Who in the "community" is asking for niche heroes?

General Discussion
41

I agree 100% but I think this game started devolving when they went with the philosophy of “all heroes can be played in all situations, but some will be better picks for said situations”.

I loved the IDEA, on paper, of Tank/Offensive Damage/Defensive Damage/Support. Hell, it was even one step further: Main Tank/Off-Tank/Offensive Damage/Defensive Damage/Main Support/Off-Support, and even then you could reclass heroes like Symmetra (as a support) into a category all their own. I think heroes like Torbjorn and Junkrat were better, and better balanced, around their strengths: locking down chokes/denying area/holding on defensives.

When you start homogenizing and making ALL heroes be able to adapt to ALL situations, the game gets real stale, real quick. That’s why every hero is now being reworked to have more mobility or extra cooldowns, etc. They need to keep up with all situations, and its dumb.

Ana was introduced, and she set the standard for every DLC hero that came after. Would they bring something to the table (Echo), would they immediately counter some meta headaches (Kiriko), or would they be niche and immediately deemed garbage by the community (Lifeweaver)?

I think to be a good dev you need foresight. If OW2 survives another year, 3 years, 5 years+ we’re going to be over 50 heroes. As creative as you can get, there’s a finite amount of things out there to introduce before you get stale. And I think THIS dev team is dumb for wasting/pumping so much into more recent heroes. For example: Ramattra. Home boy did NOT need that bloated of a kit.

Bottom line: you need niche heroes. Not every hero introdced needs to be this savior of the game or be playable and appeal to the entire community. That’s such an unrealistic expectation. Next hero you may hate; bummer, maybe the one after that becomes your next main. And that needs to be ok.

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42

Almost none of these are true. (idk and dc about hog mains)

43

She wasn’t while 2cp existed. Which is why I keep saying that Blizzard reduced the viability of their less popular heroes even more by removing the game mode that favoured their playstyles over those of just stand and shoot or zoomy zoomy flankman.

44

People didn’t stop playing sym, junkrat and reaper just because they were bad picks.

She would still get played, but it would be even worse for her team than it is right now.

45

hes not saying people WANT heroes to be niche…nobody is out there saying they WANT heroes that are only good in specific situations…

he said that when particular heroes end up being strong the community as a whole reacts to it…whether that be because of a playstyle, or because a particular aspect of said hero is not enjoyable or w/e…theres visceral feedback…and its been accrued over time…you can get a general sense of things…he gave you an example of it

there are certain things in the game that the community as a whole does not like being particularly strong

46

I only saw sym played once last season and reaper a handful of times (maybe around 10 times the entire season and the reaper’s team generally lost regardless of map). I complete the weekly stuff (Excluding the comp challenge) and got over level 200 in the battlepass so thats a few hundred games played in the entire season.

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47

Tbf, I don’t think cowboys really used any type of grenade lol. Personally I think flashbang is the most fitting for Cass.

Also smokey boy with some smokey nades? I mean come on, that’s just too perfect.

Exactly.

While I generally agree, the issues that are genuinely problematic for a majority of the player base should be changed (hack for instance). There are many ways to even change hack without removing the animation/gameplay of hacking a character, yet they actively chose to keep it in the game doing essentially the same thing it was before.

I understand that they are limited with what they can do to the character, but they aren’t even trying. All the reworks have felt like the lowest effort ideas that they just slapped on to the character after one meeting.

The only choices they have left are to either return to 6v6 where the difficulties of balancing the game can be mitigated through the addition of another hero or rework every hero to fit into 5v5.

Leaving it how it is could also be seen as an “option,” but as you can tell, nobody is happy with current Overwatch.

That’s a personal opinion. I play multiple heroes and I can find fun in others, but every time I do, I’m reminded of why I enjoy playing my favorite hero. I also think it’s far more impressive to outplay supposed “counters” by reconstructing your approach and trying new things.

I don’t find it fun to chose the easiest solution to a problem (AKA counter picking). I like taking a look at a system/puzzle from a different perspective and then break it beyond recognition by playing in an unconventional way. It is challenging and by no means should it be easy, but it should never be impossible.

To me, the solution of that problem isn’t to make niche heroes. It’s to remove the issue of having chokes that allow characters to just spam for a free easy win. Maybe even reduce the amount of spam coming from said spam heroes.

I feel like there’s always more than one solution to these issues that the devs don’t want to explore out of either ego or laziness.

