Weirdly one of my favorite things about 2/2/2 is being able to reliably grind coins and the occasional loot box in the in demand roles. Of course, I just got the last legendary outfit on the list last week, so I literally have nothing to spend coins on but event skins/intros now. I think I would have quit this game long ago if they didn't keep introducing fun new characters to play. I'm having a blast on sigma quite frankly.
Also, new favorite use for his shield: just sweeping 90% of a minefield away in about a second.
Weirdly one of my favorite things about 2/2/2 is being able to reliably grind coins and the occasional loot box in the in demand roles. Of course, I just got the last legendary outfit on the list last week, so I literally have nothing to spend coins on but event skins/intros now. I think I would have quit this game long ago if they didn't keep introducing fun new characters to play. I'm having a blast on sigma quite frankly.
Also, new favorite use for his shield: just sweeping 90% of a minefield away in about a second.
Every time I've done that or watched a Sigma do it I've thought about every time I tranced as Zen to clear a minefield and I'm like -.- that's a much better deal.
Come to think of it, I haven't tranced a minefield since Sigma showed up.
Actually, it would be imbalanced as all hell, but I would love that "shield as cover" idea for Sigma where you could just sweep your enemies away and far out to sea. Also, I totally kill stole an enviro kill from a lucio last night. The boop was already sending them over the wall and my delayed boulder just launched them further out for emphasis. It was an obnoxious roadhog though so no real regrets.
Well it's been live for long enough, and I think I can definitely say, the forced role queue has made the game less fun. I think I just really enjoyed role swaps and such. Felt more lively.
I'm still a bit split. Having a role assigned means I vary a bit more which is good. I've had way more games where it feels like the team has a plan and is working together than before this change. So those were good times.
OTH there is nothing worse than being stuck on support and having DPS who can't kill a kitten. Those games feel so horrible and there is just nothing you can really do about that from support. In tank I can typically help a bit with it but support? Bah.
Also still folks quit out and it is uniformly fucking DPS players. They really are the worst. The best thing that can be said about them is sometimes they leave and their replacement is actually good.
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited September 2019
News of this coming to Switch reminded me I hadn't played it in ages, so I booted it up for some quickplay. Slid back into Mercy like a fine Valkyrie suit.
I see that I still have to get the pistol out and do DPS's job for them.
Looking forward to shouting at ramboing Genjis in the work lunchroom.
I can't believe though that's there's no solution in place for waiting 15 minutes in DPS queue, someone leaves and the game is cancelled, so lol have fun waiting another 15 minutes
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Best part about maining support is the 1 minute queue.
Best part about maining support is the 1 minute queue.
Endorsements are nice too. "Oh this Tracer main's got lvl 4 endorsements I guess we should give her the benefit of the doubt and maybe toss them a heal once in a while."
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
Huh, apparently the answer to "I can't fix shit DPS from Support slot" is...play Moira? I know she's infamous for high elimination counts via chip damage but somehow I had top damage in a very weird match where I was on 5 golds. The very weird thing is I felt we had a very solid Winston/Ana and an okayish Sigma so I have no idea how I grabbed top healing as well as damage.
Huh, apparently the answer to "I can't fix shit DPS from Support slot" is...play Moira? I know she's infamous for high elimination counts via chip damage but somehow I had top damage in a very weird match where I was on 5 golds. The very weird thing is I felt we had a very solid Winston/Ana and an okayish Sigma so I have no idea how I grabbed top healing as well as damage.
I only switch to Moira when my Zen is getting too many Doomfists or Genjis up his butt. It tends to go very well but it always feels kinda' cheap to me - the heals are just so potent that nothing's getting through without a one-shot. And if the other support has already taken Moira, I'm afraid my next most-survivable support is Mercy. Can't play Lucio to save my life.
I just try to consciously play Moira as more-healy than I often see. If you've got a couple flankers, fling a heal orb into the enemy team - your Genji or Tracer will love you for it, and get to work. I definitely chase kills when appropriate - Moira is excellent for killing enemy Mercies and Genjis - but I think I surprise people with how rarely the purple orb comes out.
