Clearing some misconceptions about 6v6 (6v6 bad = wrong)

General Discussion
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This post is really just coming down proving most of the reasons why 6v6 is “bad” wrong, since foundationaly they are completely irrational.
[And the reason being, is just to make the ground even, and the vs situation more fair.]

First,

  1. 6v6 caused long queue times
    • this is just straight up wrong, first of all 6v6 didn’t cause queue times to be long,
    • the root cause of 6v6 having long queue times had nothing to do with the 6v6 format

What caused queue times to be long?

  • several factors
  • you got your 50 DPS roaster vs 5 Tanks to choose from
  • you got your extended metas and slow balance changes and tanks usually ended up with long lasting favoured combos and metas (if you’re a DPS main you didn’t notice much, because DPS received more frequent changes)
  • you got the content drought that dried out and extended the meta of tanks even longer
  • you got the RoleQueue which is partial culprit but not entire one like some people like to accuse it is
  • and finally, you have the overall playerbase, less players means less players, the ratio doesn’t matter
  • you couldn’t find games just because there weren’t enough tank players, but because there weren’t enough tank players in general → you queue as a Platinum player, but whoops not just missing tank players, nobody was queueing support at that time either, or they’re in game, or they closed OW, what do you get? long Q time, no players (it wasn’t just tank)
  1. 6v6 had bad balance
    • oh really?
    • well first piece of cheap argument, lies in the simple fact that if the 6v6 format was truly this troublesome, the game wouldn’t last 6+ years in this format

Or why claim 5v5 as a superior format?

    • when 5v5 rolled out apart from initial reworks of tanks also required:
  • several other reworks
  • more frequent balance changes
  • weird balance changes like the hitbox and HP changes
  • changes how armor works
  • everyone got a support passive
  • DPS passive
  • And there’s probably at least one I’m missing.

The amount of radical changes 5v5 required, are more frequent than changes required in 6v6, 6v6 went on for 6+ years and never really had any radical changes to be this frequent.

  1. [Insert specific meta] was a problem
    • 6v6 had a fair share of metas
    • some of them persisted due to the fact of slow balance
    • some were more or less fun
    • meta is somewhat necessary, and it’s shifting
    • just like you can’t constantly tweak everything
    • you have to observe the changes and see what they do to the game as a whole
    • not just meta but interactions, and then you gotta let have less popular heroes occasionally to be bit more powerful, it’s only fair if everyone gets a piece of cake
    • If you make changes to the meta too fast you might keep the game fresh, but you also suffer from possible radical changes
      • Because several small changes can make the end result more radical, problematic, and less fun in the end.

5v5 has more frequent and occasionally has radical changes, but what did that bring?

  • well it sure brings something new more frequently
  • but how often do you really see that new
  • New patch is out, what are people complaining about, Orisa
  • 3 Seasons later, who are people complaining about? Still Orisa
  • Sombra gets reworked, nobody likes her
  • Few patches and seasons later, Sombra is still moderately hated character

Let’s dig deeper into this format game, what’s the difference in sustained meta in 5v5?

  • Everyone knows this, everyone heared of this:
  • Counterwatch
  • The idea of every decision or Hero choice dependent on a sole reason to counter the enemy tank?

What about Heroes? Any more/less popular picks?

