****UPDATE: 8/12/23
Just after this post was made, both Venruki and Supatease have made YT vids talking about a lot of the points made in here and giving some of their own ideas. Worth checking out if you hate reading.
Healers are playing 400 +/- their CR in lobbies: Relatively speaking, there are no healers left. You have taken too long to genuinely incentivize them to even want to play, gameplay-wise, reward-wise and MMR/system-wise.
LFG is polarized: throughout the day there are teams at 1900-2100 CR looking for a solid 3rd teammate to “push for glad” that never comes, or people on their alts at 1300-1600 trying to grind conquest or just play for christ sake through 2s. There is hardly anyone on either spectrum and basically nobody in between.
Nobody is playing.
Why not? Gearing this expansion is for the most part the best it’s ever been. Balance changes being timely pushed out has been an amazing thing to behold after all these years. Class balance at the time of writing seems pretty good. These are huge improvements to the PvP system, so what’s going on? Why is nobody playing?
Nobody can play because of wait times, and even when we’ve waited around long enough to be able to play, the incentives don’t outweigh the headaches/wait times so nobody wants to play. We are caught within a negative feedback loop.
20+ minute Solo Shuffle queues, and the archaic LFG system that it sought to seudo replace, are at this point in the gaming industry ludicrous wait times and systems for a AAA company to expect their playerbase to deal with. The main culprit of these wait times is what it has been since Solo Shuffle’s launch: there is not and never will be a healthy healer to DPS ratio for reasonable queue times.
Compounded by a shortsighted suffocation of MMR gain, lowered rewards in Solo Shuffle, Solo Shuffle’s design itself being suboptimal, and a meta that’s not worth the stress for most would be healers, a massive negative feedback loop is being created that’s bleeding player participation dry, making queue/wait times worse. The negatives of our current PvP system have greatly overshadowed the positives of class balance and gearing.
At this point, it’s kinda strange that Blizzard continues to allocate resources to balancing play modes whose players can’t properly participate in, we’re all sitting in massive queues not getting to amply experience the fruits of those changes.
And yes, some players are still having a blast, that’s great, we are happy for you. Those of us with a lot of in game friend options, or who enjoy healing in this meta are able to still find some fun. But that is such a tiny minority. For most players, seeing the majority of opinions being tossed around different social platforms, and the participation numbers this season speaking for themselves, morale of the PvP community is at an all time low.
Obviously this is not sustainable, and the usual go to method of doing nothing or waiting too long to do something substantial could possibly make this situation permanently unrecoverable, which nobody wants.
No matter how fun, OP, or rewarding it is to play a healer, there will never be enough of them to justify having entire queue systems reliant on their participation. This is coming from someone who is a healer main solely to be able to play in a sensical manner of time. It’s time to shift away having to rely on them for players to get to play in our modern day queue system.
So let’s get to it and talk about some legitimate solutions.
I’ll consolidate a list of ideas being tossed around in different communities that could alleviate some problems. As more people chime in, I’ll edit this post to reflect some good ideas being liked in the comments.
Thank-you to everyone that has read thus far:
GIVENS:
No matter what system changes are chosen going forward, an absolute must is letting healers get either more MMR per match, and more MMR/CR for a tie. They will always deserve it, even the ones having fun solely playing heals or the ones that end up tying that had to play within a lower MMR match.
Revert the rewards nerf on Solo Shuffle, and never do that again. Please respect your players time. The problem was never how many people were playing shuffle, but how many healers weren’t.
- ~SOLO QUEUE (3’s One-Offs)
– How:
Instead of 6 rounds it’s played as a normal 3’s match with only one round, only difference being you can solo queue in to it instead of sitting in LFG.
– Why:
Having only one round could potentially alleviate more healers back into the pool and get queues revolving quicker. Being locked into a 15min+ match deters players (healers) from even queueing in the first place, it can be annoying.
One-offs allow players to queue more fluidly with their time, and lower toxic situations like being locked in for multiple rounds with players throwing/flaming.
– Potential problems:
People will complain about class imbalance.
- ~3 MINUTE TIMER SOLO SHUFFLE
– How:
Dampening removed. On each round of Solo Shuffle there’s a ~3 minute timer, maybe less. If that timer runs out before anyone dies, both healers get a win, and the DPS get a loss.
– Why:
Playing as a healer feels like playing not to lose (letting a teammate die) instead of playing to win (killing an enemy). This new mode totally flips the table to where if the DPS don’t play well enough to land a kill, THEY are the losers, not the healers who did their job each round. This could drive DPS participation down, and healer participation up, both needed metrics within our current system for lower queues.
– Potential problems:
Zuggers will complain. Future meta changes favoring healers may be tough for DPS.
- SOLO QUEUE (2s One-Offs)
– How:
Solo Shuffle removed. Replaced with a Solo Queue 2s bracket where healers are optional for a queue to pop. If the queue can’t find a healer, 2DPS will always play 2DPS, and if it does find a healer 1Heal + 1DPS will always play against another 1Heal + 1DPS.
– Why:
This eliminates the bottleneck of needing healers completely. Queues would be nearly instant at all rating. We would all spend the majority of our time playing the game rather than spending it waiting to play the game. Players can jump in, learn their class, gain honor, gain conquest etc all in a manner of time that’s sensical.
One-offs also allow players to queue more fluidly with their time, and lower toxic situations of players throwing/flaming.
– Potential problems:
Some players don’t enjoy 2s. Healers may actually have higher queue times than DPS. Some classes are at a disadvantage/advantage in 2s. But those may need to be necessary trade-offs.
- SOLO QUEUE (Rated Skirms)
– How:
Solo Shuffle removed. Replaced with a Solo Queue where healers are optional for a queue to pop. If healers are found soonish (2min?), the queue pops as a 3v3 one-off. If no healers are found, it’s played as a 2v2 DPS one-off.
– Why:
Same reasons as the 2s only Solo Queue. Queue times are a thing of the past. Let’s 3s enjoyers still potentially enjoy 3s matches, so more variety in your queues.
– Potential problems:
Same but less as SQ 2’s. Healers would only ever play 3s in their queues.
- SOLO QUEUE (Flex)
– How:
Solo Shuffle removed. Replaced with a Solo Queue where there is the additional option where 2 friends max can queue up together to potentially play 3s with a healer/DPS or against another 2s matching whether they are Healer + DPS or just 2DPS. People queueing solo can be matched however favors the queue time.
– Why:
Removes queue times. You can enjoy arena in a timely manner with your friends.
– Potential problems:
People would complain groups have an advantage, but that’s the benefit of not being an antisocial/toxic hermit.
These are just a few of many legitimate ideas floating around different platforms. Whether you agree or disagree, please share this post and encourage people to chime in. I’ll be posting this on other platforms as well.
There ARE solutions to the current mess that is the rated PvP system, it’s just a question of how hard we as a community are willing to push Blizzard to implement them.
Please share! Get this out there. Chime in with opinions, be construcive. As I said I’ll edit in ideas the community likes within the comments.
Thanks for reading and participating.
------------------TL/DR: Queue times and current PvP system are unsustainable. Presentation and discussion of current solutions that could be implemented.----------------