Queue times are not much better for me.
It will be interesting to see what they say. I no longer play tank as
At least with support/dps, you can work with your counterpart.
With tank it feels like you’re forced into playing one way only.
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Indeed, queue times can be quite high sometimes.
Yeah with tank I have probably played 10-15 times since OW2. It really is not fun anymore.
They’ve significantly increased players with ow2… Yet there doesn’t seem to be more tank players, can’t see them doubling or tripling them now.
Yeah, the main reason why there hasn’t been an increase in Tank players is because playing Tank is just not fun in 5v5. No matter how they ‘balance’ Tanks, it won’t be fun.
Tanks will either absolutely roll the enemy team, at which point it’s not fun because it’s too easy, or they’ll spend the majority of game time respawning… at which point it’s not fun, it’s infuriating.
Even in matches that are really close, Tanks usually just stand there to absorb both damage and heals, while a DPS like Tracer or Sombra wins the game by killing one of the enemy Supports, tipping the balance in their team’s favour.
Yes, some Tanks are the Paladin archetype, who are essentially damage sponges, but the point of Tank is not to just absorb the enemy’s damage, it’s to create space. If the way you create space is inherently passive (stand there and be a wall/sponge), then it’s not that fun…
One of the issues in 6v6 was double shield, but that was essentially resolved with the Orissa rework.
Rein was usually not the problem with double shield, because if his shield is up, he’s not doing damage… it was the Orissa & Sigma duo which was the pain.
The only exception being the “pirate ship” on payload maps, where Rein and Orissa would just shield a Sentry-form Bastion and maybe even a Torb turret for good measure; Sigma doesn’t really work there because his shield is deployed in the air, so it can’t move with the payload, he’ll have to keep retracting it, waiting a couple of seconds before redeploying it.
Yes, we now have Ram who can also deploy a shield, but that one disappears without needing to break it, and is then on cooldown.
Yes, Winston also has a shield, but his bubble was never that strong in 6v6, the whole point of it was to allow him to dive without dying immediately, not to work in a bunker strat (though it definitely does in total mayhem, but who cares, that’s total mayhem).
Going down to 5v5 also removed a Tank sub-roll (Off-Tank), so all off-tank players had to suddenly become not just the ‘Main Tank’, but the only Tank… or play a different role.
This also removed a lot of fun strats/comps, like Rein/Zarya and Winton/D.Va…
Also, this has made it not fun for Supports either… especially since the new DPS passive, Tanks now get targeted by 4 or 5 enemies at once, if their Supports stop pumping them full of heals for just a moment (eg: because they had an opportunity to pick off an enemy, they had to try defending themselves from someone like Tracer/Sombra, or they got one-shot by someone like Widow/Hanzo), the Tank is pretty much dead.
Whereas before, the Tanks didn’t need babysitting so much because either they’d protect each other (like Rein/Zarya) or there’d be an Off-Tank distracting them by attacking the backline or going on point (like Ball).
I genuinely think that if they rebalance to a 6v6 format, we’d see a lot more of the current players playing Tank (especially those who are sick of DPS queue times in higher ranks, who could just play Off-Tank).
Oh, and 6v6 would also help reduce Counterwatch… no need to constantly swap Tank character to counter (or stop being countered by) the enemy Tank, because a 2v2 has a lot more combination/matchup possibilities than a 1v1, which is a glorified Rock/Paper/Scissors.
Even Pokémon figured that out, that’s why competitive competitions are almost always double battles.
Tbf, that does sound like an interesting idea which I’d love to try, just not as a Tank… maybe not even as a Support tbh…
That game mode might sound fun for a DPS, but it’s going to be hell for Tanks.
I don’t think this would “save” their game, it would kill it, unless they mega-buff Tanks even more that their short-lived mid-season patch; even then, it might still not be fun for Tank players for the reasons I outlined in my previous comment.
Well, playing tanks is fun right now. It’s just not fun for anyone else in the lobby.
Again, quite possibly. Although 6v6 had it’s element of counterwatch too. But meta comps were often far strong than anything when played reasonably well, so it became a lot more of mirrorwatch… Which was boring for its own reasons.
Jeff Kaplan is on record saying they were trying 1-3-2 and that it would have been the direction. They also tried 2-3-2 but it wasn’t going to be a workable option .
