and jeff has said a year later that the dev team is working on that very problem. so, no worries there.
Normally getting behind a flex role would sound nice. But then you have to remember if players could actually flex 2-2-2 wouldn’t be a request. So I’m to the point that I wouldn’t trust the flex players to flex I would expect them to play dps for shorter queue times.
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We already wrestle this issue, but on a larger scale. What happens when you get 6 DPS mains is the usual question, and the answer is that they will try to tank and heal. It’s much more likely that someone who queues for a role is willing and capable of filling sub roles.
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As a fill player, I don’t think this is an issue. You can still just queue for whatever you want and play it. It’s very unlikely that you can convince people to switch roles mid game. The only times I see this happen is when someone switches to tank at the last second when we needed tanks the entire game, or when someone gets salty and goes DPS.
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I’ll just learn more than one hero. Right now you need to learn effectively every role, so why would this be worse?
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Admittedly this is a legitimate problem that I imagine blizzard has been working on. There have been numerous suggestions, good and bad, but I’m curious to see what they do.
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Just gonna comment off of each point as I have seen from my experience, doesn’t mean thats everyones, but just my own.
Most of the time Tank players, people who go in with the intent of tanking I mean, have rather wide pools, It’s really rare for me to talk with the other tank and not be able to find a comp of tanks that is workable.
It’s about the same for Healers too since the whole Mercy thing finally ended a few months ago.
The only real tank players I find that can’t play 3-4 tanks are Ball players, who for some reason will sit there hard countered from a Sombra and still stick to ball. I am unsure if they can play other tanks.
They won’t really have too, they can queue for whatever they choose.
Most of the time each roles has answers to problems (well Orisa and to a lesser extent Zarya can deal with CC, but CC counters everything else), but would keep, say a healer that has Moira/Brig to deal with flankers from instead going McCree and putting the team at a huge sustain disadvantage.
Unless your role pool is 1-2 heroes is very unlikely, like what are the odds of you being a Ana 1-trick and getting put into another game with an Ana 1-trick?
Really all they need to do is have a player pool of 2 healers and it’s a non issue.
As too your point of off tanks, the same thing we already do, we talk to each other some and try and make something work, or they sit there don’t talk and we have 2 off-tanks.
Quite literally the exact same thing that happens now.
They don’t need too, if you take real world examples of supply and demand, do you;
A - Go to school to become a software developer, knowing there a 100k+ others waiting for a job, then cry about your student loan and not being able to work in what you trained for. Or get the job and complain about minimum wage since the market has been depreciated and your skill set is ‘dime a dozen’?
B - Go to school to become a software developer, learn there are 100k others already trained and start training in another role that is needed and can keep you employed and well compensated?
C - Do research before hand, find out what the world (or team) is in need of, train in that and be of great value to the team, get compensated well, without the need for wasted years and money?
I think it is a no brainer that some heroes are just unable to be changed due too stacking ability types, which leads too underpowered with less than X, and Overpowered with that amount.
A clear pre-set amount of X can be balanced around.
From what I have read it isn’t about GOATS, it is about not getting stuck with a solo healer, while the enemy just keeps out sustaining you and nothing more, while your 2nd tank switches to help heal, leaving your front line without the physical front line easily walked up on, while 3 dps sit and cry about needing more heals.
Kinda thing.
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Small correction, he said that thing about queue times in February this year, and in the very same interview he said that there are devs tackling this problem.
There was literally no vacuum between those two declarations. I doubt Blizzard will bring role queue live without solving the queue time issue. That was one of the major things that killed HotS.
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Yes it adds alot more structure than we currently have but still allows for flexibility within the roles.
Being good at all 3 roles will allow u to have 3 good ranks. Losing the ability to swap is a negative for many but a positive for others… Swapping within roles can still be beneficial.
Same as what happens now when u get 5 dps mains or 5 support mains or even 2 off tanks(this already happens)… u adapt and overcome. Play less shield dependant heroes and opt for more mobility perhaps.
Id educate people on how to play tanks and why supports/tanks are just as important as dps in a competitive enviroment. add 2-3 new tanks in a short space of time and add more incentives to get people on them and also buff a few of them as GOATs will no longer be an issue.
A great idea that some1 suggested was 1-2 wins on support or tank reward u with better que times on DPS.
A couple threads with my opinions on why 222 would be a good idea for competitive.
Players today are expected to adapt or die when it comes to character picks. This fact doesn’t change when you implement forced 2-2-2, the only difference is that the extent to which you need to adapt goes down, and you have a better chance of getting to play in the role YOU want to play.
I love dps, but I haven’t gotten to play it very much lately because of how many other people want to play it. At least role queue will let me wait 26 minutes for my turn to play dps in a valid team comp.
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The fact that you called them sub roles already weakens this point.
An off tank still a tank, an flex sup still a support. Double main/flex tank or double main/off sup are somewhat common and not problematic in my view. I rather have Hog Dva than another solo tank, I rather have Zen Lucio than solo heal and so on.
The switching ideal has failed. The SR system rewards specialization, switching is actively discouraged by ult charge, players aren’t fond of hard counters, Geoff has said he wishes to avoid it and Jeff has spoken about how one-tricking and “maining” culture were not expected to be as prevalent as they are and how they adapted some heroes to fit into that.
I wish I had more of those flex players in my games, unfortunately they are few and far between.
What do you do when that happens now? You queue and there’s 4 DPS, what do you do? Or maybe two Mercy one tricks, what now?
Role queue at least limits the problem to two and makes sure you are guaranteed 2 supports and 2 tanks and 2 DPS.
I wouldn’t. They want DPS, they can wait. Group up with a tank main, maybe that will help, I care for their wait time same as they care for my experience as a tank. And since I have been told many times that my job is “to suffer so the team doesn’t have to” and “pick Mercy and enable your 4 DPS”, then maybe it is the DPS job to wait in line.
