Hmm… isn’t this similar to banning heroes for a week at a time?
You said ‘removing a hero from play because of balance reasons feels like a sledgehammer’,
but is that appreciably different to ‘removing a set of heroes from play for a week because of perceived balance reasons’, I dunno about that?
Consider trying out limited hero tickets/lives (with a timer or some other way of replenishing) for one of the ‘experimental cards’, it could be interesting?
I am very excited to see the hero pool introduced, i’m not 100% confident in it but look forward to see how it plays out and how much it shifts the dynamics of the game.
I think the development team is doing an amazing job recently and i also can’t wait for the experimental mode.
First of all, thanks for responding and being understanding about our desires for quicker updates and more frequent changes.
That being said - hero pools is a BAD idea. Why?
Because if you’re aiming to hurt one-tricks, they’ll either not play or play a different hero - potentially badly. You can’t force people to play what they don’t want to play. And with the player-base already dwindling + the long queue times for support / tanks this is going to hurt more than help.
Secondly, people in Comp already get attacked for playing something other than their main. This is going to create more toxicity. “Oh we’re going to lose because you’re a Mercy one-trick who is only playing Brigitte because Mercy is out this week!” not a good idea.
And finally, we do NOT have enough heroes in Support / Tank to rationalize a change like this. Maybe if you guys hyper released 5 more Tanks and 5 more Supports an argument could be made. But the reality is, we have such a small pool of Support and Tanks that removing even 1-2 of them will cause balance issues.
So all in all, not a good decision please rethink it. It’s going to make the game even more annoying than it already is.
I’d say focus on quicker updates / balancing, release more heroes, release more maps, and maybe things will get better. Balancing will never be perfect but you can always give us more options to work with.
I wish you guys were this open to change / remove 2-2-2…
Don’t we all?
Removing 2/2/2 = cure for Queue times
I’m not completely opposed to it, but I’m not sold on it. I think maybe its good for OWL but I’m not sure if it is good for ladder.
There is a diverse range of people that play on the competitive ladder, and people don’t play every hero and shouldn’t be expected to. Some people really only play 1 hero because that is the ONLY hero they enjoy playing - its a video game so player enjoyment should really come before some players ideology about how many heroes other people should be playing.
The other thing is, I’m not sure if it is going to be good for hero diveristy in most ranks - is it going to lead to more mirror matches across the whole of ranked? Taking out tanks and supports can significantly reduce the other options available. When better balance means different combinations should have an equal chance of winning depending on individual skill.
Then there is the issue of disabling a counter to a hero. Say DVA is blocked for tanks, and all your DPS just refuse to play hitscan, and the enemy has a pharah… what do you do, just lose because your locked on tank and have no options to counter? When if you enjoy playing Mcree but dislike playing Sombra - do you just role over and die if they have Doomfist?
I don’t mind trying it out, but maybe its something that would only really be good for OWL, and maybe GM.
Then there is the other thing maybe you do play a couple of heroes in your role, but one of them is locked out - what if you are matched with another person who also only enjoys playing those two heroes? Your team is then at a disadvantage and you go back to getting some of the issues you had prior to role queue.
I also sort of feel like you are doing two changes at the same time to address the same issue, when just one would probably work on its own.
Faster more aggressive balancing means that you can “shake” the meta up more and stop it sticking at the high level anyway so why such a need to also restrict what people are allowed to play?
I’m also mildly concerned about the faster balancing/change in philosophy… I totally agree with it when you make big changes like a new hero added, or after doing a rework, or adding something like role queue in. However if the game is in a generally stable state I don’t think aggressively changing things just for the sake of change is a good thing… I hope faster balance doesn’t lead to “OP hero of the week”.
Weird shot at holistic medicine, but okay.
I don’t think this will make the game feel fresh. Right now I see very different comps every match anyway, so there will be variety in comps either way. All we will notice are the downsides of the system. There probably won’t be any benefit except for players who want to blame all their woes on a single hero, which is usually greatly exaggerated. For example, lots of people hate Doom, right? You don’t see Doom in every match anyway, so it’s not really solving anything. All it’s doing is preventing Doom players from playing the hero they want to play.
