No one is going to come up with a good idea for addressing it.
Loosening SR spreads - the difference between the highest rated player on a team and the lowest rated player - and/or reduced activity among DPS players (although strangely a lack of tank players has been causing a bottleneck for supports too) could significantly improve queue times. In large part players may even just suck it up and wait. For all we know the developers could be banking on all three of these, not to mention OW 2 spiking activity, but they involve sacrificing something valuable - match quality, player activity and even numbers, and time respectively.
Another clear thing is the problem. There are a lot of DPS players, perhaps even a majority of all players. The mismatch between player preferences and enforced role parity is what is causing the queue times. Some in this community continue spouting the pipe dream that new heroes can fix the problem, funner tanks and supports. Given the variety of tank and support heroes that exist and have been added these people are likely wrong. Furthermore, it’s obvious that heroes are added at a slow pace, one that has been reduced to a crawl until OW 2 comes out. It’s anyone’s guess what will happen afterward.
What is inevitably run into is that if role compositions are going to better reflect player preferences tanks and supports will have to solo their roles at times. There is no simpler math than this. We all know there are certain tank and support players who will absolutely cry their eyes out over this but it is the reality and they are a minority. Nonetheless, they can be offered a compromise:
These aren’t final or immutable suggestions, although they are purposeful, but the proposed solution is clear - make a couple of groups of mutually exclusive heroes that are intentionally OP or over-tuned specifically in the areas of damage absorption, healing, and survivability. These will be the main tanks and the main supports affording greater comfort for solo play. If some feel this is too much pressure then don’t play them - role queue will be gone. The general appeal of these heroes should increase as well. I have retained composition restrictions in force at the hero selection screen of a minimum of one hero per role and a maximum of three heroes per role.
I don’t know what it is with this community having no stomach or interest for deliberate big ideas (I can make an educated guess) but it’s clear the vast majority of you are wasting your time debating this topic. This forum is a cesspool, reddit is for the easily amused who never stop upvoting highlights (the Heroes of the Storm subreddit continued to be dominated by highlights and “fan content” until the end), and social media is plainly for idiots. No one is thinking of real solutions. 1-3-2 with reduction of hero variety in converting a number of tanks to DPS is unlikely to happen (it will also entail some main tank buffing), 2-3-2 is just lazy and also unlikely to happen. On the other hand, the tank and support players prancing around about how wonderful 2-2-2 is and how DPS players need to deal with the queue times don’t understand their places in the bigger scheme of things.
1-3-2 involves converting a bunch of tanks into DPS, in the process rebalancing them from tanks to DPS. This reduces hero variety. If you’d like to propose that tanks should simply be moved to the DPS category remaining as they are, go ahead and do so. As inelegant as this is, if I have to be honest, I could stomach such a change. An awkward but possibly effective idea. The SR for DPS could get screwy but we know all options require trade-offs.
By the way, changes will have to be made to the main tanks, whoever they are picked to be. The shield aspect warrants strong consideration.
How do I know what? That player preferences entail players being able to play at least 3 DPS in a composition or that some tank and support players will cry their eyes out if they have to solo their roles? I do indeed know both.
If the Overwatch team (whose SRs are all across the board) had a 50/50 split on their opinions whether solo tanking or solo healing is fine, what makes you think that for a larger, general audience, people who don’t enjoy going solo is different?
Ideally, they should convert tanks into tanks. That is the issue we are facing… A lack of tanks. You said people are likely wrong and yet we have yet to see a ranged hitscan tank. If fake hitscan like Ana and Baptiste could convert people to healer, imagine what a real hitscan on tank would do.
If they do make off tanks… Dps, for whatever reason, I would hope we could get some redesigns the opposite direction. Bastion has needed a rework for a long time. Just use this opportunity to make him a tank, imo. Mei/Doom would be nice too, but if they decide to make Zarya/Dva dps for some reason, that is clearly off the table.
Yep, they need to jack tanks to be super powerful. That will encourage more people to play them, I imagine. Just make them able to solo carry and GG, problem solved.
Didn’t I write there are tank and support players who will cry their eyes out over the prospect of performing their roles solo? Hence why the crux of the idea is improving the playing experience for them.
So you want a hitscan tank with a shield? How many to fix the problem? How exactly would such a tank be balanced? Where do you see a lack of tanks? Orisa and Sigma were just two of the most impactful heroes in the game. Reinhardt is always there. Roadhog and Zarya are more broadly considered fun. Winston and D.Va provide a diving option. You really think that a hitscan tank you have not even begun to imagine and merely had a wet dream over will make the role as a whole much funner to play? Now that is some optimism.
I even forgot about Hammond who can be quite abusive!
…1-3-2 tanks or make-believe tanks in the DPS category? What is the point?
Where do you see this happening?
Humor me. Let’s see who lacks a proficiency in “basic mathematics”.
Each of these roles is absolutely a minority in comparison to DPS. Only when you combine them do you approach parity. In a nutshell this is the queue time problem. Role parity is being enforced where it doesn’t exist, and the queue time differences are proof.
Where was I supposed to see a GM level tank in this clip? This is actually an interesting clip, but the comment is facetious. I do wonder if a tank would be as easily adaptable to AI, if that’s what this is. How does it move the hero? Besides, even an AI tank in every game may not address queue times adequately.
Overwatch cannot be balanced this way, and they will never revert 2/2/2. End of discussion. 1/3/2 would have just as bad of queue times because it’s a natural equilibrium: everyone wants to play DPS, but is only willing to wait for so long. Since even fewer tanks will be willing to solo tank, you’d still end up with 8+ minute DPS queues.
The latter part of your comment is complete nonsense, which affects your ability to have a discussion. Of course Overwatch can effectively exist beyond 2-2-2, as it did for so long. Depending on your definition of balance Overwatch is yet to be balanced in 2-2-2, which may have been why Kaplan pursued the hero pools. Going further down the hole of taking choice away from players and forcing variety.
No game has achieved a true balance where the meta is expansive and dynamic, and where balance changes are largely minor or unnecessary. The changing of metas through balance changes is what keeps games going. Someone like you would have the least knowledge of what can or cannot be done, yet aimless people with no imagination dominate this community.
The problem with 321 which may increase q times, and the problems pre roleQ which lead to roleQ being a thing?
Except XellOs is right. If there is a massive drop in people willing to tank when it switches to solo, it will make the queues longer rather than shorter.
A lot of people do NOT want to solo tank.
You need a solution for that, before 321 could work.