Hero pools is a brave and holistic change

General Discussion
347

come on mr. jeff (papa kaplan, if you will) LOL

type random words in between <> it won’t show up

but can this update also clean up the first drop down menu of the career profile?
for some reason (probably 222) the seasons started putting themselves on top of the earliest played season

oh another thing, can you add back the hover over profile shows the top 3 most played heroes for those with a public profile?

maybe show a lock on the social screen for players who are private

or even let people customize what they want to/not to show

2 Likes
348

I sure hope hero pools doesn’t backfire. Right now I can queue for any class because I am always sure I have enough heroes that I enjoy and can switch to to better fit my team’s comp or better counter the enemy’s comp.

If I knew a certain tank was blocked from competitive for a week I might not be interested to play only support or face the incredible long dps queue, nor do my friends want an extended queue all the time, because I insisted. The interest falls especially if I have a friend who overlaps in his hero choices with mine and then we would have to end up “fighting” over said hero, because the others are not in the hero pool (hasn’t happened yet, because thankfully I am like 1% of the tank players that enjoys playing Orisa, haha, but still a thought to keep in mind and not immediately obvious in statistics).

I also absolutely hope that it won’t be straight up hero bans in public games.

However, I can definitely see the option in the future that people could vote for certain heroes to be blocked from comp for each week and then the top 3-5 most voted characters are the ones removed from the hero pool for the following week. The voting pool could also be influenced by rank so a platinum player “adds” his votes to all the diamond’s and gold’s votes too, and a master’s would also count for diamond’s and gm’s votes. And to limit abuse, characters can’t be voted two or three weeks in a row. As a QoL the vote should also be changeable until a certain deadline (which could help to see certain trends if people actively change their votes).

This is then effectively hero ban for OWL, which is fine for me. The pros, and custom games, can do what they want, but I don’t want strangers on the internet to have that same power over what I can do (the classic problem with team games).

In total, this is what the pros wanted, as far as I know, and I am fine them getting what they want. It is a much more flexible system than straight up “hero bans”, but it also easily has the potential to make the game more and less enjoyable for me, and I am not looking forward to something less enjoyable.

It’s a shame that the devs have to “force” a meta change with this and balance changes though. On the upside, now every nerf to characters I like could be reverted in just a few weeks. I did like the balance for stability a lot though and hope that concept hasn’t fully disappeared from the balancing process.

Hope it all turns out alright, so I can keep enjoying the game too.

Best Regards.

349

One of the questions I have though is about the impact it will have on lower ranks. I get that Blizzard will probably try and choose which heroes to “ban” based on the feedback of higher tier players, but I am afraid that this might ruin the experience for the lower ranks. Let’s take Genji as an example. The devs wants more genji in games, maybe to increase its pickrate or winrate, so they probably remove heroes that prevents genji from playing correctly (they “ban” genji counters). While this application may work for high level games like GMs and such, I am worried that this might make the game unplayable for lower ranks where some heroes like genji are really hard to counter properly because most players here lack the mechanical skills needed to kill him.

I’m all in for balanced, fun and fair games, but if the Hero Pool system means that plat (and below) players have to suffer for the top end meta, then it’s probably better to disable it for some ranks, or make it rank specific. I’m interested in seeing what could become of gold rank without Moira and Reaper as an example. But this wouldn’t have much impact on GM atm so Blizzard will probably not do it.

1 Like
350

I think they will find out quickly that this won’t help.

How will they decide what hero’s to ban?
Will we know what hero’s are banned before selecting comp play?
What will they do if it jacks queue times up even more?
What will they do if players dislike the bans and quit playing altogether?

There are a million what if’s that will likely arise, but will they be answered?

351

This is certainly not what I was expecting when they were talking “big changes”. I’m honestly shocked.

