FACTS & RUMORS - Discussion of Hero Bans (updated)

I think hero bans are really likely. One of the big problems with the game is that it tends to fall into unshakable metas that have to be balanced away with a sledgehammer. Hero bans might help with that because if you get super sick of a meta, like Double Barrier for instance, you can just ban one of the heroes that enables it and get a game without it.

Where did you do that?

On the forums here somewhere. Couldnā€™t find the clip but I definitely heard him say it.

I was going to mention that Jeff said Blizzard was against hero bans in 2017 from a Gamespot interview and a Twitch interview with Fran a year ago.

*Watches the community go crazy *

But do continue while I refill my popcornā€¦ :sunglasses:

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Best part about letting hype build is that it could end up be really great or end up being really bad for the community.

If Stylosa says it, I automatically disbelieve, Dude has negative credibility.

We donā€™t know what Emongg is hyping, at all.
Metro says itā€™s Hero Bans, but that that info comes from a different source.
I would not be surprised if Blizz fed Metro incorrect info to lower his profile, itā€™s what I would do.

There are two big problems with Hero bans, 1 we donā€™t have a big enough roster of heroes to be banning any, especially while lacking tank and support diversity.
Two, and this is the one that I donā€™t see anyone discussing: Who gets to pick the banned heroes? We Certainly donā€™t have enough for 12 players to each ban a hero, so it would be 1-2 per side, for 2-4 bans per game. Then all the players who were trying to get someone else banned drop game, and everyone goes back to the queue.

If they were to do anything about hero availability, I would wager hero picking would be higher on the list right now. (i.e. teams take turns picking their start heroes, while one hero is picked or on the field no one else can play them.)

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I hope so too. We slowed down hero releases pretty much to a stop (promised one hero before OW2 might come out in 2021 for all we know), so now weā€™re gonna reduce here pool too?

I believe Jeff referred to Overwatch as ā€œOverwatch oneā€ in a Storm Rising stream with ohnickel.

Regarding the news, I have exactly the same opinion on hero bans that I have on 222/role queue: It would be a great feature for OWL/Contenders, and maybe a good addition to Competitive. It should stay away from the main casual gamemode (ie, Quick Play).

Hero bans on comp, however, would only work if you could only ban DPS heroes. Tanks and supports donā€™t have a big enough roster to allow banning.

IIRC, they mentioned Blizzard want to make a global guild system that would work across all games in the blizz launcher. So Overwatch isnā€™t getting a guild system for themselves, but they were holding upon this global feature.

I donā€™t know if thatā€™s still their plan.

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Thanks for the post. People in the forums are crazy. Someone says one dumb idea outta nowhere and people around here act like its alrwady part of the game . :laughing:

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The streamers (in this case metro) has a track record of being right about his leaks. He leaked OW2 weeks before Blizzcon

Note, even in 2016 Jeff was talking about specific ā€œpicks and bansā€ system, not bans in general.

Picks and bans mixed up together is indeed hard to imagine in OW. But ban first, pick later - fits easily and will waste much less time per match.
Not saying that Iā€™m a fun of time wastesā€¦ I really hope this will be just one ban per team, made simultaneously by both teams and will take only 30 seconds.

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Been talking about this with my buddies, and one of them pointed out that if they wait until OW2 release to add hero bans, there would be a bigger pool of support and tank heroes. As the hero pools sit right now, support and tank players get much more crippled from a hero ban than DPS.

Iā€™d like to add that Metro also released this tweet the other day. The source of this leak is a different person, so not sure about reliability.

ā€œTake this with a grain of salt, itā€™s a source different from the Blizzcon leaks.ā€

But having broken utterly unfun heroes to play against ruining other peopleā€™s fun and forcing them off their heroes is fine then.

Do you even realize how incredibly selfish that sounds?

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Something that if Blizzard is willing to pull out the real balance hammer to do it but they donā€™t want to upset the fanbase entirely, refer to recent doomfist nerf, look how loud the community cry. (its a bad nerf for sure but what im trying to say is that its gonna make a riot with any big changes)

Thank you so much for posting this. I donā€™t follow any YT or twitch channels so when one of them ā€œhas a theoryā€ and it makes forum explode I get really confused lol

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Then they need to grow a pair. For every Doom main crying there is probably 5 or 6 other mains that are having their experience ruined by his utterly broken, toxic, and stupidly unfun and frustrating to play against style

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As a symm player and who enjoys explore her tactics in order to compete the titans, thatā€™s the experience for us. And Blizzard has always been like this, the slow paced nerfs here and there, and somehow they still manage to overtune it. WoW is the example of that.

2bh the fact that post exists means they have thought about said idea at least. Which actually means itā€™s more likely to be implemented now that thereā€™s info supporting it, than not, when looking at ow devā€™s track records. So I think itā€™s still relevant enough.

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I would like to thank you for taking the time to make this post and keep everyone up-to-date on the facts of the situation currently.


59 shots, 1 kill,
Coolbreeze