Blizzard save your game! go 1/3/2

DPS arnt the center of the universe. So, no.

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Yes, but they are most overwhelming in numbers. Converting them into tanks or supports will have only limited effect.

They need more tanks like Zarya where to get decent charge you are required to bubble teammates effectively with the reward being dps.

The problem is self inflicted. Want queue times to go down? Play tank. It’s as simple as that. If DPS mains started to be the change they wanted to see, instead of expecting everyone else to solve the problem for them (usually by screwing over tanks), then they would play a tank once and a while. I regularly see players with hundreds of hours of playtime, but only minutes (if anything at all) on tanks.

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Depends what part of the dps-main population you target. Like any population, they come in all shapes and sizes that represent a spectrum of possibilities.

Thinking that all DPS-mains are exactly the same is a mistake.

The one commonality of the DPS-main population as far as the role-select is concerned is that they are all of the opinion that waiting 10 minutes for one good game with a balanced team is worth MORE than getting in three or four games of “lower quality”.

At any given time there is going to be a healthy population of people who are right at the cusp of changing their minds. The “low hanging fruit”. Above them in difficult are the people who are open to the idea of changing their minds, but won’t do so for cheap.

Right now blizzard is trying to court the first group with their woefully insufficient 25 coin bribe.

They need to court the second as well.

There are many ways they could do that, because the population is a spectrum and not a hive mind. First, the 25 coin bribe could be tuned based on wait times to pull in people who want skins and other DLC rewards.

IMO, I think a better way is to target simple “fun”. Not with some kind of hamfisted attempt to make the entire tank category DPS-compatible because you’re going to lose as many dps players as you pull in. My personal favored way to attack the problem is with new heroes.

Specifically, new tank heroes that scratch the DPS itch in some way and target the most popular wide-category playstyles we see in the DPS queues that don’t already exist.

The top overall picked DPS heroes (on overbuff at GM) are Hanzo, Mei, Widowmaker, McCree, and Doomfist.

What we’re looking for is a hero who performs “poorly” (low win rate) with a high pick-rate. So, people play them in spite of losing. If you look at overall numbers, everything falls in-line, but that’s because you have tank and support numbers for overall context and if GM players are good at anything overall it’s winning.

So we go into the sub-categories and immediately McCree pops out. Very high pick-rate for offense, with a ridiculously low win-rate in his category. This tells me that he’s fun enough for people to pick him, and for them to blame anything but themselves when they lose.

On top of that he was created specifically around a playstyle and not a gimick or a mechanic, which is exactly what we want.

So, if I were to create a new tank to help bring DPS players into the tanking queue, I would create a McCree-like tank. A desert eagle gameplay style bully-tank hero with a respectable health pool and nasty falloff to let him/her zone at close range while still plinking heads at medium ranges.

Because they’re a tank, there’s no combat roll or fan-the-hammer. However, they do get a survival self-buff to support the bully playstyle, along with some kind of emergency zoning ability.

Big Mike (Tank) - 400 health
Former Deadlock gang member. Hates McCree; crushes on Ashe super hard but doesn’t stand a chance.

M1 - Big Pistol - 50 to 80 damage, at 7 to 20 meters, x2 crit. 10 round clip. 1 shot per 0.7 seconds (~114 to 71 dps before headshots).

E - Grenade Bandoleer - 70 x 6 damage, 3m explosion radius, no crit. 12 second cooldown. Releases 6 grenades at close range (random scatter inside 7 meters) that explode on staggered timers starting 1.5 seconds after release (one grenade explodes every 0.5 seconds). Big Mike is immune to his own grenades unless Blast Shields are up in which case they heal his shields like any other explosive.

Shift - Blast Shields - Gain 300 shields that decay at 120 shields per second starting 1 second after activation. 8 second CD. Blast Shields are super-effective against explosion damage and actually gain health equal to 50% of the damage prevented instead of taking it.

Ult - Team Barrier - Monkey-style immobile dome barrier with 3k health that lasts for 15 seconds. 2.4k ult charge required.

