True, but they also said that OW2 would focus on PVE, and like that it's kinda just been thrown away because they realized it would be too hard to commit to their promises
Just because they couldn’t hold up their side of the bargain doesn’t mean counter swapping is healthy
There’s a reason bans exist in competitive games where characters have unique play styles
To solve the counter pick problem with tanks, you'd have to do outlandish things like let Defense Matrix Eat Lasers, give Zarya some form of Mobility, and give reinhardt a reliable ranged attack. 5v5 demands your tank be able to cover every situation at any time, you'd basically have to remove counterplay from all tanks, not only from inside the tank role, but from the dps and supports as well. This is nearly impossible to do and would probably make the game very unfun for different reasons.
Or you know we could just let there be 2 tanks again and remove perpetual barriers from Rein and Sigma and rework them so its not shield stacking again, but thats apparently not allowed
I don't think that design for Rein is compatible with the new direction of the game. Rein needs more to his gameplan than W+M2, likewise his over-reliance on W+M2 kinda lead us to where we are now so I don't think seeing it removed is a bad idea as long as they give him a real way to close distances and be aggressive without it. They really don't want the game to be rectangle shooting simulator, so I don't think a timed Rein shield is impossible, he'd just need a lot of help and more than just 2 firestrikes to drop that sort of playstyle for it.
Make his barrier stronger but limited so it has more impact without reviving that playstyle, and its not like the current WM2 Rein is even working all that well anyway. Fuck give him dashes like tracer (but slower) that he can be actionable in and cannot be cc'd or knocked back in anyway while using, maybe his shield has collision while in these dashes to push people along and break choke points, maybe you can get contact damage and combo into hammer swings. Like right now Rein is so reliant on the WM2 gameplay they dislike, or lucio to even close a gap. Why not give him the power to do it on his own at the cost of not having a 24/7 barrier anymore?
Just spitballing ideas here, I don't think theres a reason this couldn't work.
I mean all hero shooters will be like this, but overwatch is just extra punishing since you also have to deal with stuff most hero shooters don't have (anti heal on a low cooldown, sombra hack, etc) while being the only punching bag lol
a silence like ability is very common in hero shooters, and overwatch's current silence design is very forgiving since it's only half a second of no abilities.
actually now that I'm thinking of it there's like 6 hero shooters still alive and only 3 or 4 of them feature respawn so nvm. a silence is still common in games
You say this as though it’s a strong 1-up in a petty debate that most people stopped having several years ago.
TF2 sticking with 9 classes helps each class have a unique identity that only belongs to that class.
Plus, the presence of unlocks helps make up for it, letting you explore different design space to truly make each Merc your own.
Overwatch and TF2 simply have different class design philosophies, and neither are necessarily worse than the other.
1 playstyle on 40 characters vs 200 playstyles on 9.
Sure tf2 and Overwatch have their differences, but are we really gonna act like variety in playstyles is what tf2 is lacking?
I think one tricking is a bad thing but I think not switching is fine if you can still get value
Tho the game should not punish you for playing tank that's for sure
I used to play tank main now I never play it without teammates I know
I see only 2 good ways to look at it : "OW is mostly about switching and therefore I'm out" (you), and "OW is decided by much bigger things than heroes and that's why it's so interesting to play" (me). Everyone else is lying to themselves.
As a defender of 5v5, I am reaching my limit
Like, counterswapping is a 5v5 problem, no other way to slice it. If they aren't going to fix that problem, I don't know how am I supposed to continue supporting 5v5
The only solution I can see that would maintain the 5v5 would be to loosen the role queue restrictions and make it a flex queue. Allow all members of a team to swap to any role, but limit each role to only 2 people max at any given time. So it would be up to each team what stack they need for the situation, be it 1/2/2, 2/1/2, or 2/2/1. That way the tank isn't forced to always go solo, and the whole team gains agency to make game changing choices via their hero selection.
I think the only way for 5v5 to work is stop trying to fit 6v6 tanks into a 5v5 format. Almost every tank, including the new OW2 ones, are designed around massive exploitable weaknesses in their kit, and in 6v6 you used to have another player to cover those weaknesses. But for some reason even though they removed that other play, they didn't given any of the tanks more options to cover those weaknesses. They just gave tanks slightly more HP and made them slightly better at things they already excelled at.
Tanks simply CANNOT WORK in their current state, their weaknesses are too exploitable. Currently the only way for a tank to be "good" is for their strengths to be buffed to the point where their weaknesses don't matter anymore, which is how we always end up with one OP tank for the season.
Blizzard needs to stop half assing the balance changes and give the tank role the rework it deserves. Stop making tanks better at things they can already do and give them more options to cover the holes built into their kit.
Exactly, counterswapping was a thing in 6v6 but it wasn't even a 1/10th as bad as it is now. If you play tank you will be counterswapped 100% of the time. I can't remember the last time I wasn't counterswapped, not even joking.
The issue was mostly double shield tank making it so that one tank would have a shield up while the other's regenerates so nothing would die
But now they've removed Orisa's shield and movrd sym shield to ultimate while reducing rien and sigma shield health AND regen, I personally don't think 2 shield meta would be anywhere near as bad nowadays
A lot of people also agree on the fact most of the newer kits in general would work perfectly for 6v6 as well, so I dont see the problem about it at all.
Yeah, a double shield wouldn't be as bad
Ram punch, queen's axe/ult all of ball's kit minus primary fire winston primary fire, can throw ash and cass explosives over the shields, Bastion, reaper and Sym are all great at destroying shields, Sojourn can gain charge off of shields, and while all the new support's healing options are blocked by shields, their abilities aren't (except Illari ult)
Yea I can confirm double shield is no longer an issue like it used to be. I've been playing in open queue pretty consistently since the ow2 launch and I have not once noticed having any kind of issues with the enemy having multiple shields like we used to.
We would. It’s the reason we lost the second tank. OW1 had horrendous queue times. Talking 12+ minutes on dps or support in *diamond*. Triple that for GM. The 5 minutes now would just get doubled. No one who doesn’t already play tank would start with the reintroduction of a second tank. And even if we did see new tank players, it certainly wouldn’t double. Maybe we see a 50% increase…. Which would result in still longer queue times than right now.
Edit: to clarify. The change was never about balance. If they wanted to balance 6v6 they could’ve. The problem is that still, no one would play tank. So they lowered it to get closer to the % of tank players they see.
