I actually think it’s not a bad idea to mix things up a bit and break the meta. The problems I do foresee is that many will be discouraged to play Hero Pools and as a result, it may extend the queue times again. Also it will restrict many players from playing their favourite heroes if they are excluded.
Time will tell I suppose… 
First thought.
But i dont want to force myself to game that alredy is boring because of map pool, play solo in 222, and now this.
This is terrible for me…
Hey Jeff,
Major Kudos on finding a WAY better solution than Hero Bans.
I’m very excited to test out this Hero Pool idea! =)
I play solo mostly as tanks. Just mute everything and do your best
For the first 5 weeks, we will be trying a range to see what feel right. We’ve architected this system so that we can update the hero pools without the need to patch. So we’ll be monitoring feedback very closely, experimenting a bit with the pool and adapting our strategy as time goes on.
Muting dont change fact that game on 222 alone is not fun. And ranked is mode i play solo mostly.
Map pool make me play over and over same maps
And now i gona have to pick witch week i actualy can do placements on what role.
Would you consider rotating hero pools once every few days instead? one week is far too long, in my opinion, and once every match may come across as too hectic.
I think Hero Pools are a good idea.
But it’s a solution to a problem that only exists in Masters/GrandMasters and maybe some portion of Diamond.
Plat and below don’t really “suffer from the meta”.
As such I’d suggest the following restriction:
Hero Pools should only apply to games where the cumulative SR of both teams is above 3250SR.
The card won’t be ready until end of Feb.
For now, you can test it by not playing Torb for the week.
Next week, don’t play Symmetra.
=]
only playing with ya…
It’ll be great ! So far my favorite dev update, especially combined with the experimenting card. Game will be quite dynamic. It’ll keep things fresh and give the devs insight into different aspects of the actual game instead of being confined to observing a stale meta.
How would you gauge whether it’s a positive change in this case?
Also, are there any plans to add more heroes to roles that are lacking? I.e. Tank and Support
Are there any plans to make off tanks a bit more relevant again?
As with 2/2/2, people feel very pressured to maximize damage mitigation over the utility off tanks provide (often damage and peel) and this should be reflected by your internal stats too, with main tanks and anchor tanks such as Reinhardt and Orisa being highly favored over the likes of Roadhog and Zarya.
It would certainly speed the pace of the game up a bit…
Refund me please, you guys are ruining the game i used to love
Jeff, if you have a static meta, it’s because you’re doing a poor job at balancing. Make more frequent, smaller changes so that every hero is viable in some situations. Removing heroes from the pool is a horrible idea. Tracer one tricks get to go up 500 SR the week Winston is removed, and then ruin games for their team the next month once he’s back and they fall back down? Pharah drops to 0% pick rate because you removed Mercy? Doomfist wrecks everything because you removed McCree? The game is about constantly adjusting your composition MID-GAME to the changes the other team makes. By restricting that, you’re ruining what makes Overwatch Overwatch.
It’s pretty nice to hear from you guys & what thoughts you have about it.
Would it be possible if we’d got scoreboard in the future too? And what do ya think about it?
I think it’d add more to the game than the current medal system & such.
Yes. We’ve definitely considered it. Let’s try a week and see how it feels and if we need to make adjustments we will. But yeah… we’ve talked about rotating every day. We’ve also talked about rotating every match. We don’t like going longer than a week because we want more heroes played… but open to feedback.
Have you considered doing game mode rotations at some point? I know we don’t have too many at the moment but if you were to add more game modes in the future (like the new one that will be in OW2) it would be fun to see this. I’d love to see a team version of “keep away” where a player carries an item and is defended by their team vs. the enemy, I would think this would help with utilizing the entire map rather than just certain points.
Oh no he said symmetra this totally means a rework
Its good that you are saying that if people dont like it you won’t continue with it. I think most people are scared that once you bring something, you wont take it away no matter how the feedback is.