đź’ˇ Role Queue Alternative

General Discussion
1

We’ve all seen the discussion around role queue, hero bans, and other various ideas that help change things up with Overwatch during the hero select screen. Let’s be honest, many a game has been lost on this screen before the first head was clicked.

I have an idea that is an alternative to the role queue idea. Proponents of role queue often cite 5 DPS comps or comps with no healers. They talk about how bad it is to have nobody select a tank or some other scenario like that. And sometiems they just hate comps like quad tank or Goats or some other 0 DPS comp. Maybe they are looking to specialize and want different SR for the different roles.

People opposed to role queue talk about how it could stifle innovation. They say that comps with 3 DPS are perfectly viable. Why not triple tank? If DPS mains are the largest group, why would you limit them to 2 picks per game? Won’t this increase queue times? Etc.

My idea won’t solve all these problems, but I think it is a good compromise solution that would improve on our current situation. What if you didn’t queue for your role, but each role had some limits as to how many could be picked (a maximum) and also a minimum number of heros that must be picked from that role. This way you could guarantee a healer exists and a DPS exists. You could also guarantee you didn’t have 4 of anything. It would eliminate many of the least fun compositions (Goats, 4 DPS, quad tank, etc).

Here’s how it could work. Each role has a minimum and a maximum. If the max is hit or there’s only enough slots left to fulfill a role’s minimum then heroes from certain roles are unselectable just like in the 1 hero pick but for a whole role.

  • DPS - Maximum 3 / Minimum 1 (You always have at least 1 DPS, no more 0 DPS comps, but never more than 3)
  • Tanks - Maximum 3 / Minimum 2 (You must always have a main and off tank or at least the possibility of that. If you pick 2 off tanks I can’t help you. No more than 3 tanks ever.)
  • Support - Maximum 2 / Minimum 1 (Triple support shouldn’t be a thing. Stacked healing needs a limit. This gives it a limit without weakening the supports as individual picks. But you always need at least one support. This avoids support nerfs).

I think a system like this will create more balanced comps, less fighting about the comp, and still allow for more creativity than a role queue. There are drawbacks, but it will eliminate the worst comps while still allowing creativity. I think it is better than what we have now and would be more appealing than role queue for many people.

EDIT: A lot of people had a problem with the minimum of 2 tanks. Just to be clear, this was only a suggestion. We could go with 1 tank. The key thing to remember is a minimum that every role has to have at least 1 player. If everything is balanced perfectly 2/2/2 would be the meta. But it’s not. Having 1 pick of every role should not be too much to ask. Even just having minimums without the maximum aspect would greatly improve the game. Maximums would prevent quad comps, but minimums by themselves would still be an improvement and make every role matter.

10 Likes
2

Thoughts? Bueller?.. Bueller?.. Bueller?

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This is good idea through and through. This is the closest we should ever get to a forced meta. It wouldn’t be that restrictive and solves issues with Goats with one simple change.

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i dont think playing tank should be forced on even 2 people since who likes being the one to be beat up and debuffed while your healer is focusing on some dps

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I’ll take one of the slots. :slight_smile: I say 2 because you need 2 for any realistic team comp. There has never been a valid team comp in Overwatch without 2 tanks because main tanks and off tanks are pretty much 2 completely different roles and both are essential.

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im sure there was at least one instance where 4 dps 2 healers won.

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Only because the enemy team probably also did that. If one team has 2 tanks and the other has 0, it’s unlikely the team with no tanks will win. It can happen, but the odds are against them.

You’ll never see a 1 tank or 0 tank team at the highest levels of play like in a pro match for example. I’m sure at a lot of ranks it can work, but it’s never ideal. And the way the game is designed, it never will be unless tanks become virtually unplayable.

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i guess we’re just of different minds, i believe that you shouldnt be forced into a pro comp if everyone agrees and you think you should always have a 50% or more chance of winning.

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Well, this isn’t necessarily forcing a pro comp. It’s just forcing somewhat better comps. Like, at least 1 healer, at least 1 DPS, and at least 2 tanks. It solves the Goats problem. It solves the quad tank problem. It solves the 5 DPS problem that sometimes happens in lower ranks.

It doesn’t force perfect comps, but it allows for somewhat realistic comps.

2 Likes
10

it will also make more people unhappy and cause games to stall up when no one wants to pick a main tank because they are boring to play

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11

I disagree with a hard minimum of 2 tanks. There are legit strategies that utilize a single tank. Realistically, I would like to see encouragement for folks to use the group finder and work with people to have the type of comp that folks want.

I also think that a few other changes would help a lot:

  • “Group Voice Chat” is disabled and “Team Voice Chat” is the only option while in a comp game. NOTE: You may choose not to join the chat.

  • A Real Solo-Queue (never matched against groups). This should probably be separate comp mode from the group-based one.

  • Real encouragement to be flexible (have a hero pool deeper than… 1 or 2). A single hero ban per side is (currently) on of the leading mechanisms for achieving this. However, there are issues with hero bans.

I am against a hard-set system like that. This is all personal opinion. Your suggestions aren’t bad. I am simply not a fan of those kind of restrictions being encoded in the main comp mode.

If there is going to be a “Forced META” your suggestions are as close as it should come.

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12

See, I actually disagree with this. A lot of people are unhappy with the amount of people that instalock DPS when we all know that isn’t how you win games. And a lot of people are also unhappy with how many tanks/supports get played. This will actually reduce how many CAN be played in a game and allow for more DPS play at higher ranks.

I think for a majority of people, this would be happier.

3 Likes
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No there aren’t. There just aren’t.

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The times it works is where you are dynamically breaking / countering (for a short push) where extra dps / healing makes a difference. You, sir, are wrong in some limited cases. It may not be viable for a whole game, single tank has it’s uses and restricting it is probably wrong.

I have a feeling that people wont be happy unless we have MOBAWatch (the arcade mode without swapping, where a forced meta makes sense).

15

I do agree my friend. I would love to see that kind of system implemented.

Make it mandatory for QP.

2 Likes
16

i agree, a mode that is meant for learning different heroes should force you onto one specific one

17

I agree with this 100%

I am also open to hero bans. I like the idea overall, but it has to be put together in the right way because it could be good or it could be bad depending on implementation. But I think it will eventually happen at some point.

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Main tank isn’t fun because you don’t get structured comps that support them. We need more mechanics in game to encourage players to play every role. Blizzard made huge mistake when they promoted “mains” of a certain hero or role. If more people actually played tanks (all the roles in general) and understood the role(s) the match quality would get better.

There isn’t any solo tank meta. It’s absolutely a bad thing to run a solo tank.

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100%! Please don’t take my calling you wrong in a different post personally :wink: You and I are not far off on view in the grand scheme of things.

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i tried playing reinhardt once because i was on backfill and moira and dva were taken and i absolutely hated it