Maybe I was in the wrong section of the forum all along. I’ll keep the commentary to a minimum as this is a long post but I can clarify my reasoning subsequently.
Problems:
Long queue times for many players
Lacking fun for the necessary number of tank and support slots
Reinhardt’s domination of the tank role and/or double shield
Heroes who are chronically not competitive
Reduced variety/diversity
Solutions:
a) Allowing three damage heroes per team,
b) without forcing a constant 1-3-2 composition
Reducing the number of necessary tank and support slots by making some mutually exclusive heroes more effective and fun to play
Limiting the number of shield tanks to one per team and giving Reinhardt competition
Buffing, changing, and giving a competitive role to problematic heroes
Through greater compositional variety, competition or rotation at calcified spots, and balance changes more possibilities will emerge
Matchmaking and Compositions
The matchmaker looks to create games in the fastest way by choosing from seven role compositions on the condition both teams are of the same composition - 2-2-2, 3-2-1, 3-1-2, 1-3-2, 2-3-1, 1-2-3, 2-1-3
Once everyone has selected a hero the hero roster is unlocked and players can pick from other roles
There can be no fewer than one hero of each role and no greater than three heroes of each role
There will be sub-groups of tanks and supports [with the ‘main’ prefix] limited to one hero per sub-group per team
Role specific SR is gone unless there is to be no role switching [I do not favor the latter]
Main Tanks
Reinhardt
Armor increased by 50
Base movement speed increased by 0.5 m/s to 6 m/s (~10%)
Rocket Hammer reduces movement speed by 0.5 m/s with a 1 second lingering effect
Barrier Field shields increased by 400 to 2000
1.5 meter long perpendicular side sections attached to Barrier Field
Fire Strike damage increased by 20 to 120
Fire Strike cooldown increased by 1 second to 7 seconds
Orisa
Armor increased by 50
Fusion Driver movement speed penalty reduced to 10% from 30%
Fusion Driver damage reduced by 1-2 to 9-8
Fusion Driver ammo reduced by 50 to 100
Fusion Driver reload time reduced by .55 seconds to 2 seconds
Protective Barrier shields increased by 400 to 1000
Protective Barrier cooldown reduced by 2 seconds to 8 seconds
Fortify nerfs reverted
Fortify blocks Reinhardt’s Earthshatter in a cone but has a casting time of .25 seconds
Halt! nerf(s) reverted
Sigma
Health increased by 100, shields by 50
Experimental Barrier shields increased by 600 to 1500, regeneration increased by 80 per second to 200 per second after barrier being down for 2 seconds, cannot be removed by Sombra once moving or set
Experimental Barrier 1 second when recalled cooldown is removed, only a .25 second delay before barrier starts to come out
Accretion damage nerf reverted
Graviton Flux impact slow duration nerf reverted
Winston
Health increased by 50
Tesla Cannon stuns any enemy damaged continuously over the course of 4 seconds for 0.5 seconds
Jump Pack cooldown reduced by 1 second to 5 seconds
Barrier Projector cooldown reduced by 5 seconds to 8 seconds
Main Supports
The pool for this sub-group is larger than the intended active number. At the moment the target for active main supports is three, raising the possibility of rotation. I’ve further divided the choices into three groups with each to be represented.
