Have they addressed how the different SR values will interact with group restrictions? Like this guy's Supp is 2700 and my Tank is 2700 but his lowest Role is 1300 and mine is 2400 - can we still group for comp?
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
Also I met a badass Winston the other day and we had an amazing game together - I'd creep up behind the enemy Widowmaker and he'd soar up above us, see that I'd stuck the Widow and instantly change his target to my next target and together we'd instantly destroy the McCree it was amazing. But the best part of the match was...
In 3 years of Overwatch, and nearly 200 hours on D.Va I've heard this voice line exactly one time. They all thought me mad, but finally, I've heard it a second time.
Thanks to the highlight system, you may all partake in it's bounty.
Have they addressed how the different SR values will interact with group restrictions? Like this guy's Supp is 2700 and my Tank is 2700 but his lowest Role is 1300 and mine is 2400 - can we still group for comp?
That's going to be tricky, I think the "perfect" solution is to have everyone pick their roles, and if the chosen combination breaks the group requirements, then you block the group from starting until they sort it out. That sounds like a complicated UI though. Maybe instead they just use your highest ranked role to do the restrictions, but your role SR to actually matchmake.
The formula to calculate the number of ways to choose k items from n total options is n! / ((n-k)! * k!), where the exclamation mark indicates the "factorial", which is the base integer multiplied by every integer smaller than it on the way to 1. Therefore, with unrestricted character selection, there are 30! / ( 24! * 6!) ways to pick 6 characters from the 30 available, which comes out to 593,775 total possible team compositions.
With role queue in place, we have to multiply the individual possibilities for each role together to get the final count. That's 7c2 * 16c2 * 7c2, or 52,920.
So we're down to less than 10% of the available team comps we used to have. But before you get too upset at how many options they've taken away, consider this: if you played a ten-minute game with each individual 2-2-2 comp exactly once, it would take you 8,820 hours. That's a lot of Overwatch.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
Brig continues to get the nerf stick which is sad because she was fun and i didn't see her every game because she had plenty of counters. I don't even know what they want out of her.
Brigitte
Inspire (Passive)
Healing amount increased from 100 to 130
Self-healing from Inspire is now halved
Repair Pack
Now has 3 charges
Healing amount changed from 150 to 120
Now heals over 2 seconds instead of instantly
If you throw multiple packs at the same person, the current duration will be extended by 2 seconds
Whip Shot
Out-going velocity increased from 60 to 80
Retracting time reduced from 0.6 seconds to 0.3
Barrier Shield
Barrier health reduced from 500 to 200
Shield Bash
Stun duration reduced from 0.9 seconds to 0.75
At a high level what they want is for all Supports to be either main healers or decent off-healers. That generally makes 2-2-2 work better. Brig was the obvious outlier, being a healer/tank hybrid who's mostly considered to be a 3rd support pick. So they are trying to make her less tank more healer to better fit her role designation.
I think what makes it awkward is that she's melee, which means she requires durability in order to be participating and not just standing around in the back. They gave her a more active healing role with the 3 charges, but even so, Brig players don't have fun in the back line. So by nerfing both her self-healing and her shield by so much, maybe they overcompensated and made it too difficult for her to play in the melee space and will need to make more adjustments.
Brig continues to get the nerf stick which is sad because she was fun and i didn't see her every game because she had plenty of counters. I don't even know what they want out of her.
Brigitte
Inspire (Passive)
Healing amount increased from 100 to 130
Self-healing from Inspire is now halved
Repair Pack
Now has 3 charges
Healing amount changed from 150 to 120
Now heals over 2 seconds instead of instantly
If you throw multiple packs at the same person, the current duration will be extended by 2 seconds
Whip Shot
Out-going velocity increased from 60 to 80
Retracting time reduced from 0.6 seconds to 0.3
Barrier Shield
Barrier health reduced from 500 to 200
Shield Bash
Stun duration reduced from 0.9 seconds to 0.75
Rally
Ultimate cost increased 10%
I feel the only way these changes really make sense is they didn't want to change her and have her be powerful because people will complain endlessly, so they changed her and plan to just slow roll buffs out till she's actually viable.
