Queue Times Solved Forever

General Discussion
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Okay, so here’s how to forever solve queue times that doesn’t involve reworking roles or correcting balance, but instead utilizes the shady and backhanded practices we will likely see in OW2.

Enter the Battle Pass:

Competitive play is locked behind a Battle Pass level. Let’s say their BP has 70 levels, ie one for each day of the season (seems reasonable). Let’s say Comp is locked behind level 10 every season, but there’s a catch.

At level 10, players can freely queue Open Queue or Support, but remain locked out from Tank and DPS.

Between levels 1-9 there are a variety of rewards, some of these being Tank+DPS tickets. This will allow players to queue 3-5 matches on each of the roles, but no more.

Free DPS and Tank Comp is locked behind level 20 of the Battle Pass. Between levels 11-19, there’s more opportunities for Tank+DPS tickets. After level 20, there’s only Priority Passes to be unlocked which can be used for any role.

Queueing Support in any role lock mode grants 2x’s the XP on the Battle Pass. This means players who want to quickly max out the BP can do so by queueing Support. They could also incentivize queuing ‘x’ number of support matches per 10 levels for some type of reward (be it a lootbox or skin or something).

Now what you effectively have is a front loaded season where queue times will always be solid for the first quarter of the season as players are highly incentivized to queue support.

Blizzard could take this a step further and basically negate any XP from matches using a ticket on Tank or DPS prior to level 20. This would further ensure players stick to support to front load the season.

To further piss off and create more community dissension, Blizzard could enact a weekly level cap. After all, a season lasting 9 weeks could effectively mean there’s a level cap of 8 levels each week. Once your levels are maxed out for the week, there’s no rewards other than an occasional lootbox. While I don’t think they’ll take this approach initially, I could see this becoming a feature in the future.

There’s plenty of gamers who will max out the entire BP in a week. In Blizzard’s mind, these individuals will grow bored and quit queueing if there’s no incentive to grind, so by level capping them they will ensure these same players will return weekly. It’s also possible they’d only enact this cap for say half the season (35 days). Then after that, it’s open season. This would keep the queues front loaded for at least half the season before they dry up.

While I understand many likely despise my above thoughts, I believe some bits and pieces from them are what we’ll see. Not likely it’s 100% accurate, but probably more of it will wind up being right than anyone would care to admit.

The idea dawned on me last night while working on this:

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I suspect bonus battle pass XP will be a regular feature when the queue times get out of hand.

Also suspect we’ll end up with some sort of select multiple roles when you queue, a primary and a secondary. It gives you whichever is available first game, and then prioritizes your primary choice if you haven’t played it.

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Let’s not force non support players to play support in order to play their main roles

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They could still play them in OQ or QP, just not Comp.

They are going to have to resort to this kind of design, otherwise the game will be DOA thanks to the support bottleneck.

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What if they only want to play comp?

Besides, at the beginning of a BP if no one can queue for Tank or DPS then how are RQ matches even going to happen? Lol

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How to fix tank and dps queues in OW2:

  • Reworking all supports (especially Mercy).
  • Don’t kill Mercy.
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They’ll happen alright.

Folks will be using those tickets to get in. What good are tickets if you have to wait +10mins for a match?

A severely limited number of tickets on the BP’s first 20 levels insures players cannot just sit in DPS queues all day (and wait around for a match). Instead they’ll be forced to either queue in the Arcade to play what they want, or queue an off-role.

Look, I don’t like this either, but it’s basically the only option left.

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I’d say only Mercy needs slight buffs or a light rework

Too late

:gun:

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I was reading this and thinking yep, this is what they will be doing alright, or at least some nearby variant.

Either that or they will change the matchmaker so it can scale to 3-1-1 on both sides when the queues get too long. (or… twitch… both)

I don’t think people would be pleased with that for comp, but you never know.

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lol I fixed queue times forever by just choosing to play a different game :person_shrugging:

Honestly though… if OW2 drops, and we’re a few months into the game and queue times are still upwards of 10 minutes for tank and dps I’m just done. Great game, it’s been fun, but I simply cannot tolerate this “standing in line at the DMV” simulator any longer haha

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Hahaha yeah right. I’d rather watch paint dry.

How about I play what I want. That’s the whole point of RQ.

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You aren’t playing though.

You’re waiting in a line.

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I’d still get an actual game faster after waiting in RQ than the toxic unbalanced trash I’d face non stop in OQ.

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OW2 has no chance if it drops with 10min queues.

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How games would look like then ? :smiley: You really dont want this. :smiley:

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I doubt they will be that much. If it gets too high add a little virtual currency as an incentive should help :wink:

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Wish they could’ve just rebalanced the heroes (particularly the tanks) and kept 6v6, and that they would’ve never introduced Role Queue.

Because from the outside looking in, if they’ve time to rebalance and essentially recreate the game to make it 5v5, they had the time to sit down and do the brain storming required to keep the game 6v6 and keep it open queue.

I’m not saying it would’ve been easy or that it would’ve happened over night, but if they took and combined all the effort they put into creating role queue and the “ticket system” for shorter queue times, I believe they could’ve come up with something great and still retained a lot of OW’s core identity.

I say all this as someone who scoffed at and avoided games like Valorant, for example, because to me… OW just looked better. More fun, more engaging, just better all around.

Yesterday however I finally broke down and played valorant and it was an almost immediate realization of “oh… this is essentially what OW is turning into…” so it’s no wonder I have no problem playing valorant now that OW is becoming a dumbed-down version of that game, just my opinion.

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I have no idea how you can play both games and think they are in any way similar other than them both having guns.

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I dunno? I guess the same way I can eat a hamburger at either Mcd’s or Burger King and acknowledge that while they’re both two different restaurants with different coats of paint, atmospheres, mascots, etc… at the end of the day, they still have so much in common with each other that to say “the only similarity they have is they sell burgers” comes off a little flippant :rofl:

ha, see what I did there, geez I’m funny.

Point being… after having played OW2 beta, followed by Valorant yesterday, they seem more than ever like two sides of the same coin.

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I’m not digging up this post for any reason other than the amount of “Fix Queue Times/Boo Role Queue” posts that I’m seeing.

If you think it’s bad now, wait til Blizzard does exactly what I described and uses the Battle Pass to force you into “unplayable” roles.