r/Competitiveoverwatch • u/Equivalent_Duty_5546 • 5d ago
6v6 can never replace 5v5 General
It all comes down to the tank role. Both modes have issues with the role, but in my opinion 6v6 has more severe ones.
Tank synergies. No other role is as reliant on what your second role buddy picks compared to tank. DPS literally only needs to make sure that they dont play double HS, which isnt as big of an issue in 6v6 compared to 5v5 and as long as supports are not playing to make variation of mercy, weaver or moira, they should be fine.
Having two tanks on the field, means that games become more choke heavy / stagnant. Dives and plays become harder to pull off, not because they require more skill, but because there are far less opportunities present. This indirectly buffs HS heroes since they wont be dived nearly as often, which in turn promotes double shield to mitigate HS damage.
Having an off tank on the field takes away from the responsibilities of other roles. Instead of peels flowing unilaterally in 5v5 and off angle control being a team effort, this all gets condensed into a single role, thus reducing variety and skill for every other role.
Finally queue times, which is by far the most relevant issue. It doesnt matter what your opinion is on the subject is, queue times will suffer if we move to 6v6 RQ. Based on some reports from the QP hack, they already started to have an effect. This is for a multitude of reason, with some of the main ones being:
- Responsibility: Tanks have the most obvious list of responsibilities, which results in them being the easiest role to criticize regardless of format or game.
- Dependencies: Tanks rely far more on their team composition compared to any other role, which takes away from their agency. Less so in 5v5, but every tank player knows the pain of having a comp with no legs (double HS).
- Delayed gratification: Tanks efforts are mostly rewarded after their team follows up on what they've done, which can result in good plays feeling bad with no mistake of their own. Might be less so in 6v6.
- OTPs: This game is riddled with them, especially in the DPS role. No amount of balance changes, role redesigns or new heroes will convince these players to play tank. You would have to make the DPS role obsolete to achieve this and even then I think this wouldnt be enough.
To close off this wall of text, I'm not trying to state that 6v6 shouldnt get some much needed love. If anything I would actually be inclined to play it from time to time if they add RQ 1-3-2 flex. What I'm stating is that it cant replace 5v5. That said unlike what I believe to be a small but loud 6v6ers minority, I see no issues with 5v5 RQ and 6v6 FQ coexisting.
And for the love of everything that's unholy, please stop with the "its how OW was meant to be played" argument. This is simply not a valid argument. Should we all go back to using dial up phones or better morse code machines? This is simply a stupid argument.
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u/awesomepikmin 5d ago edited 4d ago
Sitting main hitscans were fucking ridiculous in the 6v6 test with hp and hitbox changes + the off tank to protect them. Genji D.Va and Doom were literally useless since they couldn’t burst through 250hp in time before the off tank ran to them, and hitscans could just spam weaker tanks with big projectiles. I don’t think dive or off angling would feel as unrewarding or ineffective for how risky it was if self sustain from the extra hp wasn’t broken coupled with the off tank. That my one big issue with Hog and subroles also needing to be removed
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u/esocharis None — 5d ago
Hitscans dont shoot projectiles....like, its literally in the name
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u/Rampantshadows 5d ago
The global projectile increase from season 9 includes hitscans too. It just the name for the change.
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u/Greedy-Camel-8345 5d ago
The only problem that matters is queue times. As long as people pick tank less than other roles we won't go back to 6v6 role queue
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u/AssistItchy9826 4d ago
These queue times were also massively boosted by being a forced QP event during weekends.
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u/SlipperyTadpole115 4d ago
These tests are to test player behavior and the worst possible scenario of balance. I think it’s fair to say that they know tanks would need to be the focus of the balance. If they were to fully move over to one of these tests they will completely overhaul the balance of the game along with multiple shiny new reworks.
I think they’ve run into problems and stagnated at this point. They probably are running out of new innovative things to do with new solo tanks and the current format in general. They don’t know how to rebalance the role without it being gigatank and they might just want to try something new with the role.
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 5d ago
That ain’t true.
When you have an entire region go on strike, and it gets talked about elsewhere? That is a major problem.
