Why people smurf I can't say.
But I can explain why I myself have and for some time played on a smurf account.
I have several NS2 keys left from a sale. So I chose to use one at a time where I started to get bored of NS2. The reason I got bored of NS2 is that my skill rating was and is above average. My elo is around 1700 to 2100 and the average skill is usually around 1000. Meaning a lot of people have an elo below the 1000.
So with the constant obsessing of even elo and Force Even Teams. Then I would always have to carry my team in order of having a chance of winning the round. So with my smurf account my intention was not to stack. But to play gorge. And when it happened. I would also be able to counter stack if needed. Making the game a lot more fun.
I pretty much continued this until my elo on my smurf account was the same as on my normal account.
This!
The (at least my) intention of smurfing in NS2 is not to stomp noobs or mess with the skill system. I myself do have a smurf account I hardly ever play (<50h within 3 years) and I used it whenever I just wanted to mess around and play braindead. Due to the mindset of the playerbase and the skill system this is sadly not possible anymore. Since someone had the brilliant idea to display the skill numbers (wich btw is broken sometimes and doesn't show the real average skills of the teams) people almost ALWAYS force even teams. I don't know if someone else remembers, but 1-2 years ago forced even teams were extremely rare and people actually managed to balance the teams because the started to recognise and know other after some time. That actually made it possible to play together with friends since people could counterstack if it was necessary. Nowadays if the skills are not even or the difference is not smaller than 10 or something, some genius will force even immediately. In my opinion that leads to more frustration and stacking (team swiching) than it helps. And the neat side effect for the high skilled players (as I mention in different threads before) is that you get grouped up with very low skilled players most of the games. For me personally that makes it impossible to: (i) command, (ii) off lifeform, (iii) try new stuff or (iv) simply mess around without losing the round within the early game. I tried commanding after forced even teams or tried to stay skulk until I had fade or onos res and not go lerk (my main lifeform) and it was very very rare the games lasted long enough wich is just extremely frustrating.
Since I do not see the skill system getting fixed to account for statistical outliers or a change in the mindset of the community regarding the use of forced even teams I will have to keep using my smurf account every now and then...
Since I do not see the skill system getting fixed to account for statistical outliers or a change in the mindset of the community regarding the use of forced even teams I will have to keep using my smurf account every now and then...
Pretty sure hive ratings are gettin changed up w/ new patch and skill will be calculated differently. This is the word in the tram tunnels.
But I must say... while at first I was pretty on board w/ the whole hive ranking thing as I felt it gave one something to work towards, I have sort of shifted my thought on it.
There are some people who literally hoard their hive points. I think the attitude for these people has made it so that EVERY round is taken EXTREMELY seriously to the point that I believe it's caused people to be more angry towards nubs, less forgiving, less likely to stick a round out, far more competitive... but in a bad way. Just rage rage rage. This coupled w/ the fact that you must win like 7 in a row to make up for 1 loss.
That said, I do think what we have now has been accurate, or at least mostly accurate. When you see the people w/ very high hive rankings like the turts and parsnips and joes and taps etc... Clearly they're scores are justified. When people say "hive ranking means nothing," I tend to disagree... It does well enough to distinguish a player in the 400s from one in maybe the 1200s and from the elite few 4000s. You know someone w/ a 3000 score will spank a team of 800 - 1000s, easily. So... in general the tracking of player's skill is good enough imho, but the process of taking those scores and building a team w/ them is probably the most challenging wrench in the works.
I false nick sometimes to avoid being recognized, or as a kind of superstitious thing I do when I'm on a losing streak... but dont go as far as setting up a whole new smurf account. I really don't care that much.
@2cough It is not about being not recognized. It is to lower the own skill to be able to intentionally play on a lower level and try new things. Also I am not saying the hive system doesn't work at all to distinguish between very bad and very good players. I am saying that how the teams are formed based on that information is broken, making it literally impossible to play a game without tryharding and not getting stomped.
to be able to intentionally play on a lower level and try new things.
Uh huh............*squints*
Do you have a skill >3k (basically about the best 20 players in hive) and experienced what kind of teams the system puts you on?
If not it might be hard to understand my point of view. I suggest you ask someone within the cdt to put your skill to about 3500 and experience it yourself.