I think something like this could work to convince a bunch of DPS to try tanking. The short range on his gun means he has to press ‘W’ to do anything interesting, but he should deliver 90% of McCree’s fun playstyle without stepping on his toes that much. So if you can play McCree, you can play this guy.

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Oh God, please no. :joy:

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100v100

Best game mode.

Big ults.

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being a solo tank and getting focus healed by both my supports is my dream tbh

I will happily solo tank as long as I have a choice which tank to pick. It was subpar experience back then because only main tanks were capable to do so. With 1-3-2 system every tank will be tuned to be fully solo capable.

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when you think about it, a tank has triple the health of any other hero so it changes ult build rates in the game by default. if the supports only have to take care of one tank they dont have to feel split. if the tank is being focused by both supports they can make space for the dps to pop off so then overwatch becomes less built on ults and more built on dps play. which is what a lot of people want if what i hear from the forums is correct. tanks have almost always decided the pace of the game but if the dps get more of a chance to display superior gunplay it gives them more control of the match.

yes.
off-tanks complicate match making.

got two main tanks… you are ****ed
got two off-tanks… you are ****ed

This role is already played the least so it’s best if the game only requires 1.

in the early development of this game they compared it to the structure of mmo/wow! You have a main tank, dps and your support… they need to go back to this root.

focus on just main tanks… make them good at taking damage, hold aggro and space… not deal damage, restrict damage and kill everything.

they can even make an aggro mechanic where if you are close to your main tank damage is mitigated to the tank.

so many ways to approach mechanics like this to a fps.

Overwatch 2 needs a fundamental change, it needs to feel like a new game and a true sequel.

I dont think this will help the actually gameplay to be honest with you, it might help a tiny bit with the queue times but I think the quality of the games would kinda be ruined, tanks would become the first target every fight and would lose a sense of picking a target and going with it, now it would just be “theres the tank go kill it” which would be less exciting than 2/2/2

Plus if this would be an added option it would make the game harder to balance as you are then making two seperate states of play to balance for.

I disagree.

Yes, balancing changes would need to happen.

But ideally - if 1/3/2 were to come to fruition, Tanks would be in a position like where Orisa is now in relation to trying to kill her while Fortify at full health. That’s the feeling I want all the tanks to have so that way they don’t feel like they’re just going to be focused down in an instant. That way the game would just would take too many resources to punish the tanks specifically - so the edge on the fight would be trying to make picks elsewhere and then snowballing from there.

[edit - again, I don’t think Blizzard would make the balance changes fast enough to make 1/3/2 to work - but it does sound really good in theory]

no but for Overwatch 2… maybe.

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Im still not sure to be honest, if I were going to try this type of play again Id honestly want to see abilities have much much longer cool downs but also give a shield for example much more health, id want one shield to feel like an obstacle but once its gone its game time for everyone to out shoot, but thats just me.

I can see where your coming from, but dont think 1/3/2 would be for me.

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No
No
No
No
No

222 is a perfect setting
I don’t want to play as a solo tank for three dps and more so I DONT WANT DPS TO BE MORE OP
Alot of the dps need nerfs and some need buffs some need just absolute reworks
No thanks 222 rq is perfect as it is old setting is garbage and I am sorry but 132 IS ALSO GARBAGE

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shorter queue times for dps.
you don’t waste time shooting shields.
game is more dynamic.
game is not dependent on your tanks.
more focus on individual plays and winning duels.
more dps flexibility, that extra dps helps cover the weakness of another so Sombra/Pharah/76 do really well.
blaming your dps is fair since it’s the bulk of your team.

I guess none of this is good.

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Blizzard should go for 1tank 1 sup 4 dps to save their game and buff tank/heal apropriate to their roles. For example, reduce dmg output and buff their survivability and make it heal do less dmg but heal more. It would fix many problems and especially the q times.

They introduced so many shields etc. into the game while at the same time making all the shield buster not viable or inconsistant af. What blizzard does right now in OW cant be called “balancing”… i dont know what that is, but its certainly is NOT balancing. Thats just some bs a high monk came up with while beeing drunk af after smoking weed for 5 hours straight.

