It has nothing to do with dev team….queue times are a direct result of requiring 2 of each class JUST to play the game when we all know the playerbase has never broken down anywhere near that (which if you want to blame dev team for w/e - doesn’t change things)
And it has nothing to do with the state of tanks….just the fact that they’re not dps is enough to create a huge gulf (tanks have been “strong” before, it doesn’t matter queues are always bottlenecks around them)
It’s a big part of why OW2 is going to 5v5 and frankly I don’t think it will be enough (the gulf is that big)
In the mean time people thankfully have the option to remove that restriction….and yes plenty of people still tank in QPC/OQ….I post my matches regularly on here…My unsurprisingly normal OQ placements season 31
The dev team ruining tanks has no bearing on how many people want to play tanks? Seriously? Come on…
I guess it’s the community’s fault for not having enough masochists
No one expects queue times to be on parity, just bearable. No one expects to have 17 tanks and that to be the preference, but tanks not being a torturous experience is a realistic, bare minimum expectation not being met. And it’s gotten a lot worse past year - because devs are clueless.
I had 22min on support. Not bearable. Because neither are the tanks.
If tanks keep sucking, and they keep sucking because of the devs not the community, then not even 3-dps 6v6 would enough in the long run. Short term I expect new, fresh stuff from OW2 to brute force the issue. However, if overtime the same mistakes are made, then the same result will be had.
OW2 needs new lead hero designer, new blood, new vision, Geoff Goodman has proven many times he has shallow approach to Overwatch and it’s why it takes so long to do anything and everything.
Good for them and I hope they keep enjoying themselves.
I myself would rather stick a toothpick in my eye than play that in any role, let alone tank, so it’s not for me, thanks very much.
Everyone would prioritise DPS, being able to voluntarily swap roles with someone else sounds like an interesting idea, the only problem with this would be that each role has its own different SR, so unless you know that you can trust your teammate’s role swap, people would throw by flexing on a role they’re not good at (in a casual setting this doesn’t matter)
The queue times are a direct result of the state of tanks.
As Mozts said, tanking is the most horrid experience in this game that only appeals to masochists. Who wants to have a hitbox the size of a barn with a critbox the size of a car when the TTK is REALLY LOW? - You’re literally playing respawn simulator.
So many tank mains have quit that you now have Masters / GM lobbies getting PLAT tanks in their lobbies because the matchmaker waited so long that it’s parameters expanded that much.
All of this is a direct result of balancing for OWL… The capabilities of players in OWL is several tiers higher than people in GM, let alone the rest of the game (where about 99% of their playerbase is). The level of coordination in OWL is not present anywhere else on the ladder. All of the tank nerfs that were implemented as a result of that coordination has quite literally destroyed tanking everywhere else in the game.
Role swaps would not only be difficult to implement based on SR differences, but good luck getting any DPS player to willingly give up their role. It’d just add even more potential toxicity to an already toxic community.
Tanks need to be made more fun and less of a chore to play. That’s why DPS (and sometimes support) queues are so bad. No one wants to tank. I used to be willing to tank before things got out of hand. Now I just play DPS/Support unless I’m flexing for passes.
If we could go back in time and bring back everybody that’s stopped playing and the devs magically “fixed” the tank role the result would be….
Astronomical queue times bottlenecked around the tank role/availability….cause it would still be the least popular role and by a lot…
You want to argue they’re harder to play now? Ok fine….w/e…changing that still won’t have a big enough impact on the queues….the gap is THAT large is what I’m saying……(when we’re tanks ruined by the way cause I guarantee you there were enormous queues before then also)
The devs themselves forewarned us before they even implemented 222 that they were theorizing 25 minute queues even (without changes in community’s play habits)…because of course they were going to be large…the community itself was already saying nobody played tank or support….it’s why they wanted a RQ to begin with (irony of ironies)
The bottom line is - you want 222? You get queue times then….cause that doesnt reflect the community….
Side note…i played WoW for 12 years….and you always had a skewed role requirement….5 man? ok 1 tank….20 man? Ok 2 or 3 tanks….40 man? Like 6 to 10 prob……if you ever tried to form groups the tank spots were almost always the last ones you filled despite being the least amount necessary….that’s just how the role is (even when it’s good)….it’s a wonder to me that the people responsible for that game see this game and all the complaints about pre-RQ and think “you know what…let’s just make it mandatory to have 2 of each role”…what could possibly go wrong
No limits didn’t even make it 2 months into the game thankfully (a little longer in qp)….think they realized very quickly how terrible a decision that was
I really hate the “OW was intended to be No Limits/Open Queue” arguments. Blizzard made the decision to change to Role Queue. Not anyone else. So at this time, the “true” version of Overwatch is intended to be played in Role Queue. Their balancing (as questionable as it is sometimes) reflects that. The queue times suck, but match quality for the most part has improved.
If you wanna play triple Orisa or 5 DPS + Mercy, the arcade’s right there. Have fun.