I think 1 tank is the way the game was always going to go, and I doubt they’ll change that now.
Can they make it work. Yes, 100%.
Will they… That’s another question.
Tanking isn’t a role people really want to play in an FPS, it will always be unpopular.
Agreed. It’s such a horrible role to play being just the 1 tank.
Tbf, I haven’t played since the mid-season patch because, in all honesty, I’m getting sick of OW… most likely because I tend to play Tank/Support a lot more.
I’ve seen a lot of streamers/youtubers complaining about the current state of the game, including Tank players, which obviously doesn’t help motivate me to play…
But if your two options are the game sucks for Tanks or the game sucks for everyone else, then it’s clearly not working…
True, but to a far less prominent extent.
Yeah, sometimes… more likely in Control maps. In payload/hybrid/2cp maps, I didn’t see much mirroring tbh (though I only started playing the game post-goats meta).
However, OW2 has its own ‘Mirrorwatch’ issues (and I’m not talking about the fun game mode)… we’ve all seen the clip of a Comp game where the Tank suddenly drops out then comes back in a few minutes later, having just bought the premium battlepass so they could mirror the enemy Mauga… and that’s definitely not been the only time where mirroring has been an issue.
He did, but his comment also includes a whole bunch of reasons why current players are complaining about the 5v5 format today… they knew all they way back then, yet still went along with it in OW2 and it’s still not working 11 seasons later…
First, there is the issue of what players have come to call “off tanks” … Obviously, if we were to change the distribution of roles … it would require some balance changes. But possibly more than that. Roadhog is a great example. Is the correct thing to do … to try to make him more “main tanky” or … to simply move him to the Damage role … ? We’ve tried both … in our 3-2-1 experiment, he’s moved from the Tank to the Damage category, he only has 400 health, Take a Breather only heals and does not do damage reduction and there were a bunch of DPS changes to his scrap gun … Maybe a better direction for Roadhog under 3-2-1 is some sort of team damage reduction ability? How do you take what is essentially an “off tank” and make him a “main tank”?
Well, looks like they tried making him more “tanky” instead, along with Doomfist, and Roadhog became one of the main ‘problem-characters’.
He acknowledged the issue of rebalancing off-tanks all the way back then…
The other fear around a 3-2-1 comp is the importance it places on the Tank player. In our playtesting, this has manifested itself in two notable ways.
- Some players feel a lot of pressure to choose the “correct” tank. If there is only one tank, the team has a very strong opinion about who that tank should be. Another fear around this issue is that metas will be even more limited as players tend to take the “path of least resistance” towards their hero choices. If Reinhardt is deemed meta, do we only see Rein from now on? Are we all mad at our tank player if they play the hamster?
This is exactly what happened… it’s why we’ve had seasons where we see so many Orissas, followed by so many Maugas, followed by so many Roadhogs, etc…
And in seasons/maps where one specific tank isn’t extremely dominant, tank players get flamed constantly if one/some of the team thinks they should pick a different character.
I remember the game I played on Suravasa as Ram, where one of the DPS decided Ram was crap and kept telling me to swap before spawn doors opened. We rolled the first two points; captured the third, where I admittedly made one mistake, I overextended trying to get a pick and got killed, they started spewing insults in chat until one of the supports backed me up, saying I’d been carrying… so he starts insulting both of us… anyway, I didn’t swap, we regrouped and recaptured the third point, winning 3-0. The dude left a comment along the lines of “can’t believe we won, tank was s***” and left… even the enemy team in chat were like “wtf is he talking about?”
Anyway, long story short, this happens a lot…
- Some tank players felt a tremendous anxiety about their performance in the match. They felt like being the lone tank put a lot of pressure on them and if they died, it was a really big deal. Some of our tank/support players who would occasionally play tank stopped playing tank during 3-2-1 and only gravitated toward support because they felt intimidated to be “the main tank” and have so much focus on their play.
This has also happened… yes, some off-tank players adapted, but many moved to a different role or eventually stopped playing. Even from those who did adapt, many of them complain about only tank not being fun.