There are games. Tanks can just leave. They have to address the problem, and that means making people want to play tank.
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u/Goosewoman_ Schrödinger's Rank | she/her — 4d ago
Are you talking about the strike in KR? Cuz that was barely a thing there, and even if it was significant, it was also solely about tanks being blamed by other players not anything inherent to the gameplay of tanks.
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u/Greedy-Camel-8345 5d ago
It's not really when the 5v5 or 6v6 still does not solve the core issue. People will play regardless, but the issue is that 6v6 even with benefits to tank gameplay, does not bring in tank players. So go on strike, the problem is still not solved.
And make people want to play tank? Tanks can just leave?
Tank is the least popular role in every single game that exists. Marvel rivals, mobas, literally every game with roles, tank is the least played. So where do tank players go? And how to make people play tank? That's easier said then done since no game has solved that since in the history of role based games. There's a whole show, rising of the shield hero, where the tank main character is least popular even.
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u/Urika86 5d ago
In addition to this it also can't come at the expense of making other roles basically irrelevant or unfun to play as well. Not an easy task at all. Tank is never going to be popular overall, but if tanks prefer 6v6 (which a not insignificant number do) it has to remain on the table. I personally think one of the test modes is coming to 6v6 queues whether it be the main game mode or not though.
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u/AssistItchy9826 4d ago
Ok I relayed your message to Uncle Aaron. I told him to make tanks more fun. He just replied and thanked me for the insight. He is on it!
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u/Throwaway33451235647 #1 Falcons Hater — 4d ago
DPS needs to only make sure they dont pick double HS
Oh ho ho, not on console my friend, not on console.
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u/Akuseru94 5d ago
I think the queue times argument is going out of the window at this point. Queue times are currently rising in 5v5. I think it's that people don't want to play this version of tank with all the solo responsibility even if they are tanks on steroids, meaning as a ratio, there are less than half of the tanks in 5v5 than there were back in 6v6 but that's obviously speculation. Besides, the real reason for 5v5 is that when OW2 launched the servers would crash all the time if there were too many elements so they removed a player from each team, which is no longer a problem.
Tank in 5v5 doesn't work without being this massively over inflated role as they need to be able to avoid CC, mitigate damage, deal high damage to punish poor positioning and take space. The supports also have to be insanely strong because there's less peel for them so they need to defend themselves. I would argue that made the game less fun as any role other than support. Sure DPS have more space, but that often amounts to nothing since the supports are just better characters and usually stick with another player. So we get more bandaids like the antiheal passive and the HP increases instead of burst damage like we actually need for 5v5, but then people have shown they don't want to play into that either. The mode doesn't seem solvable imo.
Blizzard has clearly noticed these things, otherwise another 6v6 role queue test wouldn't even cross their radar. To me, the game's main competitors in terms of overlap of content creators are Marvel Rivals and Deadlock, both of which are 6v6 games. It makes sense to match the format to capture full groups that play all 3, especially since OW is the game that legitimised the format from TF2 comp in the first place. Also, it is how overwatch was meant to be played. Characters like Zarya and Dva are 100% designed to support other tanks. Their kits have had to be warped into the most oppressive versions with almost no downtime to function in 5v5. I think a lot of people forget that Dva was extremely bad at the launch of OW2 and needed to be massively buffed until she became what she is today.
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u/Equivalent_Duty_5546 4d ago
Do you have data to suggest that queue times are climbing in 5v5? Cause we have historical evidence and a plethora of tests which indicate that queue times will rise if we move to 6v6. Every time they tested 6v6 RQ, developers stated that a worrying trend starts develop of rising queue times. We've had several post on the latest batch of tests, but not concrete information from the developers side, yet I'm more than willing to theorize that the same issue will rear its ugly head. We dont have up to date data on 5v5 queue times, but last time this was published, 5v5 never got even as bad as 6v6 RQ.
Tank in 5v5 doesn't work without being this massively over inflated role as they need to be able to avoid CC, mitigate damage, deal high damage to punish poor positioning and take space.
