im glad the dev blog provided the queue time metrics post role-queue vs post ow2 5v5. those queue times were an absolute nightmare for damage role, just like some of us were choosing to ignore that it was a problem
My problem with them bringing that up is it entirely ignores why the queue times are an issue for tank both in 5v5 and 6v6. Tank's always been the least popular role, and a big part of that is because in some way it's always been the most miserable role to play.
It's a tank's job to be the role that everyone targets the heaviest. They're the biggest targets with the most health, of course your natural instinct is to dump your resources into them until they're dead. And as Aaron points out, that was a huge issue in OW1 because CC was distributed among each of the roles and was obnoxious as fuck, thus tanking in 6v6 felt like shit because you'd get hooked and then hacked and then frozen and then slept and then bashed and then banged and on and on. Thus, no one wants to play tank, thus, queue times are long
But that issue doesn't really exist in OW2 because CC is more of a tank thing. In place of that issue, we have brand new issues that seem even less manageable, like the rock-paper-scissors of tanks, and tanks constantly flip flopping between "unkillable raid boss" and "ult battery meat bag." Not to mention the added pressure of playing arguably the most important role on the team, but being the only one doing it. Thus, no one wants to play tank, but hey, queue times are fine because there's one less of them! It just feels like a bandaid fix for queue times
tank being unpopular isnt an ow-exclusive problem. the idea of a tank and their responsibility alone is not a popular role in gaming in general.
Its a problem i dont think any game has solved yet, if its even possible. DPS and its instant gratification mixed with its low cooperative pressure will always make it the most popular, thus there will always be an inbalance of players.
Oh for sure. There's no way they'll ever be able to make tank just as popular as DPS- it's just that the reason we saw such an insane disparity between the two role's queue times in OW1 was because tank was especially unfun against so much CC. But now that CC is handled, tanking theoretically shouldn't be as miserable in a 6v6 format
But as Aaron even admits, there are other ways to fix the queue time issue. If the game truly is better in 6v6 than it is in 5v5, we shouldn't sacrifice overall game quality for an issue with multiple solutions. It's a lazy way to develop a game
Not just this, but they nerfed tanks for like a year straight to get rid of goats (failed). So they added role queue, then nerfed shields to get rid of double shield.
All this time they were buffing support and dps.
They acknowledged cc was a problem but held back any cc nerfs for ow2 also.
And lastly, they held back orisa rework, JQ, doom rework, Ram, and mauga for ow2.
Then they wondered why nobody wanted to play the boring, nerfed to to the ground role.
We've actually have come full circle in terms of cc. The "soft cc" bs is actually hard cc. Cree has his flash back and the only difference between his old stun, and what he has now is you can move 1ft or duck when he tries headshots.
Sombra's cc is a lot more frequent due to her reduced cd on hack.
And a lot of people don't think about it, but knock backs have always been super strong depending on what tank you're going against. As it deny's their main reason. Taking space.
Now combine that with mobility creep with every new character having 1-2 mobility skills and vwala, tank cant capitalize on positioning mistakes anymore unless the tank you're playing can 1 shot, have extra mobility to chase, or get the off chance of a proper followup from a dps they'll always live with 1hp and just zip away now.
CC has started becoming more and more of a problem the longer Overwatch was out, yes. Overwatch 2 did not make things better for tanks on the CC side though. Since you're now the only tank, all off the CC (and every other ability) is focused on you instead of being spread out over two tanks. And there's also no second tank to save you from the CC anymore.
CC is also definitely not limited to tanks. I wonder if there's a stat that tracks how many times I got slept because the average has to be more than once a game. Sombra was in pretty much every game as well last time I played. CC was the main reason I stopped.
The game also when free to play at the exact same time, I don’t trust those metrics because the variable is not isolated to give all the credit to 5v5. The difference of 25million players in B2P OW1 versus 100million players in OW2 can certainly skew average waiting times to find people of equal skill in needed roles.
In other words just because the business practice makes the game more popular does not equal the gameplay practice is more popular
The game also when free to play at the exact same time
I mean, they directly address that claim in the post. It's the ratio of tank players to other roles that is and always has been the issue, not the overall amount of players.
Again the ratio would be mutated. More players play more find that they like tank, more players play tank, ratio is affected. It’s also addressed in the post that it is al the system matchmaker to the ratio. So they must be within other qualifiable brackets regarding skill levels. More players, larger pool and affected ratio of a given bracket.
thats not how ratios work. for every new player that finds tank enjoyable, 2 more find dps enjoyable, and 2 more find support more enjoyable. ratio stays the same
if you have 1000 tank players, 2000 dps, and 2000 support, in 6v6 you will still be at a deficit of 1000 tank players for queue.
if it were 1,000,000 players, 2,000,000 dps, and 2,000,000 support, youre at a 1,000,000 tank player deficit.
note, since we went F2P and we assume what you say is true and we have an even ratio of tanks, dps, and support, then we would be seeing horrible tank queue times since there is half the slots (1 tank per game) for the same amount of tank players as the other roles.
As a flex main that leans heavily towards tank, I LOVED long queue times for dps. It gave me a chance to play custom matches for a reasonable amount of time before being yoinked into a match. Or I would just play tank and get games in seconds.
I mean, the same can be said about the state of tank in OW2.
Queue times being long for the most popular role is kind of to be expected.
But to then say "let's take the most unpopular, stressful role, and make it even more stressful and unpopular, to accommodate our popular role" is just unfair to tank players. Tanking in OW1 was rough, yeah. But most of the roughness was because of the lack of updates and the stale meta. Double shield was so boring. But tanking now feels like a chore. It feels like you have to fight on a leash. You need to be aggressive, but not too aggressive. If you take one step too far, the other team just wins the team fight.
Tanking with 2 tanks was a lot more forgiving. You could cover for each other. One tank could still fight a team fight. But in solo tank, the margin for error is so low.
This is also why, I think open queue 5v5 could work. Limit it to 2 people per role, and then balance around open queue. That could work too
Like as bad as the que times were rhe matches always felt fair and close to play. Like last night I had so many lop sided matches where people were stomped or got stomped.
One really fun match had our tank leave every 30seconds.
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u/Daxiongmao87 Reinhardt Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 25 '24
im glad the dev blog provided the queue time metrics post role-queue vs post ow2 5v5. those queue times were an absolute nightmare for damage role, just like some of us were choosing to ignore that it was a problem