Method possible for forcing the hero you want

[klein648]

Not necessarily a bug, but an abusible behavior.
I discovered a method today where you can abuse the hero selection to force the hero that you want to play.

This abuse is reproducible with any player parties from 3-6 players.

As you can see in the sketch below, by using one high priorization and using the two low priorizations within the party, the algorithm runs out of possibilities to assign the heroes, guaranteeing to distribute heroes 1-4 within the party. Within the party, there is an appropriate priorization available to give every player the hero they want. This has a large reach of consequences as these heroes are not available for the opposing team either. Thus, you could steal the strongest, or meta heroes from the opponents and get yourself an unfair advantage.

Possible fixes: If there are conflicting player picks and one side ran out of alternatives, pick a random hero for him to play, or open a prompt that demands to pick one of the available heroes.

This should not work consistently.

 

[zombie182]

But the opposing team players can do the same. What is the problem?
This game is not so easy as to main three characters at once, it's only obvious one would prefer to play the same hero.

 

[gibnewitems]

Fortunately, parties with 3 or more only get to play unranked against other parties, so this isn't much of a problem. Back then (before ranked queue) was far worse since 6 stacks could get matched up against teams of solos.

But the opposing team players can do the same. What is the problem?
This game is not so easy as to main three characters at once, it's only obvious one would prefer to play the same hero.

Organized group play is a whole different universe compared to solo queue, where different heroes and strategies that would seem lackluster in a solo environment are optimal simply because you can always count on good communication and teamplay from your stack (otherwise you wouldn't group with them). Group players are also able to consistently get their one-tricks, meta picks, and favorable lane comps far more often than a solo-only player would be able to. Because of this and the whole myriad of other unfair advantages that groups get in an environment built for solo play, allowing unrestricted stacking breaks one of the fundamental principles that makes the ranked environment work (a fair and even playing field), and should absolutely be segregated as far from the solo queue ranked experience as possible.