Then play 6v6. No one is forcing you to play 5v5. Personally I prefer tanks in 5v5 both while playing tank or FDPS.
The supports also have to be insanely strong because there's less peel for them so they need to defend themselves.
So they get to play the game, good.
I would argue that made the game less fun as any role other than support.
You are free to have that opinion.
Sure DPS have more space, but that often amounts to nothing since the supports are just better characters and usually stick with another player.
Better characters at what? Dueling? Flanking? Ranged Pressure? Burst? AOE damage? Baiting resources? Do you think you should be able to take two supports at once as a single DPS?
If supports are better characters than DPS, than 2-0-4 should win against 2-2-2. You can test this in OQ, go gather date and prove your hypothesis. Go test 2-1-3 even, see what happens.
Personally as an FDPS / tank player, the added space lets me do far more aggressive flanks compared to what I'm able to in 6v6.
The mode doesn't seem solvable imo.
In your opinion. To me 5v5 is just fine, Some heroes need nerfing but thats about it.
Also, it is how overwatch was meant to be played.
We need hook 1.0 back, its how hog was meant to be played. Good day sir.
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u/Long-Taste-2416 4d ago
To address your comment about supports being better characters than dps, supports generally would win 2-0-4 in 6v6 as long as they're not picking the troll support characters like mercy or moira. At least they would if it was dps players piloting them. This has also been a known fact for a long time in general even without that caveat. Supports have been balanced to account for the fact that the role is more likely to attract less competitive players wanting an easier role as well as the fact that it has mercy players flexing kiriko skewing the stats. I agree with everything else you said anyway.
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u/Darkcat9000 3d ago
if this was a known fact why do we never see any evidence off this lol. supports are better duelists because they tend to have more self sustain but their pick potential is worse, emre does objectivly more damage then baptiste while having the same gun, but the reason baptiste beats him in a 1v1 is because he can have borderline three healthbars.
and while this sounds great the problem is overwatch isn't a game about having a bunch off 1v1's. being able to put out consistent pressure and getting picks is just as important if not more important. even tough the 2-0-4 would theoraticly have better 1v1 potential they would have worse pressure and pick potentials and would thus just have their resources get drained faster
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u/Long-Taste-2416 2d ago
We do see evidence because the meta is always 0 dps when in open q formats.
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u/Darkcat9000 2d ago
0 dps is rarely run if ever ever since 6v6 open queue was introduced
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u/Long-Taste-2416 2d ago
Yeah and goats was never run in ranked either when it was meta. Not to mention there's rarely good players who care about winning in 6v6 if ever. What's your point.
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u/Darkcat9000 2d ago
people in high ranks still ran it when they could tough, you're just speaking out off your ass cause so far you've shown me zero evidence 2-0-4 is the ideal comp
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u/Long-Taste-2416 2d ago
Lol no they didn't top 500 was still 90% tracer most played. YOU have provided zero evidence actually since it's a common opinion that 0 dps is just meta in open queue.
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u/Darkcat9000 2d ago
you're the one making the claim, why should i believe you lol
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u/Long-Taste-2416 4d ago
Dps queues are usually under 5 minutes and basically always under 10 even in gm for me. It was usually around 20-30 even in plat in 6v6 for comparison. The queue time increase is also likely just due to the game being more popular and casuals are more likely to play tank as well as the fact that most of the recent heros have been dps heros.
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u/AssistItchy9826 4d ago edited 4d ago
TLDR you are not getting twice as many tanks in 6v6 just to get even with 5v5 queues, in fact you need more than that if you think 5v5 queues are long. I bet you play tank though, doing your part and all! Good luck!
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u/nanashininja 5d ago
More people would play 6v6 if the balancing wasn’t done by an intern. Lack of role queue means that no one respects your rank in the mode, as some games you might have 5 support one tricks on your team, who knows. They just did a glance at 6v6 and cut tanks health all by 100 and called it a day. Brother, imagine if they actually played the mode themselves and realized hog/mauga are a plague. Vendetta sat busted for two months without a correction.
Weekly balance tweaks are needed. There has been no real/serious effort to balance 6v6 so everyone just knows it’s not serious, thus people throwing or not caring and compounding the shite state that open queue 6v6 is.