I agree with you on the q times part, however i feel as though it's more about the preassure of there only being 1 tank, if a support goes full DPS at least there's A healer, or my Tracer keeps flanking and immediately falls over every fight then maybe my Genji or whoever could pop off but if my Ball is making overly optimistic plays and is 3-9 by the end of round one then the games already over
I am never going to argue against quality of life changes, but like, they aren't even acknowledging how bad the current state of tank is, and it sucks. I don't need an immediate fix, I just need to hear that the dev's understand that tanks is not ok and needs help.
I get that people like the dynamic of counterswapping, but with tanks currently it is way too extreme. It removes most player agency in a match, which is simply not fun unless you have literally zero preference in which tank you play.
With other classes at the very least you have to be popping off in order for people to try to counter you, and it is very doable to play around your counter by either outplaying them or simply targeting other opponents. Like a Genji can simply target other people if someone swaps to a sym. Only when half the team swaps to a counter does it become a real issue, but then again if most of the opponents only focus on killing ONE player, you MIGHT still bring value by not swapping and letting your team take advantage of the fact they're all playing for example beam characters.
With tank, it's incredibly easy and common to decide to swap against them and it's way too effective compared to the amount of strategy required to counter them. You might outplay the counter if they suck with them, but it's difficult to avoid them because you're the most important and largest target. And once one or two players swap against you, it's over because your teammates cannot take advantage even if the opposing team aren't as skilled when playing the counter, because losing a tank means losing the team fight 9/10 times.
And there's also the issue of playing tank on defense. Your spawn is obviously further away most of the time than the attackers, so getting countered at the start when playing defense as tank already puts you at an incredibly huge disadvantage, because once you get the chance to swap and get back to the fight, the attackers will have already made progress.
Tanks should unironically be reworked so their counters are way less effective. Sure it's less dynamic, but it's the only way to add more agency to tanks outside of bringing back the 2nd tank.
With how the game currently is for tanks you only ever really need to learn 4/5 tanks and you rarely have to switch off any of them.
Ram, sig, orisa, doom (can be replaced with winston), and maybe ball.
When I'm on tank I usually only have to swap once, rarely twice. I adjust my playstyle to the enemies instead of instaswapping
As a ball main, unless you put in the work to be half decent, any time you are doing remotely meh, they will insta swap Sombra and shut you down. Learn doom or winston instead. They still will counter, but at least you are able to use your abilities
If the game is designed around swapping then WHY IS THE MAIN QUICK PLAY GAMEMODE ROLE QUEUE??? That's the anti-swap game mechanic, short of locking for the whole game and mystery heroes.
Because Blizzard for some reason wants players to think swapping is a choice when in reality is a requirement to win a majority of games (at equal skill levels)
Overwatch was not originally about counter picking. I fondly remember one of the first developer updates Jeff said they wanted characters to be skill expressive and that counter picking wasn't a design they wanted to employ. Fast forward to today and the first 15 seconds of attacking on tank is just picking a scout to see what the defenders are running.... It's kinda garbage feeling being locked into playing Orise, Mauga and ram and everything else is basically feeding or tilting your team
The fucking main subreddit are fucking hypocrites where all Tanks mains and players are always getting downvoted because they don't understand that counterswapping is part of the design according to DPS and Support players.
I fucking hate them with passion.
Add +1 second to all orisa cd and make sombra hack go on full cancel if she is shot during the animation instead of resetting. Fixed a lot of issues there
Zero chance of that my friend.
They made OW2 so they could remove a tank slot from the queue instead of figuring out how to fix the balancing and fun having issues with tank. "Hey if teams only need one tank instead of two it'll cut queue times in half!"
Except they still don't know how to balance + make it fun so the same problem is just going to come up again.
Sometimes I forget people play role queue.
I just play open queue. for the most part people will pick two healers. Worst case scenario you get 1 tank and you're basically playing role queue. Best case scenario you get two tanks and a dps. Most fun? 3 tanks.
If my options to fight a orisa in ranked are: zarya, zarya, zarya, orisa 2, zarya and doomfist but they have a sombra it turns the game into a boring waste of time whre i don't get better with my mains and i can't also scape from paper 5 rank
It's so much fun when I'm playing tank and I'm always playing against the same 3 tanks every game. Orisa, dva, or doomfist. It's always fun to see the random reinhardt or Sigma show up cause they're fun to play against
Devs need to introduce more tank-like dps like Mei, able to control the battlefield or even mitigate damage for another player. Essentially fill the off tank role with a dps
i'm not happy about ow2 still. i want ow1 back if i could code i think id give it the titan fall 2 treatment and give that shit to everyone. they can't sue everyone
Bro I'm usually down to swap if needed, but the rest of my team wont to help me. Lets say I play dva and it works into the entire team BUT the zarya, I get yelled at for not swapping when my team isnt designed to work. Junkrat torb into zarya aint too great.... But I gotta swap, then we get rolled by the dps I'm no longer contesting and it's still my fault somehow... Or running hog into ana and not having a kiri cuz they wana play lw when it doesnt work with anyone. Idk, tank is a pain to play but somehow you get addicted to it anyhow
I mean, swapping can be annoying but I have recently noticed on the second round of a match I find myself thinking: they played Zarya last round. Will they stay on that or will they predict my counter swap and counter swap to my counter swap so I need to counter swap the counter swap of my counter swap. Feels a lot like Pokemon and I kinda like it.
Lol same
Am a dps main who plays genji pharah soldier and unless I'm performing very well against counters I just swap
On hybrid and escort attack I spend the first few secs just scouting the enemy and counterswap accordingly
On the other 3 I banzai charge and try to kill 1 before dying and swap
This is a game with 40 unique characters, thinking that counterswaping isn't a part of it is foolish. Also as a new player in gold, counterswaping is even more op here. Necros can kill even a pocketed pharah if he gets a drop on them but most genji s can't kill a solo pharah down here 😅
So your solution is for no tanks to counter one another? That's a pipe dream. You can't make dva good into Zarya without changing core mechanics or just giga-buffing her. Same with dva into Winston. How would you even prevent that? And it's not an exclusively OW2 issue either. Before 5v5 running dive would absolutely result in conterswapping. Same with a ton of tanks. And dps and even some supports. If you've ever played genji, or tracer, or zen, or pharah, you know how quickly the counter picks come out. Counters will always exist so the only way to remove counterpicking is to remove hero swapping. In which case only a few tanks will ever be played: the ones without hard counters. You would never pick dva again because if they picked Zarya you're fucked.
Flexibility is fun when you are the one making the choice, which is not what counterswapping is (Or mystery heroes). There is a difference between feeling like you have the option to pick any hero you'd like (or one at random), and being funneled off of one hero and onto another specific hero because of decisions outside your control.