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
I tend to go Zen off the bat regardless of comp, just because I've learned my aim seems to be above-par for the games I'm usually playing in, and being able to just volley a DPS or Support (or even tank) into the grave is a real and significant asset. Why my generally-reliable aim doesn't translate perfectly to Ana is beyond me, but his ult is also incrediballs. I'll switch off if enemy flankers are too much for me to handle, but he's pretty handy in the current shield-heavy meta. Good for just helping pressure shields, good for scoring a pick or contributing to one when the shields go down for a second. Volley! Discord! Harmony on our Genji chasing the kill! Dead DPS!
I helped!
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
i think someone said a long time ago but the yellow orb is way more "efficient" than the purple...but sometimes your team (tank, dps, whoever) just aren't finishing off those doomfists that nave sub 20 health and you've got to teach those reds a lesson. Moira definitely feels more powerful than other healers. Her heals aren't blocked by shields, she can hit a bunch at the same time, and you can switch between healing and killing very easily (no weapon swapping required). And the best escape ever...just not sure the limited heal bar is enough of a disadvantage.
i think someone said a long time ago but the yellow orb is way more "efficient" than the purple...but sometimes your team (tank, dps, whoever) just aren't finishing off those doomfists that nave sub 20 health and you've got to teach those reds a lesson. Moira definitely feels more powerful than other healers. Her heals aren't blocked by shields, she can hit a bunch at the same time, and you can switch between healing and killing very easily (no weapon swapping required). And the best escape ever...just not sure the limited heal bar is enough of a disadvantage.
Her spray is 100% blocked by shields - a nerf from a while ago, as I recall. The orb and Coalescence will still pierce shields, but her bread-and-butter will totally get blocked by a barrier. Same with Ana, but at least Ana can address threats from almost any range. I think Ana's the worst for going up against a shield-heavy comp because it's so easy to just make her a non-issue with a well-placed barrier (or a Sym ult). At least Moira can use fade to quickly reposition and get back to work - Ana doesn't have that option.
Plus Ana needs a babysitter. You never wanna' use her nade to self-heal - it's so damn valuable for other applications. I really like playing Zen with an Ana, but I also just tend to put Harmony on her and leave it there unless I need to put it on that aggressive DPS of ours for a few seconds.
Some teams will run Mercy as a primary support purely because her heals can't be blocked off by a well-placed barrier.
Chance on
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
I think Junkrat must be a comfort pick for some people.
Cause they pick him even when the map is terrible for him.
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
I think Junkrat must be a comfort pick for some people.
Cause they pick him even when the map is terrible for him.
ALL maps are good for Junkrat, Zenyatta, and Sigma. #ballpride
Coinage on
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Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I had hoped the queue would have shortened by now, but it has not. I find the idea of playing some role or another, not because you want to, but because you want shorter queues, to be almost offensive. I will not be bribed into playing a particular role due to them holding my time hostage. I can sit around and listen to music. But it is getting a bit old.
In a way they just moved the "1/2 the roster for 1/3 the team" issue around, instead of actually resolving it. I think they need to do something equally dramatic to fix this. Either change it to 3 DPS, or rewrite all the maps and make it a 8v8 game with 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 4 DPS. Or something equally crazy and extreme.
I knew this was not going to be as elegant and simple as people had hoped, and while it turned out somewhat better than I expected, it isn't nearly the "everything is fixed now" solution folks seemed to think it was going to be.
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
I had hoped the queue would have shortened by now, but it has not. I find the idea of playing some role or another, not because you want to, but because you want shorter queues, to be almost offensive. I will not be bribed into playing a particular role due to them holding my time hostage. I can sit around and listen to music. But it is getting a bit old.
In a way they just moved the "1/2 the roster for 1/3 the team" issue around, instead of actually resolving it. I think they need to do something equally dramatic to fix this. Either change it to 3 DPS, or rewrite all the maps and make it a 8v8 game with 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 4 DPS. Or something equally crazy and extreme.
I knew this was not going to be as elegant and simple as people had hoped, and while it turned out somewhat better than I expected, it isn't nearly the "everything is fixed now" solution folks seemed to think it was going to be.
Nobody thought it was going to be elegant or simple or would fix everything. Pretty much everyone recognized that this was just the first major step in a longer process of trying to improve the experience (and anyone who thought otherwise obviously didn't see Jeff Kaplan say basically that exact thing when role queue was getting ready to roll out). Of course if they just stop with this and decide everything's good that'll be a huge disappointment, but I fully expect them to keep coming up with new systems and tools to continue improving matchmaking and user experience.
