5v5 Will Destroy the Game

General Discussion
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There is a fundamental community issue that will be aggressively exposed with the 5v5 changes.

This issue lies in the support class. Yes I believe the support class is about to face the most criticism and change to the game, and 5v5 will result in a loss of support players.

The community as a whole (remembering metal ranks compose 85% of the player base) does not understand how to play support. They healbot allies while often times passively engaging enemies or hiding.

This is mildly acceptable as of now, as #1. there is another tank to hardlock and healbot, and #2. there is another tank to protect your backline.

With the removal of the off-tank, and with the changes to tighter map designs, OW2 is going to play significantly faster. The devs have stated they want a faster, flanker style shooter that creates more fluid gameplay.

Supports are going to find themselves more exposed than ever before, facing constant flanks, 1v1s, and various other duels, where their mechanics must override their game-sense.

Now many chose the support class as it provides a unique gaming experience in that you heal allies and the mechanics are not as demanding. It’s not like 99% of other PVP FPS games where a single mistake results in instant death.

If the community currently understood that supports are just DPS-Lite, who happen to also heal allies, then they would be playing them as such. However, they clearly do not, and healbots hard-exist for the majority of the community. I believe that OW2 is going to punish this behavior naturally with how the game plays, which is going to result in incredible frustration and a loss of support players.

While this is purely conjecture, many others within the community forsee a similar issue.

I’d love for OW2 to be 6v6, and I’m not the least bit disappointed by it’s delay. I’ll continue duo tanking with a few of friends and continue enjoying the experience while it exists.

24 Likes
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I understand the pros of 5 v 5 - makes total sense for PvE and queue times - but I wasn’t exactly filled with confidence by the demo we saw where some tanks weren’t even playable and none of the dps had been rebalanced around 5 v 5.

I really hope it works out great, but it seems a huge leap of faith to decide that this is the way forward for PvP after what seemed a fairly shallow exploration of it (based on what we saw).

3 Likes
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Agreed.

Winston and Rein looked terrible, while Hog and Zarya looked unstoppable.

OW2 is going to have to undergo so many changes or else it’s going to be utterly dominated by DPS and have fights that last mere seconds, as there’s one less tank to protect teammates.

At least the game has been in a relatively balanced state for a year now.

Like there’s still hero imbalances, but no particular class is impossible to play. Tank is tough, but not impossible.

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I want 5v5 as a tank player.

I get a mega super duper, overpowered version of my favorite character!

Who doesn’t want that?

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But it’s not.

If you watched the Livestream it was beyond evident how unbalanced the tanks were.

And then when your tank isn’t meta, what then? What happens when the 1 tank player in the lobby hardlocks a throw pick?

At least now, there’s another tank to try and play around.

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then you realise you’re by yourself cause your dps are flanking and your mercy is with them and that leaves just you and 1 healer with no support from the other tank :sunglasses:

actually it sounds just like a regular experience of 6v6 anyway lol cause then you’d have a ball on the other side of the map

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I want it too,

So lets not upset other players and make game 1/1/1 :clown_face:

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5v5 won’t ruin the game as it’s already in a ditch left to die.

Any updates at all are welcomed, especially 5v5.

I feel like we’re some of the only people who understand this lol. Give me my buffed single tank Dva. 4 second dm on top of other buffs will be fun, even without the other tank helping.

1 Like
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Good for you that 5v5 make your hero good i guess, tho if you didnt saw change and played around it dont call it good or even buff yet.
Once they start to compensate all cc loses for heroes by dmg buffs (what base on mei they want to do), it will be carnage even with tanks getting buffs. (if they get right buffs at all)

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5v5 will definitely change the game’s dynamics and there might well be losers in the exchange. This post highlights one likely scenario quite well.

Many people look forward to 5v5, because they think that one less tank will half the DPS queue wait. What they tend to forget is that across all ranks, support queue times often compete with the tank queue for the incentive box. In 5v5 the support queue will become the bottleneck if the player role preference ratio remains the same and the DPS wait times will remain long.

2 Likes
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It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they end up reworking certain dps in 5v5. I assume you play reaper. I should think they’d touch on him in overwatch 2. It may be that they buff him against squishier characters but not against the sole tank as it would shift balance too far in favor of reaper against them. Better against other 200hp range characters is what I expect.
(Also Mccree is confirmed to be getting nerfs to his flash bang so I wouldn’t bet too hard on dps being buffed beyond the underperforming ones that currently exist.)

