The issue isn’t that they don’t know how to implement this, they said they already have a role queue finished and could add it whenever they wanted. They already have a role queue design. The problem is they want people to be “free to choose” bla bla bla and we’re now waiting for them to realise it’s not working.
Maybe they do, maybe they don’t.
But if they didn’t, and it’s plainly obvious to me, I’d feel it would be wrong to just let the concept go unsaid, if I had the power to make a change.
This seems like it’d be easy to implement and gives people the choice of how it set up already if wanted so why not try it. I think a lot of people would enjoy this if nothing else it’s something new to experience.
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Thanks. It was actually surprisingly difficult to come up with a concept that gives you the most potential options, for the fewest choices/restrictions.
Since a bit part of what this concept seeks to avoid is too much fracturing of the playerbase. So you want as few entrypoints as possible.
I also wanted to make this feel like an addition to the game, not a subtraction-then-replacement to the game. So it doesn’t remove/replace 6Flex or LFG.
Mei is a tank. She blocks so much has 500 hp and a wall that is insane. Shes a utility tank that enables dps to do damage. Rein mei, dva mei, orisa mei, all work insanely good.
I might want to pull that voting language out of the Role Select panel, and put it into the chat interface:
At the beginning of the game you get this:
- Welcome to Role Select.
- If you would like to unlock roles, hold F for 5 seconds to vote to unlock roles. 4 votes required.
And if somebody votes, you get this:
- GreyFalcon has voted to unlock roles.
- If you would like to unlock roles, hold F for 5 seconds to vote to unlock roles. 1 of 4 votes remaining.
And if somebody disconnects:
- Somebody has disconnected.
- If you would like to unlock roles, hold F for 5 seconds to vote to unlock roles. 3 votes required.
The problem is, if you make flex replace dps option, then players that only want to dps have to pick flex and they wont really flex
It you want to purely Flex, then that’s what Standard Select is for.
Or what sort of scenario did you have in mind?
dps, support and tank period. flex does not mean dps. and if itll get me faster queue times im just going to pick flex but only do support
If you just want maximum queue speed and are willing to play whatever is needed, why not select the Both Queue, and select all 3 Roles?
Or if you just want to play Healer, then join the Both Queue, and pick Healer.
You don’t have solo heal or solo Tank which have been really popular before Goats and which can work really well on some maps but you also basically lock the tanks and healers in their role meaning that if they have someone that is not really good at dpsing, or even just a bad support player or a bad tank player you can’t switch with them and give them an easier role like junkrat. You block off those interactions within the game.
Also
No.
She is not a tank, she is perfectly fine, she has many strenghts and many weaknesses. She has a pretty high skill ceiling and she can really make the difference in a fight. She is not a tank and she doesn’t need to be one.
The only thing she needs is bug fixes. That’s all.
That’s intentional. I don’t think a structured team comp with higher queue times should be heavily reliant on one player to represent an entire Role.
If that player picks a hero that doesn’t go with the comp, dies a lot (focus/misplay/hero choice/lack of peeling/throwing), or just had poor reaction speed for tanking/healing.
Then the entire Role isn’t working well.
The strength of 2Flex-2-2 is that it allows for almost every comp besides 3-4DPS comps, and is completely redundant on the healer/tanking roles with two or more of those heros per role.
If you still want 3-4DPS comps, that’s what 6Flex/Voting/LFG is for.
Also, I wouldn’t really say DPS is something someone will switch off easily, or perform well when they can’t even handle healing or tanking.
Mei had amazing self sustain, tons of damage blocking, can “create space” with walls that technically have more health than a Rein shield, and she’s practically a 400hp character with her iceblock. Especially if they give it priority when there’s lag.
But the big part is that selfish tank players would pick her to snipe with, but would have the ability to block ultimates that Dva can’t.
You do need a lot more teamplay but if it is done correctly the reward for playing such a risky comp is really great.
True but in higher ranks it’s a lot more common. Also if you have a bad Ana you could switch her with a DPS that has a better Ana and give them an easy dps such as Junkrat, Hanzo, Pharah, Torb etc.
They won’t be able to use them to their full potential but these heroes can still do a lot even without much skill so you’d have a better comp.
It’s far more important to have a really good main heal or main tank than having a really good DPS because at the end of the day if you kill 2 to 3 people alone but your entire team died because the healer was picking flower and the tank was playing chess it’s useless. On the other hand if you have a really good Ana she’ll be able to compensate with her nade or nano which will really help during the fight so that even if you don’t have as much dps as the enemy team it will be more impactful.
Also for Mei : she has a great area denial there’s no question about it. She has lots of strengths and lots of weaknesses but she cannot be placed into the tank category without massive changes. And we all know how massive changes work in OW. We’ll get the ult as an ability and a new ult which creates a huge snowball that traps ennemies inside and roll them away. (I’d love to see that btw but the balance issues she would bring would be too much).
Also her wall doesn’t have near as much hp as Rein’s shield. It’s only 500hp per pillar so it’s really easy to take one or two down and get through. Great for blocking ults or saving people but not a reliable “shielding” ability. Yes she has a lot of HP if you add her heal but it’s on an 8s CD and Road also has a self healing ability, which heals for 300 and he can still move. That ice block is just as much of a tank ability as Reaper’s life steal is.
I figure, if people have enough trust and teamplay built for 3-4DPS comps to work well.
