27 replies to this topic

[IamSrk]

1. Ban multiple accounts from the same IP address. System will check your IP address of both; registeration and gameplay. (If you make a new account, your old account will be Banned automatically)

 

2. Make training mandatory. You can't just skip it just by exiting training session. This will discourage atleast some of the smurfs.

 

3. You will have to reach level 10 before you unlock additional mechs. Unless you spend MC, you will not be allowed to buy mechs with HC.

 

4. MMR should be determined within 3 - 4 matches. Once determined, you will be considered of that certain level player and should not be allowed to play any match below your level.

 

5. Scout can only be bought once you reach level 20. Most smurfers/ clowns' favourite is scout.

 

6. Inactive  account's should be disabled after 3 months of inactivity. IF you aren't using them, why would you need them? This will also freeup some used Call Signs for new players.

 

Thats it for now. Smurfers will obviously hate this post but lets face it, to keep Hawken alive and fun for others, some drastic mesasures MUST be taken. Otherwise, game will go extinct.

 

[Miscellaneous]

This would also have negative and detrimental effects on regular players too. You say that you want Smurfers to have a hard time, but did you think about what your ideas could do to regular noobs?

[BluetoothBoy]

Option one would suck royally. I have a friend who made one account, forgot the password almost immediately, and had to create another. So his original would just be banned?

[CrimsonKaim]

Since when is smurfing bannable? Following this argumentation: Bann all good players*.

 

*Good palyers definition: Players better than another player.

[Hyginos]

1. Ban multiple accounts from the same IP address. System will check your IP address of both; registeration and gameplay. (If you make a new account, your old account will be Banned automatically)

 

God forbid multiple people play from the same computer or use a VPN.

 

2. Make training mandatory. You can't just skip it just by exiting training session. This will discourage atleast some of the smurfs.

 

Won't stop smurfs. Not enough of a hassle.

 

3. You will have to reach level 10 before you unlock additional mechs. Unless you spend MC, you will not be allowed to buy mechs with HC.

 

Prepare for pay2win and grind2win complaints.

 

4. MMR should be determined within 3 - 4 matches. Once determined, you will be considered of that certain level player and should not be allowed to play any match below your level.

 

It is, sorta. Hawken uses a Glicko based rating system and if you wreck your first few matches your mobility will be rather high, resulting in MMR gains of like 50 a match.

 

5. Scout can only be bought once you reach level 20. Most smurfers/ clowns' favourite is scout.

 

See my response to 3

 

6. Inactive  account's should be disabled after 3 months of inactivity. IF you aren't using them, why would you need them? This will also freeup some used Call Signs for new players.

 

What will this solve exactly? League of legends doesn't delete inactive accounts for years, and they have millions of players.

 

Thats it for now. Smurfers will obviously hate this post but lets face it, to keep Hawken alive and fun for others, some drastic mesasures MUST be taken. Otherwise, game will go extinct.

 

Responses in red.

[Kopra]

1. Ban multiple accounts from the same IP address. System will check your IP address of both; registeration and gameplay. (If you make a new account, your old account will be Banned automatically)

 

So those siblings or spouses who play Hawken on different accounts would get banned. Also those who play in the same dorm room or Internet caf�. Etc. There are also dynamic IPs. IP bans do not work that well for a lot of reasons.

 

2. Make training mandatory. You can't just skip it just by exiting training session. This will discourage atleast some of the smurfs.

 

This is not a bad idea.

 

3. You will have to reach level 10 before you unlock additional mechs. Unless you spend MC, you will not be allowed to buy mechs with HC.

 

Smurfs will pubstomp with pretty much any mech against inexperienced players, so this wouldn't do anything other than hamper those who want to buy a Brawler or Reaper for cheap in the beginning.

 

4. MMR should be determined within 3 - 4 matches. Once determined, you will be considered of that certain level player and should not be allowed to play any match below your level.

 

How would you differentiate between smurfs and new players who got lucky? Besides, the underdog bonuses give quite a kickstart to determine the true MMR.

 

 

5. Scout can only be bought once you reach level 20. Most smurfers/ clowns' favourite is scout.

 

While it would make sense to limit access to some mechs until a player is more familiar with the game and its mechanics, those mechs are already behind a high HC wall at 12k.

