First of all, role lock was introduced. And to be fair, I think this was still a good change. It allowed a decent team comp to be build right off the bat, and still allowed you to switch to any other hero within that role as you saw fit, which was what a lot of people used to do anyway.
Now, the devs want to add a hero pool for each week, restricting certain heroes within these roles.
There is virtually no player choice now. Devs restricting heroes within roles is such a terrible idea. I almost couldn’t believe it when the words came out of jeff’s mouth.
People wanted hero bans because it gave them a choice to ban heroes that they didn’t want to see, usually meta heroes that are boring and unfun. The devs making these hero pool decisions is a terrible plan.
It’s likely that introducing this feature will make a lot of people quit the game.
Sure, they could always go back on the change, but even the act of implementing it will make a lot of people lose faith in the devs.
This game was built on switching heroes to counter the enemy. Now, depending on the hero pool, that just won’t be possible. Sure, it will encourage counterplay rather than counterpicking, but the way the game has been balanced, and the heroes that have been added, sometimes it’s exponentially harder to counterplay a hero than it used to be.
The game has been progressively going in a terrible direction, and depending on how this turns out, it might be the final direction many players see.
Their approach to competitive play has definitely become pretty strange over the past several months, but if I “quit the game,” it’s not going to be because of a change that’s exclusive to Competitive mode. I already don’t play Competitive anymore, having last touched it in a few matches to give Role Queue a fair shot before fully turning it down, so the hero bans will have absolutely no effect on my play experience.
This particular change shouldn’t be a reason for someone to stop playing Overwatch altogether, unless they really have no interest in playing without an SR number.
I was not in favor of role queue before it was rolled out, and I still have some mixed feelings on it.
I was surprised to find out that I’m… not mad at the idea of hero pools?
This is precisely why I think it is a really smart idea to have a hero pool that people don’t vote on.
Community-initiated hero bans could run into a few really un-fun outcomes:
The community hive-minds after a YouTuber and bans the hero they deem “oppressive” (almost always gonna be a main tank or support). This could effectively take heroes out of the pool for weeks.
The community hive-minds on a hero that is a throw-pick. See above.
The community smacks down a hero that they deem to be “low skill”. Then no amount of balance tweaking will bring that one back into the play pool.
People go profile snooping and ban heroes based on what their enemies play. People don’t get to ever play the heroes they’re good at.
People figure out meta bans that gut the enemy’s ability to guard against (insert strategy here), i.e. banning tankbusters and running an uncontested Rein, banning CC and running an uncontested Wrecking Ball, banning Moira/Brig/McCree and having a field day with flankers, etc.
If the hero pool is limited from a top level, then everyone’s on the same advantage/disadvantage, nobody’s isolated or targeted for their personal hero pool, and things will not be relegated to the shadow realms because (insert YouTuber here) decides they hate that hero.
What is happening is that the developers are rationalizing their inability to balance the game. This was the most notable development today. The meta is the meta’s fault. Neither the wonderfully creative people who play this game nor balance sufficed to deal with GOATS, according to the game director.
Switching heroes used to be the developers’ philosophy. I don’t think it’s ever been the philosophy of the playerbase at large, at all. Blizzard is basically just amending their philosophy to be more in line with everyone else.
This is a significant point. If I had my way and everyone played Overwatch like I wish they would, everyone would be able and willing to be flexible, people would switch tactics to deal with the enemy, nobody would melt down over the hero select screen, etc. In an ideal universe, this would mean that role queue was not necessary and that people would be continually trying to creatively pick apart metas rather than running them into the ground while crying about it.
That’s not the universe that the rest of the playerbase lives in, though.
Even though I really, really miss being able to queue into a game with a wide open, “I’ll play whatever!” attitude, I accept that the flexibility I wanted to play with was already not exactly happening.
I don’t love the idea of limiting hero choices further than they already have been, but I think this sounds like a very equitable way to get people to flex and to try new tactics. And I am 100% on board with finding ways to get people to stop feeling chained to the meta they profess to hate.
