Esports publication Upcomer is the latest to report that a 2-2-2 role lock is coming to the Overwatch League, and yesterday ex-Gladiators player Fissure confirmed that it is coming in stage 4.
While not confirmed for the actual game, it has long been rumored that a 2-2-2 lock is coming to the game itself soon, probably around the same time as it's added to OWL. The Upcomer article says Blizzard has delayed the rollout several times.
A 2-2-2 lock (meaning a team can only have 2 DPS characters, 2 tanks, and 2 supports) would be the most substantial balance change made to the game since they removed the ability to have duplicate heroes on a team in the summer of 2016. Many players have argued over the years that a 2-2-2 lock would help balance the game and prevent the notorious situation of having few tanks or supports in low-level games, while others have argued that it would stagnate creativity of team compositions. The argument finally came to a head over the last year when a composition called GOATS, consisting of three tanks and three supports, began dominating the metagame and the Overwatch League, resulting in widespread backlash to the game's balance and OWL (as well as harassment against completely undeserving targets). Over the last few months, the growing consensus in the competitive community has been that a 2-2-2 lock is the only way to fully kill GOATS and similar compositions that exploit the game's unbalanced issue around multiple healers with area-of-effect abilities.
If this lock were added to the game, it would likely be accompanied by a role queue, another feature long requested by the playerbase that would allow players to queue up for a game in their preferred role, eliminating the bickering and debate over which role to play in exchange for what will likely be longer queue times. Blizzard has previously claimed that their internal testing indicated a role queue would increase queue times to an unacceptable degree, but they have never provided hard numbers on what that means.
It's unclear if this change would also be accompanied by the major balance changes that would likely be needed to accomodate this new situation. Many characters have been buffed or nerfed based on their relation to GOATS, and a number of characters like Sombra or Brigitte fill hybrid or niche roles that are disrupted by a forced role lock. One reason I was hoping that the rumored "Overwatch 2" would be a completely new game instead of a singleplayer expansion is because I feel these fundamental balance issues are too severe to be fixed with patches and bandaids and need to be completely redesigned from the ground up.
In any case, OWL stage 4 and its 2-2-2 role lock will begin on July 25. It is unknown when Blizzard plans to make an official announcement.
While not confirmed for the actual game, it has long been rumored that a 2-2-2 lock is coming to the game itself soon, probably around the same time as it's added to OWL. The Upcomer article says Blizzard has delayed the rollout several times.
A 2-2-2 lock (meaning a team can only have 2 DPS characters, 2 tanks, and 2 supports) would be the most substantial balance change made to the game since they removed the ability to have duplicate heroes on a team in the summer of 2016. Many players have argued over the years that a 2-2-2 lock would help balance the game and prevent the notorious situation of having few tanks or supports in low-level games, while others have argued that it would stagnate creativity of team compositions. The argument finally came to a head over the last year when a composition called GOATS, consisting of three tanks and three supports, began dominating the metagame and the Overwatch League, resulting in widespread backlash to the game's balance and OWL (as well as harassment against completely undeserving targets). Over the last few months, the growing consensus in the competitive community has been that a 2-2-2 lock is the only way to fully kill GOATS and similar compositions that exploit the game's unbalanced issue around multiple healers with area-of-effect abilities.
If this lock were added to the game, it would likely be accompanied by a role queue, another feature long requested by the playerbase that would allow players to queue up for a game in their preferred role, eliminating the bickering and debate over which role to play in exchange for what will likely be longer queue times. Blizzard has previously claimed that their internal testing indicated a role queue would increase queue times to an unacceptable degree, but they have never provided hard numbers on what that means.
It's unclear if this change would also be accompanied by the major balance changes that would likely be needed to accomodate this new situation. Many characters have been buffed or nerfed based on their relation to GOATS, and a number of characters like Sombra or Brigitte fill hybrid or niche roles that are disrupted by a forced role lock. One reason I was hoping that the rumored "Overwatch 2" would be a completely new game instead of a singleplayer expansion is because I feel these fundamental balance issues are too severe to be fixed with patches and bandaids and need to be completely redesigned from the ground up.
In any case, OWL stage 4 and its 2-2-2 role lock will begin on July 25. It is unknown when Blizzard plans to make an official announcement.
