Last year, Blizzard made a huge change to its hero-shooter Overwatch by introducing the role queue system. Designed as a way to make matches more exciting and cut down on toxicity, role queue forces every team to have a balance of two tanks, two DPS, and two support characters. Since its implementation, the Overwatch role queue system has had its fans and its detractors, though it seems Blizzard itself has acknowledged that it could be better. In that spirit, it's been revealed that the Overwatch team has actually been testing a dramatic change to the role queue system over the past couple of months.

According to Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan, Blizzard has been testing a major change to the role queue system over the past couple of months. Internally, Blizzard has been testing an Overwatch role queue composition of three DPS, two support characters, and one tank, with the hope that it would cut down on queue times. It was successful in that regard, but other challenges have arisen that makes it seem unlikely for the 3-2-1 role queue to actually be implemented in the game.

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One issue with only having one tank in a match was that it made "off tanks" like D.Va, Roadhog, and Zarya less viable. For the uninitiated, off tanks are tanks that are best when paired with "main tanks" and by themselves may not be all that effective in any given team composition. Kaplan said that the solution would be to either make those tanks more "main tanky" or balance them as Damage characters instead. The Overwatch team experimented with Roadhog by balancing him as a damage character instead of a tank, but that would then limit the number of choices for tank players even more.

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Another issue that Kaplan revealed about the Overwatch role queue 3-2-1 experiment was that it put too much pressure on the tank hero. He felt that it would result in a less varied meta where players would have anxiety if they didn't pick the "correct" tank. For example, if Reinhardt was deemed the best tank to pick by the community, then the vast majority of matches would see players picking only Reinhardt.

While tank players that tested the 3-2-1 role queue weren't thrilled, support players had a more mixed reception. Kaplan said that support players felt "bad" when the lone tank would die, as that could completely change the dynamic of the match. On the flip side, the support players felt as though they had more freedom to heal other players instead of focusing just on the two tanks that would typically be on the team.

DPS players reported the most positive experience from the 3-2-1 role queue, with matches becoming "more like a traditional FPS" and less like one focused on teamplay. Despite this, though, it seems unlikely that the 3-2-1 role queue will actually be implemented in Overwatch, as it's only being tested internally and hasn't even made its way to the PTR. Even so, some players may want to see Blizzard try something new instead of the 2-2-2 role queue system.

Overwatch is out now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.

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Source: Blizzard