Talk of 2/2/2 Meta Lock Infuriates Me

General Discussion
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… because it’s a good idea with poor execution.

This isn’t a hard bash to the idea. I am actually in favor of a forced role system but I’d like to see it as a forced 1/1/1. This is coming from someone who fills Support and Tank constantly and I acknowledge that there are still problems with this setup but it is far more flexible than a 2/2/2 lock.

What is a 2/2/2 Meta Lock?
This is a proposed idea that every game should force 2 Support heroes, 2 Damage heroes, and 2 Tank heroes. The reasons behind the Meta Lock idea are varied but most agree that it would help with making the game feel more balanced.

What is a 1/1/1 Role System?
To define what I am calling 1/1/1 Role System, it is a team of 6 players that must always have a minimum of 1 Support Hero, 1 Tank Hero, and 1 Damage Hero.

2/2/2 Problems and the 1/1/1 Solution

Countering Heroes A forced 1/1/1 still promotes flexibility and countering which is one of the main design factors in Overwatch. You should be able to switch to Winston so you can counter a Widowmaker. The 2/2/2 promotes team incompetence where only 2 people have the option to change to Winston. Your Tanks may not have the competence to take out that Widowmaker and you’re stuck in your role wondering what the heck they’re doing.

  • Solution In the 1/1/1 Role System at least 4 Players will have the option to switch. As long as they aren’t your only Support Hero or Damage Hero, you can get that Winston on your team.

Exchanging Roles There is a reason I’ve been referring to the 2/2/2 as a LOCK and not a SYSTEM like the 1/1/1. It’s because you are truly locked into that role as soon as all 6 heroes are chosen and spawned in. There is no way for a 2/2/2 player to exchange roles with somebody. You may have already experienced this type of situation without realizing it. An example would be if you asked to play Ashe because someone had already chosen her. Lets say this person is nice and switches off Ashe so you could take her. This would become IMPOSSIBLE in a 2/2/2 Lock after spawn. There would be no other open role, YOUR ROLE, for them to swap to because the team would briefly become a 2/1/3, meaning the game would deny the hero change.

  • Solution 1/1/1 always has 3 open roles for anyone to take. You aren’t locked in and forced to remain that role. Well, unless your team is a bunch of jerks and leave you as the solo support. (I’ve been there. It sucks. But it’s every 1 out of 25 games so not a big deal.)

2/2/2 Meta Lock is Boring Fun is relative to the player. Most of my favorite teams have been 2/2/2 setups so I can’t say that I support this argument wholeheartedly. I feel it should be mentioned though because it is one I’ve heard often enough.

  • Solution 1/1/1 is less limited while still providing a mostly balanced team. Variations of the 1/1/1 not only include the 2/2/2 but also the 1/2/3, and 1/1/4! You only need a MINIMUM of 1 hero per role. If your team decides to rock an Orisa and Bastion riding the payload followed by a parade of 4 supports, it’s a legal team composition AND YOUR CHOICE!!!

The point of this post is not to reject the idea of forcing roles onto teams but keeping the player base happy with the idea and improving on it. I don’t want to feel shackled by something I’m supposed to have fun playing.

18 Likes
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I don’t like either.

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If you are going for 111, why not just put a Role Limit of:

  • 4 maximum DPS
  • 1 minimum Healer
  • 1 minimum Tank

That way you don’t need any fancy interface, just grey out certain heroes at the hero select screen.

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Make it a Soft role Q and there won’t be any problems other than people trying to abuse it which can easily be fixed by harsher punishments. You just get 2 people of each role and then if necessary you can flex on to other things.

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im down for forced 222 comps like goats an excexera will only get worse as more get added. add a tank that heals an u got 4 tank 2 support meta with no way to keep balance other then slamming nerfs on heros to atempt to stop it an then a new one popes up

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Sometimes I like the idea of a requirement from one hero from type. In particular, I think the DPS with the least time in that role should be placed in it. I feel like I get shoved in Tank at a lot, and I resent it, particularly when I want to DPS and I don’t likewise get a tank for “my turn”.

However, I think a lot of this could be fixed by making more effective and fun tanks. Right now tanking is a chore role nobody likes. Supporting, on the other hand, largely isn’t. I see supports often lock first. Tanking has a number of problems, but I think #1 is that it’s monotonous, because Rein is the only viable main tank and you often only have the one. Fixing Orisa and Winston, and adding more main tanks, would go a long way to making tanking fun.

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I hate how people pretend that 2-2-2 lock is bad because it “limits creativity”.

As if I always get 4 dps on my team because my teammates are just trying to be creative. :roll_eyes:

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Ah, because then we can’t disguise it for what it really is! A counter to GOATS!

Seriously though, the original idea was likely to prevent GOATS and similar compositions from ever touching the game again. Your idea would still allow GOATS so it wouldn’t be fair across the roster. I personally don’t care about GOATS but I’m arguing on behalf of the people who do hate it.

