5v5: Overwatch's Biggest Mistake 

The game was clearly designed for 6v6 and the fact so many heroes outside of Orisa and Doomfist were ported over 1-for-1 or given minimal changes shows how half-assed the implementation was/is.

My biggest gripe with 5v5, is that because Overwatch _clearly_ wasn't designed for it, all of the pressure and responsibilities that would be normally reserved for *two* Tank players, is all condensed for *one* Tank player. The Role is genuinely stressful.

OW1 tank: pretty fun OW2 Tank: a stressful chore.

I find it funny how people are complaining about support Q times now and dont realize that there role is completely busted to the point of why would i play anything else

5v5 is just team deathmatch

Today I've tried Kiriko and I was asking myself why is it easier to get kills as her than Genji, there's something I clearly dont understand, and been here since S1 OW1

I never played OW1. Picked up OW2 and got invested fast. At its core, the game is seriously fun. But even I, who never experienced it personally, can’t help but wonder if the state of the game wouldn’t be immediately improved by adding the second tank back and nerfing tank health slightly. It just seems to me that another synergy option would immediately alleviate a lot of the frustration that can arise in matches because the tank role is so vital and the support characters are often overcranked. Just more damage mitigation options and more ways to control space within a team (and spread the healing out more thinly) would go a long way in making matches less frustrating for all roles involved.

I never understood why people complained about map pools, most of the maps are horribly designed and heavily favors degenerate playstyles like double sniper. I think alot of the issues with 5v5 could be fixed by universal support nerfs, competitive map pools for comp only around maps that are well balanced like Kings Row, and universal tank hp buffs to compensate for the support nerfs so they can live longer. Knowing Blizzard though, they're just going to nerf dps and tanks every patch whenever they're hard meta and keep on buffing meta supports despite them being objectively op so the bads that play support can feel good by facerolling their keyboard to win games.

My biggest problem is the game doesn't even feel fun as a casual either unless your role/character is extremely busted. So they balance for casual fun but still can't make it fun. They need to pick a side either lean fully into the fun casual side, or fully lean into the competitive side none of this half and half either fully commit or don't commit at all. At least if they leaned into the fun every role would be fun to play, or if they lean into the competitive then its fun to improve. They need to make up their minds.

Introduce the 4th role: off tank. 1-1-2-2 Off tanks are those without shields, main tanks are ones with shields Then you balance around that new fact, and we can have 6v6 without double shield You could also scale, like if you have multiple shield heros, all their shields have 50% health and size

I don't think Overwatch right now is horrible and I'll die on that hill. There's a lot of changes that need to be made but the core of the game is still as good as it has ever been. Every character is fun to use, it's optimized fantastically, the game itself regardless of balance plays well enough to be consistently interesting, the map designs and aesthetics are incredible, and the game has such a strong character to it I can't in good conscience say it's horrible. Overwatch 2 is definitely worse than the first one though, and while I understand why they wanted to change the ShieldWatch gameplay that was really bad near the end of OW1, I do agree it wasn't the best idea. My first game of OW2 beta we immediately got rolled and spawn killed an insane amount, and that sort of thing just didn't happen as much in the first game. Matches in general feel a lot shorter than they did in OW1. Feels like 50% of the matches I play are either rolling or getting rolled immediately, and it restricts which tanks you can really use. I also *hate, hate* competitive games & feel like trying to shoehorn this game into an eSport ruined it. If you ask me, OW1 shouldn't have had comp until a few years after launch. The game is MUCH more fun in a more casual setting a la TF2 imo. FPS games like Counter-Strike didn't launch with a ranked system, and the fanbase blossomed into a fanbase that wanted competitive because the casual game was so good. That's where Blizzard really missed their mark. Now all people care about is their comp rank. Removing medals, the post-game lobby, and all level progression (until recently) was by far the worst thing about the sequel for me. I hated having only one thing to progress towards without spending money, and no disrespect to comp players, I don't want to spend 10 hours sweating just to see a nice shiny badge that just means ultimately my matches are going to get even more sweaty. Overwatch is a 10/10 game when it comes to the actual base game and a 4/10 when it comes to marketing and making their fanbase happy.

Maybe i'm biased but I thought 6v6 was way more fun because I was off-tank. With 5v5 now, the fights swing massively if the tank dies. Unless your team has ults when your tank dies, you're like 95% losing that fight. As a result of this, I'm now a mei one trick that tries to peel for my supports.

