Problem #1 - Repeated, Multi-Week, Hero Disabling
It’s one thing if Pools disable a hero for a week. It’s a whole other thing if Reinhardt, Widow, or any other singular hero is disabled for more than 2-4 weeks at a time. Under RNG (like Mystery Heroes), it’s entirely possible for a hero to be repeatedly scheduled to be disabled.
Hero Pools must not actually be based off of RNG, but instead be either a hand-curated list, or an pseudo-random system that prevents repeated disables.
Problem #2 - Delayed Placements
Players should, in their interest of climbing, never play placements unless their preferred hero(es) are available. This means that a substantial number of players will actually not be in queue at Hero Pool launch, and will wait until their hero is available to play.
This becomes a problem when it’s nearing the end of the season. Sometimes real life stuff gets in the way of playtime, and you weren’t able to play, and aren’t able to sit through 5 games of your preferred role, or 15 games of all roles, until the last couple weeks of a season.
In those situations, you NEED to know if the second-to-last week of the season, your hero is going to be banned (and especially when combined with problem #1 above, if they’re going to be banned for a second week in a row).
A schedule needs to be posted. We should know before Week 1 of Hero Pools which heroes are going to be disabled on launch, and know who’s on deck to be disabled the following week, so we can plan to play our placements accordingly.
Problem #3 - Powerpairings, Counterpicking, and Lack of Overlap
Suppose a situation where both Widow and Ashe, and D.Va are disabled in Hero Pools.
Pharah and Mercy can reign supreme for that whole week. With only McCree, Soldier, or Baptiste (yes, I know Ana exists, not the point here) to take them out, there aren’t many players, especially in low ranks, that can reliably take out Pharmercy in the sky with Soldier or Baptiste. This puts an unreasonable amount of pressure on tanks and healers and makes it stressful to play them.
Counterpicking is harder in Hero Pools because we have a distinctive lack of overlap in differing hero pools. In an attempt to carve out a unique and niche gameplay style for all of the heroes, when a hero is disabled and their niche is incredibly necessary or needed, there are fewer ways to pick up the slack.
And with the hero release drought we’ve been experiencing, there aren’t enough heroes to use as a substitute – Jeff mentioned this will be a way to change the meta more frequently, but an unforeseen consequence here is that this amps up frustration that it might drive away players from queuing for that particular week if a powerpairing (not just Pharmercy, could also be Double Sniper, Grav Dragons, or even Yank Tanks) has no available counters.
We need more overlap of hero kits and this may influence Experimental hero changes and reworks. We need more heroes to be released on a faster schedule, but we currently aren’t scheduled to get a new hero. Alternatively, Hero Pools would use a curated list where half of a powerpairing is disabled at any given time… but that acts as a ban on a particular strategy which may be disagreeable.
Problem #4 - Pool-specific metas and “Flavor of the Week” balance patches
Given the announcement that there are going to be more meta-targeting rebalances on a more frequent schedule, the possibility of pool-specific metas and pool-specific balance patches being paired together is high.
There are only so many combinations you can go through before repeating a Hero Pool. And there are only so many times you can repeat a pool before a meta develops, forcing the need for a patch.
Mercy, Genji, Doomfist, and Rein might be disabled in one week – this might happen again mid-season, and again at season end, or even the next season. This means that a meta will develop around those specific available heroes being disabled, and depending on how frequently this pool shows up in rotation, this may introduce a pool-specific balance patch alongside it.
Every time Mercy, Genji, Doomfist, and Rein are disabled, a meta forms where some heroes are running rampant. A tagalong patch with that pool may be implemented that always nerfs Hog, Ana, and Tracer, and buffs McCree, Sigma, and Lucio. And this patch will be reverted once that week’s hero pool is over.
There could be a pool-patch where Hanzo’s oneshot is just flat out disabled, and for that week he’s completely inferior to Widow. Or vice versa. This makes the game very volatile, where your character’s power level fluctuates because of the hero pool, and this is potentially gameruining… the experience of knowing how to use your character is lessened, and the experience of overusing the current flavor of the week will leave a bad taste in the mouth of the affected sub-population(s).
This is not an opinion about Hero Pools. These are just 4 observed problems that will probably accompany Hero Pools.
It does not matter if we haven’t played Hero Pools or not, unless these topics are addressed early (hopefully before Pools launch), they will become painful periods during the Pool’s first season and on repeat seasons.