The "One Trick Problem" Is a Balance Issue

Competitive Discussion
41

Why do so many of you ignore that a person wouldn’t be able to play well with another hero. Especially at higher ranks where instinct is more important then anything else.

Those that can play multiple heroes as well as their main are either rare or are located at the lower end of the ranks. Think about it, the amount of hours to master every role at a high level is a feat in and of itself and even then, it may take more knowledge of one hero per role.

Lastly, no hero in this game is a “no brainer”. For example, an inexperience Mercy will be fodder for Flankers at higher ranks. An untrained Rein won’t be where he needs to be to help when he is needed the most. Mei could end up causing more harm then good with her ice blocks and Widowmaker could be dishing out a lot of trash eliminations and damage.

Bottom Line: It seems players are really only able to reliably flex at low ranks. While teams in higher ranks are dependent on the fortune that one of their teammates can draw from their “limited” pool of heroes to flex.

Note: Pressuring someone to switch to a hero they can’t play may place them on a path to failure (or be reported). The answer may lie with trading heroes and not switching them. However in my experience, players do not have enough humility to do this whether their an avid “flexer” or not.

42

@ Eupathia

They ignore it because they are in denial that if they did play other heros their SR would drop. Thats the only reason people have multiple accounts because their skills are differnt with differnt heros.

A GM Mercy might only have the skill of a Platinum level Tracer. But no…they dont want their lower skillset of another hero effecting their precious god teir ranking with their favorite hero do they? NAH Just buy 30 accounts and you wont have to drop SR. Plain and simple.

I do in fact flex quite a lot. But it only goes on for so long becuse many people do not appreciate it. So yes after hours of selfless gameplay I will switch back to playing my most played hero and perform because I get a little sick of being underappreciated. Thats really the only time that its ok to be selfish because I had been selfless for so long and in that moment I do not accomedate other peoples needs other than my own. But I do not make a habit of it.

But go ahead. Prove me wrong. Play mre than one hero next season and prove to me you can be unselfish before you criticize or preach to people in lower teirs.

43

So you arent afraid to lose your SR? Then go ahead. Do it. Play more than 1 hero at your GM rank. Post the results for us. You willing to do that?

sure, here’s my main account where i mostly play healers, keep it mind that it has decayed SR though.

You have literally NO objective kills for this whole COmp season.

well that is just false, i average 8 per game, which falls within that top 20% percentile you were talking about.

Teleporter average uptime…0.05. Really?

i place shield generators, not teleporters.

My average TP uptime is like 3 minutes per match and I drop 5 portals a match sometimes.

if i placed teleporters each game i would get those numbers as well, especially when you compare my sample size of games to yours.

Please…TELL ME…how does playing Symettra exclusively help your team??? or does it only help yourself?

if it helps me win games, doesn’t it help my team inadvertently because they would be also winning? is this a difficult concept?

You have less than 2 elims per life as Sym. 1.97 to be exact.

and?

Yup. I’m done. You are too full of yourself.

you can’t just talk about me manipulating the system and start talking about how having multiple accounts magically helps you retain rank, explain yourself at least.

44

People normally won’t care about your “sacrifice”. They only care about their own experience. If this is your fifty billionth time flexing into Mercy, they will tell you to do it any way to improve (in their mind) their chances to win. If you complain that you won’t because you’re tired of being the “martyr”, you may be reported.

45

This is a silly argument. Those who claim that this game should be about switching clearly forget that the game actually penalizes people to switch in mulitple ways.

Flexing, just to flex @Derpypants, is what is keeping you lower the you could be. If you want to believe it or not, it is actually costing your team wins. Granted, you don’t seem to want to raise your SR without mastering every hero, but you really can’t fault anyone else for seeing how “good” they can be by limiting their hero pool and cutting out heroes they don’t enjoy playing or simply don’t mess well with their physical abilities to perform the functions of the hero.

The simple fact is, the game doesn’t force you to flex because every hero is balanced in such a way that if you put in enough committment that they can all be top tier. Each hero hs enough utility to be effective in the right hands.

The community is wrong more often then it is correct. Especially when it comes to this. It is because we have so many people at the highest tiers who specialize in heroes, that they don’t or can’t fully utilize other heroes in the same way. What that does is lead to misunderstanding of heroes that require very unique skills to do, like symm.

If someone wasn’t good enough to win. They wouldn’t climb. If not swapping, flexing, or playing another hero was bad for the game… they wouldn’t win.

They win because as specializing in one hero puts you above all the rest of the heroes at your rank who play the same hero but are bouncing around from hero to hero. The system sees they are better then similar people at the rank and move them up. It is working as intended.

Now, you may have the opinion that everyone should be good on all the heroes. That is not an opinion that the devs have embraced. If they did, they would force the MMR to balance you based on all hero stats along with forcing everyone to olay a certain amount of time on each hero.

It does not.

Stop calling the one-tricks selfish. They are not. They do what they know they can do to help the team win in the best way they know possible. They are improving on their hero choice. If they don’t perform well, they have to improve. It is already proven that one tricks of all heroes can reach the top. So it is not something that is inherently in the system as the hero is “bad”.

