This is sadly very common. I don’t care if the hivemind decided that D.Va or Zenyatta are throw picks in season 19. There are way too few supports and tanks to begin with and players should have the choice. Being harassed or reported for playing a certain hero in competitive is not cool and happens too often.
6 Likes
Balance is dynamic.
Sometines everything is doable and sometimes you should be reported just for hovering cursor over X hero.
Currently,
If you abuse wait times to play dps in disguise, you deserve a report. Poeple are not waiting 15min just to get paired with egoist
That is a pretty sad state for this game and its community, if you ask me.
How the developers balance: every once in a while they will jumble up some numbers to “freshen up the meta” as a way to keep the players interested in playing (along with spoon feeding us with a trickle of cosmetics). It will still be an unbalanced mess, but the result is always the same: some heroes will shift in power, with a few becoming or remaining top dog picks for yet another season, while far, far too many remain grossly underpowered and underperforming.
Is a certain hero perceived as being a cuplrit or simply played too much? Then it is nerfed to oblivion and/or new heroes are added to hard counter them to drive down the pick rates. Are diehard mains continuing to plague the community with said hero’s presence? Just give the angry mob justice system some time fix that pick rate problem. The developers built and deployed their reporting system with automated actioning to let players sort each other out for that very reason.
Lazy balancing is the developers’ excuse for allowing the community to pick on (and potentially ban) other players for daring to play their favorite heroes for any extended length of time. They just cannot be bothered to fix the game correctly or in a timely manner, and with their bigger projects to work on and holding their attention (OWL and Overwatch 2), they simply do not care about perfecting balance for this game.
2 Likes
Look. I am a Zen main myself. But I aint playing him if it isnt/wont work, because I like being useful to my team and can play othet supports too. Scarcity isnt an excuse.
However I agree that flaming and reporting others for not swapping is unproductive.
First and foremost, remember that this is just a game. It’s just a game.
The game is balanced based on OWL, not to make it better for casual players. The devs aren’t just shifting numbers around, they are trying to change the dynamics of OWL. Some of these changes benefit casual players, some don’t.
Toxic sweaty try hards who are horrible at the game will always blame others, even if you picked who they wanted and played exactly how they tell you to. You can’t win with toxic sweaty try-hards. Just ignore them and play the game.
Yep it’s equally baffling and frustrating.
I’m not a pro. The meta has very little affect on my games because either
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My team doesn’t understand why the team comp is strong and how to use it to good effect
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My team knows how it’s supposed to work but can’t actually execute it
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The enemy doesn’t understand why the team comp is strong and how to use it to good effect
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The enemy knows how it’s supposed to work but can’t actually execute it
This means skill and hero proficiency are far more influential than team composition at my rank.
However, I get told frequently to get off D.Va (with 53% win rate) and play Zarya instead (42% win rate).
Also, people in gold don’t observe anything; they decide what’s happening while actually having no idea what’s going on around them.
Multiple times each round Player X says, “Get off D.Va, you’re doing nothing.” I ignore them just keep playing.
End of match: “Oh look, we won! AND I have four gold medals, and E:D ratio of 11, and ~68% kill participation. Damn! I totally should have switched.”
“Player X has left the voice channel”.
Great awareness, Player X.
(Sure, I don’t put up those stats every match but this is a real example. I know when I’m not getting value and do change.)
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Also, playing you fav hero( dps are like tippy top on this one) that isn’t helping your team is …to be blunt…selfish and hurting 5 other people on your team…you actions affect others because it’s a team game. A team game where roles rely on other roles. If it works great…team is unaffected…if it’s not …be a team player. You expect it from others so do likewise.
And " it’s a game" is all fine and we’ll…but remember that your actions affect the “game/ invested time and effort of 5 other players”
You’re right. But it’s super annoying when you’re told to change before you’ve even spawned. Why do people assume just because one hero fits in to the meta that you, not being in a pro match, won’t get value out of your hero choice? Or that you will get more value out of the meta hero?
As I wrote above, for the majority of the player base hero proficiency is typically far more important than what’s meta.
Because most people don’t switch hero’s when it’s not working…they don’t even communicate…that is until after game…and the suddenly they overcome stage fright and begin the “blame game”
I would rather have a D.Va that is confident and comfortable playing D.Va than ask someone to switch to a tank they are not comfortable with. I prefer to let ppl play what they want – even if I think we might do better with another comp.
Not all players are good at every character. When PPL get mad because someone won’t switch, realize that maybe it’s better for the team if they don’t switch. Again, a mediocre Hammond/D.Va/etc is better than a crappy Zarya (or whatever tank they are not good with). So many times when people think they have the right to demand that someone switch – they have to realize that not all players are good with all characters.
And as far as PPL getting mad because 1 player impacts 5 players — again – its. a. game. It’s not worth getting so worked up, or telling ppl to kill themselves. If winning is the only thing that matters, team up with friends and don’t solo queue. Don’t expect strangers – or casual players - to place as much importance on a game (and it’s outcome) as others.
People act like you just killed their Grandmother or something – or you just killed their Pro Player prospects - or that winning in OW is life or death – some huge important aspect of their life – that is what I mean when I say its just a game.
