I watched this guy stream and he tried to say “nobody has ever given me a reason why 5v5 is better” so I’m putting this as a direct response.
I am going to message Samito and I encourage you guys to put the bug in his ear I am making this response too. I want him to respond because I think it’s good discussion.
Before I begin I believe both 5v5 and 6v6 should exist in the game so people can play how they want. I believe the devs should take 5v5 open queue and replace that with 6v6 open queue or “legacy mode”. I don’t think 5v5 should be the only option.
That being said I personally have had more fun playing 5v5 than 6v6. Here’s why:
- 6v6 involved an excessive amount of ult spam. You may argue that this could of been fixed by simply adding the tank role passive, but part of the problem was that you had so many bodies all clumped together with two of them being massive tanks that in an average game it was too easy to randomly spam into the mass of enemies, hit whoever stepped into it, and farm a quick easy ultimate.
Now you’ll probably argue if this was happening teams were just bad and should of used shields to block it. Believe me, they did. This leads to 2.
- Excessive amounts of shield spam. To not get blown up by ultimates every 40 seconds teammates demanded at least one tank have a shield at all times and sometimes they’d get triggered for teams not running two at once. A meta evolved (even at lower ranks) of teams flipping shields one after another.
Rein would stand with his shield and block 1000-1500 damage. When it went down Sigma would throw a 700 point shield dropping it right before breaking to put it on recharge. While it recharged he’d come forward with an absorb that lasted 2 seconds. When that was over Rein would come up with a fully charged shield repeating the cycle.
I’m not even mentioning Orisa cause you are just gonna say Orisa got reworked so it would of been fine. I am pointing out how as long as there are 2 tanks in this game with shields in a 6v6 environment unless shields are next to worthless you are going to get some form of double shield.
And let’s get real: Rein + Zarya was just another form of double shield. Technically Zarya bubble is not a “shield”, but its some form of barrier that comes up the moment the other barrier comes down serving as an extension to that barrier.
- Because enemies could bunker up laying down endless defenses and spamming into the cluster of enemies was rewarded this encouraged a “spam meta” of Junkrat paired with Torb, Pharah, Hanzo or whatever hero could brainlessly dump the most damage into the chokepoint.
Games at normal medal ranks devolved into an artillery battle where both teams would build up their fortress of shields and then stand there and shell at each other from a distance until one of the defenses broke by pure attrition.
Then the team fight would finally end when one team farmed their ultimates first and all ran in and hit q/y at the same time. That or Junkrat simply got his own ult and popped it for a triple kill wiping out half the enemy team with zero effort.
Since 6v6 encouraged being in tight group it made ultimates like grav, shatter, and yes tire way too strong. To add insult to injury two of the strongest ults in the game grav and shatter were commonly on the same team so team trying to group as the game intended would be fine until they got team wiped by some extremely overpowered ability that has very little counterplay.
It’s like: “hey guys, hope our rein blocks the shatter so we don’t get team wiped, great job Rein! Oh nvm, we’re all stuck in a grav now and here comes dragon! Time to reset!”.
6v6 was hit q/y-to-win embodied.
- Insane queue times for DPS and sometimes even supports. Because tanks were facing constant abuse because their only expected purpose in life was either to be a square that stood in front of people so they could enjoy the game or babysit some trash mercy one trick all game people just stopped playing tank because it wasn’t fun.
If tank was so fun in OW 1 why was nobody playing tank? Did 15-20 minute queues for DPS players as in indirect result make it more fun for them given most of the time they couldn’t even play the game?
People wanted to frag with DVA or Hog, but if one of the two tanks didn’t select Rein as their “main tank” they’d get screamed at all game with triggered teammates wanting to throw.
Gameplay for tank didn’t resemble anything like an FPS as the fun tanks were all locked behind a cry wall. And its kind of hard to blame them either since the ults for the most boring tanks were the most op things in the game while ults for tanks people wanted to play were useless.
It’s like: “Oh, Rein just stunned my entire team for 5 seconds, here hold up, imma get up and spray my gun uncontrollably until I die. That’ll show em what’s up!”.
- What people did at least half the time in OW 1 was poke the choke. Some maps like Hanamura this was built into its very design with a gate just wide enough to get a rein shield into and a single window as the only alternate attack spot.
Map design is at fault for this, but all the players on the map who only had to guard one or two spots to prevent the entire enemy team from coming through stalled gameplay to a crawl where teams barely moved for minutes at a time.
It was way too easy for defending teams to sling all kinds of deployables. Symmetra turrets or a torb turret. Heck, throw an orisa ult or an immortality lamp back there, nobody can get through to reach it. The safety of the chokepoint was a crutch that a lot of noobs depended on.
There’s a reason why one trick mercys cried about getting dove on the moment this changed. Team fights “lasted longer” meaning they could exist and never have to worry about dying (until getting instantly blown up by some ultimate, but at least they had safety until then).
It’s way more difficult for a defending team of 5 people to stall a team at a chokepoint than a team of 6. Changing map geometry or reworking heroes isn’t going to fix that.
Tl;dr: They made the game 5v5 to keep the game moving and more fast paced.
Yes, it’s more like a deathmatch. That’s what I like.
Now I know you disagree with me and like the more “strategic” gameplay of 6v6 and that is fine.
Neither of these takes are wrong because at the end of the day it’s all opinions.
Again. Let’s just have both modes so people can play what they want instead of having to argue.
Can we at least agree on that?