They find ways to win that are unconventional, but they do win. Win just as much as you do to be at the rank you are.

Now, some people find flexing enjoyable and help them win. And that is good for them. They choose to swap heroes to counter the enemy. OTP counter the enemy by changing their playstyle within their hero selection.

Oh and Derpy… you admitted to me in another thread that you have multiple accounts also. I think you as the kettle has been calling the pot black.

46

Main account on which you say you play heals…yet the majority is still SYmettra second only to Lucio. And winrate of 51% on Lucio.

You played the equivilant of.,…3-5 matches each on Zen and Ana? Didnt evenb win the ones you played with Ana? No Mercy? How is this telling me anything different than I already know?

Your profile says that your objective kills on your LULU account for Sym are 0. How is THAT useful? Shield generator uptime is conveniently isn’t listed as a statistic.

Placing teleporters has better strategic value because it can temporarily remove people from team fights trying to find it and destroy it before they get picks som they cant get back to the fight.

Shields do help on attack of near the end of the defensive round for you because they give you an added cushion to clutch a point yes, but the portal has more strategic value when travel time is an issue when you are on a time crunch based on how the match progresses. It also offers the element of surprise on attack. I have dropped teleporters behind enemy lines several times and c9’d points while enemies are overextended or separated.

Having multiple accounts (3 or more) means your MMR doesnt shift when you play at a differnt skill teir on one hero than you do on another.

Symettra can help secure objective elims and deal with flankers. As mucha s I hate how much damage she does, I admit she is a very effective at killing/finishing people off on point. Particularly annoying Lucios or Meis who can skillfully juggle points and payloads.

47

I have ONE other account. I do not abuse that account to avoid punishments or manipulate my SR gains/losses. I started using it as a way to remain anonymous because of all the toxic people who kept slandering me match after match and berating me repeatedly after being matched with them multiple times.

My main account is currently for playing WoW and Hearthstone and not Overwatch Since season 6 when my play time dwindles to a crawl. Even though I played that account since re-releaseI pretty much abandoned Overwatch on it but I do play it sometimes to avoid the same ridicule and the annoying people.

I have already washed my hands of you in that other thread Puck. Same is true here. You have been using the same twisted opinions and arguments as anyone else. I am done listening to your self defeating opinions and arguments.

48

So the only “real” threat is to not get matched up with players that misinterpret your actions. Players that will report a teammate for not switching when they don’t need to; especially to a hero you have low success with.

49

Main account on which you say you play heals…yet the majority is still SYmettra second only to Lucio

i have literally more playtime on Lucio than Symmetra on this account, hello? remember to look at the competitive playtime?

How is this telling me anything different than I already know?

you tell me to play other heroes at GM and here i am on my main account with equivalent SR with Lucio as my most played hero and you’re upset that i’m not dropping, i’ve been a Lucio main before i started playing Symmetra, and have reached similar SR with both.

Your profile says that your objective kills on your LULU account for Sym are 0. How is THAT useful?

consider using Overbuff, since the Blizzard website doesn’t show the stats correctly.

Shield generator uptime is conveniently isn’t listed as a statistic.

complain to Blizzard.

Placing teleporters has better strategic value because it can temporarily remove people from team fights trying to find it and destroy it before they get picks som they cant get back to the fight.

are you seriously going to lecture how Symmetra works to me now as well? you’re actually rich.

Having multiple accounts (3 or more) means your MMR doesnt shift when you play at a differnt skill teir on one hero than you do on another.

is this a thing? why has nobody ever heard of this? do you have a source that actually says this is an actual thing? i sure hope you do.

50

I don’t know anyone who is good at all heroes. But most people expect that you can play more than one. Maybe you are a healer main, tank main, dps main, or you’re like me and can play one hero from each class at around equal skill. If the team needs a monkey I can’t play that but I’ll gladly take either the 2nd tank role, or play healer or dps if someone else on the team can monkey. Being flexible isn’t only about you specifically being able to fill a needed role on the team, but also giving your team mates more opportunities to fill those roles as well.

51

@pr1mus

You played 13 hours on Lucio. 34 games. 51% winrate. Yes, in the Comp list. You played less Sym but had a higher winrate. Your hours played is not justified by such a low winrate on your most played hero when that it one of 3 heros you played.The only other healers you played were Ana and Moira and those winrates are below 50%. Just more irrelevant statistics.

“you tell me to play other heroes at GM and here i am on my main account with equivalent SR with Lucio as my most played hero and you’re upset that i’m not dropping,” Uhh no. I am just calling you out on your bullcrap because your most played hero has a crap winrate and your second most played hero has no statistics to prove anything.

Complain to Blizzard about not having shield gen uptime as a statistic? Sorry but that is not my job since I do not play SYm a majority of my play hours. if you want those stats to be relevant you are the one who should make that complaint yourself.

Overbuff is complete crap. Been a reality for quite a while. Profiles here on Blizzard are off my an average of 2% of stats. Not significant enough to complain especially for those of us who invest a lot of time into playing every day. You have 30 hours between your top played heros…i have 81 hours on a single hero and 8+ on most others. You do the absolute MINIMUM to maintain your rank while I try my hardest on EVERY hero I play to advance mine. That’s the difference.

