Let’s kick off the discussion on 6v6, why the team went to 5v5, and where we go from here.
Bring back 6v6 please?
This isn’t the last time we’re going to be getting into 5v5 or 6v6, and we can’t wait to share more about our plans in the future.
You better be.
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Btw, if Aaron ever reads anything we say here, thanks for taking the time to write this, whether the result is no 6v6 or whatever.
If someone wanted to play Tracer, but you were already Tracer
Good one 
Support heroes also had to focus almost exclusively on healing since there were bigger team health pools and more incoming damage on the field with the additional Tank player. In 5v5 they have more agency to add some damage or duel other heroes.
I like healing tho 
tl;dr for those interested: they might do 6v6 tests in several months time, might even be a year, but they will do a format-test next season as QP hacked (could be 5v5 role lock, who knows)
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Inconvenient popcorn here get your inconvenient popcorn here.
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I can’t help but wonder…
What if Overwatch 1 and 2 had remained separate games?
Would 6v6 still have been such a hot topic within the community?
I’m aware that you had good reasons to update everyone to the sequel - and I’d love it if at some point you could go into those reasons in more detail - but I also believe there would’ve been many distinct advantages to separation!
Chief among which would be: that you’d have the one static game where people who prefer a game not to change drastically would have that option - and those who enjoy constant updates would also get their preferred option in OW2!
I do however like that the dev team is willing to constantly try new things!
Could you experiment with adding a third person mode (5v5 or 6v6 I don’t mind) and see if there would be interest in that or a mode in which we can toggle between first person and third person perspectives?
Marvel Rivals has shown that third person can work well even in this genre of game! (It’s something I practically forgot about while playing the beta)
This blog post reinforces that nothing about Overwatch is set in stone including the core format - the developers are constantly willing to tweak things and see what sticks - is it unreasonable to venture that this might extend even to the perspective in which the game is played?
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no controversial opinions will result from this…
I would like to know what the plan is outside of these tests…because if we’re going to continue down the path of gigabuffed tanks while major game directions are mulled…then SOMETHING needs to be done about the nonRQ modes in the mean time
You guys obviously felt something had to be done early in OW2 in these modes where you can have multiple tanks (or in the case of DM just picking a tank)…it is way worse now even with those changes
please take another look at nonRQ modes
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TLDR they are gonna do tests, just make the open queue ranked mode 6v6.
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Summary, Summary where art thou Summary
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6v6 QP hacked or arcade mode: No open queue because we want to force players to play what WE WANT
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They are not to keen on 6vs6 but understand why some players want it. They will do tests with 6v6 in the future, some QP Hacked in Season 13 and such. Nothing definite tho.
Basically it is neither a yes or a no 
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" The chart below shows Ranked Play queue times per role after the introduction of Role Queue to Overwatch in 2019, compared to queue times per role in Overwatch 2’s 5v5 Role Queue format. As you can see, the shift to 5v5 Role Queue dramatically reduced queue times for players in all roles, and most notably the Damage role (which is the most popular role)."
FYI, we all know Role Queue was a bad idea to begin with and it should have been beta tested on a longer period before being enforced in 2019.
Tbh, as a veteran Overwatch player, I’m pretty much sick and tired of the game being held hostage for the sake of Role Queue.
Remove it already and rework all heroes so it fits Open Queue. That’s the only right decision they could make in the future, since they don’t want to go back to 6v6 because of difficulties in balancing tanks in 2-2-2.
I wouldn’t mind a 5v5 Open Queue Overwatch setup, with heroes being balanced around it. It would feel right in 2024-2025.
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100% read as “we will do some tests, but we’re going to use them to show you why it wouldn’t work”.
Does read a lot as they’ll just drop some random 6v6 hacked events to shut people up from time to time.
Not really, it was probably one of the best ideas they implemented. All they needed to do was make tanking more fun and people would of played it. By people want to pew pew instead.
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I’m glad they aren’t going to go back to 6v6 without making sure optimization remains good. And I think their willingness to listen to the community and try tests at least is very promising. I don’t think they’d bother with tests at all if it was just to prove a point; I think there are voices in the team that want 6v6 or at open to it. Very interesting times coming. But remember, it will be ‘several seasons’.
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tl:dr?
They aren’t doing anything about it, are they?
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Because of the challenges mentioned previously we are focused on making 5v5 the best experience that it can be. However, because we operate as a service to our players, we always remain open-minded to re-evaluating our decisions based on your actions and feedback, to give you the best game experience we can. Rather than introduce a disruptive, permanent change to the game, we’d prefer to explore the space further and make changes based on that exploration.
With that said, we’re looking at running a series of events to try out different core team composition formats in Overwatch 2. The community has, juuuust once or twice, suggested a test. Why not put various forms of 6v6 in the game in order to gauge the results? We agree, and based on your feedback, we’re exploring how we can test different forms of 6v6 in the game to gauge the results. This is taking some time, however, for reasons that may not be readily apparent.
Emphasis theirs, not mine. The article also mentions that there’ll be at least one QP:Hacked in season 13 that features “other ways of putting a team together that aren’t quite as rigid as a set composition, but not as loose as Open Queue”, which sounds like role limits to me.
Not that my comment will ever get read by the devs, but this was a really good article. Thank you.
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Most likely. They’d be stupid if they weren’t at least open to the idea.
But I think he point about the ratio of players queueing each role as to why they went to 1 tank is a massive point people ignore. Every one just wants 2 tanks… But I don’t think you’ll ever attract enough new tank players for it to be logical.
It’d have to be 1-3-2, and that would probably suck for different reasons. (Even more giga buffing tanks probably)
I think they inconvenient truth for some is that 1-2-2 might actually be the optimal format for the players they have… They just need to execute on it better.
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its great that you’re talking about it but don’t phrase it like your taking the initiative to bring it up. you’ve practically been forced to and this looks like you’re trying to minimise that appearance.
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It’d be cool if we didn’t bite the hand that feeds. Cheers.
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At that point I’d almost expect them to need two different tank stats, one for 1-3-2 and one for 1-2-3, for them both to work. No way that happens. 3 DPS on a tank with the same supports as now and they need gigabuffing, 3 supports to a tank and they never die.
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