It’s not about favorits, OW from the start was a game that had niche heroes that were meant to be situational. Heroes like Sym, Bastion, Torb weren’t supposed to be generalists. The game later started to try to move away from that because of people getting too attached to 1 hero.
It was not simply about people getting too attached to 1 hero. Niche heroes as a design concept fails in a game which has generalists which do the job of niche heroes within their niche just as good or even better. Which is why they were considered throw picks and people got reported for playing them. Yes, people reported others for playing Symm on first point defense on 2CP.
Either all heroes have to be designed to be niche, or none. Otherwise, you wont ever get a balanced hero roster. They changed those heroes and succeded with Torb. They failed on Bastion because his change actually enforced his gimmicky stationary playstyle rather than making him a generalist and for Symm they dont have a clear vision on what shes supposed to do. Her primary is designed to charge up on shields, but when she gets played in double barrier, then she gets nerfed so other generalists can compete with her within the meta which is supposed to be her “niche.” In the current day, calling a hero niche is just another excuse of keeping them bad. Niche is a toxic design which nobody want to play with or against.
While on paper it may sound good that all heroes are equal in effectivness/use in practice it would feel awful to play.
What?? A balanced game? Heroes like Symm and Sombra on equal footing with Genji? How awful!! This is not about favorits! lol
People ask for nerfs to Hack because it is an awful mechanic gamewise, it’s an ability based hero shooter, obviously it becomes a lot less fun when you can remove abilities from the game.
Sombra is unfun to play against, therefore she deserves to be bad.
Genji though? Hes awesome! Everyone likes the cyborg ninja. Nobody hates playing against deflect and his hyper mobility! Seeing Nano/blade as potg every game is a blast!..What? There are complain threads about Genji on a regular basis? They say hes unfun to play against? That doesnt count, because i think hes cool!
What would the game be like if Bastion was in every game but not just as a bunker, he recon form is somehow also very good and at any point he can just sit down and destroy people.
Balanced Bastion which is not just a meme pick? What madness is this?
Genji didn’t look bad compared to meta heroes. Genji like 76 were balanced individually but like I said, powercreep has rendered them more or less useless or very niche, heroes that aren’t meant to be niche.
And how do you know that they arent “supposed” to be niche?
Who decides who is “supposed” to be niche? Isnt that based on hero design and how generally applicable their kit is? Sombra disabling abilities sounds very generalistic to me. Symm being able to make a short cut back to the point sounds generally usable.
Again, this goes back to favoritism. “I dont like Symm and Sombra so its good they are never used, therefore they are “supposed” to be niche.” Thats what it boils down to.
If a balanced hero is useless then they aren’t fine
A balanced hero by definition is not useless. It just comes down to that some people think being anything less than meta is useless, even if youre viable. But thats not reality.
