That gives us an extra fifty-two tank players to work with. It’s not going to be enough to make up for needing more tanks per match. We’ve been here already.
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Open Queue is right next to Role Queue everywhere. It has equal billing. Role Queue is ‘the main mode’ purely because people prefer it.
I vaguely remember this being a stream interview.
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Except there was a tank shortage even back during 6v6, especially towards the end. Even if we say every last tank player who quit in the switch from 6v6 comes back, we haven’t actually solved the problem.
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It’s way more likely that there are either about the same number of Tank players in 5v5 as there was in 6v6 or possibly even more.
The Tank role was utterly dead in 6v6. And I say that as a Tank main.
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Jeff Kaplan said a lot of things. And yet the move to 5v5 happened on his watch, even it was only announced after he left.
In his defense, his vision for OW2 was for PVP to primarily be a hardcore competitive environment, unfriendly to new players. He probably wanted PVP go away entirely eventually, so that Overwatch could turn into the MMORPG he always wanted it to be. PVE was to be the main experience in Jeff’s OW2.
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You can’t really have fast queues and high quality matches though since the fast queues necessitate widening the sr range within matches/boosting some roles to increase low player numbers at different sr ranges. We get to pick one and I’d pick high quality matches with queues any day.
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Not in any sort of RQ (122 or 222), sure. And I feel the same way about quality versus waiting - if there was an option to wait longer for a better match, I’d click on that box so hard my mouse would explode.
Anyway, I’d like to at least see how OQ played without being encumbered by the limitations placed upon its matchmaker by RQ. Back in early 2019 I remember getting decent games even in QP. It seems more likely than 222 leading anywhere good.
I can’t believe people forgot about Jeff’s ice cream analogy, where he basically set up his stall for solo tanking in the aftermath of the 132 experimental. They saw the tip of the iceberg approaching.
How is it too far into 5v5 to go back to 6v6? We’ve been in 6v6 from the games launch in 2016 to 2022, and we’ve had 2-2-2 for 3 years, yet that didn’t stop them from going to 5v5. No reason they can’t go back to 6v6 (2-2-2).
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Really I never would have guessed…
Imo, the better question is “What problem would 6v6 actually solve?”
It’s foolish to pretend that all balance issues would suddenly be fixed in 6v6 - they certainly weren’t last time. It would be equally foolish to claim that more people would suddenly want to play Tank in 6v6 - they definitely didn’t last time.
Given the lack of actual answers to that question, it’s probably better to not completely upend the game for the second time in as many years and continue to refine 5v5 balance instead.
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you can sit here and cry about someone posting or you could just block them or not engage… this is a YOU problem bud.
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for sure, game wasn’t/isn’t designed for 5v5, they are trying to fit a square object into a round hole, no matter what they do this won’t work. Game is dead. they have it on it’s last gasp trying to milk it for all it is worth. kpop collabs, over priced skins lol, dogcrap balance etc. The balance team is the worst of any game ive ever played. They are LOST.
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Reasons why 6v6 (2-2-2) is better than 5v5 (1-2-2):
- In 5v5, you’re too vulnerable to instant death from spam or 2+ players shooting at you. An extra tank helped to reduce concentrated fire onto the squishies.
- 1 tank to create space for 4 players is so inconsistent and basically impossible to pull off, compared to 2-2-2 where each tank could create space for 2 DPS/Support. Tanks with little to no team protection in 5v5 get countered so hard by Snipers and abilities that would normally be potentially stopped by some kind of mitigation tool. It is so bad that we have some tanks that have literally no team protection whatsoever.
- Longer fights in 6v6 are more fun because you don’t spend as much time walking back from spawn.
- The game is too 1-dimentional with only 1 tank per team. Having 2 tanks per team made for more different, interesting interactions by being able to combo Tank abilities together. And this only becomes better over time as more new tank heroes are released. 2-2-2 is more replayable because of the added complexity & game play depth of having 2 tanks per team.
- Rock-Paper-Scissors tank meta is mitigated in 2-2-2 because there are multiple tanks; in 5v5 the tank match-up is a 1v1, whereas in 6v6 it’s a 2v2, meaning the 2nd tank choice can help off-set the weakness of a tank match-up, making it a more fair fight so you don’t have to switch. People are tired of having to constantly swap to a different tank in 5v5.
- The game-play was not too hard to keep track of in 6v6. It actually was easier to see what was going on since you had more time to access the situation before you got eliminated.
