I absolutely understand the fear of seeing the total rework of the game, but if we want to have an optimistic vision … I think that the 2-2-2 did not work for a very specific reason: it was “adapted” in the game, he has not rebuilt anything around itself.
I mean, the 2-2-2 led to many changes in numbers, but there has never been a real rework condition on almost any character. no one has had any real reconsiderations of their role, and the previously ignored heroes have continued to be ignored (junkrat and bastion are perfect examples).
what in my opinion makes the 5v5 (1-2-2) more convincing is that this time we have a real consideration for the reworking of the whole gameplay, without “adapting” anything. it is a super risky choice but it is the possibility of considering raising all the heroes on the same level, in a release that aims to have a new “day one” of the game, and not a predictably cyclical Meta in which the abuse of a certain Tank comp can lead the team to victory.
I have always found the search for compromise between the parts that work with the malfunctioning ones better than the simple “let’s make good what is bad now”. otherwise you risk making that improvement … too powerful and to be re-nerfed.
You have absolutely zero evidence that it will be better, as we have no idea how they’ll change most heroes to accommodate it. What we’ve seen thus far sends my confidence level screaming toward the center of the earth.
never said I had them. my consideration is based only on the approach that there was in 2-2-2, in my opinion too soft to be really functional.
we haven’t nothing to be speculable, but I think it makes sense to reflect on what the singular changes have entailed: a few progressive advantages, Meta impositions that are immediately wiped out with nerfs.
I may be discouraged by the work done on certain unpopular reworks that have divided the community (Symmetra) but I always think that this kind of “revolutions” have always been progressive compared to what the proposal of 2-2-2 really required. trivially the 2-2-2 failed first of all on the variety of heroes in each class, and obviously on the problem of double shielding whose only solution was to “kill” the heroes only in numbers and not adapt them in the way of use .
in any case, you are also right: we do not know if it will be better.
I’m super positive about the change. Overwatch is a team game, but nobody really plays as a team. 5vs5 helps this game as a solo queue game, that many people are more customed to. 5vs5 will also give that fresh and new feeling, when you boot up your new copy in 2040
6vs6 is great for 6-stack vs 6-stack full team coordination. But it just doesn’t translate into randomness of ranked.
I simply think that the key word of 5v5 is the simplification of putting on a team. perhaps in the considerations of 7v7 (they confirmed they had tested it) it was precisely the problem of complexity in coordinating so many people.
and obviously involves canceling the abuse of two tanks, but this is a very subjective discourse: the risk of having only one tank in the meta is very high, and they must calculate very well the usefulness of a tank in specific conditions (maybe just with the map structure).
the real problem that afflicts the community is the nostalgia effect. frankly I think the developers have run out of really good attempts to fix a game that (sadly) exhibits this tank / support abuse problem since Ana 1.0 (remember her 2016 grenade and quad tank?).
at this point the “revolution” can be more incisive than any adaptation.
5v5 DELETES Off-tanking as we know it, which is a playstyle where the off-tank plays more of an “assistant” role to the main tank and various teammates. Off-tanks help with rotating their particular burst damage, shielding and abilities when pushing for space and for peeling when needed.
Main tanks are different: they form the front line of their team and remain there when standing their ground and when taking space, essentially making them into de facto team leaders for everyone else to play around and follow. When they break lines by either backing away exposing vulnerable teammates or when diving in, orderly fights descend into chaos, which can be disastrous for their own team.
Off-tanking for me is my main enjoyment in the game. I never liked solo tanking when it occurred in the days before RQ,
I am very skeptical about the radical changes coming to OW2 and I doubt I am going to find them fun, as the tank I enjoy maining is going to take on a very different role and playstyle. Worse, I will no longer have my tank main friends to play with, except on other roles, which just won’t be the same experience. I despise knowing that my groups will be even smaller and that I will have to leave more people that I normally enjoy playing with on a nightly basis out of them .
I don’t think this is fully the case, for example old 4 sec DM D.Va was a bit main tank-ish. With more flexible defences D.Va can be both aggressor and some times go and peel for teammates. Off-tank playstyle is not dead, you can now treat heroes like Reaper/Mei/Doomfist as the main tank and DM them as they go in first.
This is a problem what 5vs5 brings in. Full team vs full team experience will be worse, but that’s not how most people play this game. 6vs6 was perfect for team vs team, contenders, owl etc. 5vs5 will help those friend groups though where they never did have a full stack of players available.
We have seen evidence that it’ll be worse though. The main evidence we have is that live stream where they announced 5v5 and the tanks had zero impact across every game. They just stood there and sometimes pressed w. While snipers dominated.
