šŸ”¶ Discussion on Why I'm Against Hero Bans

Thatā€™s actually the point Iā€™m making here. You have people saying things like ā€œhero bans will allow the players to balance the gameā€, but that sentence is inherently flawed.

Thereā€™s no balance in banning a character because you refuse to learn how to beat them, or refuse to rely on your team to do the job.

Devs balanced their games they best they could, and that was perfectly back in the day. These ā€œhero bansā€ sounds like a pathetic idea, and Iā€™m only using the word ā€œpatheticā€ because thatā€™s the best way to describe how I feel about it.

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Thatā€™s what the report and leaver penalty system is for.

Not really. There are still 14 possible combinations of tanks if both Orisa and Rein are banned, all of which are quite capable of winning games. If you lack the creativity or flexibility to play anything other than the optimal flavor-of-the-month team compositions, and your performance is totally dependent on highly specific character synergies, thatā€™s on you. Learn to adapt your picks based on the situation, and not shackle yourself to the meta.

Well, if the enemy team is using those synergies and youā€™re not, assuming an approximately equal skill level (which is the point of matchmaking), you are inherently disadvantaged. Especially with tanks, the synergies between their kits are basically hardwired into them and the tanks you pick have a large sway on what DPS and supports are optimal to work with that composition.

Iā€™m more than willing to experiment with other comps (I honestly think Sigma-Hammond is sleeper super strong with the right backup) but a composition built with synergy will beat a composition built without it almost all the time, and the ban system only makes that problem worse. Thereā€™s a difference between ā€œjust pick whatā€™s metaā€ and ā€œliterally just pick anything and donā€™t even care about synergies between heroesā€.

Itā€™s not like there is much of a choice.

Balance top-down just doesnā€™t work: game is run differently in different tiers. Heroes, that are absolutely broken and overpowered in lower tiers, turn out to be of non-issue at higher tiers, and vice versa - heroes just donā€™t reach broken status in lower tiers, because no one can master them enough to make them broken.

This presents obvious problem: how to solve balance issues, without creating more issues? Nerfing heroes, that are broken at the top, often ends up making them useless at lower levels. Buffing heroes, that are too weak at lower tiers, also can end up in them being broken at higher levels.

Hero bans, possibly, would provide some information for Blizzard, on which heroes are problematic and where.

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I agree. Ever since Role Queue was released, the OW team has been going against Overwatchā€™s essence and spirit.

As a reminder, Overwatch was supposed to gather players from different gaming backgrounds, thatā€™s why many heroes donā€™t require the same skill set to thrive with and itā€™s perfectly fine.

Deleting Widowmaker, Hanzo, Doomfist or any other hero created for the game is going against what made Overwatch a great game. Thereā€™s nothing wrong with being good at aiming or mastering a hero like Doomfist.

Iā€™m not saying Iā€™m gonna boycott Overwatch or stop playing but Iā€™m not sure I will be continuing Competitive. Role Queue is already making it pretty difficult to having fun (in Competitive), I might just give up Comp with hero bans, even though I predicted almost a year ago that map ban and hero ban will soon follow Role Queue because of our playerbase.

I guess this is happening. How sad to do such a thing to a great game :cry:.

One can only hope. Balance patches for pros (thrown down everyoneā€™s throats) have been damaging to this game enough.

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If anyone profiles me in competitive play, a swift ban to Lucio, ball, or Orisa is sure to follow.

Without my best (most refined?) heroes, I am at quite a disadvantage.

Knowing what I know, and knowing which team comps are popular and effective on most maps, it would be a breeze to ban the most effective hero(es) for that map.

Iā€™m also a ritualistic profiler when entering a match, and I will identify mains and one tricks and urge my teams to ban that hero so we can roll the opposition.

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Hero bans would cause some dps players to leave which would lessen que times. Gg ez

This will make Doomfist impossible to play especially in bronze or silver, considering people complain about him all the time.