- Queue times would be totally fine in 2-2-2 because of the free to play model, regular updates happening again, the increased replayability of 2-2-2 PvP, the reduction of CC from OW1 to OW2, and more tanks & supports being added to catch up to the number of DPS heroes. The queue times right now are effectively equal to what they were in OW1 when the devs were regularly updating the game. What people have to realize is that queues will be shorter in 5v5, but since there are 2 less players per match, those 2 players have to then queue for a match, so needing less players for a match is not reducing overall queue times for all players to be in a match.
Having 2 tanks helps keep damage threats in-check. Burst damage is a much bigger balance issue when you only have 1 tank to try mitigating it for their team. The main balance problem in 2-2-2 (Orisa + Sigma) was easily solvable by making them less tanky up close once you get past their barrier with rush or dive heroes so that Orisa & Sigma actually have a weakness. The thing the devs never understood is that Fortify & Kinetic Grasp being as strong as they were is what prevented different play-styles (rush and dive) from being played.
Overall, 2-2-2 is easier to balance because burst damage threats can be kept in check, and the tank rock-paper-scissors is heavily mitigated when you have 2 tanks per team.
There is a whole category of players that have switched from tank to support mains because of 5v5. The “off-tank” role was completely removed. You also have to account for changes to the tank role that would have happened in 2-2-2. Getting more tank heroes added to the game is a significant thing to get more players playing the role, because it adds more diversity and players can find more tanks they like to play.
There are countless posts I’ve seen of people not enjoying tank in 5v5. On top of no more off-tank role, many people have also said they don’t like all the pressure being on them to perform well as the singular tank on the team, and people hate the rock-paper-scissors constant switching that happens way more in 5v5 compared to 6v6.
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They re-released Overwatch as Free to Play with the main feature being 5v5 instead of 6v6. They aren’t going to scrap all the changes they’ve made from the beta to now just to go back to 6v6.
Further, even if we were to return to 6v6, Tanks would need serious rebalancing and reworking. They wouldn’t be able to be the “bruiser” types they currently are. Supports would need to have a drastic power shift to be weaker, with less emphasis on dealing damage and more emphasis on healing and strong utility.
In conclusion, it is far too late to return to 6v6 when we are 7 seasons in with several new heroes, and tanks and supports being far stronger than they were in 6v6.
6v6 had it’s own host of problems, and returning to that format would cause more problems than it would solve and require a complete rebranding of the game once again.
Remember in ow2 start how long tank qs were? If tanking is made fun they will come back and others will play them. Tanking is never gonna be fun solo because the fundamental design of overwatch gives them vlear weaknesses that are easy to exploit i.e counter or hard counter and when we do get tanks that have little weaknesses they are hated. Look at the forums disdain for orisa because they cant just make her explode like others on demand.
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But playing something else than OW (who is over a year in 5v5 now), is not an option for you?
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Oh, now you’ve done it! 
5v5 is a down-grade, it is worse than 6v6 for all the reasons I’ve listed above. No reason to keep a failed experiment.
A vast majority of the changes made would be fine in 6v6. A less barrier, but more aggressive Reinhardt would be fine in 2-2-2, since people don’t like shooting at barriers for too long. Winston’s OW2 Alternate Fire would let him slot into more different tank pairs than before. The main thing that would need changed for tanks going back to 2-2-2 is to reduce tank health pools across the board.
I don’t see any noticeable difference in how much DPS Supports do. Ana still does the same DPS as in 2-2-2, same for Lucio, Zenyatta never had his DPS increased for OW2, etc.
Supports in OW2 5v5 already heal a good amount for 2-2-2, compared to what Supports were doing in OW1. I think the devs need to balance utility cooldowns around being generally less impactful, but you can use them more frequently so that the game is more engaging. A lot of people already think Supports have strong utility, that’s why the devs just nerfed them.
There were new heroes in OW1 as well, so no difference there.
I’ve already stated why many tank changes done for OW2 5v5 would work in 2-2-2. Main thing they need to do is reduce tank health pools across the board by 50 to 100 HP.
Ana’s weaker right now than she was in 6v6, Mercy has the same value as she did in 6v6, Zenyatta has literally been the same for a long time, he only was just significantly changed, which they could easily pull back on, and so on. I don’t see how you think Supports are “far stronger” than they were, when they have not received significant buffs.
A problem that 6v6 had, such as too much CC, was solved by them doing non-5v5 related changes (removing a lot of the stuns from damage and support heroes). Name any problem 6v6 had and it could have been solved.
5v5 has introduced lots of problems; some can be fixed if they do the needed changes (like by making sure all tanks can play like a main tank), other 5v5 problems cannot be fixed without going back to 6v6 (solo tank experience feeling too pressuring, 5v5 encouraging constant tank counter-swapping, game-play feeling more stale by only having 1 tank per team, etc.).
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Adding passive health regen was a pretty significant buff to the role.