I’m very bored and this is very simple so let’s lay things out.
2-2-2
Pros
Eliminates highly skewed compositions, primarily DPS heavy ones. Such compositions may make your team less competitive and are resented by tank and support players because apparently these players feel under-appreciated. DPS players themselves can be unhappy due to a perception of being less competitive.
Eliminates role exclusive compositions like GOATS. Such compositions may be extremely effective while relatively quickly becoming not very fun to play. The exclusion of a role can adversely affect gameplay, in the instance of GOATS engendering the perception even among its playerbase that Overwatch is a boring game with a low skill ceiling.
Allows for role specific skill ratings that make matchmaking more accurate and reduce the need for smurf accounts.
Facilitates balance as developers have to worry about a limited number of combinations.
Cons
DPS is a disproportionately popular role yet it’s limited to parity. This results in longer queue times for many players that risk alienating the single largest group of players. Players can settle for playing DPS less often, same as they can just stop playing the game altogether.
I have even heard that the other roles may not have enough players queuing for them, resulting in for instance a higher skill rating spread among tanks in games. Such imbalances may also slow match generation.
Compositional diversity is reduced as there can be no 3 of any role and no 1 of any role.
1-3-2
Pros
Substantially improves queue times for the most popular role, DPS, while also reducing matchmaking pressure from a possibly underplayed role, e. g. tank.
While preventing the worst of DPS-skewed compositions it eliminates tank and support heavy compositions that may be perceived as more boring to play.
Role specific skill ratings are preserved and balance remains easier for developers due to limit on combinations.
Cons
One role in particular plays every game alone. This is a two-fold problem. One, people may perceive this too be too burdensome or not fun in the long run. Two, due to sub-role groups such as off-tank and off-support that aren’t suitable for solo play a number of heroes would at minimum need to be drastically rebalanced toward one group or another, reducing hero identity and increasing pools of heroes that may become overcrowded. Conversely, more suitable sub-roles such as main tanks and main healers may become very boring to play through repetition. Shield tanks are a major problem.
The above problem can be alleviated by trying to make 1-3-2 more dynamic by allowing either tanks or supports to be the 1 and the 2. This is problematic to implement, excludes 2-2-2 relative to the third option below, and excludes the possibility of DPS being a less played role unless you really want to screw with things. These are relatively impractical considerations just to preserve role specific skill ratings that will have adverse effects on queue times.
Queuing imbalances are still possible depending on long term preference. An assumption is made that people, for instance, would like to play a lot less tank than support. Could be alleviated by changing the 1-3-2 standard, which may be arbitrary and screw with balance.
Compositional diversity remains reduced due to strict limitations.
1-1-1(3 max per role, no role queue)
Pros
Queue time disparities are gone.
Excessive use of particular roles is reduced.
No rigid role compositions substantially increase diversity potential. All variations of 1-3-2 are possible as well as 2-2-2.
Swapping roles mid-game returns, greater ability to change composition.
DPS players accommodated.
Cons
Role specific skill ratings are gone.
Rush to pick heroes/DPS is back as are arguments over who should be playing what.
One unspecified role may often have one player playing it. Not as strictly speaking balanced as 2-2-2 but not as oppressive as a rigid 1-3-2.
Balance will return to being more challenging for the developers. Even a form of GOATS with one DPS will be a possibility.
A couple more options have been brought up, primarily 1-4-1 or 1-1-1(3 flex). 1-4-1 rigid is a non-starter as the developers themselves have dismissed it. 1-1-1(3 flex) cannot preserve role queue as the three flexes cannot be matched to a skill rating before a match is created, unless a fourth skill rating is created for the ‘flex’ role. Thus 1-1-1(3 flex) is the same as the third idea here, except it allows roles to reach four as opposed to three heroes, which opens the door for a lot of four DPS comps. Essentially it’s 1-1-1(no role queue) the only restrictions being one hero is required in each role. It would appear this is too loose for people’s and the developers’ preferences.
Lastly, a 1-1-2-2 has been conceived, for no particularly good reason. Enough said. 2-3-2 is another idea that has not gotten much traction seemingly on feasibility grounds, some invoke clutter. People always find reasons, especially in low level communities like these, but it’s not a particularly seriously taken idea at the moment.
By the way, how bad have the queue times gotten and have they already loosened the SR range within games? Does a spread of players apply only to particular roles?
How long has 2-2-2 been around for? I’ve read that there has been no loss of players yet.