Basic
Mercy
Health increased by 50
Regeneration gains a base constant passive of 10 health per second, to which the existing 20 health per second after not taking damage for 1 second is added
Caduceus Staff healing increased by 20 health per second to 70 Hps
Guardian Angel maximum range increased by 10 meters to 40 meters
Guardian Angel cooldown reduced by 0.5 seconds to 1 second
Valkyrie healing increased by 90 Hps to 150 Hps, self-healing increased by 30 Hps to 50 Hps, chain healing max range increased by 10 meters to 20 meters, duration reduced by 7 seconds to 8 seconds
Aim dependent
Ana
Health increased by 50
Biotic Rifle healing lingers for an additional 75 health over 4 seconds if Ana crits, which is not stackable but refreshable
Biotic Grenade cooldown increased by 2 seconds to 12 seconds
Biotic Grenade reduces enemy healing by 50% as opposed to blocking it
Gains Steroid Injection on Weapon 2 with a 0.5 second cast time, a 5 second duration, and a 25 second cooldown - 50 Hps regeneration affected by Biotic Grenade, movement speed increased by 1 m/s to 6.5 m/s (~20%), 100% faster cooldown recovery, Biotic Rifle rate of fire quickened by 0.3 seconds to one shot per 0.5 seconds and reload time reduced by 0.5 seconds to 1 second
Ultimate changes - Ana gains Nano Shot rounds she chambers by pressing R starting with 1 at 0% ultimate charge and gaining a round every 20% of ultimate charge excluding 100% with a maximum of two unused Nano Shot rounds
Nano Boost is available at 100% ultimate charge after each available Nano Shot has been fired - every player who has received a Nano Shot is affected including Ana automatically, damage buff is reduced to 10% from 50%, healing is reduced by 150 to 100
Zenyatta
Shields increased by 50
Orb of Harmony healing increased by 10 Hps to 40 Hps
Orb of Harmony returns after 7 seconds of not having Line of Sight as opposed to 3
Gains a second Orb of Harmony assigned to E, Orb of Discord goes to Weapon 2 (his Secondary Fire volley remains)
Gains Mind of Buddha ability on key 3 and a 15 second cooldown which is a 2.5 second state of invulnerability along with a 1 m/s movement speed increase and immediate commencement of shield regeneration but Orb of Destruction and Orb of Discord become unavailable, can be cancelled
Orb of Destruction damage reduced by 8 to 40
Dive
Moira
Health increased by 50
Biotic Grasp Primary Fire maximum range increased by 10 meters to 25 meters
Biotic Grasp Secondary Fire damage reduced by 10 to 40 per second, self-healing increased by 20 to 40 per second
Fade maximum range increased by 25 meters to 40 meters, duration increased by 1.7 seconds to 2.5 seconds, vertical movement enabled by Jump for up and Crouch for down, can be cancelled
Base movement speed increased by 0.5 m/s to 6 m/s
Lucio
Health increased by 50
Crossfade healing increased by 14 per second to 30 per second for allies and by ~7.7 per second to 20 per second for self
Crossfade healing area of effect increased by 13 meters to 25 meters
Crossfade movement speed area of effect increased by 3 meters to 15 meters
Sonic Amplifier damage decreased by 2 per round to 18
Soundwave gains a second effect either toggled or simply activated by Weapon 2 where as opposed to knocking back enemies Lucio knocks himself in the opposite direction
GOATS Busters
Bastion
Configuration: Sentry spread tightening reverted
Configuration: Sentry regains critical hits
Configuration: Tank shots knock back.
Torbjorn
Rivet Gun Secondary Fire gains Buckshot [or molten scraps something] - each pellet (10 total) inflicts an additional .3% - 1% damage of the victim’s maximum health with the critical hit and armor effects applying
Rivet Gun Secondary Fire damage reduced to 2.25 - 7.5 per pellet or 22.5 - 75 per shot
Rivet Gun Secondary Fire spread increased by 10%
Deploy Turret damage reduced by 3 per round to 11 (12 per second reduction to 44)
Deploy Turret gains AI Learning - After shooting 20 rounds (the equivalent to 5 seconds of uninterrupted shooting) its damage increases by 1 per round until it crits (over another ~3 seconds of uninterrupted shooting). The Turret will have to be destroyed or redeployed for the damage to reset.
Deploy Turret attack range decreased by 5 meters to 35 meters
Junkrat
Frag Launcher projectiles deal 20 more damage in the first 1 second after being fired to total 150 damage on direct hits and 30-100 splash damage
Dive
Genji
If Deflect deflects damage every 0.5 seconds its duration is increased by 0.5 seconds up to a maximum of 1 additional second (3 seconds overall)
Tracer
Gains Time Incorporeality as an additional ability on a 15 second cooldown - after a 1.5 second wind-up every instance of damage is reduced by 7.5 for 2 seconds, but it cannot be reduced by more than 75%
Sombra
Machine Pistol damage reduced by 0.6 at the low end up to 2 at the high end (25% damage reduction across her damage range)
Gains Akimbo - 5 seconds after being out of Stealth a second Machine Pistol is automatically pulled out, doubling damage (50% damage increase relative to her current state), movement speed is increased by 1 m/s to 6.5 m/s; Translocating does not end Akimbo but entering Stealth does
EMP deals 10,000 damage against barriers, 200 damage against temporary shields, and 100 damage against shields
This is the one hero whose changes, outside of EMP, can be tested. Generally speaking the Workshop is too limited to bother with everything else and the Sombra changes can be played courtesy of another poster. There is also a range of options that can be played including a reduced Machine Pistol damage by 33% as opposed to 25% and an increased movement speed of 6 m/s as opposed to 6.5 m/s. Lastly, her damage ratio can be changed from 1:2 by tightening the spread of the single-wield Machine Pistol.
