Hey, did you guys ever try out any 7 player team setups? I’ve suggested 2 tanks, 3 damage, 2 supports several times. I think it gets the third DPS player into the game without causing the issues related to a single tank you mention, and a single additional player may not cause havok in terms of map size.
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if you need to, you could possibly make a test server seperate from the ptr (that would have the new ptr patches on it) so that we can have crazy ideas that may or may not be good (like this 1-3-2 comp) and keep the ptr as it is for finding bugs
on a separate note, i would hate 1-3-2
i play all of the tanks, but im a d.va main (with d.va, zarya, and rein as my top 3)
for offtanks: they would have to have complete reworks to work for that comp, which would completely remove their identity and create new heroes (which wouldnt be good at all)
for maintanks: since shields just got nerfed, solo maintanking would be awful since theres only one big boy for the now 3 enemy dps to focus first
also, would you prefer big balance patches that take forever to hit live, or smaller patches much more frequently – because honestly it’s way too long for an exciting patch to have to wait on ptr for 4+ weeks
lastly, i love reading the dev posts
its give a lot of insight to what they think about the game as well as current changes
for example - people thought you were doing nothing for the past few months except focusing completely on OW2, but
you guys were doing interesting stuff like this
anyways, we all would love to hear from you all more
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I agree with you, but maybe, just maybe, we could get the rise of the flex player again. The kind of special sould that understand what to play, given the circumstances.
Hey its Jeff Kaplan!! Cheers in chat!
Down to the Nit and Grit.
I always will bring up your flagship Game “World of warcraft”. It is a REAL GEM. (good memories, good times.) brings a tear of joy to my eyes. and a much “Thank you” to the good memories of The Burning Crusade. and to WOTLK, to the Taverns of Dalaran.
Let’s talk about the roots of design. You got a good thing going here. But 2s feels like a “headache”. If a player lands a team, with a member that is NOT inspired to their role, or plays the role good at one time of the day and worse than the other. Nobody can fill those slots now.
The world is NEVER perfect and a machine can NEVER substitute for a human. No matter if you have the world’s most expensive computer like a glorious CRAY or some super compute cluster that is racked up in a warehouse. Even IF we can split an atom. We still cannot predict Human Behavior.
I’d say that being inspired by Team Fortress 2, coming in here and building something BETTER, is a feat unto itself. But i’d go back and take a look at the maps that get played ALL day on TF2 servers such as CTF_DoubleCross and CTF_2fort. What makes players, enter that “Zombie mode” and play the SAME map 6 hours a day.
My findings:
Healers:
Any game works well with “no-focus healing”. Mercy’s nerf and dare I say this. Really changed the game from several years back. If I look at YOUR game (World of warcraft) and take a look at the points of “heavy player opinion”. the Shaman’s CHAIN heal changes are what set off a hard “chain reaction”. It is the fact that healers don’t like to have to THINK about what they need to do. I know when I was running your instances, dungeons and doing Battlegrounds. The last thing I wanted to do was focus heavily on player health. I was willing to stand there and PRESS HEAL.
Now there ARE extremely talented healers out there, but when we are FORCED for those roles, it doesn’t help. Because it takes a TYPE of person that can do this.
Example: Just like I have a CDL and drive a Semi Truck. Not many people want to learn about Airbrakes, having to flip a switch on the dash to activate engine brakes, or SPLIT GEARS if the engine is revving too high. It takes a type of person that IS willing to focus on things like that. Driving is already bad enough, now let’s add in a trailer, 6 mirrors and a few switches on a dash to drive a vehicle 
TANKS:
I would have to say that locked roles for tanks isn’t helping either. The wins I notice are. DOUBLE barrier tanks, Vs tanks that do NOT have barriers. If we have both a D.VA, Roadhog or Hammond. on a team, Other people that have SOME knowledge on barriers (dps) cannot swap over and HELP make up for those barriers that we do not have.
I don’t think balancing at this point is going to save anything. Because it is just like in WoW. The issues come about that someone is always unhappy.
