forced meta:
Having a 2-2-2 each game means that yes, in general you will most likely have a “working” comp, but there will not be a lot of variations to gameplay. If both teams are stuck on playing exactly two tanks, two dps and two healers, a new meta will inevitably extract from the limited possible teamcomps. I predict that, especially in higher ranks, there will exist 2 different sets of defense and attack compositions and not much room for other teamcomps (outside 2-2-2) to evolve in order to counter those specific teams. The possibility of meta changes, which would ultimately also change the game as a whole, are suffocated in their root. Any strategy that includes picking comps outside of 2-2-2 even if its just for the beginning of the game (not only talking about goats here) or in the end, to just be able to contest and maybe get the payload defense going, will be suffocated in their root. Motivation to try a crazy teamcomp or something else as 6-stack and thus creating a different gameplay experience within Overwatch is suffocated in its root. Every game will look and feel the same and overwatch will quickly become a synonym for very boring, unilateral gameplay.
main roles/heroes:
In MOBAs like League a role queue (that already exists there) totally makes sense, since players there usually main a specific role like “jungler” and play different heroes inside of that role. The same certainly holds true for overwatch, but not everyone is like that. There are tons of people (including almost everyone of my friends and me) who main specific heroes of different roles rather than a role itself. Granted that switching heroes and roles between random players doesnt happen that often in solo-queue competitive games, but in my small group of people who play comp together in fact - we always adapt to the roles that our team needs and choose the heroes we play best of those needed roles. At it we changes roles among ourselves according to how the game progresses. For example: One player is a very good reaper player but the enemy runs pharmercy and we lack a hitscan dps. Our other player mains a hitscan dps so he switches to dps and our reaper switches to tank/heal. This kind of teamplay will not be possible any longer and in our case (and probably many others, particularly flex players) it will ruin the fun in the game.
There is one thing that role queue will admittedly improve: Games will most likely be less toxic/more chill in hero select and there will obviously be less fights over what to pick and which comp to run, especially in lower ranks. Some people will be glad they can just play what they want and noone will tell them to play something else. But honestly… thats what quickplay is there for. Competitive play is supposed to be a competitive environment for players to not only show of their mechanical skills, but also to demonstrate their tactical understanding and ability to teamwork. I fear that with the new forced 2-2-2 this essence of competitive play will die out in overwatch, making it a f***-fest only few skilled people can enjoy and will mostly be appreciated by low rank/casual players who believe this system will help them climb ranks. Blizzard - don’t strangle your high skilled players and don’t allow your game to grow terminal cancer for the sake of maintaning a casual playerbase - You did that with Heroes of the Storm already and it is in a moribund state.
Edit added tldr:
Force locking players into 2-2-2 destroys teamcomp variety/creativity and limits meta change/evolution. Also kills the fun in the game for players (especially premade groups) who actually main heroes from different roles and like switching across roles. And lastly gameplay will strongly shift towards mechanical skill and prohibit adjusting to different comps and strategies, though it’s supposed to be a competitive environment for players to not only show of their mechanical skills, but also to demonstrate their tactical understanding and ability to teamwork.
There’s always a meta. I don’t think it’ll be as limited as you think it’ll be, especially considering balance changes. Sure it’s less ideal that you can’t be flexible (3 tanks against double sniper for example) but the reality is, there are far more times when having this flexibility is a hindrance as opposed to a benefit. Each game has at least 2-3 DPS mains. Not that 3dps is bad (in fact I like the composition) but if you have solo support or someone start throwing because of 3dps (happens so much at lower ranks) it’s really difficult to win. I don’t feel the ability to flex around roles is as useful as mitigating this issue.
I used to play ¾ of the roster. Still can flex every now and then. I’m a fan of the change because being a flex player means two things. 1) you’ll be able to play dps less so your DPS ability drops (I literally couldn’t DPS at all eventually after a while) and 2) you improve slower overall. This was apparent to me as my mechanical skill with each hero was less than my counterpart on the enemy team. The strength I had was in countering them due to my superior hero pool and game knowledge. With this change you can still queue as any role you feel like playing or simply narrow your hero pool to one role. I’d rather do the latter.
