It’s baffling to me that Overwatch, a team game that is based on playing different roles, still doesn’t have role queue.
The matchmaking algorithm operates on the assumption that very player is equally proficient at every hero in the game. Except that we don’t live in this perfect fantasy world where this is the case. This leads to frequent mismatches where you end up a team that has to many players wanting to paly one role and to view players to play another.
But every time a role queue is brought up we get all those people screaming “But what about my freedom to pick and choose wat I want to play”. This freedom goes both ways: If you are free to choose whatever you want about the composition, then so is everybody else on the team. Everybody wants to have the freedom to pick what they want but at the same time expect all the other players to fill the other roles.
This is exactly the situation where role queue would give us a good compromise: You still have the freedom to choose what role you want to play at the start of the matchmaking with the guarantee that the other roles will be filled with player who want to play those roles at the expense that you can’t switch roles mid game.
In order to allow players to play compositions that aren’t 2-2-2, Blizzard could introduce a role queue where the roles aren’t enforced. You would still queue for a 2-2-2 starting composition, but players could change roles mid game to counter the enemy comp. This “soft” role queue has the down side that trolls could just queue as support and then switch to DPS instead, but that is basically what we already have. So in the best case scenario you get a balanced comp and in the worst case scenario you have the current situation. That still sounds like a win on average.
Forum Mod Edit: This post has been edited by a moderator due to language. Blizzard Support - Forum Code of Conduct
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Their main concern is that if people start getting matched by roles as well, it’ll take much longer to match people since it already takes a crap ton of optimization to get it to this level.
Another issue is that we have a disproportionate amount of people wanting to play DPS/Tank/Support so we won’t have enough roles to go around to fill comps
One solution I can think of to mitigate is to force players to play roles other than what they selected for. This way it would also ensure players that rank up can actually flex, not just one tricks
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It’s more baffling to me that this terrible suggestion cannot die out already. It’s been rebutted dozens of times and would only worsen things.
Please tell me how?
This is one of the best updates that OW could do in terms of competitive matchmaking and QOL!
I love role-que in League. I’m sick of feeling like I HAVE to flex to climb. I’d rather wait my turn and not have 5 DPS or 5 healers
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To repeat what’s been said: you give up all flexibility. 2 healers? RIP it’s Zen and Lucio. 2 tanks? Enjoy Wrecking Ball + Zarya. Plus 2-2-2 is a very limited idea of effective composition. One of the best comps atm is 3-3. You’d tick off DPS with exorbitant wait times and that would be bad for Blizzard as the majority play DPS. Etc.
I don’t think your argument is coherent or applicable.
Nobody wants a forced 2-2-2 que, but having a soft role que (what is suggested) allows for much more of a balance in team strengths AND allows for more consistency in hero selection for people who have a preferred role or hero
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It’s both. I’m listing bullet points because I’ve already typed this more exhaustively today on another post. Having a soft queue wouldn’t fix anything either: people lie. Not all but this could just lead to organized teams v people with zero experience ‘learning’ their new role. People seem to view role queue as a panacea but the reality is we need more tank/support options to make the game balanced and work. It goes to hero distribution and why DPS is so dominant a choice among players.
That’s straying vastly off-topic, and if your argument is that people can cheat the system I would strongly contest that.
People who will do that are the same people who are trolls and throwers. You can do this in LoL. Que for top lane but just go mid lane instead. Beyond when I was just learning the game and people didn’t know where to go, I’VE NEVER SEEN SOMEONE QUE FOR ONE ROLE AND PLAY ANOTHER. It obviously will happen. Some trolls will do it, but there is plenty of that in the current system and it is not a big enough issue to make a role que not worth it!
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Being locked into sub optimal roles without any ability to adjust it? I would rather have my autonomy and ability to change at will which I cannot under a hard role force. And the soft queue seems to do nothing besides extend already long queue times.
Are you a troll?
We haven’t been talking about forced role que, and what we have been talking about (soft role que) would extend que times slightly in competitive and is definitely a WORTHWHILE TRADEOFF to have higher quality matches
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