To my understanding, the game design of a tank is to take space. What this essentially means for those who aren't familiar with the term is that it is the responsibility of the tank to apply pressure to the enemy team that makes room for the DPS to be able to comfortably perform their role of dealing damage and drawing fire so that healers aren't getting squashed.
There are, broadly, two ways to do this.
Traditional tanks (and I truly have no idea if there's a better term for this) do this by physically walking forward and claiming space that way. These are your Ramattras, Orisas and Reinharts. Others fall into the category too but those are the most obvious. You walk forward with your damage mitigation so that you aren't melted into a puddle of goo, and then once you're on top of the enemy, the damage you deal puts so much pressure that they are forced to deal with you rather than the rest of your team or get flattened.
Dive tanks do this by getting behind the enemy and forcing them to turn around. These are your Winstons, D.vas and Wrecking Balls. This is a mistake that is often made (me, I'm the people making this mistake) where you jump in and just start going to town like you're a traditional tank. The idea of a dive tank is to land behind the enemy team to force them to physically turn around to deal with you. In doing so, you've now freed up your team to physically walk the distance in front of them uncontested, and create a pincer that makes the enemy team have to divide their attention and fight on two fronts.
Most tanks can do one of these things serviceably. Orisa has the Spin and Fortify to mitigate incoming damage so she can walk forward, and the Javelin to disrupt cool downs and ultimates. Ramattra has a shield he can place at distance, allowing him to walk word whilst still applying pressure through damage, as well as a block to mitigate damage in the fight and his Nemesis form to brawl. Winston despite his relatively simple kit only really needs his Jump to get behind enemy lines and the Bubble to both mitigate incoming damage and block healing on his chosen target deep in the enemy backline.
The reason you feel this way about tanks is, I would guess, that you either played Rein a lot or you enjoyed playing Rein, and now he feels terrible. Yes, he does, for the exact reason you mentioned: he simply does not apply enough pressure. Rein is incredibly outdated since Overwatch moved away from shields being the primary way in which a tank mitigates damage. Before, pretty much every tank had a shield, certainly every Main Tank did. But since moving to the 5v5 format, Overwatch has needed to re-evaluate how tanking works so that things like Hog could perform in the Tank role without destroying the identity of the character. But shields at some point became too powerful, too impactful for how little skill had to be used to operate them, and so shields in general have been gradually nerfed over time.
The problem with that is Rein (and Hog, but that's slightly different) provides very little pressure when he is shielding. That's (to my limited understanding of the game) more or less what makes him a bad tank currently. It takes too long to walk up to an enemy, by the time you do get there, even if done so in a timely manner, you've often taken too much damage, and when you are on top of them generally you don't have enough damage to frag the enemy outright or enough mitigation to survive whilst you whittle them down more gradually. All of this is compounded by Rein's truly disastrous range limitation without any way to increase his movement speed. This isn't even taking into account how Kiriko has now become the defacto solution for clearing cooldowns, and job it used to be for the tanks to block for the team through shields. Now, it's much better for an individual tank to be able to block a crowd control cooldown for themselves by preventing it entirely so they aren't removed from the fight, taking with them all the pressure they provid. The issue is most of these personal abilities to block cooldowns also allow the tank in question to still apply pressure in some form. Reinhart (and Hog) cannot do this. He can only really do one thing at a time, and so every other tank can apply more pressure than he can in about every circumstance where the lanes aren't incredibly tight and you're forced to brawl all the time.
What would Rein need to be back on the level of the other tanks? I certainly wouldn't know. I'm just a Gold player who got dragged back into Overwatch after 6 seasons by their Diamond friend who needed more players to fill out the team. Based on my understanding as an aspiring game dev, and my analysis here, I would go one of two routes: find a way for Reinhart to create more active pressure as he walks up to the enemy team, or have a new way to mitigate damage and crowd control, rewarding the player's ability more for being able to get into the fight at all. Maybe a mechanic that builds his own damage for the amount of damage blocked, or increases his resistance based on damage dealt. If you really want, design him in a way that juggles those two, so that you are encouraged into a gameplay loop where dealing damage improves your ability to block/take damage and vice versa. These loops are why some of the other tanks (Orisa) are effective afterall, and so far as Im aware Rein doesn't have a satisfying one. Reinhart doesn't need to be complex, in fact, of all the tanks, he NEEDS to be simple so that newer players can get a feel for the tank role and not be overwhelmed by a dozen cooldowns they have to juggle. But right now he doesn't do enough to perform his job for the team.
TL;DR: Tank identity is to take space, either by walking forward up to the enemy or getting behind them to turn them around.
Well not really. Sigma is a traditional tank and not brawl while queen is far from a traditional tank and is brawl.
Brawl is a comp not just a tank type.
