Hero pools is a brave and holistic change

[Dysvalence-1915]

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.

Has the team considered rotating one character in and out of the pool at a faster interval than a week?

[Profiteroles-11953]

Hi Jeff, this is my feedback:
When Mercy is banned, I will not complain. I will just play Hearts of Iron 4 for a week.

I have 1000+ hours on Mercy and 55 on Lucio, my second most played support. And I’m already two levels below my Mercy rank with the other roles I play (mostly as Dva and Sombra). So you can see that I’m serious. All I’d be doing by playing another support is lose SR without any fun at all.

Last time Jeff posted he made it pretty clear on the devs thoughts of 1 tricks (from a decision making standpoint)

[FruityXNinja-11850]

no [i have to type twenty characters even though i work here]

LOL

I’M CACKLING

20Chars

[HeartOfRuins-1575]

If you guys do end up making more aggressive changes more frequently, would hero pools be super necessary?

Also, are you worried about how support or tank players may feel, there would be a serve lack of tanks and supports for people to play in this model. Would you be worried, that while it would change the meta up more frequently, the lack of options, which are being limited even more now with hero pools, would make tanks feel like there out of options.

Also, what would happen if say, this created a severe imbalance, and potential to make queue times even longer, because the new pool for that time felt very, painful to play again, thus causing que times to increase even more?

Has the dev team considered adding in more characters? Specifically, more tanks and supports, by having more options in these areas, it could help increase the diversity in the meta, and also in heroes.

For example, having a tank which could potentially steal shield health from an enemy’s shield, but it being a personal shield, this would give a counter to double shields, while also making it so that your team wouldn’t have double shield, as that tank would not have one.

I, along with a lot of my friends, who have been playing this game faithfully since release. Feel like a lot of this games issues could be solved if you guys let loose on your creativity and released heroes more frequently.

By adding in more characters, it will allow the meta to have more options, because there will be more options, and this could also help with you guys having to balance so severely, by having more options, you’ll be able to tweak people only a bit, and it could be flip the entire meta, because there would be a less distinct scale of power.

This obviously opens up a some huge issues, but it could perhaps solve some of the biggest ones right now…though I know you are all very busy working OW2, I’m just worried that even with hero pools, and the drastic balance changes, it will not be enough.

[XellOs-11913]

Practice other heroes? why? I wanna play the hero I enjoy isnt that the point of playing “video games” in the first place?

There are other video games that are more suited to players who don’t want to adapt. Overwatch was literally created with hero swapping in mind. I’d suggest finding a game that better suits what you enjoy or staying out of competitive.

[Renegade-21659]

haha cheeky
i hope you have fun with the game because that is a key tell that the game is going in a good direction.

my only concern with this is that it might flood the more casual modes with these characters that are not in the competitive map pool so those specific players might just play something else in competitive or they might just go to an alternative source to get their fill of that specific character.

but i’m actually pretty stoked for OWL.
might actually see some creativity coming out, but i guess it’ll be really peak stress for the pro players in the league now as they have to learn new metas very quickly.

but none the less, fun stuff, happy to see you guys mixing it up a bit.

[Misguided-1468]

I’d love to be able to see stats associated with each replay on my profile page. Hopefully that’s under consideration.

[Cerburus437-1424]

Has your stance on reworks changed since blizzcon or is there perhaps one planned for our favorite omnic minigun?

[Profiteroles-11953]

workshop creators will really love some of the changes Zach and Dan made to the feature. they listened to their feedback very closely and all of it is in response to what creators wanted. really proud of them for their work!

prays for a way to make ‘pyro dodgeball’

[Cerebrum123-1794]

But really this should be viewed as a fun an exciting change to Season 21 (we wanted Seasons to feel different, right?). And time will tell what happens after…

No, it should be viewed as what it is, another sledgehammer. Removing a character for balance reasons is a sledgehammer according to your own words. This is true regardless of whether the players or developers wield said sledgehammer.

A very large amount of nerfs to one character is worse than either of those two options though, because it effects everyone, even in quick play and arcade.

Edit: I do want to thank you for engaging with the forums. I have often disagreed with your decisions, but communicating with those of us who are willing to do so will benefit both players and Blizzard.

[NaokiB4U-1416]

Well, there’s another issue with this. If you change it too often, things will be chaotic as people will be confused as to what the meta would be for a certain week (or a day or 3 days).

You’re actually explaining why this mode may end up being successful. The point is to not allow players to figure out the meta. The point is to keep things fresh, keep players on their toes, and kind of in a way expose one trick frauds for what they are. The point of the mode is force player creativity instead of saying “Welp XXX hero is meta so must play them.”

[Lockout29-1483]

Are you guys ever going to address the dps q times it’s been so long and literally nothing has changed clearly there is very little concern on this subject which is shocking

And why won’t anyone from blizz talk about the solution that many people have brought up in some form or another: high priority in dps q for getting a win as tank or support

Even if you say why you think it’s bad or why you won’t implement this solution that is better than saying nothing on something that clearly would fix the problem and work immediately that is also easy to implement. It is neglectful not to mention or discuss this solution to q times especially when you have discussed the idea of 132 being tested

[JeffreyKaplan (Jeff Kaplan)]

I have to ask though, what is the point of having super fast and drastic balance changes if we are just going to be enforcing weekly metas with hero pools anyways? Like what is the point of nerfing or buffing a hero if they can only be played whether they are in that week’s pool or not?

Historically, even when we have done consistent and dramatic balance changes, it takes the meta a long time to shift. We’d love it if balance or player creativity alone would shift the meta fast enough to meet player’s demands.

[FruityXNinja-11850]

workshop creators will really love some of the changes Zach and Dan made to the feature.

I’m getting too excited tbh

[saltburn-1639]

I’m very happy to see that you are very active on these threads lately and helping us understand a little bit more of these frequent updates!

[Deprece-11667]

If the Dev team decides to change up the Hero Pool functionality quickly, how would that effect the OWL Hero pool system?

[CoolUsername-11445]

no [i have to type twenty characters even though i work here]

Secret trick

[ToxicZarya-2430]

Just out of curiosity, why is it that you guys are trying hero pools instead of player controlled hero bans?

[Socrates-11282]

You’re actually explaining why this mode may end up being successful.

Chaos isn’t a good thing, especially too much of it.
One day your best hero is available and you climb, but the next day they are banned so you fall.

[Korda-1792]

is there a ban protection for popular heroes?
will lets say mercy, banned one week, than played alot next week, will she be protected not to be banned 3rd week again?
whats the plan?