I agree with everything you wrote too.
Some people too heads in the sand to see the bigger picture.
I’m 34 and also a software dev tho, you learn a lot with age, not that most 16 year olds would believe me tho, as they seem to know everything 
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Gotta disagree with you on that last part. Nothing is anything “period”. Don’t state it like everyone agrees with it. Majority? Yes, but not everyone.
Secondly, I don’t think personally (all my opinion here) that Brig is that powerful. She doesn’t win every game (even at the low ranks) and honestly, she doesn’t feel oppressive. The last thing I want to see is more mechanically intensive heroes get the spotlight again, unless it’s at the highest ranks.
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I agree, to different people, all the heroes are difficult at different elos.
Wrong. Widow’s value if played correctly is the same. If anything, the same Widow can get MORE value in bronze, then in GM… because widow will have more opportunities to kill things in Bronze then in GM.
What you are referring to is that you will finded better widows in higher elos that can land her shots. Bad widows, won’t get value out of her and will miss her shots, thus staying at lower elos.
This is the same (theoretically) for each hero.
If brig, or symm, ect… were “no skill” in order to get value out of… then there would be no brig mains in low elo. There would be literally a brig in every match but she’s not, she only ranked like the 10th most popular hero by pickrate with a 4% pickrate dispite being valuable in the most “meta” comp. Heck, every single support has a higher pickrate then brig except Zen.
If Brig was so OP and easy… her pickrate wouldn’t be so bad. Everyone would flock to her to win… especially since she has the highest winrate in the game.
She is niche. But she is effective in her niche. Just like every hero should be.
That is a matter of opinion. To have a healthy game every hero should have a role to play and excell at.
I don’t think anyone can disagree with you. The point of the thread though is that aim does not equal the only skill that matters in this game.
Risk vs reward is def a thing. Practicing a hero to unlock their full potential is good. Should really good people with Ana be able to get value in GM? Sure thing, just like really good people should be able to get value out of Brig.
A good design for a hero is Brig. She has a consistant pick rate and win rate with all elos. She has a flat difficulty across the board.
What you are looking for is a poorly designed hero that is designed to actually decrease in value at higher ranks. Heroes such as Symm and Bastion who find it more difficult to get value out of at higher elos to the point of being useless at the pro level.
This doesn’t have to do with the difficulty of the player to grasp and get good with the hero. It gets to the point that it doesn’t matter how good you are with the hero, if they are completely overshadowed by heroes that have a high difficulty, that isn’t good.
Each hero should have elements of the hero that scales with skill that will keep them viable when high difficulty heroes are at their peak. Brig has this in her nuanced playstyle and effectiveness in pro play in a niche. Her pickrate and winrate shows this off. Symm, Bastion.
So what is the solution? High difficulty heroes should have more utility as their difficulty increases. To be useful in more situations.
However, difficulty does not have to equal aim. Hammond and Doomfist are good examples. Maybe having a high difficulty can give you insane game-changing plays, like Doomfist. Or high burst like widow. Or crazy utility like Ana. Or crazy mobility and escapability like mercy. Super high speed and disruption like Hammond.
You should also be able to get value out of each character at low skill. Widow shouldn’t be useless in the hands of someone with low skill. Symm 2.0 shouldn’t of been a dominant beast like she was with her auto-aim (even if I think autoaim has its place). Sombra shouldn’t need insane teamwork in order to have any value.
However, there should be niche heroes if they become the best at their niche at the highest level. You need someone to open up a great Earthshatter… Brig… you need someone to get great value out of grav, hanzo… You need someone to get value out of your flying rat lady or sniper? Mercy. You need someone to get rid of abilities and Barriers, Sombra.
The problem with some heroes… bastion… why? Symm 3.0… she does nothing the best. Torb? Area denial? Again… these players don’t see a use in their niche. They aren’t powerful enough even with the best people playing on them to get used at the highest play. They don’t fit anywhere.
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I think the biggest issue is that “skill” has become the end-all counterargument to anything regarding balance. You think McCree needs some tuning? “You lack skill son” You think Mercy needs a buff? “Mercy is low skill scrub” and that’s pretty much 80% of the forums.
This blinds the community to actual constructive criticism. For example, Brig needs some nerfs not because she doesn’t have to aim, but because she can whiff all her abilities, be in the wrong spot and still brawl out just fine. Compare that to a Winston who enters the fight without his jump, his bubble needs 3 more seconds on cooldown, and he has 20 charge in his Tesla cannon. Both heroes don’t require aim, but which one do you think is going to come out alive?
So I think it’s more about some heroes being less forgiving with mistakes than others, rather than “skill” or “no skill” heroes.
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Thanks my friend. You’ve provided a lot of insight and discussion. Spread the topic around if you can. I want to get people’s perspectives on this and talk about it some more (in a civil manner that is). That’s what the forums are supposed to be for after all.
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Every hero has complex mechanics. Some heros take more awareness and some involve aim.
Junkrat is NOT a low skill hero. Junkrat partly relys on information provided to him by his team. It requires good spacial awareness and knowledge of the map geometry to land hits that are not in your line of sight.
There are no “low skill” heros.
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if heroes are not “low skill” then why are players stuck in their rank for 5+ seasons, 1 trick a hero like brig or moira, and all of a sudden gain 500+ sr in 1 season?
oh, because some heroes take less to play than others.
