The act of balancing characters is creative but measurable.
222 was justified for the many reasons i said. The forums really dont have much to do with it - there’s far more data available than that. While the devs do pay attention to complaints, they have much more actual evidence to work with.
If restrictions improve the game (i.e. like 222 and like removing hero stacking) then they’re good.
No, dont leave mathematics alone - its actual evidence and how balance is driven. Explain why my maths would backfire?
I am the holder of truth if you cant come up with good counter-arguments or theories?
Honestly, yeah, its a hard situation. 222 has caused a lot of problems, BUT it has some genuinely valuable improvements on the game - if it didn’t, they would have reverted RQ by now, right? Unfortunately, i can see 132 still happening, since it has all the bonuses of RQ with fixed queue times
Well, you have 2 options with trying to get comp classic alongside normal comp. You either balance 222 and ignore QPC or you attempt to balance both. Both of those options cause massive issues - either the ignored mode essentially breaks, or you end up with completely different heroes in both modes. So, people get angry if their mode is being ignored, or their heroes are so different, people get annoyed that their hero is less powerful in one mode or the other.
Well, yeah, they are completely irrelevant. I was putting forth the concept that “balancing a complex system in a game where heroes are interacting with each other is harder when there are more variables, reduce the number of variables and you reduce the complexity, making it easier to deal with”. By variables, i mean team comps. None of your doctor stuff had anything to do with that.
Sorry, i didnt even read the rest of your post after that doctor stuff. Balance is incredibly important - if players feel the game is incredibly unfair, they’ll get angry with it. You’ve seen all the “nerf moira” threads from all the bad genjis. Balance is there to keep players happy. Its to let them feel their heroes are worth playing. Happy players keep playing and earn you money. As a game dev, money is good, because i need to get paid.
If the devs are willing to stand by 222 even though DPS players are getting annoyed with the long wait times, there must be a very strong reason for them sticking to their guns, right? I’m just trying to explain what that might be.
For me it did kind of ruin the game. I’m a flex player, I can play nearly everything,
Before RQ, Overwatch to me was a game where the correct way to play the game was to put time into a pool of heroes that you can get good with and then use those heroes to overcome the enemy team. The best players were those whose hero pool was flexible enough to make combinations with your own team’s hero pools and be able to deal with a wide variety of situations.
RQ basically put up walls between a player’s own hero pool. Now someone who is good with 2 tanks, a dps, and 3 healers is simply locked into their role and unable to respond to enemy choices or to combine with your own team’s.
It made the game worse overall. Only made it better for stubborn healer and tank mains, and dps one tricks.
Rather than forcing 222 and locking people into roles, Blizz should have encouraged players to choose tanks and healers by making them more fun and rewarding.
Also the game lost something by having 222 be every game. Before you could have a wide variety of interesting combos, but now every game is the same. You can’t do 3 tanks 3 healers, or 5 healers 1 dps, or 1 tank 5 dps, or 6 healers. Imagine FIFA mandating that all teams on the planet now have to play 442. That limits the amount of strategies to choose from. It’s not good.
I am generally in favor of role queue, even though it has its pros and cons. But the one big con that I see is that it brought in a lot more toxicity. Role lock tells us we can be flex, but only within one role. That is frustrating so many players (due to being unable to swap to another role to counter play what they have in mind), and they are taking those frustrations out on their teammates, or even here on the forums.
Look at hero bans… each change of bans results in a mountain of angry posts at the limitations it imposes. Not saying that is wrong either, just highlighting that role lock and now the hero bans just increases toxicity so much more lately. I actually had to log off yesterday after 5 comp matches that were punishingly bad, not because of bad play necessarily, but how toxic everyone was to anyone’s advice. Limitations of hero selection magnifies the frustration players have with the perceived problems of those heroes, and everyone is just getting tilted. It wasn’t nearly this bad before role lock. At least, not in my experiences.
They explained the reasons in the Developer Update. “Players have evolved, the way we play the game has evolved.”
Sadly, that “evolution” takes a negative form.
Players became brainwashed into believing that 2-2-2 is the only way to play the game.
The fact that players are brainwashed leads them to try to “fill” to fit this composition despite not being good at the role they try to fill.
This causes problems in match quality.
It also lead players to automatically give up from the start if the composition was perceived to give a disadvantage, making it self-fulfilling.