Some context I played OverWatch since the beta and have seen the ups and downs of the game and all of its interesting balance States. After being locked in with goats and double shield for so long I was a big supporter of 5v5 because when I originally played it, it was fast paced, fun and you could actually shoot things instead of shields for 15 minute's. But after playing 5v5 for this long, I'll come to the realization that the only way for them to legitimately make this work is to rework half of the roster which is not feasible. The crazy thing is because of the 5v5 format it's even more unenjoyable for casual players than it is for even competitive players. Because I have casual friends who don't take OverWatch seriously who are having a miserable time because they're just getting dominated by a sniper for 90% of the game, spawn camped or they just shoot the horse that practically immortal in quick play and then they just stop playing the game because it's super frustrating to them. Also 5v5 is the only time in OverWatch history I have legitimately spawn camped a team in competitive multiple times in a row. I have never spawned Camped in my entire life in OverWatch one which is a testament to how poorly balanced 5v5 is that I can spawn camp someone at my supposed rank, actually incredible. And finally Nerf mobility, actually brain dead how so many heroes can mess up all of their abilities and get out just because they have a movement ability. Cough cough Doomfist...

Guys let’s make this go viral it has to!!

5v5 wasn't made for balance I think, they just made it happen to solve the queue times problem, if you have 2 tanks now DPS players are gonna start complaining that their queues are way too long like back in OW1 And there's way more DPS players than tank players so Blizzard will just do what the majority wants It sucks because tank was my main role back in OW1, now I won't touch it unless I'm playing with a friend who I know will at least help me, most randoms just expect the tank to soak up damage for them and then type "tank diff" when they lose the game to the tank that's actually getting help, it fucking sucks

they could make a system where u can only have 1 main tank and 1 off tank so there wouldnt be any double shield metas, it would be hard to balance tho and would lead to a lot of toxicity between tank players

Thanks for the laughs : )

Team fights were the best now it’s so unbalanced. It was so much more competitive

I always look forward to your videos, especially your critiques on OW.

What gets me is how all those "High level players" in the 6v6 vs 5v5 debate complained about tank synergies but wouldnt even recognized that support synergies are WORSE because they are easier to combine. You can take Ana Bap illari kiriko lifeweaver mercy and mix and match as you wish and you still have crazy synergy to have to deal with.

Thank you for helping me realize how structural some of these issues are. Now I have a much better understanding of why OW2 put me in a thermonuclear rage every time I tried to play. I had to walk away from my favorite game of all time. It's a shame, really. I don't think the true potential of the original Overwatch design was ever fully realized.

Another thing I haven’t seen enough people mention is that payload/hybrid maps don’t work with 5v5. Control, flashpoint, and push are okay but I realized that with 1 tank the payload maps are ruined. Poke is too dominant and if you don’t play hitscan better than the enemy it’s auto gg. Even if you didn’t have hitscan players a good tank synergy could add counter play in OW1. I quit all payload and hybrid maps cause they aren’t worth playing outside of barely kings row. I’ll take the suspension over watchpoint or Numbani. They really should have went 7v7 instead of 5v5

I have a theory. We all know that the devs never intended to complete the pve before ow2 came out and the real reason it was changed to 5v5 was so the OWL would lose less money. OWL has been a financial failure and getting rid of one more tank on the teams rosters helped Blizzard mitigate losses. I can only see 6v6 coming back when the entirety of OWL goes belly up and closes shop. As it should honestly.

maybe its just because of the heros I enjoy to play(tracer, soldier, genji, cas) but 5v5 feels like I have even less inpact in the game and the more flank baced 1v1 one styles of play (not meaning widow 1v1s that are still very prominent) that were always so intresting and engaging are gone and now every fight feels like one big brual, where suports feel untoucable and just dump healing and imo's into tanks for 2 minutes waiting for someone to die and then they get rolled.

Biggest problem I have right now is that ranked inflation and division is still bad. Now that all these players won’t decay and can just sit in their ranked when they choose to play it just ruins the experience. I just switched to pc with 45 hours logged, I should already be masters but there’s nothing you can do. Then when I do get a lucky set with randoms( like 5-4) , I get punished because going even or losing one more then I win lowers my division. The problem some people have trying to rank up is the simple fact they won’t get rid of Divisions.