 

6. Inactive  account's should be disabled after 3 months of inactivity. IF you aren't using them, why would you need them? This will also freeup some used Call Signs for new players.

 

Take a 3 month break, go traveling, get back and ooops your account is deactivated. Just no.

 

Thats it for now. Smurfers will obviously hate this post but lets face it, to keep Hawken alive and fun for others, some drastic mesasures MUST be taken. Otherwise, game will go extinct.

Edited by Kopra, 08 April 2015 - 06:20 AM.

[Silent_]

Or rather, loosen up mmr restrictions little bit to allow higher mmr players to find servers in reasonable time.

Obviously matchmaker would work better with bigger playerbase, but all we can do is hope for that.

Skill difference is there, but if player cant find servers at his or her own level, what choice there is left? Also, id say most smurfs, atleast with this reasoning, wont go all out while smurfing.

 

Also, what if hawken had taken route of old games without any sort of matchmaking. All servers would be available to any player. Some players would be better than you, some worse. In old games you lose because of difference in skill, not because matchmaker failed. (Also lack of any sort of ranking or stat recording made players much more likely to try and balance the match, to make it more enjoyable for every player.)

Edited by Silent_, 08 April 2015 - 06:28 AM.

[Scow2]

1. Ban multiple accounts from the same IP address. System will check your IP address of both; registeration and gameplay. (If you make a new account, your old account will be Banned automatically)

 

2. Make training mandatory. You can't just skip it just by exiting training session. This will discourage atleast some of the smurfs.

 

3. You will have to reach level 10 before you unlock additional mechs. Unless you spend MC, you will not be allowed to buy mechs with HC.

 

4. MMR should be determined within 3 - 4 matches. Once determined, you will be considered of that certain level player and should not be allowed to play any match below your level.

 

5. Scout can only be bought once you reach level 20. Most smurfers/ clowns' favourite is scout.

 

6. Inactive  account's should be disabled after 3 months of inactivity. IF you aren't using them, why would you need them? This will also freeup some used Call Signs for new players.

 

Thats it for now. Smurfers will obviously hate this post but lets face it, to keep Hawken alive and fun for others, some drastic mesasures MUST be taken. Otherwise, game will go extinct.

1. No. Kitten you, go directly to hell, do not pass go. I have a brother who just joined, and we share an internet connection, but like to play together. I'm not the only one with shared connections.

2. Nah. A hassle with no benefit.

3. Also "Hell No". This hurts new players who hate the Assault's playstyle (My bro loves the Technician and Predator). I bought my Brawler when I was level 6 or so.

4. How the hell would this even be possible? 3-4 matches is NOT enough data points to accurately gauge someone's skill in the game.

5. Hell No. Just this week, the Scout's been on Test Drive, meaning there are LOTS of new players who've tried and found the mech's playstyle to their liking, and want to buy it (My brother fell in love with the Predator, but couldn't afford it). This suggestion is a great "fuzzy bunny You" to anyone who likes to play fragile, bursty speedsters in games. And it does nothing to Smurfs of players that like the Assault, Incinerator, Vanguards (Suggested as a newbies first C-class Mech), Reaper, Sharpshooter, or 

6. So, screw over all seasonal gamers (Some people don't play during the summer - some don't play during certain school/college/uni semesters, some only play during the winter), military service personnel (Who can be deployed without access to the game for months at a time), intermittent players (I tend to play a game for a while, then shelve it for a few months, then dust it off and play again later. I've been off and on all sorts of games going all the way back to the early 90s)

 

Smurfs are a scapegoat for the real reason the game's playerbase floundered: Namely, the game became stagnant and lost its support from the bankrupt developers. 

 

I think a far, FAR more reasonable course of action is banning people who make suggestions as terrible as these.

[Elite_is_salty]

such disagree, very no, many refuse ... WOW

[Drrt4]

How about we just go Steamworks and have your steam account linked to your Hawken account.

 

 

Bam.

[Dr_Freeze001]

Q: Would high MMR, to the point of having to create smurfs, use a "remove 100 MMR" button in order to get in games again?

[Houruck]

1. My girlfriend and I used to play HAWKEN together from the same IP address. That is not a unique identifier. Service providers usually use a dynamic pool which means someone else can get the same IP address you just had. You can also change yours just as easily.