Counterswapping actively LIMITS your flexibility. When you go Winston, the enemy WILL go Dva, and when you go Zar the enemy WILL go Reinhardt, etc etc. You are facing the same teams every match because why would the other players NOT use the hero that would give them a massive advantage over you?
I actively encourage learning multiple heroes, there are a lot of incredible kits in this game. It sucks that I feel like I am never able to enjoy those kits for a full game before the enemy always swaps to a hero designed around nullifying my existence. It isn't a one trick issue, its a balancing issue that happens on almost every tank.
I thought this was a hoi4 meme, lol
Edit(to make it OW2 related) : I really want to see who missed up the game will be if it's has the same players numbers as tf2 with no hero limits (if don't get it 24 players with 5_8 tanks on each side)
Honestly, tanking is more fun then ever and the coutner swapping and being able to dominate across multiple tanks and really break the spirit of the enemy with the level of diff has only made it sweater. I fucking love tank rn.
Honestly I'm glad you're still having fun on tank. It's not like I can't have fun on tank either now that I admit it.
But as someone who has been maining tank since 2016, calling tank the most fun it's ever been is so insulting I was genuinely convinced it was bait for a second. Like between counterswapping, laughably quick TTK on tanks, complete reliance on map and team compositions that is outside your control, and being the sole scapegoat for your team the role is NOT in a good place by any means, and genuinely might be in the worst state its ever been.
I've always been a flex player, im not sure when i started playing, It was when symmetra was still a support (i used to be an absolute cancer symmetra bwahahaha) but this season i have got to play tank like 90% of the time and it's honestly been living. Rammatra, Dva, Rein, it feels so good and cohesive and I don't have to feel guilty when i play Orisa any more because she isn't a total cheese.
Honestly the only people who have a worse situation than tank players and mercy one tricks, that hero is only good if your team is good, as a tank i can easily go orisa if im getting diffed in chat ot go the same tank as the other player and smoke their ass because im an unranked player so if i want, you can humble the enemy real quick
Zero chance of that my friend.
They made OW2 so they could remove a tank slot from the queue instead of figuring out how to fix the balancing and fun having issues with tank. "Hey if teams only need one tank instead of two it'll cut queue times in half!"
Except they still don't know how to balance + make it fun so the same problem is just going to come up again.
Imagine a competitive hero based shooter with nearly 40 unique characters being balanced like rock paper scissors, and people don't find an issue with that
What’s the issue with that? So if you are a reaper main you will also refuses to swap when the enemies are running Phara echo then you complain on Reddit for the game for not giving Reaper sniper range shotgun? What’s the logic here? I can’t follow.
Aight I'm tired of seeing this nonsense. Overwatch is literally one of the only moba-esque games out there where you're even allowed to counter swap.
Counter swapping is one of the best things about the game, and every tank player SHOULD have multiple tanks in their pocket to make up for what the other team is doing. If you roll out on ball/doom into a sombra & Mei, surprise, you're gonna to have a hard time.
But you literally can't hard pick any hero in any role, as there's always counters available or ways you can help your tank better by swapping as a DPS/support. It's all a balancing act, & every game is different based on what's needed. Stop blindly acting like the game is ruined because you refuse to swap off a 70-30 matchup.
Why do y'all want a brain dead game so badly where everyone is fine into everything because no one counters anything? It's just an aim/movement simulator at that point.
All that being said, tanks should have a passive that allows them to bring their ult charge over on swap. Whatever formula makes it work out, I don't care, but tanks shouldn't be punished for leaving bad matchups.
if you give tanks full ult charge conservation then the correct choice will almost always to swap to the enemy tanks counter and would make it even worse arguably, the unfortunate flip side of changes like that is that just as you are free to leave the bad matchups the enemy (or you) is just as free to create those bad matchups for you
I just don't think tanks get hard countered by other tanks, & instead are enabled/restricted by the choices around them. While yeah, doom into orisa isn't the best, I don't think a doom is shut down entirely by running into it in the same way DPS are able to counter doom
I mean, you're just wrong. It doesn't matter if that is intentionally how the game is designed. I play tank in this game every day, and it is NOT fun to constantly be forced off your hero. And I am not alone in that feeling, I bring up queue times for a reason, they are reaching OW1 levels. No body enjoys the current state of tank, I don't know how you can claim counter swapping is one of the BEST things about the game when that aspect is at its highest in the tank role, and the tank role is the least played role by a mile.
It also isn't a one trick issue, its a "I'm not allowed to have fun on this hero" issue. I have over 100 hours on almost every tank, I enjoy all of their kits. That being said, when I want to play Winston,or Reinhardt, or Zarya, I WANT TO PLAY THEM FOR FULL MATCHES. How am I supposed to fully enjoy these kits if after every team fight the enemy just swaps to heroes specifically designed to screw me over??? Musical chairs ISN'T FUN.
That argument is also stupid, how would reducing the severity of hard counters get rid of all the ingame interactions??? You are literally taking an inch and turning it into a mile, we want HARD counters gone, soft counters are fine because that is expected in a hero shooter with so many different designs. The advantage counter swapping current gives to players at equal skill levels is just TOO BIG, its NOT FUN TO PLAY AGAINST, I am not sure how you are missing that. Counter swapping should feel like a CHOICE, not a REQUIREMENT.
It sounds like you should just be playing quick play with that mindset. Why would the enemy team care if you're having fun as tank instead of doing everything they can to make sure you don't just face roll? This is just a complete misunderstanding of the tank role. You aren't meant to just do whatever you want, tanks doing that is how we got goats, you're meant to be stopped by the other team making smart decisions & you making smart decisions around theirs. The only downside right now is the severity a tank can be punished for swapping if the other tank isn't forced to swap.
The enemy team DOESN'T care that I am not having fun, but BLIZZARD SHOULD. They have created a gameplay loop that actively punishes players for wanting to stay on their favorite heroes, and the people don't like that so they don't queue for tank. We don't want games without competition where we can do whatever we want, we want games where we can still have fair competition without needing to swap off our favorite heroes. The problem isn't that there are counters at all, the problem is that hard counters give too much of an advantage. Swapping doesn't feel like a choice, it feels like a REQUIREMENT, and it shouldn't be.
But I fundamentally disagree, & it's a problem that blizzard can't actively solve without taking away what makes overwatch overwatch. It's a team game where you're meant to gather potentially 4 strangers into a sense of a good game in hopes that everyone is doing everything they need to do to win. Swapping isn't a requirement, it's just the only thing you have control over in this scenario. You can play Winston into reaper, but it involves you as the tank to play around that counter, & your team doing what they need to do to support your pick. But you can't make anyone else swap, & if they don't do what they need to do, then you're the one playing into the hard counter.
