There’s a pattern throughout overwatch history in which the balance team is met with a major balance problem, they don’t know how to balance out of it so they create a cop out to fix the problem, which always creates more problems.
Cop out 1: Dive was hard meta, they didn’t know how to balance out of it so they created Brig.
Cop out 2: Brig created hard goats meta, they didn’t know how to balance out of it so they created role lock.
Cop out 3: Double shield kept creeping into the meta, they didn’t know how to balance out of it so they created 5v5.
5v5 has caused the largest tank shortage in OW history because it’s miserable to play. Switching heroes is used solely to counter the tank, so tanking has become a game of constantly switching to avoid 5 people switching to hard counter you. The balance team once again is put in a situation where they need to come up with a solution to a major problem.
The best solution would be to revert to 6v6, but blizz devs don’t like to admit they made mistakes so that’s not going to happen.
Cop out 4: Draft pick one hero locked in per game, no switching.
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You forgot the Double Winston meta leading to hero limit.
About Brig, there’s no way they “didn’t know how to balance” considering how broken she was. Imo, they did want to flip the table of metas but they got just too far. But almost OW1 additional heroes have been problematic.
Afaik Role Lock was also to cut off all the discussion about team composition when people finally realised they could play 3 /1/2 instead of 2/2/2.
About 5v5, its probably because the tank queue was empty and tank was the most boring role to play.
I’m not sure they’re going for hero locking for one game as there are still counters and it would emphasize heavy metas. On top of that, there’s no in-game progression so playing 20min the same hero can end up being just boring.
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No Limits 6v6 was the best the game has ever been, imo. Sure there was some cheese, but it wasn’t easy to pull off and you had about 100,000 extra options to try and stop it.
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Maybe for a casual game, but no limits made comp absurd. In fact I don’t think many people would even be happy with no limits casually. If that was in the game right now it would just be invincible 6 moira comps. You really can’t balance no limits at all.
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Six Dvas trump six Moiras pretty hard. Hell even 3 Dvas can make her orbs useless. This kind of thinking is so much more fun than 5v5 RQ imo. How would you counter six Bastions or Torbs?
Only in the highest levels. Below diamond couldn’t even pull off GOATS, so the cheese wouldn’t matter for the vast majority of ladder.
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so what issue is hero lock supposed to fix?
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It would make tank not suck completely and not a completely miserable experience. But again, I think 6v6 is the far better option, but if they’re gonna stick with 5v5 I’d rather have no hero swaps.
D.Va players when they’re against Zarya/Mei/Sym/Brig and they can’t swap
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Imo the 5v5 problem comes from both lack of feedback coming from the game and the players having no idea how to play (and therefore matchmaking).
Meeting DPS that focus tanks, supports that don’t follow flankers or tank diving without any warning/looking back is what makes the game feels miserable.
5v5 makes everyone having an impact but if anyone does some mistake, you feel immediately the gap.
The game fails to tell players when they’re doing something good or not because of quick snowballing effect you have in teamfights.
And when matchmaking puts lower rank tanks with higher tank supports, players can’t suddenly learn and everyone gets bitter about it.
5v5 itself ain’t a bad idea, but it seems they didn’t have (or take) the time to polish it… When you read that devs say “stomps” comes from the ultimate resource being stronger in 5v5, shows that they didn’t/couldn’t think about it between 2019 and 2022. OW2 development is just messy as hell.
Locking to one hero wouldn’t imrpove anything. You’d either see people quitting cause the learning curve would be even harder than it is now ; or heroes completely abandoned as they would have worse matchups.
It would also makes stomps even stronger and quicker… like, your doomfist has died twice in less than 2 minutes, you’re stuck with that player for the rest of the game… good luck… And you couldn’t blame the player for not knowing the enemy comp or not instant learning their hero.
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I don’t think they’ll ever abandon hero swapping. First of all, it doesn’t solve the problem.
Right now if you are doing well on D.Va the enemy might maybe swap to Zarya to try and counter you. But you can also swap and possibly continue to win with another tank.
Without hero swapping, what happens if you start on D.Va and they roll out of spawn with Zarya and Sym from the start? If D.Va isn’t working for you then you just die.
Yes rock paper scissors sucks. But it not the idea of swapping that needs to change. What needs to change is that counters need to be softer. Weaknesses less pronounced, still there just not quite as sharp.
Removing H in spawn fixes nothing. Almost nobody wants that while many people asked for role locking of some sort. They aren’t the same.
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Getting rid of switching would require them to actually balance the game. Which they don’t clearly want to do
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I disagree, yes it prevents counterwatch, however if by some luck chance you get fully countered by the enemy since the start its a gg before it even started, the only logical solution is 6v6 but we will never get it back since 5v5 is aarons baby and the main change of “OW 2”
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The issue is, Overwatch is not like League of Legends. Fixed comps work in League because that game gives you items to help you build against your counter. Overwatch has no such thing.
There are heroes in the game who simply cannot do anything against certain heroes. So your team can end up losing before the game even begins.
This.
They didn’t do it when it came to role queue. They didn’t do it when it came to 5v5.
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That just makes the tank situation worse lol
Right now if they pick the tank who counters you, you can swap and counter them back. With no switching it just doubles down on the countering and is even worse
At least right now if you pick dva and they pick zarya you can swap off dva. What you are suggesting is to not even have the ability to swap off dva in that scenario which is just worse for everyone involved. The dva still cant play vs zarya but doesnt even have the opportunity to make a difference
Wouldn’t make more sense to have the pros play on a separate patch… like different then the normal game
Cause they have more play time and have coaches… Scrims and practice, getting advice on how to play a specific Hero or playstyle
Cause right now the thought process is having the pros and casuals play on the same patch… and we can see that it isn’t working out… so why not change it up???
That’s not possible with a draft pick. Look to league of legends for draft pick example. The only way your team is getting fully countered is if your team is dumb enough to counter themselves in the draft. Nobody does e sports quite like Riot, they have a very good draft system to ensure a fair match where everyone gets equal opportunity to counter.
Then the second tank to chose already won, say i choose dva, enemy team sees it and the chose zarya now we are locked like that for the rest of the game, no
League of Legends is not as counter heavy as Overwatch.
In League, if I run Volibear and someone picks Vayne I can still win. It would be a horrible fight for me, but I can still counter her with summoner spells and items. In addition I can try to out level her and I still have my Jungler.
In Overwatch, if I pick Reaper and someone runs Pharah, that basically just makes me useless. There is no chance I am winning against a Pharah as Reaper. In fact if your team lacks a hitscan or Echo, your not winning vs Pharah.
However most players don’t play like an E-sports team. Even in League, you still get people who play whatever they want regardless of role.
Even so, League is more about what can you do as an individual person. Overwatch is the opposite of that, its about what you can do as a team. This is why League has draft pick and Overwatch does not. League wants you to work with what you got. Overwatch wants you to adapt and adjust to your situation.
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Zarya into dva is the hardest counter in the world and should be addressed directly as it’s very unhealthy for the game. Once you take that hard counter out of the equation, you can’t make that statement with any other tanks can you? Draft pick gives equal opportunity to counter. Sometimes you might be at a slight disadvantage in a tank matchup but in a draft pick that also means someone on your team is countering the tank that’s countering you.
I’m not gonna continue to argue over the details of a draft pick though when we don’t know the details. If it happens in overwatch it’s not going to be identical to leagues draft pick, it’s going to be it’s own draft that works for overwatch.