Believe it or not, most people quit permanently. I know we joke on the forums, “see you next week.” But we are hardcore players. The casuals do NOT tolerate that nonsense and once the curse is broken, they are free.
That’s why, I, as a seasoned doom sayer, believe they need to do it right the first time until reaching a boiling point. The statistics are out there and honestly, you do not need them. Empirical knowledge is more than enough to verify this effect.
Longer DPS queue times in OW1 2-2-2 compared to Tank & Support came down to having an imbalanced hero roster of 8 Tanks, 17 DPS, 7 Supports; and the sheer amount of CC Tank players got hit with compared to other roles because they are closest to the enemy and the biggest targets.
We got Sigma alongside 2-2-2, so we had 8 Tanks, 16 DPS, 7 Supports, but we then proceeded to get ZERO new Tank or Support heroes after 2-2-2’s lauch. We got Echo about 6 months after Sigma, which was our 17th DPS hero when we already had so many, increasing DPS queue times more. It was 3 years of 2-2-2 with zero new Tank or Support heroes. We simply needed new Tanks & Supports added to the game to get more people to queue Tank & Support, and therefore less people queuing DPS.
The obnoxious amount of CC hitting Tank players in OW1 simply could have been addressed via hero reworks/balance. Solving the CC issue is the BIGGEST thing that would’ve made people want to queue Tank more in OW1.
Addressing the CC issue combined with adding new Tank & Support heroes drastically improves queue times in 2-2-2.
Problem with all that is no comp = less players. Not to mention every single era splits up queues between each other and from the main modes.
I guess that would depend on how many players return to play that aren’t still playing now.
I used to play OW1 a lot and mostly only played quick play and arcade. I haven’t played OW2 much since season 1.
I don’t like the queue time argument being used here because there was literally no content after 2019, hence why queue times were atrocious (And also they didn’t nerf double shield for a VERY long time)
And when you add FOMO battle passes and new “content” in OW2, big surprise; the queue times are going to be a lot lower with people wanting to grind out the pass. That isn’t to say 5v5 didn’t help the queue times; it did, but its important to factor in everything leading to this point and not just the raw data itself.
At the very least I’m glad they’re willing to experiment with the idea to see what players truly want.
Dont forget the first hero that was so bad that people actually harrassed and threatened the voice actor for the character, as if she had any role in how the character worked.
Yea my close buddy quit at OW2 launch (tank player). He kinda follows the OW2 5v5/6v6 discourse a little, but he hasn’t played in years. He might come back for a week, but I think he’s likely just moved on from OW. I don’t imagine many people suddenly return for more than a few weeks at most
Whilst I agree OG Brig landed poorly and led to a lot of problems.
Jeff Kaplan was on here explaining years ago that there wasn’t enough tank players. Even before Brig…
It isn’t a popular role, never has been, never will be.
Aaron addressed that by saying the thing I’ve been saying all along (I’m not a genius for figuring this out):
The biggest factor driving the difference between Overwatch and Overwatch 2 queue times is the ratio of players queueing for each role. We hear players speculate that long queue times are a result of not enough players playing Overwatch – that isn’t the case – but instead that relative to the other roles, players generally queue tank less, leading to longer wait times for all while we wait for a Tank to free up to find a proper match.
If someone wanted to play Tracer, but you were already Tracer, they would be unable to.
I’m already tracer 
At least give out OW2 coins(not credits). I’ll sacrifice myself to the tank role if I could at least have a skin goal
Bring back 6v6 and I might come back to your game.
But let’s address a few key points in this:
rior to implementing role queue, there was a stark imbalance in the number of people playing each role within each match. Damage was, by far (and still is today), the most popular role and tank was, by far, the least popular.
Big shock in a FPS that people are going to want to play DPS…
he disparity caused social issues as players would try to pressure others into playing tank or support roles, even if they didn’t want to.
As opposed to today where people are attacked because they’re playing the wrong hero? There will always be people wanting to attack you for any reason. Making huge decisions that destroy gameplay in order to mitigate the issue is not the way.
, since any new hero kit had to take into consideration hundreds of different team compositions and abilities that could overlap with it. The move to a Role Queue format was aimed to mitigate these challenges.
So basically laziness, and the game / lots of players suffered because of it because it was a failed endeavor.
Moving to Role Queue solved many of these problems
No it didn’t. People were still being attacked for choosing wrong. Tanks were still unpopular. Balancing was clearly still an issue because ya’ll big brained by adding Sigma with a shield and created one of the worst comps the game has ever seen.
Miss me with that “it solved issues!” bs because it didn’t. It was implemented to make OWL more interesting - that’s all.
ould there be an in-between version that softens the original problems without completely solving them, and also isn’t quite as restrictive as our current Role Queue system? A bit more on that later.
And then you decided to go into 5v5…which further limited players lol.
While 6v6 can have high moments, it’s also hard to follow. Tracking nine other players is easier than eleven. There are fewer visual effects on screen, especially during big team fights. Overwatch is a pretty demanding game and moving to 5v5 made it a bit more cognitively manageable.
That is one of the stupidest justifications I’ve ever heard of. If that’s the argument, then move it down to 3v3. Surely if removing one player on each time reduces cognitive overload than removing three will make it even better! /sarcasm
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.
Ok, now show queue times before 2019 / before ya’ll let the game stagnate for YEARS in pursuit of your stupid sequel that nobody asked for. I’ll be even more fair: show queue times 2 years after OW’s launch (2018) vs. 2 years after OW2’s launch. I triple dog dare ya.
Great to see the devs confirm so many things I’ve said that 6v6ers pretend aren’t/weren’t true
No more revisionist history, lets go
Couldn’t agree more. Just have open queue with some limits (they do that already don’t they?). If they care so much about queue times it’s a no-brainer.
i finally have hope for the future of overwatch, gone are the days of refusing to acknowledge ow1’s existance to defend an unneeded “sequel” that could have just been a balance patch
we dont want you. stay gone.
Ok, but more importantly, where is the ramattra dance emote?
i prefer 5v5. Can not even imagine the horrors with two tanks that are ball and doomfist flying all over the map.
arcade mode ok, but lets be honest 5v5 is best option as setup for role queue.
The tests sound like a good idea. It’ll be good to feel it out.
Another Idea
You could also test having a 5v5 comp of 2 supports, 1 dps, 1 tank, and 1 flex who can choose tank or dps. This could add variety in setups where if a team is defending they can have the 2 tanks if they’d like. Then when they go to attack, they could run 2 dps if they want. This could also help with the wait times mentioned in the blog. If DPS is the most popular, having the flex position of a dps/tank switcher could resolve this.
6v6 Open Queue with role limits would be a good place to start imo. It would prevent teams that want to run more than 2 tanks while giving most players the option to swap if needed. Since counter-swapping is a core them in the game play loop, it would be great to allow all players the option to counter-swap, especially if say a dps player needs to swap to a tank since their other tank swapped off of the role. It would allow flexibility while maintaining some sort of guidelines for team compositions. Big props to you Aaron for taking the time to do this despite the volatility of comments. You are clearly passionate about the game and care about the players. Keep up the good work.