1 Like
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Well I have a GOATs solution.

2max Healers per team, for OWL and the top 5% of Comp.

Boom solved.

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With the addition of Ashe, 3 dps in a composition is frequently seen.

Blizzard needs to make any composition viable!! With switching being the focus of reward.

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Sadly, it does limit creativity but I’m more upset about the mechanical side of it. I don’t like how it forces people to stay in a role the entire game. You can’t force an ignorant teammate to play better.

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Role lock is terrible idea by all means. If you want to always see a main tank and supports in your team - go LFG. The solution is already there. If you want your team to be built better and more structured - go LFG. That solves all problems for YOUR team. If you refuse to use tool that was given to you by Devs to make your games better - that is your problem only.
If your problem is ENEMY team picking something outside of 2/2/2, like Goats - it is your problem to counter it. If you want to implement role lock simply because you don’t want to play AGAINST certain comps, not AS certain comps - it is just stupid. If some comp is too dominant it does not mean that it should be artificially removed, but it means that it should be properly balanced. It is a balance problem and it should be solved by balance methods, not by artificial system restrictions that gut diversity of option and fun of the game.

2 Likes
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Personally, I’m not demanding role lock, I’m improving an idea for a system that demands everybody use the same type of meta because of balance. Being forced to play a role isn’t fun for anybody (I’ve done it enough times myself) but it would be tragic if we were all suddenly thrust into this kind of system. If a horde of people are going to demand it then it should be something at least tolerable, shouldn’t it?

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I mean, I’m not pretending when I genuinely believe it would limit creativity.

I’ve played games where we’ve run 3 healers or 3 tanks along with a dps or two with great success. I’ve had 3 dps work wonders plenty of times with some unconvential picks like Mei or Sym.

I don’t think a 2 - 2 - 2 lock is a great idea for this reason. I could maybe see a 1-1-1 lock so you can at least have some semblance of a functioning team comp every game.

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In my experience you cant force anyone to do anything in this game. If you do your being toxic and a bully :roll_eyes: . At least that is what the professional victims in this community would tell you.

The only way you can force people to play the game a certain way is by enacting things like this. They have done it before with the single hero limit in qp and comp. I imagine if they think it will improve the game they will do it again. Honestly I think Blizzard needs to take control of their game and set some rules in place. Stop letting players govern themselves. Simply because any time you let a large audience govern itself it never works out well, people just dont agree that often.

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If only there was a way to craft the “perfect” team based on role…

LFG anyone?

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I’m amazed every time asking nicely works. I get so many rude responses in game for asking someone to change hero as nicely as I possibly can. No blaming, no shaming, just nice. Trying to keep low toxic teams is a challenge itself and I do agree that rules like this really are the only way some people will comply.

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You can’t make me :slight_smile:

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That is terrible too. You cannot solve balance problems by putting restriction on one comp and enforce player to play some standard comp.
Any role lock, no matter if it 2/2/2 or 1/1/1, will achieve only one goal - it will remove all comps like 3/3 or 4/2 or 5/1 (comps with one role missing entirely) in general. But it will not make the game more balanced at all. Yes, it will remove some problematic comps and everybody will play 2/2/2 and then player will find the most dominant 2/2/2 comp. What then? Will you remove it to? No, you should balance it. Just like you should balance 3/3 comps like Goats instead of removing it.

You cannot solve any problem by forcing players to play certain heroes, comps or metas. The only thing that you can do is to balance heroes and encourage players to play more heroes. And the only way to encourage players to play more heroes is to implement a hero banning system. Yes, it may seem like it also will force player, but it will not be something artificial. Players will be naturally encouraged to play more heroes because they will know that if they invest all time into one hero they may stuck (or may not) in situation when this hero is banned. It is a risk that players will take and only themselves will decide to improve their gameplay experience or not.

The problem is that hero banning is impossible to implement with current number of heroes, because some heroes does not have alternatives and the entire subroles and niches could be locked.

That is why the only right thing that Devs can do is to stop wasting time on pointless stuff and put all effort into development of more heroes, more than 3 per year, to achieve for at least 40 heroes (20 dps, 10 tanks, 10 supports) as fast as possible and than add a hero banning.
No other way will work without any seriously bad consequences and floods of toxicity.

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Look, you seem really irritated by this and it isn’t meant to upset anyone. You’re assuming that I want to destroy GOATS comp and others like it but implementing this system could also force new kinds of heroes onto the roster. If this 1/1/1 system was implemented, we could easily get more hybrid heroes similar to how we have several tanks that can fill for a damage hero. I agree that our current roster is small as it is and we do need many more heroes for the game’s balance to improve… but instead of looking down on it as a way of destroying the game, why not add some improvements of your own?