Overwatch 2’s flawed design and gamer toxicity drive off support players – and drive up queues

    
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Heroes do actually die, but...

It looks like some bad apples in the Overwatch 2 community and some overall poor design are spoiling the bunch for everyone. The game’s two queues – open, which lets players create freeform teams without hard role requirements, and defined, which enforces role requirements – are starved of support players.

According to anecdotal reports all across the internet, open queue matches are ending up messy without someone actively choosing a support role, and dedicated support players are being bullied or overwhelmed by the 5v5 makeup to the point that they don’t want to play the game, resulting in everyone waiting in a queue.

“Roadhog is the worst tank to support in Overwatch 2, not because he sucks but because you literally get blamed as support for not healing enough when this MF hits the vape every two seconds,” reads one player’s account. Other fans beseech players to walk a mile in support’s shoes for some perspective, while others just simply say that the role just isn’t fun because it’s constantly being waylaid.

The nexus of this discussion appears to be in a forum post that points out queue times are worsening, which has spawned several arguments on why: Players are pointing their fingers at various reasons, from bad matchmaking to bad monetization like the decision to put a new support character behind several levels of battle pass.

Readers will recall that Blizzard has been taking in feedback and considering some adjustments for Season Two, which includes nerfing overpowered DPS heroes and trying to halt the “death ball” team makeup, while the game’s latest patch has primarily been about bug fixing. Overall, it would seem that players of the shooter are all going to be twiddling their thumbs for some time yet.

sources: Twitter (1, 2, 3), Reddit, official forums (1, 2, 3) via Kotaku and GamesRadar
Activision-Blizzard is considered a controversial gaming company owing to a long string of scandals over the last few years, including the Blitzchung boycott, mass layoffs, labor disputes, and executive pay fiasco. In 2021, the company was sued by California for fostering a work environment rife with sexual harassment and discrimination, the disastrous corporate response to which compounded Blizzard’s ongoing pipeline issues and the widespread perception that its online games are in decline. Multiple state and federal agencies are investigating the company as employees unionize and call for Bobby Kotick’s resignation. As of 2022, the company is being acquired by no less than Microsoft.
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