Bans have turned this game into “ban Ana so that I can play Hog/Mauga/Ram.” It’s insanely boring meta-wise, and forces your tank to match or just lose the game. Or ban x so that I can have a free game of y, when x counters y. Is that big brained? No. It just rewards cheese and 1 tricks.
This whole game was built around the idea of counterpicking. Bans are entirely contrary to that notion. How do you even balance with bans in place? Just assume that nothing is banned? And then just let players suffer in those games where counters are banned? All it does it make the game more unbalanced. How is that fun?
There’s literally nothing good that comes from bans, just annoyances.
I doubt they’ll be removing bans anytime soon, so I’m just screaming into the void, but I’m so fed up with it already.
first of all, which metas are boring or not is highly subjective
to you, those heroes are boring, but to others ana is the boring hero that shouldnt be played
now the main point id like to make is that there are numerous hero interactions in the game, and ana is not the only answer to the tanks you mentioned
in fact, i would argue that without bans it has been far too easy to pick the most obvious answer to deal with particular matchups, and with bans in place counterswapping takes much more brainpower to pull off successfully
I doubt anyone, other than perhaps Hog/Mauga mains, would argue that Hog/Mauga meta is objectively healthy for the game. It also says something that when Ram is played, my teammates are always crying for someone to play Ana. Otherwise he doesn’t die. Tanks that don’t die is not a fun or healthy meta for the game.
I don’t buy into your argument about brainpower at all. We all know what does and doesn’t counter certain heroes. Just bc you ban one or two of them, doesn’t really change that list. You just have to dig further down into the list?
I’m not a huge fan of bans and overall, I preferred Overwatch without them. I am tolerating them at present as it seems to be pacifying a lot of the discontent we usually see, even IGN put out an article with praise. At least that’s something positive to come of it.
I think the best way to solve this problem, aside from removing hero bans from the game, which would imo be great - is for the OW team to add another competitive mode game with no hero bans
I see it more as players who have never before had a complaint with OW, now have a big enough complaint - the new gawdawful hero ban system - to get on the forums to talk about it
Just players who never have had forum accounts and just played the game now have a large enough issue with the game - hero bans - that they created forum accounts to talk about it
Hero bans created more contents than any other patches imo. Each match feels very differently when different heroes are banned.
I think more ban slots would be more fun. 3 fixed bans for tanks, 5 fixed bans for dps and 3 fixed bans for supps. Forming the game by the players is what OW truly needed. Can’t believe we had this after 9 years since its release.
Perhaps it created a more… Dynamic experience? But deleting content does not really create more of it. I guess with Sombra gone Doomfist and Ball are much more prevalent. That’s the only real change I noticed, but as a Doomfist player; I am annoyed. He gets banned too often. I was just finally starting to flex, but I believe I am returning to my one tricking ways because the disappointment I feel when I cannot swap is pretty high. I might as well just not even have access to the privilege.
