The good and the bad of Priority Pass

Things Bliz did right:

Most peoples gripe about PP seem to fit into two categories:

  • The ratio of passes given for a win vs a loss.
  • Total number of passes given for queuing in flex.

The core problem here is Bliz don’t really have a choice:

There are going to be a bunch of people who are going to lose a bunch of games for various reasons:

  • Their Tank SR is not correct.
  • They just don’t want to “Try hard” on tank.
  • They are actively throwing.
  • They are tilted

Simply put do you want players loosing 5 games in a row (for any of the above reasons) just so they can finally get a win and get some passes - it would be better to move them over to DPS (and stop the “bad” tank blitz).

With respect to the total number of passes given, I suspect that they will drop (a little) over time - initially Bliz need to collect some data to see how the system performs, in order to determine the correct number of tickets.

That said I suspect that it won’t drop hugely (for example 1 pass for a win) simply because it will, dramatically drop the overall quality of games, if people are flex queuing every other game.

Things the System Can’t fix

No system will magically create a bunch of GM tanks.
Even if every GM DPS chooses to flex queue there won’t (initially) be a bunch of new GM tanks, since they will likely be far worse on tank than on their main hero’s. This issue will probably also manifest in Diamond and Masters, however Plat and below will probably have enough tanks to balance things out.

The matchmaker may be able to “solve” this problem by placing masters tanks into GM - but that creates other problems.

Even in ranks where there are “enough” tanks a new type of problem occurs, specifically there are going to be two types of tank:

  • Those at level who have game sense, awareness and have “tank knowledge” at that level.
  • Those that have game sense and awareness of a higher level, but less “tank knowledge”

In short the variance will make games less balanced (more like to be a stomp or get stomped).

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I think you left out the DPS on tanks playing Tanks as fat DPS. I’ve been teamed up with and seen this many times since PP/Flex was launched. It kinda makes life easier/harder when they’re playing Rein as a fat DPS with a shield sometimes.

Oh well. I’ve always seen that kind of thing but not this much.

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Of course they have choice, they didnt have to create flex role. They could reward you for playing tank or role which they need currently to fill the most.

I dont like being forced to pick flex role not knowing on which role i will end up.

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Whenever I have queued for Flex I have always been thrown into the role most in demand (the one with lowest queue time) typically tank.

However there have been times that both Tank and Support have similar queue times in which cases its pretty random which role I get.

Cutting to the chase, Bliz are balancing three factors:

  • Game Quality.
  • DPS Queue times.
  • Cost to implement.

If Bliz were to allow people to choose their role when they “flex” (oxymoron):

A lot of people would choose to only play support, this really wouldn’t have a huge impact on queue times since tanks would still be in demand.

In your case where you only want to pick tank, its just not in Bliz’s interest to give you that option: If you REALLY want to play tank you can always just join the tank queue.

It’s likely to be a really small group of people who:

  • Will only play tank if they are rewarded too.
  • But won’t play flex, if where is any chance they will be asked to play support.

In short its just not worth Bliz’s money to invest in implementing that feature.

So if you ignore money - sure Bliz could do anything , but thats not the world we live in, money is always a factor, hence they don’t have the choice of giving you that feature.

2 Likes

Not to mention folks would try to ‘flex’ by picking DPS only. If they offer it to one of the three with Flex, they have to to all three which undoes the system altogether.

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I didn’t actually have an issue with that.
I would just code it so if someone selected that option the “flex” queue for DPS only would be 10-20 hours.

That way everyone else gets at least 10 hours with one less person in the DPS queue.

Ps You would only get the reward of the tickets, if you are actually there to play the game - so you can’t just leave overwatch running while you go to bed…

I think that would royally (bleep) off many players and hurt the game overall ngl.

i feel completely punished as a tank main. esp as one who almost always selected ALL queue options when searching 222. its been nothing but demonstrative for my matches so far and its very clearly dps only players farming queue times and nott ranked points

Why?

I realize that playing tank with another “flex” player who doesn’t really care, would be irritating.

But the solution there seems pretty simple: use LFG and just ask for another tank main to DUO with.

Come on, I mean if you’re really going to queue up saying:

I want to be rewarded for eating my candy, what do you expect.

I got your priority passes right here !!!

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I’m not saying they wouldn’t deserve it (you’re not flexing if you only pick one role lol) but folks would cry like crazy over that. We all know that.

2 Likes

bcus what does a tank getout of the priority pass? maybe we could get a free win of points to remove a loss thats factually got throwers but nope i get absolutely nothing rewarding its just faster toxic players who dont want to play tank bcus theyre literally here to SKIP THE LINE/ its hardcore lame

how do you boost my tank matchmaking time WHEN I DONT EVEN WAIT 12 SECONDS EVER. i would literally give anything for blizzard to care about my matchmaking experience and not be insta-queued before i can even join deathmatch…

LFG has proven to be road to bronze only players or desperate losers finding hard carry players that they can pay to win with.