I actually almost entirely agree with everything here. I don’t really have a take on the Offensive and Defensive gameplay since that’s before my time, but the sentiment stands true.

Either they homogenize everyone or they remove the unnecessarily bloated kits from the most oppressive heroes in the game. Either way, the option they’re choosing right now (do nothing) is not actually a choice.

I disagree. I was a die hard Reaper OTP in OW1 and now I barely even touch the game. It’s just a matter of time and bad balancing decisions before everyone gives up on them.

Maybe, but that’s not what was reflected in the interview that Spilo had the other day with Alec. They have decided to actively choose the path of “least resistance” by keeping niche picks “out of the highest levels of competitive play.”

In essence, niche heroes do not belong on the ladder because we want them to be situational.

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48

I was being 100% sarcastic and having fun with people in that post with stereotypes, yet I guess I masked the sarcasm a little too well. (Late night posting.)

See here for where I hid the "/s" in my post

So please don’t take offense. I know your stances with Symm, and I agree for most of them. No Symm main—no main period—wants their hero to be niche. That’s stupid, lazy game design for a shooter.

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49

Depends on the map, I had a 70something% winrate on anubis with her.

50

i mean, with a “competitive”, object-based hero shooter, like overwatch, specific characters are going to be designed for specific roles which make them niche

this is the case with nearly every “competitive” game

this is basically a post calling for a further lowering of the skill level of the game overall, while also limiting the devs creative freedom and simply making the game worse

if every hero was viable in every situation, we’d have a game full of soldier 76
why are you advocating to make overwatch less overwatch-y

this is one of the weirdest takes ive ever seen, like dude have you played the game? surely you understand why niche heroes are just a necessary evil in a game like this

51

I always thought every hero being niche was a good thing, it creates character variety and means that you’re ability to play a pool of heroes is what seperated a good from bad player, not so much individual skill. But then as time goes on I realize that the ability to play who you want whenever, is far better then playing from a pool of heroes you might not want to play or you just don’t like em. for Example i want to play Reaper most of the time, but i just can’t more times then not, because the times he’s useful is too niche and that sucks. playing tanks is where you really notice the pain as they’ll be many times where only 1 or 2 tanks are the right answer, and well you might not know how to play em, or you just don’t like em.

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52

No they shouldn’t. Games should be about the players’ fun and nobody else. I’d rather jump off a bridge than play some heroes.

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53

CC heavy characters should only ever be niche.

Doom
Ball
Mei
Sombra

When they aren’t niche, the game becomes nothing but getting juggled around. Doom being in every game has severely hampered my enjoyment of it since he pretty much forces multiple counters.

54

I’d love nothing more than for us to return to 6v6.

There are a few major reasons why I personally believe we get the game we have now.

  1. The entire team and management think it’s safest to keep 5v5 and have a pipeline of ideas they’d like implemented already mapped out. All fulfilling a budget expense and allowing enough engagement to keep players asking for more.

  2. Going back to engagement. You ever notice how every competitive game that is wildly popular has mechanics and choices presented in ways that are annoying, but are never fully removed. Sure some ideas are. But outside of us all having varying opinions on preferences, if players aren’t complaining, they aren’t happy. People feel as though they need to complain. When it comes to online competition that has a place to be a driving force to keep things “interesting.”

  3. We simply do not understand what it takes to come up with and address changes. Just listening to the playerbase isn’t a silver bullet. There’s so much that goes into this last paragraph that I don’t care to elaborate on. We can throw in competency, time, ambition etc. Some would say consumers shouldn’t care to an extent about all of that. They should deliver. Even more so if gamers have shown to be loyal and patient.

It all comes back to expectations for things out of our control. I have fond memories of OW1. This game doesn’t need to return to that time for me. What’s done is done. The sooner we all understand good times come and go and nothing stays the same, the easier it becomes to let go so we aren’t clinging onto ideas that we deserve or should be rewarded with things out of our control.

I don’t doubt the dev team would like to provide a great product both they and consumers can be proud of, but for whatever reason it’s not ideal. I don’t envy that at all. It’s an impossible task. We can go around in circles about why we think that is. Or why certain things should happen. No one likes the obvious answer that I’ll say next. It’s just a video game. Life has been made easy enough to debate from X amount of miles away on what we want out of our entertainment from the comfort of home or work, or darn near anywhere in the world on devices.

In the grand scale of things we have it pretty good. If we don’t enjoy the game enough we can always move on. it has to end at some point anyway.

