122 is 222 all over again and 5 years in the making (long)

General Discussion
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its been 2.5 years now since we got 222 and looking back on it now i think we’re basically having the same situation play out all over again (with some key differences)…and on top of that the 122 change we’re seeing now is also a direct result of it

TLDR - OW’s chief problem still NEEDS addressing…both blizz and us are quite culpable…if we’re not willing to make changes then blizz has to…but change is REQUIRED

first of all we need to ask the question of WHY 122? what is forcing this change (because it is a forced change)…

so let me be very blunt with the answer:

why? because we refuse to change how we play…

this has been a persistent problem since like a year into the game…once we got passed the whole “holy crap this game is awesome…check out all the fun stuff i can do” phase…

ever since then we’ve only really been concerned with playing our OW…and well that has overwhelmingly meant “i want a solid game experience…but im not willing to do whats required for that to happen”…in less generalized terms - “hey…someone tank…i dont want to do that”

which btw is not technically wrong - if you dont like it you dont like it…but it is an issue…so lets just put that aside and call that the reality of the situation…it is what it is…

im not entirely blaming us because blizz, faced head on with this issue, then had the unenviable task of finding a solution for it…and well…they botched it:

faced with this problem they never really tried to address it directlynote…instead they decided to try to play damage control and placate the complainers (who were unironically the people most at fault for it) - “they wont do it?? ok lets do it for them” - hello 222

note - the chief problem our behavior caused is the same one that persists today: how do you make playing tank (and supports too but tanks are a bigger problem) more attractive…i can remember very vividly jeff talking about how there needed to be behavioral changes very early in the year…so they KNEW…but went with an option that didnt address it

did this address behavior? of course not… all it did was ensure a specific comp…all while exacerbating the issue because it created further issues on top of it (chief amongst them…queue times)

note - and i probably made a 100 posts on this at the time…heres one where i ironically said it shouldve been saved for OW2 and well we’re not surprisingly dealing with the same thing now (that was before we knew about OW2)

and so here we are almost 3 years later faced with the same exact problem we had then…except now further damage has been done…the problem has grown worse…we have bled players…we’ve had to try things like priority passes…the game is in worse shape now than it was before the change

the key difference between now and then is that now they HAVE to act…their hands are forced…we cannot go into a brand new game with things as they currently are…

im going to be completely honest here and both give credit and also criticize 122

let me criticize first because thats what this post is mostly about:

Lets restate what ive now said several times in this post because its worth repeating over and over again…the PROBLEM is still the same - the community does not want to play tanks and that creates multiple issues

what is 122? yet again another attempt to mitigate the side effects…and it is once again capitulation…“we cannot make you guys do it…so we’re going to sidestep the issue”…once again that doesnt address the chief problem (and once again we’re just as culpable as we were before in this regard)

in that regard im very fearful for this change…because it is a big change and the underlying problem isnt being addressed

why do i give credit?

because unlike last time…we have seen them attempt to change the class itself…again they NEED to make it more attractive for the game to survive…i know many tank players (the few that we have) are unhappy with that part of things in particular but tanks as they are present a fundamental problem for the game as is…

whether or not the actual changes accomplish this is a different question and i can honestly see both sides of the argument here…but we cant ignore what the whole of the community has been saying with their actions for 5 years now…which is “id rather not play the class as is”…the harsh reality is that tanks themselves (whether it be 1 or 2) NEED addressing and changing…

note - personally i think the reaction we have seen so far is over-reactionary (the norm on here it seems like)…i dont think solo tanking is as bad as people make it out to be…not to mention we dont have any real idea what the game will look like when all is said and done…and we sure as heck havent tried it yet…so im not about to call it the right or wrong change yet…but i think we need to at least be honest with ourselves about why theyre considering this (at least partly)

on top of this theyre also talking about CC and thigns like snipers at the very least…which WOULD be addressing other problems directly…a welcome direction if it does end up happening…im very curious to see how those turn out…

so theyre making the right types of changes (or at least saying the right things this time) whilst also repeating prior mistakes…

so to put a ribbon on things:

i know opinions on the whole 122 thing are all over the place… but we need to at least be honest with ourselves about why this change is happening:

we have created a major issue with this game over the course of 5 years…blizz has failed to address it properly…things have gotten worse since their previous attempts and wholesale changes are REQUIRED…

if we’re not willing to make changes ourselves (because blizz cannot force us to) then they HAVE to make drastic changes such as what we’re seeing them do now

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You make some good points
the core issue is the fact that this was supposed to be a game about heroes not roles/classes

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yes and no…

like roles were always going to be a part of the game…the roles exist…we cant just say they shouldnt be there…but youre right i dont think it was ever intended to played with the mindset of im a X role player…

but because we do play that way (generally speaking) we have this massive issue that has persisted for about 4 years now…we havent shown any indication that we are going to change that…and so now blizz HAS to do something about it…

i dont know if its the right decision yet…but i completely understand why its happening…just connect the dots…its been coming for a long time now

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I think 5v5 needs a lot of work, and some more fundamental changes to how the game is organised aside from 5v5. Heres my go at it, let me know what you think!

