5 vs. 5 conspiracy theory ╰(⊡-⊡)و

General Discussion
1

With how unbalanced and unstable the game is right now, I just cannot bring myself to believe that the developers for Overwatch (Team 4) competently made the decision to change the game format to better balance and improve the state of the game. I believe the only reason Blizzard changed Overwatch’s format was because of marketing reasons.

Just think about this: What would you say were the biggest issues that Overwatch 1 was facing near its end? If you asked me this question, I would say the shields, specifically double shields (which, from my understanding, wasn’t even an issue for the majority of the playerbase) and the cancerous amount of CC (which made the tanks lives a living hell). These were probably the two largest issues that really sent Overwatch 1 downhill back then.

Before Blizzard even released Overwatch 2, Orisa was already going to be reworked (we know this because she was reworked); she was one of the core components that created the shield problem in Overwatch 1, and they obviously planned to have CC reduced while also planning to give the tanks the CC reduction passive. (Again, we know this because these things were added and did in fact happen.)

So tanks were going to receive a passive for CC so that it wouldn’t have felt so oppressive. Orisa was going to be reworked and have her shield removed entirely, meaning the double shield issue that was between Orisa and Sigma would have been addressed. A lot of the CC was going to be reduced and removed. A majority of Overwatch’s main issues were going to be addressed or fixed for Overwatch 2’s release. (I should mention It’s weird how old Orisa would have been fundamentally better as a tank for OW2, but for some reason they reworked her anyway. It’s also weird how a lot of the CC got removed and was transported onto the tanks; it’s almost like they were trying to fix something—just food for thought.)

Alright So if a majority of Overwatch’s 6 vs. 6 issues were going to be fixed and addressed, then how and why did we end up with 5 vs. 5 anyway? Let’s get into this little conspiracy theory I have as to why I think 5 vs. 5 has nothing to do with balance, shall we?

We all now know that we were never going to get PVE; it was just never going to happen. Around some time before Overwatch 2’s release, Blizzard already knew that their main selling point didn’t exist and was never going to exist. What backs this up is the fact that we didn’t get any sort of news or information months after Overwatch 2’s release. (Blizzard knew the PVE was never going to come to fruition, so they obviously couldn’t gaslight the community any further.)

Put this into perspective: Blizzard knows they can’t just ship Overwatch out the door without their main selling point (which was the PVE) and slap a 2 on it with the only relevant changes being graphical and monetary. So what do they do? They change the game’s fundamental format at the last minute. “Why?” Because Blizzard needs good reasoning as to why there’s a 2 on Overwatch’s title.

Blizzard markets the game at Blizzcon 2019 as Overwatch 2. The developers show off that Overwatch is going to have PVE, hero trees, and all that “blah blah blah.” We all know the story. At some point, the developers, or Blizzard’s suits, realize that the PVE wasn’t going to be able to be released in a realistic time frame. Blizzard drops the development of the PVE, but they’ve already marketed Overwatch 2 as a sequel, so there’s no turning back. Blizzard knows they can’t release Overwatch 2 without their main selling point (PVE), so now they need to come up with a plan on how they’re going to try and justify Overwatch 2 as a sequel, i.e., 5 vs. 5.

Hopefully I’m wrong and this is all just ridiculous speculation, but for some reason I get the feeling that this isn’t speculation at all and is actually the reality and result of what happened with the game.

Anyhow, 5 vs. 5 sucks, and y’all already know #6 vs. #6daway.:moyai:

That’s all, folks. Here’s Scooby-Doo’s song for your travels.

8 Likes
2

Bring back 6v6 and dps doomfist. That is all

Make mei a tank she already basically is one

4 Likes
3

to summarize, 5v5 was blizzards attempt to justify it being a sequel?
wouldnt be surprised

4 Likes
4

Yeah, that’s pretty much the TL/DR. Lol

2 Likes
5

Completely agree with everything you said. I’d like to add, though, that when OW2 was originally announced, Jeff said that the core 6v6 gameplay wasn’t going anywhere. He had also previously mentioned that in OW1 development they had experimented around with different team sizes and 6v6 was the sweet spot where each player could have an impact, but without too much pressure being on one person. I don’t recall for sure, but I’m sure he also mentioned the pacing as well. The game is just more chaotic and less deliberate with only 1 tank.

5 Likes
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Specially if they had already decided to cancel the pve missions that everyone was waiting for, they knew that ow 2 would be just the same game so of course they threw 5v5 into the mix to “differentiate them”

7

The biggest problem with this conspiracy theory is that we know they were using 5v5 in all their internal testing before they cancelled the PVE:

Blizzconline was held in Feb 2021. At that time, when they were showing off the PVE, all the PVP they showed (from footage taken over several months prior) was 5v5. There was no internal footage shown that featured 2 tanks. And they only had a few tanks that were shown at that point, so they were still working on things like the Orisa rework and the Doom rework.

So 5v5 preceded the tank reworks and the removal of PVE.

Further, the very first experimental card came in Feb of the prior year. At that point, they were showing 1-3-2. Jeff, at the time, said that their internal testing had already moved away from 1-3-2, but it was clear they were looking at a solo tank environment. (Reading between the lines at the time you could tell they were looking at fewer than 6 players per team- they liked solo tank as a solution for many of the problems that the game was facing, but found 3 dps to be too much and Jeff also mentioned that 1 support was too much pressure for the solo support.)

So, by the time the first experimental card released to us in Feb of 2020, they were already looking at solo tank configurations with fewer than 6 players and by the time of Feb 2021, they had already locked in 1-2-2, but had yet to finalize most of the tank changes and had yet to cancel PVE.