SinceOverwatchlaunched in 2016, Blizzard has shown a willingness to make drastic changes to the game. Originally,Overwatchallowed players to select as many of any hero as they wanted for their team, but then that was changed so there were no duplicate characters. Years later, Blizzard changed the rules again, forcing players to commit to a Tank, DPS, or Support role before even starting the matchmaking process, resulting in the 2-2-2 set-up. On paper, this seems like a great way to make the game more fast-paced as well as keep people from throwing matches on purpose, but in practice, it has some serious downsides.
Since the implementation of theOverwatchrole queue system, one major problem has become apparent. The wait times for DPS players are just too long. It seems the majority ofOverwatchplayers want to play DPS instead of Tank and Support, and so the result is that fans of the hero-shooter may now be sending a lot more time waiting to find a match than actually playing the game. Throw in some other factors like playing with friends that are a different rank and the wait times to get into anOverwatchmatch become even longer.
RELATED:Overwatch Year of the Rat Sombra Skin Has Bonus Feature
Prior to theOverwatchrole queue, getting into a match was usually fairly quick and easy. Of course, it sometimes meant playing on a team that had too many DPS or someone who would switch to an unneeded role to throw the game, but some might argue that it’s better than not being able to play at all. Blizzard itself has acknowledged that theOverwatchrole queue times can sometimes be a bit much, and so it has looked into possible solutions.
It was recently revealed byOverwatchgame director that the team has been experimenting with a rather drastic change to the role queue system to combat long queue times. For the past couple of months, Blizzard has been internally testing anOverwatchrole queue changethat would allow for three DPS, two support, and one tank. This 3-2-1 setup would be effective in shortening queue times, but it presents its own issues.
The 3-2-1 setup is problematic because it ruins the viability of certain tank characters in the game. For example, an"off-tank" hero like Roadhogusually needs a “main” tank hero like Reinhardt on the team to really be all that effective. Blizzard tried to address this problem by reworking some of the off-tank heroes. For Roadhog, Blizzard turned him into a DPS character, though that meant that there would be even less tanks to choose from in the game than there are already.
Another issue with the 3-2-1 setup is that it puts too much pressure on the tanks. Players would feel obligated to pick the most popular tanks and stay away from the ones that the community deemed undesirable. Pretty soon,Overwatchplayers would be seeing the same tank characters used in every single game, and that could start to make the game a bit boring and repetitive.
The 3-2-1 idea is interesting, but it’s clearly not an effective solution to theOverwatchrole queue problem. There are some other things Blizzard could try, though. One way Blizzard could fix the role queue would be by simply doing away with it, as people are still just as capable of throwing matches as they were when they could select “joke” picks. It’s possible that the switch to theOverwatchrole queue system has successfully battled toxicity in the game, but it needs to be weighed if that’s worth the trade-off of having long queue times and keeping players from being more consistently engaged with the game.
Another possible solution would be to have the role queue system inCompetitive Play, but disregard it for Quick Play. This wayOverwatchplayers who prefer the 2-2-2 setup for fairness reasons can still enjoy it in the ranked mode, whereas those who just want to play someOverwatchcan quickly get into a Quick Play match without having to worry about role queue.OverwatchQuick Play is really a place that people go to experiment with new characters and strategies anyway, so it doesn’t seem like removing role queue from it would be hugely detrimental to the experience.
There are a number of ways that Blizzard could potentially improve theOverwatchrole queue system, but it’s clear that something needs to be done. In its current state, theOverwatchrole queue system appears to be having more of a negative impact on user experience than a positive one. Hopefully Blizzard continues to experiment with possible solutions to the currentOverwatchrole queue problems, and maybe some of these possible solutions could even betested in the PTRto gauge what the community thinks of it.
Of course, Blizzard has its hands full working on theupcomingOverwatch 2, so fans may have to wait for the launch of that game before worrying about any role queue system changes or anything along those lines.
Overwatchis out now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