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Think what 5v5 ends up looking like is a completely different subject altogether…more talking about the underlying need for it at this point in the games history…why are we where we are

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Originally tanks weren’t really tanky except rein/zarya, rein/zarya were bar none the best tanks, and you only had 3 weak healers. They gave tanks and supports far and away too much power later, than this caused a cascade of wrong problems leading to 2v2v2 and finally 5v5. If they want to fix the game, they need to make supports and tanks not so required, IE nerf high healing and high shielding. Than you wouldn’t need 5v5 or 2v2v2 anymore.

But the power level of tanks and supports forced the game into either have them or fail, which instead of addressing their power level, they just forced players to play OP heroes.

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Thank you Baja. This is probably the most well thought out post about 1-2-2 I have seen the entire time on this forum :smiley:

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One thing people are missing is that once tanks are less of a problem for queue times, supports will become the bottleneck. Especially if people notice damage queue times are getting lower, more people will switch over and the problem will continue.

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Heroes. Not roles. This be the truth.

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Good post, we need more balanced takes like this instead of overly positive or negative overreactions. It seems like they are aware of how difficult human psychology can be to tackle, because in the content creator AMA they mentioned that one of the uncertainties of whether 1-2-2 fixes queue times is if dps queue time gets better, it can create a negative feedback of more people who normally don’t play dps to try it out to take advantage of less wait times which flares up the problem again.

Player psychology is definitely at the core of the issue here. I’m just hoping that, throughout this games lifespan, they have gotten a good grasp of how the community plays tanks, and that they can appeal to that with not just with the tank changes but any future tanks as well.

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It won’t “fix” queue times…but I do think it’ll make them better…

I hate to hark on queue times (especially after warning everyone years ago how much of a problem they would be - cause it didn’t take rocket science to see it coming)…but you can’t have people waiting 40+ minutes to play a game…that’s completely untenable…

frankly I’m surprised the system wasn’t scratched…especially as someone that thinks it should’ve never happened in the first place

But I’m just trying to get people to understand why they’re doing it…122 was pretty much inevitable once they went to 222

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Very good read. 122, just like 222, will have both its advantages and disadvantages, that’s of course obvious from the beginning.

This time though, just as you did, the devs are actually looking into hero balance as well in connection to these new systems, which does make me hopeful for the future.

The underlying cause of all of this though is the inherently selfish general player behavior, which has not changed and won’t change anytime soon, just as you said

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There is no way to fix the lack of tanks. EVERY game that has a compartmentalized role system suffers from this very thing: the majority of players of any game will always prefer a damage oriented playstyle.

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Which is the chief reason why requiring 2 in every match (what 222 does essentially) was such a poor decision and terrible “fix” for the game…

Like I said in post the only reason I’m not as against 122 is because this time it at least it looks like they’re actually looking at how the tanks function which is at least looking at the problem itself…

There have been changes to tanks in 222 as well but they’ve been purely balance changes…”get them to work in a 222 environment” basically…

This time around it seems like they’re addressing what the class IS fundamentally

So again…a little hope…I’m not expecting miracles

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They went with 2/2/2 because it’s the most baseline and, frankly, BEST way to play the game for the average player (queues and preferences aside). The average player can adapt better to these kinds of compositions over the traditional ‘everyone picks what they want’.

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I wish they would have tried to make major class changes before deciding to cut one of the Tanks… but for some reason they basically left the game unattended since 2/2/2 Role Q and then wondered why peoples behavior barely changed :weary:

I think we would be in a much better position if the game had been 2/2/2 with equally sized hero rosters from the very beginning…

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I have said it before and will say it again:

It is not about changing stuff but about making bad changes.

Blizzard has been ruing the game for the past few years.
The solution is simple. Get ppl who actually can fix the mess or start over from the ground up with new heroes and new core gameplay.

It is actually embarrassing that a game like Paladins is doing a better job than the game that it is copying.

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I agree and disagree…

Like yeah it would be nice if they make changes to them NOW…but I think the direction that they seem to think they need to go in (in terms of what a tank needs to be for people to enjoy it) probably wouldn’t work in 222

not sure it would make much of a difference…I think they could’ve had more tanks than dps and people would still play the dps heroes more

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Personally, I think that 2-2-2 was not introduced because of forcing us to play with more tanks but to get rid of GOATS. In other games, they addressed this kind of issue of having too many of the same (tanks/healers etc.) by only allowing one buff of the same type being effective at any time. It would be enough, if they for example prevented stacking of AoE healing - meaning two AoE sources would only contribute with half of their effect, while single target healing wold stay the same.

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Sure, there will always be more DPS players than Tank players.
But many people got influenced by their very first OW experience.
And during that time it was much more likely to end up finding a DPS you liked than finding a Tank you liked simply because there were more than twice as much DPS heroes.

OW2 would have offered a new chance to create a huge influx of Tank players, but somehow they managed to make the roster imbalance even worse during the 5 years since release instead of working towards fixing it.

Overwatch was the very first online FPS game I played (before that I mostly played RTS and RPG) and I simply tried what I thought looked cool.

I liked Pharah with her Jetpack and the Rocket Launcher, but it turned out that I suck at playing her. So I tried D.Va and it instantly clicked for me.

If I would have been a better Pharah player, I would probably be a DPS main right now :woman_shrugging: