Looks like Blizzard are beginning to realise that almost all Overwatch gamers aren’t all within the Top 500, as they’ve eliminated hero swimming pools for decrease aggressive ranks. Players from Bronze as much as Diamond will not should cope with the weekly hero bans as a result of, let’s face it, these of us at these ranges by no means use the identical compositions because the Overwatch League, can we?
“Competitive play at lower skill tiers already sees a tremendous amount of hero composition diversity in their matches, and we don’t think they need a system like hero pools to encourage even more,” the devs say.
As somebody who not too long ago ranked in Platinum, this can be a fairly welcome change. Players at my rank (myself included) battle to counter loads of heroes as is with no bunch of them getting banned each week.
Having mentioned that, there are some considerations that this might encourage “smurf” players. If you’ve not heard of smurfing earlier than, it’s bought nothing to do with little blue folks (although I make that joke each time). It’s when a excessive expert participant makes use of an alternate account to play amongst decrease ranks. The fear right here is that, if their favorite hero is banned at their precise stage, they’ll simply hop onto their alt to play who they need to dunk on decrease ranked gamers. It’s a grimy factor to do, and sadly one thing Overwatch has struggled with for some time.
For these of you in Masters and above, you’ll now have hero swimming pools based mostly off of Overwatch League information, fairly than common on-line aggressive play information. As Blizzard state, the meta has modified so much not too long ago on account of the introduction of Echo, in addition to a latest patch that nerfed a lot of crowd control abilities (issues like stuns and sleep darts, and many others).
The fundamental purpose for the change, nevertheless, is generally as a result of Reaper and Mei had been getting used masses in OWL matches, however not in common comp, in order that they’re nearly by no means getting banned. As you possibly can think about, it doesn’t make for excellent watching when gamers are utilizing the identical injury characters each match. Once this season is over it’ll return to utilizing the overall on-line information to pick these hero bans, although.
It’s stuff like this that serves as a reminder that hero swimming pools aren’t actually to make regular aggressive higher, however to make the Overwatch League extra fascinating to look at. And for as a lot as I take pleasure in OWL, it’s a disgrace Blizzard have chosen enhancing their shiny esport over making the game higher for almost all of their playbase.
Overwatch is a minimum of getting a brand new addition to assist gamers discuss to their teammates quickly. The devs are revamping the communication wheel so you possibly can say issues like “sorry”, “fallback” and “why does Jeff love the Overwatch League more than me” “press the attack”.