Another Greed Ranty time To eat and drink to this while i pain as a tracer otp

Great content as always bigman, big fan of your takes, always nice to see someone talk without rose tinted glasses or 'support' lenses.

Overwatch doomer as well here, but if they add 6v6 back and stop the company from making the absolutely braindead decisions killing the game

i have been thinking for a while: that healing in this game is just way to much and they should just cut all healing in half and give tanks a passive that they receive more healing or make healing %-based maybe even give every dps a small amount of lifesteal that would nerf one shots, make dps better, make tanks better ... ps just a short reminder that the dps passive is still to reload 25% faster after an elim... let that sink in

Its so true. I Play ranked at Free hero choice and most games turn out beeing 2 Tanks 1 dps 2 heal on both sides. Clearly to See ppl missing 2 tank

With the change to 5v5, many psuedotanks like mei and Doomfist should be dps that fill the "jungle" role of flanking and peeling for backline.

Overwatch 1 was a competitive shooter for skilled players. Overwatch 2 is a party game for casual players. OW 1 died because of lack of content (developers left to get some milk for 3 years) and bad balancing at the end of its lifespan. OW 2 will die because of poor balancing, broken promises (Activision Blizzard force the developers to stop working on PvE), greedy monetization (out of the developers control), broken rank & matchmaking system, and pandering to new audience while loyal, diehard players are leaving. That last one is just my prediction, tell me yours if you feel like it. I love Overwatch but if They keeps nerfing Genji then I’m gonna quit soon, Thank you for reading. This game frustrates us fans to no end.

As a tank player I’ve played tank about 95 percent less in OW2: not because I hate the role but because it’s not fun anymore. I can’t pick the heroes I like because it’s orisa and Zarya and those aren’t the tanks I like. So now I play Mei and try to play like an off tank. I think that’s why Bastion and Torb are good nowb

but yeah I think 5v5 was less about it being better for the game and more about it being easier to balance for the devs compared to 6v6, and they still cant even handle 5v5 balance lmao

I've given up on this game. It was designed with roles so it can evolve into an MMO. They axed that, and all that's left is a course corrected mess of game design. They unironically need to make OW3, and build it from the ground up to not have such distinct roles. Even if it means cutting fan favorite heroes.

ppl that dont want to go back to 6v6 bc of "double shield" forget that they literally reworked the hero thats most important for that comp so double shield is in no way similarly possible as it was back then, granted orisa is still a huge problem but thats because of a different reason. I personally have never played the original overwatch (sadly) and would love to play 6v6 without it being a custom gamemode because i feel that i would perfectly fit the removed off tank role...

While I agree with everything said, none of these problems occur in open queue. Idk why more ppl just don't play open. It's so much better.

Imo it’s only less fun for tank. I love The freedom of angles on dps, and being less healbotty on sup

Yeah 5v5 feels terrible. It feels decent to not have so much clutter going on in fights but as a person who used to play all roles and now only plays DPS when I wanna play on hard mode (all the time now) and support when i wanna just chill. I think there COULD be a way to make 5v5 feel healthy but i dont know if we could theory craft our way into that. 6v6 would mitigate the most important issues and remove this issue where tanks feel either unkillable or like free money since they would have to reduce the numbers. More over i think bringing back the dynamic of tank synergies would also be healthy for the tank category. This is just because it feels better to have someone to rely on where your specific job is centered. DPS have a 2nd DPS to help them secure picks. Supports have secondary supports to help heal and support the team with their powerful abilities (just by design). Tanks need another tank to help them dominate or answer to pressure on certain maps. Imagine a world where you can have one tank dive the backline and another walk the team in. Im not gunna say Widow will become trash but maybe that would open up for us to finally look at reworking her or AT LEAST looking into beefing up some other aspect for her kit since the only things that have ever changed for Widow... is numbers

There is little that can be done against the overwatch devs as they are the most idiotic team you can find in the industry and i swear to god someone need to scream that to their faces i mean how can you ruin a game in such a manner is beyond me

the fact you HAVE to play widow/hanzo against a good widow now is just bs back in ov1 our off tank could attack her now ur entire team has to go dive or poke which is less than likely in solo queue ;n;

Like always you speak out what I think!