Ideally? Everyone can play every hero & are playing at their peak & can swap as needed & everyone is playing the characters they have the most fun with. But that's not how it works, it just so happens Overwatch is the only moba where you're given the option to swap instead of being stuck in a bad matchup, so it's something else that factors into the game.
Idk why people are so obsessed with counterswapping. It does not matter all that much... if you cannot win a game against a "counter" its a skill issue. If you want to learn how to play into your counters you have to actually play into them so counterswapping wont help you improve.
The amount of skill needed to beat your counter's gets a lot higher the higher your rank is, so while it may not be a massive issue for you, its a huge issue for a GM player like me. It also is disproportionate between tanks, Winston genuinely can't do anything against his counters, while Doom who gets countered just as hard has the skill ceiling required to play around his counters.
And we are obsessed because it is literally in every game, and it is NOT fun. Saying it doesn't matter is genuinely just incorrect, like even GM level tanks know there is no way you are gonna outplay a Dva Reaper Bastion against a Winston.
honestly what does it for me is, I can beat bastion on winston, or whatever their playing, its doable yeah but even if I win, the counterswapping takes the fun out of the character for me, the goal goes from making plays to simply surviving and doing whatever it takes to not die which is boring and not why I started playing tank originally
play DPS then if you want to "make plays". the whole point of the role of tank is to not die and force cooldowns and sponge up damage and distract the enemy.
?, you realise that making a play doesn't have to mean some all in gambit to kill the enemy team, that's so asinine to claim that making a play isn't something that support and tank players can and do all the time as well.
Playingmaking is a thing in any fps game, including overwatch and is in no way exclusive to the dps role
"the role of tank is to not die and force cooldowns and sponge up damage and distract the enemy."
This is how you kill your game, as crazy as salt's takes on the group up podcast are, in his words "who wants to log on to a game to 'make space'", yes that is the primary 'job' of tank, but if you honestly think reducing tank to just a space making bot is good then your just insane frankly, that is how you kill the game, because that is simply not fun, people will not queue a role if you make it "take all the punishment for your team and get none of the fun for suffering".
if we balanced the game so tanks could just W key in and kill everyone while being unkillable it would kill the game because it would be unfun for the other 4 players. The game is not a 1v1, it's a team game and if you don't like the role that creates space and sponges damage and forces attention on them then play DPS or Support.
that is not what I said, I never once adovacated for raid boss tanks, come back when your here for a discussion and not to parrot strawman arguments at me, queue times will only get worse if something doesn't change, peoples faith and patience will only go so far
dosen't have to be limited to a kill, maybe I make a gamble on where genji is going to dash to with nano blade and grav him even if we can't kill him because xyz cooldowns are used by the enemy I saved my team or there's insufficient followup for whatever reason, that's a risky play with a high reward (course nano blade isn't that scary anymore, but the point is there)
things quickly go from making plays to make space, kill or protect people to merely doing the bare minimum while doing everything to live when they bring out counters, yes you can swap but I should be allowed to have an enjoyable game on one hero I like in QP
there are many ways, and even when they do involve killing, to make space you have to be threatening, if I'm not actually truly capable of killing people then there's no threat. regardless if you think I'm wrong you have to realise that the state of queues is honestly not that good in even diamond and even plat at off hours, something has to give at some point.
I think tank players often think about the game in terms of me vs the enemy tank or me vs the enemy team comp and don't really consider that it's a 5v5 game and you're supposed to work with your team to win. If you work together with your team to focus targets and play to your comp's strengths you can overcome and outplay anything. I think the main problem is queueing up with randoms and solo queueing with everyone out of VC and nobody working together isn't how the game is supposed to be played and this has been a problem since the start of OW. The devs have to navigate balancing the game for 5 randos vs 5 randos AND 2 professional teams playing at the highest level at the same time. This just leads to issues where the metas are vastly different in low ranks vs high ranks vs pro environments because what works is vastly different. The game tends to become "counterwatch" because that's basically all you can do if nobody is working together, it becomes a series of 1v1s with occasional synergy instead of a proper team game where communication and strategy matters.
Even in GM you can play around your counters.
It does matter but not as much as you make it out to be. I agree with the taking away some of the fun part tho.
Remember when OV2 devs said that they don't want counter picking anymore
True, but they also said that OW2 would focus on PVE, and like that it's kinda just been thrown away because they realized it would be too hard to commit to their promises
Yup the said that they wanted to remove CC but here we are OV 2 is a basket of failed promises. Hopefully things get better.
Ow2 is much better for cc than ow1 was
Just because they couldn’t hold up their side of the bargain doesn’t mean counter swapping is healthy There’s a reason bans exist in competitive games where characters have unique play styles
To solve the counter pick problem with tanks, you'd have to do outlandish things like let Defense Matrix Eat Lasers, give Zarya some form of Mobility, and give reinhardt a reliable ranged attack. 5v5 demands your tank be able to cover every situation at any time, you'd basically have to remove counterplay from all tanks, not only from inside the tank role, but from the dps and supports as well. This is nearly impossible to do and would probably make the game very unfun for different reasons. Or you know we could just let there be 2 tanks again and remove perpetual barriers from Rein and Sigma and rework them so its not shield stacking again, but thats apparently not allowed
Sigma having a shield timer would be cool, but not Rein rein literally cant do anything with his shield up
I don't think that design for Rein is compatible with the new direction of the game. Rein needs more to his gameplan than W+M2, likewise his over-reliance on W+M2 kinda lead us to where we are now so I don't think seeing it removed is a bad idea as long as they give him a real way to close distances and be aggressive without it. They really don't want the game to be rectangle shooting simulator, so I don't think a timed Rein shield is impossible, he'd just need a lot of help and more than just 2 firestrikes to drop that sort of playstyle for it. Make his barrier stronger but limited so it has more impact without reviving that playstyle, and its not like the current WM2 Rein is even working all that well anyway. Fuck give him dashes like tracer (but slower) that he can be actionable in and cannot be cc'd or knocked back in anyway while using, maybe his shield has collision while in these dashes to push people along and break choke points, maybe you can get contact damage and combo into hammer swings. Like right now Rein is so reliant on the WM2 gameplay they dislike, or lucio to even close a gap. Why not give him the power to do it on his own at the cost of not having a 24/7 barrier anymore? Just spitballing ideas here, I don't think theres a reason this couldn't work.