Complaining in gaming can be taken for granted same as the subreddit of a Blizzard game being drowned in highlights and fan content even if the game is catching fire in a bad way. Heroes of the Storm was like this. 1-1-1(3 max per role, no role queue) will eliminate the role queue wait time problems, curb the worst of free choice tendencies that are now deemed unacceptable, preserve roles such as “off tank” and “off support”, and expand the choices of players while accommodating more DPS players if that is what people want to disproportionately play. There’s a contradiction in the last two but perhaps it is wisest to let the competitive mode be; most people still play for fun, there may be a lot of 3 DPS play but people have also shown a willingness to mix things up. The fact that 1-3-2 is being seriously considered so soon is an indicator of deficiency in the logic of 2-2-2. I think the 1 role will appreciate not being cornered in a rigid 1-3-2. Role specific SRs will be gone and the onus of balance will once more shift in the direction of the developers but at least there will be significant limits. With one of each role guaranteed maybe the developers can consider amplifying the roles of main tanks and main healers, making lone role compositions more viable. Then the off tanks and off healers with DPS aspects can make more sense in compositions where there are two or even three of a particular role. Then perhaps more targeted restrictions can be considered in how many main tanks and main healers can be used. In essence, to some extent you build the game around the skew of the player distribution toward DPS if balance proves to be such an intractable problem. You use more of a scalpel as opposed to the machete the OW developers are currently stuck with, and we all know how slow their attack speed is.
Obviously there are big balance implications, but the lazier you go with role queue facilitating balance the more you limit variety, which is a prized quality for it adds longevity to the playing experience and accommodates more types of players. The Overwatch developers really need to consider the principles of this game. It seems like they had a knee-jerk reaction with 2-2-2 and it didn’t take long for them to run into troubles with it. 1-3-2 is a half measure with serious consequences of its own. To make matters worse the Overwatch community is pretty scatter-brained.
LFG doesn’t even come close to the point where it would be a proper replacement for Role Q system.
My LFG experience has been horrible due to it’s major (and at least in my opinion unfixable) flaws, while Role Q massively improved the game experience for me.
It still helped. LFG isn’t a fix, and in the long run neither is 2-2-2, which it seems the developers have quickly realized. Are you a support and/or tank player? Some of you fail to realize you represent only a specific interest whereas the developers of a game are looking for an optimal balance between competing interests. It goes without saying that DPS has been and is the most popular role in Overwatch, hence the queue times issue. This is the driving force of considering 1-3-2, although I’ve heard something about a shortage of tank players. How will tank players be liking that? There’s talk of rebalancing Zarya, Roadhog, and D. Va to make them DPS just so people can still play them. It’s doable, but sub-optimal. I wonder what they’ll look like and how they’ll play. Seems like hero diversity will be narrowed. By the way, will Winston be a main tank? Can never have a composition with Zarya and Roadhog as tanks, and always two supports.
An interesting variation of 1-1-2-2 has been brought up, where a 1 is a flex. While this would require another SR of lower quality it’s a compromise when it comes to role specific SRs. It also requires another queue that players need to use with another option in order not to potentially increase queue times. The benefit is it allows the use of a second tank. What I dislike is the silly assumption people seem to suddenly share that OW comps need to have two supports in perpetuity. If anything I would favor 1-2-1-2 where a 2 is flex with a cap of 3 per role, but it’s highly questionable if this needs to be done for the sake of role specific SRs.
I think what happened with role queue is that people were unimaginative and wishful. They thought 2-2-2 would resolve OW’s balance problems and facilitate playing different roles with individual SRs without factoring in player preferences and compositional variety. I’m actually kind of surprised the developers failed to come up with a better answer when they were evaluating their options, if they ever truly did so rather than jump into something that sounded good. I think a lot of people have gotten and will get disillusioned with the game waiting in queue and getting the same rigid boring compositions game after game. There also seems to have been a false assumption that role parity in Overwatch is reasonable. It’s unrealistic, painful at best. The Overwatch player distribution is not evenly split, I have no idea why no one could come up with anything better on the design team than what was the most obvious idea. Disheartening, and these people have shown over the years that they move at a glacial pace in making changes no matter how unacceptable the status quo would be. Poor leadership in my opinion. Complacency, lack of ambition, stilted background process. Overwatch is starting to remind me of Heroes of the Storm where once the game was released developers would at most talk the talk. They would have a certain formula they’d follow post-release and prove slow and unable to steer the game in impactful directions. At least in Heroes of the Storm the developers realized the need to make quicker balance changes. There may be a paradoxical fear here of screwing up when what ends up happening is that they still screw up impressively yet take a lot fewer chances at success. The OW team never seemed to learn from stale metas and the anti-climax of their much overdue responses. Now they’ve walked into this mess and wasted two whole months apparently testing 1-3-2 to little avail. It’s a good thing they don’t work for NASA as every decade the single launch would fail to pass the mesosphere.