  • well as we can see, it is mostly a same picture, not much has shifted in terms of Hero popularity
  • the only difference is some less versitile heroes started to catch more dust
  • “Reaper, who’s playing reaper, raise your hands, noone?”
  • That’s understandable, because overall shorter range characters have became much less enjoyable, in a games with much more frequently opened line of fire onto everyone, a simple range advantage is enough to make the shorter range character have less fun.
  • And then you have the tanks, which sometimes are fine, other times it’s throwing not playing XYZ character(s), how fun
  1. 6v6 was unfixable and had issues
    • I don’t mean to play the no-u game, so I will just put it in this first bullet point, and observe that 5v5 seems unfixable and it seems to still have milder or larger issues… (what issues? well you can already catch a feel of those issues in my previous bullet points)
    • Second thing I have to stress, is that queue times aren’t qualified as an issue, it it was a symptom of various problems, bad calls, imbalances, states and overall feels of the game.
    • Queue times even after the implementation of RoleQueue, initially were not as good, but stabilized after few weeks or months
      • But let’s actually talk about issues, so 6v6… issues, my bias has hard time thinking of any, but let’s see:
    • Double barrier?
  • Oh yeah, the problem where impenetrable fortress sustained itself with the use of Barriers and Defensive abilities chained and lasting while the cooldown already started resetting the ability?
  • Right, obviously the only fix to this is to remove one tank right?
  • Or… how about, we just reduce the effectiveness or cooldowns of those abilities?
  • Broken barriers shouldn’t mean reset, longer cooldowns would mean after broken, the tanks would still have to respect that their barrier is still charging or something
  • Or weaker barriers, you like cycling cooldowns? Great, but nobody likes not being able to do anything because you spam spells,
  • So you’d simply weaken the barriers, bringing the need to effectively use the barriers instead of set and forget type of gameplay
  • Or do cooldowns or both, bringing more skill into the barrier department, tanks have to think twice before randomly setting down a barrier, are more challenged to utilize natural cover or whatever to bring out the most out of that barrier
    • GOATS?
  • An already half-solved format thanks to Role-Queue
  • This format resembled similarities of a Double Shield meta
  • But instead of a fortress, you were a moving fortress
  • So the partial fix to GOATS, would be the same fix against Double Shield - talk about efficiency…
    • People complaining constantly on Forums?
  • Well as I see it, people are still complaining
  • And not just about various things, but re-occurring topics
    • Tanks weren’t having fun?
  • Tanks were having fun
  • And when they weren’t, it wasn’t necessarily because of the format
  • Tanks are actually having less fun now, all this pressure on them to hold the frontline, accompanied by frequent use of counterswapping to be more effective against that specific tank Hero? doesn’t sound like much fun to me

There’s several more of these misconceptions that unlawfully make 6v6 sound bad…

And I’ll see if I’m going to expand more points, just to show you a clear picture of the whole 6v6 format, and not some fabricated exaggeration, or something that’s irrelevant to the 6v6’s structure.

Peace.

Point 1

  • 6v6 has nothing to do with queue times, I’ve seen shorter Q times for DPS in role queue than you have now on average
  • fact of the matter is, it all simply comes down to enjoynment of the role, and the ratio of players
  • another fact of the matter is, there’s a significantly worse ratio now, because not every tank player likes the 5v5 format
  • queue times mainly tanked because of player ratio → which is affected by long-term reputation of enjoyment of the role → which is affected by various criteria but mainly balance state and changes
  • all of that had nothing to do with 6v6
  • simply because:
    • if you go to 5v5, and still have ridiculously skewed ratio → if you still have discrepancy in the fun level of the roles → and if the balance is just not as enjoyable or worse
    • → the result is long queue times for DPS and Support, but now we’re 5v5
    • → so it’s not a format problem, and you can’t blame it

Point2

  • 6v6 is and was arguably more enjoyable by tank players
  • current 5v5 tanks that went ahead and joined/tried the custom 6v6 games with special balance greatly enjoy(ed) playing 6v6
  • the addition/revert to 6v6 would indeed impact queue times, but those queue times most likely would later stabilize, and the initial impact most likely wouldn’t be as big as people believe it will be
8 Likes
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If you said 6v6 had little to do with queue times or just not as much as 5v5ers claim then that’s one thing. To claim it had NOTHING to do with it is just flat out wrong. Even if 6v6 was proven to be the superior format then there’s still ONE more tank needed. You cannot ignore that a 100% increase in the number of tank players required to start a game will have some measurable effect on queue times. To claim otherwise is simply burying your head in the sand.

6 Likes
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fight me then, if OW had the playerbase of League of Legends, how big would the queue times be? you’d have 3 minute DPS queues occasionally, on 6v6

indirect, tanks are unpopular for reasons, 6v6 isn’t that reason, unless you want to straight up lie

tanks were more popular in 6v6 than they are in 5v5, that’s not a lie

I don’t claim otherwise, jump to 6v6 would tank the queue times, but to assume it’s double, that would be using simple math

you can’t take things in absolutes, that’s how you develop tunnel vision

if you heat something up to double the temperature, does it stay above certain temperature for double the time?

don’t worry I got more

if OW was originally 5v5, and had broken problems and issues, if those issues developed similarly they did in 6v6,

if it received all the abuse, slow balance, content drought, boring metas like GOATS, etc.

