![]() ![]() The biggest problem she sees is that it might pull focus away from underlying balance issues, something that Blizzard may be trying to example, say Baptiste is picked more than any other support hero when he is not banned. Overwatch streamer Flocculency tweeted that the cons of Hero Pools outweigh their potential benefits. This holistic approach seems well-intentioned, but many of the initial reactions to Hero Pool as a forced concept are skeptical. The hope for Hero Pools is that players of all ranks will play a wider variety of heroes and develop creative team synergies that exist outside of the same repetitive compositions dictated by the meta. What do players think of Hero Pools in Overwatch? If the concept completely flops or doesn’t work as intended, then it might be removed from the game entirely or adjusted for future seasons. “It is important to note that Hero Pools is a new feature that may not last past this initial season,” Nash wrote in the patch notes. Blizzard was transparent about the fact that Hero Pools might only happen with Season 21. Are Hero Pools a permanent change to Competitive Overwatch? This also means, however, that Blizzard intends to remain flexible with the scope and duration of Hero Pools. It's hard to predict what they mean by "types of Hero Pools" exactly, but it might mean that all support characters or all tank characters are removed some weeks. “In addition, it is possible we will also adjust the frequency with which they change.” the season, we will be adjusting the types of Hero Pools available,” stated Overwatch community manager Josh Nash in the patch notes. Considering the game currently has 16 DPS, 8 tank, and 7 support characters, the proportions here make perfect sense.ĭ.Va, Soldier 76, Pharah, and Lucio are banned in this example of Hero Pools. In other words, something like two to four characters won't be available in Competitive mode for one week at a time.īased on what Overwatch insider Naeri tweeted on Tuesday, the bans will consist of 2 DPS, 1 tank, and 1 support, but that might not be a hard-and-fast format. Hero Pools will prohibit players from selecting "only a few" characters within the game’s ranked competitive mode each week but the "vast majority of the hero roster" will remain available for play. You’ll still be able to play your favorite arrow-shooting samurai in ranked mode, but you might have to temporarily pick up another DPS hero when he inevitably gets banned for one week at a time. Here’s how Blizzard plans to roll out this sweeping change to Competitive Play, how it will work, and what player are saying about it: How do Overwatch Hero Pools work? Hero Pools are a somewhat extreme attempt at balancing out the spread of playtime across the game’s 30 heroes. This phenomenon, generally referred to as “the meta," usually dictates which heroes get picked most often. ![]() At any given time in the game's meta, one of these strategies tends to rise above the rest and is considered to be the best for a certain time.īlizzard publishes balance changes to Overwatch periodically to balance out the roster and prevent any certain strategies from becoming too dominant. Maybe it's protecting a key teammate whose abilities are crucial to winning a fight. Maybe that involves jumping on one enemy and doing enough burst damage to eliminate them quickly to provide an edge. The most skilled players pick a combination of heroes that naturally complement each other, who can effectively work together to achieve a common goal. BlizzardĪt its core, Overwatch is all about team synergy. Winston the intelligent talking gorilla is one of the few tank characters in 'Overwatch'. This new facet of the hero-selection process has the potential to completely redefine how both pro and casual players alike approach team composition and overall strategy, and it also sets an interesting precedent for live-service competitive games like Overwatch that have a substantial pool of playable characters. They include a few minor quality-of-life updates and some additions to the Workshop mode, but by far the most unprecedented change is the new Hero Pool system that will ban a rotating list of heroes each week. These PTR updates are only accessible by PC users until they roll out to Overwatch’s main servers and consoles with the launch of Season 21 in a few weeks. The 1.45 Public Test Realm (PTR) update was added to Overwatch Tuesday. Especially if other games follow suit and copy Blizzard's latest innovation. ![]() In the meantime, and a new feature called Hero Pools has already hit the Public Test Realm (PTR) on the PC version that drastically redefines how players grapple with ongoing shifts in the game's meta.Ĭompetitive video gaming may never be the same. Competitive Play in Overwatch is about to fundamentally change with the launch of Season 21 on March 5. ![]()
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