Since beta and season 1 of competitive the game has consistently had degrees of freedom trimmed away. Originally you could play any team composition, with no limits. Then duplicate hero choices were removed. This was said to be a “necessary evil” change that would totally fix the meta. Guess what: it didn’t. The meta got worse, and players lost a degree of choice on top of it. Fun and inventive compositions disappeared from competitive.
Next came 2-2-2. Again, a change posited to be a “necessary evil” that would totally fix the meta. Guess what: it didn’t. Everyone hated Orisa-Hog and doubleshield even more than GOATS. More player freedom & unique compositions disappeared from Overwatch.
Now comes hero pools. Another “necessary evil” change that is totally going to fix the meta. I’ll give you a quick preview: it won’t. The flaw in the game isn’t that the meta is unchanging, the flaw is that the essential balance of the game is incredibly bad. If you ban one hero composition through pools, the next best composition becomes meta - and as the game’s balance is in a pitiful state, that next-best composition will be just as hated. That’s exactly what happened when GOATS was banned. Everyone hated the replacement metas even more, although they were brand new.
Hero pools represent the most drastic and severe restriction on player freedom yet. They disable loved characters from the game wholesale. Adding hero pools to Overwatch is a ham-fisted, incompetent attempt at compensating for the developer team’s inability to balance the game. They are also likely, on some level, an example of OWL eating Overwatch: it is clear from the developer update that OWL specifically requested hero pools to increase viewership (meta stagnance is a oft-reported reason why people do not watch OWL) and the mechanic ended up being forced on the game as a result.
I don’t think people immediately realize how this change is going to diminish the competitive mode. It will no longer be possible to train any particular hero in competitive. You will frequently start up the game and discover the hero you want to practice has been disabled. Players will most likely retreat into an ESEA-style pickup game system in order to get good quality practice.
142 Likes
Yall hate everything on the forums. Hero pools is a great idea
145 Likes
Overwatch: Literally the worst gaming community ever. All time.
64 Likes
You replied ten seconds after the post. Try reading more than the title.
50 Likes
I am a bit skeptical too. I am afraid of the countering being affected. Ban df genji, leave hanzo and widow. Well good luck killing them.
7 Likes
I told you all – forced heroes was going to be the next step after forced roles.
26 Likes
now that is important to remember
Players in competitive should be allowed to play any composition they desire - it is a place to improve and to hone new tactics. There is no money on the line.
24 Likes
I really don’t care to read the whole post, I gathered enough information from the title & first sentence. Hero pools are a good idea. If people can’t play the game if their hero isn’t available in comp for a week, that’s fine, it’s just a week.
15 Likes
No. They can balance the game however they want because it’s their game. If you don’t like it then you can play the many other modes this won’t be in.
6 Likes
This is basically hero bans from other games, except the developers are picking which heroes to ban. I don’t know if this is the answer, but to say any experimentation at all is a bad thing is nonsensical.
That’s kinda the point of the experiment if the community overwhelmingly doesn’t like it then the feedback will represent that.
10 Likes
hero pools solves every problem hero bans does without bringing any of the issues it brings.
only OTPS are angry about this.
21 Likes
I agree 100% a lot of us are cool, but as a collective, its super toxic
Its no longer game about choice. I guess i gona play arcade mostly until gets bored of it anyway. Gona do last normal season tho map pool alredy killed rest of my interest into forcing myself to play comp.
7 Likes
TL;DR. Hero pools are probably fine. It’s a competitive mode. It’s not supposed to be a limitless mode where you can do anything. QP is completely untouched by this, so go nuts, people apparently tryhard on that now anyway. It’s basically ranked-lite without SR numbers.
11 Likes
Goodbye Hanzo, widow, Doomfist one tricks. Better start working on your Torb right now.
2 Likes
Biggest restriction on the user experience is balancing decisions based on what 1% of the playerbase likes/dislikes at any given moment. That is still far more problematic than Hero pools. Hopefully experimental cards changes that.
3 Likes
I don’t think the players commenting “Haha, this is going to OWN all the widow/doomfist/mei/hanzo/etc. onetricks that I hate” are thinking this over clearly. There are vastly less support & tank characters in the game, and they are more meta-defining than DPS. Statistically speaking, support & tank players are vastly more likely to have their heroes disabled by hero pools. The heroes Jeff listed as being disabled next week are Sigma, Orisa, Mei, and Moira. Two tanks, a support, and one DPS.
12 Likes
At least this is the nicest, most fair version we could get and it forces everyone to take a turn having their main banned instead of the same 4 heroes.
9 Likes