Will there be any further plans to help deter bad leaver behavior in Overwatch?
This is a big problem that needs to be remedied. I once had a bad streak of games where I had a leaver in three consecutive games. I understand that instances like that are an aberration, but it happens frequently enough that tons of players are asking for some form of solution. I have began to wonder why there can’t be some sort of key logging algorithm, maybe applied only to competitive matches, that can detect when a player intentionally leaves the game and when they are disconnected for reasons out of their control. Understandably that may be a big ask, but I don’t think it’s out of the realm of being feasible.
Aw dangit nobody asked him if we’re getting a PTR soon
Jeff, do you consider Hero Pools will bring any incentive to hero switching during a match, or to avoid mirror matchups in high-level play? Is there any plan to address these issues?
Exactly. Like, do we really see the same comps in every match? I don’t… Like, usually we’ll need a barrier main tank. So, if you ban Reinhardt then that just means the Rein player needs to play Orisa. That’s hardly diversity. Then, if you ban Ashe, players will just play Mcree, or the closest thing to their main that they can. It’s solving nothing.
Can someone suggest a banning that would actually solve an issue in the current game? Like, if they banned Bastion, then we wouldn’t see Bastion… but, was Bastion a problem? Was any hero a problem? I’m struggling to see what the benefits are besides the perceived notion that it’s going to make things more diverse, which I don’t think it will.
If a hero needs to be banned because they’re utterly overpowered, then simply nerf him/her??
Will that include Mercy-Feedback-Dumpster threads…? =_=
I am realllllly looking foreword to the Card as a Xbox player.
I have always wanted to help make OW better but seeing as i do not have a masters i can not get into Bliz.
So i get to have my dream of “working” on OW and i get to make my platform better.
Also Jeff will there be changes just for different platforms down the road.
Like how you did with Torb and Pharah?
Jeff. This all sounds very good. Will there be cosmetic changes to current heroes golden guns in OW2. Like Symmetra having a golden glove. Reinhardt having a golden Insignia? Golden Snowball/Riptire. Etc?
Exactly, it will only cause frustration, especially for Tanks and Supports. In the situation you described the Rein player (when it’s a responsible player who picks the best role for his team) will have to play Orisa for the whole duration of that hero pool. There will be less players who will want to play Tank and increase queue times.
Looks at this announcement. Collapses into a fit of helpless laughter
I give it about a month after release until the sweaty control freaks start demanding the hero pool in QP as well.
One laaaast question please, what about implementing achievements for heroes individually with glam like rewards for weapons and skins or a top 500 skin to bring more action to GM+?
Ya, I would kind of like someone here to present an example of a hero banning that would actually make a positive difference. Most heroes have sort of equivalents, like Ashe / Mcree / Widow… Yes, I know there’s differences between those heroes, but they are all hit scans. What benefit is there from banning Ashe and forcing players to pick someone like Mcree instead? 
As another player, I’m going to notice zero difference in my games, EXCEPT for when I’m denied playing the hero that I want to play, which is a negative.
Hero pools is brave, yeah. Life, brave in the sense that it’s completely idiotic but they followed through anyway.
Look, I’m not even a one-trick. I can play the entire support roster, and I do switch, voluntarily, when my first choice isn’t working out. But hell if I’m going to sign up to play support if my first choice is straight up banned, my second and third choices are the ‘suboptimal’ picks due to poor balance and/or their synergistic tank also being banned, and the only hero my teammates are going to actually want me play are the ones I normally prefer not to play. I’m fine playing my least favorite supports now and then when the need is dire, but if I’m stuck playing them all week… yeah I’m not going to. I’d rather watch paint dry.
More than anything I feel sorry for tank players. The need for a shield is not going to go away just because you ban Orisa or Rein–it just means that whoever’s on main tank is going to have one (1) choice for an entire week if Orisa or Rein is banned.
Besides, hero pools are basically throwing balance and matchmaking into the trash. I foresee weeks of completely absurd and broken balance because Blizzard banned all the heroes responsible for keeping (insert character here) in check. Then again, maybe that’s the point. Maybe Blizzard’s straight up given up on the quality of our matches and is now just using OW as a testing grounds for OW2.