Then they should have enough trust to get 4 votes to unlock roles.
If you can’t even get a majority of the team committed to thing the strategy properly, then it was probably going to be a big downgrade anyways.
As for the Mei to Tank position, the reasoning is really to “trick” players into picking Mei+Dva, or Mei+Roadhog when you get two “basically a DPS player” tank picks.
Having a Mei is drastically more sustained protection for your team than a Dva+Roadhog.
I really disagree with what you’re saying about Mei.
It’s really hard to learn how to play Mei really off-tank and use your wall to save your team and use your ice block to protect someone from a shatter for example. However learning how to split the ennemy team in half and using your ice block as a real self sustain to give less work to your support is easier.
Also it’s really dangerous to have a Mei as a tank because her wall has such a huge CD and she has nothing to defend her team appart from that. D.Va has DM and a lot of HP, Road has a lot of sustain but can also kill someone very easily and quickly. Both of them can save their teammate from afar with either mobility or hook etc.
She wasn’t build to be a tank and placing her here would only make people go “lol we have 2 tanks” and run Road Mei (which is rarely a good idea and tbh worst than Dva Roadhog) or stuff like that that really is bad and they would just think “it’s okay I’m playing tank”. It would be like making Soldier a Support because he has aoe healing, see what I mean ?
I got about 50 hours on Mei, and 280 hours on Roadhog.
For “teammate protection” Mei is a superior offtank over Roadhog.
“High self sustain, Good at standing on objectives, and Creates Space for your team to operate out of”.
That’s the definition of a Tank to me.
And she’s really good at all of those.
Not to mention, similar to Roadhog, she creates a zone of threat, that makes enemies want to back off and respect the space she’s claiming.
Jeff Kaplan himself has admitted solo heal/tank is not fun for the person bearing the burden of solo healing/tanking
I’ve been shouting this for awhile now. I’m not saying no other comps can work I hate that people see this as some black and white thing. On your average squad in gold/plat being stuck solo healing/tanking is a drag. The game should avoid putting players in this position.
This isn’t me crying about ranking up, SR or any of it. I’m simply telling you it’s not a fun situation, playing a game that’s not fun feels like work and I already have enough work in my life presently.
This I agree with. Mei is tank-y but she’s not a tank.
Road doesn’t protect but he takes the damage for your teammates. That’s different from Mei. But at the end of the day if your support is getting attacked, your wall won’t always save them because it can be destroyed easily and if there are more than 1 hero on them you won’t be able to do much. Road on the other hand can guarantee a kill with his hook which makes 1 less ennemy attacking that support but also makes it a 5v6 fight and if there are more than 1 well you at least make it a 5v5 fight.
If your support is really close to you both aren’t bad. If you are at mid-range both can do something but neither are great. However Road has the kill potential that Mei doesn’t really have because she’d need to get close (closer than Road’s hook) to freeze the ennemy and kill them. At long Range both are bad.
They play differently but the at the end of the day Mei is better used to control the fight and really annoy the ennemy team more than keeping her abilities to save her teammates (except for walling a D.Va bomb for example) but Road can also hook the bomb away from the team and survive with his self heal.
I mean that’s his POV. If you don’t want to do it you should say so but I personally don’t mind solohealing if that means I’ll have a good dps that does things rather than a useless off heal that barely even tries to do anything.
I get that it’s not great for lower ranks but at the end of the day you shouldn’t have a better game experience in lower ranks rather than in higher ranks because it would mean you shouldn’t basically rank up and it would only reinforce the Smurf problems and such. Also as I said in those ranks you really don’t need a good comp nearly as much as in higher ranks.
That’s like balancing the game around lower ranks. That’s not a good idea.
In a perfect world everyone in this game would have fun playing and enjoy their time. In reality it’s impossible and what you should have is a reward for going up the ladder and get “better” games. That’s also why playing with friends is the best thing to do (and I mean even just duo or solo not a full 6 stack) and at the end of the day it’s a community issue not a game related one.
Ahem
Torb has a really good sustain, he can hold objectives really well and has one of the best area denial of the game with both his turret and his new ult and he isn’t a tank.
Sym has a decent sustain if you know how to play with her TP and ult and she’s hard to hit especially in lower ranks, she is really good at defending a point and has literally the best ult to create space for her team and she’s not a tank.
On the other hand Orisa has no self sustain whatsoever, she doesn’t create much space for her team, apart from her shield which is good but not that great.
D.Va has an okay sustain because of DM but once that’s out she’s really just naked which means she’s not that great at holding Objectives and she doesn’t create space whatsoever. Yes her ult can help a bit but it’s really easily avoidable and blockable.
Winston has a really poor sustain and isn’t good at keeping an objective.
Zarya only has an okay sustain. She has bubble and her shield but she doesn’t really have much sustain because her bubble can break down really quickly and her shield takes time to regenerate. She’s not good at keeping an objective either.
Soooooooo you should really think a bit more about what a tank really is.
So an icewall, slow, and freeze can’t prevent damage, but a hook and feeding tons of Ult charge can?
And blocking earthshatters, high noon, dvabomb, Bob, etc don’t count as tanking?
Also 1 shot headshot kills on Tracer, without a cooldown.
Genji gets frozen and instaded.
keep this away from arcade it wouldnt work especially if you look at mystery heroes or no limits and it would ruin the flow of total mayhem