1 Like
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They indicated directly all characters are being touched to one degree or another. Doom for instance was specifically called out due to his CC levels as a specific case problem they have to solve. Experiments _like making Sym a Support , were on the docket. This doesn’t mean as some have taken it she will become a Support; Echo was tested as a Support, and Tank even, then settled on as DPS. So my guess is tuning will happen to all with simplifying of abilities here an there like they did with Zarya (she went from two to 1 c/d on her bubbles).

I think its safe to say any character deemed “troublesome” by popularity is in serious danger of a soft or hard rework. I mean they already took freeze away from Mei because people whined about it, expect Sombra as they indicated to get changed, Doom is a guarantee, I’d also bet that Sym is in there, and possibly WB and Reaper among others. If they don’t touch Hanzo’s design, there is a real problem of perception in that team. No character should shield-break, tank-bust and snipe all in one.

4 Likes
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I am in some ways looking forward to 5 v 5 and in other ways not. There’s pros and cons. But I do agree that the support community is in for a rude awakening. When there’s only 1 tank, the support players are going to be the bottleneck. They’ll be the queue time problem instead of tanks. They’ll probably be the ones setting the meta. They’ll likely get a lot of nerfs and rebalancing. In short, they’ll end up being the punching bags like tanks are now. And you probably will lose a lot of support players.

2 Likes
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Good point, I hadn’t considered this, but you are correct. I mean the whining against Supports who gasp aren’t just healers now is tremendous, in the future when the tank is down they will expect to just walk all over the Supports… when that fails to happen they will throw cosmic tantrums as a lot of DPS now are salivating thinking they hit Easy Street with 5 v 5.

3 Likes
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I honestly believe 5v5 is going make the game better.

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PvE will be 4, 2 or 1 player but not 6 or 5.
Take a look at all previous PvE modes, Archives and Junkenstein are all for 4 players. Also in the trailer / showcase there was always a maximum of 4 players in PvE.

Even the queue times are only halved on paper.
Who says the player distribution will be the same after the patch?
What if nobody wants to play tank or support anymore? Then you have the same problems.
What if Tank (even if I doubt it) is extremely popular and then Tank has 10+ min waiting times?

The most sensible way to minimize waiting times is open queue with a flexible rolelock. Means it works like openqueue, but with class limitation that only 2-3 from one class can be used. (max 2 tanks, 2 support, 3 dps which enables the combinations of 1: 3: 2 / 2: 2: 2 and 2: 3: 1). So you would not have the balance problem of OQ while you have better waiting times and the flexibility (to a certain extent) of OQ.

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  1. They get to balance Tanks a lot more closely together, because the lack of Tank synergy
  2. Wouldn’t be surprised if +3500SR gets player selected Tank bans
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I think role limits of 2 Tank, 2 Support, 6 DPS would be better social structure.

Sure it allows 6DPS on a team, but it’s better someone picks tank or healer willingly, then because it’s their only option

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I prefer playing support because of it’s focus on game sense and positioning.

With everything going on with 5V5 they’re just making supports EVEN more DPS focused because they have to be. No current support (except at a big push Bap) would survive with one tank. They need to have their damage or utility buffed drastically (and it’ll probably be damage because any support utility gets hard nerfed). Then people will complain about Supports being too strong.

I don’t want to play a DPS who can heal. I want to play support and if the game is going in the direction it’s going in it’s going to be awful to play Support (and tank).

They’re building the game around an audience that the game isn’t for. Instead of fixing the game they have by balancing the hero numbers on the roles (more DPS than tanks and supports put together) they just decide to leave the problem and remove a tank.

2 Likes
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I don’t entirely agree. or rather, it must be contextualized a lot on the circumstances. first of all think that one tank less means that there are two of you to heal it immediately, no one has to “alternate” with the other tank. moreover these could favor more the management of the cc available from the supports, like the sleep of Ana. we also know that dps will no longer have these abilities, radically changing their independence in blocking an opponent.

in short, I think that all these details must necessarily be analyzed by looking at the whole modified context. of course I understand the fears, but … now we just have to see what will happen.