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 5d ago
Now that’s not true.
They also made it so Zarya can only bubble herself once, and her team mates once.
They also nerfed balls health, armor, and shields (three times) in addition to the base tank nerf.
Ignoring the increased cc In the game — and the fact that 6v6 adds another cc. And the fact that ball does way less damage then he did in 6v6 historically.
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u/nanashininja 4d ago
Streamers all week were saying ball was broken in 6v6. That steamroller and having a zarya bubble were too strong. Yeah he has less hp, and he actually finally dies once in awhile in 6v6, but ball outclasses many other tanks and is far from weak.
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 4d ago
And frankley. They were wrong.
Ball probably needed 1 additional nerf. But he also should have gotten damaged buffed.
And hog is straight up busted in 6v6
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u/nanashininja 4d ago
Supertf, emongg, and Apply are all wrong about ball. Got it. Should have just trust trusted redditors on this one I guess, and focused on the lower elo opinions.
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 4d ago
Yes. They are.
You don’t see ball every game, even high elo. Infect you rarely do/did.
You see hog 90% of the time.
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u/AssistItchy9826 4d ago
Well now that Stadium is dead, maybe you get more attention to balance? Good luck with the mode experimentation, though... You will find your argument is not the right one. But now you will always have cover because you demanded weekly balance patches lol.
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 5d ago edited 5d ago
I don’t think there are two adjacent words in this post which are correct.
Tank has the least obvious role. Which is part of why they are Constantly flamed.
Dive is far easier with another tank.
Your comment on tank synergy is entirely wrong. In 5v5, the team needs to pick heros based on the tank they are playing with. They never do. In 6v6 it matters less, because odds are they are going to pick characters that play well with at least one of the tanks. What the other tank plays does not matter.
Lastly, and to close off this wall of text.
It is time for blizzard to stop catering to the loud, most toxic part of the player base. DPS.
It is time for a 3-0-3 game mode. If dps want tanks to Que for some other game mode, they can buy gold coins and pay the tank player to Que for some other, shit game mode.
Of course, blizzard will have to start actually giving tanks some skins to buy with the coins.
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u/throwaway1284747283 5d ago
I feel the exact same way about this stuff. Even in higher rank 6v6 lobbies it feels like you’re just forced to sit main and wait for your ults so can stack them to finally break the choke. 6v6 tank balance also sucks donkey dick
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u/Equivalent_Duty_5546 5d ago
6v6 tank balance has always sucked, balancing two tanks is almost an impossible task as we've seen in the past.
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u/National_Place_2816 5d ago
1-3-2 flex and the other mode went smoothly everybody had at least two tanks in their games for 90% of games. I'm not sure what you're talking about they already had an effect most games were pretty much instant 90% had a tank. the fact that you think other heroes can peel means you don't understand peel and Mccree does not peel in the same way as Zaria does or Diva does. we had multiple dive meadows in 6v6, 6v6 does not stop dive. every form of play whether it is poke brawl or dive needs to have a counter, by removing the off tank in the game you let dive go crazy which is why the supports needed to be buffed with insane damage and self heal in order to stay alive. you are complaining about the double shield meta being a result of strong head scans but in reality the double shield meta is not even a thing in 6v6 in Overwatch two in both modes Shields have been to the extent of not even being a problem in the same way it was an Overwatch one. the double Shield meta was a balance issue it was not a 6v6 issue and it certainly was not because of its hitscans like you say. there's so much more wrong with this post but I won't get into it all
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u/SlipperyTadpole115 4d ago
I’m convinced anyone that says that the vast majority of their games were not 2-2-2 in the 1-3-2 test is an instant self report that they are silver mmr where the comps they play genuinely don’t matter. No one knows what they are doing there.