Even main tank players complain about it not being fun. When you see streamers who played main tank switch to different roles or play different games entirely, that should be a warning sign…
Conversely, there are a number of main tank players on the team who actually enjoy the added spotlight.
Where? Which tank likes constantly getting slept, hacked, hindered, anti-naded, stunned, etc… many times all in quick succession? As the one and only tank, you tend not to just absorb damage, but also to get most (if not every) form of CC/anti-healing.
Our support players have given mixed feedback on the experiment as well. On the negative side, people feel bad when the lone tank dies. On the positive side, many support mains have commented that they feel like they have more freedom to focus on other players and not just “try to keep the big bags of hitpoints alive all match”.
Where did they get those support players from? Because this is exactly the issue now… we have to “try to keep the big bags of hitpoints alive all match”… if you don’t babysit your tank, they’re dead, especially against an enemy Mauga for example.
these matches are more chaotic and … feel “more FPS-y”. The result is good or bad … For some of our support players, this makes matches more exciting. EVERYONE is taking a lot more damage under 3-2-1. for some support players, the chaos causes negative anxiety and they prefer just healing tanks.
“EVERYONE taking a lot more damage” doesn’t necessarily make games “more exciting”, it just puts a lot more pressure on the support players. If your teammates decide to go in three different directions, you can’t keep them all alive, so then your tank or (usually) DPS players start blaming you. If you get dived on, you can’t heal your teammates so they’ll die and, again, they’ll blame you.
It’s not “negative anxiety” nor do they “prefer just healing tanks”. They have to babysit tanks to stop them dying, and it feels like it’s just gotten worse in 5v5… now, maybe it’s not 5v5’s fault, maybe it’s because of some tank heroes’ kits (like Mauga) and the DPS passive… but still, not having an off-tank to help out isn’t doing this issue any favours.
Instead of “negative anxiety”, I would say it’s just stress of having to keep your tank alive while keeping yourself alive and being blamed if it goes wrong… for example: supports shouldn’t be getting punished for taking their eye off the tank to get a pick… being forced to constantly pump out healing numbers isn’t just stressful, it’s also just not fun for a lot of players.
you can have a 2 sniper comp (maybe Widow and Hanzo) AND have a flanker (Genji/Tracer).
Ah yes, because everyone loves playing against one-shots, so what would make it even better? A flanker to distract supports so two snipers can more easily one-shot them of course!
Speaking of Teamplay, one of our testers who did not like the experiment made a comment that he felt like 3-2-1 detracted from teamplay too much.
Funnily enough, the entire focus of OW2 moved away from promoting Teamplay to promoting individual contributions… it’s partly why we see a lot fewer fully Dive/Rush/Poke comps (instead more of a hodgepodge mix of characters in teams) especially in lower ranks… and why it seems a lot fewer players in voice chat.
I agree with you: it most likely was the direction they’ve been looking to go down for years, they could make it work, they probably won’t (I’d be very surprised).
I’m not sure I really agree with that tbh… there are many people who loved playing tank; personally, I loved playing off-tank specifically.
I will admit that tank was always the least popular role, but I think there are more factors than just people don’t want to play tank… for example, having much less variety is a huge issue… yes, there were fewer support heroes (only by one at the end of OW1), but their kits were far more varied than the tanks’ kits; there was a lot of cross-over in parts of tanks’ kits and their playstyles, whereas supports felt more different… then you had more than double the DPS characters, most of which felt completely different from each other; even those in the same category like “beam heroes”, Mae and Sym feel completely different to play from each other.
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I am one of those that loved playing tank. It’s still the only role I truly enjoy. (Dps I just mentally switch off, and support I just end vibing abd having a laugh)
If there was ever enough tank players out there, we’d of had them in ow1. As good as the game play could of been at times with 6v6, 5v5 was a game play choice. And I totally expect the dev update next week will simply explain that.
Obviously, people are going to be upset with that. Partly because they pine for a lovely lost, and party (as you’ll see on he forums) because people are unable to process others having a different view.
I just hope, what ever they choose 5v5, 6v6 whatever. They just say “this is where we are going. stop crying about it, because it won’t change now”
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Same person who love using ChatGPT, claiming it’s a valid source for everything, to validate his arguments 
Using chatgpt is no different to reading articles and presenting that information. It’s just using AI to do that for you.