With most of these heroes, especially the main tanks and supports, I’ve avoided the question of how their ultimate point totals might have to be adjusted.
Other
Widowmaker
Widow’s Kiss charge time increased by 0.3 seconds to 1.2 seconds
Widow’s Kiss power indicator is to have the three markers correspond to three significant damage values denoted by the damage values flanking the markers
Soldier: 76
Helix Rockets projectile speed increased by 10 m/s to 60 m/s
Tactical Visor inflicts critical hits when shooting at the head, critical hit multiplier reduced by 0.5 to 1.5 for its duration
Reaper
Gains Devil’s Gift - a pair of shotguns on Weapon 2 and a 20 second cooldown with 6 ammo that deal 25% less damage but always unmitigated unless a target is invincible/invulnerable
What about the players just choosing which queue they prefer? The 222 one, the 132 one, etc? The whole point of the current system is that I can queue up as support, knowing I won’t be solo healing. Or queue up as dps, knowing I’ll have two healers.
My fear with rebalancing the game is that it takes ages, and they can always mess it up. 222 got introduced over half a year ago and they’re still tinkering with the “new” balance it required.
Oh, and
How exactly do you see this working? Wouldn’t this defeat the whole point? A player could queue as tank to get a match quickly, select reinhardt, then as soon as the roster is unlocked, switch to Tracer. Get jebaited, team.
And what about making both teams the same comp? If someone switches from tank to dps, does the other team’s tank also have to switch? When? On next death? What if he never dies? What if he has his ult?
Or would this role switching only be allowed in the hero select phase? Would the other tank get an alert that they must switch to dps to match the enemy comp? Which tank would get alerted? What if they are afk? Or would both tanks get booted off tank, and have to reselect, and whoever clicks faster gets dps/tank?
It’s just a whole bag of problems.
That is likely to create a mess that could be even worse than the status quo.
The Overwatch developers have certainly set the bar very low as far as balancing is concerned. On the other hand, physically speaking altering heroes shouldn’t be too labor or time consuming of a process. I’m referring to application that integrates the actual changes for testing as opposed to including the animations as well. So I think there is a big difference between what Blizzard have done in the past and what is possible. I am a 100% layman but something tells me they have the tools to get things in there remarkably quickly. Actually, let me give you an example in Jeff Kaplan’s own words:
What they can do in the background for testing purposes should be doable at a much quicker pace, granted the ideas are there. The upcoming Experimental Card also provides an environment to involve players.
are enforced at the hero selection screen. If you are the lone tank or if everyone else has picked a non-tank the damage and support heroes are locked out for you.
After players initially select heroes in the role they queued for they are free to make their own decisions regarding switching roles as long as they abide by the basic rules. Mirroring is out the door.
Obviously I wasn’t asking for your permission
The game director I believe is actually a high plat player; my career high was 3.9k and I’ve been mid-master in other seasons with a different hero, not that it matters an awful lot; I’m not a GM player but you mistake SR for aptitude
Apparently what they do in testing is quite different from what players end up seeing.
And yet i can share my opinion with you as i am allowed to do it.
Ok good argument. Its true that Jeff kaplan is plat as he said but it doesnt mean he does game balance on his own i am pretty sure they have some development guys in gm. It doesnt matter. I just wanted to say that plat player doesnt have enough knowledge to make balance changes, i dont have too of course. Sorry to talk rank anyway, wasnt probably good idea on my part.
I am strongly agaisnt going back to anything which will not be 222 because it made games so much more enjoying.
Tank and support players are certainly enjoying 2-2-2 generally speaking. Their queues aren’t very long and they are experiencing relative security. However, damage players are a solid plurality if not an outright majority. The radical rebalancing is in favor of tank and support players in return for one slot.
I am flex and i have always been, i love playing dps and I play it a lot less because of queue times and i hate it. But i always hated to play agaisnt more than 2 dps.