Why are people stuck?
Reinhardts who charge in and healers cant see them to heal, they die, and then have the NERVE to complain that they weren;t being healed.
Because Winstons/Roadhogs who get killed by Reapers when they dive the back line and die.
Soldier 76s who constantly shoot Zarya shields and dont focus Pharrahs.
Players who refuse to enter voice chat to coordinate and spend all their time typing in chat.
Immature people who snipe your hero from you when you are actually doing well which is usually after you asked them politely to switch to a better hero pick to counter the enemy.
All that and more.
One trick heros ONLY get fast SR because it circumvents the SR system. The system was designed to gauge a players skill based on all the heros they use, not 1 or a few. it skews the metadata that the MMR/SR system uses to calculate someones skill.
“My main account I play Mercy and I am in GM, but my account I play Tracer on is in Diamond. I also have a Genji in Plat.”
The above statement is the reason SOME people can gain SR more readily because the system recognizes them as a NEW player and new players get more SR gains early on.
It is also ban evasion when a player who holds multiple accounts has been banned from the game but is still allowed to access the game despite being banned.
I just went against a smurf in my for fun account. Low gold!
Smurf was terribad dps, maybe diamond level. Had lots of fun that match, he was tryharding so much =)
TLDR: its not that hard if you actually try.
There is no such thing as a “no skill” hero. Every hero takes skill. Every hero has different skills that are necessary to varying degrees of importance. Which skills you value more than others is largely subjective. For example, I think Winston is a very skill based hero that takes just as much skill to play as Tracer, only the skills required for both differ.
That being said, there is also such a thing as some heroes requiring more (or less) skill than others. How much easier/harder they are to play is subject to debate, but the differences are there. I don’t think there’s going to be many people who argue that Brigitte is harder to play than Sombra for example.
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I love this response. This is such a good way of looking at balance in my personal opinion.
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Because game sense is knowing how to use you’re keys or buttons. Stop pretending “game sense” is this award winning thing especially for mercy and brig.
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Might I also add that when referring to “no skill” heroes is response to the impacts they have with their ult.
No one argues bastion and soldier are “no skill” they’re easy and while bastions ult maybe is okay soldiers is asss.
Point is nothing is wrong with easy heroes as long as they aren’t as impactful as skillful ones.
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No, because they practice those heroes and get better at playing them. One-tricking a hero does make you better at managing that heroes’ skills and counters.
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Hidden profile you must be one of these no skill heroes. Its alright you’re sensitive we get it. You don’t like hearing you have no skill then just practice a skilled hero nothing to get turned about
Personally, i disagree with this sentiment. Just because a hero requires more mechanical skill doesn’t mean they deserve more impact than other heroes. No matter the skill floor or ceiling of a hero, they should have a place in the game. Having all the mechanically skillful heroes be played the most or to the highest level of impact in lower ranks as well as higher ranks causes some heroes to get phased out and that shouldn’t be the case.
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There’s a hero taking skill. And there’s getting so much value by so little amount of hero and experience (skill?) required. Old Mercy was OP not because it didn’t require skill, but because she gains so much value with relatively LESS effort than the rest of the support roster. It didn’t make any sense to play Ana over Mercy half a year ago.
Why are people hating on DF? Because they don’t like getitng one shotted by one/two buttons with the hitbox of a truck. Why would I play McCree and align headshots when I can just fly to people face, barely aim my skill, get a pick in seconds and get out? Same as brig. If it were a M1 holding contest on face range brigs wins with much less effort and precision required (again, skill?).
Every hero needs gamesense, positioning, awareness what have you. But if at the end you get yanked by someone putting less effort than you it just straight up doesn’t feel good and makes you wonder why do you even bother learning “skill based” (read: mechanics heavy) heroes if there’s an easier way out.
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Having impact and having THE SAME or MORE impact as more mechanically demanding hero with LESS EFFORT are two different things. Output should be aligned with the input and effort required. It doesn’t make sense to play something hard if the output can be achieved with lower effort. It basically makes playing harder heroes pointless when you have way easier alternatives with as much impact.
Higher skill floor heroes SHOULD have higher skill ceiling, and thus output potential. Lower skill floor heroes are fine, but when the ceiling is limited and you can get incredible value with less effort and experience than the higher ceiling counterparts, then we’ve got a problem. Easier heroes should be viable, but they should have ways to check them. When you have an “easy hero” rampaging everyone else even at the highest skill tier when you bet they’re all almost maxed out in terms of getting the most out of their heroes, then it really doesn’t make sense.
No, I just never changed it from the default settings. Lol. You want to see my heroes? Be my guest as I am enabling my public profile as of now. However, do realize that it doesn’t matter what hero you play and discriminating against people because of their hero selections is ultimately ridiculous and petty. All heroes are valid picks in specific situations and any player is allowed to like and practice any hero they choose. It is not your place to tell them what is or is not valid in the game.
1: everyone can play a hero like mercy and brig and rat because it’s easy. How many people are absolutely atrocious at widow and mcree compared to mercy eh?
2: the heros people like to tell themselves take BIG BRAINS actually don’t. Mercy’s hp automatically regenerates faster then any hero in the game and she has the lowest escape cooldown in the game that goes every direction allowing her to royally screw up and survive anyway. Mcree is dead if he screws up.
A hero that takes no aim but takes skill due to good gamesense would be winston.
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