As for role queue, pretty positive first impression. I think when doubters actually sink their teeth into it, it'll be like when they removed no hero limits. You'll never want to go back.
Honestly it seems to me that nobody actually likes Brig aside from her players, and I've seen a steady stream of griping ever since she was added. Almost all about her tankiness and her stun. So it's probably for the best that they nerf those aspects hard, and then figure out what it takes to bring her back up to viability without being oppressive. That's what happened to Roadhog.
have her whip shot be her normal attack, without the knockback (with whatever kind of delay it needs). Then she at least can do something mid range-ish. Give her a different ability that knocks back if they want that.
have her whip shot be her normal attack, without the knockback (with whatever kind of delay it needs). Then she at least can do something mid range-ish. Give her a different ability that knocks back if they want that.
Flailing feels too good though. They could increase its range a little more.
Honestly I'm pretty hyped for this Pulse change. Just a slight increase in its lethal radius is gonna' be pretty nice to have. I can't count the number of 3ks I missed out on because one or two reds in the blast zone got away with 25 hp left, to be instantly bubbled and healed.
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
American Reaper's guns are so absolutely bitchin' they legit compete with American McCree for best weapon.
Saw someone wearing American Reaper yesterday with gold guns. It was like "why?"
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited July 2019
Folks are saying 2-2-2 means bunker will reign supreme and I'm not so sure.
Thing is Winston and Tracer were still pretty good characters its just that a good Brig could shut them down and GOATs was too tanky for Dive to do anything.
I'm not sure where the meta will go but I could see classic Dive making a bit of a comeback.
That said I also think Zarya will need a bit of a buff down the line(mainly to her health) I understand why they never did it when triple tank was an option but as the primary off-tank she'll probably need to be a bit stronger.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
As for Role Queue itself I'm pretty happy.
I stopped playing Ranked some seasons ago cause I was tired of losing fights at the menu screen and I'm a Tank/Support main anything so I won't have problems on that front.
Also...I like that I'll actually be able to play DPS every now and then when the mood strikes me.
If Bunker reigns supreme then that just means we need better shield busters on the DPS side. There isn't really anything in the game that makes it a bad idea to run Rein or Orisa right now. They don't have counters so much as mitigators - characters who are better at breaking shields but still are significantly impeded by them.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
I'm actually interested to see where Rein will end up. Goats and Brig were the reason he was the main tank these last few seasons.
Maybe they shoulda' kept her as-is but tossed Rally and given her a Zen or Lucio-level HaHaMyTeamLives ult.
It's possible new Brig could have a certain role to fill, constantly throw repair packs on a Tracer for instance would be super powerful. Rally is always going to hold her back though. Zen can pocket too, actually provide range DPS, and Trance is the best ult in game.
More on role queue:
I placed last season 3635, not really playing a lot of comp lately, mostly just placements at the end of season.
Did all 3 placements on the ptr.
Tank - 3796
DPS - 3464
Support - 3420
What Jeff said was true. If you'd ask me my best role, I would have said tank, followed closely by Support and DPS somewhere in trash tier. Turns out Tanks is a few hundred SR higher than the other two and DPS is actually edging out over Support. There are some reports that the ptr SR is broke, and it may be in some ways, but that's still the ballpark of where it makes sense for it to be.
Man, I can't wait till this goes live. The feeling of just queueing up for DPS, not having a single doubt of whether I should be on that role and just focusing on clicking heads and going on flanks to cap points with Bob was some good shit and pretty much the best time I've ever had playing DPS in comp. Sure it's PTR and live could change things when people are more inclined to be saltier, but it was some good shit.