It is sad enough that players who repeatedly try to point out weaknesses of the game (or some parts of it) are made fun of by CDT members. Good job @IronHorse..... *squints*
You don't even need 3000 skill. Its very simple. Assuming even teams, as long as the players aren't around the same level in the team, the team cannot afford to have their top players command or gorge because their output on the field can't be reproduced by their replacements. If they don't carry, they lose.
You don't even need 3000 skill. Its very simple. Assuming even teams, as long as the players aren't around the same level in the team, the team cannot afford to have their top players command or gorge because their output on the field can't be reproduced by their replacements. If they don't carry, they lose.
Do you have a skill >3k (basically about the best 20 players in hive) and experienced what kind of teams the system puts you on?
If not it might be hard to understand my point of view. I suggest you ask someone within the cdt to put your skill to about 3500 and experience it yourself.
It is sad enough that players who repeatedly try to point out weaknesses of the game (or some parts of it) are made fun of by CDT members. Good job @IronHorse..... *squints*
to be able to intentionally play on a lower level and try new things.
Uh huh............*squints*
Do you have a skill >3k (basically about the best 20 players in hive) and experienced what kind of teams the system puts you on?
If not it might be hard to understand my point of view. I suggest you ask someone within the cdt to put your skill to about 3500 and experience it yourself.
It is sad enough that players who repeatedly try to point out weaknesses of the game (or some parts of it) are made fun of by CDT members. Good job @IronHorse..... *squints*
You don't even need 3000 skill. Its very simple. Assuming even teams, as long as the players aren't around the same level in the team, the team cannot afford to have their top players command or gorge because their output on the field can't be reproduced by their replacements. If they don't carry, they lose.
The rate at which you lose points means you can probably play 1/5 games as gorge or comm and then assuming you win the other 4 on the field, you'll maintain your skill.
If you lose one of those games as field, then your skill is now beginning to be adjusted for those 5 games where you take 1 to go comm/gorge. Do this enough and you'll eventually settle on a skill level where FET gives you pretty close teams even when you gorge.
I also argue that this method might even be quicker than making a smurf because losing points is so much quicker.
It is also true that if you don't field on your team and you lose on your main, everyone else who would have been carried, will deservedly lose skill points to better represent their own skill level. Losing on purpose like this actually punishes the worse players more because more of them lose more points, and I'd prefer those points to go to the 3-4 decent players on the other team so that in the future, FET would give me decent players for me to gorge/comm with.
Equally you could smurf but then that account needs time to build it's skill up to whatever role you're playing. That time could be 100s of hours in which FET produces imbalanced teams (Because your gorge is probably going to be 2k skill anyway), and like I said earlier, it's probably more time than just losing on your main.
Also, you can still have fun games by "doing something different". You just need to MAKE it fun. Use the community, use silly exploits, pick on one player on the other team. If you're just looking to "do something different and win" then do it on your main and practise it until you do win, but ask yourself this, is it because you were good, or the other team was bad (because you manipulated the FET skill points by using a smurf).
The rate at which you lose points means you can probably play 1/5 games as gorge or comm and then assuming you win the other 4 on the field, you'll maintain your skill.
If you lose one of those games as field, then your skill is now beginning to be adjusted for those 5 games where you take 1 to go comm/gorge. Do this enough and you'll eventually settle on a skill level where FET gives you pretty close teams even when you gorge.
I also argue that this method might even be quicker than making a smurf because losing points is so much quicker.
It is also true that if you don't field on your team and you lose on your main, everyone else who would have been carried, will deservedly lose skill points to better represent their own skill level. Losing on purpose like this actually punishes the worse players more because more of them lose more points, and I'd prefer those points to go to the 3-4 decent players on the other team so that in the future, FET would give me decent players for me to gorge/comm with.
Equally you could smurf but then that account needs time to build it's skill up to whatever role you're playing. That time could be 100s of hours in which FET produces imbalanced teams (Because your gorge is probably going to be 2k skill anyway), and like I said earlier, it's probably more time than just losing on your main.
Also, you can still have fun games by "doing something different". You just need to MAKE it fun. Use the community, use silly exploits, pick on one player on the other team. If you're just looking to "do something different and win" then do it on your main and practise it until you do win, but ask yourself this, is it because you were good, or the other team was bad (because you manipulated the FET skill points by using a smurf).