 

3. and 5. You want P2W complaints? Because that is how you get P2W complaints.

 

6. Oh wow, I just imagined my account being wiped after the old devs abandoned the game.

 

How about we just go Steamworks and have your steam account linked to your Hawken account.

 

 

Bam.

People could still register a smurf Steam account like AJK did.

[Panzermanathod]

Yeah... most of these additions will just hurt the Hawken experience. Really, more honest players would be harmed by this than the "smurfs" that are being malicious.

[Trigary]

2. Make training mandatory. You can't just skip it just by exiting training session. This will discourage atleast some of the smurfs.

 

It's a good idea, but not against smurfs.

 

4. MMR should be determined within 3 - 4 matches. Once determined, you will be considered of that certain level player and should not be allowed to play any match below your level.

 

I'm part of a clan, some of the mates are good players, some of them aren't. It would make playing with them difficult (we had a lot of problem with this previously)

 

+ You didn't really explain why you don't like smurfers.

 

(For the other ones you wrote down the same I would)

[Silverfire]

I like to make smurf accounts whenever there's a change in the new player experience so that I can  test it out and give feedback on any changes to it.

 

And also what everyone else has said already I would say too.

[CraftyDus]

Thanks for your well thought out suggestions Iamsrk.

 

I've a godawful lot of smurfs, and I've had many of them for a good long while. Perhaps older accounts than your own.

I've very deliberately spent some money on each account.

I'll have you know that I am an mc-purchasing whale and would feel like breaking a piece off of anybody willing to restrict any account I've sunk my dollars into.

Ban accounts for anything other than cheating, and there'll be a reckoning. 

 

I would suggest that ranked match-making itself bears more for the source of this rancor than smurfing alone.

 

In the meantime I will continue enjoying Hawken through leveling new accounts and purchasing cosmetics for them. 

 

I will do my best to remain calm and try to forget there are new players who would be delighted to see bans of my smurf accounts for some imagined transgression.

 

I will fashion a place in my heart where such suggestions are not sprung fully formed from mental illness. I will keep them there.

 

All the best, and La La Lala Lala to you.

 

Edited by craftydus, 08 April 2015 - 08:50 AM.

[Loglino]

I am going to say no to most of these, except make training mandatory. That one won't hurt the rest of the players. I believe that most of these options are harmful to accounts that aren't smurfs too, therefore we cannot implement them. Smurfs aren't a huge problem anyways, because some of them keep in account that they might be dominating players. You should play easy if you do, and maybe report any seriously obvious smurfs, such as a person who bought a scout with MC and got 11-0 in their first round while using advanced dodging. The only problem is if it isn't.

[Rainbow_Sheep]

1. Ban multiple accounts from the same IP address. System will check your IP address of both; registeration and gameplay. (If you make a new account, your old account will be Banned automatically)

 

[petracles]

I would love to see discussion on some examples of multiplayer games in history that have ultimately failed specifically due to the developers not addressing this (allegedly game-crippling) loophole known as 'smufing'. I honestly am interested in hearing input from people who have experienced this first hand, read about it, etc.

 

What I'd like to avoid is people giving examples of playing against smurfs (and citing names) and having a bad time in a game or two. I'm looking for details on games that have actually failed due to developers failing to combat high and low-tier players mixing in lobbies. I'm interested to see if this is something that a prospected developer should do some research on, or if this whole anti-smurfing campaign that you hear in countless different multiplayer games is both futile and noneffective.

[CraftyDus]

I would love to see discussion on some examples of multiplayer games in history that have ultimately failed specifically due to the developers not addressing this (allegedly game-crippling) loophole known as 'smufing'. I honestly am interested in hearing input from people who have experienced this first hand, read about it, etc.

 

What I'd like to avoid is people giving examples of playing against smurfs (and citing names) and having a bad time in a game or two. I'm looking for details on games that have actually failed due to developers failing to combat high and low-tier players mixing in lobbies. I'm interested to see if this is something that a prospected developer should do some research on, or if this whole anti-smurfing campaign that you hear in countless different multiplayer games is both futile and noneffective.

 

You had some great games against me as Jeffs_Pie_Chart (tribute to the greatest poll thread in Hawken History) yesterday.