I will lecture anyone on their usefulness when their statistics do not back up their claims of skill. And it is BECAUSE people like you who have 3 or more accounts that your stats are so spread out and scattered that it looks like you dont even play the game at all.

And now your replys are just getting rude, sarcastic and obnoxious so I will no longer be replying to you because your attitude is very immature and to me, that disrespect automatically invalidates your opinion.

Have a nice day.

52

You played 13 hours on Lucio. 34 games. 51% winrate. Yes, in the Comp list. You played less Sym but had a higher winrate.

i’m not losing games with Lucio, am i? 51% still entails i’m climbing with a hero, isn’t the point of your argument that i should play other heroes and not drop? are you seriously going to backtrack from that comment now that you’ve been proven wrong? lmao

Uhh no. I am just calling you out on your bullcrap because your most played hero has a crap winrate

irrelevant, me stabilizing defeats your argument.

if you want those stats to be relevant you are the one who should make that complaint yourself.

the only stat that is relevant to me is the games i win. :joy:

Overbuff is complete crap.

but Overbuff displays my objective kills, while Blizzard doesn’t. :slight_smile:

You do the absolute MINIMUM to maintain your rank

sorry that we can’t all grind out “hundreds of games a day” to reach to quota of “MIMIMUM” effort needed to justify my rank, the only thing i have to care about in this rank is continuing to play at this level.

while I try my hardest on EVERY hero I play to advance mine. That’s the difference.

but you’re not advancing, maybe your hardest isn’t good enough?

I will lecture anyone on their usefulness when their statistics do not back up their claims of skill.

you’re extrapolating statistics cross rank, do you think you would get the same stats that you do in silver in t500? do you think i would not literally come out with top 1% stats if i were played “hundreds of games a day” in silver? get real.

besides, whose more useful here? lol

And now your replys are just getting rude, sarcastic and obnoxious so I will no longer be replying to you because your attitude is very immature and to me, that disrespect automatically invalidates your opinion.

trying to suggest “disrespect” invalidates facts LOL, sorry that you can’t handle being proven wrong my dude.

2 Likes
53

This thread has been entirely worth it for LuLu going ham. Well done.

1 Like
54

Thing is, the people that complain about off-meta players do expect off-meta players to play just about everyone.

They expect you more actually to play meta heroes. Sorry, but meta heroes are very boring and are not fun to play. Also, why should I play a meta hero very poorly, when i can do more on an off-meta… even when “countered”

For example… I was the last to pick one game on attack. Generally on attack (first) I’ll see what the team all picks first so as not to tilt my team with a symm attack pick. Mind you, its not because I think i’d do poorly, but I don’t want to worry about my team throwing.

To my surprise, we didn’t have any dps. Like none. Usually if we need a 2nd dps I’ll symm… she is a good “off-dd” not a primary one.

So I pick soldier. Now, I have a pretty decent win rate on soldier… I only ever pick him when we like… “need” a soldier. I really can’t aim at fast moving targets. I just don’t have that physical capability.

We took 1st point while I was getting carried. And my soldier pick swapped them off pharah. But I was highly ineffective… We had issues stopping stall on 2nd point and a genji was giving us problems.

I switched to symm. We won easily.

The pharah cost their team the win because she swapped just because of my hero pick. I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. Had she stayed pharah, they would have won.

55

Disrespect invalidates your “opinion” which is based on your limited over all experience in a top teir with a limited pool of individuals that all share the same “opinion” while offering “fallacies” and no “facts” to back up said opinion OTHER than your rank which you flaunt over people and bury yourself in fallacies and utter denial that you are indeed exploiting the system.

People like me will never stoop to that selfish and disrespectful level.

Clarification for you: BY “experience” I refer to the variety and total number of individual players and play styles get macthed with or against from the limited queue pool of the top .5% of the community.

56

How do people fail to realize this? It has been pointed out a million times over.

This is happening right now.

57

Meta heroes are better to have in your arsenal because they’re “generally considered” viable in more situations than non meta heroes. This is a fact, not my “lack of imagination”. That’s not to say that non meta heroes can never work in certain situations, just that it’s not as common or likely and the seeds of doubt involved can often be enough to tilt your team as you mentioned.

That said, I believe anyone playing comp should do whatever he feels gives his team the best chance to win, either by one tricking or flexing, either meta or off meta. You know yourself better than anyone else what your capabilities are with certain heroes.

1 Like
58

I thought you were done replying to him lol

59

while offering “fallacies” and no “facts” to back up said opinion

utter denial that you are indeed exploiting the system.

on the topic of offering facts and backing up claims, have you gotten around to finding that source that says that “Having multiple accounts (3 or more) means your MMR doesnt shift when you play at a differnt skill teir on one hero than you do on another.”?

People like me will never stoop to that selfish and disrespectful level.

i’m sure your teammates are very glad to have such a selfless teammate as you on their team as you grind games at a 48% win rate as you’re calling others “crap” for winning their respective games, while talking about disrespect in the same breath LOL

reconsider your playing habits until you find something that works for you.

60

sssh, don’t tell him. :wink: