Bit of a long post, and I imagine this has been discussed before, but I wanted to share these thoughts since I started really thinking about it this morning, and I have not seen many talk about this as of late.
Seeing all of the posts and complaints as of late having people say sups are too strong because heal stacking is OP because it enables tank stacking. Then tank stacking is OP because you can’t kill them. Then you have complaints that there needs to be more DPS play in the meta or that tanks do too much damage. Yadda yadda yadda we’ve all read it and know the current complaints.
But on the other, quite even, hand, you have people who say tanks and supports need more competition(regarding pickrates). You have heroes who broadly accepted as not unfun for any side and take skill to play, but are viewed to need tuning because of the above. You have people who say that nerfing roles that feel fine and even great for the vast majority of the playerbase will just make them feel bad, and regarding tanks, that would be especially bad seeing as many don’t even want to play them as of now. Once again, this goes on, but we’ve all seen these complaints as well and know what they are.
A lot of metas that people have vastly disliked the most have came from the stacking of 3 or more of one role.
Wouldn’t the most obvious solution be to hardlock 2-2-2? It would help to solve all of the above problems without changing heroes that people majorly feel okay about and so much more. It would help with viewership in the OWL because all roles would get even amounts of play. It would help with the base game because a huge reason people lose games and get so frustrated is because of mass DPS stacking and having people who refuse to heal or tank, and then those who want to tank or heal have an awful time because of the former.
When you look back at the game and how the devs have balanced, 2-2-2 seems to be what the devs strive for and what players are most happy with, and when it isn’t that, you have mass complaints and frustration from the excluded. When you look at LFG, the vast majority of the LFG groups have 2-2-2 set on hardlock. Most games on ladder end up to being 2-2-2 gamed unless you play at the higher levels and strive for meta play, but even then, you still get a large amount of comps that just run 2-2-2.
Hell, a change similar to this has been done in the past when hero stacking was removed. This was done because the stacking of certain heroes became problematic, and nerfing those heroes who were problematic when stacked would have made them feel bad to play. That same issues persists now, except instead of identical heroes being stacked, you have identical roles being stacked.
Yes, hardlocking 2-2-2 would have problems. You’d have complaints that people are being forced into roles they don’t want to play, but that already happens now with the meta and when you have people who are trying their damndest to win their games, but it almost always ends in failure because you don’t have 2-2-2, or the meta isn’t 2-2-2 and people don’t want to play the stacked roles. Then you have complaints that the most casual playerbase would be sad that they can’t pick DPS when 2 are locked already, but is that not a problem for the majority now because stacking multiple DPS or of a single role in general leads to losses and because of the healing and tanking issues mentioned previously? This again also sounds like arguments against making heroes stacking banned from way back when, but the change to make single heros the standard has overall helped the game in the long term. I believe the same would be true for making 2-2-2 the hardlocked standard. This would probably be better implemented with a roleQ, but I think 2-2-2 on hardlock would be overall better until it could be added, and LFG does exist for those that really want to play a certain role. One might say why not just use LFG now to hardlock 2-2-2(I do, exclusively) but this does not effect the higher end of the spectrum and even the majority of players, which is what Blizz balances around.
So, why isn’t hardlocking 2-2-2 the best solution in the long term for the game as a whole, seeing as it overall helps gameplay, balance, meta, player happiness, etc.
EDIT:
I was talking to someone in Discord about this subject and they thought that hardlocked 2-2-2 meant that once you selected a hero, you can’t swap to anything else anymore after that. That is not what hardlocked 2-2-2 means.
Hardlocked 2-2-2 just means that there can only be 2 tanks, 2 dps, 2 sups. No more, no less. If you, for example, are a tank, and want to play support, then you would ask a support player to swap with you. You would both, in spawn, press h(or whatever your hero swap button is), the roles tank and sup would unlock for both players, allowing them to switch places, and then you’d be set. This mans flexers and people who decided they are performing bad in their role would still be able to swap.