I’m currently not sure how I feel about a limited hero pool. It’s like a weird version of hero bans in a way. I wonder how they’re going to deal with this without making people steer clear even further from the tank pool (I mean if they take away too many tanks, obviously people will be turned away. The same with healers. As if you take away only 1 from each class, it’s not gonna shake things up enough. 2 or 3? You could potentially take away a person’s entire hero pool, as most people I know usually only have about 3 characters per pool, sometimes more sometimes less) and without making the DPS queue even longer in return, because you know if they take away enough heroes people will just go to DPS or not play until their heroes are back.

It’s definitely interesting though! I’m interested to see this put in place, and watch with popcorn from afar to see if it’s hit or miss.

1 Like
352

you can do whatever you want

don’t worry we won’t tell anyone
nobody will notice if you type it small enough

idk how it works, but you could compare the ip address for accounts, and if its similar/same (not sure how this works though) maybe raise the level before comp gets unlocked?

idk, just an idea

my man

i just want your feedback :sob:

also is there a way you could publish stats (maybe updated daily/weekly) like overbuff but more accurate?

dang it this was my chance to get a response from you for the first time
:((((

353

Would you consider potentially having it be a unique pool to every single match in testing? Would feel like competitive mystery heroes without duplicates or forced swap every time! Just work with whatever you get in the pool and make it work!

354

Can you PLEASE consider releasing the official hero data? You know, casting times, DPS, HPS, movement speed etc. Basically what the Overwatch Wiki does, but with official data. Also please consider releasing your pickrate/winrate data.

356

Its long overdue, and frankly, probably 10 seasons too late as Season 3 is likely the “make or break” season for OWL.

Regardless, I love it - as someone who enjoys playing different characters, I focus on 2 per role, but also some offs per role as well and this opens that up as well with guilt-free gaming. Its also nice that the mediocre JR doesn’t suddenly show his 500 hour Genji play in pools where Genji is restricted and just flipping the game last minute.

357

Yeah, don’t do this. I mean, a week or a few days not playing because there are no heroes left we’re confident on I think we can take, but going into a match and being confronted with Support options of Lucio, Brigitte, Moira, probably aren’t going to end well for me.

On the other hand I might actually play the hell out of a week not having to face Reaper, Hanzo and Mei :smiley:

1 Like
358

Beautifully put. I really like this. It’s a change for us to try. While I don’t think I like it for lower ranks, I’m still down to try it!

1 Like
359

I can imagine it being fun ! 222 is fun too. Why not have both, randomized just like maps and modes ?

360

If your new speedy-hero balance works out, I don’t think hero pools will be needed.

Guess time will tell.

361

Please please please tell me a hero editor is getting added to the work shop.

362

I don’t see the point in hero pools if you are already going to be balancing more frequently and aggressively. These two approaches will just disturb one another. How to balance when the pool changes all the time?

On weeks when Sigma is banned I prolly won’t be Qing for tank, as he is the only tank I enjoy from the ones I can play decently. If the pools happen randomly each match I will prolly stop playing comp.

Limited hero selections are not fun. 2-2-2 is different, and I believe was a good step for the way the game is designed. Hero pools on top of 2-2-2 however is too restrictive for the tank and supp roles with the current hero roster.

363

:fire: :fist_right: :fist_left: :fire:

364

Team players will always find the best hero for the team.

1-trick egoists will be pushed out of comp.

great and brave move.

365

Also flex players will be out of comp: they can only learn few heroes x roster, if 1 of them is removed basically they can’t play that role

366

did you consider a contract system where everyone gets a contract to play certain heroes for a certain number of games if they accept it they can only choose those heroes and they get a reward for completing it?
or a system where you gain less sr playing the same hero(es) over and over again? and i think if you guys went w/ that system and gave it a UI element that shows the player gets less sr for playing this character (like on top of the hero there’s a tiny sr multiplier) it’d enforce choosing multiple heroes w/o a hero pool system (although i do understand why this wouldn’t work at the very peak of the ladder)

367

I dont think you understand what flex play means…