2-2-2 lock is a disaster and here's why [UPDATED]

[yourDaddy05-2186]

@ARSHER-21947

I noticed there’s so many anti-role lock threads already. Looks like a lot of OW players aren’t happy about changes.

Nope, players are too busy playing the game. Here we have those that think that if they cry hard enough Blizzard might drop its plans …

[Lumin-1385]

@ARSHER-21947

I see a lot of Overwatch players are enjoying role queue and I’m really happy about them. But for many people (like me) it’s hard to accept such fundamental changes.

So, this isn’t about role lock specifically. I think that this comment you made is very insightful.

I work in the software industry, not video games but another sector. Something that is true about people in general is that change is hard for a lot of us. I’ve seen something repeat itself over and over again through multiple projects. A change, even a very popular and frequently requested change, always has some very vocal critics.

[NYMufasa-1229]

@Megadodo-11847

yet…players demand that other players they judge to be playing poorly switch to another character all the time, frequently, regularly

The irony is that the ones that demand that others switch, are usually also playing poorly.

[TheTrollWars-1270]

Playing healer vs Phamercy on a team where the DPS don’t think to look up is such a joy.

[MikeUchiha-11562]

@ARSHER-21947

I noticed there’s so many anti-role lock threads already. Looks like a lot of OW players aren’t happy about changes.

Or maybe it’s one of the following:

1. The people who previous advocated for role-lock are now complaining because they’re not magically winning more matches like they thought they would.

2. People who don’t come to the forums frequently and follow game updates logged in and saw the new system and didn’t like it.

3. People who were indifferent about the change, realize how limiting it is.

4. People don’t like change.

Any of those could be the reason.

[ARSHER-21947]

@Lumin-1385

I work in the software industry, not video games but another sector. Something that is true about people in general is that change is hard for a lot of us. I’ve seen something repeat itself over and over again through multiple projects. A change, even a very popular and frequently requested change, always has some very vocal critics.

Don’t get me wrong. Every piece of content for Overwatch is appreciated and very welcomed. But Blizzard changed core element of the game and at the very least they could make something like voting (people who agree/disagree with 2-2-2 lock) before forcing it (yes, i know they made “BETA” season but it’s very PTR-like story - just an early access)

[SleepyB34r-1518]

And they got that SR by being a Genji one-trick…

The SR ratings are junk. Nobody actually places very far from their old rating. Regardless of skill.in that role.

How many games do they need to throw before they get their real rank? 50? 100?

[ARSHER-21947]

Agree. With role-lock now there’s so many DPS healers and DPS tanks (literally Roadhog one-tricks). Plus matchmaking is just terrible this “BETA” season.

[OhEmGee-2979]

@SleepyB34r-1518

How many games do they need to throw before they get their real rank? 50? 100?

Ask Blizz… but yeah, there will be a period of adjustment.

[Lumin-1385]

I’ve been involved with multiple betas in my career. The purpose is to fine tune things, and discover bugs or work flow problems that we just couldn’t account for until the software made contact with the user.

In my time in the software industry, I’ve only seen one feature scrapped during beta. And that was incredibly costly. It is never the intention during beta to be evaluating keeping the feature or not. Something has to go horribly wrong to scrap the idea completely.

[Cleopatra-21937]

@ARSHER-21947

Agree. With role-lock now there’s so many DPS healers and DPS tanks (literally Roadhog one-tricks). Plus matchmaking is just terrible this “BETA” season.

Best thing about it, is that now smurfs get moved to their respective levels 3x slower, since they can smurf on separated roles.

[ARSHER-21947]

I know this thread is pretty much dead, but oh gosh, did you see that dev response about whole 2-2-2 lock situation?

Role Queue Update

We’re now over halfway into the Role Queue Beta Season, and the introduction of Role Queue into Quickplay and Season 18 are just around the corner on September 1. We wanted to take the opportunity to address feedback we’ve been reading on our forums and other social media, as well as provide some insights into how these systems work. The primary goal of this feature has always been to increase the quality of Overwatch matches, and it’s been great to see so much positive feedback about match qua…

This is such a mess. It proves the fact that devs doesn’t understand their game anymore. He thinks that role lock fixed all problems and somehow overpraised it even more.
(ignoring the fact that matchmaking even worse now, toxicity is raising and so on.)
He also told that GM players are the best at any role they play (like GM Mercy is gonna be GM on Widow either). What a joke…

@ScottMercer

The results of your matches in the Role Queue Beta are not being thrown out and will be used by the matchmaking systems to help determine your skill in season 18.