Sadly, the devs do/did nothing to shift players away from this mentality. The “tips” shown during hero selection only served to reinforce this mentality.
Instead, the devs simply buckled under community pressure to implement a forced 2-2-2 Role Queue.
OWL viewership may or may not also have had something to do with it although I’m doubtful of that.
Why do they stick to their guns? I’m doubtful that they truly will stick to 2-2-2 for the entirety of Overwatch’s lifespan.
Recent interviews with Jeff Kaplan shed some interesting light on their philosophy.
Kaplan also talked a bit about the implementation of Role Queue and how the team is happy with the results. They are noticing less toxicity and players being more happy in general. Role Queue won't disappear for the foreseeable future and we will probably see it in Overwatch 2 as well. The idea of 3, 2, 1, wasn't received as well, but the team believes they know why. "If Overwatch would have released with a 3,2,1 system, everyone would probably be fine with it, but since we didn't, players got used to something and don't want to see it be changed," Jeff added.
At the same time, year four has also been a great time for experimentation for us. We’ve been a little precious with our balancing. We’ve been precious with testing things internally, and not wanting to freak out the player base or disrupt them. In year four we feel like there’s a maturity to the audience who’s still with us, where they want change. They want us to try things out and they’re okay if we try something out, it doesn’t work, us changing it again. So you’re seeing hero pools, you’re seeing the experimental card, we’ve done a lot of really aggressive balance changes. We’ve already done dozens of balance changes, and we’re only in March so far. It’s a very different philosophy. Early on, we were all about stability, and trying to keep the service as stable, and as similar as possible. You didn’t want to disrupt people – everything was new to them to begin with, but 2020, players want newness thrust upon them, and we can give them that.[...]
But milestones on a live game, well, there’s before you announce, you can make very drastic and radical decisions. I’ll give you an example, we had moments where the game was eight versus eight, we had moments where the game was four versus four, we tried five versus five, seven versus seven. Those are not the types of choices we can make anymore. We can’t do it because we have a built-in audience. We have a pro sports league that was built around a certain size. The technology has been optimised for four different platforms and we have memory constraints. Those are the types of decisions you can make in early development.[...]
Now Overwatch is four years old, we have to be very careful about the amount of dramatic decisions that we make and how it affects a player base that has been playing for a long time. So the experiment composition experiment we ran recently that was three damage, two support, and one tank, that decision is the kind of thing that the design team can make in alpha or in beta and just go, “this is better for the game, we’re going to do this”. You make that decision, know it’s better for the game and move on.
Weirdly, I think there’s so much good about the 3-2-1 experiment, but I don’t feel comfortable pushing it live in 2020. What Overwatch 2 becomes for us is another great opportunity, it’s a moment where people expect and are hoping for radical change. This is what a sequel is all about, “you’re not just gonna give us the same game, right”? So as developers, I think we can all be excited about the opportunity that Overwatch 2 brings for “okay, it’s time. We’ve been playing the same game for many years now. It’s time to move on to the next thing”.
When you’re balancing a hero, you’re trying to make it playable and not have any huge weak points. “Viable” is the wrong word, people around here use it to mean “a good hero to play at high ranks”.
Less options makes flaws more obvious to US, it doesnt make them harder to manage FOR THE DEVS. Pre-222, if you buffed Mercy’s damage boost, you had to think about how that would affect her in a balanced 222 comp, or in 330, or as solo healer with up to 5 other healers, or 5 tanks, or 5 dps. You’d be considering how damage boost stacks with bap’s ult with Ana’s AND zens discord AND orisas bongos. Before long, everyone’s getting 1 shot by all these stacking damage boosts.
The devs actually waited for 222 to come out to release sigma, because of this exact issue - adding another shield and how it would interact with the other shields in the game. Now, there’s only ever going to be 1 more shield - that’s simply less complex.
Mobas with hundreds of classes in them tend have less complex, distinct heroes. There’s a lot of overlap in there, simply because there’s so many of them. Mobas also lack the FPS element of the game - they dont have big spikes of damage caused by aiming or crazy 3 dimensional movement abilities that make you harder to hit. Also, Mobas have longer TTK. All those things make their heroes more generic and easier to handle.
Nobody was brainwashed - players decided on their own that 222 was better and it has proven to be. Match quality is higher and toxicity lower since 222’s release.
