This is how it works. Low to mid ranks ban what they perceive as OP. What’s OP in these ranks is usually not OP in high ranks, ex: junk bastion torb very strong in low to mid ranks and would see a lot of bans there, but they’re F tier in high rank. These aren’t the bans the dev team pay attention to, as they really just make low rank games more tolerable and enjoyable for players.
High rank bans is what the dev team would pay more attention to. If widow is banned from 95% of high rank games, they’d be more likely to nerf her, assuming they are balancing from top down. If we had hero bans right now, I’m sure we would see hog banned in 95% of games in EVERY rank. This is what really puts pressure on blizzard to balance a hero. They can either accept that the community has essentially deleted a hero from the game, or they can balance them. The same thing would have happened with launch brig.
It’s just the nature of hero based games for certain heroes to become completely busted and that’s why ban systems are so good. The community can take care of the problem instead of begging blizz to nerf for 6 months.
the overwatch team screwed up completely with healers, their hero designers genuinely couldn’t come up with more than 8 healers in six years, it’s so funny. Especially when you see the behind the scenes and realize sombra, symmetra and echo were supposed to be healers at one point but they were made dps because that’s the only role they can design kit for.
still, bans are healthy for the game, they help create more diverse metas.
If the number of heroes is your worry you just need to make it so that, given two ban slots, you can only ban one healer and one tank, but up to two dps.
you can do all the hypotesis you want, but if every hero based game has bans there’s a good reason for it
Dang and i thought OWL with teams of same matchups are so fun to watch, what is FOTM currently? Junker Queen, Sotshi, Genji, Brig, Lucio? Why do they even need 33 or, for that matter, more heroes for? I turned off after i had the last points for some skin i never use. OW is deleted now.
Wouldn’t be a fan of that. Every hero is best at something, and there will always be situations where you need a specific hero. It’s not the same as in a game like League where there are 100+ heroes and most of them are interchangeable. OW has done a great job with designing heroes to be unique, and encouraging players to learn every tool in the set. Not having a tool you need would wreck the core of the game.
Ban systems are fine if a large pool of heroes can counteract a missing option. However OW does not really have that at least not for roles like support.
I find Overwatch to be very hero depended, so much so that without a certain hero can put you at a big disadvantage. Even if you did ban them.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find the community less trustworthy than Blizzard. I am very sure there will be bans made to annoy teammates.
I find even banning one support might be too problematic. Since the support pool is too diverse. If we had more supports than I would be fine.
My idea is that we can ban any two heroes in any role. While you can ban two supports, you can also ban two DPS or even two tanks. I am just copying this from Rainbow Six though.
Well we’re getting 1 new hero for each role with ow2. I think the pool is big enough for just a couple hero bans, but only one per role should be allowed. When they did hero pools it was 3 bans wasn’t it?
Both teams would have that same disadvantage though. A ban applies to both teams. Yeah certain bans could make certain heroes or comps really strong but that’s kinda the point, it stirs up the meta. Also OW2 is making things less hero dependant.
There will be. But even in league that rarely happens and that community is very toxic. Most people have little reason to be toxic and troll at the hero select screen.
I believe it was four actually, one tank, one support and two DPS.
But yea more supports would be a plus.
Pretty much the only thing I am worried about tbh. Maybe it won’t be so bad but I dread running into a comp that I have no hero to counter them with.
True, I would have to see how it works first.
Even though it was, Blizzard said it did not achieve the results they wanted. Also not everything is about McCree, I’ve seen tank and support players dislike it too.
People complained it was too inconsistent and too much restricting RNG despite using an algorithm.
Even I admit using a bot to dedicate the meta is not the best idea.
Uh never? Blizzard already tried this in the past and it almost killed the game for me. Hero bans doesn’t work in overwatch. Back when we had the bans, there was a week where all hitscans were banned and pharah mercy dominated the whole week. This game is all about counter switching, not having heroes to switch to just defeats the purpose. As for the OWL? I could care any less, blizzard needs to come up with hero balances more often to switch things up. Believe it or not, majority of the characters in overwatch are actually quite balanced. Some are more niche than others but the game is fairly healthy
As others have pointed out, the roster is just too small, and the support role would be hit the hardest.
Maaaaaaaybe it would work in its own comp mode, if say the ban was for a percentage of a role. So you could ban say 2 supports, 2 tanks, and 6 dps…something like that. But if it was just a flat equal number for every role, it would be broken from the start.
And if it wasn’t in its own mode, but across all modes, the number of leavers you would get because someone’s fave picks were gone that match would be immense, especially with all the new F2P people. Someone would always be leaving a match because a) they couldn’t play their best characters, and b) they didn’t want to play against their least fave characters.
I figure even if it gets used only 10-20% of the time, that’s still better than the status quo.
And that even the mere perception of a potential for variety, is worth something.
Since it’s gonna get REALLY boring after a GM Tank main ends up playing 400 games in a row in the exact same meta Tank, over and over and over.
It’s not that bizarre to think that these Tank mains are gonna be dying for some novelty.
And what’s nice about it, is that it’ll take a whole 1 second for the Tank main to confirm their vote. And then their hands will be tied. And free from social pressure to reconsider.
Heck, you could even make it so that the Tank mains join the game ahead of their teammates, and they can voice chat to each other. So there’s literally zero social pressure from teammates.
Or maybe have them make their ban selections while queuing.
But it’s still worse than pick ban systems in other games that have already been proven.
For example, dota ranked all pick gives every player a chance to ban a hero, but theres only a 50% chance of it going through.
So half the games, you get exactly the ban that you want. And the other half, you are forced to learn and adapt, especially if you are trying to ban out your counters.
A pick ban system doesn’t make a game more balanced. It just shifts some of the must picks into must bans, which is much healthier.
So a ban meta isn’t always a problem with the pick ban method. Ultimately, a game needs to be properly balanced.
The ball main would get ball banned 50% of the time. The other half they will get to play ball freely.
50% of the time they get to to ban a ball counter, like brig. That means 25% of the time, they get to play their hero without an easy counter. The other 25%, they can play a ball-like hero (like Winston) without an easy counter.
That’s assuming the enemy team knows they are a ball main. Idk how long it’s been since you’ve played ranked, but open profiles are just a competitive disadvantage at this point.
Banning the enemy’s main vs. banning the broken meta hero is a tough decision, but an interesting one. Often, a ball main won’t get his hero banned because ana (just an example) offers a bigger competitive advantage.
Yes, it’s fun to play different heroes. Getting ball banned is a positive experience on average because most players enjoy the game more in the long run if they can play multiple heroes.
Both Tanks get to ban 1 Tank, that bans it for both teams.
However each Tank player gets to pick a “Protect from ban”. However after using that option, they have to play another match to completion to regain their “Protect option”.