Pick system, instead of Bans

General Discussion
1

For ladder, instead of Hero Bans, I’m increasing liking this idea of “Hero Rosters”.
Instead of a “Ban system” it’s a type of “Pick system”.

I originally saw this concept from ProLikeChro, and it was brought to my attention and discussed by RobotWizard.

Hero Roster

  • Each player gets to pick two heroes within a role
  • Once selected, it’s greyed out for the other teammate, however these hero choices are shared, for 4 total heroes within a role
  • Hero Rosters are secret, the enemy team doesn’t know what you have
  • This would only affect +3500SR lobbies

Would allow for some asymmetrical comps, and allow teams to run “cheese strats” but without the enemy team having the best counterpicks to make it useless.

Unlike a ban system, as a player you would always get to play your two most desired heroes within a role.

But the meta variety this would create would be much higher than a ban system.

And as per usual, +3500SR lobbies only.
Since those are the ELOs where it’s basically a lost cause to promote hero usage variety within a given meta beyond 8-10 heroes.

BONUS:

Now if they really want to kick this into high gear.

Hero Roster: Fog of War

  • Make it so that when you press TAB, it only shows the hero your teammates last saw on that player.
  • If a player switches, and was not seen by the enemy team, then the TAB screen does not update.
  • Potentially could do something with Sombra here
2 Likes
2

I really don’t like this idea.
Well, I like the concept (hero ban system), but limiting to 2 heroes would be insane.

Maybe just bring back player hero bans, but you can’t see who’s on your team or the enemy team until the heroes have been banned (probably 1 from tank/support, 2 from dps, 3500+ as usual)

2 Likes
3

Your topics are cringe, especially with the checkmark emoji.

4

It’s actually a limit of 4 heroes. Your 2 picks would be shared between the two teammates.

5

That’s still way too much. That’s like 75% of the dps roster gone. We do NOT need that many restrictions!

1 Like
6

As if Masters/GM uses a vast library of heroes over the course of a match, or just in general.

Really, you know they don’t.

We wouldn’t be talking about systems that restrict hero choices if it weren’t for that.

1 Like
7

This will never happen. You can never, ever, ban 75% of a hero roster.

I recommend coming up with a new idea, this one is just a waste of time.

1 Like
8

Why? Tons of games ban a ton more than that.
Like having only 1 hero to choose from hundreds of other choices.

What this does however, as Chro covered is,

on Niche heroes and why they won’t work in OW

The third issue is that niche heroes have stronger weaknesses that are more obvious and easier to take advantage of. I know most heroes have strengths and weaknesses but it’s to the extreme with specialists as to balance their extreme strength they have extreme weakness. When you see a specialists you instantly know how you should play, who you should pick and what you can and cannot do. The simplicity that drives OW design comes back to haunt us because heroes are so simple that they’re limited in what they can do. Players can easily create a scenario where a niche hero has far less usefulness and can be dealt with.

6)Instead of a traditional pick/ban system only allow players to pick a couple heroes that they’re allow to swap between. Think of this as a hybrid system between full swapping and not swapping at all. It allows players to pick any hero but removes the immense range of options that are available when against a niche hero. It really models how the highest level of players play as they are good at a select few heroes, not the entire cast. It allows for some deception and last pick type scenarios where one team has to come up with something unique to deal with a unique pick.

I really noticed a concept when I first played Diablo 3. Not only did I fall sleep when first playing D3 because of how poor the game was but I noticed that none of the skills choices had consequences. At any time you could completely change your build and be like anyone else. This made me realize that a choice without consequence isn’t a choice at all.

What this would do is allow for “niche heroes” to be very relevant to high tier play. Bastion, who generally sucks, could be a very strong pick, if you couldn’t easily counter-pick him.

Instead of creating variety by blocking what heroes the enemy can use, you’d create variety by constantly having “cheese strats” that the enemy team might not be able to counter with a simple hero switch.

1 Like
9

because ow is the only “competitive” game that does not use competitive systems for its ranked queue, I would say that we should end mirror games.

however I believe that we have a very small cast “tank support” to introduce this type of banning system.

1 Like