The developers acutely lack creativity. Metas have been primarily their fault. Only a fool or inexperienced player would claim that everyone simply failed to find counters.
I think people believed that with perfect balancing, all meta’s would be viable which was an impossibility. There will always be a “best” meta and no matter what other options there are people will gravitate to what is “best”.
This change assures what people wanted for a lot time, more then one meta. You can switch and the more characters they add the more options there is for different metas, this is to ensure that people won’t plaster themselves to the “best”.
Sadly this is going to mean using our own judgment instead of trying to constantly imitate pro players.
At the top tiers? Probably not the case. But on the ladder? When the enemy is running Brig in her busted condition, what about running Pharah into it? 4DPS worked in OWL—and probably not as a permanent solution, but what about throwing it in as a wildcard on the ladder?
I’m not saying that every single meta could be organically ended by the players alone, but I am saying it seems to me that the player base at large just clocks, “Oh okay, this is meta now, this is what we must play until the meta changes”, and would not so much as try to do offbeat things to mix it up.
i.e. “Ugh, they’ve gone GOATS” - “Hey, sometimes 4DPS can work against that, want to give it a shot?”. Or “I’m so sick of Doomfist” - “I’m a pretty decent Sombra, what if we try bringing her in?” Or “Great, they have bunker” “OK, everyone get the beefiest characters you can and I’ll speed boost us and let’s see if we can make something happen”
I mean, all of the ingredients for GOATS were there for a good while before it was discovered as a way to finally do something against double sniper besides moar better double sniper. It just took somebody thinking of it and trying it.
Quite possibly. I’m not nuts about this. But stagnant metas already make people feel like their main is unviable for months at a time, and community-driven bans could literally lock heroes out of the pool for far longer than that.
Role lock was designed to SAVE THE MULTI MILLION DOLLAR OVERWATCH LEAGUE. Hero pools was designed TO SAVE THE MULTI MILLION DOLLAR OVERWATCH LEAGUE.
Seriously, when are you people going to realise that Jeff is lying when he gives you these updates? He hasnt Been working for the other 99% of the player base since OVERWATCH LEAGUE came out. Every single change is designed to salvage OVERWATCH LEAGUE. You dont think Activision is standing over him with their arms folded? Blizzard doesn’t even have a CEO standing between them and Activision anymore. Game over, fun while it lasted. Besides new characters and maps all the other updates for this game since mid 2018 have been garbage either designed to take away player agency or nerf a character to the point they are no fun to play anymore.
Which is why I’m happy that they aren’t going with community-led bans. Because the insights of the top—very closely matched, extremely skillful and usually at least somewhat well-rounded players—does not apply to a buncha plebs (it me!) who are not nearly as evenly matched or as good. Plat GOATS is 100% counterable by Plat not-GOATS, because the coordination and gamesense is not there to make it an all-supreme juggernaut. Double sniper only means anything worth a hill of beans at an ELO where people can land headshots. There’s a reason that certain heroes and comps that can absolutely pubstomp get laughed off at higher SRs.
But plebs (again, it me) hear the pros talking about what’s meta, and now this is what we all must play, and people will get yelled at and reported for not playing it, and “everybody knows” that [hero X] is garbage, even though nobody at this tier has any idea how to counter them, etc.
Even something as flexible as, “We’re both running [meta], but they’re better at it than us, what can we try instead that might surprise them?” would keep games more interesting.
This is blowing it out of proportion. It’s not like they’re limiting you to one or two heroes or forced into a certain role. You pick your role (that’s your choice), you’ll have most of the heroes at your disposal to pick (again, your choice), and you can still switch to any of those other available heroes at any point during the match (your choice once again).
Compared to the ability to switch to 30(-5) other heroes? Sure, it’s less, but the only choice that this decision limits on your part is the ability to select one very specific hero that you absolutely want to play.