There was a part of me reading all these ptr placements people have been reporting and thinking "goddamn is it gonna put my Tracer in diamond and my other 2 in gold/plat?" - which I definitely don't want - but having all 3 of yours within like 400 gives me a lot of hope I'll stay put ^.^
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
There was a part of me reading all these ptr placements people have been reporting and thinking "goddamn is it gonna put my Tracer in diamond and my other 2 in gold/plat?" - which I definitely don't want - but having all 3 of yours within like 400 gives me a lot of hope I'll stay put ^.^
I’m convinced that the majority of someone’s SR is based on their map knowledge and positioning. So you should be fine.
Bonus dragons. These bastions were tearing us up, so thank you so much mystery mercy for letting me get this off. Not particularly amazing gameplay on my part, but you dream of enemy bastions, all nicely lined up.
There was a part of me reading all these ptr placements people have been reporting and thinking "goddamn is it gonna put my Tracer in diamond and my other 2 in gold/plat?" - which I definitely don't want - but having all 3 of yours within like 400 gives me a lot of hope I'll stay put ^.^
I’m convinced that the majority of someone’s SR is based on their map knowledge and positioning. So you should be fine.
Yeahhhh. My positioning is awful ^.^
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
There was a part of me reading all these ptr placements people have been reporting and thinking "goddamn is it gonna put my Tracer in diamond and my other 2 in gold/plat?" - which I definitely don't want - but having all 3 of yours within like 400 gives me a lot of hope I'll stay put ^.^
I’m convinced that the majority of someone’s SR is based on their map knowledge and positioning. So you should be fine.
Yeahhhh. My positioning is awful ^.^
But your SR won’t suffer any more than it usually would!
So now that we've got an official 2-2-2 role queue on the way, we gotta take a look at the character counts in each category. We're still dealing with the fallout from the failed Offense/Defense categorization split, so there are more Damage characters than Tanks and Supports combined. Future development can fill that in, of course, but let's be honest-- there's Overwatch 2 coming at some point in the next decade and even at their swiftest the character release schedule hasn't been that quick. So why not move a few characters out of the Damage category and into different roles through a mild rework or two?
Mei
Pretty much since the game came out, people have been saying "Mei is sort of like a Tank!" which is swiftly followed by "Mei is not in any way a Tank you stupid, stupid bag of stupid." So let's make her more of a Tank.
Mei's Ice Wall is probably what people think of when they think that Mei is sort of like a Tank. Except that it doesn't really act like a proper barrier because it blocks both teams. It's a very specific kind of trapping and area-denial tool rather than a team protector. It's also probably the game's most egregious trolling tool. Let's solve both problems!
Ice Wall now renders more translucently, allowing both teams to see through it. It's still ice, but more barrier-looking ice. Allies can move and attack through the ice wall; enemies cannot. In exchange for being more powerful in this way, the Ice Wall pillars have fewer HP (probably around 300 each). Since total barrier uptime is a concern, I'm thinking that Ice Wall could move to a charge system, having a lower cooldown per charge (8 seconds?) and stocking up to three. That gives Mei a lot of power to shunt the enemy team out of the area she controls while covering her team, which is what a Tank needs.
Cryo-Freeze is also not necessarily a worthy Tank ability (despite protecting Mei personally), but I don't know exactly what I'd do with it.
Doomfist
Doomfist is the another Damage character I can see having some possibility of moving into the Tank space; he has a broad-ish hitbox, lots of CC / disruption, and a personal barrier. To shift Doomfist into a more damage-absorbing role, it might be as simple as severely dropping the damage of his abilities (by half?) while reducing the cooldown of his skills (4 seconds each for Seismic Slam and Rising Uppercut, 3 seconds for Rocket Punch). The intended result is that Doomfist now procs The Best Defense more frequently while having less of an assassin's damage profile. His role is to dive into the enemy and continuously knock them around while generating ult-denying barrier HP for each successful hit. When things get too hot, he has plenty of mobility to get out.
Bonus Bad Idea: Meteor Strike now has an additional function. Before leaping off the ground, Doomfist performs a grab move, picking up the first character he hits within quick-melee range. The victim is carried off into space with Doomfist and takes center-impact damage when the two come back down.
Bastion?
