The essence of what is wrong with QP can be summed up like this:
The match starts, instalocked Widowmaker and Hanzo ensues. Then the obvious Genji flies in. The next spot to be locked is more often than not also a DPS, either Tracer or Doomfist most of the time now. So there’s 2 spots left to pick, in this scenario it’s tank and healer but more often than not it’s healer/tank and yet another DPS.
So we have Hanzo, Widow, Genji, Doomfist, healer and tank. Map is on attack. We get out, and the opposing team has Orisa, Reinhardt, Mercy, Ana and 2 DPS. Oh boy. From the get-go the 2 snipers are countered heavily by 2 barriers. Doomfist isn’t doing anything because “he’s only practising”. And Genji is flying around duelling with the other 2 DPSers and tries now and then to kill a healer, which he fails at. The tank and healer can’t do jack anything because they don’t have the tools to take on a 2-2-2 stacked position.
So a question arise from the healer; “Could we swap a bit? This isn’t working”. The answer from the DPSers are as inevitable as always; “Only QP”.
This is a generalised scenario in QP which happens way too often. The Doomfist is only practising and not contributing to the fight, the Hanzo and Widowmaker are completely useless against 2 shields and are lucky to kill anything at all. And the Genji is prioritising completely wrong.
Yet people excuse this to be OK, that “it’s not competitive” that “they’re still trying to win”. No they’re not, they’re not bothered by the match’s objectives, if they were the Widow and Hanzo would have swapped ages ago, Doomfist wouldn’t be running around dying all the time and Genji would be prioritising correctly to kill the healers.
This is the basics of how QP plays out in most cases. The heroes change a bit, but the general idea is the same. It’s faffing around, going for kills and don’t bother about winning at all. This is why people complain a lot about the quality of QP, that the “lol only QP” mentality absolves you from playing the game as intended. And the intended way to play this game is as a team based shooter. Nowhere does it state that QP differs from competitive. The mode’s objectives remain the same. The difference is the ranking system, and that’s about it. What ever else there is of difference is a player construct, and I’m quite surprised that Blizzard has been so quiet about it over the last 3 years.