Me, From playing YOUR past games and following some of the work you do…
I’d Revert Mass Rez mercy, PUT a hard nerf on “HUGE REZ”, drop your damage output on those healers, boost them up on HP. Look at something else to give moira so she can continually heal tanks, and REALLY consider something with barriers for all tanks.
I’d pull 2s over to a SECONDARY mode and put what you got back for Quickplay. Maybe even consider several OTHER modes, and see where players gravitate towards most. Because IF 2s is good. The results should be rather quick.
I am NOT an expert here. I am JUST doing observations. Thank you all and THANK YOU JEFF!!
(Ps, someone have better got you a gift card for a bubble tea , er … bobba tea for a Holiday gift… ) cheers!
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i also was going to ask this
the only thing would be an insane amount of damage output on the tanks – way more than there currently is, so there would have to be real big boy buffs to all tanks
The buff I’ve suggested is that tanks get their old powerful barriers back but also keep all compensatory buffs, too.
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I’d love to test out 1/3/2 on PTR, and I know a there is an army of people willing to do the same.
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As a tank main, it has me worried.
I love barrier tanks (Sigma and Reinhardt specifically) but I don’t want to lose Roadhog or possibly Hammond. My brother is also a tank main, and he has similar concerns. Would Zarya have to become a dps?
I’m not against 1/3/2 though, my concern is purely in the details of its implication. Tanks have been through a lot, we just had barrier tanks reconfigured so other roles can have more fun. I want to feel like 1/3/2 is for EVERYONE not just dps.
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I’m typically really negative towards this game and the dev team, but I have to admit that I like this post. I’ve wanted 1-2-3 ever since 2-2-2 launched and I saw the horrible queue times. I know the data may not be the most useful thing in the world, but I would like to see this tested in Arcade. We may not learn too much about balance or composition given that most people goof off in Arcade, but we’ll see the demand for the mode given how many people play that mode over other Arcade modes or even Quick Play.
EDIT: FYI high masters Zarya main. Mid master on other roles and most heroes.
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And all tanks player will leave the game with always Mei Reaper and Hanzo, with the burst damage that’s impossible to heal alone that cause healer players also leaves.
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Well, they could do 1 Tank, 2 Heal, and 3 DPSorTank, with a maximum of 2 Tanks.
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The problem is, is two tanks really worse than optionally one tank (but really if you don’t play two, you are throwing).
Off tanks are almost always worth more than another DPS.
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2-4-2 then? 
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Kinda depends on the skill tier.
I seriously think 2-3-2 deserves consideration. It’s only one player larger. Growing teams too much risks breaking all the maps.
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I have the feeling if you don’t do something soon you won’t have to worry about doing anything as all your players are likely to say see ya. There will be a slew of new games out this year. What will overwatch have to offer? Besides the promise of a wonky pve game sometime in the next 5 years.
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I feel like a big issue with 1 tank and 3 DPS is that it’s suddenly so much easier to kill everyone. Whether or not yoiu think TTK is too high without using straight up burst damage, if TTK is too low what’s the point of having a healer?
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I don’t know. High rank DPS are a lot more valuable relative to just having a DPS-y Roadhog or something, but high rank off tanks are also really good at damage mitigation, peeling, and otherwise fulfilling the tank role. Has there ever been a 1-3-2 meta in the life of the game?
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Jeff, you’re talking about changing the game to alleviate a problem. But people want to queue to play the game as it is, just as a damage hero.
The solution is to implement a random class queue option. Anyone who enters this queue has a 1/3 chance to get every class, so long as they’re willing to play them all. Let the dps one-tricks queue on their own if they still want to, but please please please give us a reasonable option to get back some variety in our games without suffering through 15 min queues.
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I would LOVE to try this out on the PTR. See the feedback and such. It’d be a big change but it would be fun to see at least, and would be well worth trying it. Might turn out that it’s quite interesting and well liked. And if it’s not, well… PTR, not everything has to go live.