Aside from the line-of-sight gag about Bastion's ult literally being a Tank, the turret form used to come with its own barrier. If you lowered turret form's damage and made sure that Bastion's barrier were weaker than, say, Orisa's or Reinhardt's, you could turn Bastion into a kind of point-defense Tank while weakening pirate ship / bunker, because you can only cover Bastion with his own barrier and one other, rather than an anchor tank's barrier and a Defense Matrix or similar.
Symmetra
Moving in the opposite direction, I think Symmetra is the only Damage character I can honestly see qualifying for Support (before they decided that Support meant "is a healer, at minimum", it was her original category). The trick is that Symmetra's already running out of buttons. Her primary beam is necessary; her secondary fire is required to let her attack at long range; she needs a button for her turrets and one for her teleporter. One possibility is letting her turrets shoot heal-beams at allies when they aren't shooting at enemies. Another is giving Symmetra multiple options for her buildings a la Moira's orb; left-click to place a Teleporter and right-click to place something like the Dispenser from TF2 that heals (and shields?) nearby allies.
I've also had an idea kicking around in my head to let Symmetra build more than two teleporter stations. Each time her "Build Teleporter" skill comes off of cooldown, she can build one Teleporter, which must be at least a certain minimum distance from all existing Teleporters and also within a certain maximum range. Allies standing on a Teleporter can see the valid target Teleporters (those within the maximum range of the Teleporter) highlighted with an icon and teleport there by pointing at the target and using Interact. So Symmetra compensates for weak healing by being able to eventually cover the area in a network of Teleporters, giving her allies lots of options for moving around and returning to the battle swiftly.
Dispensers/heal stations would work similarly, being able to build an arbitrary number so long as they aren't within a specific radius of the existing ones.
As ever, this is all just spitballing and fantasizing out loud. This would all probably work out horribly if they actually did it.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
It's hard to convert a DPS into a tank/support without diluting the roles I think - 2-2-2 is about creating workable team comps, and the meta of the game has evolved in such a way that healers and main tanks are required. Too many off-tanks and you're increasing the odds that a team ends up with "2 tanks but actually no tanks."
Might also want to consider reworking some heroes to become tanks/supports to reduce the time it’ll take to fill up the support/tank roster.
I.E, reduce doom’s damage by 60% but give him like 100 more hp and increase his passive shield gain. As well as remove the need to reload his handgun, and maybe turn it into more of a single projectile weapon. He’d be a legitimate off tank.
Posts
Thanks to the highlight system, you may all partake in it's bounty.
That's going to be tricky, I think the "perfect" solution is to have everyone pick their roles, and if the chosen combination breaks the group requirements, then you block the group from starting until they sort it out. That sounds like a complicated UI though. Maybe instead they just use your highest ranked role to do the restrictions, but your role SR to actually matchmake.
Just played a game along side Fctfctn. I was Hog, and didn't completely fuck up Oink and Yoink combos! Yay! (We won)
The formula to calculate the number of ways to choose k items from n total options is n! / ((n-k)! * k!), where the exclamation mark indicates the "factorial", which is the base integer multiplied by every integer smaller than it on the way to 1. Therefore, with unrestricted character selection, there are 30! / ( 24! * 6!) ways to pick 6 characters from the 30 available, which comes out to 593,775 total possible team compositions.
With role queue in place, we have to multiply the individual possibilities for each role together to get the final count. That's 7c2 * 16c2 * 7c2, or 52,920.
So we're down to less than 10% of the available team comps we used to have. But before you get too upset at how many options they've taken away, consider this: if you played a ten-minute game with each individual 2-2-2 comp exactly once, it would take you 8,820 hours. That's a lot of Overwatch.
Brigitte
Inspire (Passive)
Healing amount increased from 100 to 130
Self-healing from Inspire is now halved
Repair Pack
Now has 3 charges
Healing amount changed from 150 to 120
Now heals over 2 seconds instead of instantly
If you throw multiple packs at the same person, the current duration will be extended by 2 seconds
Whip Shot
Out-going velocity increased from 60 to 80
Retracting time reduced from 0.6 seconds to 0.3
Barrier Shield
Barrier health reduced from 500 to 200
Shield Bash
Stun duration reduced from 0.9 seconds to 0.75
Rally
Ultimate cost increased 10%
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
She's not a healer/tank hybrid any more. She's a healer. With 450 effective HP.
