How about tuning the matchmaker to take into account the most played heroes on a person’s account to sort of ‘soft role queue’ players into games where the composition would end up as a 2-2-2 naturally? If someone has a certain % of their playtime on a certain role, the matchmaker would classify them as that role and not match more than two players with the same role on a team.
Example: Three players play tank mostly, three play support mostly, and six play damage mostly. Matchmaker sorts them so Team A has two of the tank players, two of the support players, and two of the damage players. Team B has the remaining tank and support players, and two of the damage players. The last two damage players are matched into a different lobby and another tank and support are matched into this lobby.
This would most likely result in slightly longer queue times, but probably not by more than a minute. I think any truly competitive player would prefer a balanced game with a 5 minute queue than an imbalanced game with a 1 minute queue. These examples are a little on the extreme end, but you get the idea.
This would eliminate the complaints about role queue, autolock 4dps comps, and imbalanced games where you have four support mains and your team is unable to match the enemy team that got a lucky dice roll and ended up with a variety of players.
Thanks for the suggestion! It’s actually one we’ve debated on the team. One concern we have is anytime we – the OW team – make assumptions about what you want to do without giving you some agency in the situation. Our concern is, we believe there are a number of players who want to or like to play different roles but because they are thinking of “the good of the team”, they flex to needed roles. A player like this, under your design suggestion, is going to end up always having to play tank or support. We really want to avoid design solutions that further reinforce players being forced to play roles they don’t intend to.
I hope this explanation makes sense. To use myself as an example, by your suggestion, I am a “tank main” because most of my play time is on tanks. But I really love playing healers and damage heroes as well. I would be worried if the game just assumed I should be playing tank all the time, because I did it so much previously (mostly to be a good teammate, not because that’s what I wanted to do).
Oh, genuine question.
When you say 2-2-2, a lot of people think that means explicitly:
2Damage-2Tank-2Heal
But this seems really inconsistent with balancing GOATs, because that sort of Comp would disallow GOATs.
Would RoleQ be optional, or did you mean 2Flex-2Tank-2Heal, which would give these options:
2DPS-2Tank-2Heal
1DPS-3Tank-2Heal
1DPS-2Tank-3Heal (SNOATs)
3Tank-3Heal (GOATs)
4Tank-2Heal
2Tank-4Healer
So one thing I was considering, maybe try giving people the queue times for every RoleQ combination, with the ability to swap to different queues while queued.
Damage: 7 minutes
Damage or Tank: 5 minutes
Damage or Healer: 4 minutes
Damage or Tank or Healer: 2 minutes
Healer: 2 minutes
Tank: 2 minutes
Also if the queue times are larger for Quickplay, maybe just have the option of UnlockedQ or RoleQ for Quickplay.
And possibly mandatory RoleQ for Comp.
Because it seems like a vast majority of the 4-5DPS comps are in Quickplay.
Regarding the role queue, have you and your team considered separate role SRs (similar to say, Splatoon 2’s separate ranks for modes) or do you intend to keep us to 1 SR per account?
if we did role queue, we would do separate SR’s. this is one of the things i think would be really fun (plus make the game way more balanced and improve matchmaking)
Honestly, the matchmaking system should probably reinforce playing Healer/Tank.
If the numbers as skewed towards Damage mains as you’ve previously stated, maybe the game would be better to encourage people to learn new roles and playstyles.
Even with a role queue using most playtime on heroes to determine main heroes, there still begs the question of subdividing roles within each category. For example, a game is essentially already lost if the tankline consists of Roadhog and another off-tank like Zarya, or having Moira/Ana for supports.
The idea is fluid, however it needs very fine-tuning to work properly to simulate coordinated play as seen in scrims/professional play.
So I have not to fear if I want to be a lousy Hanzo main once in awhile when playing any mode. Because the one thing I fear is having to be put in a role I’m not feeling too hot about that very moment if all other roles are taken.
I seen people throw games for no reason when they are a support main. For example, you have 3 supports on a team and 2 tanks 1 damage main. One support will straight up think triple support is bad and try to damage. They let the team down and are soft throwing.
If they stayed a support for triple support 2 tanks 1 damage. We would have won but no they didn’t. Mindsets.