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Dear god no. Especially since tanks like Zarya, Road and D.va couldn’t handle being the only tank with what they have. Plus this would just butcher tank players by only having one. single. ROLE. SLOT. for tanks.

Also, who wants 3 DPS set rules when it could just create metas where spam is key since no shields, or well one shield would be the most required in this role queue, you’ll have not much cover as a Pharah can knock everyone to center and give a Junkrat enough targets with grenades to take them all down. All while having either a Sombra or Mei to disable the only tank from doing anything.

Don’t get me started with supports. Ana and biotic grenade. As well maybe Zen, Moira, or Bap. That’s it.

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Wow, it was super weird to stumble on this thread.

In early December, we were brainstorming ways to shorten DPS queue times and the idea was proposed to try changing the role queue team composition to be 1 Tank, 3 Damage, and 2 Support. Our matchmaking engineers did some modeling around queue times, expected behaviors etc. and all indications pointed to an overall positive improvement to all queue times under a scenario like that.

From a design perspective we were reluctant for a number of reasons. Before implementing 2/2/2 role queue, we had done experiments with the team compositions being 1 Tank, 1 Support and 4 damage. The playtests under a 4-1-1 comp were terrible. The problem was the solo support. As a solo support, you felt unable to keep the rest of the team alive. Added to that, at all times, you had 5 very aggressive players prioritizing you as the target every time. As soon as the support player on one side died, the entire team would fall like a house of cards.

So when the idea of trying 3-2-1 came up, we were hesitant because of our poor playtests with 4-1-1. But we did something interesting in December and I am really proud of the team for sticking with it.

Internally, for the past two months, we changed the game to be based on 3-2-1 composition. When we queue for our playtests, we only get 1 Tank per team for each match. We decided to “live with it” for December and January because we felt like the easy and natural thing for us all to do, is just say, “hey this is different and here are all the problems with it” and dismiss the system. But by forcing the team to try it out and live with it for so long, it’s challenged us to try to solve some of the problems that have surfaced.

And there are a number of challenges.

First, there is the issue of what players have come to call “off tanks”. The biggest issues center around D.Va, Zarya and Roadhog. The current playstyle of those tanks (if you’re adhering to various metas that have existed) is to pair them with other “main tanks”. Obviously, if we were to change the distribution of roles from 2-2-2 to 3-2-1 it would require some balance changes. But possibly more than that. Roadhog is a great example. Is the correct thing to do for Roadhog under that design to try to make him more “main tanky” or is the correct thing to do to simply move him to the Damage role and balance him as a damage character? We’ve tried both in our months of testing. If you were to come and play Roadhog today with us in our 3-2-1 experiment, he’s moved from the Tank to the Damage category, he only has 400 health, Take a Breather only heals and does not do damage reduction and there were a bunch of DPS changes to his scrap gun. Now, don’t freak out. We’re not doing this for 2-2-2… I am only sharing the design experiment that’s going on here. Maybe a better direction for Roadhog under 3-2-1 is some sort of team damage reduction ability? How do you take what is essentially an “off tank” and make him a “main tank”? That is what we would have to explore with any of these tank characters. Since the Tank roster is already one of the more limited character selections, we’re obviously not crazy about removing choice from Tank players. And if our stated goal is to improve queue times, did going to 1 tank actually remove a bunch of otherwise tank players from the queue? Or were some of these “tank” players actually damage players who wanted a faster queue time so they picked Roadhog? Obviously, complicated questions and it is even more complicated to be confident in an answer.

