If it was yes, we wouldn’t have needed priqueue.
We lose tank players at a higher relative rate than other roles.
So the dps queue got longer and longer.
So we know how tanking is going as far as player base.
Which is a problem, and a long term one.
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Not necessarily. We don’t know all the factors or numbers. Tank has always been underrepresented…
Can you show this…? I’m not saying your wrong but I’d like to see the proof
Why is it not more and more people playing DPS then?
I don’t agree necessarily. I’m skeptical as to whether your assumptions are valid.
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Right so you expect the dps queue times to be longish but stable.
But it wasn’t stable. So you can see the change there.
Change in queue times.
We are not getting a lot of new players.
If it is people abandoning the tank role for dps that is also a problem.
That is reasonable. Mostly it was dps queue times blowing out forcing priqueues creation.
Queue times changing the way they do, doesn’t have a lot of ways for that to happen.
I moved from support to DPS around 2 years ago, and I used to build matchmakers so I think about it a lot.
It used to be that if you queued for all three (at least in my rank) you had about a 50% chance of getting tank, 40% chance of getting support, and 10% chance of getting DPS.
Now, it’s about a 80% chance of getting tank, 18% chance of getting support, and 2% chance of getting DPS.
There’s clearly been an uptick in DPS players, but either we’ve had an uptick in support players (unlikely, because queue times have gotten longer not shorter) or there’s been a pretty big downturn in tank players.
And if you follow the forums, a lot of tank players are frustrated and leaving, even the pro streamers are raging about how bad tank is right now. So while there are people who don’t think this way, all available information points to the game bleeding tank players very badly because of discontent with the current state.
Depends. Without being able to see the graphs and equations I can’t say if it was actually stable or not, and neither can you. Queue times can vary wildly for reasons outside of either of our understanding (Or willingness to understand)
I find that wildly insufficient as evidence for the claim. Let alone proof.
As I said earlier, queue times can vary wildly. If you actually wanted that claim to be substantiated we’d have to check the overall trends at different periods of time over several weeks at least, but we can’t do that; only Blizzard can.
Sure we can use conjecture or extrapolate on what we know, but I think the conclusions would necessarily be flawed.
How do you know?
If you’re going to cite your own anecdotal experience know that I don’t find that compelling.
It could be new players wanting to be DPS players, right? We already know the tank role is underrepresented, so this isn’t outside the realm of possibility.
It could be tank or support players wanting to try their hand at DPS finally.
A tank playing DPS doesn’t mean they are swapping for life.
Let me know if this is wrong, but I have been told the “tank” role can be hard to fill in other games as well. This could just be part of gamer culture.
And those aren’t necessarily bad metrics to go off of, but I’m still skeptical. You could be right, for sure, but without Blizzard themselves disclosing the information all we can do is speculate.
And that’s what these forums are for! Thanks for accepting my skepticism without being toxic (Lots here would be, so thanks)
Overwatch 2 is their plan.
Same.
https://i.imgur.com/bOab4Mm.jpg
I mean, Roadhog, Zarya, Ball, Rein are mostly fine.
But their design around Orisa, Sigma, Winston, D.va is the single most problematic thing ripping the game apart.
lol that image is hillarious, i also think they shot themselves in the foot when they implemented role queue. look at all the problems now
Role Queue is fine. They just sat on their hands since then when it comes to a Tank desirability.
Priority Pass is good though. Hog/Zarya/Ball/Rein is good.
But Sigma/Orisa/D.va/Winston and heroes with “strong AntiDive” who aren’t offtanks, is a huge problem.
Been at this for over a year now, and it’s so blindingly obvious that they never should have tried to solve GOATs or DoubleBarrier at medium range. And should have focused on reducing it’s defences at close range.
I think that just means the Exc Card itself is live, not that the changes are in live game
IF the changes were live, it would say ‘Past experiments’
and it looks like the website hasnt been updated
yea i agree with that but if you look at from a business viewpoint maybe not. lets face it most poeple like dps. its just the way it is, people want to play the glory position. i kind of equate it to how in football the wide reciever, running back and quarterback is more glorious of a position then offensive lineman.
maybe more people leave because of queue times? tanks are leaving now because they are catering to their larger player-base and leaving them out to dry (priority passes for dps). game is stale and its all going downhill fast. people leave and having a small tank playerbase is bad enough so when they leave they created a big problem
solution would be too just buff tanks tremendously to do as much damage as dps so dps players realize dps just stinks so they’ll say hey i’ll just play tank lol. blizzard seems like they dont want to do this
So make Tanks that are appealing to DPS players.
i think their whole plan is riding on the priority pass system. lets see how it works out or what they do. that would be a good idea actually but who knows what blizz has in mind
Well, how about these two “mechanics changes”
It would mean we were gaining them at a higher disproportionate rate compared to even our initial lopsided amounts of them.
Yeah, and that is expected, but it would mean that tanks / supports were trying out dps more than dps were trying out tanks / supports.
Given the size of hero’s by role, that is plausible.
Your right, but it wouldn’t explain a shift in proportion of players.
Yes there will always be more dps than tank players.
But that would give stable queue times.
Which is cool! This is healthy 
I’m very very happy to talk with people who want to think a problem though, and yes I can’t provide numbers, so saying well
… Where’s the numbers is a good reaction.
They better have some big changes there then.
Because priqueue is VERY stopgap.
thats sounds interesting. i wonder tho if blizzard would make a dramatic change like that to the way the game is currently. since everything they do is a small buff or small nerf to the base ability of a hero
maybe in overwatch 2 they have something similar in mind or design. a total rework of how the game will be played
I think if Overwatch doesn’t get queue times solved before Overwatch 2 launches, they are gonna be in a world of hurt.
They should try to fix the ugly and messy parts of the game, before the spotlight of a “sequel launch” is on the game.
which goes back to my business viewpoint. they are in trouble lol, i’m kinda interested if they will do something crazy and unexpected
Well, systems design and remixing existing content is literally all we’re gonna get till OW2 launches. So they might as well get to it.