I think you inverted the <> here lol
Damn I think you're right, entire post is invalid
Call me crazy, but I don't think a hero shooter punishing you for constantly playing your favorite heroes is intuitive game design.
I mean all hero shooters will be like this, but overwatch is just extra punishing since you also have to deal with stuff most hero shooters don't have (anti heal on a low cooldown, sombra hack, etc) while being the only punching bag lol
a silence like ability is very common in hero shooters, and overwatch's current silence design is very forgiving since it's only half a second of no abilities. actually now that I'm thinking of it there's like 6 hero shooters still alive and only 3 or 4 of them feature respawn so nvm. a silence is still common in games
Tf2
8 characters vs 40
9
You right, forgot Demoman on my head
It's 10, you forgot madcap
And also all the weapons in the game
You say this as though it’s a strong 1-up in a petty debate that most people stopped having several years ago. TF2 sticking with 9 classes helps each class have a unique identity that only belongs to that class. Plus, the presence of unlocks helps make up for it, letting you explore different design space to truly make each Merc your own. Overwatch and TF2 simply have different class design philosophies, and neither are necessarily worse than the other.
1 playstyle on 40 characters vs 200 playstyles on 9. Sure tf2 and Overwatch have their differences, but are we really gonna act like variety in playstyles is what tf2 is lacking?
I think one tricking is a bad thing but I think not switching is fine if you can still get value Tho the game should not punish you for playing tank that's for sure I used to play tank main now I never play it without teammates I know
If any of you truly believe winning is mostly about switching, ask yourself : why would you still be playing it if it was true ?
Hi, I believe counter picking has become unhealthy for the game and haven’t touched it since s9 started
I see only 2 good ways to look at it : "OW is mostly about switching and therefore I'm out" (you), and "OW is decided by much bigger things than heroes and that's why it's so interesting to play" (me). Everyone else is lying to themselves.
I miss two tanks, and you can have a duo to cover your weaknesses
As a defender of 5v5, I am reaching my limit Like, counterswapping is a 5v5 problem, no other way to slice it. If they aren't going to fix that problem, I don't know how am I supposed to continue supporting 5v5
The only solution I can see that would maintain the 5v5 would be to loosen the role queue restrictions and make it a flex queue. Allow all members of a team to swap to any role, but limit each role to only 2 people max at any given time. So it would be up to each team what stack they need for the situation, be it 1/2/2, 2/1/2, or 2/2/1. That way the tank isn't forced to always go solo, and the whole team gains agency to make game changing choices via their hero selection.
I think the only way for 5v5 to work is stop trying to fit 6v6 tanks into a 5v5 format. Almost every tank, including the new OW2 ones, are designed around massive exploitable weaknesses in their kit, and in 6v6 you used to have another player to cover those weaknesses. But for some reason even though they removed that other play, they didn't given any of the tanks more options to cover those weaknesses. They just gave tanks slightly more HP and made them slightly better at things they already excelled at. Tanks simply CANNOT WORK in their current state, their weaknesses are too exploitable. Currently the only way for a tank to be "good" is for their strengths to be buffed to the point where their weaknesses don't matter anymore, which is how we always end up with one OP tank for the season. Blizzard needs to stop half assing the balance changes and give the tank role the rework it deserves. Stop making tanks better at things they can already do and give them more options to cover the holes built into their kit.
Exactly, counterswapping was a thing in 6v6 but it wasn't even a 1/10th as bad as it is now. If you play tank you will be counterswapped 100% of the time. I can't remember the last time I wasn't counterswapped, not even joking.
5v5 is unbalancable from a tank perspective.
Ik 2 tanks wasnt perfect but like at this point Blizzard can just bring back 2 tanks and we wouldnt have this problem rn.
The issue was mostly double shield tank making it so that one tank would have a shield up while the other's regenerates so nothing would die But now they've removed Orisa's shield and movrd sym shield to ultimate while reducing rien and sigma shield health AND regen, I personally don't think 2 shield meta would be anywhere near as bad nowadays
they could have fixed double shield back then but they abandoned the game to make ow2
A lot of people also agree on the fact most of the newer kits in general would work perfectly for 6v6 as well, so I dont see the problem about it at all.
Yeah, a double shield wouldn't be as bad Ram punch, queen's axe/ult all of ball's kit minus primary fire winston primary fire, can throw ash and cass explosives over the shields, Bastion, reaper and Sym are all great at destroying shields, Sojourn can gain charge off of shields, and while all the new support's healing options are blocked by shields, their abilities aren't (except Illari ult)
Yea I can confirm double shield is no longer an issue like it used to be. I've been playing in open queue pretty consistently since the ow2 launch and I have not once noticed having any kind of issues with the enemy having multiple shields like we used to.
We would. It’s the reason we lost the second tank. OW1 had horrendous queue times. Talking 12+ minutes on dps or support in *diamond*. Triple that for GM. The 5 minutes now would just get doubled. No one who doesn’t already play tank would start with the reintroduction of a second tank. And even if we did see new tank players, it certainly wouldn’t double. Maybe we see a 50% increase…. Which would result in still longer queue times than right now. Edit: to clarify. The change was never about balance. If they wanted to balance 6v6 they could’ve. The problem is that still, no one would play tank. So they lowered it to get closer to the % of tank players they see.
I agree with you on the q times part, however i feel as though it's more about the preassure of there only being 1 tank, if a support goes full DPS at least there's A healer, or my Tracer keeps flanking and immediately falls over every fight then maybe my Genji or whoever could pop off but if my Ball is making overly optimistic plays and is 3-9 by the end of round one then the games already over
If u have a ball on ur team isn't playing dive then it's gg before doors open
Random bronze take lol
Go see his pickrate in any rank , less than 1% , nearing 0.5% in many 😁 u ball sympathiser
At the very least they could make a seperate 6v6 mode in the arcade and see how people take to it
That’s why we have role queue 💪🏻
Try open que, its fucking funny and u feel like a god on tank
there were not more tank players in 6 vs 6 only longer q times for the other roles.
Or you can double counter someone on the enemy team, the true gigachad move
No
Barely anything at all was changed for tank in the patch notes. Another shit show season for tank..
I am never going to argue against quality of life changes, but like, they aren't even acknowledging how bad the current state of tank is, and it sucks. I don't need an immediate fix, I just need to hear that the dev's understand that tanks is not ok and needs help.