It’s literally genuinely as if they didn’t think about the overall balance of each individual character in the role that they fulfill in terms of both tanks. It’s almost as if they don’t understand the meaning of each character and the potential complete and utter predicament that both tanks actually fulfilled simultaneously. And it just disregarded the fact that it was literally the other tanks fault to handle certain things that one tank and or DPS can’t do. 12:59

The more people talking about this, the more likely we will have ow1 back Ik I'm coping 😢

Based on in the points you made can you balance the game 5v5? Like I keep thinking well 2 roles have 2 people while 1 has only 1 person for that role so how is that going to be balanced?

I wonder what your take would be about 5v5 with 2 tanks, 2 dps, and 1 giga support?

I'd like to see how a 1-1-1 w/2 flex spots would work. Maybe shit but 2-2-1 is garbage. In the intro you talked about a "high skill" era of the game, which sounds crazy to me. I started playing when role lock/Sig dropped and it feels like it's always been a game about horse shit button pressing.

I miss Zarya Rein bubble combo

I said it before and i will say it again, the change was only forced, because most modern trend games are 5v5 so there are already friend groups, but OW1 was the only 6v6 game, so probably many of tge 5v5 grouos dont wanna play with a random or dont want to search for 1 more person, so that they could only play 1 game with them, is what i believe has been thought at activision blizzard and why this change was made

Imo the biggest problem with 6v6 was Orisa. Now that she is reworked, I think it would work well.

ranting about a dead franchise smh

This is like the 3rd video with this title today

1:44 lmao, at first I thought you lost connection to the server I'm glad I'm not on the balance team because there's no way this issue gets solved in the overwatch 'role frame' - both the count and standard responsibilities are holding the frame together, like mentioned in the video. However, we're going to be stuck in this limbo where they basically just juggle numbers in all patches. It's like spitting on a house fire. OW2 apparently can't decide what it wants to be; Kiriko's line fits here really well: "Some of the old, some of the new". So everything just ends up lumped together and - uh oh - turns out to be a shitstorm with a forecast of more turds incoming. You feel like crap even after winning matches. Close, honestly engaging games are gone. The enemy team throws braindead stuff at you, so you've got to do the same if you want to keep up most of the time. I'll be honest, I don't know why people queue up into competitive (see Greed's previous videos on ranked and matchmaking), and also why people play tanks. And holy crap everyone wanted to play tank when OW2 just launched, because 'rawr the powaa I alone can wield' (which is fine, I mean, who wouldn't get excited over that). Yeah, well, with that power came responsibility like a bad hangover. Respect to tank players out there, their patience is infinite probably. But gotta give credit somewhere - the soundtrack is always recognisably overwatch, and the visuals are dynamic and pleasant to look at (except maybe for the too sterile UI and that time when night Eichenwalde was blinding everyone).

honestly cant wait for 4v4 in ow3 and then 3v3 and then 2v2 we going MGE but OW5 babyyyyy

I think 6v6 problem definitions of tank and dps is vague. ball and dva have mobility like genji and tracer. zarya have good damage and bubble. but dps don't have big health pool or impactfull ult like tanks. some tank can perform dps role easier than real dps hero. this is fact(goats pick offrnsive tanks like zarya and dva) people blame double shield but if 2 offtank be meta ,tank have so long queue time cause tank queue have dps and pure tank player. this is also why blizzard can't make tanks be more powerful and flexible. if making tank be powerful,tanks be essentially better dps heroes. anway,i think problem 6v6 is cllarify definition of tank and dps hero. my idea is reduce dps hero ult charge point and dps ult be weaker or reworking. this way dps can be divided into quick ult charge and tanks ca be divided in to slow charge impactfull ult. and dps quick charge ult have potential of simple 2tank synegy be more complex and challenging(making hero picks more strategic)

6v6 is dogshit, but 5v5 isn't much better. 6v6 was great when it wasn't pumping out heros, but the moment shields became more accessible, it kind of flipped everything on its head. make shields too good, and double shield becomes oppressive, nerf shields too much and double off tank becomes meta, buff dps to encourage shield break and double shield becomes nessisary, nerf tanks across the board and double shield again becomes dominant. orisa was never the issue because although her rework fixed her, the MOMENT she was gutted people immidiately flocked to rein/sig until eventually they realized orisa even when in a laughably nerfed state was still busted with sigma. 5v5 however, kind of struggles with tanks feeling too much pressure especially since their "Raid boss" status has basically been stripped away from them slowly with time. honestly, the BEST solution imho is to introduce a bruiser role, lump mei, roadhog, bastion, junkerqueen etc into that class, give it a unique passive, and essentially we get a 6v6 meta, heros like hog and mei who are like, hybrid tank/dps find a role they can fit into, and 5v5 fans AND 6v6 fans are happy.