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But how do they know it’s not working before the match begins???
And as per my first reply in this thread, in my rank most of the time people don’t actually have the awareness to know where the problem lies. Also, why complain when your team is winning?
Yes it’s frustrating when something clearly isn’t working and nobody will change to fix it, but as Coolwolf457 wrote, maybe the player(s) are really bad at the ‘on paper’ solution.
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Well it’s kinda because zen and diva are the worst in the role. You are hurting your team by picking them. It really is that simple.
You can make them work, but the skill needed to make them work is so much more than just playing what is good that it’s generally not worth doing if you’re playing for the win
Only if you have two teams playing meta comps AND they both know how to execute it properly.
That doesn’t happen much in competitive.
Except if they used to be your main and you’re that much better with them than anything else within the role that it’s actually easier for you to get value out of them than anything else. If you’re going with the effort vs reward argument then I really have to disagree with you.
What’s worse?
A) Playing an off meta hero and changing when it isn’t working.
B) Playing the meta heroes but not switching when you’re countered.
I know which one I’d choose any day.
1 Like
Nothing in this post implied that they ever played or intended to play what is considered meta. Considering what is meta these days you’d have to be pretty special to play them poorly.
The whole reason the current meta tanks are still meta below the ranks where coordinated play is used is because they are so brain dead simple that team play isn’t required. People hate double shield because all you have to do is right click as sig when Orisas shield goes down and then retract it when it’s back up.
Again, you can make it work, it’s just generally not worth the effort.
Meta hero’s is another way of saying, most durable and most effective. If this were not the case…higher Elo wouldn’t have meta’s. But hey you want to take 2-3 years thinking meta is for simple people; it took me 3…by all means knock yourself out…reach the same conclusion in 2 years.
It’s not like most people know how to play the meta at diamond or below though. I really don’t like it when people (espeically lower ranked players) are slaves to the meta: you’re not a pro, you almost certainly don’t know how to play the meta effectively, so why waste your time on Orisa/Sigma when you could be having fun on Rein/Zarya or Winston/Dva? Reaper, Doomfist, and Mei don’t have to be the trinity of dps heroes everyone always picks, there’s a whole cast to choose from. Likewise, Moira and Lucio are great, but you’re not likely going to be punished by the enemy team if you decide you want to run Ana, Mercy or even Zen.
It’s really only once you start approaching the highest levels (from my observations) that meta starts to matter.
What the hell that means lol? What is dps in disguise? 
Let’s say you are part of the “good players” community (in terms of not being an C-word, not actual skill).
- You swap when needed and with purpose.
- You don’t feed (on purpose)
- You don’t throw the game
- You understand the enemy team win conditions and its weaknesses.
If you are not, then you’ll probably get reported by random angry players.
If you’re part of those players, then :
Understand that you only do well what you do often. And this is why people want their teammates to play meta heroes, outside of the fact that they are inherently better.
Let’s say I’m a support main that plays a whole lot of Ana in high masters.
- I play Moira most of the time because the team needs it. I don’t like it very much but it’s not unfun in itself, and fun is best found in good games. I still seek opportunities to play my favourite hero if the enemy team allows it. Let’s say I play Moira quite often, Ana a bit less.
Now this is okay since I’m playing both pretty regularly.
Another case scenario :
Let’s say I’m a support main that played a whole lot of Zenyatta two months ago. I also play a lot of Moira or Lucio because of the meta, in high masters.
- According to me, I was pretty good at it.
- I’m confident in my aim.
- I’ve not played Zen for a really long time. I’m rusty. I might not realize it, but I would be more useful on another character.
- I’m used to being able to escape as Moira or Lucio. I’m used to self-sustain. I’m used to overextending a bit buuuuut just not enough to get killed thanks to my great mobility.
- Rusty on Zen, I try to get kills and chase that #golddamage #goldelims just like I could on Moira if I wanted to.
- I’m actually chasing the #golddeaths
What do I do ? I was popping as Zen merely two months ago.
Answer is, I’m not used to it anymore. Sometimes even, my teammates aren’t used to play with, let’s say, a Zen or a D.va. They forgot how to play with those heroes because they didn’t play with them in a long while.
Put it differently : I’m an Ana that played during Dive Meta.
I face Dive today, as Ana. I’m getting sandwiched, squished, zoned by the Winston. I die. I am not used to play Ana against dive anymore, so I do it wrong.
You only do well what you do often.
And if you DO play an off meta hero often, keep in mind that your teammates might not. And keep in mind that there is a better alternative.
You can never have perfect balance even though the game is advertised as perfect.
You can soft throw intentionally or unintentionally, so its is impossible to detect.
The only way is to let the poeple choose what annoys them and then MAYBE unban some cases.
Its same as social media, any controversial or hard truth post is heavily downvoted, and some get removed.
R6 is a esport game with 1 hero soooooo bad it became meme. Yet devs and poeple accept it, leave it and enjoy the rest 50x heroes.
Paper rules and real world arent perfect, sorry to burst bubble.
Hog.
And sometimes dva.