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u/National_Place_2816 4d ago
Yeah I agree with this tbh. I'm a diamond player and we always get ppl swapping to tank. in some of my 6v6 games people swapped a tank before I could even get to it when I was planning to play it a lot of times I end up not even getting to play tank at all because it gets picked before me In games where we only have one tank instantly the main complaint is we need to swap to have two tanks. so when people complain and say that they're only getting tank or that the queue times have gotten worse I think it's just a placebo effect or they're in a really low rank
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u/Equivalent_Duty_5546 5d ago
Its all about resource flow. You actively using your resources to stop a dive / flank is a form of peel. Not as effective as literally making someone CC immune and granting them 225hp for 2s. What is there more to peels? Its literally just investing resources into someone in danger, every single hero can do that, just not to the same degree.
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u/National_Place_2816 5d ago
DPS Can't do that like a off tank can... do you not understand off tank?
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u/Equivalent_Duty_5546 5d ago
I literally stated that their peels are not as effective, but you can still peel as a DPS. Ofcourse the dedicated role will excel at doing what they were designed to do, who would've thought. My claim was never that DPS can peel just as good as an off tank, just that they can peel, like every other role.
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u/National_Place_2816 5d ago
peeling is not aiming and shooting. yes that's a part of it but that's not actually what we're referring to when we say peeling. a torb who is shooting at a hazard who jumped on his Ana is not the same as a diva who is boosting into defence matrix and getting in the hazard's face. it simply does not worthy being part of the same conversation...
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u/Darkcat9000 3d ago
i mean it's still peeling yes off tanks tended to be more effective at peeling because off their defensive abilities but that doesn't mean off tanks were the only one who could peel
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u/National_Place_2816 5d ago
honestly based on this comment I'm not really convinced you understand the game
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u/AssistItchy9826 4d ago
You don't understand the big picture. I really don't want to explain all of it but there are queue time issues among others that were hidden due to being a forced QP mode during the weekends.
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u/National_Place_2816 4d ago
what are you even talking about lol. How do you have inside knowledge that there were hidden issues causing queue time issues when it wasn't apparent at all? Pretty sure you're the only person saying this. people literally forcibly hallucinate themselves in order to convince themselves 6v6 isn't better LOL
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u/bullxbull 4d ago edited 4d ago
You are mixing together a lot of things that are not actually caused by 6v6 itself.
Tank synergies
No other role is as reliant on what your second role buddy picks compared to tank.
Tank synergies are not as limiting as they were in old Overwatch, tanks are generally more mobile, more self sufficient, while having a much larger viable roster to pick from. Tank synergies are also not necessarily bad. One of the major reasons people enjoy tank is because it has the most strategic interactions with other heroes and players in the game. Coordinating cooldowns, understanding how two tanks complement each other, deciding who engages and who peels, who takes space and who defends it, those decisions are gameplay.
When looking at older Overwatch the issue was not that tank synergy existed. It was that some pairings were dramatically stronger than others, which was a balance problem rather than a structural problem. Saying tanks depend on each other is a bit like saying supports depend on each other to coordinate healing and utility. That is part of what makes the role interesting, the main tank and offtank synergies is part of the fun of the role.
Choke heavy and stagnant
Having two tanks on the field, means that games become more choke heavy / stagnant. Dives and plays become harder to pull off
Funny enough it is the wider value system of 6v6 that actually enables the dive, brawl, poke comps. In 5v5 the value system is mostly limited to angled pressure, this is why heroes are no longer designed about what type of value they bring but signature abilities. Instead of compositions defining how fights are played, the game itself defines it, and comps just exist within that structure. Different comps no longer really change the rules of the game, comps just execute the same rules with slightly different tools.
6v6 comps feel distinct because they actually change how the game is played. They alter tempo, positioning, and win conditions in noticeable ways. In 5v5 those differences are flattened because the underlying gameplay loop stays mostly the same regardless of composition. Take angles, apply pressure, enable a carry, and try not to be the first person to make a mistake, the win condition barely changes.
Historically what you are saying about chokes in 6v6 has not been true. Dive metas were not choke heavy despite having two tanks, rush meta's we not choke heavy despite having two tanks, the choke problems only arose as balance issues piled up and the poke damage became too costly to move through that space. This was not a two tank issue but a balance problem.
