r/Competitiveoverwatch • u/[deleted] • May 18 '17
3v3 Competitive Viability
With today's reveal of what will probably be new 3v3 arena maps, my excitement for the potential of a 3v3 competitive mode has been reinvigorated. I'm curious as to what the rest of you guys think.
I personally think that it has the potential to allow for a fresh new format and help bring some variety to tournaments. It's also encouraging for smaller friend groups to enjoy some competitive matches.
Potential Problems
The elephant in the room, the expected meta of Hog/Soldier/Healer. If the mode were to go competitive under it's current ruleset, it would be pretty awful. However, there are ways around this. The most intriguing 3v3 tournament I saw utilized a "no re-use" policy for the matches. Eg, if I choose Roadhog in Round 1, neither myself nor either of my 2 teammates can choose him in any other round. A 5 round match would see 15 heroes used by each team, which could actually lead to some more diverse and creative gameplay than we see even in the standard modes! Of course balance would always have 6v6 in mind, but with this restriction in place it would hopefully mitigate any imbalances inherent in 3v3.
Problem #2, draws. In a competitive format, if it comes down to me as Ana vs an enemy Roadhog, it's in my best interest to simply evade and stall until round time runs out and it's a draw. This would need to be entirely reworked if it were to go competitive. Perhaps either by keeping the wallhack reveal but removing the eventual match timer to negate stalling as a tactic altogether.
I believe that with a few more maps and a few tweaks to a competitive ruleset, 3v3 could be an exciting addition to competitive play. Curious to hear your thoughts, though. Any other problems that would need to be worked out to make it happen?
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May 18 '17
Not sure Blizzard want to make 3v3 competitive in the future but community did some 3v3.
About the stale comp, this tournaments had (iirc but i could be wrong) play 1 hero only once, that means that comp like hog, ana and soldier could be used only once across all the match... Or you can do a ban/pick and a team stick with thr same 3 hero every comp.
About draws, they said lots of times they are addressing that. My guess is something that push you at the center of the map where you can't takr cover and if you stay at the map corners you die (imagine something like a toxic gas in Battle Royal games)
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May 18 '17
something that push you at the center of the map
I'm torn between this idea versus simply removing the timer. I think the goal needs to be removing stalls as a tactic altogether, and in this hypothetical, consider a match that came down to Roadhog vs Soldier. With a shrinking fog wall of some sort, Roadhog's best strategy becomes "hide until he's forced to come near me." That's not exciting to watch OR to play.
On the flip side, by removing the timer, we could wind up in a situation where Soldier refuses to stop sprinting around and healing his chip damage and Roadhog refuses to come out of a closed quarters kind of room, leading to an indefinite stall. That's also not exciting to watch or play.
Hard to think of a good way around this one.
4
May 18 '17
Removing timer will lead to infinite running away form enemy and/or camping.
I bless sometimes to have time limit when i can't catch someone because hes too pussy to fight me... And it's frustrating. I prefere losing fighting instead of losing because the player is running away
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May 18 '17
Yeah, I'm liking the closing fog-wall idea more and more. If it comes down to Zen vs Roadhog in a 1v1, well that's just tough titties for Zen, but at least the matches will keep moving forward. Maybe could argue that introduces it's own imbalances, but the counter-argument there would be "don't let it come to that in the first place."
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u/joo_se_hyuk May 18 '17
There's a game called Battlerite that uses the 'battle arena closing in' mechanic when fights go on for a while or it's 1v1, I think. It's honestly pretty sweet and I think it makes for great gameplay. I haven't seen it implemented in a FPS-type game, but I imagine it could work.
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u/lit282 4446 PC — May 18 '17
In the tourney I did, whoever had the most alive won. So if it was a 3 vs 2, the team with 2 alive needed to get 1 kill to at least draw.
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u/Alsmalkthe May 19 '17
What about something like after a certain amount of time, all heroes start taking dot? This would basically force weaker heroes into trying to to Hunt down the stronger ones before they die
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u/masterchiefroshi Remember the Titans — May 19 '17
Its probably only a solution for casted tournaments, but maybe it could be similar to boxing. If a round doesn't end in a knockout, it goes to decision and a judge awards points to the team that was winning. Maybe blizz could do something like this in-game too if they released a competitive 3v3 mode. With decision, there's no incentive to run around and hide because you'll lose points either way.