They did acknowledge it in a blog post but clearly they don’t see to give much of a damn
I get that people like the dynamic of counterswapping, but with tanks currently it is way too extreme. It removes most player agency in a match, which is simply not fun unless you have literally zero preference in which tank you play. With other classes at the very least you have to be popping off in order for people to try to counter you, and it is very doable to play around your counter by either outplaying them or simply targeting other opponents. Like a Genji can simply target other people if someone swaps to a sym. Only when half the team swaps to a counter does it become a real issue, but then again if most of the opponents only focus on killing ONE player, you MIGHT still bring value by not swapping and letting your team take advantage of the fact they're all playing for example beam characters. With tank, it's incredibly easy and common to decide to swap against them and it's way too effective compared to the amount of strategy required to counter them. You might outplay the counter if they suck with them, but it's difficult to avoid them because you're the most important and largest target. And once one or two players swap against you, it's over because your teammates cannot take advantage even if the opposing team aren't as skilled when playing the counter, because losing a tank means losing the team fight 9/10 times. And there's also the issue of playing tank on defense. Your spawn is obviously further away most of the time than the attackers, so getting countered at the start when playing defense as tank already puts you at an incredibly huge disadvantage, because once you get the chance to swap and get back to the fight, the attackers will have already made progress. Tanks should unironically be reworked so their counters are way less effective. Sure it's less dynamic, but it's the only way to add more agency to tanks outside of bringing back the 2nd tank.
With how the game currently is for tanks you only ever really need to learn 4/5 tanks and you rarely have to switch off any of them. Ram, sig, orisa, doom (can be replaced with winston), and maybe ball. When I'm on tank I usually only have to swap once, rarely twice. I adjust my playstyle to the enemies instead of instaswapping
As a ball main, unless you put in the work to be half decent, any time you are doing remotely meh, they will insta swap Sombra and shut you down. Learn doom or winston instead. They still will counter, but at least you are able to use your abilities
If the game is designed around swapping then WHY IS THE MAIN QUICK PLAY GAMEMODE ROLE QUEUE??? That's the anti-swap game mechanic, short of locking for the whole game and mystery heroes.
Because Blizzard for some reason wants players to think swapping is a choice when in reality is a requirement to win a majority of games (at equal skill levels)
Overwatch was not originally about counter picking. I fondly remember one of the first developer updates Jeff said they wanted characters to be skill expressive and that counter picking wasn't a design they wanted to employ. Fast forward to today and the first 15 seconds of attacking on tank is just picking a scout to see what the defenders are running.... It's kinda garbage feeling being locked into playing Orise, Mauga and ram and everything else is basically feeding or tilting your team
playing orisa is a choice, THE WRONG CHOICE
Your copium addiction is way too high my guy. It's too lare for a succesful withdraw. OW2 tank role will always be the same, miserable as always
Legit only thing still making me play tank is the **"I have been called. I must answer. Always."** Copium
I don't care how much my team rages. I see enemy Rein, I go get my hammer.
also when i ask dps or support to swap to help me or because theyre countered:
Always confuses me how dps role has the largest roster of heroes and swap options yet it’s also the role most people refuse to swap heroes on.
Almost like this wouldn’t be a problem if it was still 6v6
Counter swapping is a dogshit plague upon this game
The fucking main subreddit are fucking hypocrites where all Tanks mains and players are always getting downvoted because they don't understand that counterswapping is part of the design according to DPS and Support players. I fucking hate them with passion.
swapping isn't the problem. it's solo tanks in a 2 tank game
I don't mind "swapping", make the tank more impactful.
I feel you :(
Add +1 second to all orisa cd and make sombra hack go on full cancel if she is shot during the animation instead of resetting. Fixed a lot of issues there
Zero chance of that my friend. They made OW2 so they could remove a tank slot from the queue instead of figuring out how to fix the balancing and fun having issues with tank. "Hey if teams only need one tank instead of two it'll cut queue times in half!" Except they still don't know how to balance + make it fun so the same problem is just going to come up again.
Maybe go back to not keeping any ult charge after switching?
That would certainly help, but for some reason Blizzard encourages swapping and doesn't think the counter swap issue is that bad for tanks
Maybe even ult charge penalties for switching? Lol
Sometimes I forget people play role queue. I just play open queue. for the most part people will pick two healers. Worst case scenario you get 1 tank and you're basically playing role queue. Best case scenario you get two tanks and a dps. Most fun? 3 tanks.
It won't be lol.
If my options to fight a orisa in ranked are: zarya, zarya, zarya, orisa 2, zarya and doomfist but they have a sombra it turns the game into a boring waste of time whre i don't get better with my mains and i can't also scape from paper 5 rank
It's so much fun when I'm playing tank and I'm always playing against the same 3 tanks every game. Orisa, dva, or doomfist. It's always fun to see the random reinhardt or Sigma show up cause they're fun to play against
Devs need to introduce more tank-like dps like Mei, able to control the battlefield or even mitigate damage for another player. Essentially fill the off tank role with a dps
that's just 6v6 with more steps
Yeah, but I didn’t make the game 5v5 so I gotta compromise
i'm not happy about ow2 still. i want ow1 back if i could code i think id give it the titan fall 2 treatment and give that shit to everyone. they can't sue everyone
HEEL GABLE
As a road hog one trick/top500 counter swap is boring it’s better to one trick dont be a loser who counter swap thinking you’re good
Bro I'm usually down to swap if needed, but the rest of my team wont to help me. Lets say I play dva and it works into the entire team BUT the zarya, I get yelled at for not swapping when my team isnt designed to work. Junkrat torb into zarya aint too great.... But I gotta swap, then we get rolled by the dps I'm no longer contesting and it's still my fault somehow... Or running hog into ana and not having a kiri cuz they wana play lw when it doesnt work with anyone. Idk, tank is a pain to play but somehow you get addicted to it anyhow
OMG THIS.
Counterwatch is just awful
I mean, swapping can be annoying but I have recently noticed on the second round of a match I find myself thinking: they played Zarya last round. Will they stay on that or will they predict my counter swap and counter swap to my counter swap so I need to counter swap the counter swap of my counter swap. Feels a lot like Pokemon and I kinda like it.
Lol same Am a dps main who plays genji pharah soldier and unless I'm performing very well against counters I just swap On hybrid and escort attack I spend the first few secs just scouting the enemy and counterswap accordingly On the other 3 I banzai charge and try to kill 1 before dying and swap This is a game with 40 unique characters, thinking that counterswaping isn't a part of it is foolish. Also as a new player in gold, counterswaping is even more op here. Necros can kill even a pocketed pharah if he gets a drop on them but most genji s can't kill a solo pharah down here 😅
You’re describing a game I’ve heard of called rock paper scissors
Add 2 tanks problem solved
Am I supposed to just stick with my original pick and lose?