Here’s an idea for appeasing tanks and supports who would sometimes have to perform their roles individually. Make them feel special so they would stop crying while the rest of us are able to play the game again without having to browse the internet, play other crap in queue, or stare into space. It would also be nice to see different compositions again. Hell, even compositions without two big shields that make the game super fun to play. It boggles my mind how developers who are supposedly the cream of the crop in the industry can’t think of these things over the course of months and years. Perhaps unbeknownst to us only three people have been maintaining Overwatch post-release. Maybe they just water their keyboards looking at the front page of the subreddit and following social media. By the way, what in the world have the “lore” people been doing these past four years? They must have been part-time freelancers because such productivity can’t even feed a family of cats.
Any variation with a possibility of one tank will cause tanks that don’t play the one best tank to be harassed that is enough reason for the answer to be no.
Yes, we know some tank and support players have the fortitude of a folding chair. It’s a good thing no decision is made based on veto powers of forum posters of all people. Under such a condition the game will instantaneously become a time capsule.
With no role queue it won’t be up to one player, and with buffed main tanks there will be a greater likelihood that a lone tank player selects such a tank or that someone else plays tank too.
A group of tanks have always been necessary. Whether it’s Reinhardt, Orisa, or even Winston or Sigma a shield has proven to be a fixture in Overwatch. These heroes can stifle the game when stacked too. So turn this de facto necessity into a viable solo cornerstone of compositions. Buff these heroes into powerful or robust tanks, splitting them off, restricting their stacking, making solo tank play feel better, and opening up options for what people want to play more - whether it’s DPS or other tanks or another hybrid support. Like it or not, this game is at its best to play and watch when DPS skewed, not when it’s WoW for babies or a watered-down MOBA. Without the first person shooter element being highlighted this game stands on precarious ground, and player preferences and reactions support this. There are long queues and looser SR ranges when players can’t play DPS, the game had its most repugnant meta when there were no DPS. The roles are simply not equivalent in preference, and trying to force numerical parity is a fool’s errand that while some feel is good and fair will reduce the appeal of this game. An FPS was not a smart choice to turn into a MOBA with no leveling or items and aim to set you apart and reward you. This inclusion project is not what people want to play.
If you want to learn this the hard way so be it. I’m sure a Heroes of the Storm excuse will be there to fall on too. People just don’t like games that put a chokehold on power and skill, it’s as simple as that. Buff a group of tanks and supports, loosen restrictions, and let people have fun. Or just turn OWL announcers into vocal actors because a minority of non-FPS players want to feel not only included but equal in every sense. It’s diversity at the lowest common denominator gone wrong, and it will at best consign this game to mediocrity even when balanced better. There’s something boring about playing against four tanks and supports even as DPS.
In essence there is a let’s say normally distributed player population where DPS is the bulk and tanks and supports are the tails. Instead of forcing an even distribution that doesn’t exist make main tanks and main supports exceptionally powerful and cap each to one per team. Require one of each role (tank, DPS, support) and no more than three of each role per team. The powerful sub-roles of tanks and support ease solo tanking or healing and limit the stacking of certain tanks and supports, opening up more slots for DPS and hybrid heroes that tend to be more popular.
I. e. compromise. Something this immature community has trouble conceiving.
2-2-2 is fine. As a previous dps main I have adapted and learned to tank and heal much more consistently. These so called dps players that complain about the system half the time can’t out dps their tanks and have little to no business claiming to be a dps main. Is it annoying that when I want to play dps I have to wait 10 minutes? Sure. But I know going into the game if I play with my team and adjust accordingly we usually win. I can’t tell you how many times as a tank I get in a game with a “dps” main that refuses to play anything that helps the overall comp. They stick to the 1 dps hero they want and most of the time flop while the tanks and heals cary the game. The community needs to get over its self as being entitled to play dps all the time. If there is any change needed to the 2-2-2 it is so that if a player quits their role can be filled by another teammate. Otherwise people just need to play the game as a whole
222 is where it’s at. Solo tank/support will result in it being a fps fest where the game devolves into “whoever kills the solo tank/support first wins.”. Jeff has already said they tried it internally and didn’t like it. Will be interesting to see what new ideas they’ve dreamt up in the dev update.
The ladder moves when you win or lose more than 50% of your games. At some point your win loss ratio stabilizes and you end up spending most of your time at particular ranges.