Uh, no? Look, your impact as a player will always be higher when you field than when you gorge/command. If FET gives you even teams when you gorge/command, it means its stacked if you field. Losing on purpose also makes it easier for you to win when you play seriously because you get better teammates then also.
Its a limitation of the skill system that it can't differentiate your roles when assigning teams, your skill on average in the past is not your skill at that specific instance. I mean, using your example, you have 2000 skill when you gorge/command, 3000 when you field and your average skill is 2800, you are going to be 200 undervalued when you field and 800 overvalued when you gorge/command. So, your losses are less horrible when you gorge/command and your wins turn into stomps when you field. That is your solution? To either lose or stomp?
Well, all of this is assuming that the hive skill system is accurate/infallible. The actual result won't be that drastic, but as with the hive system, it is in the right direction.
Do you have a skill >3k (basically about the best 20 players in hive) and experienced what kind of teams the system puts you on?
Do you mean on public servers? Imo with that skilllevel you should try and play with same skilled people. Gather or a clan or something... Don't expect the skillsystem to handle every outlier.
The other option is playing on only one server where there's a community. At some point your skilllevel (or that of the community) will level off.
I mean, using your example, you have 2000 skill when you gorge/command, 3000 when you field and your average skill is 2800, you are going to be 200 undervalued when you field and 800 overvalued when you gorge/command. So, your losses are less horrible when you gorge/command and your wins turn into stomps when you field. That is your solution? To either lose or stomp?
Well because I can appreciate the fact that you're not always going to be 2000 skill when gorging, and not always 3000 when fielding, you are always running the risk of losing/stomping. It quite literally happens in the system we have today when people assume roles they are best at and FET makes even teams; there's still always the possibility that one team gets rolled and the other stomps because people can over/under play their assigned skill value.
If you choose to try something different like go gorge, is it fair that you get assigned a 0 or close to value on a smurf account yet have all the potential knowledge of a 3k player?
EDIT: Or just make Hive skill = to score/time and use community admins to kick rookie stompers on rookie servers... Then you get almost instantaneous skill representation on even smurf accounts when they only gorge/comm
EDIT 2: And for the love of god, buff points for RT killing....
Well, yes, nobody plays at the same level all the time. Thats what skill represents - the average. You are not contradicting anything I said. Of course you run the risk of all eventualities, the difference is in the probability of it happening.
Its not fair for any experienced player to get 0 skill regardless of role, true, but then is it fair to players who are unable to enjoy the game normally? If they think they get more balanced games that way, they should. Stomping isn't fun for either side after all.
There are a lot of nefarious reasons as to why someone chooses to smurf, but I don't think that people who do otherwise should be tarred with the same brush.
Edit - Just saying hi to the forum smurf. Must be tough getting banned/jailed every couple of months.
Its not fair for any experienced player to get 0 skill regardless of role, true, but then is it fair to players who are unable to enjoy the game normally? If they think they get more balanced games that way, they should. Stomping isn't fun for either side after all.
My way is more fair to begin with, but over time as the smurf account accrues skill points for playing gorge ONLY, the smurf account will be more fair when it more accurately depicts that player's gorge skill.
I just can't justify a high skilled player (3k) starting from 0 skill points and instantly playing as a 2k gorge and drastically screwing up FET. If people kept the SAME NAME and IDENTITY on a different account and played a different role, i.e. gorge only, I don't think I'd mind because it would be easy to say "ok guys FET is not gonna work as well, we need to adjust it ourselves a little" until that players account was appropriately skilled for his gorge.
But I'm talking about people who smurf by changing names and deceiving the community of their identity for whatever reason.
i notice that half of the players on the top 20 list have games where they win, but don't gain any points. i can not find these occurrences in other regular players, no matter the length of match. edit: nor did I ever have that happen to me when I was above 3300 a couple weeks ago.
from what I understand, winners and losers all get the same amount of points. is it possible for rounds anywhere from 3 to 15 minutes to not give points out, if so how likely? these games seem to happen all the time according to their hive pages.
i notice that half of the players on the top 20 list have games where they win, but don't gain any points. i can not find these occurrences in other regular players, no matter the length of match. edit: nor did I ever have that happen to me when I was above 3300 a couple weeks ago.
from what I understand, winners and losers all get the same amount of points. is it possible for rounds anywhere from 3 to 15 minutes to not give points out, if so how likely? these games seem to happen all the time according to their hive pages.
It's exactly intended to work that way. Only by the skill rating system unpredicted game ends will trigger an adjustment.
One of the downfalls of the hive ranking thing is that wins/losses due to early base rushes are inordinately rewarded (particularly if teams are stacked).
As for smurfing, I think it's fine; less people might be inclined to rage if they're losing/on a bad team if they're smurfing. The main challenge to the game remains new player retention since there's literally zero tolerance for new players (especially commanding)
One of the downfalls of the hive ranking thing is that wins/losses due to early base rushes are inordinately rewarded (particularly if teams are stacked).
Care to elaborate? Base rushes are just another way to win, and easy to counter to boot.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
Oh stop it @Anzestral no one is making fun of you.. Get off your cross
Just pointing out that most I know who smurf do so because they just want to play. Not necessarily because they "want to try new things".. Which is understandable, to a point. Some just want to win, some just want to slaughter, and yes some like yourself just want to try new things.
the team cannot afford to have their top players command or gorge because their output on the field can't be reproduced by their replacements. If they don't carry, they lose.
You agreed to this post, which tells me you understand the needs of an entire team versus your own personal desires - which is essentially what this topic boils down to and is why it can be frowned upon. It's the difference between playing a team game... And your own game, at your team's expense.
You don't need to have 3000 skill to understand both sides of the coin. I get it. We all have carried.
Just stop pretending it's so harmless, innocent, or such a specific case that accounts for everyone's actions.
Oh stop it @Anzestral no one is making fun of you.. Get off your cross
Just pointing out that most I know who smurf do so because they just want to play. Not necessarily because they "want to try new things".. Which is understandable, to a point. Some just want to win, some just want to slaughter, and yes some like yourself just want to try new things.
the team cannot afford to have their top players command or gorge because their output on the field can't be reproduced by their replacements. If they don't carry, they lose.
You agreed to this post, which tells me you understand the needs of an entire team versus your own personal desires - which is essentially what this topic boils down to and is why it can be frowned upon. It's the difference between playing a team game... And your own game, at your team's expense.
You don't need to have 3000 skill to understand both sides of the coin. I get it. We all have carried.
Just stop pretending it's so harmless, innocent, or such a specific case that accounts for everyone's actions.
Your reason for smurfing doesn't matter, you'll face the exact same accusations & consequences but at a slower rate i.e. called out for cheating, kicks & bans. You could try to cope & focus on the "needs of an entire team", defend/cap rt's & stay alive, try to keep teammates alive, you'll end up in a ditch regardless. Personally, I'm up to a point where server ban expiry is the deciding factor if I can play the game or not due to almost every server being managed by arrogant admins & vocal pub heroes. I've had more luck on smurf accounts no matter your agenda in the match, it's an unresolveable issue.
We could argue about Hive skill again but we'll just end up at the same place, some worship it for an unknown odd reason and others find it pointless due to it not calculating accurate & useful stats.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited July 2015
@Lamb I've more seen the opposite : greenies accused of cheating or being banned for smurfing.. you don't get accused of either if you just use your name, when people know you and your stats?
"Well then I get accused of stacking"
So then *that's* where you get to try something new or do something different if that is indeed the motivation for smurfing in the first place. (I realize this does not apply to all users)
Whenever someone on a lesser skilled server cries foul I just say "don't worry, i'll gorge" etc.
I agree, it's a difficult issue... and it unfairly puts people in an awkward spot... but that's what you get with a team based, high skill ceiling game and a low playercount.
Gotta make the best of it, I suppose, if you intend on playing in servers you do not own.
Comments
this one might give you another point of view when it comes to smurfing
This!