All the problems of player’s throwing because of team comp were MASSIVELY worse pre-222. “someone tank or i throw”.
The article you quoted basically says “we still like 132 and might go for it in the future” (while i hate 132, i think it might happen). 132 is basically the same as 222 - role lock with different numbers. QPC is very different. That doesnt change my statement though - if role lock has annoyed DPS players and people like you, but the devs are set on KEEPING it, there must be some very strong reasons to do that.
I dont see how any of this can be stated to be a universal truth - as proven - rather than an individually held opinion
Some think 222 is far better. Some (myself included) think it is far worse
Some think match quality has improved. Some (myself included) think it is worse
I dont honestly know of anyone (other than yourself, as stated above) expressing that 222 specifically has improved toxicity. I do know I’ve seen a lot more toxicity directly associated with 222 - dps players angry from the outset because they had to wait so long, other players upset with the choices others have made and further angered by the fact that they cant switch to the role they see as impacted by the poor choice(s), non-dps angry at dps for not switching while dps snaps back I waited x minutes to play hero y and I’m gonna play hero y, and etc etc etc
in any case, all of this is opinion…not proven, not a fact, though it appears to be stated as such in the statement quoted above
Evidently not for everyone as you can see in this thread.
1-3-2 with balance changes is actually a bigger departure from how Overwatch is currently played, than Quick Play Classic.
They went with 2-2-2 because it was the accepted way to play Overwatch. It was the path of least resistance.
We haven’t been vocal enough about our dislike of this change.
Damage players for whatever reason are less likely to seek out external forums and share feedback - this forum is support dominated. Damage players suffer the most from queue times.
Fortunately we can still change that by giving our feedback.
Note that they can keep Role Queue alongside Competitive Classic.
Low quality solo or healing and tanking games are gone. Toxicity caused by people getting upset by their team not having a healer is gone. Those things rare both better.
I cant account for those who dont understand the improvements 222 brought us. People who only see the game from a DPS point of view are particularly upset with 222 because of wait times, which seems very silly to me because they’re specifically choosing to have that wait. Hell, role lock is still here, so the devs must agree with me on some level.
132 is Role Lock. It has all the bonuses i have repeatedly stated that 222 brings, including being easier to balance and being balance futureproofed. They went with 222 over QPC because of the reasons i repeatedly stated. 222 was NOT the path of least resistence - doing nothing was. They made a difficult decision, change things and they’re sticking with it. There must be good reasons for that.
You have been very vocal, but the opposing side is even more vocal. You are in the minority - just look at the likes on the first 2 posts on this thread. Of course, its easy to blame “there are more X here” when it feels like that from your point of view because you need something to blame for the majority disagreeing with you. You have no idea what the role-makeup of the forum is - given DPS queue times, its more likely the majority is DPS.
I’ve repeatedly told you the reasons why comp classic would be a bad idea - we even got down to the minutia of UI design and you’re STILL banging on about it?
Tell me, do you prefer 132 to 222? Would that be a good solution for you?
No, you dont understand the improvements. If you did, you probably wouldnt be asking for role lock to be removed, you’d be happy with QPC. You understand you’re not happy with them (and i get that), but you’re refusing to comprehend what that actually means.
QPC as a main game mode was rapidly heading towards becoming an unmaintainable, toxic mess. As new heroes got added, you’d just keep on getting more and more possible team comps and therefore more and more broken and unfixable comps, like GOATS. The variance in team comps was so high, that the extremes of synergy and power were getting crazy and that was only going to get worse as more heroes were added. Tanks were unbalancable (3+DPS paradox). Healers almost as bad. I’ve explained this to you repeatedly.
For some people, QPC was just horrible. People were constantly screaming for healers. Solo tanks/healers were getting thrown into horrible games AND being blamed for the loss. No DPS at high ranks. Flex players could NEVER play DPS if they were actually trying to flex. Genji mains were getting forced to play tanks sometimes. SR didnt actually match a player’s ability in what they were playing.
The more powerful these extreme comps become, the more they become must pick - that stifles creativity and breeds toxicity. I admit, that still exists now in 222 to an extent, but its throttled back and less extreme (due to the reduced number of possible team comps).
The other side of the coin seems to be “i dont like queue times, even though i can fix that myself” and “mY cREaTiVItY!”.