I think Junkrat is actually fine though. The only bad DPS is Soldier because consistent damage is useless. Genji and Tracer are pretty questionable too I guess
When Role Queue was announced they definitely said it would result in "longer queue times for some players," but they didn't kind of starkly say "if you go DPS-only you may well spend 40 minutes in an hour waiting to play for the other 20 minutes" - which I can't imagine is anybody's idea of a good time.
And that's when it works out well and you or the reds don't just immediately get a leaver in the first thirty seconds. 'Cause that shit happens. They said there'd be growing pains, but I've seen a ton of "that's it, I'm out" posts on the official OW forums largely due to DPS wait times. That place isn't exactly a crucible of reasoned discourse as a rule, but there are at least a lot of fairly loud voices trying to tell Blizz that they're hemorrhaging community members.
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
The most popular role is going to have longer wait times. This is simple math. Putting you back in at the head of the queue if you get a canceled game is a good idea though.
But queue time are perfectly reasonable at most levels. It's only the extremes at GM and bronze that have really bad issues. And GM will always have worse times just because of the low total player count.
Role queue has actually made this game playable.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
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Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
The most popular role is going to have longer wait times. This is simple math. Putting you back in at the head of the queue if you get a canceled game is a good idea though.
But queue time are perfectly reasonable at most levels. It's only the extremes at GM and bronze that have really bad issues. And GM will always have worse times just because of the low total player count.
Role queue has actually made this game playable.
For context, I'm high silver - low gold.
I mean, they should know what the relative hero popularity is... I'm sure they have that data. The problem is obvious: DPS is far too popular for 222 to be viable. DPS queues are long, and also too many people are just running as other roles while playing as though they were DPS.
Either they need to make DPS less popular by adding a lot more non-DPS heroes with a lot of uniqueness and charactor (which seems remote since they've done the exact opposite every time they'd done a major refactor).
Or they need to change 222 into something else, that may or may not still add up to 6.
I really don't see many other ways to fix it. I'm open to suggestions though.
Monkey Ball Warrior on
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
The most popular role is going to have longer wait times. This is simple math. Putting you back in at the head of the queue if you get a canceled game is a good idea though.
But queue time are perfectly reasonable at most levels. It's only the extremes at GM and bronze that have really bad issues. And GM will always have worse times just because of the low total player count.
Role queue has actually made this game playable.
For context, I'm high silver - low gold.
I mean, they should know what the relative hero popularity is... I'm sure they have that data. The problem is obvious: DPS is far too popular for 222 to be viable. DPS queues are long, and also too many people are just running as other roles while playing as though they were DPS.
Either they need to make DPS less popular by adding a lot more non-DPS heroes with a lot of uniqueness and charactor (which seems remote since they've done the exact opposite every time they'd done a major refactor).
Or they need to change 222 into something else, that may or may not still add up to 6.
I really don't see many other ways to fix it. I'm open to suggestions though.
My two ideas from before Role Queue was actually a thing in its current form were:
1) 1-3-2 role lock. Heavily rebalance Tanks around the idea that you will only have one. (i.e. Roadhog gets his one-shot combo back, Wrecking Ball gets far more shield HP out of his proximity barrier, Winston's barrier gets more HP, Zarya is classified as a Damage character, and so on).
Chief objection: this would be a gigantic leap in the dark, because the Tank balance changes basically have to hit at the same time as the role queue does. 2-2-2 is a much closer distribution to the current state of the game's balance and so "we're implementing the queue now and will rebalance characters as necessary" is less of a burden on players.
2) 1-1-1-3 role lock, where that fourth role is "Flex" and may select any character.
Chief objection: In reality the "Flex" type will have the same problems as today, being essentially the queue that people join to slampick DPS and demand the others be the one who changes for the team's sake.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
Waiting a little longer for the best game experience is totally reasonable for competitive I think. I was a little surprised that they did the same for QP. I like it, but it is pretty strict. I could imagine them supporting both 2-2-2 and 3-2-1, and if your team is 3-2-1 then so is the enemy team. It has drawbacks though, it puts a ton of importance on that single tank/healer, and increases the likelihood of a lopsided game if your only tank is Roadhog, or your only healer is Brig, etc. I still prefer to wait for a better game. There are a million things I can do while I'm in the queue.
