I keep hearing this argument about how people want to shoot things and play an FPS so they are more inclined to play dps because that role feels more rewarding than the other roles, but I think the REAL problem is actually pretty simple and it’s really on Blizzard.
Click on this link and look at the hero roster.
There’s currently 31 heroes in the game.
16 of those are DPS.
SIXTEEN.
That’s more than half what the entire game has to offer. So of course, if half the playstyles this game has to offer are dps, more people are gonna play dps. There’s no lootbox reward and no 3-2-1 comp that’s going to fix the queue times, because what the tanks and supports queues really need is MORE TANK AND SUPPORT HEROES that have more varied play styles.
Now, there are probably more players who prefer dps over other roles, and that’s never gonna change unless Blizzard changes how this game functions drastically (which I don’t think will ever happen), but if they focus on putting out tanks and supports until there are as many in each category as there are dps heroes, I GUARANTEE the gaps in queue times are going to start closing.
Tank queue: <2 min
Damage queue: >10 min
Support queue: <3 min
So if your whole argument is mathematically based and is only about the number of heroes in each role then you’ve made some mistakes.
The ratio of damage to tank heroes is 2 but the ratio of their queue times is 5. The ratio of damage to support heroes is 2.3 but the ratio of their queue times is 3.3.
It’s still going to alleviate the queue times a lot. It may not be perfect, but I GUARANTEE the ratio of dps players to tanks and supports isn’t going to be 5:1. If there’s more tanks and supports, there WILL be more tank and support players.
People don’t queue for a role, they queue for heroes.
Historically in nearly all games people ahve played the DPS role. This extends beyond Overwatch. If you look at games like WoW the tank queues were always the longest, followed by healer, and then DPS was always the longest.
You’re trying trying too hard to come up with a reason. It really is as simple as the fact that people like playing DPS more.
It is a matter of both there being more damage role heroes, and the fact that the damage role is a more engaging role to play. Remember that the game organized the roles by not “roles” but by “classes”, Offense, Defense, Tank, and Support, and at the time there was a relatively even number of heroes between each of the four classes. Now the Offense and Defense classes were combined as originally the classes was more or less guidelines for new players and not meant as gospel for what heroes to play in certain situations and was one key step in the transition to the role lock ruleset that we have today.
The tank’s primary job is to break open space for their team and dictate the positioning of the team fight. Supports help the team by keeping them alive or supplementing their abilities. Both of these roles tend to have less direct output to performance in comparison to the damage role and that is why damage will always be the attractive role.
Do they need to make more tanks and supports? Absolutely.
Will making more tanks and supports to have a bigger selection for those roles help reduce queue times? No… not really.
I disagree with this. Even people who “main” a role get tired of the limited options, except DPS, who can play SIXTEEN GAMES and never play the same hero twice. I have mained support and mained tank, but always flex to something else sometimes because of getting bored of my options. That adds to the DPS queue when I’m so tired of tank that I only queue DPS for a few days.
I would love to have more tank and support heroes but I’m sceptical about it actually improving queue times. I’d be very happy to be proven wrong, of course.
I maintain my position. I play all roles, but I end up playing DPS far more because it just happens to have more options. If I pick DPS, I can play some Torbjorn, close-range stuff with Symmetra, I can pick McCree for some mid-range sniping, Widow or Ashe… Maybe some Hanzo… Maybe Junkrat…
When I pick Tanks, it’s to play Zarya or Roadhog. When I pick support, it’s strictly to play Ana. If I get bored of Zarya and Roadhog, I’ll stop playing tanks. If I get bored of Ana, I’ll stop playing support. If I get bored of one or two DPS, I can rotate to different ones. Give me more tanks and supports and I’ll be inclined to play those roles far more often as a natural reaction to simply having more playstyles and I do think this logic applies to a lot more players than is currently being speculated.
I think that at least half of the dps population will never play either tank nor support unless the hero is essentially a glorified dps with the same potential as a full dps (aka able to get all the flashy kills).
I’m imagining something like a hybrid Soldier/Brig who auto heals his team around him while shooting a gun. Broken? Probably. But I have an inkling this part of the population wouldn’t mind playing an auto healing Soldier.
While the other half are more open minded and ex-tank/support mains who would go for more options if given the chance.
The fact that you don’t want to play a main tank already tells me a lot. You like damage and not playing the role to solve problems for the team. Playing the main tank is extremely tough in many cases. The main tank works to push the front line, which enables the rest of your team.
Your example demonstrates that even if they did release more heroes in the Tank and Support roles, unless they play in a damage-role like style, you don’t want to play that hero.
That is not why I don’t enjoy playing main tanks. I don’t like playing main tanks because when people talk about main tanks, they talk about Reinhardt and Orissa. Those two heroes are not mobile and get cornered easily. They rely heavily on teammates (especially healers) to even just be allowed to play the game. I do enjoy playing Winston and Sigma, but those two heroes are not viable as main tanks in most situations.
I don’t like playing Genji and Sombra either. But that’s not really a problem because there’s like 20 other dps to choose from.
