It’s still a massive change that will alienate players that don’t need alienating. That’s what 2-2-2 did, even with the “positive feedback” at the time, too many players who didn’t want it, didn’t stay.
I don’t think you can fix the Role Queue problem without significant changes.
And if queue times don’t improve you’re going to lose a ton of players.
And as much as some players think Open Queue is great, a lot would also quit if Role Lock was gone entirely.
Can we just let the bad idea of 1 anything die please? Its not a matter of player skill that makes it bad its you are asking so much of the one that they literally can’t do there base job functions because spoiler alert no role can be done alone. No number tweaks or balance change will allow you to be in multiple locations at the same time.
How about just outright walked past? What is the one tank supposed to be if everybody just zooms past them and get in the face of there teammates? 1 vs 6 never goes well as it should. But why would anybody even bother fighting the one tank and not zerg down the squishes and at the point what is even the point of being a tank?
More like we are expecting one player to do something that should never be a 1 person task. That one person can’t be in multiple places at once no matter how hard they try. It goes against any sort of balance at all to expect one person to do any of the three roles solo.
And if you go 1-3-2, or make some other big change that deviates from 2-2-2 you’re going to lose a ton of other players. You have to weigh one off against the other, which risks the bigger loss. 2-2-2 gambled that they’d lose more from attrition if they didn’t implement it, while what happened was that those opposed to it, and those who just didn’t like the queues, left in bigger numbers that was thought 2-2-2 would keep.
I think honestly, the only good answer is to just run OQ alongside 2-2-2 to try to keep the most happy and try to stem the flow, but the bed is made for 2-2-2, and the game needs to lie in it.
And maybe I’m not describing it the best way.
But basically with this idea you’d have the option to go 1-3-2, or optionally switch to effectively something very similar to 2-2-2.
‘Barrier Tank’ is a very small bucket, and automatically precludes any chance of a composition with no barriers, like Hammond/D.Va, or something that might suit future heroes.
It makes ‘how to play the game’ even more rigid than ever before, and it’s bad enough now.
Then you have the ‘heavy DPS’, which people will pick with no real intention of ever using off-tanks, and just land you with a ton of 1-3-2 games where someone is unhappy that it’s not 2-2-2.
2-2-2 needed beating out of people organically, and the Stage 3 compositions of last season, had they been allowed to run into Stage 4 would have done that, and this conversation could have been had then, whether we wanted to go with some form of role lock. But OWL rushed 2-2-2 in to break goats, when it was already dead.
The ship has sailed, and it’s gone for any major changes to the core competitive mode, because what’s left has coalesced too strongly around 2-2-2 to break up without losing many, many more players.
The only way out is a whole other mode, and OQ fits that bill where 1-3-2 didn’t first time around. People like OQ because they like the capacity to switch from 2-2-2 to 1-3-2, or something else, and back again, or to rotate players around to their strengths - hard lock 1-3-2 doesn’t allow either, so it’s no help to us either.
I think having Open Queue around permanently would be a good idea too.
But I don’t think it’s going to solve things as much as 1-3-2 with optional 2-2-2.
Since the big benefit with the structure I’m suggesting is that your can crank up the power on barrier tanks a lot.
And while 4 barrier tanks may seem limiting. That’s a lot better than effectively 1 choice for barrier tanks.
And it fixes things for adding future barrier tanks, or future offtanks.
Without having another DoubleBarrier fiasco, or having half the ladder go Roadhog/Mauga
I actually agree, if they’d let 3 DPS play out in OWL and introduced it after that. But they didn’t, and now it’s just too late, and that’s the real problem, it’s just too late to try anything that radical.
That’s why what I’m suggesting, has the option to play very similar to 2-2-2.
And even if it’s 1-3-2, guarantees a strong barrier tank along with 2 healers.
Instead of getting Roadhog+3DPS+ Two healers that never get protection
If only people would give it a chance, people wear with a badge of honour that “I played half a game and people didn’t play what I wanted, so it’s terrible” over 1-3-2 and OQ, because they’re that locked on to 2-2-2.
There’s enough hostility to OQ existing in Arcade, that honestly, I’m not sure we’ll get to keep that. So that’s just where we are, 2-2-2 is locked in for the long haul.
But I thought the big criticism was that the DPS were all over the place and it’s just deathmatch? Why would you completely discount the playmaking abilities of the other 5 players, especially with 3 DPS that could pop off? That’s what makes 1/3/2 so exciting.
But also, how is that any different from now? Your main tank gets nuked in 2/2/2 and it’s no big deal? Of course it is.
When the test was on. After the first 2 hours. QP and arcade wait times went back to normal. And where never affected again, for the remainder of the test. So the experiment didn’t draw the amount of people to even change Q times in other modes. That can signal no one wanted it, or hated it.
Personally, if solo tanking became a thing I’d move from tank to DPS que. I don’t say that as a threat or some childish response. It’s just matter of fact. Playing a role alone in Overwatch is no fun. As for being buffed to boss tier, m’eh, what fun is that. We’d spend all game being ganged up on and in the event we aren’t we just roll around crushing everyone we come across?
People also said that role lock would fix the game, and that hero bans would fix the game. They didnt fix anything. They brought a new set of problems.
We need to fix what we have now. Blizzard need to balance 222. Stop asking for game changers so much. It’s literally impossible to please this community.
are you sure you’re not forgetting it on the “visible to friends only” setting?
I don’t think 1-3-2 can work without casualties.
Down either a mobile shield or an expendable dive tank in some cases, snipers will be a tad too much. Ranged one shots aren’t an issue in games with decent options for cover, at best OW has AD crouch strafing and that just adds a bit of RNG.
There are two options I see.
- Gut Hanzo, Widow maybe Ashe at least Ashe’s ohk combo with Mercy
- Redesign the maps to offer more natural cover
I don’t particularly see either ending well.
Gutting 2 mid-high skill floored DPS will result in firestorms, touching King’s Row will end in riots.
The two are fully compatible, there is no contradiction here.
So what’s the problem? If your team’s DPS gets kills on the other team’s DPS then your tank is more likely to live longer. If you get picks on their healers then their tank will get far less value and their DPS may play more conservatively. There’s any number of ways to hamstring a team in 1/3/2.
The issue is that the feedback from 132 was mostly negative. I don’t mind if they try again, but I don’t think the result will be any different, people in general don’t seem to like 132.
I like playing tank lol. But I get what you are saying, it’s true that tank is and will probably always be the least played role, it’s not something new to OW, it’s always been like that for other games as well. I don’t think there is a solution to that particular problem. Not saying we can’t do something to help but I still believe tanks will always be the least popular no matter what.