I feel very much that hero bans is just a band-aid onto deeper overwatch issues, much like 2-2-2. First, instead of balancing heroes correctly, this can just remove one from a game. Second, all heroes should be fun to play with or against to a decent amount of people or that hero simply shouldnt be in the game. Third, hero bans disproportionately ruin the game for one-tricks or even 2-tricks because people will purposely use hero bans to target the hero that those players play; not only will this discriminate against those who only like 1 or 2 heroes, but it will create unbalanced matchmaking, giving 1 team a greater chance to lose right from the start (even moreso than the perceived unluckiness from having the one-trick in the first place). Even if you ā€œ1-trickā€ or ā€œ2-trickā€ a hero in each role (playing 6 heroes total, possibly) you can still be screwed over if both of your heroes for your role are banned.

If hero bans are going to be implemented, there needs to be a label on the game when people try to buy it that the heroes you want and enjoy to play may be banned from your games. At least League of Legends doesnā€™t make you pay $40 to ban the heroes you like to play, anyway. Forcing people to ā€œlearn to flexā€ and play other heroes has negative consequences, I for one will purposely play off-meta healers if my support is ever banned purposely to target me; So the logic of ā€œmaybe if we ban their hero, then they will go something useful or metaā€ is just stupid.

There are not enough heroes in the game in each role to have hero bans. Assume both teams get 1 hero ban, and they ban bap and moira. Now your only main healer options are mercy or ana, and you either have low tank healing potential or a highly diveable support.

If heroes bans is implemented, teams MUST be kept hidden until the match begins

I like the idea of banns but it needs to be restricted to dps banns. As it is now banning a tank would ban an entire composition. And banning a support might eliminate the only counter play they had.
Plus banning either of them is eliminate 1/7 of the options.

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I personally think itā€™s too early, since there isnā€™t enough tanks. Most of the bans would just target main tanks, since thatā€™s the backbone of most comps. Iā€™m in support of bans in the future, but definitely not now.

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Sounds like the perfect way to have complete Widow dominance at the top level, since sheā€“more than any other heroā€“is the one who is best countered by herself.

I think if your hero pool is so narrow you cant deal with hero bans, then you deserve to lose every match you lose because of them.

hero bans is the only solution that will permanently put meta in the grave, making the game constantly diverse due to the ability to remove key factors of oppressive metas to open the game up as a whole.

think of all the comps that could be played if just 1 hero ban was in the game. it could have balanced out the game pre role que and stopped goats.

it will remove double shields oppressiveness and allow many comps to flourish

it will allow much more radical changes to heros because you can just ban them if they are overpowered.

hero bans was the solution we needed. just took blizzard way to long to realize it.

youā€™re assuming balance problems are always localised to individual heroes rather than over various heroes (e.g. see how really high burst heroes like widow, hanzo and df invalidate most of dps).

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uuuuh no it wonā€™t, you just pick the next best thing thatā€™d fo the jobā€¦ e.g. no widow? just pick hanzo or ashe.

youā€™d have more conditions to the meta but there will still be a meta because there is an inherent pecking order/tier list to balance of heroes.

ban sigma then double sniper. ban orisa then pick rein for double shield or vice versa. thatā€™s what I meant above.

thatā€™s not how that works at all.

  1. if x is op you canā€™t guarantee that x will be banned esp if teammates are involved in choosing who to ban
  2. youā€™d just excuse terrible balance because #JustBanThem4Head. like what if you can only ban 2 and thereā€™s like >=3 op? you just have the same problem as if you didnā€™t have bans.
  3. what if the problem is more core mechanic based like powercrept dps/heals? you canā€™t ban 1~2 heroes to solve that problem.

bans donā€™t fix balance issues.

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Everyone likes to smugly declare that people ā€œdeserveā€ to lose a game, until theyā€™re matched up repeatedly with those people.

For example, almost everyone will delight upon hearing how a Mercy Main, DPS Moira, or Bastion one-trick donā€™t deserve to win, but scream at these people in their mics when their own SR is on the line.

All points are true, thereā€™s a reason Iā€™ve been playing nothing but Paladins lately lmao

Yeah this is what I hate the most about the communityā€™s view on bans.
They act like adding hero bans will just magically fix any balancing issue in the game while really itā€™s just another band-aid. Not only that but we have a ridiculously small tank and support cast + a third of the DPS roster has been sitting the recycling bin since launch one of which has received 2 reworks, but do they care? No, because it doesnā€™t affect them.

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Did you just assume I made an assumption?

This will be interesting.