Edit @Kupi mmm that's good math.
I think what makes it awkward is that she's melee, which means she requires durability in order to be participating and not just standing around in the back. They gave her a more active healing role with the 3 charges, but even so, Brig players don't have fun in the back line. So by nerfing both her self-healing and her shield by so much, maybe they overcompensated and made it too difficult for her to play in the melee space and will need to make more adjustments.
I feel the only way these changes really make sense is they didn't want to change her and have her be powerful because people will complain endlessly, so they changed her and plan to just slow roll buffs out till she's actually viable.
As for role queue, pretty positive first impression. I think when doubters actually sink their teeth into it, it'll be like when they removed no hero limits. You'll never want to go back.
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
they should have kept it for 4k+ tbh
ive seen a lot of gm games get ruined by decayed people who havent played in seasons and it really causes problems at that level
Flailing feels too good though. They could increase its range a little more.
You finally did something right Linkin Park.
Thing is Winston and Tracer were still pretty good characters its just that a good Brig could shut them down and GOATs was too tanky for Dive to do anything.
I'm not sure where the meta will go but I could see classic Dive making a bit of a comeback.
That said I also think Zarya will need a bit of a buff down the line(mainly to her health) I understand why they never did it when triple tank was an option but as the primary off-tank she'll probably need to be a bit stronger.
I stopped playing Ranked some seasons ago cause I was tired of losing fights at the menu screen and I'm a Tank/Support main anything so I won't have problems on that front.
Also...I like that I'll actually be able to play DPS every now and then when the mood strikes me.
It's possible new Brig could have a certain role to fill, constantly throw repair packs on a Tracer for instance would be super powerful. Rally is always going to hold her back though. Zen can pocket too, actually provide range DPS, and Trance is the best ult in game.
More on role queue:
I placed last season 3635, not really playing a lot of comp lately, mostly just placements at the end of season.
Did all 3 placements on the ptr.
Tank - 3796
DPS - 3464
Support - 3420
What Jeff said was true. If you'd ask me my best role, I would have said tank, followed closely by Support and DPS somewhere in trash tier. Turns out Tanks is a few hundred SR higher than the other two and DPS is actually edging out over Support. There are some reports that the ptr SR is broke, and it may be in some ways, but that's still the ballpark of where it makes sense for it to be.
Man, I can't wait till this goes live. The feeling of just queueing up for DPS, not having a single doubt of whether I should be on that role and just focusing on clicking heads and going on flanks to cap points with Bob was some good shit and pretty much the best time I've ever had playing DPS in comp. Sure it's PTR and live could change things when people are more inclined to be saltier, but it was some good shit.
I’m convinced that the majority of someone’s SR is based on their map knowledge and positioning. So you should be fine.
Bonus dragons. These bastions were tearing us up, so thank you so much mystery mercy for letting me get this off. Not particularly amazing gameplay on my part, but you dream of enemy bastions, all nicely lined up.
Yeahhhh. My positioning is awful ^.^
But your SR won’t suffer any more than it usually would!
I don't remember this.
"Balancing" the Roles
So now that we've got an official 2-2-2 role queue on the way, we gotta take a look at the character counts in each category. We're still dealing with the fallout from the failed Offense/Defense categorization split, so there are more Damage characters than Tanks and Supports combined. Future development can fill that in, of course, but let's be honest-- there's Overwatch 2 coming at some point in the next decade and even at their swiftest the character release schedule hasn't been that quick. So why not move a few characters out of the Damage category and into different roles through a mild rework or two?
Mei
Pretty much since the game came out, people have been saying "Mei is sort of like a Tank!" which is swiftly followed by "Mei is not in any way a Tank you stupid, stupid bag of stupid." So let's make her more of a Tank.