The issue with 1 tank/healer is that fights typically end when one side loses all their tanks or supports. That will just make team fights more brutal and quick.
It's kind of weird/funny that the comp most people want to play, mostly dps, tends to not actually be that effective at winning games (in my experience anyway). Outside of comp I think people want to play the role they want more than they want to win. They keep balancing things around a balanced comp that increases the odds of winning but I'm not sure a lot of casual play reflects that as something people want. So is the problem basically tanks/heals are less fun to play than dps? Or that the rewards for winning aren't really compelling? Both? Neither?
I don't hate it currently either but I feel like if you are a company seeking design balance "x percent of the player base quits" to even out queues is sub-optimal.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
The should just bring back the offense/defense and make it 1-1-1-1-2, there, problem solved.
They should just make the queues 'preferences' rather than guaranteed selections. Support/tank queues would basically function as is, but the DPS queue players would randomly be assigned to support or tank as needed. Or give players the option to guarantee their choice, but at the cost of longer queue times.
They should just make the queues 'preferences' rather than guaranteed selections. Support/tank queues would basically function as is, but the DPS queue players would randomly be assigned to support or tank as needed. Or give players the option to guarantee their choice, but at the cost of longer queue times.
That sounds like a great way to get shitty throwing don't wanna be tanks AND supports in every game. The one thing about role queue is that my experience playing tank and support have become much much more pleasant. Part of that is that it is a choice instead feeling obligated and part of it is that people generally want to play the roles they signed up for.
Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited September 2019
I think I would be okay with it as-is if it was comp only, and they implemented queue jumping for canceled games.
But quick play is not quick, and if you are a DPS main it isn't a great time right now, because half your tanks and healers are really DPS playing the wrong hero. I don't care about winning or losing QP. I care about quickly dropping into a relatively close facsimile of a real balanced game, given that it might be in progress and people are going to be entering and exiting at random and play whatever heroes they feel like, within reason.
I don't mind if folks are bad. I'm bad. I mind if they are obviously good at something they shouldn't even be doing, while a critical role goes entirely unfulfilled.
Monkey Ball Warrior on
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
Posts
Also, new favorite use for his shield: just sweeping 90% of a minefield away in about a second.
Every time I've done that or watched a Sigma do it I've thought about every time I tranced as Zen to clear a minefield and I'm like -.- that's a much better deal.
Come to think of it, I haven't tranced a minefield since Sigma showed up.
I embraced clickin domes. Zenyatta : when a 3rd DPS might be nice.
OTH there is nothing worse than being stuck on support and having DPS who can't kill a kitten. Those games feel so horrible and there is just nothing you can really do about that from support. In tank I can typically help a bit with it but support? Bah.
Also still folks quit out and it is uniformly fucking DPS players. They really are the worst. The best thing that can be said about them is sometimes they leave and their replacement is actually good.
I see that I still have to get the pistol out and do DPS's job for them.
Looking forward to shouting at ramboing Genjis in the work lunchroom.
Endorsements are nice too. "Oh this Tracer main's got lvl 4 endorsements I guess we should give her the benefit of the doubt and maybe toss them a heal once in a while."
I only switch to Moira when my Zen is getting too many Doomfists or Genjis up his butt. It tends to go very well but it always feels kinda' cheap to me - the heals are just so potent that nothing's getting through without a one-shot. And if the other support has already taken Moira, I'm afraid my next most-survivable support is Mercy. Can't play Lucio to save my life.
I just try to consciously play Moira as more-healy than I often see. If you've got a couple flankers, fling a heal orb into the enemy team - your Genji or Tracer will love you for it, and get to work. I definitely chase kills when appropriate - Moira is excellent for killing enemy Mercies and Genjis - but I think I surprise people with how rarely the purple orb comes out.
I helped!
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
Her spray is 100% blocked by shields - a nerf from a while ago, as I recall. The orb and Coalescence will still pierce shields, but her bread-and-butter will totally get blocked by a barrier. Same with Ana, but at least Ana can address threats from almost any range. I think Ana's the worst for going up against a shield-heavy comp because it's so easy to just make her a non-issue with a well-placed barrier (or a Sym ult). At least Moira can use fade to quickly reposition and get back to work - Ana doesn't have that option.
