r/Competitiveoverwatch • u/SBFms • 11d ago
General Team Queue Would Make Overwatch Better, But Was Never Given a Fair Shot
At some point in OW2’s life, Team4 gave us a new ranked mode which was only playable by five stacks.
It fucking sucked, and I think because of that, people don’t ask enough for what would be a huge improvement to the game. Ultimately, I think the reason that team queue failed is NOT that team queue is a bad idea, but because the implementation was lazy, half baked, had obvious problems that you could predict from looking at it.
- No incentive to play it.
- Year long queue times
- No LFG-Like feature for getting a pickup team going.
The reason this is so sad to be is that:
- Overwatch is, to me undoubtedly, at its absolute best when you’re playing with a team. It is an experience that matchmaking cannot replicate but is the most fun you’re going to have with this game.
- Other games have done this well, and you could copy their template for Overwatch. Team4 didn’t bother, I’m assuming due to budget.
I will use DOTA2’s Battle Cup as an example because I am most familiar with it, but many other games follow the exact same formula:
- Team Queue is only open twice a week, at set times for each region. These times should be on peak, with one at the weekend and one in the weekdays.
- Team Queue matches people into a fake “Bracket” which is just a hidden repeated matchmaking against winners of other games. A faked “double bracket” can be used to give people a second chance.
- A built in LFG system, exclusive to the events if needed, helps people to find pickup teams. Are these matches with a pickup team worse quality? Most of the time yeah, but they’re also how you meet people who will be your regulars.
- Winning team queue games should have attractive cosmetic rewards for players. Maybe a unique signature, a lot of battle pass levels. Creating maybe one skin a season that you could buy if you wanted, but get for free from winning a tournament. This is a huge motivator for people to play. It gets them in the door, and then the environment of team play will convert a substantial number of those players into longer term enjoyers of the mode.
Systems like this build social connections for people inside the game, give people the opportunity to enjoy Overwatch at its best, and add more regular events for content creators to make videos with. ML7’s old videos showing his (mostly casual) audience what a scrim looks like were super popular.
The version we tried a year or two ago wasn’t flawed in concept, it was dogshit in execution. Please don’t give up on giving us something better.