I’m not sure that will be the case for the most part. While I might boycott the whole hero ban thing myself… it won’t stop most people who play the game a lot to not play at all. It might just get them to stop playing that role while their hero is out. My guess is that they’ll goof around on other roles while their hero is down if they can’t play them.
My hero (Symm 2.0) has been banned for 8 seasons now. While I quite playing comp for a good chunk of time afterwards, I ended up coming back playing it just to play the game in a structured environment. I no longer play seriously. My best and fav category (dps) and hero (Symm) I only play placements because I hate queuing for dps. This has led me to care even less about comp.
So, I’m taking this experiment and mirroring my own reaction to my banned hero. People will simply stop putting a high level of seriousness to the mode.
I don’t know about that. Comixfan plays more than one hero, but because one of their favourite heroes are banned, they won’t play at all.
I’m willing to bet that Comixfan is in a small minority with this attitude. Queue times shouldn’t change much because most people are willing to play another hero. Personally, I play to play Overwatch, not to play a certain hero.
heh! I know what you mean. Even i get irritated when peeps pull Hammond out just to spin around simply to stall point because he is so much more than that.
I suppose that we shall have to see if it is going to be Ball / Sombra this week and honestly, when using Hammond, i dislike Sombra much more than Mei.
Mei, i can see her coming from a mile away so i can still shoot her and boop her away. Moreover, it takes time for her freeze to activate and it has a shorter range than Sombra’s Hack. I cannot see Sombra, her hack totally kills my escape and even when i get her to near death, she translocates away.
Plus, she is not as cute as Mei. Heh!
Anyway, there are still a good number of characters who counter Hammond.
Hog with hook.
McCree with Flashbang + FTH
Junk with trap
Doom with slam, punch and uppercut
Ana with Dart
Lucio with boop
Brig with Bash
Soft counters:
Rein with Charge (and if necessary, Shatter)
D.Va just chases him down now because players happily spam Boost
Symm can place her turrets around him as he spins like a retard
Torb turret just keeps shooting him until he explodes (and if necessary, molten core)
Reaper counters all tanks
Moira just stands in a spot and sucks his life out.
Yeah, so it is not just Sombra. I doubt that Ball would even come close to being meta.
If anything, Rein players would be rejoicing way more than Ball OTPs. XD
I hadn’t considered this. I was being shortsighted, considering only the matches that affect me.
I would love this. It would be like the launch of Brig all over again! I remember all the salty high elo players complaining on the forums. It was fantastic.
I’ve started playing Sombra and Brig to counter the Hammonds I see in my matches. I hope you’re having good luck with him.
Eh, with Role Queue, Map Pools and now Hero Pools i think the OW i used to love is gone. It goes against what i THOUGHT the entire philosophy of the game was supposed to be. Freedom to play who you want, and on the many many great maps the game offered. No more though.
I remember a while back Blizz was looking to hire someone new to help lead the game. I want to say this was not long before Role Queue was introduced. I want to say that, since then, they’ve made drastic changes that have gone against what Jeff has always said the game was about.
I can’t say i know what’s going on with the dev team, but something is off. I don’t like it. Seriously gonna put the game down for season 21 and maybe check in on things later.
This is the Overwatch League driven game no one loves. They want to compete with CS:Go and believe doing stupid crap like this is going to make the game more exciting. They’re wrong and it will fail miserably, but who cares, right?
Nah, bro, not shortsighted at all.
Probably just overwhelmed by your passions.
When you had time to pause, i am certain that you would have thought of it. =D
I am actually with you on this as well.
It would be interesting to see how things really shake up when Rein + Lucio are benched.
Although it certainly would be less jarring now that people are diversifying their hero pool.
dam u, Sombra!
Brig, i can still live with because it is just a whip and Bash is on super long cooldown with both abilities doing negligible dmg.
but Sombra! Argh!
ha ha!
well, idk, in 23 hours of QP, i have had 109 wins.
Then when i finally was somewhat confident after all the 23 hours, i tried playing him in Comp mode games towards the end of the season.
The experience was overall good but there were some weird disturbances in the SR force.
I will go and do placements once the weekend is over and see how it goes. =)
I suppose because we all play the same game and if different hero pools are used for the OWL and the game, i think that the outcry and fallout would be tremendous and honestly, from both a corporate and developer standpoint, that would be undesirable.
Yeah, it shoul’ve probably been both. Testing something out in an Arcade mode and Comp are two very different things, but I still think all the hate Blizzard’s getting for not banning Rein right away. Like, even if they did, he’d be back next week. Let them dip their toe into the water first before jumping in.
Yeah, i don’t think many people would watch NBA basketball if they just decided to do away with the point guard for a week, just to be different. It’s a gimmick. I certainly want to see the WHOLE game. Not 4 heroes crossed out just for kicks. That cheapens the game, imo.
I guess I could expand your NBA analogy by saying that the same point guard doesn’t play the entire game, series, or season. So a hero ban (for a week or month) is similar to a player sitting on the bench for a series or two.
That would be like ME uninstalling Overwatch for a week. So what if a single player sits out. Ovewatch is saying “the entire ‘position’ of Mei, the only dps who can freeze things and put up walls, can not be played this week”
It really is like saying “No Pointguard” or maybe in the NFL something like “No Left Guard”
Then Pointguard is a hero. If i said “Guard” then you might wonder if it’s shooting guard or point guard. The same way i’d say “DPS” is banned, you’d wonder which one. But to say “Point guard” then you know exactly which “hero” is taken out of the game. There’s just one of those.
Edit: I get it though. I can see, NBA doesn’t have 31 heroes. Maybe something like the NFL is a better comparison. To say that the Tight End is banned for a week is probably closer to what OW is doing.