What the blog post was trying to explain is that the Role Queue Beta season’s stats in your player profile will only be available for a limited time, and they will not be added to your career competitive totals that you can see when you choose “ALL COMPETITIVE SEASONS” in your career stats.

This is just a huge punch in the community’s face. So many players were playing on the assumption that SR gains/loss didn’t matter for BETA season. At the very least Blizzard had to clarify this situation so much earlier. (If you ask about me - I played comp during BETA season just like any other comp season, but I’ve seen so many leavers/throwers during BETA season).

@ScottMercer

Losing a game doesn’t mean that your team necessarily played particularly poorly, it might just mean that the other team played particularly well that game.

The only thing I can agree with.

P.S.

@ARSHER-21947

It will be easier to balance the game for them, i agree

LOL This is such a joke now (after Symmetra nerf on PTR).

[IDANDEGO-1860]

Apologies if someone had already brought up, role queue seriously hampers a team’s ability to win a game if one of their mates quit/disconnected.

[ZaFfRiE-2681]

If 2-2-2 goes live without major changes I might stop playing this game. It’s ridicuous, I’ve never seen such bad game mechanics. You are now completely dependant of your team, you are completely helpless and can’t do anything about people not doing their job in this game.

I’d rather have the problem of having no healers/tanks in certain games than this system.

I can’t believe it.

[NoraG-21906]

Okay, here’s my thoughts on it:

In short, this is the single worst change Blizzard have made to the game. No contest. Including 50% Reaping, 300 pulse bomb and second charge concussion mine.

In longer:

The most frustrating thing I’ve been noticing is if the DPS are ineffective, which really is the biggest kill to any team, and they aren’t switching out - maybe there’s an enemy that needs hard countering and they’re just not doing it - then that’s it. Game over, try again tomorrow.

What I’ve further found out is that the role you picked continues to be locked in if someone leaves. If you lost one of your healers and you were the off tank and want to switch out? Too bad mate. DPS gone and you need to make up for it? But you promised you’d be a healer.

Which is inane at best.

What further doesn’t help is the years of buffing up the DPS heroes and nerfing of the others - maybe that’ll fix itself given enough time, but for now it means that as far as competitive goes the supports and tanks basically have to stay out of the line of fire to be useful.

The tanks have to stay away from the fight.

There’s no taking command any more. One change can seriously mess up an enemy build so often, and if you picked a different hero class and the players in the class you need to be in aren’t responsive, there’s nothing you can do even though you know what might help.

There are times where 3-2-1, 3-3-0, or even 4-1-1, will work. And, yeah, I think there should be a mechanic to stop people from trying to find which combination of five DPS will lead to progress, and if that happens to liven up the League too good. But frankly the league can go screw itself, I give more of a damn about the fifteen million other players’ experience.

This is broken. It’s hideous. They’ve made some really weird changes in the past but this one affects the way competitive even works.

I’ll still be playing QP and arcade for sure, but if this goes live as is I’m gonna just decide to be through with competitive. I’ll do my placements for the icons and sprays I’ll never use and then just be fine not playing it. I actually preferred getting stuck in a six stack of DPS over this.

Because at least I could bloody do something about it.

[IntrntH8Mchn-1662]

Well here’s to hoping. May it crash and burn when it hits QP, and my it take the careers of those in charge that signed off on it with them.

Toast

[Maxito-1837]

I was also a flex player, but it was mostly because people didn’t care about playing as a team and they played whatever hero they felt like playing. Role queue is the best thing that has happened to overwatch since launch.

[Megadodo-11847]

@Maxito-1837

Role queue is the best thing that has happened to overwatch since launch.

Imo, this change is the very worst one ever made to this game, with no close second

[Baja-11423]

since OP mentioned OWL…if anyone has been following, it had zero to no effect on viewership…the whole goats thing is a scapegoat…the comp they play is only 1 of probably several reasons why people watch…and as i pointed out before…putting in a role queue in game for OWL to stop playing goats was unnecessary…they couldve done that without a queue

[Megadodo-11847]

@Baja-11423

since OP mentioned OWL…if anyone has been following, it had zero to no effect on viewership…the whole goats thing is a scapegoat…the comp they play is only 1 of probably several reasons why people watch…and as i pointed out before…putting in a role queue in game for OWL to stop playing goats was unnecessary…they couldve done that without a queue

True, no changes had to be made to the game software itself for OWL to implement Forced 222