You’ve probably come across the term ‘Smurfing’ if you engage in any form of online gaming. It’s a taboo term used for players who try to gain an advantage over lesser players. Smurfing has been a regular occurrence in Marvel Rivals, but you could be left blue in the face if you try to do it in the future.
Marvel Rivals remains one of the biggest playgrounds for online multiplayer gaming. The hero shooter gets very little wrong, and it has the unrivaled (no pun intended) strength of using the Marvel license. The Marvel Rivals Summer Party Event is the talk of the town, but NetEase has also informed players of new smurfing penalties.
Marvel Rivals Banning Players For Smurfing
There’s been a recent change in Marvel Rivals that the community has picked up on. You can see from a July 13 Marvel Rivals subreddit post that there is a complete no-tolerance policy toward smurfing.
Here’s what it says if you’re found guilty of this: “Penalty Notice: Following a thorough system detection and manual review, we have confirmed that your account has recently engaged in violations related to Smurfing. As a result, we will be implementing the following penalties:
- Season Ban: Your account will be suspended from participating in Competitive mode until the end of the current season.
- Rank Reset: Your Competitive rank and score for this season will be reset.”
The notice finishes by asking everyone to “adhere to the game rules.”
This does raise a big question: What if you’re really good, you’ve maybe not played Rivals for a while, which is why you’re in Bronze, and you’re being wrongfully punished?
Smurfing is a term reserved for players who are deliberately trying to start from Bronze—either from a new account or getting relegated on purpose—and destroying players way below them in lesser divisions for ‘content’.
Respect to NetEase for trying to discourage the practice, but there’s a grey line here, and people are potentially going to be banned when they weren’t trying to smurf.
Will this be a problem? Is there a better solution? Drop a comment through the Insider Gaming forum.
Read about Marvel Rivals players being unhappy with Swimsuit Skins price increases and the Wolverine Nerf for more news.