  • how would the queue times be?
  • would they be drastically worse?
  • would the general ratio of tank players be lower?
  • would the declining playerbase due to sustained issues and bad decision tank the queue times even further?
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The thing that caused long queue times was a combination of trying to find two tanks compounded by a dwindling playerbase.

8-9 months of dive meta, a year of GOATS, and a year and a half of zero real updates leading up to OW2’s release. Those are just the big ones. However, those aren’t necessarily the fault of 6v6 so much as a general OW problem. 5v5 has (and had) its fair share of balance issues, but it’s unfair to compare six years of balance updates to less than two.

It’s not specific to 6v6, but bad metas are bad metas regardless of when they occur.

There wasn’t much wrong with 6v6 from a theoretical standpoint, but queue times and tank synergy had to be dealt with somehow and they went with what they went with. One could argue all day about going to 1-3-2, but that would require tanks to be even more powerful than they are now to deal with the extra incoming damage.

They’re not misconceptions so much as differences in preference. Neither is objectively better than the other, it comes down to what problems you’d rather deal with.

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dwindling playerbase holds 90% strength to it

correct,

0 updates, GOATS and dive which weren’t present the entire 6+ years of 6v6’s duration,

so we agree it’s not a format problem?

lazy bandaid fix you mean?

or weaker DPS/stronger heals/both

they’re misconceptions

people want 6v6,

5v5 defenders scream:

Double Shield, GOATs, Queue Times

and sometimes that’s enough to attract the 5v5 horde that echoes these words,

on top of that, all they amount to is vague explanation of the problem, and simply repeat these statements like they mean something, like they hold value in the argument.

what problems?

5v5 has problems, it’s in 1. point second Headline

objectively looking at two formats side by side, 6v6 is objectively better,

it’s my subjective oppinion on this, but I haven’t seen anyone prove me wrong yet…

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That would accomplish the same thing. Tanks being stronger is the same as the other roles being weaker.

The people who want 6v6 want 6v6, there are plenty of people who don’t want it as well. And not all of them 5v5’ers. I think a fun idea would be 1-2-1, but I’m better off looking for a game that does that instead of having my screams fall on deaf ears.

They’re legitimate concerns, dismissing them makes you no better than the cocky 5v5’ers. I don’t dismiss 6v6 just because I prefer smaller teams, I acknowledge that preferences are preferences.

“Objective: not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.” You can’t objectively say either is better than the other because it comes down to preference. They’re different experiences. The fact that there are people who prefer 5v5 and people who prefer 6v6 means it’s opinion.

2 Likes
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Player base size is irrelevant. You need the appropriate ratio in each role. For 6v6 you would need the same numbers of tanks as dps.

You’re just asserting that with zero evidence. It’s just your feelings. I gave you concrete proof that 2 tanks is more than 1 tank.

I never said queue times would be double. I said the requirement of tanks would double which is obviously true. You have to provide actual proof that 6v6 would somehow make up for this 100% increase which you haven’t other than your own personal feelings.

Again this is all just speculation. Would 6v6 queue times improve with more rapid balance? Probably. Would it account for the 100% increase in tank players needed? That’s the big question which you have zero evidence for.

1 Like
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NGL OP, at this point that “list” about things and your justifications sound like something you need to repeat a lot (and you do, create a thread with the same thing every 2-3 weeks) to auto convince yourself about something.

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I mean sure- Tanks werent unpopular because of 6v6-

But 6v6 would cause longer queue times. Regardless of actually “why” so few want to play tank, the end thing is that fewer do want to play tank. Suddenly needing double the tank players would have a very big, appreciable impact on queue times.

So i mean ya- 6v6 would cause longer queue times.

6 Likes
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I’m not dismissing them, have you not read the post?

is Democracy or Communism better?

you can have subjective realization that Democracy is better, and it can be objectively true

wrong

Queue times are just as bad, yet you need 1 less tank,

but I guess I have no evidence…

you see I have this thing called common sense…

I have evidence,

what happened when tank was the least balanced role, in the game that also reduced it’s overall balance and had content drought?

what happened?

did the tanks love it and play more?

you have yet to prove me wrong, instead you just accuse me with this nonsense

why do fewer want to play tank?

you and them keep relying on the word double, when you and I both know that 6v6 would bring more tank players on average, and at worst would only tank the queue times temporarily

nope, you don’t get it do you?