You not liking the outcomes is not the same as it not being valid.
But at least it’s information presented, rather than trolling attempts to discredit someone.
Maybe, if you didn’t like the information presented you should provide your own that counters it and continue with the conversation. Rather than whatever you call that above.
Honestly it seems like 6v6 is the best option moving forward, but will Blizzard actually do that? The game’s status as a “sequel” is already highly questionable since PvE was cancelled entirely and they reverted the original Overwatch 2 ranking system and brought back stuff like on-fire. If they bring 6v6 back might as well remove the “2” from the game lmao.
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If 6v6 comes back, it will probably still be with 1 tank.
There are also a lot of other things to fix and correct before that, so it wouldn’t be for at least another year or so if they did it.
I don’t think the logical move is to revert.
That just sounds terrible and I hope it’s not true. The main reason people want 6v6 is because one tank is impossible to balance and they want double tank back. Also what role would gain the extra player if not tank? 3 DPS or 3 Supports sounds horrible.
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And one of the reasons they were looking to remove 1 tank in 6v6 was because balancing 2 tanks wasn’t possible. It would have been 3 DPS.
It got a mostly positive response in testing… but then at some point a long the way the game play decision was that 5v5 was the way forward with that. Probably because they had to go 1 tank… and 3 DPS was just horrible compared to 2. But that is just my guess.
The reason they removed 1 tank was to reduce the queue times, but it has since backfired on them pretty badly.
Balancing 2 tanks is easier than balancing 1 tank because 1 tank needs to fill the shoes of two tanks in 5v5, which in turn means that they need to tweak the tank heroes for that one tank slot even more than before, and far more frequently, which also results in a massive power creep, like the one we’ve been experiencing since the launch of Overwatch 2.
Changes made to one single tank hero in 5v5 has a massive effect on the other roles and the heroes within them as well, whether it be positive or negative.
This is the reason they’re running around like headless chicken right now, trying to work out ways to balance all the tanks to fit the 5v5 format, but they can’t, it’s impossible.
The new Team 4 management have taken this franchise and dragged it through the mud for far too long…
There is nothing the pro 5v5’ers can say anymore because all of your arguments have been dismantled to the point where you’re in auto-mode and literally just regurgitate moot arguments just for the sake of arguing.
6v6 is the only way they can save this game.
The majority of tank heroes are already tuned for 6v6.
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Same here, same here.
Looks like a certain someone with his VPN and his army of forum alt-accounts is on a roll, mass reporting mine and other’s posts (The one you replied to) once again to remove them, so that only his opinions and moot arguments can be seen…
I called him out on calling me hostile and being childish, and for harassing me, in a civil manner, and someone else did the same, and as a result, this is what he does. He can’t stand it when someone counters his moot arguments, or have a different opinion.
Calling me and others hostile and childish for simply countering his moot arguments then proceed to mass report us to have those posts removed is beyond childish…
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How does a VPN help with any of that? Lol
If I wanted to change account. I’d just log out and log back in on another one.
But, you can check if someone’s done that as it tells you when they were active.
I don’t flag posts. I don’t agree with them removing things. (Unless it’s obviously offensive, like what that Patrick dude did, or behaviour like Lazarus on the US forums). But I also had posts removed, so it’s not a onesided thing
New idea for the 5v5 vs 6v6 debate. Imagine this:
They could keep it 5v5, but let 1 dps pick a tank as well instead of dps. But the dps who chose to be a tank will have a weaker tank. Less health and damage, but same abilities. Maybe longer cooldowns too? Trading damage for synergy and strategy. And it becomes optional for each game. Can swap out DMG for strategy if need be on the fly mid game. Will give new life to the game for sure. Getting countered or one shot? Now you have an extra tank character (weaker but same abilities) to help the team.
It keeps the que times low, reduces overcrowding, and adds back the strategy and synergy of 6v6. Main tank doesn’t feel like an anchor all the time and the “supplement tank” helps hold the line and bring back the fun combos of the past.
Players strategise between dealing raw dmg and adding more utility through abilities to the game. Encounters will be more fresh and varied and unique.
Definitely should be in experimental mode to test it out.
They’re bringing back 6v6 as it was in OQ or with RQ. Anything else is pointless.