The All Powerful Trifecta

General Discussion
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Content. Balance. Queue Times.

These are the three interwoven cornerstones of any franchise that outline the success one will sustain.

Their interactions are paramount with one another for the health of a player base. Content and balance dictate the expediency of queues. The more content in the game, the more balancing required.

Should content go unbalanced, queue times begin to suffer. Should a franchise hold relative balance with no content, queue times begin to suffer.

And if a franchise is has no content and poor balance, queue times will now kill whatever remaining features were left.

All three feed each other. All three define the state of a game.

So how is Overwatch defined by the trifecta?

There is no new content. There is poor balance. And queue times are out of sorts.

The lack of content leaves the state of imbalance relatively inexcusable. Queue times are wildly imbalanced themselves. The driver of this disparity is the lack of content for 2/3 of the playerbase in any given match.

I’ve discussed how it doesn’t matter if 50% of your players are queueing DPS. Given the Role Queue format, only 33% of them can play a match at any given time while the rest wait.

Let’s drop the delusion folks only want to pew-pew when that role has 17 heroes alone while tanks and supports have 15 combined. Again, queue times are an imbalance of content issue. Should tanks have twice as many heroes as DPS, there’d be no tank shortage. Imagine 34 playable tanks in OW…

And while OW2 is “solving” the content issue, the poorly balanced sequel is will not sustain success should it remain poorly balanced (it will). We have already seen queue time issues from the support lineup, who(surprise surprise) received virtually zero new content in the beta. Like yes the role became more challenging, but also you give DPS a new hero, tanks two new heroes and multiple reworks and gave supports virtually nothing.

Just another example of how content imbalance amongst the roles kills queue times.

In summation, content, balance, and queue times define the success of a franchise. Overwatch is failing at all three right now and I expect OW2 to be act as a bandaid on an open artery.

1 Like
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Overall good post.

But I think you drastically overestimate how easy it is for devs to put out 10 years worth of heroes, in a few months.

Much less how even if they did that, and the hype wore off. Tank and Support would still be less popular than DPS. Because it’s a playstyle issue.

That said, for the future, devs should release a Support hero, every other hero release.

Agreed. Copy the “Quality with Steady Content Drops” development strategy of Apex.

But of course, you know my stance on how to address queue times.

[OW2] How to impressively fix Queue Times in Beta #2

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and when there was content…people complained about?..yup…lack of content…or the content itself…theres never enough content

balance is a lost cause…its impossible to ever be viewed as anything other than “bad”

queue times?? unavoidable as long as we insist on 222 (which is now going away so we’ll have to see how 122 holds up down the line) - so pending i guess

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Balance doesn’t need to be perfect, people just gotta feel like they have “enough” worthwhile hero choices at a given ELO.

That said, I’m worried about the Tank role at high ELO playing 1 singular hero for months on end.

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only elo that really matters is the upper ones…cause you can in fact use anything at lower elos…

and i dont mean that in a “youre not important” kind of way…its just that un-optimal play/skill usually offsets balance inequalities…super broad ex - it doesnt really matter if tracer is super OP if people cant actually use tracer…or same hero opposite direciton - you can play tracers into her counters at low ranks…cause theyre not being used properly either - i say that as someone who has played in low ranks since 2017

but regardless, despite the devs decision to focus on the “important” elos…there will never be a situation where the balance is not considered “bad”…forget the fact that balancing all these heroes is a fool’s errand…game could statistically be shown to be perfectly balanced and it would still be labeled “bad”…thats just how people are wired…

we all play different heroes/styles and therefore want THOSE things to shine (what you said about choices is kinda tossed out window when people arent willing to use said choices)…but we also tend to do everything we can to make the game as unbalanced as possible…ie - meta indoctrination…which then exacerbates the feeling that said heroes/styles cant work…

where i do give people credit is when we talk about balancing frequency…and i do think in OW’s history as a whole its been too slow…but the balance itself? NEVER going to not be “bad”…that scenario doesnt exist…we will take whatever they give us and turn it into “only these things are playable”

as for your tank concern…yeah…i think it makes it a lot harder…i can easily see only a few being seen as usable…but thats not much different than what we’ve had with 2 of them thus far (for the same reasons listed above)

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I’d argue that Rein/Zarya was a hero usage was a problem in lower ELOs but OW1.

Notably because of Earthshatter and AntiHeal being so easy to press a button to win a teamfight.

And that the devs can make a much wider variety of heroes feel worthwhile at middle ELOs.

But also any sentiment that “Fun from novelty only matters to about 2% of the player population” is a bit of a weird take to me.

For instance, remember that old Reaper lifesteal buff that crushed half the playerbase?

Or it would be so simple to buff Bastion to GM/OWL tier, but in the process lose about 1/3rd of playerbase.

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They’re still important and still factor in their considerations….we’ve had ample examples of this

Why I specified I didn’t mean it in the literal sense…but it’s hard enough to balance the game for 1 elo….let alone all of them at same time….they have to focus a portion of it (important in that regard)…

But even then it’s an impossibility….

I’ve always said that it’s a miracle we have ANY semblance of balance…OW2 will be no different (that goes for the conversation around it as well)

We can make this same exact post in 2027 and it will be every bit as relevant

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This post came to mind today whilst carousing the forums.

I believe it’s time to revisit how OW is doing in regards to Content, Balance & Queue Times.

Content- mediocre. It’s good to see a new hero per season, but the fact the vast majority of worthwhile content (which is mediocre itself) is now trapped behind a BP definitely hurts it’s status.

Balance- Horrible. But I called that in the OP. Same :clown_face::clown_face::clown_face: different :circus_tent::carousel_horse::popcorn::elephant::lion:.

Queue Times- Horrible. As a tank main since OW1, I hate that I know have to ride in the waiting line. The Pew-Pews got their shorter queues only to have worse MMR, so I don’t believe it’s justifiable to say that the shorter are better for the game.

I’d give OW2 a C- in it’s current state.

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And I thought I was being generous thinking the game (as a sequel, “early access”, or however people spin it) is currently worth a D grade in gaming quality. Really hurts when not even that long ago, a few years back, I looked forward to playing Overwatch on a nightly basis, and was even telling people Overwatch (1) was one of the best games I ever played in my life. (Where other “best of the best” games I remember raving about in past years included titles like Metal Gear Solid V, vanilla World of Warcraft, Half Life, StarCraft, System Shock, Team Fortress Classic, Unreal Tournament (99 & 2K4), Dungeon Keeper, Magic Carpet, the 90s Doom and Doom 2…)