First post updated.
Before Jeff Kaplan commented on 1-3-2 being something the developers had already been working on there wasn’t strong support for it. He’s obviously not afraid of “stopping proponents”.
Speaking of what the experimental mode is supposed to be for:
It’s a significant change, and the team isn’t sure how it’s going to work out, but that’s the beauty of Experimental mode: allowing players across all platforms to test the dev team’s wildest ideas without leaving the client.
…
After Triple Damage, are there any upcoming changes you can discuss?Kaplan : After Triple Damage, we will probably focus on balance changes in Experimental. At least until we cook up our next wacky experiment.
Wild ideas and wacky experiments. I don’t know why they’re putting themselves down like this but it sets the bar at a convenient height. It seems like they could use help on the wild and wacky side of things to say the least.
As Moira would say:
The true struggle is for the superiority of ideas.
Doesn’t seem like anyone’s really trying.
To clarify this with respect to role queue, while the matchmaking and queuing functionality is retained Role Queue would become Role Guarantee or at least exist in a different sense. Queuing assures playing a chosen role, but as switching roles would once more be allowed role specific SRs are gone. The functionality was retained so that players wouldn’t be forced to fill per se.
Apparently a lot of work went into implementing role queue so retaining the functionality is a plus.
The sunk cost fallacy as they call it.
This thread is basically mental gymnastics trying to include everything.
- reduced queue times
- greater compositional variety
- more attractive and fun tank and support heroes
- main tank competition without the prospect of double shield
- guaranteed role selection
- greater in-game adjustment
- competitive involvement of neglected heroes
There are catches but no other idea has been this inclusive.
It’s painful to watch DrDisrespect (aside from him being a bit of a clown) sit in several minute damage queues in Silver on NA - currently 9 minutes and going strong at 6:30 pm EST. Now over 10 minutes. Just had a game not start and had to requeue too. He says he’s having fun with Overwatch but for how long do you think he’ll put up with these queue times at a place of the ladder in the perhaps most active region where queue times are supposed to be ok?
He just remarked on how long the queue time is. This is just for one game that may not last much longer than his queue time. This experience has to be rather unique.
Game took around 17 minutes with a second push on Hanamura. It was actually highly entertaining relatively speaking.
It’s nice to see the game have a broader appeal even though with time it can get very annoying.
Which is partly why you’d want greater diversity.
Um… no…
Honestly just remove role que at this point >:/
Role queue can’t be removed because players don’t want to fill on a first come first serve basis, being forced into roles they don’t want to play. Initially I did remove role queue but this version makes adequate sense. I’m not sure why you quoted the Mercy change alone. Every support is to have a much stronger version serving as an anchor or main support in a composition. In conjunction with the buffed main tanks damage heroes should be better contained in 1-3-2 whereas having individually powerful supports enables a 2-3-1 composition for instance. Options and variety is a principal goal.
The exclusive focus on making tanks the solo role in compositions is unreasonable in my opinion. The tank role across its range of heroes has a broader appeal. Consequently there needs to be a support role that can be soloed, which obviously requires buffs. As with tanks these main supports are limited to one per team. Implementation could be as straightforward as a rotating pool of heroes in their main support versions or all heroes can have these versions enabled granted only one player is selecting among them, which can be done with a random designation based on role queue.
There’s also a big irony here in that every support hero could be reasonably made useful in a solo role whereas trying to make every tank hero useful in a solo role is much more problematic due to the extreme importance of shields. Some tanks could work in dive compositions but low mobility tanks that bring damage qualities to the table like Zarya and Roadhog are very difficult to make competitive you transform the whole game, which is very risky.
Another irony is that for all the complaining about there not being enough fun tank and support heroes when fun comes knocking on the door no one’s answering. Overwatch is a simple game - you can see this in the kit of every hero. Add in the necessity for balance or some sort of power level equivalence and I think a lot of people making the not enough fun heroes complaint are playing tricks on themselves. Ask these people what these fun heroes actually are, balance and flesh them out relative to the established standards, and think how much more fun people will be having. Attempts to make heroes more interesting in these threads are met with accusations of unnecessary complexity, kit packing, and players shouldn’t have to read a wiki. You people have no clue what you want.
With Ana, Brigitte, Moira, Baptiste, Orisa, Sigma, and Hammond the developers have actually done a very good job introducing support and tank heroes. Yet how often are positive threads made about them and how much more appealing have they made the tank and support roles in terms of increasing the relative numbers of tank and support players? The vast majority of these heroes have also been overpowered close to their releases and needed to be toned down. Now they are just parts of the game. What do people imagine of new heroes? Where is this great untapped fun to equalize the roles to be found?