I’ve tried to be optimistic and give the hero pools system time to decide if I actually like it, but now that I’ve given it that time I can honestly say I don’t. I don’t understand the rational behind using a system like this rather than a single ban for each team voted on by the players of each team. Giving players more control can only be a good thing in my opinion. Also not being able to play heros for a whole week is unfun and typically because the meta just flip flops based on the hero bans you get constant repeat bans every other week. A single ban system would change every game, so you wouldn’t have that problem. The hero pool system is just unfun in my opinion.
Also the heros played in the top ranks don’t apply to what goes on in the lower ranks. If you’re going to ban heros only based on data from top level play those hero bans should only apply to those people. The meta being stagnant isn’t a problem until gm from what I can tell. I might be wrong I’ve only ever made it to plat so maybe diamond and master have the same issue, but I’d much rather hero pools be a gm+ thing if the system has to exist.
1 Like
Hero pools are absolutely better than just a single ban for each team.
1st It wouldn’t have do any changes to the meta, because after a week or so meta bans would emerge, and in every match above 3.7k, those bans would be applied.
2nd Many players are maining some characters (but are not onetricks) and for example they have like 350 hours on doom and 80 hours on mccree. They absolutely love doom, but with bans being chosen by player, they might be forced to close their profile so people just dont look at his career and said, “Oh no doom main, let’s ban him”. Also streamers like Chipsa or Fitzy. They are mostly watched just for their gameplay on specific character (Doom and Sombra). People might just be dicks and whenever they meet them in comp they will just force ban their heroes. So it would just break the whole idea of their channels, forcing them to play what they don’t want to atm.
3rd Somehow it makes meta switch in lower ranks whatsoever. Hitscans bans made pharah kinda a must pick there, because players were just not good enough there to deal with her using ashe or hanzo.
You can think that hero pools are unfun, but a single ban every game would be just much more obnoxious. Also it would be a one more thing to be toxic. Not only an off meta pick would make team to start screaming their entire lungs at you but also off meta ban pick rn. It’s very important to unify the bans on every game, especially with Echo release, who seems broken after some games.
If they did a player pick hero system they could just hide names at the beginning and only show the sr of the lobby, and even if a single picked ban system is bad and the hero pool system is necessary it shouldn’t apply to lower ranks.
Still, it does make meta bans to arise.
Also Jeff have already said that they will observe current system, and make changes if needed. They may just make bans daily and not weekly, or remove them below masters. By now you just have to persevere through this annoying for you moment. Even if hero bans are trash for you, many will say it’s one of the best things to happen to the game since 2-2-2 role lock. For now we can only wait since pandemic surely doesn’t simplify anything
How about neither, which is the only sensible choice?
The real problem with the bans isn’t their existence it’s the fact that we usually get bad choices. There still aren’t that many tank and support heroes available (and Echo was another stupid decision in the wrong direction) which means that every banned tank and support completely messes up everything. With DPS alone there really are enough options that your personal hero pool should survive any bans - especially if you consider that the game isn’t intended to be one-tricked. It’s effectively a MOBA and if you only play one hero in DotA or LoL, noone will ever take you seriously.
The principle idea around hero bans isn’t that bad because it impacts the meta without any lasting changes making metas less stale. Think back to when everything was dive - now imagine Genji and Winston being banned - would there have been another tank to replace Winston? Or would dive just not be that good anymore so the entire comp would break? And once the player base figured out how to deal with it, we get a new meta again. This obviously assumes that players are mature, intelligent and strategizing beings which most often they’re not. A huge part of the player base is still one-tricking and thus whining when “their” hero is banned. The other part is the thought put into the bans. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that you can’t ban more than 1 tank and support before the game goes down the toilet, but even lesson had to be learned the hard way (if at all).