But I actively do want to hurt those comps.
3-3 is a massive problem for pro scene, and 3-4 DPS are a massive problem for the ladder. The sheer existence of GOATS has created such balance problems, the game has suffered for it. How much trouble must we go through? How much crap does the entire game need to take because of the pro scene? How much more hellish does tanking and support need to be because stacking them is a possibility?
Enough I say. Kill the problem, burn the body, throw the ashes into the deepest hole, cap it full of concrete and then we dance atop it’s tomb by the sound of Yub Nub to celebrate.
1-1-1 + Flex fixes nothing. 3-2-1 would be the standard at the pro level, which already is, so nothing changes there. For the ladder, it makes it worse, because now you have a solo tank and solo healer that cannot switch and must suffer for 3 “flex”. Who in their right mind would queue for tank or sup? Heck no.
Yes, this necessity is a good thing. Better balance, better tanking. Half the changes made because of GOATS can be reverted and I fully expect it would take months to get things back on track again. It will be a chore, but one that leaves a better game behind.
Not just GOATS, but yes, it does hurt flex players, but then again the lack of role lock is hurting everyone, from the pro scene that almost ruined careers of some DPS players, to the ladder where it makes the game hell for any tank. Every change is a choice and a trade. One must consider the implications of not having role lock as well.
Yes, we are trying to dodge a problem. I doubt anyone who says they know how to balance 3-3 without breaking half the game roster for the ladder. And trying to do so for a year has done too much harm. The pro scene is 3-2-1, the ladder is 3-4 DPS. How in the world is one supposed to balance that? One cannot serve two masters. Even if Blizz managed to do that, all it takes is 1 hero or 1 balance change for deathball to rear its ugly head, maybe not the 3-3 we know right now, but a problem nonetheless.
I appreciate the good post by the way, hard to come by actual discussions sometimes.
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true true, however he said the same thing about que times over a year ago as well in a different interview i believe with your overwatch where they just dismissed the idea entirely.
It is pretty obvious that a lot of people who want 222 do not fully understand the game. I mean… Read their arguments… Double off tank is better than 2 DPS? Like, red flag right there. And most of them still think you can flex because they fancy themselves flex players as people who do not flex. My point is… There is no reasoning with people like that, obviously.
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This is just ultimately a problem that has no easy solution.
Right now, the problem is “solved” by either forcing players to fill roles they don’t want to play or giving players games that are inherently unwinnable because their team lacks a necessary role.
So, it’s not like we’re not paying a price for the glut of DPS already. There have been days where I got fed up and quit because I was required to fill main tank over and over.
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eh its happening we will all have to adjust even if it sucks or not
Too many people think flex means “I’m willing to play whatever is needed to make the team a 222”, instead of “I have a large hero pool, and I can swap to what will fit the team better according to the situation”.
Sometimes you do want a third or fourth DPS. Sometimes you need to jump into Rein to break through a chokepoint just to swap into something else for the next part.
There are people who have a large pool, but they “stick” with their decision through the whole match. I don’t consider those flex players. They are just players with a large hero pool, or, as I’m trying to popularize, “fill players”. Those are the ones that think you “can still flex” under role queue.
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Yes, we thought that was a step too far to push stuff down to that level.
This is one of the biggest problems with roleQ. There isn’t a good answer except that there isn’t many of them, and there is a lot of bad games which this would improve. So on balance people go for it.
It IS the bad thing in this though.
Then you both play off tanks or one tries to main tank.
This is still better than what you have now, in that you can have 3 off tanks players, or more likely, many one trick DPS.
You may have noticed that the queue times have dropped massively lately, I think they have been working on getting the queue sizes down in preparation.
The main part in roleQ is roleSR from Blizzard point of view, along with having a smaller combinations to deal with when they balance. This suggestion, while common, doesn’t give Blizzard what they want.
It also leaves people solo supporting / tanking a lot, which is a misery.
I feel sorry for the actual flex players, as this is the group who takes it in the face on this.
I think it has been a long time coming, and almost certainly will happen.
Your points are not wrong though, it is a balancing act.
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As much as 2-2-2 would make me happy, I have to realize when my own happiness would actually ruin the game as a whole.
Nobody should be locked into a certain comp. It kinda kills the spirit of the game and makes it more predictable and less dynamic. Forcing this comp would just make for weird balancing and uninteresting/redundant characters going forward.
Maybe there’s a point where you’re not grouped up, you’re just supposed to hit a wall? This game is about teamwork, and maybe solo players (myself included here) should just accept that and deal with the fact that the comp will be messed up as long as you continue to go it alone.
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2/2/2 is a band aid for the games CORE problems.
If people think forcing 2/2/2 is all the sudden going to stop stomps and all games are going to magically be competitive are in for a rude awakening.
It is just going to change to… OMG YOU PICKED THE WRONG tank/healer/DPS.
2/2/2 IS just forcing people to play heroes they don’t want to play instead of actually fixing the game so popular heroes are played a more balanced part of the meta
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The devs have said they’re looking at its feasibility and potentially adding it. Nothing is set in stone and discussion is important. There’s still plenty of time to debate whether we should have role queue and what it will look like.
The thing is:
DPS queue is too long. DPS player will queue for tank. DPS player will only play roadhog/Hammond because they’re the closest thing to a DPS. DPS player is now a Roadhog/Hammond one-trick.
2/2/2 will just help them balance the game better so brig and stuff will get buffs. Other then that not much will change people will still rage for sure in competitive
Its likely that the dps numbers would be evenly split between comp and qp as ik alot of said dps want to run 6-5 dps comps for some ungodly reason.