You are correct with your points however this is a team based game so you should let other team member do their part. Tracer or Genji for example are very good against Widow. Ana or Widow can deal with Pharah. It obviously feels bad if team mates die to Pharah or Widow but being ale to ping enemies warns your team mates. I think that it is not so bad. You are still correct though Support ist busted🤣 It is what the game has come down to😅 OW2 is still very fun even if OW2 doesn’t feel like an upgrade to OW

Your comment about the tank having to deal with the widow but can’t. What me and my friends do is just go Lucio tracer and bully the shit out of her.

Facts ♥

Paladins did 5v5 right. No role queue, all heros healnoutside of combat. Supoorts heal a ton but theres ways to reduce that healing so you cant perma heal. Also the tanks are strong but more than two and its bad.

LET'S GOOO ANOTHER OVERWATCH RANTTTTT WWWW

Seems like you make a good case each time for 6v6 and the ow1. Okay that's just my prediction. Now to watch the video if I am correct.

ur ana and ram example is kinda meh since zen is a dps at this point lol. im a support player so might be bias but ig their kit is a lot but dps kits are very..... repetitive since its just damage and thats their role dpsing to kill but sojourn the newest dps and her kit is like a compile dps together: soldier projetile, ashe headshot, random aoe damage, a random movement ability and a microwave ult. i notice that support hate tanks and dps, dps hate supports and tank hate dps, its not 100% true but im seeing a lot of this. i think because each kit kinda counters each other, 6v6 to 5v5. the tank receive so much damage and support cant keep up so they need to buff heal numbers which dps cant burst through the heal so they buff damage numbers and its too bursty then tank needs more survival to against burst damage which feels so bad for chip damage dps and supports needs the utility and heal numbers to keep up which just makes power creep. but nerfing everything will make everyone angry so no players. but if u nerf healing then dps damage will go insane i notice in ur vid that: after primary fire, zen hands will spin but when u use the volley, the spinning anitmation is gone for the match. i main mercy and her nerfs are just SO MUCH since her dam boost is 1/6 weaker which is 16.67%. and she cant ga much now cause HITSCANS EVERYWHERE, her ga cooldown is just bruh and her dam boost feels like nothing like i used to amp 2.5k and now 1.5k cause less damage = enemy live more then attack back then u have to heal more then less damage. but 5v5 just dont allow her to use cover and dam boost. i dont want her to get rework since she is soo fun learning the techs that punish u now :D. i curled back when u kiss at the end lol

All I want is players on my team to not go 6 and 12 with

5v5 could work if they knew how to balance a goddang game. Using low elos in balancing data is such a poor excuse of game design in a competitive gamemode.

Samito made good vid on topic

so many people want 6v6 back. i dont get it. we should all uninstall and stop playing until we get it back

whomp whomp

5v5 is fun but supports are so fucking overtuned

Stompwatch

5v5 is ok IF only with 1 healer.

one small correction, skill floor refers to the thought process, while skill ceiling refers to the mechanical aspect. overwatch is a game that requires, for the most part, very low skill ceiling. correct me if you are refering to the aim aspect

love Samito.

I prefer 5v5 because, in theory, it is faster paced and rewards mechanical skill more as getting a pick is more impactful now compared to 6v6. However, I agree that there are a ton of new balance issues that has come up. One thing I don't get is that I've heard a lot of high-level players and content creators voice out the same concerns and issues (Zen Discord, Kiriko Suzu, Orisa tankiness, etc.) while taking into account bottom-top (rank) balance and yet the developers just don't do anything about it quickly enough or at all.

When i try 5vs5 i uninstaled my fav' game because its no my favorite game anymore is just an Hero shooter without soul and strat

The game needs 12v12

5v5 isnt even bad people just cant adjust or thier simply bad

I finally found a way to make 5v5 balancable… Add another tank to the team XD

Bring back 6v6

No 5v5 is good.balance is the true problem. Lets talk about bastion,tracer,mei,syemmetra,sombra,sojourn,and the fear of hanzo, don’t even look at junk rat mercy,moira,kiriko,baptise ball,orisa,Dva eat everything matrix,ramatra press e to win. And junker dike i mean queen. And mark my words because I named this games trouble characters genji is gonna get nerfed

Y do u talk like that