What do you mean? I don’t have to try hero pools to know it is a restriction on the game.
They haven’t been able to balance this game for years and hero pools just further shows this.
Op has no idea on how difficult it is to balance a game like OW. Instead of complaining and saying how incompetent the devs are, how about you give us some solutions. No solutions? Then stop acting like you know better than the devs.
I prefer to play comp over QP because it’s more even and fair and people actually try to win (normally). But with these hero pools I’m not sure I will play comp anymore.
Do we know this? It seems in OWL it will be random. Also, I wonder how they will pick what is most popular? Will it be across all ranks or will it once again be determined by the top 1% for all of us?
How will these two even work together…? What is the point in hero pools if they are already going to do aggressive balancing? Or, how will they balance, when the pool will keep changing? It just seems like a completely counterproductive mess.
The changes in the last patch were pretty aggressive and I thought that was the start of this new way. Then they ruin it with hero pools.
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This is what every game does at a certain point. Especially team based hero based games. The more heroes you have the harder balance becomes to the point when the only thing you can do is implement some type of ban system.
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I disagree that all restrictions are bad all the time.
Its on the OWL website which does not say it is random at all so idk where you got that from.
Really, it is basic mathematics to balance any game, OW is no different.
How about making slight tweaks to the game once a week, instead of major balance shifting patches once every few months that continually make the game worse?
Look at Mercy 2.0 she was broken for about a full YEAR. These devs are hopeless.
You don’t need to be a game dev to know when a games balance is trash. You make a super great strawman argument though.
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This is actually the biggest problem with the hero pool idea. The heroes are supposed to be balanced around all the other heroes in the game. Some will have stronger match-ups, some will have weaker match-ups; I may switch to try and counter you, or I may switch to try and dictate the terms of play, or both.
Outright removing heroes from the game is going to provide some players with a free pass to run wild on everyone else, even though the game is designed around both teams having the ability to respond to any threat the opposing team cooks up.
Think of all the worst rounds you’ve ever had and whether they involved you saying something like “no one is dealing with their Tracer/Pharah/Widow/Hanzo/Doom!” You may be in for many more.
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Overwatch doesn’t even have that many heroes compared to a lot of games though lol.
The balance has gone from bad to worse for a couple years now.
A lot of people don’t understand this because they are simply new to Overwatch. They have never known any version of Overwatch besides the current day version, which is a joke compared to the early patches.
While this game is indeed more difficult to balance than others due to new synergies and strats popping within a week after 1 gets patch but that doesnt excuse their sloth like balance times up to now but im happy that theyre going to be implementing more changes more often.
Ok. Thanks. Someone mentioned it here on the forum. Well it says it will be random from the popular selection in OWL at least.
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“I see you’re having fun, how about we remove widowmaker so you can have fun going against pharmercy”
“Wrecking ball is not picked enough” removes reinhardt and mei from hero pool “Here we go, wrecking ball is now a must pick. Have fun”
“We thought that moira and mercy were used too much in low ranks, so we made it impossible for low rank players to support people by removing moira and mercy from the hero pool.”
“Reinhardt is now banned. Sigma and Orisa still suck though, have fun throwing games tank mains”
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Too little too late.
The balance patch that gutted hog and introduced Mercy 2.0 was the beginning of the end for the game. Even funnier that Mercy 2.0 was broken for a year.
Overwatch is going down the exact same path as Hots.
I don’t know if you know this…but there will always be a meta, even if balance is perfect. When played at their absolute peak some heroes are just plain better than others. That doesn’t mean the game is beyond repair. Hero pools are the only way to keep a meta from getting stale
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I don’t mind the concept as long as there are restrictions in place so you don’t end up with, say, every “Counter Ult” banned at once (Zen/Lucio, arguably Brig.)
Yea, they are working on releasing balance patches more frequently.
And no, it’s not basic mathematics. There are so many variables that you have to consider when balancing a hero. Most games just have to worry about changing a number.
Since you think it’s so easy, what do you propose? What changes would you make? I hear complaining but no solutions like the op.
Or you know they could actually tweak the balance within the game without forcing restrictions on players to keep the game fresh.
Oh wait it is Activision we are talking about here, they are way too incompetent for that.
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The majority of players don’t play this game at the absolute peak though. Why should their enjoyment suffer because of what happens at the top 1%? Then they can implement these restrictions only at the top.
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