I am big supporter of 222 but i dont exactly like role q. I already presented my own system change i would like to see. You are going way of allow Ing one more dps. My idea is going way of forcing dps players to play more tank and support role instead of waiting.
I was thinking about writing it whole down and post it but idk if thats even usefull as i dont believe blizz would do such a change.
Anyway sorry about my previous comments, i am pretty sure it was hard work to put all this together. I just dont share idea of not having 222. I will read your topic again tonight when i get home, its hard to read anything that long on phone.
Well that’s all you’d need to enforce then, the matchmaker faffing about with 222, 321, 123 mirror comps is completely redundant if you allow switching after first hero selections.
I can guarantee you that it would give rise to various idiotic metagames: dps players pretending to be tanks being an obvious one; support/tank players waiting until 20 seconds before match start to select hero to keep the roles locked… and those are just the ones I can think of right now.
So if the role queue, 222, 321, 123 matchmaking becomes redundant, the three people who click the fastest play dps, the rest begrudgingly play support/tank (one of them being solo), and we are back at square one.
The problem is people not wanting to fill. Secondarily this might distribute role mains more evenly. But you are correct, role queue can be done with entirely. This is what I was doing initially before I came up with the described idea as a compromise.
People trying to be idiots is fine. I don’t see a place where much harm can be inflicted beyond what can be done currently.
This is exactly why I retained the role queue functionality in match creation, so roles aren’t selected on a first come first serve basis. On the other hand it’s unnecessary for roles to stay locked.
I’m not entirely against the idea of having several set (balanced-ish) compositions, that are essentially determined by either RNG or just what is needed based on the queues. I’m not sure it’s the best solution, but it would be an interesting one to try out. It would also make the game a little more interesting, as players would not always be playing the same composition and would have to be able to adapt to the different ones.
I also like the idea of “there can be no fewer than one hero of each role and no greater than 3”, but I fear it could lead to throwing and toxic behavior. Basically whoever loads in and clicks the fastest gets what they want, and other players could get mad and throw just to get the game over quicker.
I don’t like the idea to limit “sub-groups”, such as saying only 1 main hero per team. This isn’t going to help queue times, and would make it hard for teams to make necessary swaps during the game. Let’s say you have 1 main tank that is just SUPER bad or throwing or whatever. But your other tank can’t switch to a “main” tank to make up for it?
Players aren’t forced into the initial composition the matchmaker used. After everyone has selected a hero in their preferred role players are allowed to pick from other roles as long as the basic composition requirements are satisfied. There is an alternative where players are forced into the initial composition but I’m not in favor of it.
Although I would have gladly punished players who decided to throw over this and the game existed on a first come first serve basis for most of its time, the point of keeping the Role Queue functionality (which I would rename to Role Guarantee) is so that every player has a guarantee of playing the role or one of the roles they wanted to play.
These sub-groups are at the heart of the idea. Many if not most tank and support players don’t want to solo their role. The matchmaking ratings are for not having players who are just SUPER bad. These sub-groups make life better for tank and support players, helping to keep them around while the maximum number of damage players is increased to three. As the Jeff Kaplan quote at the beginning of this thread states, most players’ queue times will go down.
We already have 2 damage heroes per team. The queues aren’t happy. I don’t understand how you decided heroes like Doomfist and Mei are flex. It seems like you can have compositions that are solo tank and solo support with two DPS and two of Doomfist, Mei, Symmetra, and Sombra. This is neither the happiness nor the diversity players seek.
But again, what is stopping a dps player joining the tank queue for a shorter wait, and then picking a dps hero instead as soon roles become unlocked? Do you realize that this is what would happen nearly all the time?
And again, half of the appeal of the current system isn’t just that I get to play what I want, it’s knowing that the others will play what they promised to play. If we get cowboy teammates leaving us to solo tank/solo heal again, that’s another argument against your idea. I guess you mitigate it by not allowing four of the same role, but I’m not sure if I’d prefer your system in exchange for shorter dps queues.
What is stopping them is that over 50% of players have to be queuing for DPS and they risk actually having to tank. If you’re the only tank player in a composition you literally wouldn’t be able to switch unless someone actually swaps with you. In the case of two players queued for tank finding themselves on the same team there is also the possibility that both are trying to do the same thing and one will get screwed. In other words, the system can game the player.
Once again, main tanks and main supports are seriously buffed in order for players to have a better experience soloing their role. As DPS is limited to three only one role will be soloed.
