Blizzard destroyed their best game mode - and people don't even see it

General Discussion
1

Mystery Heroes was awesome. You had to flex, you had to be creative in your strategies, and overall it was ironically one of the least random game modes. I can say that with full confidence as someone who had a 70% win rate with 300h in it. And I’m not talking about the inflated stat that showed in the statistics back in the day (that was between 70% and 80% depending on the hero), I’m talking about the actual tracked win rate.

I’m saying this not as a weird flex but in order to emphasize two things:
a) I know my way around this game mode.
b) It wasn’t random, but very much skill based.

Now, it’s just a coin flip. What did they change? Well, it isn’t too obvious, but instead of an equal distribution among all heroes, it’s now weighted to yield more tanks and supports. This means that more often than before, you get the killer-combos, the only truly hard to beat cases of either two copies of the same off-tank (think about how they synergize with themselves) or stuff like double-Mercy. In return, dislodging the lynchpin of a strong comp is getting more and more impossible, because it became much more likely that said lynchpin is replaced by something filling the same role.

The sad part is that people don’t seem to notice. It was never in the patch notes, and to people who don’t pay that much mind, it can slip under the radar, but it’s certainly there, and it’s turning a game mode of finesse into pure luck. After a few games that were as before quite heavy with tanks and supports, I carefully tracked the chosen heroes throughout an entire match, and while I maybe missed a bit (cause I still played^^), the total amount of tanks+supports always was between 6 and 11. With an equal distribution, you’d expect the number to hover around 6 (below 6 to be precise), so probably between 3 and 9, and while you could make the argument that tanks are harder to kill so they are more likely to stick around, the opposite is true about supports who are most commonly targeted.
And I know that one game is no proof, but when people pay attention and remove confirmation bias from the equation, it’ll become obvious.

Also, this is not about my personal win rate, I don’t care about that as much. Sure, it was nice to get my 9 arcade wins for a week in 11-14 games, but what bothers me most is that a game mode, where a skilled (in that narrow aspect at least) inidivual could have a disproportionate impact on their win rate has turned into one where it doesn’t really matter what you do anymore, because comp is now for the first time the most deciding factor.

8 Likes
2

mystery heros was utter garbage

6 Likes
3

I only play mh and i’ve never experienced this, i prefer playing support or tank but more than ever i get dps (fkn hanzo pls let me choose not to get him)
i have seen alot of the same double tank or teams with 3 bastions 2 mercy and one orisa… but i’ve seen that for a long time, since mh came out tbh…

4

You’re breaking my heart dude! Mystery heroes is the best :heart_eyes::joy:

5

I’m pretty sure it’s not weighted and never has been.

6

Well, there is a way to check time on all characters. Its not 100% perfect, for example if I get Sombra I go and kill myself as fast as possible and I can last for minutes as a Roadhog, but if you’ve played enough you can see if there is a trend towards certain characters.

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If you want to track it, consider how often you draw a hero, not how long you play it. Some heroes survive much much longer than others. I a game with bad coordination it’s easy to stay most of the match alive with heroes like roadhog, diva, zarya, moira or lucio

8

Thats too much work though. Keeping tabs every time you die and switch to a new hero without a program is going to be a pain.

9

Take a piece of paper, write down all the names of the heroes, place it next to you, open mh, draw a mark, after the name of the hero you got… do that when ever you die… ez…

1 Like
10

I see some onetricks here oof

11

I’m not sure about it being weighted for more supports and tanks, because in a lot of my games there’s a fairly equal amount of DPS, tanks and supports…

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12

least random gamemode? Where is the “mystery” part then? Never liked it, hated to have my ultimate and then get one shot by 3 roadhogs on the enemy team.