Mei's Ice Wall is probably what people think of when they think that Mei is sort of like a Tank. Except that it doesn't really act like a proper barrier because it blocks both teams. It's a very specific kind of trapping and area-denial tool rather than a team protector. It's also probably the game's most egregious trolling tool. Let's solve both problems!
Ice Wall now renders more translucently, allowing both teams to see through it. It's still ice, but more barrier-looking ice. Allies can move and attack through the ice wall; enemies cannot. In exchange for being more powerful in this way, the Ice Wall pillars have fewer HP (probably around 300 each). Since total barrier uptime is a concern, I'm thinking that Ice Wall could move to a charge system, having a lower cooldown per charge (8 seconds?) and stocking up to three. That gives Mei a lot of power to shunt the enemy team out of the area she controls while covering her team, which is what a Tank needs.
Cryo-Freeze is also not necessarily a worthy Tank ability (despite protecting Mei personally), but I don't know exactly what I'd do with it.
Doomfist
Doomfist is the another Damage character I can see having some possibility of moving into the Tank space; he has a broad-ish hitbox, lots of CC / disruption, and a personal barrier. To shift Doomfist into a more damage-absorbing role, it might be as simple as severely dropping the damage of his abilities (by half?) while reducing the cooldown of his skills (4 seconds each for Seismic Slam and Rising Uppercut, 3 seconds for Rocket Punch). The intended result is that Doomfist now procs The Best Defense more frequently while having less of an assassin's damage profile. His role is to dive into the enemy and continuously knock them around while generating ult-denying barrier HP for each successful hit. When things get too hot, he has plenty of mobility to get out.
Bonus Bad Idea: Meteor Strike now has an additional function. Before leaping off the ground, Doomfist performs a grab move, picking up the first character he hits within quick-melee range. The victim is carried off into space with Doomfist and takes center-impact damage when the two come back down.
Bastion?
Aside from the line-of-sight gag about Bastion's ult literally being a Tank, the turret form used to come with its own barrier. If you lowered turret form's damage and made sure that Bastion's barrier were weaker than, say, Orisa's or Reinhardt's, you could turn Bastion into a kind of point-defense Tank while weakening pirate ship / bunker, because you can only cover Bastion with his own barrier and one other, rather than an anchor tank's barrier and a Defense Matrix or similar.
Symmetra
Moving in the opposite direction, I think Symmetra is the only Damage character I can honestly see qualifying for Support (before they decided that Support meant "is a healer, at minimum", it was her original category). The trick is that Symmetra's already running out of buttons. Her primary beam is necessary; her secondary fire is required to let her attack at long range; she needs a button for her turrets and one for her teleporter. One possibility is letting her turrets shoot heal-beams at allies when they aren't shooting at enemies. Another is giving Symmetra multiple options for her buildings a la Moira's orb; left-click to place a Teleporter and right-click to place something like the Dispenser from TF2 that heals (and shields?) nearby allies.
I've also had an idea kicking around in my head to let Symmetra build more than two teleporter stations. Each time her "Build Teleporter" skill comes off of cooldown, she can build one Teleporter, which must be at least a certain minimum distance from all existing Teleporters and also within a certain maximum range. Allies standing on a Teleporter can see the valid target Teleporters (those within the maximum range of the Teleporter) highlighted with an icon and teleport there by pointing at the target and using Interact. So Symmetra compensates for weak healing by being able to eventually cover the area in a network of Teleporters, giving her allies lots of options for moving around and returning to the battle swiftly.
Dispensers/heal stations would work similarly, being able to build an arbitrary number so long as they aren't within a specific radius of the existing ones.
As ever, this is all just spitballing and fantasizing out loud. This would all probably work out horribly if they actually did it.
Are enthusiastic main tank mains rarer in part because the MT aesthetics (and even worse, the anchor tank aesthetics) don't do it for people?
Like, if we ever got D.Mon as an anchor tank that'd be 90% of my play time locked up right there.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/i-love-2-2-2-role-lock-but/372752/2?u=chance-12489