I’m really not sure how you came to this conclusion. I play in masters and it’s still a mess because there’s so many smurfs and ex GM players etc etc. It’s such a competition for a DPS spot and me being only low masters should technically fill in order to get the best chance of winning. That hurts my own improvement of the characters I main so I don’t. As a result, match quality tanks. I’m completely in favour of role queue.
Quoting KSeven7 here (don’t know why only the last quote formats correctly, sorry for that):
[quote=“KSeven7-2463, post:2, topic:371787, full:true”]
Sure it’s less ideal that you can’t be flexible (3 tanks against double sniper for example) but the reality is, there are far more times when having this flexibility is a hindrance as opposed to a benefit. [/quote]
It’s not only less than ideal, it limits your amount of possible counter strategies immensly. You can only act in the given 2-2-2 and even worse with the players that are locked into the role. One of your dps is a good winston who could easily render their widow useless and warrant the next payload checkpoint? Well, screw you because your dps cant switch to tank and your one tank mains Rein only and the other refuses to change from Hog and only queued as tank to find matches faster and still want to go for kills. Please give me an example where flexibility itself is a hindrance (not the player beeing unable to handle flexibility), because I can’t get my head around how it’s supposed to be a hindrance more often than a benefit. Like i already stated “Competitive play is supposed to be a competitive environment for players to not only show of their mechanical skills, but also to demonstrate their tactical understanding and ability to teamwork.” The possibility to be flexible is a core principle of beeing able to play competitively.
[quote=“KSeven7-2463, post:2, topic:371787, full:true”]
but if you have […] someone start throwing because of 3dps (happens so much at lower ranks) it’s really difficult to win. [/quote]
Then thats an issue of that player not beeing able to deal with those non-2-2-2 situations and honestly that player should (and will) lose more often than win and not climb to higher ranks. Like every thrower.
[quote=“KSeven7-2463, post:2, topic:371787, full:true”]
being a flex player means two things. 1) you’ll be able to play dps less so your DPS ability drops (I literally couldn’t DPS at all eventually after a while) and 2) you improve slower overall. This was apparent to me as my mechanical skill with each hero was less than my counterpart on the enemy team. [/quote]
With the new role queue you probably wont play dps as often, since finding matches as tank or healer is way faster, so I don’t see why your dps abilities should drop less then. Maybe for you it holds true that you being a flex came with the cost of less mechanical skill for each hero. But you cannot mirror that to every flex player. A friend of mine can play a lot of different heroes very well (not all of course but a some of each role) and he still exceeds other players who main those heroes in performance. Maybe he’s just ranked way below his actual rank or he is just a good flex player.
[quote=“KSeven7-2463, post:2, topic:371787, full:true”]
The strength I had was in countering them due to my superior hero pool and game knowledge. With this change you can still queue as any role you feel like playing or simply narrow your hero pool to one role. I’d rather do the latter.[/quote]
Your strength (or other peoples strength) of beeing able to counter properly will be cut back hard and the focus in competiitve play will drift to mechanical skill. This will also mean for you to improve on the mechanical performance of the hero pool you narrowed down to. This may not be too much of a problem for you, but i promise theres enough people who don’t find fun in that at all, because they want to keep enjoy playing certain heroes that are not inside the same role.
The problem with queuing as a role you feel like playing is that you cannot switch to something that will increase your teams chances of winning because you can play it as good as the other role but didn’t queue for because you didn’t feel like queing for it in the first place. Theres plenty of examples where said friend played healer and switched to dps mid-game because both our dps (in 2-2-2 btw) su**ed and just carried the game easily.