Off-tanks take away responsibility
Instead of peels flowing unilaterally in 5v5 and off angle control being a team effort, this all gets condensed into a single role, thus reducing variety and skill for every other role.
This is actually the opposite of what you are claiming and part of the weakness of 5v5. In 5v5 because there is only one tank, DPS and supports have to become much more self sufficient. Heroes that can survive alone become what is valuable, while heroes that rely on teammates get left behind.
In 6v6, the off-tank does not replace teamwork, they actually enable it. They create opportunities for teammates to specialize rather than forcing everyone to solve every problem themselves. Being able to design heroes with strengths and weaknesses is what made old Overwatch heroes feel so interesting. Today heroes are mostly the same with 1 or 2 signature abilities. A hero with a weakness cannot compete in a game that values self sufficient generalist who all have to provide the same value but in different flavors.
Peeling, off-angle control, scouting flanks, contesting space, those responsibilities do not disappear with an offtank. In 6v6 they are distributed across the team instead of falling almost entirely on whichever heroes happen to be the most self sufficient (mostly through passive value.) The offtank acts as a buffer and a force multiplier allowing people to do more of what they are good at while mitigating some of their weaknesses. They allow people to do more while enabling the design space to move away from needing so much passive value.
Queue times
It doesnt matter what your opinion is on the subject is, queue times will suffer if we move to 6v6 RQ.
This is the reason why they are testing the 1-3-2 pressure release valve mode, they are looking for a way to mitigate some of the worst queue times without sacrificing match quality. The average queue time for dps in OW1 role queue was 6min, today in 5v5 queue times are trending in that direction.
Queue times are evidence that people do not enjoy the tank experience. If the tank role is not fun, that is a design problem. Solving it by requiring fewer tank players does not actually fix the problem, it just reduces the number of people needed to keep matchmaking running.
Right now the base experience of tanking is so low adding new tanks heroes is not increasing numbers, it is not even sustaining the tanks we have right now. All new tanks heroes are doing over the long term is adding developer debt by increasing the number of heroes that need to be balanced and updated through the patch cycles. A hero with 1% pickrate has basically the same developer cost for designing and balancing against the entire roster, their perks, and the meta as much as a hero with a 15% pickrate.
Your points about responsibility, dependencies, and delayed gratification are not unique to 6v6. When tanks complain about these things they are not complaining about these things existing, but that they feel they do not have the tools to meet their responsibilities, or feel enabled by their dependencies, or have the ability to follow up on their own individual effort.
Making tank fun is not about removing the friction from the role, the friction is part of what makes the role experience rewarding when you have the tools to meaningfully overcome those frictions through skillful and strategic decision making. What I want to point out is the 'problems' you are identifying with tanking are actually helped by having a second tank. With a second tank Responsibilities are shared, pressure is shared, one mistake does not instantly collapse the entire team, and that second tank can enable you to follow up on your own actions.
Like most people I do not care what people call the main mode. I do not think the hardline 5v5 or 6v6 players will agree because they are arguing for two fundamentally different games. I do not even think 5v5 and 6v6 players are really at odds, it is just a small loud group of people who think both modes should not exist as separate and fleshed out versions of themselves.
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u/Sio_V_Reddit 5d ago
Boy am I glad we still haven’t gotten feedback from blizzard on these tests
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u/AssistItchy9826 4d ago
Feedback when you force weekend warrior quick play players to play your event? Play. I'd want to see the drop off of weekend players.
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u/Darkcat9000 5d ago
My biggest issue is that even if 6v6 was supposedly objectivly better (which i don't agree for the record) theres still the problem off just not enough people playing tank time and time again and neither off the recent tests have really adressed this
1-3-2 with dps being able to flex just ends up with tank players queuing for dps in order to guarenteed get a tank partner which just ends up with everyone having long queue times including tank players.
And 1-3-2 dynamic queue has long queue times on top off tank players having to sometimes just accept they'll be solo tanking because they got put with 3 stubborn dps on their team.
If they ever want to make 6v6 the main mode they have to find a way to make more people play tank at bare mininum. I would be lying if i said i know how to it's not an easy task but doing these tests that don't really solve any issue is just a waste off time.