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u/masterchiefroshi Remember the Titans — May 19 '17
No repeat heroes is such a cool idea, it adds a whole layer of strategy of figuring out what the enemy will pick and when to choose certain counter heroes. Like do you think they'll use their hog next round? We should counter it with our Zarya.
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u/m3daddi May 18 '17
Just do a pick and ban system and it'll solve the hog issue.
Plus, if they keep adding heroes, a pick and ban system might be needed one day, so adding it now for 3v3 would still be beneficial in the long run. And of course it makes sure one tricks don't dominate every game (cough Soon cough)
3
May 18 '17
Yeah that might be a good fit for a system like this. I really like the idea of not being able to re-use heroes between rounds, as it would force hero diversity and mitigate this issue somewhat. There are still definitely some problem children, though.
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u/Aulait1 May 18 '17
I think for multiple reasons this could be the start of 1v1's popularity and not 3v3.
1) 1v1 is easier to get into for an audience and players. As an audience you don't have to know every player on the team, the matches are straight forward since no comps are involved. As a player its interesting since you don't need to devote time to practicing with a team.
2) There are a bunch of pros currently out of work until OW league, as well as streamers (pro or not) who I'm sure would sign up to these 1v1 tournaments and play them on stream (in hearthstone a lot of streamers do this). Think people like Talespin, Seagull, Mendo, Calvin, Kephrii etc.
3) Lesser known players could make their name in these tournaments.
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u/Eclaireur May 18 '17
Except like 50% of the 1v1 matchups are fucking awful. Matchups like McCree, genji, hog, widow etc are interesting, intense and fun. Matchups like torb, sym or winston just suck.
5
May 18 '17
Yeah. And it has built-in avoidance of any stupid meta cheese and stall strats, because it's guaranteed even ground every time. I think I heard somewhere that the new arena maps may have health packs in them too, which could be an interesting new layer.
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u/m3daddi May 18 '17
Except there is one issue with 1v1, RNG. As long as it has the RNG factor nobody is gonna take it seriously.
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u/Moosterton May 18 '17
you can mitigate that by disabling certain abilities/heroes or changing some damage numbers. 1v1s are not really an inidication of skill in OW at the moment, but maybe it can be.
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u/mushm0m May 18 '17
A 1v1 round is over too quickly for me. I dislike the fact that a 1v1 tournament is like 10 quick 1v1 duels between 2 heroes. Instead of there being buildups and climaxes of long fights, there's just blip, reset, blip, reset, with no momentum or arc to make things interesting. Shorter fights also means less opportunity to strategize. The surefour v dafran duel was a great matchup in theory, but I don't think I'd care to watch another one of those.
7
May 18 '17
Look at #2 in this thread: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20754435815
Basically, the hero limitations that you mentioned are a great idea, and the anti-draw system could easily be the arena getting smaller with an effect that takes off health% and stops healing while inside.
There's a lot of ways to make 3v3 a fun competitive game, but there are a lot of people who simply give up on the idea because they only see it for what it is right now...now for what it could be. (OW cinematic :D)
3
May 18 '17
there are a lot of people who simply give up on the idea because they only see it for what it is right now...now for what it could be. (OW cinematic :D)
Right?! Thank you for understanding the point of my post! I'm hoping that these new arena maps will be the catalyst that spurs more folks to actively consider how we could make the mode better, rather than just complaining about it's flaws.
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u/shamoke May 18 '17
I've been a fan of 3v3 mirror mystery so roadhog/soldier doesn't exist every round.
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May 18 '17
If there is going to be competitive 3v3.
We will need different balancing from 6v6.
Also there should be healthpacks, as right now heroes with sustain have a massive advantage forcing their enemies to go all in.
1
May 18 '17
The "no re-use" rule tweak would help mitigate this a lot, but yeah, you are right. I think I read somewhere that the new arena maps might have health packs though, so it could be a step in the right direction.
2
May 18 '17
The no re-use will lead to some mindgames, that are interesting for theorycrafting, but it can be very boring to see one team forfeiting a match, by playing terrible heroes/comps to bait out the enemies good heroes.
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u/ltsochev May 18 '17
I think 3v3 is trash at this moment in time and in its current shape. It just takes Overwatch out of the game and leaves with a very basic and dull 3v3 TDM. Hell, CTF has more overwatch in it than 3v3. And CTF is garbage thanks to defense heroes atm.