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

My favorite in-joke smurf account name was PieAreDaveSquared

 

OP - we'd be better off adding +200 MMR for topping the board for the first 10 matches and +100 for doing that in the next 10.  Dave would last about 6 matches before ending up right where he belongs - he can't keep from dominating no matter what the carrot.

 

Actually, it would discourage smurfs from stomping, as the scoreboard management would be a pain.  And if the putative potential pidgin wanted to play the scoreboard control as a game-within-game, that would limit his/her stomping as well.

 

 

Edit:  I kind of like this idea a lot.  This way the Really Bad Orblord Smurfers^™ would end up in nosebleed MMRs without the orblord internals - unless they used MC.

 

Edit again:  Shadeness, could you keep players with less than 20 games off the leaderboards if this were implemented?

Edited by Call_Me_Ishmael, 08 April 2015 - 02:07 PM.

[LoC_TR]

 

5. Scout can only be bought once you reach level 20. Most smurfers/ clowns' favourite is scout.

 

[nokari]

1. Ban multiple accounts from the same IP address. System will check your IP address of both; registeration and gameplay. (If you make a new account, your old account will be Banned automatically)

 

We've seen this suggested before and it's a bad idea. Never going to happen. This does more to punish legitimate players for sharing computers with their parents, kids, or siblings, and anyone who has ever forgot a password or for whatever reason can't get into their normal account for bug-related reasons and decides to make a new one will never be able to get back their normal account again. I would be livid if that happened to me.

 

2. Make training mandatory. You can't just skip it just by exiting training session. This will discourage atleast some of the smurfs.

 

Okay, but that doesn't really stop anyone. Training only takes a few minutes. If I'm going to use a smurf account, I'm going to be playing a hell of a lot more than just dealing with a few pesky minutes, ONCE.

 

3. You will have to reach level 10 before you unlock additional mechs. Unless you spend MC, you will not be allowed to buy mechs with HC.

 

Also no problem for most smurfs. I made an alt account for testing things and haven't bought a single other mech because I do just as well with a CRT as I do with a Scout...

Forcing people to unlock with MC makes the game considerably P2W and you're simultaneously punishing/ruining the experience for every new player to the game that just wants to try different mechs with the free HC they've earned, like the game is intended. So also no for those reasons.

 

4. MMR should be determined within 3 - 4 matches. Once determined, you will be considered of that certain level player and should not be allowed to play any match below your level.

 

This would never work and again, punishes normal players, especially those wanting to play with friends that have just started the game.

 

5. Scout can only be bought once you reach level 20. Most smurfers/ clowns' favourite is scout.

 

Here we believe in facts, actual data, more than opinions... And once again, punishing normal players that don't use smurfs.

 

6. Inactive  account's should be disabled after 3 months of inactivity. IF you aren't using them, why would you need them? This will also freeup some used Call Signs for new players.

 

People can use their creativity for names and we don't need anyone picking up the same names as players who were previously banned or have otherwise longstanding bad reputations. It's already bad enough that people have been complaining about cheaters not being banned. To see the same name pop up in a match, people are likely to assume the new devs let cheaters back in.

If anything like this were ever in place before, half this community (including myself) would have lost their perfectly good accounts and we'd have an even smaller population. Almost all of us veterans, and those who haven't yet come back, would end up all being smurfs.

Edited by nokari, 08 April 2015 - 07:23 PM.

[RedVan]

I love how people make it sound like smurfing is the reason there is a low player base lmfao.

Smurfing is negligible when it comes to that issue.

[AsianJoyKiller]

I love how people make it sound like smurfing is the reason there is a low player base lmfao.

Smurfing is negligible when it comes to that issue.

For all the complaints, I've never seen anything more than sketchy anecdotal evidence.

[Grollourdo]

Why can't people smurf? The account would just go back up MMR after wards ... The think I won't let happen is farming... With an alt account.

[Trigary]

I'm not against smurfs, but if you're a good player, you make a smurf account, you wreck some noobs, by hard. But as soon you reach a higher MMR, there's nothing bad about it.

[FLes]

First and most important thing in a game is to be able to ACTUALLY PLAY.

 

If your MMR gets too high to play at all when you want to play, the only thing you can do is to make a smurf account.

 

Or rather, loosen up mmr restrictions little bit to allow higher mmr players to find servers in reasonable time.

 

This.