Blizzard seems to think changing the ratios of the roles will help queue times by making them closer to the data they have on who queues for what in the current game. This is very flawed thinking. Yes, a very, very small percentage of the population plays tank because they like tank best and would do so independent of queue times. Most people play all roles to some degree, and the primary influence of their decision is queue times. If I can wait 2 minutes to play tank or 2 minutes to DPS, I will choose DPS 90% of the time. I’m a tank main because I’d rather wait 15 seconds to play tank than 10 minutes to play as DPS. Once you introduced priority passes, I play DPS 80% of the time because it’s 1 minute to tank or 4 minutes to DPS if I have a pass, which I bank during placements or if I need to rank up tank. This is the way most players work. DPS has more variety of heroes, has less responsibility overall, has a counter for everything on the other team (what tank counters Pharah?), and overall less impact so less stress. It’s just more fun. People balance their fun in game with the lack of fun that is waiting in queue. getting to a 1:2:2 ratio still leaves the “play tank no matter what” players with an insignificant impact. Initially if people start on their old roles, they will notice much more favorable DPS queue times, and many will adjust as they see it’s the same time or 1-2 minutes longer to play DPS vs tank. And then the difference will adjust to its natural equilibrium of around 4-6 minutes longer to wait for DPS than for tank. Couple that with the fact that players like me will never touch tank again, and it further reinforces that the 1/2/2 change will do NOTHING to help queue times. You are completely changing the game (for the worse) without having any impact on what I imagine is the key driver in the change.
Want proof, Blizzard? Try a 2 month long competitive 5v5 role queue season. See how the queue times are at the end of the season. I have a feeling you’ll be surprised at how close they are to the regular role queue times.
2 weeks of 1-3-2 with super buffed tanks gives you nothing. People had to queue tank (1/6 the slots, not 1/5) for at least 7 games across a very short time period. Plus, it’s 1/2/2, not 1/3/2.
As Knighthood pointed out, near the end of the VERY SHORT exc was over, DPS had the highest queue times by a couple of minutes, despite having THREE TIMES the slots of tank.
Incorrect. Re-read it. I say it is insignificant when you change it so little. Tank-only players who disregard queue times are likely a single-digit percentage. If you could expand it to 2/27/15, you’d have tanks with the longest queues because there are people that just want to tank, and when tank is 4.5% of the slots, then them plus people doing placements or wanted to tank for a change overwhelm such a small ratio of slots.
No, and for multiple reasons.
Most people did the experimental mode to try all of the tanks, or the novelty of playing on a team WITH the new tanks. The time was too short for this novelty to wear off for the entire playerbase.
There was no real reason to play the card. There was no spray, no rewards, etc. They need to make it a real competitive season, so it’s taking away actual competitive players who play what they want, and play long enough to settle into what they like.
Even without the novelty factor, it was too short to see how the entire player base would react over time. Equilibriums take time to reach.