Blizzard has received a lot of criticism for their handling of ranked play in Overwatch. Since the current system rewards players for their stats more than just winning or losing, it leads to players only playing one hero. They do this in order to get good stats no matter what since they know the intricacies of the character.
The problem with one-tricking is the fact that Overwatch is built around players being able to change their characters on the fly. If they are getting countered by an enemy they are supposed to switch up their choices to give them the best shot at winning.
The problem with that right now is ranked play does not reward players switching.
Well, one Reddit user thinks that he has found a solution to that.
In a post on the official Overwatch subreddit, Reddit user Sincear believes he has a solution to one-tricking. He believes in Blizzard implements a requirement for players to play X amount of hours in each role before they can play ranked, it will make them more well rounded and more likely to switch to help the team.
This is an interesting solution. It would still allow players to become good with one character if they wanted to, but would also make them more well rounded and have a deeper understanding of the game. Perhaps this is something Blizzard should look at to try to fix their ranked woes.
One problem still remains, however. The fact that in order to really advance in ranked play, you need to have consistently good statistics. This will always lead to players playing one character only so that they can guarantee that they will be able to get those gold medals at the end of the game.
While requiring players to have a better understanding of other roles by forcing them to play them before they can play ranked is an interesting solution, it can only do so much. Until players are rewarded for building good team comps and playing as a team, one-tricks will always exist.
Cover photo courtesy of NewbSauce