13

MH is the only Arcade mode I play to get my weekly lootboxes. (I’m not really fond of arcade modes in general)

But I noticed that change this week too.
Mostly I got Winston, Brigitte, Moira, Zarya…
Rarely Genji, Hanzo, Doomfist
(Surprisingly I’m not that bad as Hanzo in MH)
And one thing that got worse through this change. That team that has a Bastion wins.
Mostly.
Which is also funny cause this character appears pretty often as well. Not for me but in both teams in general

Edit: we “accidently” played goats once. :sweat_smile:

14

Yes, there are random elements, but previously, you could always work around the randomness. Yeah, you had to flex, so one-tricking didn’t work. Yes, you had to be creative and coordinated to attack specific aspects of the enemy comp. Yes, you had to be careful what to do with your ult.

And it’s true that the enemy having 3 Roadhogs is very bad for you, but that was very unlikely to ever happen (unless you killed all but Hogs). In fact it’s far more likely to play QP or even comp and get 5 DPS in your team. So yeah, there were 5% of instalosses, 5% of instawins, 10% of difficult climbs and 10% of easy rolling, but from my experience, other game modes always had worse odds in that regard. 70% games that were open and winable as well as loseable is pretty good.

With the changes though - and that’s why they are so bad - that triple-Hog (quad-D.Va as I played against recently) is more likely to come than before.

The past few weeks, I got my Arcade wins through the PvE stuff, but the change was already there before. If I had to guess, I’d say somewhere in March.

The thing about the Bastion is very true - having a (main) tank to appear more often means that Bastion can be protected more easily, making him stronger than he was before the change.

But here’s the thing though: if every hero has the same probability to get picked, DPS appear more often than tanks and supports. So if they are equal, it’s weighted.

15

personally i which it would wheight heros you suck at … that way you would be forced to grow nad learn and diversify yourself… i mean thats the whole point of this mode…

16

Ok now i’ve noticed it too, yesterday I started 9/10 skirmishes as rein, the matches mostly tanks or healers with the occasional ashe or genji. Idk how i feel about this yet :sweat_smile:

17

Same for me today, unfun as possible, 10 games, 2 wins. Add the terrible matchmaking putting people 2000sr apart in the same team and you have a really bad mode.

Edit: Just played a round where between my team and the enemy team there was a total of 17 orisas…

18

This is so funny - it’s been that way for weeks, even months. Noone seemed to notice but me, but now everyone confirms it.^^

19

Seems that the change only improves it (is there a change even?). Previously it might have been even until one side won at RNG and got a real 2-2-2 or similar comp. Then they steamrolled, especially if the other side lost at RNG and didnt get healers. Those fake games were just waste of time.

20

That’s not how RNG works. Or comps. You see, a perfect 2-2-2 with the old numbers was really unlikely, but what was a lot less likely was for the 2-2-2 to actually stay. Even in a completely unbalanced game, it’s still very possible to get that crucial kill and get rid of one of those healers. In the old system, that healer was very likely to change to a DPS.
To put it in very simple terms:
Old system: Team with worse comp dies more, has better chances to get to a better comp if playing intelligently.
New system: Team with worse comp dies more, team with better comp has excellent chances to stay in a good comp.

If you know how to play, there are very few comps that are actually close to impossible to beat - double-Zarya, double-Hog, double-DVa, double-Mercy, double-Moira are all very good. The probability of one of those 5 occuring is about 7% in the old system (0.4% for a triple). Now mind you that in some of those 7% cases, the game can still be winnable due to counters occuring or reckless playing. The new system increases the number to 12% - so still not likely enough that you can expect both teams to have it, but already much better chances. In addition, it has become far more likely, that such a deadly double also has additional help. 2 Hogs are hard to beat down if they’re smart, but if they have a Rein as well, it becomes harder. 2 Zaryas will have insane charge because they have so many bubbles to be aggressive, but if they have a Mercy as well to further facilitate the aggresion, it gets a lot worse. 2 Mercys are already horrible to deal with, but if they have a DVa to make it easier for them to ress each other and to protect them, it’s even worse.

1 Like