There’s a simple reason: both tanks and supports are more specialized. Every role has its own goals - DPS, of course, need to damage the enemy.
But other roles also do that, just not to such degree as DPS. But they also have additional tasks to perform - tanking and supporting, accordingly, therefore, limits of their design are less broad, as they have to have both damage and role-related utility in their kit (the only exception rn is Mercy, her damage to the enemy is mostly indirect).
Tanks and supports are less expansive concepts than DPS by their very definitions, so it’s much harder to come up with a proper hero for these roles.
Another important note is that specialists are powerkrept easier, as their kits are more defined and focused.
An analogy for better understanding of my idea
So, imagine an army. Would it have more infantry or tank/support units? Of course, infantry would dominate in raw numbers, because they are easier to train and equip, as they have a rather generalistic purpose. Tank and support divisions would be of lesser quantity, as their equipment is harder to make, because it is more specialized and, therefore, complicated.
I think within the confines of Overwatch, you’re correct. In the long run, we’ll likely always have more damage heroes than Supports or Tanks
But, I don’t think that’s an argument against trying to bring more parity between the roles, when we’re clearly not at that point yet and we have such a huge discrepancy now
Ah, I’m all for more supps and tanks. But problem is, DPS was twice their numbers from its very “birth”, as it was essentially two roles combined. If Blizz wants S’s and T’s to catch up with DPS, they’ll have to halt production of the latter for a long time, several years at least, and that’s the worst problem of this approach.
its just they arent as fun they dont give you that rush the same as playing DPS and getting multiple kills and instead of adding those things that make you feel good playing a hero they take em away.
Look at Mercy she used to feel more fun back when she had one less ability now she feels so slow to play.
They dont have to give a hero crazy kill potential to make them fun to play.
And not as much can be done with them as with DPS. Tanks and supports are more specialized than damage heroes, and that puts more restriction on a hero design.
We already get just one DPS a year. By how much should Blizz prolong this wait?
Yeah, Symm and Torb could’ve been made into supports. But then we got 2-2-2, which made non-healing supports incredibly weak.
This is just lazy reasoning. LoL has 38 supports. Overwatch has 7. I feel like if they need ideas, they can take a gander at what other games are doing.
I don’t even want them to be even. Ten would be nice. Not twice as many DPS than tanks or supports.
LoL is not OW, goddamit, they are not even remotely of the same genre. OW’s hero needs different things than LoL’s champion (guns being the main difference). It’s not accurate to compare these two just because they both revolve around hero picks.
It was in relation to the “supports are hard to make concepts for” remark. I realize you can’t just copy+paste from League, but you could be like “Oh hey, that’s a neat concept. Can we spin it into something Overwatch-y?”
Saying “It’s hard to make supports and tanks” is lazy reasoning. That is my point.
Not every concept could be made into a hero. Considering a rather broad gap between these games, there wouldn’t be so many easily transferable mechanics. And then, you also need to make a gun that would fit the kit, and this is where LoL and OW are the farthest away from each other.
I didn’t say it is hard, but that it is harder. And, as it is harder, there would be fewer supports and tanks, at all times probably.
^ This. There is still a lot of unused design space for barrier tanks, off-tanks, and healers. Hell, if anything I would say they are easier to create new concepts for just because they haven’t explored those design as much.
Sure, there will probably always be more Damage heroes. Which is fine, but the gap is currently too large. I’m just going to copy-paste myself from elsewhere. I don’t think the roster balance issue would actually require years to fix. Just a few minor reworks, some imagination, and the OW2 release:
Yeah. I only said that these both coud’ve been made into supports, but 2-2-2 would make them extremely weak compared to other supports, as they lack healing.
They are not of the same role. There’s a reason devs keep all of these in their current roles, and changing them would require not a minor, but a rather big rework, maybe even of their whole playstyles.
And I wouldn’t call Roadhog, Zarya and D.Va supports, they are tanks, but not the same way as barrier-wielding ones.
And, the most important question, - does more equalized roster mean a more balanced one?
Are you really comparing LoL to Overwatch? Two completely different games. OP has a point, an eloquent one at that. Tanks and Supps by nature are very difficult to balance and create with diverse/interesting playstyles in mind. Many of the Champions of league have very similar abilities that overlap. Is that what you want?
I agree the disparity of roles is too much however, the ratio should be 1:2:1 in my opinion.
As a counter-point, I’m one of those players that gets that “rush” off of being a support. Instead of focusing on a single target and my DPS numbers, I’m watching the entire team, and focused on my HPS or some other ability to keep them (DPS/Tanks) going. For me there’s nothing more fun.
The fact that there ARE supports in OW is what brought me to the game from WOW. I loved that they made healing/support a cornerstone of their game. If it vanished, I’d not play.
I looooove healing. Your my squad and it’s great fun keeping you going. When it works, there’s nothing like it.
I also love healing and supporting my team more than damaging the enemy but instead of create new interesting ways to do so they actually remove em i mean look at Sym she was fairly ok designed but her power was in all the wrong places, instead of tweaking parts of her and making her into a shielding support they made her into a “techno mage” as they called it that barely functions.