't be able to see who is the best player in the top 10 uber leaderbords, just who plays the most.

So i don't really care about smurfs, i don't see the point, but it is not a problem. When you're gold you still play uber players, so you won't miss out on good opponents. Because of the small player-base.
I play ranked for fun games and to practice my build(or new builds), not to be obsessed with some rank. (Pointing fingers at everyone in this thread)

That's good. My apologies.

I paid for two accounts and I'm going to continue to rank sober or not sober on both. If me when I'm doing stupid strats is only plat level then so be it. I'll have a plat and uber account. I am not intentionally feeding points to certain people and trying my best to take points from others. I'm playing my best games on both accounts but using different styles to play on each.

It has been explained to you more times than I care to account that multiple accounts contribute TO PUSHING PEOPLE DOWN THE LADDER, LOWER THAN THEY DESERVE TO BE, MERELY BY THEIR PRESENCE. Every player below your smurf will be pushed down one slot EVEN IF THEY NEVER PLAY AGAINST YOU. Add in 20 or 50 smurfs and dozens of people will be placed in a lower ranked bracket than they deserve to be.

It is outrageous to me that a tournament organizer can't seem to grasp this simple fact. Utterly outrageous. Competitive PA has a poor future ahead of it if all its hopes are placed in the hands of your organization.

You even attempt to justify your smurfing by the fact that both your accounts are highly ranked. But all this does is push down EVEN MORE PEOPLE THAN OTHERWISE.

Can someone draw a graph or something to help him understand?

I'd like to see that graph.

If I was the number 1 ranked player on 1v1, I would buy 9 more accounts right now, and sit down for one evening and grab all the top 10 spots for myself. Then we'd see how all the other smurfers would like it. But they only care about themselves, as has become blatantly obvious from this thread, and is becoming more and more so with each new post they make.

There seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread as to what the matchmaking really is. You can use the ladder rank for bragging rights or to enjoy that warm happy feeling inside your heart knowing you are better than other people, but primarily the matchmaking is there to give you a good, even game. Smurfing does nothing to affect this, so I suggest to you that the selfish and narrow view is the one that takes rank seriously.

The points earned for a win are not equivalent to the points a player loses, it depends on the RD. This isn't ELO.

No one is confused as to what matchmaking is. You are the one who is confused as to what rank is.

You smurfs talk about accounts to try new risky strategies on, but isn't part of the fun that they are risky? That's the cost of developing new strategies: they might not work. Your rank should reflect all of your successes and failures. It isn't accurate if it just reflects your successes! Do you care more about having a high rank than an accurate rank? Just MAN UP!

But if the people with multiple accounts aren't willing to man up...it seems to me like the only solution would be to immediately ban and delete brand new accounts that look like they are playing on a practiced level.

If you really believe that, then why do you need a 2nd account to play when you think you might not be at your best? If points are irrelevant then losing a few due to being tired is immaterial surely?