We need buffs and mini-reworks for the heroes that the community is happy to see left in the dirt since “its okay, they’re niche”
Nah. If my hero is only good on 2 and a half maps because she’s “niche” that’s just an unacceptable state.
If you can’t / shouldn’t main a hero it means they need changes.
It’s about being fair. Nothing more, nothing less. If they didn’t want us to main heroes they made way too many mistakes this game. It’s too late. People main heroes and people shouldn’t be shafted because they happened to like the “wrong” heroes.
D.va main reporting in. A year and a half of not being able to play her and I’m on the verge of uninstalling. I know the armour change is meant to help her, but she clearly needs a buff to be relevant. Maybe having a bit more armour, with this new increased effectiveness against beam, will make her stop being niche now.
The problem that I find with niche heroes is that while they are good in their niche, in most cases they’re still not better than the best heroes at what they do even though that’s their entire purpose, being good at specifics.
Like, Sym can be played decently on like 3 maps. But not only is Ashe better on other maps, Ashe is better than Sym on Sym maps. It’s like this with the other niche heroes too. Designing intentionally specific heroes and calling them niche is just purely a lame excuse to be lazy with your balancing, imo.
(Yes I know Ashe is getting nerfed on the Experimental but it’s just an example of the current live game.)
This is also a HUGE problem. Even on the maps where Sym “shines” it’s not worth the hassle most of the time unless you’re a Sym specialist. And that is a problem if we’re gonna pretend she’s balanced in some sort of niche.
100%. I love Sym, all niche heroes have the problem of only getting their value in very fringe scenarios. Other than because you happen to like the hero why would play a hero that is incredibly team reliant and high risk to one where you can get the same or more value for easier?
I think they made a mistake by investing so much in to a Hero but only thinking of making them viable in a very few scenarios. This is why I think that their idea of switching heroes is flawed. And when people start figure out how to use these heroes outside of their niche, those people met with toxicity and blizzard just shut their mouth. What happen to being innovative and creative? They didn’t predict that at all. And they didn’t fully understood the passion behind those players. And it led to some wonderful people eventually getting tired and moving on.
Sym isnt even ‘‘niche’’ or a specialist. She is just a maybe broken gimmick surrounded of what remained of Sym 2.0 after Blizz destroyed her in the name of those that never played her and scapegoated their player failures on her.
I think there IS a room for a niche heores but not extreme level of niche. I’m kinda ok when it’s better to run dive in Numbani, brawl in King’s Row and sniper comp in Havana but some heroes require too specific circumstances to work and I don’t like it.
Yes! I agree with all of this, especially when they make significant changes to a great initial concept. Of course, I think the problem comes from being very difficult to balance, which is why they just kind of keep ‘problem’ heroes weak and on the back burner until they can figure out what to do with them, if anything.
D.Va main here, can confirm, I haven’t been able to play her in ranked for god knows how long now…
I had to play Rein, now don’t get me wrong Rein is fun and all, I just prefer playing D.Va ):
And now even Rein isn’t a viable option anymore…
Thing is, it doesn’t seem like the devs can accept the idea that niche heroes should consistently outperform generalist heroes within their niches, yet this is exactly what niche heroes need to do in order to be viable. Like, if they deem that Symmetra should be niche, and Symmetra then proceeds to be a strong and frequent pick on Attack for 2CP maps but not so much in other situations… then the devs need to get it in their minds that’s fine. It does not mandate changes, unless you’re convinced that said hero needs not to be niche, in which case they need to be made plausible in every situation… but that’s not really what the devs do, and when that’s been questioned, they seem to fall back on the idea that said hero is niche. They’re wishy-washy on that whole thing, and it’s very obvious with certain heroes (i.e. Symmetra, Bastion)
Exactly. It makes no sense design-wise and it’s unfair.
Pretty much. But that would make them must-picks in a sense. Can you imagine community outroar if you needed a Sym for attack point A 2CP maps? Riots!
That’s why they have to reduce the “niche-ness” of heroes. It just doesn’t work for people on multiple levels. There would need to be a drastic game overhaul (group selector, map selector, map-weighted SR, etc. etc.) to actually have niche heroes be an acceptable choice.
In some games, it’s perfectly accepted that some characters suck and maining them implies doing it for the memes. In others, trash tier niche characters are accepted because they are tools for the flex player or solely exist to stop an oppressive meta from spiraling out of control. And their communities don’t see it as a particularly pressing issue, at all.
I’m really not sure how much of this is actually the devs fault, or if it’s intrinsically a bad thing. They’ve def screwed up with predicting roles but I certainly don’t fault them for not foreseeing mains being this entrenched and to such exclusionary degrees- it is legitimately rare.
No, the game would be terrible if you could reliably main everything. All that would mean is that the heroes were practically interchangeable. Drastically different play styles and tools are what makes this game unique. Let’s not make it Call of Duty where you can pretty much use any gun anywhere.
The game is fair in that both teams have access to all the same tools (heroes) at all times. Fair in the way you’re describing would be fair in the way that everyone getting an equally bland sandwich for free is fair.
Really wish Sym had been made a big sweaty dude instead. Then nobody would be complaining about him having a niche. Her aesthetic design and 1.0 easy play style has grabbed her lifelong fans that are willing to ignore the integrity of the game’s design to be able to use her all the time.
That’s just called balance though. Like Protoss/Terran/Zerg. They’re interchangeable, but not “interchangeable”. They work very differently, but you can and should (when they’re not messing up the balance), get the same total value no matter which of the three playstyles you choose.
This niche hero thing in overwatch has made it more like a card game, and it has led to a stifling metaslavery that is the main fundamental problem that’s making everything so boring. In the tank lineup, tanks like Dva are just not fun or playable enough to allow some people to say “no, I’m not going to play meta, we’re still gonna win”. That soul of overwatch for those who mained heroes has kind of been flickering down lately.
I feel like the requirement for mirror comps is more punishing now, and I’ve never felt so forced not to play D.Va. Pick the right deck of cards or lose hundreds of SR. Real fun and balanced.
Why did you ever buy the game then? Upon launch and every year since launch Kaplan and the Dev team said there will ALWAYS be niche hero’s in the game and not every hero will be always good or playable. They never lied to you about that. If you got attached to one of these niche hero’s that’s fine but there not going to rework the entire game so there is no longer niche hero’s when the game upon design is suppose to have niche hero’s. If you can’t accept that then I don’t know what to tell you since this is a game of constant changing metas where hero’s come and go and niche hero’s will always be a thing.