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Overwatch players will never be happy. There’s always something wrong—whether it’s a hero that needs to be nerfed or a minor bug that shows up way too much. Right now, the community is complaining about GOATS, a gameplay style first popularized by a tier three Overwatch team of the same name. It may feel like all your teammates are screaming “GO GOATS” into your ear, but the reality is that it’s just not the case. At least, that’s what Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan thinks.
“The reality is, south of diamond, no one is playing GOATS,” Kaplan said on a livestream with FRAN. “Or even if they’re playing Reinhardt and Zarya and Brigitte, and all the other characters that comprise GOATS, they’re not playing GOATS.”
Related: Overwatch players think the new PTR patch could be a nerf to GOATS
It’s not specific to GOATS, either. Kaplan said that for those of us in gold, when we’re picking D.Va and Winston, we’re not truly playing dive, either. It’s just the nature of the patch cycle. Players read about a popular style on the internet and choose those heroes in-game, thinking they’re “so meta.” They play it for a few weeks—and in all their games—and get sick of it. Then the complaints start.
“What’s inevitably going to happen is, whether the meta changes or not, people will end up not liking the current meta,” Kaplan said. “And I already see that happening. I see people say, ‘GOATS is dead and now it’s double spiner and that’s terrible,’ or ‘Everyone’s going to just play McCree.’ What the hell do you people want?”
Kaplan’s referring to a new path that was uploaded to Overwatch’s test server earlier this week. GOATS is all about tank-heavy compositions, using a high health pool of heroes and a trio of healers to keep the team barreling through enemy opposition. The new PTR patch directly targets tank and tank-like heroes, D.Va and Brigitte. Reaper also got a buff to his tank-busting abilities, something to make opposing tanks a bit easier.
For the complainers among us, Kaplan has one suggestion. Go play Mystery Heroes. “If you want random heroes every match, Mystery Heroes is now available for you in the Arcade,” Kaplan said. “There is no meta.”