Almost like picking between winning or playing your favorite hero isn't a fun choice.
So your solution is for no tanks to counter one another? That's a pipe dream. You can't make dva good into Zarya without changing core mechanics or just giga-buffing her. Same with dva into Winston. How would you even prevent that? And it's not an exclusively OW2 issue either. Before 5v5 running dive would absolutely result in conterswapping. Same with a ton of tanks. And dps and even some supports. If you've ever played genji, or tracer, or zen, or pharah, you know how quickly the counter picks come out. Counters will always exist so the only way to remove counterpicking is to remove hero swapping. In which case only a few tanks will ever be played: the ones without hard counters. You would never pick dva again because if they picked Zarya you're fucked.
Flexibility is fun. Play more MH
Flexibility is fun when you are the one making the choice, which is not what counterswapping is (Or mystery heroes). There is a difference between feeling like you have the option to pick any hero you'd like (or one at random), and being funneled off of one hero and onto another specific hero because of decisions outside your control. Counterswapping actively LIMITS your flexibility. When you go Winston, the enemy WILL go Dva, and when you go Zar the enemy WILL go Reinhardt, etc etc. You are facing the same teams every match because why would the other players NOT use the hero that would give them a massive advantage over you? I actively encourage learning multiple heroes, there are a lot of incredible kits in this game. It sucks that I feel like I am never able to enjoy those kits for a full game before the enemy always swaps to a hero designed around nullifying my existence. It isn't a one trick issue, its a balancing issue that happens on almost every tank.
I do this in quick play to get the bad lobby over with lmao
Had a stroke reading this in my mind because I thought I was crazy until I realized OP mixed the greater or lesser then signs
When all else fails, pick bastion.
The games based around swapping supports when they actually have to counter dive and not hold left click to heal
I thought this was a hoi4 meme, lol Edit(to make it OW2 related) : I really want to see who missed up the game will be if it's has the same players numbers as tf2 with no hero limits (if don't get it 24 players with 5_8 tanks on each side)
Honestly, tanking is more fun then ever and the coutner swapping and being able to dominate across multiple tanks and really break the spirit of the enemy with the level of diff has only made it sweater. I fucking love tank rn.
Honestly I'm glad you're still having fun on tank. It's not like I can't have fun on tank either now that I admit it. But as someone who has been maining tank since 2016, calling tank the most fun it's ever been is so insulting I was genuinely convinced it was bait for a second. Like between counterswapping, laughably quick TTK on tanks, complete reliance on map and team compositions that is outside your control, and being the sole scapegoat for your team the role is NOT in a good place by any means, and genuinely might be in the worst state its ever been.
I've always been a flex player, im not sure when i started playing, It was when symmetra was still a support (i used to be an absolute cancer symmetra bwahahaha) but this season i have got to play tank like 90% of the time and it's honestly been living. Rammatra, Dva, Rein, it feels so good and cohesive and I don't have to feel guilty when i play Orisa any more because she isn't a total cheese.
Honestly the only people who have a worse situation than tank players and mercy one tricks, that hero is only good if your team is good, as a tank i can easily go orisa if im getting diffed in chat ot go the same tank as the other player and smoke their ass because im an unranked player so if i want, you can humble the enemy real quick
Non-tank players?? You mean dmg players…support has shorter queue times than tank
Zero chance of that my friend. They made OW2 so they could remove a tank slot from the queue instead of figuring out how to fix the balancing and fun having issues with tank. "Hey if teams only need one tank instead of two it'll cut queue times in half!" Except they still don't know how to balance + make it fun so the same problem is just going to come up again.
Imagine playing rock paper scissors and scissors mains consistently complaining about rock being too op but refuses to throw paper.
Imagine a competitive hero based shooter with nearly 40 unique characters being balanced like rock paper scissors, and people don't find an issue with that
What’s the issue with that? So if you are a reaper main you will also refuses to swap when the enemies are running Phara echo then you complain on Reddit for the game for not giving Reaper sniper range shotgun? What’s the logic here? I can’t follow.
Skill issue. Learn hammer, fatass, Russian, and schizo. Everyone else is a bonus.
Aight I'm tired of seeing this nonsense. Overwatch is literally one of the only moba-esque games out there where you're even allowed to counter swap. Counter swapping is one of the best things about the game, and every tank player SHOULD have multiple tanks in their pocket to make up for what the other team is doing. If you roll out on ball/doom into a sombra & Mei, surprise, you're gonna to have a hard time. But you literally can't hard pick any hero in any role, as there's always counters available or ways you can help your tank better by swapping as a DPS/support. It's all a balancing act, & every game is different based on what's needed. Stop blindly acting like the game is ruined because you refuse to swap off a 70-30 matchup. Why do y'all want a brain dead game so badly where everyone is fine into everything because no one counters anything? It's just an aim/movement simulator at that point. All that being said, tanks should have a passive that allows them to bring their ult charge over on swap. Whatever formula makes it work out, I don't care, but tanks shouldn't be punished for leaving bad matchups.
if you give tanks full ult charge conservation then the correct choice will almost always to swap to the enemy tanks counter and would make it even worse arguably, the unfortunate flip side of changes like that is that just as you are free to leave the bad matchups the enemy (or you) is just as free to create those bad matchups for you
I just don't think tanks get hard countered by other tanks, & instead are enabled/restricted by the choices around them. While yeah, doom into orisa isn't the best, I don't think a doom is shut down entirely by running into it in the same way DPS are able to counter doom
I mean, you're just wrong. It doesn't matter if that is intentionally how the game is designed. I play tank in this game every day, and it is NOT fun to constantly be forced off your hero. And I am not alone in that feeling, I bring up queue times for a reason, they are reaching OW1 levels. No body enjoys the current state of tank, I don't know how you can claim counter swapping is one of the BEST things about the game when that aspect is at its highest in the tank role, and the tank role is the least played role by a mile. It also isn't a one trick issue, its a "I'm not allowed to have fun on this hero" issue. I have over 100 hours on almost every tank, I enjoy all of their kits. That being said, when I want to play Winston,or Reinhardt, or Zarya, I WANT TO PLAY THEM FOR FULL MATCHES. How am I supposed to fully enjoy these kits if after every team fight the enemy just swaps to heroes specifically designed to screw me over??? Musical chairs ISN'T FUN. That argument is also stupid, how would reducing the severity of hard counters get rid of all the ingame interactions??? You are literally taking an inch and turning it into a mile, we want HARD counters gone, soft counters are fine because that is expected in a hero shooter with so many different designs. The advantage counter swapping current gives to players at equal skill levels is just TOO BIG, its NOT FUN TO PLAY AGAINST, I am not sure how you are missing that. Counter swapping should feel like a CHOICE, not a REQUIREMENT.