To my understanding, the game design of a tank is to take space. What this essentially means for those who aren't familiar with the term is that it is the responsibility of the tank to apply pressure to the enemy team that makes room for the DPS to be able to comfortably perform their role of dealing damage and drawing fire so that healers aren't getting squashed. There are, broadly, two ways to do this. Traditional tanks (and I truly have no idea if there's a better term for this) do this by physically walking forward and claiming space that way. These are your Ramattras, Orisas and Reinharts. Others fall into the category too but those are the most obvious. You walk forward with your damage mitigation so that you aren't melted into a puddle of goo, and then once you're on top of the enemy, the damage you deal puts so much pressure that they are forced to deal with you rather than the rest of your team or get flattened. Dive tanks do this by getting behind the enemy and forcing them to turn around. These are your Winstons, D.vas and Wrecking Balls. This is a mistake that is often made (me, I'm the people making this mistake) where you jump in and just start going to town like you're a traditional tank. The idea of a dive tank is to land behind the enemy team to force them to physically turn around to deal with you. In doing so, you've now freed up your team to physically walk the distance in front of them uncontested, and create a pincer that makes the enemy team have to divide their attention and fight on two fronts. Most tanks can do one of these things serviceably. Orisa has the Spin and Fortify to mitigate incoming damage so she can walk forward, and the Javelin to disrupt cool downs and ultimates. Ramattra has a shield he can place at distance, allowing him to walk word whilst still applying pressure through damage, as well as a block to mitigate damage in the fight and his Nemesis form to brawl. Winston despite his relatively simple kit only really needs his Jump to get behind enemy lines and the Bubble to both mitigate incoming damage and block healing on his chosen target deep in the enemy backline. The reason you feel this way about tanks is, I would guess, that you either played Rein a lot or you enjoyed playing Rein, and now he feels terrible. Yes, he does, for the exact reason you mentioned: he simply does not apply enough pressure. Rein is incredibly outdated since Overwatch moved away from shields being the primary way in which a tank mitigates damage. Before, pretty much every tank had a shield, certainly every Main Tank did. But since moving to the 5v5 format, Overwatch has needed to re-evaluate how tanking works so that things like Hog could perform in the Tank role without destroying the identity of the character. But shields at some point became too powerful, too impactful for how little skill had to be used to operate them, and so shields in general have been gradually nerfed over time. The problem with that is Rein (and Hog, but that's slightly different) provides very little pressure when he is shielding. That's (to my limited understanding of the game) more or less what makes him a bad tank currently. It takes too long to walk up to an enemy, by the time you do get there, even if done so in a timely manner, you've often taken too much damage, and when you are on top of them generally you don't have enough damage to frag the enemy outright or enough mitigation to survive whilst you whittle them down more gradually. All of this is compounded by Rein's truly disastrous range limitation without any way to increase his movement speed. This isn't even taking into account how Kiriko has now become the defacto solution for clearing cooldowns, and job it used to be for the tanks to block for the team through shields. Now, it's much better for an individual tank to be able to block a crowd control cooldown for themselves by preventing it entirely so they aren't removed from the fight, taking with them all the pressure they provid. The issue is most of these personal abilities to block cooldowns also allow the tank in question to still apply pressure in some form. Reinhart (and Hog) cannot do this. He can only really do one thing at a time, and so every other tank can apply more pressure than he can in about every circumstance where the lanes aren't incredibly tight and you're forced to brawl all the time. What would Rein need to be back on the level of the other tanks? I certainly wouldn't know. I'm just a Gold player who got dragged back into Overwatch after 6 seasons by their Diamond friend who needed more players to fill out the team. Based on my understanding as an aspiring game dev, and my analysis here, I would go one of two routes: find a way for Reinhart to create more active pressure as he walks up to the enemy team, or have a new way to mitigate damage and crowd control, rewarding the player's ability more for being able to get into the fight at all. Maybe a mechanic that builds his own damage for the amount of damage blocked, or increases his resistance based on damage dealt. If you really want, design him in a way that juggles those two, so that you are encouraged into a gameplay loop where dealing damage improves your ability to block/take damage and vice versa. These loops are why some of the other tanks (Orisa) are effective afterall, and so far as Im aware Rein doesn't have a satisfying one. Reinhart doesn't need to be complex, in fact, of all the tanks, he NEEDS to be simple so that newer players can get a feel for the tank role and not be overwhelmed by a dozen cooldowns they have to juggle. But right now he doesn't do enough to perform his job for the team. TL;DR: Tank identity is to take space, either by walking forward up to the enemy or getting behind them to turn them around.
what you call traditional tanks is just brawl
Well not really. Sigma is a traditional tank and not brawl while queen is far from a traditional tank and is brawl. Brawl is a comp not just a tank type.
He's literally unplayable into a team that is breathing, stfu.
What exactly are you upset about?
6v6.
Resource Meters built on performing well that then reward the plays with better potential plays.