Overwatch 5v5 might be the nail in the coffin

General Discussion
101

Oh, and the 20 minute queue times clearly aren’t upsetting any DPS players…

They are trying to reduce queue times by making the tank/support experience worse. It is SO backwards. Even if tank becomes less of a throttle on queue times, Support will certainly become a greater one. Every DPS moves faster, and the hypermobile ones are EVEN FASTER than before? Added to less defense and less CC to deal with them, supports are going to be super vulnerable and their experience will go way, way down.

Here’s my point. If they want DPS to stick around, make tank and support ACTUALLY a good experience, so that queue times don’t get insane.

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102

this

exactly this

and wow, a thousand times this also :slight_smile:

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103

This, to me, is a likely outcome. That’s going to be unfortunate for 5v5, too, if it happens considering one of the purported benefits will be more-even queue times.

I actually hadn’t strongly considered the impact of induced demand, but the reality is that OW2 is going to radically change the flow of the game & how characters feel & play, particularly for Tanks. This isn’t speculative–the developers have been very open and frank that this is their goal. That goal, however, hasn’t been received with overwhelming support from what I’ve been able to determine. Many, many tank players have expressed dissatisfaction at the idea, and in all probability, we’re going to see a migration away from Tanks, either to Support, or to DPS, or to just quitting the game altogether. Whatever changes Blizzard may be making to tanks to try to mitigate this migration, I don’t think it’s going to stop it. That intrinsically will limit the benefits of 5v5 for queues…

but on top of that, it does very little to address the problem of the Support queue. While not as bad as the Tank queue in some regions, in other regions, it’s as bad or worse. Fixing the Tank queue won’t solve that–if anything, the proposed changes seem as though they will only make it worse as Blizzard has not indicated any sweeping changes for Supports, and Support players have expressed concern with how the changes to Tanks will affect them and their role in the game. I think it’s very likely that Supports will see a reduction in players as well, and the end result will be the bottleneck simply shifting from Tanks to Supports, with only-marginal benefit to DPS queues.

If Blizzard actually wants to resolve queue times, they can start by not pushing 5v5. Keep 6v6, or even explore 7v7–yes, it would be a little chaotic and different, but it wouldn’t require the style of sweeping changes that 5v5 does. They need to focus on making Supports & Tanks feel powerful & impactful again–that doesn’t mean making them broken, but it means exploring different avenues of toning down their power without making them feel piddly or botty (healbot for healers, shieldbot for tanks). I’m pretty sure the suggestion of limiting barriers to 1 per team has been thrown out before–that would be better than the Tank situation right now, or a potential 5v5 shift. Ideal? Maybe not, but better. If Blizzard wants to reduce the DPS queue time, they need to be less willing to make sacrifices to the Tank/Support experience to cater to the DPS experience and recognize that there are three roles in this game that people should be able to enjoy. Making changes at the expense of one or both of the other roles isn’t going to help DPS in the long run, and maybe not even in the short run.

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104

many tank players have already flatly stated that they are quitting the game and/or simply no longer playing tank in a single tank arrangement

this is regardless of whether the game is balanced for 5v5

given the loss of tank population described in my statement above, made worse by the facts that many of those who stay will switch to dps…this too seems to point towards the wait times getting worse

105

Yeah, all 10 of them that still play :smile:

106

I know of more than 10 tank players personally, and I only know of a miniscule percentage of the playerbase

107

Sorry bud, science states there are exactly 10 tank players currently playing the game. Can’t argue with the facts :man_shrugging:

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108

How many games do you know where tanking is fun? Except World of Tanks.

109

if science does indeed state that, science (in this case) is simply wrong

at one time, science stated that earth was the center of the universe, so science is not infallible. A big part of the overall goings-on in the scientific world is constantly finding out what science is wrong about

110

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but science is (in this case) completely correct. Only 10 tank players exist, as is what I stated in my original comment that I definitely intended to be taken 100% literally.

111

It’s just so funny whenever people say “5v5 will make tank players quit!”, as if that’s some kind of downside. Good riddance to those tank players. They will not be needed in OW2, and the game will be far better off no longer revolve around tanks dictating balance, dictating metas, and dictating queue times. No more OW matches being decided almost entirely by what tank players feel like doing (or not doing) that day.

112

You are not good at thinking things through are you?

Firstly, this is being done to help[ solve queue times, if they leave, it means it was literally for nothing.

Secondly, with ONE tank, what they decide will dictate the meta FAR more.

Thirdly, if Blizzard is scared of losing what few tank players they have left, they will have to have them stronger, Which will ALSO push the meta around more, making them more able to dictate the meta.

So… “No more OW matches being decided almost entirely by what tank players feel like doing (or not doing) that day.” - no, QUITE the reverse.

This WILL make the Tank player the most important in the team bar none.

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113

And then, perhaps, tanks will be nerfed once more, because DPS aren’t willing to be simple cannon fodder.

114

Most of the community has left, so 5 v 5 is a new game with PVE. Should attract new players with a new direction. If it loses old players, it doesn’t matter they were already lost to begin with. The current game is stale and it’s clear they can’t fix it. The only issue is if they blunder OW2 itself.

Most of the fanbase is attached to the characters so the story and PVE will be a big draw. People wanted a downtime game where they don’t have to worry about comp. A diabloesque, first person mmorpg type game with story elements is at least worth one purchase to play for the fan.

The 5v5 is clearly based on the competitive aspect, they will lose players there because it’s going away from the core principle, but it will also attract new players. Alot of older competitive players might return who left right after Brig game out.

Like I said, the only thing that can mess this up is if OW2 is blundered like they did OW1.
The ball is in their court.

115

science is very open about the fact that it is wrong on many fronts

as I said, science once stated unequivocally that the earth is the center of the universe, when we now know it isnt even the center of the solar system

the modern scientist is equal parts all about finding new things we can know as to dispelling untruths we have long held as truth

science is quite a bit more grey than black or white

nothing could be further from the truth

the reason 5v5 is coming about is specifically due to a lack of tank players

if what few tank players there currently are leave the game, the wait times will get even worse than they are now

and thats bad news for all players

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117

Looks like having a tank role in OW at all was a doomed mistake. They need to redesign the game around not needing tanks, and adjust all hero health pools. Super short queue times, everyone’s having fun, and the 10 remaining tank mains are free to play some other game (an MMO like WoW or FF14 would suit them). Problem solved. Tanks have never made sense in an FPS. OW1 was an interesting experiment, but the tank role just didn’t work.

118

Easier fix.

Ignore anybody complains about Tanks being designed as FPS Heavies, instead of RPG meatsacks.

If they threaten to quit over it, let them.

119

Blizzard has usually released characters to counter whatever meta is dominant at the time, but the irony is that after the New Toy Syndrome wore off for baptiste, people generally didn’t touch him for months (because he was so mediocre) until he got the gun buff that nobody asked for. And then instead of nerfing the gun, blizzard nerfed everything except the gun….and then finally reverted his gun.

Blizzard is surprisingly bad at balance and focuses more on appeasement.

If my only options were dps and support, and the health pools were rebalanced appropriately beyond the cookie cutter “everyone has 200 HP because that’s how it’s always been,” I would immediately stop complaining about how useless my favorite tanks feel.

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120

I figure with only 1 Tank per team, and effectively twice as many Tank players, the MMR system for Tanks is going to be a ton more accurate.

Especially since making sure each team has a statistically equal tank player, is a lot easier than patchworking 2 Tanks vs 2 Tanks, when Tanks are matchmakered across a wide SR range

121

Or would it be even more dependent on the quality of your teammates below the higher brackets? :thinking:

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