Allow players to choose Maps / Game Modes for queue

General Discussion
1

This post is essentially a polite request to allow players more freedom in choosing how and what to play in Overwatch. This is a topic that is very close to my heart, and I’m sure many some people have brought these points up before, but I want to speak my mind too.

I love Overwatch very much. Currently it’s my favorite online game by far. This is mainly because of how well designed the heroes are and their appeal to players. Also, combat is varied and rewarding, so it’s usually a joy to play. However, Overwatch lacks many basic properties of multiplayer game that usually are considered automatic and would be a huge no-no in pretty much any similar game.

Essentially, Overwatch doesn’t allow people to choose their experience nearly as well as marketing would make you think. These are the main areas of improvement in my opinion:

- You can’t choose the maps you play in. All of us have our favourite maps. All of us have maps that we just hate. Some heroes are more suited to one map than other. Let’s say you would only enjoy playing builders. Maybe you would then prefer maps like Hanamura or Volskaya. And some other people hate these maps. With player base so huge as in Overwatch, I don’t see any reason NOT to allow people to favor some maps over others. Please note that I’m suggesting this possibility only for casual quick play matches, not competitive.

- You can’t choose the map types you play in. This is similar problem as the prior one, but allowing people to at least choose the map types they want to play (Payload, 2 CP, Control Point, etc.) could be an excellent middle road solution. This is the thing that for example I would need the most. If I’m honest, I still play Overwatch after +500 hours because of only 2 map types: control point maps, and team deathmatch. All the other ones, I sadly don’t enjoy very much. I can play payloads and even 2 cp-maps, but I don’t really enjoy them, and if I get many of them in row from Quickplay queue, I usually stop playing pretty fast, frustrated.

And I think this is a problem for many people. It certainly is for me, because if not for this design philosophy, I would be playing much more Overwatch, and enjoying it immensely more. Currently, I have no other choice than to roll dice by queueing for Quick play, hoping that I get some map that I don’t hate, and if not, just leave and queue again and again. And at some point I then eventually get the leaver penalty, even though I leave at the beginning of the match. This is not great for any of the players in these matches. And even if I do play those maps that I don’t enjoy, I usually perform much worse than in the maps I like.

Again, with Overwatch’s huge player base, I don’t see any good reason not to allow separate Quick Play queues for 2cp-maps, Control Points, Hybrids and Escorts. There would certainly always be enough players for all of these categories. And of course original Quick Play queue could still exist there for those players who like variety over everything or all maps equally.

- You can’t always choose the game mode you enjoy. As said, I enjoy Team Deathmatch very much. Currently, it’s half of the reason I play the game. And yet, it is in arcade only every third or every second week. Most of the time, I can’t play it. Why? Is it because devs want us to try another game modes of Arcade, and there is no space in Arcade tab to include more than 5 modes? That’s ridiculous. You could include 20 game modes in the tab easily, there is no way Blizzard doesn’t have the design and programming skills for that. Also,I don’t think you can force people to play another modes this way. For example, all my friends favor certain types of Arcade modes, and very rarely venture out to play anothers. If the mode they love is not there to be played, they don’t switch to another mode - they just don’t play at all. It’s just the way most people are. We love what we love and hate what we hate.

Please consider these suggestions! You have so many lovely maps and game modes in Overwatch, that it’s an absolute shame and wasted potential that players can’t choose to play these when they want, but just have to hope for the best in case of the map queues, or just wait for days or even weeks in the case of many popular game modes.

7 Likes
2

Please tell me you don’t want this for competitive as well? I can only imagine the amount of people who’d train for several specific maps and only queue for them.

3

As I said in the post, these suggestions are for casual play. In Competitive, there is valid argument that being competitively skilled in Overwatch should be tested in all maps and scenarios.

But in casual play, it’s different, and the focus should be in having fun. Not proving that you are expert in every single map, or even map type.

4

Ohhhh thank god.

Sorry I kinda skimmed it because brain is tired.

1 Like
5

I would love to stay in illios forever in quickplay as I love that sweet sweet environmental kills but when blizzard world came in I don’t actually want to touch the map because it was huge I don’t want to sit and learn health pack and new spawn locations. If blizzard world was a choice I wouldn’t have really tried it and coming up with your special hero tricks is actually interesting. Maybe blizzard just doesn’t want people like me to skip over their hard work.

I would suggest custom games for you though if your into making newer rules and getting creative and stuff. I always do it for illios boop only and find many people with similar interests which makes it more fun.

1 Like
6

I love Ilios as well, though Oasis is my absolute favourite.

It may be that some devs don’t want that their hard work on certain maps or game modes would be lost. But in the end, that is pretty selfish and short-sighted perspective - isn’t it more important that as many people as possible love Overwatch as a whole, rather than driving them away by forcing them to play something they don’t enjoy?

Besides, I’ve seen fans of every map. It’s just different maps for every player.

7

Yeah that’s so unfair! It’s not like CSGO does that or anything!

8

if this happens i can only imagine how the number of times lunar horizon is played

9

How did you figure out my reason for quitting CSGO!?!

10

In Battlefields, Battlefronts and in Paladins for example they have separate queues for different game and map modes, and it works great. And Overwatch has even bigger player base, so it would fit even better in here.

1 Like
11

It would certainly help the amount of games that I quit out of at the start. I refuse to play on certain maps like Oasis and Anubis. and it would also allow the dev team to focus more on the map types in general that get the most playtime

12

Epic nerco… :upside_down_face:

They won’t do it though, barely any content as it is…

13

This would force too much accountability on the shoulders of developers and would likely be problematic from a self-interest point of view. If a given team had invested a bunch of approved resources into maps and games modes that very few people chose to play, in the words of Ebony Maw, “there would be…judgement.” It would be an uncomfortable accountability metric for those creating the maps and those who approved them.