No more switching heroes

People have been complaining about balancing issues but I think a core mechanic of the game that causes balance to be so difficult is the fact that you can switch heroes mid match. I think that if we didn’t have the ability to swap heroes, then heroes who would be considered ‘niche’ could be balanced in a way that they could be viable throughout the match. Then conversations about how to be the most effective with heroes would come rather than the simpler ‘swap to a better character’

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I dont wanna sound rude but this is the worst idea ive ever heard of

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This type of post has popped up a couple time lately.

Couple thoughts to repeat what others have mentioned in other posts…

The game has always been about switching. Switching to counter the other team, or place on the map. So it’s just in the DNA of the game.

If you couldn’t switch, you’d have to be prepared for people constantly leaving matches because they didn’t like the team makeup and would consider the match lost before it played out (say Junk into Phara…that kind of thing).

Ultimately, in general, switching isn’t the issue IMHO, it’s when people don’t know when to switch, or to what.

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Imagine if your DPS locks in as Symmetra and Junkrat and the enemy team chooses Pharah

GG can’t switch heroes

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I think the problem with switching is that some people are willing to switch but others doesn’t. You also can’t pick the hero you need if they are taken already.

Either way, I think Paladins did it better by having every hero capable of dealing in many situations rather than having dps who plays junkrat when the enemy has pharah.

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It would be a completely different game. It may or may not be a good different game, but I know they will never be willing to change this.

If they did though they would be able to balance it like WoW where they at least attempt in spirit to balance every class 1 to 1.

The hero lock works for games where you have other ways to change the character to fit the situation: gun choice, loadout changes, card or item systems that give bonuses, etc. Overwatch bakes all the variability into the hero choice, hence the need to swap heroes.

Unless there is a fundamental shift in the base game, I don’t see a hero lock system being viable.

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If you think about it, after the 1 hero limit and 222, OW is already a completely different game anyway from what it once was.

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I agree, but that other game was bad.

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there really should at least be an arcade gamemode which prohibits hero swapping after selecting initial hero just for the fun of it.
one of devs goal for ow2 is for everyone to be more impactful and niche heroes will be less of a problem as they are right now

Was it? I got it because it was actually fun during the open beta and no other game let you do that. Now is more like an average class based game.

There actually was and it didn’t work because hard counters and pure luck of which heroes the teams will pick.

It was amusing because nobody had any idea what they were doing. Once people figured it out it lost the appeal.

During the era where you could stack 6 of the same hero you were playing a game of rock paper scissors for the beginning of the match. Someone could choose 6 Roadhogs and if the enemy didn’t pick 6 Roadhog counters then you won the first point.

Then during the era of no roles the matches were determined by which side was willing to player healer and tank. Sometimes you could win with 4-5 DPS, but more often then not you would just lose at the hero selection screen.

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when and what’s the name of it?

There is Elimination mode and Mystery Heroes which prevent you from hero swapping, but it isn’t the standard game.

but mystery heroes doesn’t let you choose the hero you desire and it switches everytime you die. and elimination is 3v3 on small section of some maps
the mode i’m talking about is choosing your desired hero and then not being able to switch said hero till the end of the game, would allow for some interesting moments

You could but it wasn’t optimal. People only do it now in no limits to overcompensate for not being able to do that anymore.

The things may actually have been different if Blizzard tried to balance for no limits but they were pretty quick to add the 1 hero limit.

ya might wanna check paladins mate

I will switch to sym, and you will like it.

I’m pretty sure it was optimal. I remember many of those games and there was literally nothing you could do if you didn’t happen to mass counter the enemies hero stack.

It is an easy to fix issue either way. Just have penalty for excessive stacking.