The community doesn’t like any pick for any reason, really.
Even if Widowmaker is the most meta character in the world, no one below Master is going want one on their team. Same with Genji, Hammond or any other character with a high skill floor.
And God help you if they’re your best character and just having an off game.
And even if a character like Mercy/Brigitte is meta, everyone will bully their mains and call them boosted.
This is why I wonder if 7v7 would work. 2/2/2/1. I think the problem is the “off meta” picks don’t really have a spot. I feel bad when I pick Mei because It feels like “i’m stealing” a dps slot.
(But maybe it would feel too hectic and crowded yeah. Maybe 5v5? IDK!)
You dont believe how many times i run Sombra and i get the infamous " we dont have enough damage" comment.
I agree. These few lines from Mr. Kaplan provided some fascinating insight into the game’s development and the team’s intent. I’d like to see it more often.
I understand why they don’t – this forum is usually a very negative place. Still, I value the sort of dev-user interaction displayed in this thread. Thank you sir.
It’ll STILL be a CHOICE to run tank, this insinuation that tanks will go the way of the dodo is absurd.
Alot of utility picks would be more viable with 7v7 games you cant really justify a more passive hero if you dont have the ability to play them in a way that gets consistent value.
with 6 heroes EVERYONE has to be bringing something to the game consistently.
Thanks for the answer, it made my day.
That’s how the community feels currently. 2-2-2 when? 
You know might be worth a try someday? 4-2-2. Four dps, two tanks, two supports.
Sometimes I think slightly larger teams might allow more creativity in teams and hero design because there is less dependence on each hero.
I speak with 20/20 hindsight but. Did noone think that “Niche” heroes were a bad idea when you could play heroes that are great 90% of the time?
Anyway good luck with OWL today, can’t wait to see the matches!
Another one of the things working against the “constant switching” is Ultimates.
In current form they are extremely powerful, fight swinging, match winning things. Players are very reluctant to switch when they have 40% or more ult charge as they view it as being wasted.
Increasing the time it takes to get an ult charge would only exacerbate the problem. I believe you or another dev mentioned new heroes with more Tracer like ults, where they are nice but not major team fight swinging events.
The concern is that newer heroes will always have substandard compared to legacy heroes. This might be an unpopular opinion but an across the board rebalance to all ultimates might be required.
Make them more frequent but with substantial decrease in power. Switching more often becomes less of an issue.
Niche hero concept does only work if all heroes were niche imo.
Jeff, can Symmetra please have a victory pose or highlight intro which shows off her golden gun?
Thanks in advance ![:blue_heart:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/blue_heart.png?v=6" ":blue_heart:")
this didnt work because you made the whole gamemode around it, Jeff. the triple/quad dps are only viable in certain compositions, so it couldnt work as a full gamemode. and thanks for responding and telling us about what you have tried when developing the game, its fascinating to learn about what you thought throughout all of it
not in comp! it could be made an arcade mode, but it shouldnt be implemented in competitive.
Yer lets make it forced, like they did in WoW with over 45 min wait times for dps to get into runs.
Forcing people into roles is a sure way to stop them playing, I wont be bullied into playing a role I don’t feel like playing at the time of game start, I would prefer to just uninstall the game and be done with it, like I did with WoW (started in vanilla to the new expansion).
People need to realise this is just a game, you are not going to get anything from it apart from chasing SR lvl, There are no incentives to lvl up or chase SR lvl. Its a game designed for toxicity. Its a game to keep you were to are a lot of the time, its a game where they will not do a reset of the mmr/sr. Basic is what I would call it.
Oh, leave people alone to play what they like, we bought the game to do just that, 6 dps, 6 healers, whatever. Its seems like the most people that whinge and want a forced 2/2/2 are dps mains. Try changing sometimes, it might help.
agreed
I wish people had been fine with it. Defensive Torb was so much better than his current state that I’d assume you felt forced in to. All he needed was the critbox change and maybe the changes to improve his rate of fire/height falloff.
Related question - what other things that you learned about the game from the player base surprised you the most?
It seems like adding such uniqueness to all the heroes kind of backfired and made people fall in love with very specific play styles
I don’t like triple damage either. A few days ago in a Grandmaster Tier game. I was Moira at the start and asked for a shield tank after seeing the team was Moira, Widowmaker, Ana, Genji, Hanzo and Hammond.
So we have 2 Supports, 3 damages and 1 tank. They all GM but I’m 3900s who touched GM this season. Anyway, I got cursed out saying they we don’t need a main tank so I left the chat. Not going to lie Jeff, after I died twice as Moira at the start. I just switched to Zenyatta as a form of practice and kind of soft throwing. I’m not good with Zenyatta and I thought we would lose this game because there’s no teamwork going on here.
To my surprise, the enemy team didn’t know what they were facing or dealing with. The map was Junkertown and we pushed the payload to checkpoint 3 but didn’t complete it all the way.
When it was our turn for Defense, I went Mercy because since we are still 2 Supports, 3 damages and 1 tank (Mercy, Lucio, Widowmaker (later goes McCree on 3rd checkpoint), Hanzo, Sombra, and Winston). I went Mercy for two reason, damage boost and the resurrects. Might as well damage boost and resurrect whenever I can. We ended up winning the game despite the match being toxic and I thanked the tank for solo tanking the entire match himself as an off tank. He wasn’t toxic at all.
Another reason why Moira needs a buff in Grandmaster tier. I am a one trick but there are certain matches where I have no choice to switch off Moira or take a Lose. No matter how good I am with her. She was not suited for 3 triple damages like this who where all over the place.
This game happened about 2-3 days ago. I knew someone on the enemy team and watched his live stream replay after the match. I discovered his team was toxic and blamed him for his Torb/Sombra gameplay. His team was mad that they were losing to Triple Damages and that my team managed to push it so far with 1 off tank of Hammond and later Winston. Our Hammond did go Roadhog on Attack when it was Checkpoint 2 and 3.
Anyway, I just wanted to share my experience. Triple Damages, 2 Supports and 1 off tank rarely happens in my opinion. But deep down, I feel like you need to use heroes like Zenyatta, Mercy, Lucio and Ana if you’re a support Main. Moira and Brigitte aren’t suited for this in Grandmaster Tier like that.
What I will say is the enemy team refused to go Brigitte. If they went Brigitte, I think they would have shut us down but they didn’t because they blamed their own Sombra the entire game.
This is the video from the streamers point of view. I’m the Zenyatta and Mercy on the enemy team.