I mean the community was HEAVILY influential in this regard….and blizz was quite hesitant to do so (Jeff in particular)….like if there was ever a caving to pressure decision in OW it was probably that one
It would be vastly better than now. Queue times have gotten worse just past year, this is not a conjecture, queue times were worse, for me, period.
No, not harder no, never said that. It is more frustrating, stressful, unfun, a completely unrewarding chore and of course it was never ideal (some problems date back to beta) but it has gotten A LOT, a LOT worse, to the point of unbearability, because of many dev decisions, not limited to but largely in regards to, balance.
Harder no, in fact it’s probably easier and dumbed down. But that’s besides the point.
The gap being THAT big doesn’t mean it can’t be smaller and thus better.
You people have this idea that “if it’s never going to be perfect then what is the point in trying at all?”
No, that’s not how it works. 10 min queue is better than 20min, It’s simple but it’s not binary. It is possible to make non-ideal things worse. And devs did that.
Overwatch didn’t became unbearable the moment 2-2-2 hit live mate, queue times were just fine for a long time. It has been a series of bad decisions.
Role queue is a necessity to the point the entire game is changing to 5v5 because of it, it’s not going anywhere and that’s probably among the few good decisions devs have made. Their ineptitude to limit its downsides is their own fault.
And yes I want RQ and I would not, will not in fact, play Overwatch without it. OQ was the default for a long time and I had my fill, it was hell. But I would also like to play tank and those were shoved through a grinder and then tossed in the garbage truck by an clueless balance team that does not act as if it cared about how tanks play at all - despite saying otherwise.
So queue times worsened from bearable to unbearable. They can be bearable again, however that requires devs to stop saying platitudes on reddit and actually act on improving the bottleneck role - which yes never will stop being a bottleneck but that doesn’t mean one cannot reduce the bottleneck.
However instead of action we get NOTHING for 5 months, and that’s after a dreadful first half of 2021 that increased CC - the biggest problem affecting tanks - and that’s after 2020 that wasn’t much better.
Overall 2021 was the worse year in the history of Overwatch, specially for tanks, mostly from inaction than bad changes, but I’m supposed to believe that does not matter for queue times, even though they’ve been “coincidentally” reaching peaks, devs could not have done absolutely nothing to even improve things slightly? That’s non-sense.
Today is Thursday, I don’t think we’ll get a patch because ABK is striking - good for them, I hope it works out. Although if we did, and said patch had even some decrease in CC and/or burst damage, doesn’t have to be huge, just anything meaningful, a step in the right direction, a speck of hope, a light at the end of a tunnel, that would be massive… That would be enough to give me a positive outlook and put me back in the tank queue. It would speak to intention and acknowledgement, in a way only actions can and words cannot, and that’s truly all I need in the short term.
However, day in and day out, devs shown the complete opposite, so why in the fork would I step into the garbage disposal unit that is tanking, when the future looks even darker?
See, as a whole that’s all this community needs, it’s not content drop of maps or heroes, it’s not 12 balance patches a month, it’s just action in the right direction.
After years of mishandling almost everything from the early patches of the game to mass ress, to Moth meta, to consistent additions of CC, to Brig, to GOATS, to double shield and the lack of tank or even sup players… So many things mismanaged to the point many remain a problem after years and some still being made worse in the latest patches, like CC and tanks, so the community simply has lost all hope, and that’s the biggest failure of Overwatch team, it’s not the nitpicking of things, it’s not that the August buffed CC by a little bit, it’s the overall picture, the entire movie made of all those scenes, their biggest failure is losing the faith that the community placed on them.
Win that hope back and everything changes. The issues will seem small if the community believed the devs could get it right but it is their job the prove that they are trustworthy instead of clueless.
No one told Blizzard to cave. They made that decision. Even if it was influenced, they had the final say. They could’ve easily ignored everyone and left it as is.
Role swap every round doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Especially if there was a game mode (maybe a control map) that has 3 rounds. So every player essentially has to rotate between playing tank, dps and support each round.
Every popular online game receives tons of misguided feedback from players, and most dev teams are in touch with their playerbase enough to feel out what’s right for the direction of the game and what isn’t. Sadly this was not the case for the OW design team, and its only gotten worse over the years.
Not at all….I’m the get to the root of the problem type….and the chief reason for queue times is because they’re trying to force the community to break down a way that it just simply doesn’t and never will….and yes tanks being “unfun” is part of that
Going forward I think it’s a major reason why they’re going 5v5….and in doing so having to make changes to the role will hopefully help make them more fun as well (in particular the people that don’t play them because they think they’re “unfun”)…
I have my doubts with regard to the latter because fun is and always will be subjective….I’m not sure you could ever make enough changes to where people don’t overwhelmingly choose to play pew pew though…that’s just the nature of things
Maybe for you. I’ve never enjoyed OW more than after Role Queue came in. I can play support and be promised a second healer, tank and be promised a second tank( and two healers to keep me up), and best of all, I can DPS without fighting my entire team for the role.
Role Queue is just better. The queue times themselves are the only negative. Everything else is great.