The (at least my) intention of smurfing in NS2 is not to stomp noobs or mess with the skill system. I myself do have a smurf account I hardly ever play (<50h within 3 years) and I used it whenever I just wanted to mess around and play braindead. Due to the mindset of the playerbase and the skill system this is sadly not possible anymore. Since someone had the brilliant idea to display the skill numbers (wich btw is broken sometimes and doesn't show the real average skills of the teams) people almost ALWAYS force even teams. I don't know if someone else remembers, but 1-2 years ago forced even teams were extremely rare and people actually managed to balance the teams because the started to recognise and know other after some time. That actually made it possible to play together with friends since people could counterstack if it was necessary. Nowadays if the skills are not even or the difference is not smaller than 10 or something, some genius will force even immediately. In my opinion that leads to more frustration and stacking (team swiching) than it helps. And the neat side effect for the high skilled players (as I mention in different threads before) is that you get grouped up with very low skilled players most of the games. For me personally that makes it impossible to: (i) command, (ii) off lifeform, (iii) try new stuff or (iv) simply mess around without losing the round within the early game. I tried commanding after forced even teams or tried to stay skulk until I had fade or onos res and not go lerk (my main lifeform) and it was very very rare the games lasted long enough wich is just extremely frustrating.
Since I do not see the skill system getting fixed to account for statistical outliers or a change in the mindset of the community regarding the use of forced even teams I will have to keep using my smurf account every now and then...
Pretty sure hive ratings are gettin changed up w/ new patch and skill will be calculated differently. This is the word in the tram tunnels.
But I must say... while at first I was pretty on board w/ the whole hive ranking thing as I felt it gave one something to work towards, I have sort of shifted my thought on it.
There are some people who literally hoard their hive points. I think the attitude for these people has made it so that EVERY round is taken EXTREMELY seriously to the point that I believe it's caused people to be more angry towards nubs, less forgiving, less likely to stick a round out, far more competitive... but in a bad way. Just rage rage rage. This coupled w/ the fact that you must win like 7 in a row to make up for 1 loss.
That said, I do think what we have now has been accurate, or at least mostly accurate. When you see the people w/ very high hive rankings like the turts and parsnips and joes and taps etc... Clearly they're scores are justified. When people say "hive ranking means nothing," I tend to disagree... It does well enough to distinguish a player in the 400s from one in maybe the 1200s and from the elite few 4000s. You know someone w/ a 3000 score will spank a team of 800 - 1000s, easily. So... in general the tracking of player's skill is good enough imho, but the process of taking those scores and building a team w/ them is probably the most challenging wrench in the works.
I false nick sometimes to avoid being recognized, or as a kind of superstitious thing I do when I'm on a losing streak... but dont go as far as setting up a whole new smurf account. I really don't care that much.
help pls
Do you have a skill >3k (basically about the best 20 players in hive) and experienced what kind of teams the system puts you on?
If not it might be hard to understand my point of view. I suggest you ask someone within the cdt to put your skill to about 3500 and experience it yourself.
It is sad enough that players who repeatedly try to point out weaknesses of the game (or some parts of it) are made fun of by CDT members. Good job @IronHorse..... *squints*
Thank you!
Don't even need 3k... 2k is enough.
qft
The rate at which you lose points means you can probably play 1/5 games as gorge or comm and then assuming you win the other 4 on the field, you'll maintain your skill.
If you lose one of those games as field, then your skill is now beginning to be adjusted for those 5 games where you take 1 to go comm/gorge. Do this enough and you'll eventually settle on a skill level where FET gives you pretty close teams even when you gorge.
I also argue that this method might even be quicker than making a smurf because losing points is so much quicker.
It is also true that if you don't field on your team and you lose on your main, everyone else who would have been carried, will deservedly lose skill points to better represent their own skill level. Losing on purpose like this actually punishes the worse players more because more of them lose more points, and I'd prefer those points to go to the 3-4 decent players on the other team so that in the future, FET would give me decent players for me to gorge/comm with.
Equally you could smurf but then that account needs time to build it's skill up to whatever role you're playing. That time could be 100s of hours in which FET produces imbalanced teams (Because your gorge is probably going to be 2k skill anyway), and like I said earlier, it's probably more time than just losing on your main.
Also, you can still have fun games by "doing something different". You just need to MAKE it fun. Use the community, use silly exploits, pick on one player on the other team. If you're just looking to "do something different and win" then do it on your main and practise it until you do win, but ask yourself this, is it because you were good, or the other team was bad (because you manipulated the FET skill points by using a smurf).
Uh, no? Look, your impact as a player will always be higher when you field than when you gorge/command. If FET gives you even teams when you gorge/command, it means its stacked if you field. Losing on purpose also makes it easier for you to win when you play seriously because you get better teammates then also.
