But let’s get real it’s waaaaay better than what we had before.
There is a type of post I see everyday on this forum :
I didn't sign up for 10 minutes queues !
And it grinds my gears.
Nobody writing those posts seem to have a single clue about why this change happened.
All of them seem to think it’s only about “preventing goats-type comps” or “forcing 2/2/2”. While a major point given by the dev team was “enabling players to play the role they queued for”.
Those people complaining about queue times seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that prior to role lock, they either ruined peoples games or forced people off the role they wanted to play.
I'm a dps player, I use to main Pharah when I played with mates. But since our team grew thin I was forced off dps role for 9 games out of 10, or else I'd be fighting a lost fight.
Sure, I don’t like waiting 10 minutes for a game, but at least I know I won’t have to support or tank for insta-pick genji when I just want some dps play.
Role queue is fair to everyone, disagreeing means you see yourself as more legitimate to play dps than other players in your team. Get humble, respect others.
EDIT :
Currently in Quick Play and Competitive Play, a lot of important decision-making happens in the 40 seconds before a match even begins, as everyone selects their heroes and responds to others’ role choices. It’s not uncommon for players—who may all have different goals and play styles—to feel tension, pressure, disappointment, or even hostility as a team composition comes together. The Role Queue system is designed to help take the edge off this process, ultimately leading to matches that feel fairer and more fun, where players are in roles that they want to be in.
While I do understand the benefits it provides for one-tricks and specific “mains,” those benefits don’t apply to me as a flex player / Everything main. So for me, role lock is precisely the opposite of perfect: It is purely detrimental and destroys a significant portion of my enjoyment of Overwatch. The queue time issue is just icing on the negative cake.
Fortunately I can still play without role lock in Arcade, so “flexing” isn’t completely banned from play, but I’ve hardly touched the normal modes for a long time.
Your opinion doesn’t matter when the dev team already gave their reasons :
Currently in Quick Play and Competitive Play, a lot of important decision-making happens in the 40 seconds before a match even begins, as everyone selects their heroes and responds to others’ role choices. It’s not uncommon for players—who may all have different goals and play styles—to feel tension, pressure, disappointment, or even hostility as a team composition comes together. The Role Queue system is designed to help take the edge off this process, ultimately leading to matches that feel fairer and more fun, where players are in roles that they want to be in.
I completely agree with you, I enjoyed this game a lot more when I could switch role during a game, and when I could find games faster. But this was only true when I played with at least 3 mates.
Solo was only me filling as tank or healer, everygame.
People were asking for role que for quite a while before it was implemented, I think they were already working on it, but I do wonder if goats was the last straw and they finally got their rears moving and added it.
Your experience was somehow very different from mine, then. I’d say my play was divided something like 50% Damage / 35% Tank / 15% Support, and I was generally fine with playing anything, so I wasn’t exactly forcing my way into Damage in most cases.
Edit: Though I suppose I should note that I was perfectly happy with playing 3-2-1 or 3-1-2 compositions (before GOATS), so if your goal was to always make something resembling 2-2-2, that might be more difficult.
I don’t think either one was better than the other to be perfectly honest.
The main problems with Overwatch come from the design principles that don’t encourage growth or improvement, and also create a very toxic spiteful environment where people get pissed off at each other because the fun they are looking for only comprises about 20% of their play time.
It’s bad when I felt like I got better in the past 3 months than the 9 months before that because I sat down and did drills every night for an hour. That means I never actually get better from playing, if anything I probably never improve or get worse, because the game doesn’t encourage me to want to play unless it’s with the love of my life.
Before role queue, if a teammate does poorly on his role, you could swap with him or pick another hero of his role, just to make up for his poor performance. If your teammates does poorly now - insta-loss, since no role swapping anymore.
Also, let’s be real - GOATs is the only reason 2-2-2 got implemented. Literally to accomodate 0.01% of the playerbase. You had LFG for forced roles, but hey, we’re selfless tank and support mains, let’s force it onto everyone!
What exactly is this statement based on? I’ve observed multiple players from all three roles complain about roleq and not exclusive to dps players. Those who do not like the new addition simply don’t like the idea of being restricted, waiting and the chance at eliminating the playstyle; flexing as a whole.
Role queue deleted my role. Therefore the “point” of role queue alienated players like myself AND did not accomplish this “major point”. It pushed them further from that goal.
I’m really sorry you have to suffer RQ because of a selfish few.
I was also fine with 3-2-1 or 3-1-2, at least in QP. But still had to play a majority of games as tank or healer. Maybe I was unlucky.
Just read this :
This statement is based on the huge phrase at the center of my post :
Which clearly points to dps players complaining about their long queue times. A question ?
Sorry, to this point I can only say you’ve been wronged. I also did prefer being able to flex.
Though in my opinion it was needed to make this change happen, even if the best of us all would take a hard hit, like you did.
Glad to hear at least some honestly from a pro RQ’er.
It was not needed. There were other options.
If a change does not negatively impact the bad actors but rather those who were the “best of us” then something is clearly wrong. That alone is evidence enough to show how nonsensical the change is .
I can’t deny that. I mean, what I believe was needed was “change”, and imo the change that happened was far from perfect, but I’m still glad it happened instead of nothing.
It does impact them, the dps players complaining about long queues are the ones hit the hardest by those changes.
But sure, I can’t deny that because of this few people everyone took a hit, flex players being right behind dps players in the victim line.
You know what really grinds my gear? People who resort to oversimplified generalizations in order to make a questionable point.
“Everyone who argues X only do so because they are clueless” is not a great opening argument in the best of days.
This is just an unacceptable argument where you draw a fictional connection between ‘bad players’ and players who don’t like role queue based on…
What? Your bigotry?
People know why there is a role queue. They just don’t agree with them. Or think the benefits were not worth the huge downsides that it brought.
Granted. However, All dps players taking that hit because of bad actors. Once again, a change that catches innocent people in the crossfire is a BAD change. Especially considering the fact that dps are by far the LARGEST part of the player base. Couple that with flex players and man is the friendly fire getting out of control.
People are being punished simply because they prefer one role over another. That is not right.
There were options that would NOT punish anyone but rather REWARD good actors while also improving the experience above and beyond what RQ does.