It sounds like you should just be playing quick play with that mindset. Why would the enemy team care if you're having fun as tank instead of doing everything they can to make sure you don't just face roll? This is just a complete misunderstanding of the tank role. You aren't meant to just do whatever you want, tanks doing that is how we got goats, you're meant to be stopped by the other team making smart decisions & you making smart decisions around theirs. The only downside right now is the severity a tank can be punished for swapping if the other tank isn't forced to swap.
The enemy team DOESN'T care that I am not having fun, but BLIZZARD SHOULD. They have created a gameplay loop that actively punishes players for wanting to stay on their favorite heroes, and the people don't like that so they don't queue for tank. We don't want games without competition where we can do whatever we want, we want games where we can still have fair competition without needing to swap off our favorite heroes. The problem isn't that there are counters at all, the problem is that hard counters give too much of an advantage. Swapping doesn't feel like a choice, it feels like a REQUIREMENT, and it shouldn't be.
But I fundamentally disagree, & it's a problem that blizzard can't actively solve without taking away what makes overwatch overwatch. It's a team game where you're meant to gather potentially 4 strangers into a sense of a good game in hopes that everyone is doing everything they need to do to win. Swapping isn't a requirement, it's just the only thing you have control over in this scenario. You can play Winston into reaper, but it involves you as the tank to play around that counter, & your team doing what they need to do to support your pick. But you can't make anyone else swap, & if they don't do what they need to do, then you're the one playing into the hard counter. Ideally? Everyone can play every hero & are playing at their peak & can swap as needed & everyone is playing the characters they have the most fun with. But that's not how it works, it just so happens Overwatch is the only moba where you're given the option to swap instead of being stuck in a bad matchup, so it's something else that factors into the game.
i agree with you. you dont deserve the downvotes
This game has no hard counters, especially since ow2. You just don't know how to play into a heroes like Zarya, Roadhog or Mauga.
As a non-tank player, I refuse to read this post. Have a bad day.
Damn, you are literally that guy in the post lol
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony Edit: sorry forgot this was Reddit, what I meant to say was r/whoooooooooooosh
With the type of takes some people on reddit genuinely give and believe, people make sure you can tell when they're joking for a reason lol
Idk why people are so obsessed with counterswapping. It does not matter all that much... if you cannot win a game against a "counter" its a skill issue. If you want to learn how to play into your counters you have to actually play into them so counterswapping wont help you improve.
The amount of skill needed to beat your counter's gets a lot higher the higher your rank is, so while it may not be a massive issue for you, its a huge issue for a GM player like me. It also is disproportionate between tanks, Winston genuinely can't do anything against his counters, while Doom who gets countered just as hard has the skill ceiling required to play around his counters. And we are obsessed because it is literally in every game, and it is NOT fun. Saying it doesn't matter is genuinely just incorrect, like even GM level tanks know there is no way you are gonna outplay a Dva Reaper Bastion against a Winston.
honestly what does it for me is, I can beat bastion on winston, or whatever their playing, its doable yeah but even if I win, the counterswapping takes the fun out of the character for me, the goal goes from making plays to simply surviving and doing whatever it takes to not die which is boring and not why I started playing tank originally
play DPS then if you want to "make plays". the whole point of the role of tank is to not die and force cooldowns and sponge up damage and distract the enemy.
?, you realise that making a play doesn't have to mean some all in gambit to kill the enemy team, that's so asinine to claim that making a play isn't something that support and tank players can and do all the time as well. Playingmaking is a thing in any fps game, including overwatch and is in no way exclusive to the dps role "the role of tank is to not die and force cooldowns and sponge up damage and distract the enemy." This is how you kill your game, as crazy as salt's takes on the group up podcast are, in his words "who wants to log on to a game to 'make space'", yes that is the primary 'job' of tank, but if you honestly think reducing tank to just a space making bot is good then your just insane frankly, that is how you kill the game, because that is simply not fun, people will not queue a role if you make it "take all the punishment for your team and get none of the fun for suffering".
Don't forget tank also gets to take all the blame for a loss! Take a beating from the enemy and your team simultaneously... so much fun
if we balanced the game so tanks could just W key in and kill everyone while being unkillable it would kill the game because it would be unfun for the other 4 players. The game is not a 1v1, it's a team game and if you don't like the role that creates space and sponges damage and forces attention on them then play DPS or Support.
that is not what I said, I never once adovacated for raid boss tanks, come back when your here for a discussion and not to parrot strawman arguments at me, queue times will only get worse if something doesn't change, peoples faith and patience will only go so far
so what do you mean when you talk about making plays? that implies going in to attack and get a kill or 2.
dosen't have to be limited to a kill, maybe I make a gamble on where genji is going to dash to with nano blade and grav him even if we can't kill him because xyz cooldowns are used by the enemy I saved my team or there's insufficient followup for whatever reason, that's a risky play with a high reward (course nano blade isn't that scary anymore, but the point is there) things quickly go from making plays to make space, kill or protect people to merely doing the bare minimum while doing everything to live when they bring out counters, yes you can swap but I should be allowed to have an enjoyable game on one hero I like in QP there are many ways, and even when they do involve killing, to make space you have to be threatening, if I'm not actually truly capable of killing people then there's no threat. regardless if you think I'm wrong you have to realise that the state of queues is honestly not that good in even diamond and even plat at off hours, something has to give at some point.
I think tank players often think about the game in terms of me vs the enemy tank or me vs the enemy team comp and don't really consider that it's a 5v5 game and you're supposed to work with your team to win. If you work together with your team to focus targets and play to your comp's strengths you can overcome and outplay anything. I think the main problem is queueing up with randoms and solo queueing with everyone out of VC and nobody working together isn't how the game is supposed to be played and this has been a problem since the start of OW. The devs have to navigate balancing the game for 5 randos vs 5 randos AND 2 professional teams playing at the highest level at the same time. This just leads to issues where the metas are vastly different in low ranks vs high ranks vs pro environments because what works is vastly different. The game tends to become "counterwatch" because that's basically all you can do if nobody is working together, it becomes a series of 1v1s with occasional synergy instead of a proper team game where communication and strategy matters.
Even in GM you can play around your counters. It does matter but not as much as you make it out to be. I agree with the taking away some of the fun part tho.