Randomized Unbannable Heroes in Draft Mode?

Would you support a randomized unbannable pool of heroes?

I think there are a couple of problems when 3 out of the last 4 heroes recently released were banned in most ranked games:

  • If a person spent ICE on a hero and then can’t play them in ranked mode for 3 patches, that’s a huge disincentive to purchasing future heroes.
  • Most people just ban the same heroes every match which makes the available hero pool the same for every match. The makes the actual heroes selected for matches pretty repetitive. It also means most players don’t think about draft strategies, but mechanically ban.
  • By having heroes on effectively perma-ban, the player base never develops tactics to counter those heroes or the skills to utilize them.

I am curious what the community would think if there was a random pool of 4 heroes that were unbannable upon matching. The hero pool is 42. That means in 1/10 of matches a hero like Kensei would be unbannable. The unbannable heroes would generate with each match made. The idea is that over enough matches, that one game where the enemy team had an OP hero would balance out with the games your team had that hero. Thoughts?

3 Likes

I think this is a pretty great idea honestly.

The perma bans are pretty ridiculous and this would be a much needed remedy to that.

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This. The best part is that Kensei wasn’t even that bad to deal with. It’s like 3v3 where you had to dry out Taka or Fortress, except that was a smaller map so it became easier. But Kensei can’t even fight back and the map is bigger as well so if you choose something that can invade and clear fast its ez. I obliterated a Kensei as top lane Taka and the guy playing Kensei is always scrimming so it means that he has to be good at some level. People are so afraid and thats where really bad nerfs come in. Kinetic was “ok” but I’m sure that if she didn’t have the BP bug she would have actually gotten a buff this update…

2 Likes

Really like this idea

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This isn’t a bad idea, I dislike the randomness because whilst probability should play out, it rarely does. So there are going to be a cross section of players who get screwed.

However that’s not to say I wouldn’t invite it for a patch.

What I would love is double and triple bans.

3v
T1-6 Single ban draft
T7-10 double ban draft (ban/pick/ban/pick/pick)

5v
T1-6 Double ban as is
T7-8 Double ban (ban/pick/ban/etc)
T9-10 Triple ban (b/p/b/p/b/ppp)

This doesn’t solve the problem, I concede that, but it does mix things up a lot.

If this system existed then it along with a pool of just two unbanable heroes would perhaps give a solution that works

2 Likes

What? That doesn’t even make sense …

What I’m trying to say is that the idea of the OP heroes getting evenly distributed such that an individual player does not feel like they are getting screwed is not guaranteed. Probability states it will be but in reality it won’t and if it is then it’ll be over a far too large a number of games

Great idea. Solves the problem with bans: giving people a chance to pick the hero anyway to either confirm or counter the crowd mentality that has taken over banning, with most of the fears recently being straight up misconceptions about the heroes released. The Kensei, Malene, and even post release Kinetic situation was hilarious to me. None of those heroes deserved a ban if you picked the right counter except Malene, and Malene wasn’t even that bad if you snowballed her and baited out her abilities, from release at that.

Not a random hero. The new hero cannot be banned :grinning:

I think it would just be outright better if SEMC took the same approach with new heroes as blizzard does with overwatch. Where the new hero can’t be used in ranked matches until the next season. but in vainglory’s case, the next patch after introduction.

2 Likes