The other fear around a 3-2-1 comp is the importance it places on the Tank player. In our playtesting, this has manifested itself in two notable ways. 1) Some players feel a lot of pressure to choose the “correct” tank. If there is only one tank, the team has a very strong opinion about who that tank should be. Another fear around this issue is that metas will be even more limited as players tend to take the “path of least resistance” towards their hero choices. If Reinhardt is deemed meta, do we only see Rein from now on? Are we all mad at our tank player if they play the hamster? 2) Some tank players felt a tremendous anxiety about their performance in the match. They felt like being the lone tank put a lot of pressure on them and if they died, it was a really big deal. Some of our tank/support players who would occasionally play tank stopped playing tank during 3-2-1 and only gravitated toward support because they felt intimidated to be “the main tank” and have so much focus on their play. Conversely, there are a number of main tank players on the team who actually enjoy the added spotlight. Traditionally in video games there are different personas that are attracted to roles in games: Tank, Support, Damage etc. We saw this in WoW and we see it in OW. While these are stereotypes (and you have to be really careful assuming too much here), there are many Tank players who love being the “lone tank” and carrying the team to glory. Watching this play out in our weird, internal experiment has been fascinating.

Our support players have given mixed feedback on the experiment as well. On the negative side, people feel bad when the lone tank dies. On the positive side, many support mains have commented that they feel like they have more freedom to focus on other players and not just “try to keep the big bags of hitpoints alive all match”. In general, these matches are more chaotic and (I’ll touch on this later) feel “more FPS-y”. The result is good or bad, depending on the type of player you are. For some of our support players, this makes matches more exciting. EVERYONE is taking a lot more damage under 3-2-1. for some support players, the chaos causes negative anxiety and they prefer just healing tanks.

The damage experience has been overall positive. For one, for those of us (like me) who usually queue for all 3 roles, we’re often pleasantly surprised to actually get to play Damage. Also, many on the team have cited that with 3 damage dealers they feel far less pressure than they do in the current live game with only 2 damage. The compositions have been very interesting. For example, you can have a 2 sniper comp (maybe Widow and Hanzo) AND have a flanker (Genji/Tracer). It’s really opened up the game. If you’re evaluating plusses and minuses, it adds to the chaos, makes the game play more like a traditional FPS (less barriers/damage mitigation going on) but also detracts a bit from teamplay.

Speaking of Teamplay, one of our testers who did not like the experiment made a comment that he felt like 3-2-1 detracted from teamplay too much. I found this fascinating because in 2013/2014 every decision we made was to embrace/encourage/force teamplay at all costs. We put so much effort into putting the focus on team victory/defeat rather than individual performance. But in 2020, I feel like the over-emphasis on teamplay (while great for hyper competitive players and situations such as OWL), causes a lot of psychological pressure for your average player just looking to blow off steam in a video game. I guess what I am saying is, that in 2020, feeling like you can deviate from teamplay a little bit in OW and have some success feels like a good thing, not a bad thing to me. The other analogy I’ve used (and I know you all hate my sports analogies) is that OW – in it’s current evolved form – feels like a football game (American) to me where every match is 4th down on the goal line. The amount of team synergy and execution required to pull off a victory is exciting… but also a little intense. There is something nice about a more loose/skirmishy version of the game – but again, it’s all opinion and perspective. Not everyone on my team agrees with me and that’s a good thing.

The other odd thing about testing this, is that when we started, everyone treated it like this was “one of Jeff’s crazy experiments” and was a super different, challenging (and possibly stupid) idea. I tried to calm people down by reminding them that MOST of the matches in OW history since launch up until the release of role queue, were actually played with one tank… or less. After a few of the early playtests in December, I remember one developer giving feedback that “the game felt like old school Overwatch… like when we first launched.” I tried to point out that the reason they felt that way is because we used to play the game this way all the time… it’s shouldn’t be that surprising or different. Let’s all remember, the surprising thing back then was actually having two tanks…

So it’s been a really interesting and fun experiment. We’re not really confident that it’s the correct thing for the game. It solves a lot of problems but it also introduces a lot of problems (like most things in the world of game design). I am really proud of the OW team for experimenting with it for the past two months. We’re really conflicted on it so it was cool to see you bring up the idea. We’d love to hear your thoughts on and opinions on it. We’ve also been brainstorming if there is a way to bring this experiment to the community somehow (either through the PTR or the live game somehow). We don’t want to freak people out though. Usually when stuff hits the PTR, we intend for it to go live (or some version of it). But this is much more of an early experiment more than anything else.

Anyway, thanks for proposing ideas like this.

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