I mean you do, you know that tanks are less popular in 5v5, and they would be more popular in 6v6,

what you fail to do is express that accurately,

6v6 wouldn’t cause long queue times, the nobody playing tank causes long queue times,

you see, if 50% of the DPS players started playing tank,

low DPS population would cause long queue times,

if 50% of supports start playing tank, low Support population would cause long queue times,

it wouldn’t be 6v6,

6v6 is not cause, it’s a format of gamemode.

I don’t see anyone round here saying,

“Lucioball 3v3 causes long queue times”, instead you’d see “decreased interest in Lucioball 3v3 causes long queue times”,

  • people express themself wrong
  • people that don’t know better get the wrong idea
  • people that don’t know better start to use the wrong expression
  • the objective statement becomes a lie
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So what you’re saying is that 5v5 also isn’t bad. Good to hear

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KevinAteNine is correct here. I think part of the problem is that you simply do not understand how queue times are a factor of the ratio of players required to ship a match.

3 Likes
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Lol you really typed up this whole nonsense essay about a flawed dead format

Cool I guess

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It would be the 5th time my dude.
You are spamming these threads, like you have 5 in the last 2 months.

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I understand that, you fail to understand that it’s not the format’s fault

fanboy, also you like,

never? proved me wrong, if I recall correctly every single interaction with you, you had the worst possible take imaginable

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It is very confusing when you say “wrong” to a thing and then later say that you agree that said thing is true.

It is, likewise, very confusing when you say that you understand that queue times are a factor of the ratio of players required to ship a match and in the very next breath say that moving to a format which requires a different ratio of players to ship a match would not impact queue times.

Very confusing, indeed.

2 Likes
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Yikes, that essay must’ve wasted a serious chunk of time.

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25% headshot reduction, Boop passive, Ult charge reduction passive for tanks. DPS speed boost after kill passive (removed) and improved reload speed after kill passive (removed).

The Health pools of all tanks were increased significantly. Damage numbers of every hero in the game were also increased (minus Reaper who was the only one who came into OW2 with a set of nerfs)

Some things that were removed at the start of the format change include:

  • Several forms of health were all grouped up and placed under the category of “Overhealth”
  • Winston’s ability to pierce armor with the rework of Overhealth no longer allowed it to do what it did in OW1 (later reverted)
  • Several forms of CC
  • Moira/Reaper’s ability to leave hard CC with Fade/Wraith (later given to other heroes with 0 compensation to Moira/Reaper)

This whole segment can be summarized by saying that most of these issues still persist in OW2, if not in a worse state than they were in OW1. Asymmetrical format balance is far more erratic and harder to control than symmetrical balance formats.

Aside from me. Even the top50, best Reaper in the world has given up because it’s pointless to try and compete with the same rotating meta pick DPS.

True.

1 Like
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I never agreed on 6v6 being fault at long queue times,

I simply said that I (agreed) understood that low tank population and low ratio of tanks exacerbate queue times on a 6v6 format

it would, but not by as much as people think it would

of course, I had to dig in my memory just to pull out the trash 5v5 players say

yeah that’s true, but 5v5 vs 6v6 meta are different breeds,

while 6v6 metas are more dragged out and slow,

5v5 metas are mostly straight up annoying. [especially for tanks or the role/heroes that would be on the bottom end of the meta] (6v6 metas only became annoying after they persisted for a really long time)

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  1. If roster size was an important factor then how do you explain that there were roughly twice as many support players as tank ones, when tanks had a larger roster than supports.

  2. We started seeing queue time problems within six months, back when we were getting a balance patch almost every month. Queue time issues continued throughout 2020 to the point that they re-introduced OQ Comp to try and bleed off excess DPS players, as well as priority pass bribes; 2020 saw not just double barrier but also Gigahog, the rise of Ball, and non-Orisa Sigma partners. It didn’t make a difference to the queue times.

  3. Queue time issues were present before Echo was released, so the content drought wasn’t the root cause.

  4. 6v6 OQ definitely had its fair share of annoyances but queue times were not one of them.

  5. OW during the content drought was rough but even then, I seriously doubt that the player numbers dropped to a point where ratios didn’t matter.

  6. Support queues weren’t the length of DPS ones but they weren’t quick, either. They only got longer as time went on. They started off in the three to five minutes range, by the end of the content drought they crept up to four to eight minutes.

Source for there being a tank bottleneck early on (Feb 2020):

Example of my queue times in early 2020:
queue-times-22032020

1 Like