Plus Ana needs a babysitter. You never wanna' use her nade to self-heal - it's so damn valuable for other applications. I really like playing Zen with an Ana, but I also just tend to put Harmony on her and leave it there unless I need to put it on that aggressive DPS of ours for a few seconds.
Some teams will run Mercy as a primary support purely because her heals can't be blocked off by a well-placed barrier.
Cause they pick him even when the map is terrible for him.
I like Soldier as a comfort pick. He's pretty useful all the time.
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
In a way they just moved the "1/2 the roster for 1/3 the team" issue around, instead of actually resolving it. I think they need to do something equally dramatic to fix this. Either change it to 3 DPS, or rewrite all the maps and make it a 8v8 game with 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 4 DPS. Or something equally crazy and extreme.
I knew this was not going to be as elegant and simple as people had hoped, and while it turned out somewhat better than I expected, it isn't nearly the "everything is fixed now" solution folks seemed to think it was going to be.
I only switch off junkrat when I need to remind myself why I love junkrat
Or when the other team has an amazing pharah that my team can't kill
Nobody thought it was going to be elegant or simple or would fix everything. Pretty much everyone recognized that this was just the first major step in a longer process of trying to improve the experience (and anyone who thought otherwise obviously didn't see Jeff Kaplan say basically that exact thing when role queue was getting ready to roll out). Of course if they just stop with this and decide everything's good that'll be a huge disappointment, but I fully expect them to keep coming up with new systems and tools to continue improving matchmaking and user experience.
And that's when it works out well and you or the reds don't just immediately get a leaver in the first thirty seconds. 'Cause that shit happens. They said there'd be growing pains, but I've seen a ton of "that's it, I'm out" posts on the official OW forums largely due to DPS wait times. That place isn't exactly a crucible of reasoned discourse as a rule, but there are at least a lot of fairly loud voices trying to tell Blizz that they're hemorrhaging community members.
Steam: MightyPotatoKing
But queue time are perfectly reasonable at most levels. It's only the extremes at GM and bronze that have really bad issues. And GM will always have worse times just because of the low total player count.
Role queue has actually made this game playable.
For context, I'm high silver - low gold.
I mean, they should know what the relative hero popularity is... I'm sure they have that data. The problem is obvious: DPS is far too popular for 222 to be viable. DPS queues are long, and also too many people are just running as other roles while playing as though they were DPS.
Either they need to make DPS less popular by adding a lot more non-DPS heroes with a lot of uniqueness and charactor (which seems remote since they've done the exact opposite every time they'd done a major refactor).
Or they need to change 222 into something else, that may or may not still add up to 6.
I really don't see many other ways to fix it. I'm open to suggestions though.
My two ideas from before Role Queue was actually a thing in its current form were:
1) 1-3-2 role lock. Heavily rebalance Tanks around the idea that you will only have one. (i.e. Roadhog gets his one-shot combo back, Wrecking Ball gets far more shield HP out of his proximity barrier, Winston's barrier gets more HP, Zarya is classified as a Damage character, and so on).
Chief objection: this would be a gigantic leap in the dark, because the Tank balance changes basically have to hit at the same time as the role queue does. 2-2-2 is a much closer distribution to the current state of the game's balance and so "we're implementing the queue now and will rebalance characters as necessary" is less of a burden on players.
2) 1-1-1-3 role lock, where that fourth role is "Flex" and may select any character.
Chief objection: In reality the "Flex" type will have the same problems as today, being essentially the queue that people join to slampick DPS and demand the others be the one who changes for the team's sake.
Personally I'm loving my 30 second tank queues and free loot boxes.
That sounds like a great way to get shitty throwing don't wanna be tanks AND supports in every game. The one thing about role queue is that my experience playing tank and support have become much much more pleasant. Part of that is that it is a choice instead feeling obligated and part of it is that people generally want to play the roles they signed up for.
But quick play is not quick, and if you are a DPS main it isn't a great time right now, because half your tanks and healers are really DPS playing the wrong hero. I don't care about winning or losing QP. I care about quickly dropping into a relatively close facsimile of a real balanced game, given that it might be in progress and people are going to be entering and exiting at random and play whatever heroes they feel like, within reason.
I don't mind if folks are bad. I'm bad. I mind if they are obviously good at something they shouldn't even be doing, while a critical role goes entirely unfulfilled.