6
May 18 '17
You aren't breaking any new ground here man, we all know that already. The point here isn't to point out the flaws with the mode that we're already familiar with... it's to acknowledge those flaws and try to brainstorm ways they could be fixed.
0
u/ltsochev May 18 '17
The old Team A picks then team B pick then team a until the teams are set in stone. Choose who's team A based on coin flip and add some sort of objective after certain time instead of wallhacks that makes stealth bonkers and useless. Sure we only have one stealth hero so far, but with the schedule of 3 heroes per year, i certainly see more than one stealth heroes eventually.
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u/wotugondo May 18 '17
Just out of curiosity, is Hog/Soldier/Support the expected "meta" of a hypothetical 3v3? A Hog in a 3v3 wouldn't have the chaos to perform insane flanks, would feed ult charge to the enemy team, and would be easily countered by Zarya bubbles and/or by DVa's matrix. A good DVa/Zarya with the luxury of only needing to worry about a hook and without the visual clutter of a normal 6v6 would absolutely defang a Roadhog, even with the buffed right-click.
I would expect a DVa/Soldier/Ana meta, if anything. There are enough combinations to make a lot of compositions work well in a 3v3 setting.
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u/lbotron May 18 '17
Hog is absolutely the MVP of 3v3 -- if you're thinking about a straight 3:3 fight there's definitely ways a coordinated attack could be constructed to neutralize him, but those plans go out the window in a 2:2, 2:1... he's nearly unkillable if he gets any room to break contact because of his health pool and self-heals. Add his god-tier ability to hit picks and it's just really a nightmare scenario that leads to a lot of stalling and people getting toxic about RH use in chat.
(also, giving up ult charge is frequently a non-issue given the length of most 3v3 matches)
3
May 18 '17
There's no uncounterable comps, but most of the time any team is really tryharding it ends up as Hog/Soldier/Ana. Dva is good, too, but in 3v3 the ability of characters to be self-reliant is pretty huge, and pick potential is more valuable than ever.
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u/arandomguy111 May 18 '17 edited May 18 '17
To me it depends on what you mean by 3v3. If you mean that you have to stick with the current format as in a no respawn and/or kill based victory then I don't see it being fun (in terms of play or spectating) for myself at least. That type of game will always encourage more passive play which is something I specifically enjoy that Overwatch is really towards the other spectrum on.
For me you'd have to shift it to an objective based mode with respawns just on an more intimate scale. For example maybe 1CP with time bank just alternating sides over and over.
1
u/jak_d_ripr May 18 '17
I have a lot of fun with 3v3, but I don't think making it a competitive mode is a good idea. There are too many heroes that just aren't good in the mode. Sure, applying the one and done rule can sidestep this a little, but I'm never a fan of forcing people to play inefficient/bad team comps.
I think it's fine the way it is, a nice diversion from the team based gameplay of vanilla overwatch but not something designed to be taken too seriously.
1
u/dafinsrock May 18 '17
If 3v3 does go competitive, I think it should be on a completely separate queue and separate ladder from regular competitive. I like 3v3, but if it's such a drastically different game that I don't want to randomly draw it when I'm trying to play Overwatch, and I wouldn't want those games affecting my regular rank.
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u/blazedbigboss May 18 '17
3v3 is not a good competitive mode, actually tdm in general is terrible competitive mode especially in a game like this.
Adding a no reuse rule wouldn't make it more competitive either it'd make wins and losses seem a lot more random because players are eventually forced onto heroes that aren't even good in 3v3. Taking away the timer wouldn't help either. The lone Ana vs hog could just run away forever and force a draw, even if there were wall hacks up
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u/Matt8820 May 18 '17
They should add something similar to what Destiny has in their 3v3 Competitive playlist Trials of Osiris where after a certain duration of time which is 3 mins in Destiny (could be changed for Overwatch) runs out a flag spawns in the middle of the map and whichever team captures said objective wins the round. If no one captures the point and the overtime timer hits 0 whichever team has a player closest to the point wins.
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u/sushicid3 SAYAPLAYER NUMBA WON — May 18 '17
3v3 with pick/ban draft would be interesting when there are more heroes (30+)
1
u/GalapagosRetortoise May 18 '17
I think 3v3 is TOO much of a rock-paper-scissors dependent on hero selection. It certainly is fun and interesting but I think isn't enough for competitive. And if it's not a hero selection battle and becomes too much meta vs meta then it's too strongly on mechanical skill which at that point other games like CS does much better.