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55

notice how none of the braindead focus healer or midrange hitscan heroes ever become “niche” picks. It’s literally just popularity contest balancing

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56

Bro, I was literally thinking the exact same thing… Like my hero, Ashe, she is GREAT on certain maps against certain comps, but more importantly WITH certain types of players… If you are on a the stronger team, Ashe does great. But her kit just isn’t well-rounded enough to deal with ANY kind of dive or even semi-dive enemy team… Maybe in higher ranks, but not for the majority of players. She’s niche, but for people that don’t play her a lot, they aren’t gonna get it. Reaper is the same way, I totally get that for your POV.

And all I want is a well-rounded hero, like, this whole countering obsession the current balance team has is so annoying. The previous devs focused more on making each hero unique but ALSO well-rounded.

The whole idea of a “hero” is that you get to pick your “main”… “hero”… That hero becomes your game identity and that’s what’s so fun about Overwatch… But the current devs don’t get this. They don’t understand a player’s love for THEIR hero.

I’ve been playing Ana a lot lately and holy CRAP, she is SO, SO, SO much easier to play than Ashe overall. I mean, sure, in those perfect Ashe matches on those perfect Ashe maps against those perfect Ashe comps with those perfect Ashe support teammates, then Ashe is CAKE. But I’m talking overall… Ana closes kills so much easier, she survives so much easier, the gets value so much easier, it’s inSANE to me. The only thing she doesn’t do that Ashe does is put up huge damage numbers, but that’s actually what’s often frustrating about Ashe… I can shoot 55% scoped with a 30% crit scoped and put up more damage than anyone in the entire game, but feel like I had no actual control over the outcome and struggle to close kills… yet other games, it feels like everyone dies easily, but that’s bc of those niche situations.

I wish the devs would just balance each hero’s kit more to be well-rounded and playable more often instead of turning the game into a chess match.

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57

Actually, not quite. They only have two options for the little whole they dug themselves into (well, two sensible options). This one being staying with 5v5 and homogenizing every hero. The other option being the easier to balance 6v6.

Since they seem hard-stuck to the idea of the 5v5 format, this is the only option they can choose. However, what they are proposing for the future is the worst choice, letting heroes die for the sake of meta heroes to be permanently meta.

Also, I seriously doubt that anyone considers counter-swapping to be a skill. “Niche heroes” is just a more digestible term for “heroes to counter-swap to for free value.”

Yes, this exactly. This problem has been seriously exaggerated with the removal of risk from a lot of kits and the addition of full team focus on one tank. Characters who haven’t been reworked/haven’t benefited from OW2’s format change are significantly worse than ones who have. That’s why they cannot co-exist in an environment where a select few have an advantage and the rest have no hope for reworks to take them out of the “niche pick” pool.

I propose that CC be changed instead (for real this time) because these heroes could work if they weren’t so punishing to play against. Rebalancing the large portion of power that comes from their CC should be what’s changed.

While agree with most of this, I can’t say that I think this is case for Overwatch entirely. It’s not that OW1 was good, it’s that OW2 is worse objectively, especially from a balancing standpoint. Going back to 6vs6 isn’t necessarily about fond memories, but more so about the ease of balancing a format that is symmetrical (shared power balance amongst all roles).

From the devs point of view, it should be easier to deal with the issues of the game with the constant excess issues that come from having one tank bare the weight of the entire enemy team. It returns to a hero by hero basis of balancing. At worst a role by role balancing which is also already present in 5v5.

But at the end of the day, you are right. This is just a video game that, when it inevitably fails, I will more than likely have already abandoned it. I’m not discussing from my own personal opinion, however. I’m simply trying to speak and understand the perspective from the developer’s point of view.

It’s even more annoying because they’re oblivious to their own confliction. They want niche heroes, but don’t want tanks to be affected by said niche heroes removing the entire point of the niche in the first place. They have to homogenize the entire cast in order for 5v5 to work.

All the “I can do everything” characters are a product of 5v5 (or at the very least, thrive in this environment).

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58

“Situational” heroes is more polite term for “garbage tier” heroes.

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59

There is a middle ground between good picks and garbage.

60

I’m asking for niche heroes, because I play every hero and I like saving some of them for special situations. It makes the game much more interesting than if every hero was a good pick all the time. That’s what other hero-based games get wrong.

Homogenization isn’t fun. It only works out for people who refuse to use the right tool for the right situation. This game is designed around swapping heroes throughout the match. Nobody should be incentivized for refusing to engage with the game’s core mechanic.

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