The games were awful, harder to follow than 6v6 and it just looked like a bad deathmatch game with little to no teamwork. The only evidence we have is that it’ll be worse.
Yes, this has been many of our concerns. That stream was really bad. Overwatch 2 is at most 1 and a half years away, it’s most likely a 2022 game, and if not, people will start forgetting…and leaving 1 because what is there to wait for?
Well, most of the issues of ow it’s trying to solve problems without considering side effects instead of direct approach.
1- devs done a poor job to teach players how to play
2- players found out the game it’s too complex and the population split in 3. Those who quit, those who just plays solo and those who tried to know the game.
3- devs got the message that the game was too complex and tried to easy things up.
4- RQ was introduced to prevent unfun matches, help balance and helps the learning curve
5- RQ was sucessful until they noticed that most of heroes ended up on damage, most of folks had bad queue times and one trick/main roles became norm
6- Devs saw, we need to improve dps queue, introducing priority passes.
7- Didn’t solved the problem, just made matches even worst because the same mains they created now are just throwing games on other roles for passes
8- we go with 5v5 to makes things simplier.
When devs notice they done a poor job to teach and improve pratice/vs AI modes, didn’t estimulated enough pratices on game browser. Why in the right mind they didn’t gave xp for gamebrowser games? Level it’s a cosmetic thing, if they wanted they could limit or reduce the ratio of x per minute in there to avoid exploits.
The game will be 4v4 if they keep the pace because it’s a simple math. Damage have 2 times more heroes than tank or sup, so the majority of playerbase will be in there. If you have a system with a ratio of 33/33/33 and you have more folks in a single role, means that single role will have at least 2 times more queue times.
They could done RQ as 2-1-1-2 spliting damage in offense and defense while they could try to address what “part” of damage role it’s more popular. They could done several ways to “detail” roles more to make things more “easier” to folks notice that everyone has a purpose or a job to do in the team composition.
What OW lacks it’s a proper explanation and tips of how it works. On OQ you see the game providing tips for you, that helped a bit. But after RQ implemented folks just don’t care anymore about the tips, because they got used to instalock what they want and forget the team.
Devs needs to make a choice of how they want to do with the game, but before do that they need to explain what are their goals and how properly play the game they created, because doesn’t matter the change they do, if they keep doing a poor job explaining things the game will keep changing in a way they couldn’t control or know the outcome.
It doesn’t matter. Players will play in a way, that is most convenient for them. Caring for team means giving up your fun for victory, that may not even happen, leaving you both loser and with no fun experienced.
Devs want game to be played in one way, but design of game itself pushes players in completely different direction.
They could make roles, well, roles - with more specialisation and unique strengths. But since they aim to attract DPS players to other 2 roles, they never did it. In fact, they did opposite thing, so many players, that actually wanted to care for their team, were lost and replaced by wannabe DPS, that simply want to skip queue times.
You merely adopted 2-2-2, I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see a tank until I was already lv 25, and by then, it was nothing to me but Roadhog.
If you change the game enough to narrow down the choices to acceptable outcomes will improve fun for those folks. The same folks who complains about OQ and defend RQ are proof of that. Folks often are lazy and don’t care about several stuff. If you make the game more straight forward for them you solve the issue. You can make folks play as team when everything in the scream helps them to behave that way. Knowing your teammates current hp on the top, their ult charge it’s a beginning. Making roles more detailed helps on the hero pick, making tips more often also helps. Swapping medal system to something more teamwork based performance like barrier damage done, deaths prevented, critical hits, average of teamwork in a percentile counter of how many times you prevent an ally death, helped in a kill or improved someone in the objective.
When you approach the player in several ways, narrowing their path to certain play pattern it’s a matter of time until they comply. That’s how “propaganda”, “religion”, “politics”, “media news” and most of “infuencers” do to reach their crowds and make them to accept their ways and rulings.
So yeah, guiding in several ways how teammates perform and their perception on their team will improve quality and fun in the matches. We already have deathmatch for folks who wants play solo.
Someone always will quit, the RQ made several folks quit. Hero reworks made several folks quit. hero releases made several folks quit. 5v5 will make several folks quit.
Every change will make folks quit. At least they doing a change they could control the outcome it’s way more wiser than just change for the sake or change. They could avoid several issues, but they chose a path that almost solved the older issues, but more issues appeared and those issues were handled in a way that messed most of the “benefits” they done previously. So yeah any change it’s valid if it’s for the sake of improvement, not for the sake of change. Because there is no way to please everybody, unless you keep several “time stamps” inside the game and even if they do that they would mess queue times even more.
my consideration is based only on the approach that there was in 2-2-2, in my opinion too soft to be really functional.