Simplified Tank-Only Hero Bans

General Discussion
1

So devs and many high tier players have been looking for ways to have hero bans, without being too problematic.

Notable issues were that hero bans could either be irrelevant, or just result in a “ban meta”.
While also making it so that people didn’t feel like they never got to choose what sort of heroes they wanted to play.
Or it’s just a complicated process that takes too long.

So here’s a simplified approach, that avoids those issues.

Tank only Bans

(by Tank players, for Tank players)

Upon loading a map, in a +3500SR lobby, the 4 Tank players on both teams are given 4 choices. Where only these Tanks are usable, and all other choices are blocked.

  1. Dive: Winston/D.va/Hammond/Zarya
  2. Brawl: Rein/Zarya/Mei/Roadhog/D.va
  3. Poke: Orisa/Sigma/Rein/Mei/Roadhog
  4. No Bans: All Tanks

All 4 players on the Tank role vote, there needs to be 3 agreeing votes to pass, no agreement is defaulted to No Bans.

Results:

While this does restrict Tank choices, at high level. It realistically allows Tank players to take control of what they really want to play. Since otherwise “the meta” dictates you MUST play like 2-3 Tanks and only in 1 specific composition style for +90% of the objectives. And not only that, this allows all metas to exist simultaneously without interfering with each other. Even though “No Bans” would be more frequent, there would be enough variety to keep things interesting.

That said, if they wanted a ban option to happen more often, they could just make it so that 1 Tank from each team has to agree.

1 Like
2

Really reaching for that check mark, huh?

13 Likes
3

I’m gonna probably retire the green checkmark.

A WoW forum mod got upset about it and stole like 14 of my checkmarks.
Read the WoW forum rules, and it’s specifically different from ours in that stuff like my green check mark is banned.

And while not a formal disciplinary action, I think I got the message to cut it out.

3 Likes
4

Doesn’t this sort of setup run completely contrary to your desired goals and outcomes for tank balancing? As in, you wanted one type to counter another. Here you’re forcing mirror matches.

5 Likes
5

TBH, I don’t think it’s possible to have a large amount of composition variety in high tier, for a given patch, beyond the initial “We don’t know what the meta is”.

They’ll just pick the same 2-3 Tanks for +90% of the time.

By going this way as I suggested. It really doesn’t matter what the balance is, because a mirror match is inherently “balanced”.

If anything, it’s just replacing the status quo, which is almost 1 specific mirror match all the time. (As dictated by “the meta”.)
With the option of 4 different mirror matches.

6

I kinda feel like anything that locks out half the chars out of an already small pool is an immediate non starter… it also drastically limits the flexibility of the tank role to respond to the enemy team (ie Ball/Monkey into an exceptional Widow, Hog into a Bastion one trick when the rest of your team aren’t interested in swapping) as well as limiting what your allies can play in a way that they have no control over… :thinking: they can still pick whatever they want in your example, but you’d be discouraged pretty strongly if you pick something that doesn’t gel with the only playable tanks.

Also, this doesn’t seem like the kinda thing that really fits in with you wanting more people to play tank if they’re banned from playing their Tank if it’s not part of a couple others favourite meta.

It’d rather severely screw with the teams average SR if someone can’t play their main hero cos it’s been banned out… (not what they’d win/lose, just how good the team actually is if they’re a GM Rein, but not super good on whatever the non-banned tanks are).

6 Likes
7

That’s why it’s limited to only +3500SR average matches.

Where the current status quo is extremely limiting.

4 mirror match alternatives, is better than 1.

Additionally, “Hey tank teammate, I suck at these Tanks, don’t pick those group of Tanks if you want to win” should be enough to solve the vast majority of the edge case you’re describing.

8

I’m so happy for D.Va right now in GM… She’s finally getting usage there.

But everywhere else she’s still pretty bad, even in masters she’s still one of the lowest.

Rush is Zarya’s and D.Va’s meta, but after rush is gone… D.Va’s going back down. I already know.

9

That’s the reality of high skill floor high skill cap heroes

10

Reminds me, added D.va to the Brawl option.

11

You’d expect her to get some play in masters.

(yes, she is) but she shouldn’t be THAT low… during rush.

12

Masters can be a huge gamble sometimes in player skill, so I can’t say I’m surprised.

1 Like
13

Lol, thank you.

D.Va is a Dive + Brawl. Thank you!

14

That’s going to happen no matter what, but isn’t inherently a bad thing in my mind. Anyone who played League of Legends know their was “ban metas” but it allowed you at least some control based on what you’re strategy is going to be.

Considering we’re obviously hard locked into a 2-2-2 meta for the end of days, they might as well show us the map and give us a lobby to do a few bans per team at this point. Just my 2 cents.

15

Any thoughts on the design I posted up top?

Way I see it, it’s not really something that would result in a ban meta.

Since each team gets equal potential to win, regardless of what the choices are.

16

Yeah, I avoided that topic – trying to “hard” classify heroes in OW has just repeatedly failed from my perspective. Most of us remember them trying to do “Offense/Defense” DPS classification which they had to abandon, I don’t see how yours would ultimately end differently.

Design unique heroes, let them fall into classifications themselves.

1 Like
17

Obviously there’s a large difference between the number of choices, and the realistic number of choices within a given meta.

If they could just make unique heroes, and all metas were viable at the same time, that would be great.

But that’s basically impossible.

18

It’s entirely impossible, if you make unique heroes there will always be a meta. I 100% agree with that.

I just think the game, over the players, trying to classify what heroes to play (or even are options to ban) is NOT the way to go.

I’ll accept that perhaps we need a framework (like 2-2-2) for structure, but trying to micro manage every hero into sub-meta buckets is just a nightmare to me.

1 Like
19

But is it really though?

Is there any hero that you think would be miscategorized based on what I had above?

Especially when considering the “No Bans” option would be the most frequent choice. Considering that’s what the default is.

20

Banning tanks is the last thing you’d want.

Adding in more tanks (not reworking current heroes into one) however opens up to more comp variety.

You could fix that by just adding more tanks. So instead 4-5 are good which would open up to more possible combinations so there’s less boredom for them.

More then just forcing mirror matches. It’s limiting choice.

Tanks are already limited enough as it is and we don’t need to limit them further and pigeon hole them into playing specific ones.