#compositional gravity

I said there might be a build to sort out what 2-2-2 needs-

-specifically what it needs to function both in it's queue times (Open Queue) as well as make it the dominant method of play.

There's a few elements working against one another in this equation; personalized MMR attached to each role for formats like Role Lock, makes hero availability across the board a bit of a mess. Having people on your team switch between heroes/roles, means their ability to play and operate within a given MMR bracket is wildly inconsistent.

This goes double for rank.

A gold Ana, might be a plat Reinhardt, might be a Diamond Soldier.

This discrepancy gets worse for MMR, reaching for a wider audience the further from Competitive you get and the deeper into one of the Devs current guiding philosophies

"Play Overwatch the way you want to play it".

Which, in a team-oriented game (especially for 6v6) is just needless complication.

Competitive sports/games are dependent on several key elements, but probably one of the strongest to maintain integrity of play is Consistency.

Without it, both sides can leverage advantages across a broad set of vectors, from the Environment they are playing in, to the rules they are meant to follow, and on into the positions they are operating in.

Without consistency, the game's sense of fairness falls apart and that can lead to a deep level of frustration that eventually sends your players to the curb, seeking out other games to play.

There's a reason that Pro Overwatch players love Control; it is the fairest and most consistent mission type in the game, with all of it's maps offering mirrored setups from both spawns for the majority of the environmental design.

That doesn't take away from the fact that there are massive differences in the cast of characters, resulting in dynamic shifts in what is possible or capable from one team to the next - a fact that is further complicated by the varied ranks, MMRs, hero pools, and types of players in any given match. Outside of Mirror matches in Team Composition (a rarity outside of Pro Play), there is always going to be a variation in levels of stats, cooldowns, and ultimate availability from moment to moment.

This...is the main reason fixes in previous tests (and the current ones) will more than likely fail:

There is no reasonable way to adjust heroes by stats, at hero select screen, or by cooldowns without making portions of the fundamental game uneven and inconsistent

Players cannot fit neatly into any category, whether Roles, Heroes, Playstyle, or even Mode. Consistency has to be a throughline in the game, that choice, option, and expression branch from; allowing the player to maintain consistent gameplay, while exploring their own path.

A very difficult and, as it currently stands, contradictory philosophy.

So...

What to do?

Among a host of issues in the game (DPS-centred philosophies, Player Role discrepancies, Locked Design Space, a severe lack of Tutorial/Education/On-boarding systems, etc.), consistency cannot find proper footing enough to act as a throughline for players to follow.

Where the above listed issues all have their own builds/answers, the major hurdle closest to the playerbase and, by extension, the developers remains the uneven number of players populating each Role.

Until that structure is re-focused, there can't be meaningful adjustments made elsewhere or

You have to build the stage if the varied performances that can be enacted on it are going to go on.

My current theory revolves around a design concept I'm calling Compositional Gravity.

Without getting too deep into the design weeds, this concept involves finding a simple strategy that any player can apply to their Open Queue matches, in answer to the overwhelming force of more heroes in a given role than a game really needs.

Adding significant gravity to the 2-2-2 composition, such that the entire playerbase will steadily and quickly realize and adapt to it as the standard, even when their experience is on the outer edges of gameplay; they will be incentivized to more closely operate and interact with 2-2-2 both in their own gameplay as well as when facing opponents who opt into 2-2-2 themselves.

If any player (Bronze, Plat, GM, Casual, Average, Beginner, Veteran) can feel/see the gravity of their composition lessen the closer they get to 2-2-2, it will create a path of least resistance and push the playerbase to adjust their gameplay accordingly.

Likewise, if 2-2-2 represents a very clear vector of success at all levels of play, it will achieve that solid state of consistency needed for the Developers to begin earnestly tackling other issues in the design/balance.

So how do we go about adding gravity to 2-2-2 as a composition?

By including Inflation on Ultimate Charge:

For each hero above 2 in a given Role, every member of that Role will now require 20% more Ultimate Charge to gain access to their Ultimate.

Triple Support = 20% more Ult Charge needed for all 3 Support heroes on the team to get their Ultimates

Quad Tank = 40% more Ult Charge needed for all 4 Tanks to get their Ultimates

5 DPS = 60% more Ult Charge needed for all 5 DPS to get their Ultimates

If enemy Supports/Tanks/DPS are taking extra time building up to their Ultimates, enough that your team can get theirs first, it presents a very easy window of play to continuously overwhelm them throughout a match.

What this effectively does is it gives players who opt into 2-2-2, access to a very basic strategy when going up against a non-2-2-2 composition:

Build your Ultimates and dump them onto the enemy before they can build theirs

This will not prevent players from choosing multiple DPS, Tank, or Support outside of the ideal 2 per Role, which maintains Player choice, but it will layer in necessary structure to push any composition that steps outside of 2-2-2, to have to "work against gravity" or put in significantly more effort in achieving victory.

There would need to be some minor updates to the UI to accommodate:

A discolouration of the Ultimate Percentage, to showcase the added penalty, and return to normal if 2-2-2 is activated later in the match.

A simple tool-tip in the hero select screen to let players know what the penalty % is while selecting heroes.

This isn't a perfect solution, by any means:

Control maps are notorious in broad MMR matches for not building Ultimates before a round is over

Beginner players are going to have a harder time navigating which heroes to choose vs. what they want to play

This all but guarantees a loss for teams with Players who opt to throw matches rather than play an alternate role

DPS-Players, the most numerous by far in the game, might not take kindly to their individual playmaking being made more difficult with an Ultimate-handicap

The good news is that each of the above problems is something that already occurs in the game and has alternative solutions and builds waiting once it is implemented.

Lastly, as an Adjacent System (an in-game system that has no direct interaction with the available mechanics of any hero I.E - Zarya's Energy, D.va's Defense Matrix Resource, etc.), Ultimate Charge will not be a noticeable disruption to the moment to moment gameplay when switching heroes in the same way adjusting Stats (Healing, Health, Damage) would.

Players will be able to switch and change heroes in spawn without any first hand impact on their gameplay, as Ultimates take time to come online-

-allowing for the Open Queue format, with it's much more favourable queue times, to take the lead while maintaining it's consistency under 2-2-2 as a preferred method of play.

The above is somewhat technical in it's description, but the implementation would directly interact with how players feel when playing the game, rather than how they operate it.

By creating an environment that incentivizes players to not only gravitate toward 2-2-2, but steadily realize the benefits of it for winning/losing, it would re-train the playerbase for 6v6 toward a much more recognizable centre of gravity and give the developers the focused target needed to begin addressing the many other design problems within the game.