What I read out of this is: You are in masters and want to play dps but can’t because you constantly get told (or tell yourself) to fill and let those GM players play dps because they are better and it’s a higher chance of winning if they play dps. Am I right with that? Then it’s no wonder you are in favour of role queue, it lets you play dps if you want to without feeling bad about it. And thats exactly what the majority of players who want to play dps feel like, especially -but not only- in lower ranks. Since the majority of players want to play dps to carry themselves into higher ranks but not everyone is able to, it causes the tension and toxicity in hero select and people forcing others to play tank or heal for win chances to increase drastically. Tank and support players suffer from this tension as much as it can destroy teamwork and lose the game. Usually the 2-2-2 is the ideal goal for a “working” comp and the idea of the game automatically ensuring a 2-2-2 is such a relief for most players that they welcome it with open arms. I can totally relate to that but the above points in my first post still prevail and are potential game destroying issues.
U do make a good point but how many games of lets say hannmora point a that u would of won had the enemy team not sudenly switched to hammy, mei, tracer, s76, mercy, junk. Something similar…just to stall it out long enough for u to lose? Specialy when u didnt have anough time to switch to anything to counter those and get to the point. Those type of games shouldnt happen cuz thats not on red team was better…no red team just went as many stall heros as posible. My point is game will fee more fair each time and as they add more heros balance this hero or that…the team comps will go crazy.
I cant wait till i want to play widow in most of my games and end up banned because i dont change to some random crap i cant/dont play to appease the heal/tank players.
282 possible comps doesn’t translate to 282 WORKING comps. Let’s say the enemy is defending with bunker comp. Surely Hog, orisa, Pharmacy, Brig and Tracer wont work. How many working comps can you pull togther in 2-2-2? And thats not even taking into account that your players need to be able to play the heroes in that comp well enough to make it work. There may be 1 or 2 comps that work really well against bunker in a 2-2-2 scenario. You are going to play those very often. Same hero over and over. Sounds fun to you?
I already said not all comps will work but then is variation. And saying two comps will play well against bunker seems like a huge exaggeration especially with the new patch changes making Rein more viable, and Orisa less so, nerfing sombra and lower ultimate charge which usually is needed for bunker sustain.
Wrong, if the enemy switched to something like that and it won them the game its a earned win. Thats what competitive is all about, they switched to a stratgey the enemy could not adapt (if they had not time the first point defense was good too) and won the game by right decision making. The other team then clearly wasnt better. Those type of games should continue to exist, I really dont know whats in your head that tells you differently.
Its just a switch to heros that could and do abuse the fact that they can stall in very unstopable ways. Ie hammy alone can be very dificult to counter if u have no stun simply because of his health and fast movement speed along with many knock backs. And im sure u alrwady know the others…thats not a strat that is a desperate move to simply win. Bliz has mad many many changes to stop stalling from happening like this (the longer spawn times on defending when u have more of ur team on point ect) so that tells me by bliz design its not what they want. To me a competative game of any kind would be to team equal skill fighting over and objective and the one that wins is better…not the one thats wins just switch the the cheapest things they could. My example was just an example. My whole point is ur saying like everyone it limits ur “inventiveness” or “creatively” no offence but u can go be creative/inventive in minecraft if u dont think u will be able to do it with 222 as skmone else above said…there is a LOT of possiblity so not sure what ur real problem with it is
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with a system that encourages players to play 2-2-2 or where you can define role preferences that the matchmaker takes into account. I just don’t like the game to LOCK you into one single role and you not beeing able to do anything against it when the situation calls for it…
I think 2 2 2 is a good idea for these simple reasons.
You always need two healers, if one gets picked you still need heals for team. I dont think there should be any disagreement on this. Also, you need a support ult to counter a variety of ults (grav, dragon strike, blade). It is how the game has been designed. Fact.
You now have four slots left. There are more DPS players than tank or healer players. Why? Because they are more fun and take more skill to play in general. Fact.
How many games have you lost because other team had 2 2 2 and you didn’t? I honestly think that the overall benefit of having a forced 2 2 2 will make the game more skill based and less random (i.e. less of a gamble). Tbh it should have implemented this from the start. Again, how many games have you played where you lost because other team had 2 2 2 and you didn’t.