Imagine they released a hero that was kinda “meh, ok”, except when she’s in a very specific comp. Maybe she’s kinda good when it comes to the popular 3+DPS comps, especially filling the gap of a tank or healer spot when other players dont want to. That’s Brig. I believe they intended to address the 3+DPS problem by having her fill as kind of a tank-healer in cases where both those roles needed to be filled at once. Shove her in a very specific, extreme synergy comp and all hell breaks loose. She’s a prime example of a problem of extreme team comps that was specifically solved by 222.
All my points on UI were valid and i answered all your questions clearly - again, it seems like you didnt WANT to understand, which meant i had to explain the same concept repeatedly and in different ways.
Competitive Classic, as a concept, is EVEN MORE broken and i’ve explained to you repeatedly why.
yet i cant get competitive games with flex. that’s what I want. not arcade so few take seriously.
no they didnt esp not as bad as it is now. I couldve swapped roles if we only had dps tanks or healers now we cant. it created this as an issue since we’re stuck with them.
i did yet it’s still taking a much longer time. sometimes I’m waiting up to 10 mins for a game as a healer or tank. dps can be up to 25
wow this is so ignorant of a response. you completely missed the point.
I already did. i can’t control others who dont. being able to swap roles helped me counter that since I could counter pick the enemy or fill in a different role the team needed more like a a hitscan for pharah or 3rd healer or another shield tank. now we’re just stuck.
clearly you dont understand the issues if you replied like tthat
false. you may like it but I don’t. it’s your OPINION not fact. maybe youre getting perfect teams every game but i can guarantee most arent
She was released more as a counter to “Dive”, the dominant meta at that time because the devs couldn’t figure out how else to stop it.
CC improves the CRQ experience by shortening CRQ times.
I’ll explain this to you with an analogy as you seem to like those.
You have two lines in a store.
One is served by a store employee.
They scan your items for you.
The other is for self-serve kiosks. You scan your own items.
The self-serve machines have a much shorter line.
By redirecting some of those waiting for the store employee line to self-serve kiosks, you also shorten the line being served by the store employee.
It’s a win-win.
In this analogy, self-serve kiosks = CC. Store employee line = CRQ.
As a RQ supporter, don’t you want the CRQ experience to be better?
Even if the devs really do consider that CC would somehow compromise the normal game client’s experience they should at least release it in a separate client.
Even you previously admitted you’d be fine with this.
The secondary client would have CC and QPC back in their original main screen positions. Arcade and Custom Games would share the same playerbase as the normal client.
You talked about how CC would upset players. Don’t you think that 1-3-2 has far more potential to upset players when you consider how it entirely removes the main and off-tank synergistic duos, a playstyle that many enjoy?
Creativity = having incredibly limited numbers of choices. I know you’re going to say “but 222 stops my creativity”, well, yeah, it does that to remove the team comp cases where, at high levels, would have NO choice because of the extreme synergy and power. Toxicity = in this case, getting upset with your team mates for not picking the right hero (i.e. “Why are you picking Genji? Pick brig, our team comp REQUIRES brig because of extreme power synergy, stop throwing!”)
Brig was released for multiple reasons - dive, solo tank/healer backup, anti flanker. That does not change ANYTHING about my point (which you completely avoided).
As a RQ supporter, i dont want CRQ because it sacrifices clarity, balance and throws us straight down the line of all the things that i explained in my previous post that you conveniently ignored. Maybe in a few years, when the game is slowly dieing (like Wow) then there will be demand for the separate client you want.
Lemme answer your CC VS 132 with the understanding that I personally HATED 132, but putting my emotionless game designer hat on, its a better step forward (even if its a terrible one)
CC AND 222
Adding a second competitive game mode at the same “prestige” and reward level as another will cause players to either not know which one is best, or wonder why theirs is not the best.
Essentially 2 games to balance, including one that was already rejected by the devs for REASONS (as detailed extensively in my posts). Either one or both modes suffer because of this.
132
Single competitive mode, its clear what everyone has to do.
Single game to balance, the devs can focus on that alone.
Tank players would be annoyed.
Support players would be annoyed.
DPS players get faster queue times.
On average, more players are immediately happy.
Side note on 132 would probably shoot itself in the foot in the long term by reducing tank and healer counts even further, increasing DPS queues back up to where they were after a few months.
Did you notice how i addressed all your points and answered your questions? You do that and i’ll reply more - yes, we’re getting to this stage again.