Its a limitation of the skill system that it can't differentiate your roles when assigning teams, your skill on average in the past is not your skill at that specific instance. I mean, using your example, you have 2000 skill when you gorge/command, 3000 when you field and your average skill is 2800, you are going to be 200 undervalued when you field and 800 overvalued when you gorge/command. So, your losses are less horrible when you gorge/command and your wins turn into stomps when you field. That is your solution? To either lose or stomp?
Well, all of this is assuming that the hive skill system is accurate/infallible. The actual result won't be that drastic, but as with the hive system, it is in the right direction.
skyice is that you?
The other option is playing on only one server where there's a community. At some point your skilllevel (or that of the community) will level off.
Well because I can appreciate the fact that you're not always going to be 2000 skill when gorging, and not always 3000 when fielding, you are always running the risk of losing/stomping. It quite literally happens in the system we have today when people assume roles they are best at and FET makes even teams; there's still always the possibility that one team gets rolled and the other stomps because people can over/under play their assigned skill value.
If you choose to try something different like go gorge, is it fair that you get assigned a 0 or close to value on a smurf account yet have all the potential knowledge of a 3k player?
EDIT: Or just make Hive skill = to score/time and use community admins to kick rookie stompers on rookie servers... Then you get almost instantaneous skill representation on even smurf accounts when they only gorge/comm
EDIT 2: And for the love of god, buff points for RT killing....
Its not fair for any experienced player to get 0 skill regardless of role, true, but then is it fair to players who are unable to enjoy the game normally? If they think they get more balanced games that way, they should. Stomping isn't fun for either side after all.
There are a lot of nefarious reasons as to why someone chooses to smurf, but I don't think that people who do otherwise should be tarred with the same brush.
Edit - Just saying hi to the forum smurf. Must be tough getting banned/jailed every couple of months.
I know, I'm just showing the wider context
My way is more fair to begin with, but over time as the smurf account accrues skill points for playing gorge ONLY, the smurf account will be more fair when it more accurately depicts that player's gorge skill.
I just can't justify a high skilled player (3k) starting from 0 skill points and instantly playing as a 2k gorge and drastically screwing up FET. If people kept the SAME NAME and IDENTITY on a different account and played a different role, i.e. gorge only, I don't think I'd mind because it would be easy to say "ok guys FET is not gonna work as well, we need to adjust it ourselves a little" until that players account was appropriately skilled for his gorge.
But I'm talking about people who smurf by changing names and deceiving the community of their identity for whatever reason.
from what I understand, winners and losers all get the same amount of points. is it possible for rounds anywhere from 3 to 15 minutes to not give points out, if so how likely? these games seem to happen all the time according to their hive pages.
It's exactly intended to work that way. Only by the skill rating system unpredicted game ends will trigger an adjustment.
For further details read this: https://moultano.wordpress.com/2014/08/04/a-skill-ranking-system-for-natural-selection-2/
As for smurfing, I think it's fine; less people might be inclined to rage if they're losing/on a bad team if they're smurfing. The main challenge to the game remains new player retention since there's literally zero tolerance for new players (especially commanding)
Care to elaborate? Base rushes are just another way to win, and easy to counter to boot.
Just pointing out that most I know who smurf do so because they just want to play. Not necessarily because they "want to try new things".. Which is understandable, to a point. Some just want to win, some just want to slaughter, and yes some like yourself just want to try new things.
It is however a team game :
You agreed to this post, which tells me you understand the needs of an entire team versus your own personal desires - which is essentially what this topic boils down to and is why it can be frowned upon. It's the difference between playing a team game... And your own game, at your team's expense.
You don't need to have 3000 skill to understand both sides of the coin. I get it. We all have carried.
Just stop pretending it's so harmless, innocent, or such a specific case that accounts for everyone's actions.
We could argue about Hive skill again but we'll just end up at the same place, some worship it for an unknown odd reason and others find it pointless due to it not calculating accurate & useful stats.
"Well then I get accused of stacking"
So then *that's* where you get to try something new or do something different if that is indeed the motivation for smurfing in the first place. (I realize this does not apply to all users)
Whenever someone on a lesser skilled server cries foul I just say "don't worry, i'll gorge" etc.
I agree, it's a difficult issue... and it unfairly puts people in an awkward spot... but that's what you get with a team based, high skill ceiling game and a low playercount.
Gotta make the best of it, I suppose, if you intend on playing in servers you do not own.