You have to be practical in this game. This will lead to better matches overall…
I never said that having games with a 2-2-2 comp is bad, please read my first post for my actual criticism. I don’t know what your rank is but in the majority of games I have a 2-2-2 comp forms automatically anyways (sometimes goats, too). I lost more games with 2-2-2 against 2-2-2 than any other comp against 2-2-2. Also had single heal + three dps comps quite a few times and won.
Tldr for you:
Force locking players into 2-2-2 destroys teamcomp variety/creativity and limits meta change/evolution. Also kills the fun in the game for players (especially premade groups) who actually main heroes from different roles and like switching across roles. And lastly gameplay will strongly shift towards mechanical skill and prohibit adjusting to different comps and strategies, though it’s supposed to be a competitive environment for players to not only show of their mechanical skills, but also to demonstrate their tactical understanding and ability to teamwork.
I think you missed my point in this paragraph. It’s not that these scenarios are hindrances, but the fact that flexibility isn’t used as intended in the competitive as a whole. Theoretically yes these scenarios are good (and I’ve done it myself too). The downside is that allowing role flexibility means that people are free to run 6dps comps for example. It’s a no brainer that a 6dps comp is suboptimal in the majority case, and I’ve lost roughly 1 in 3 games because of “unwinnable” comps and people tilting as a result of them, as opposed to times where that flexibility is utilised in maybe 1 in 10 games. DPS mains are really unlikely to switch off dps, and I don’t want someone who doesn’t play a role to fill because of a surplus of DPS. An additional point is that the Winston playing DPS player can now focus on playing widow DPS counters such as anti widow or Hanzo instead.
The thing is that it’s not an isolated incident. I’ve played with my friends in plat a lot and I’ve seen it happen so many times. Obviously overall it’ll balance out but it introduces a lot of variances and seriously reduces match quality, consistency of climbing and overall perception of the system. It’s the reason why you get so many posts here complaining about competitive.
I don’t see what you mean here. I’m only gonna be queueing for DPS, that’s a main point of role queue? I’d rather wait longer to find a match than play a healer lmao.
I mean I could still hold my own as such, but against someone who actually mains the character you can see the difference in micromechanics. It’s only intuitive that spending less time on x hero means that you’ll have less experience with them therefore you’re worse. At the same time it is also possible that you pick up bad habits and simply stay the same level for even longer because you don’t try to improve. I guess it does come down to the individual.
I am a fan of this though. A competitive system should encourage people to be as good as they can and this will only raise the skill level in a role as more people become specialised. I do understand that some people won’t enjoy that but perhaps they should implement role queue as a separate competitive mode where those who enjoy flexing can still play comp as it is?
Exactly, but I’m not told to. It’s more that I feel bad if I perform badly in a high masters game while forcing a player higher than me to flex. I hate the inverse equally too.
[quote=“nijienblack-2672, post:3, topic:371787”]
Since the majority of players want to play dps to carry themselves into higher ranks but not everyone is able to, it causes the tension and toxicity in hero select and people forcing others to play tank or heal for win chances to increase drastically. Tank and support players suffer from this tension as much as it can destroy teamwork and lose the game. Usually the 2-2-2 is the ideal goal for a “working” comp and the idea of the game automatically ensuring a 2-2-2 is such a relief for most players that they welcome it with open arms. I can totally relate to that but the above points in my first post still prevail and are potential game destroying issues. [/quote]
Again, hit the nail on the head. I agree in that I don’t necessarily like the fact that flexibility is sacrificed when it is useful (both DPS can’t play Pharah for example but they have reaper junkrat) but I also feel with this change the current advice of “learn a couple heroes within each role” becomes much less important. This could perhaps encourage people to expand their hero pool within their role. I can tell you that I can play any DPS character at a diamond level right now, my mains at master and certain characters situationally at that level too. I’m thinking of now bringing those characters into my main hero pool in order to make up for the lack of role flexibility. Still, you do have some justified worries.