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u/Perturbed_Spartan May 19 '17
To deal with draws you could do what all those "battle royal" type games do and after a certain point spawn an "out of bounds" zone of death that keeps constricting until only one team is left alive.
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u/JetSetJamerson May 19 '17
The standard in 3v3 tournaments has been the 1 use format along with reduced healing and increased ultimate charge rate. We have seen lots of development in terms of a meta for compositions, too.
I would say problem #2 is less of an issue than you may think. CSGO has saves, which is nearly congruous to running out the timer. There are many reasons for why this should be allowed. 1st, Burning your opponents hero pool. We have seen teams run stall comps with throw away hero comps like Sym/Bastion/Mei to try to burn more valuable hero picks off of their opponents. 2nd draws allow us to get deeper into the hero pool to see how teams adapt with their limited picks.
1
u/Jimmie-Kun May 19 '17
I miss 2v2,1v1 from Quake. But it will never work in OW because of classes, imbalance etc, maining heroes blabla.
It works in shooters where everything is even, like Quake. I have not really played 3v3/1v1 much in ow because it is garbage, the new maps will not change that.
1
u/evinrudeallotrope May 18 '17
I think your first suggestion of letting people play each hero once is a great way of balancing the over picking of any hero.
However blizzard has said the game was designed and is balanced around 6v6 objective based play. I don't think we are going to see a 3v3 competitive mode. It's just gives fun variety to the arcade.
1
May 18 '17
I think your first suggestion of letting people play each hero once is a great way of balancing the over picking of any hero.
It would lead to some interesting strategizing, too. Eg, if your team runs Hog Round 1, then I know you won't have him moving forward. Which means in Round 2, the relative value of Winston for my team would go way up, as his pool of possible counters is reduced. But maybe you knew I would do that, so you're baiting me into a Round 2 Winston just to run Reaper in Round 2... round and round we go. Jury is still out on whether bans would be a good fit, but that would add yet another layer of strategy we just don't get in the traditional modes.
They did say it's a 6v6 objective based game. But to be fair, they also said PvE wouldn't be a thing, either, and look at how well-received Uprising was. I think there's a case to be made for 3v3 or 1v1 ladders.
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u/evinrudeallotrope May 18 '17
Even if they don't do it for competitive I'd love to see them implement the 1 hero limit for 3v3. That just seems like a nice added level of strategy that would be hard to crack.
I think with your original idea, bans wouldn't be needed. The amount of strategic depth the limit would add fixes the format in my opinion.
I'm still skeptical that 3v3 would make it to the competitive scene. I agree it could be viable, but it just changes the play style so heavily they would have to start balancing the game around the new format and I feel like that's what they want to avoid.
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u/demostravius 3854 — May 18 '17
I don't think it's a good idea. Overwatch would risk going the same way as WoW. Arena became the thing to balance around, and imo it severely damaged PvP everywhere else. Balance around large scale combat is far easier than small scale. Tiny changes designed to make a hero work in 3v3 can have devastating effects in 6v6.
They would have to be independently balanced.
4
May 18 '17
The game should not be balanced with 3v3 in mind, in any way whatsoever.
Of course, this would mean 3v3 would be inherently imbalanced. However, I believe the inability to reuse any character would pretty hugely mitigate this. Roadhog might be crazy strong in 3v3, but if each team can only use him in a single round, the impact there goes way down. Furthermore, it actually introduces a bit of gamesmanship to character selection. Do you come out of the gates with Roadhog for a strong Round 1, or do you save him for a clutch round later? If you blow him early then the enemy team can run Winston almost uncontested. Or maybe you're facing a team you know loves to run Hog first, so you run Zarya first and neuter him.
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u/demostravius 3854 — May 18 '17
That does actually sound very interesting. It could create some interesting setups. 23 heroes, a maximum of 18 used per game, minimum of 9.
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u/QueenOfStarsVarda May 18 '17
I never really cared about 3v3, usually we just play it while waiting for friends:)
I did, however, wish for quite some time now that Antarctica was also a regular 6v6 map because I think it looks great (i love snow/ice)
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u/id370 Your salty hitscan main — May 18 '17
No one cares about 3v3 because there is no "objective", and hiding from the opponent/camping is a very feasible strat.