Lets talk about 2/2/2
For this talk I'm going to briefly summarize 2/2/2, what the community and its leaders believe to be the advantages of it, and finally why I believe those reasons are incorrect and how this is a short term solution to an age old issue.
Currently there's a large push to force 2/2/2 role queue onto the overwatch ladder and professional play. For those of you that don't know what this means, the idea is that you would specify what role you would fill before queuing up on the competitive ladder. (DPS, Tank or Support). Once in game you would have to pick a hero from that category. A team would be locked into having two DPS, two tanks and two support heroes for every match.
The main point for switching to this system is that you'd have more balanced games when queuing on the ladder. Since your team is unable to run 4 DPS players you'd have some form of tanks and support in every game. The idea is that this would create a less toxic environment, allow for players to get the role they want to play and to allow for more teamwork overall. It would also possible to create a system where you have a different SR for each role which would put you into a more balanced game for you to try a new role.
The second point is that limiting the team compositions would better allow Blizzard to balance the game because of less variables. For example, Bridgette is difficult to balance because in the GOATs meta she's very strong, but outside of it shes actually quite weak. So do you make her weaker in GOATs but then run the risk of making her useless in any other composition? Jeff Kaplan did mention that if the 2/2/2 meta was enforced that balance changes would happen before it was rolled out. Ideally we'd see a game where the heroes were more balanced within their roles.
The third point i can find is that it would allow compositions to be more specialized. What this does is create a clear cut weakness that you can exploit and build a counter to. Ideally this would push the game more towards the developers original intention of having players swap heroes more often and allowing viewers/players to see more heroes and strategies.
The last point that has been briefly spoken of is that it would allow viewers to better experience what they see in OWL. They watch OWL and see this great unity with all players filling their roles and doing whats expected of them, then they hop on ladder and experience what could be some of the worst games they've ever played.
I've looked at forum posts both on reddit and battle.net, reviewed some of the main interviews with blizzard developers both on live streams and off. These are the core reasons that I've been able to pick out with good amount of reasoning behind them but I have issues with all of them.
The first point is technically true. You would undoubtedly have more balanced games if every team was forced into 2/2/2. The problem is that this doesn't necessarily mean you'll have less toxic games. Players can still pick heroes you may or may not like having on your team, or heroes that aren't good against what the enemy team is running. Secondly, having the correct heroes selected doesn't mean your team will work together. Everyone has played a game where everyone made the correct hero picks but couldn't follow up on execution. This means more players will play towards what the meta tells them to and away from what their personal skill set enables them to do. Limiting the player's expression which leads me into my next point.
The biggest disadvantage of forcing 2/2/2 is that it removes a significant amount of creativity in the current game. Some will say that it actually encourages more heroes to be picked since there will be better balance and compare it to when Blizzard locked 1 hero limit per team. The problem is that with 1 hero limit per team balance was impossible. Simply because of the immense amount of combinations you could create, if one winston was weak, two could be over powered. The difference is that while hero limit made balancing impossible, not having 2/2/2 forces only makes balance difficult. There is a great difference between impossible and difficult. To say that the game needs to be easier to balance is to say that Blizzard is bad at their job which is our second point.
Balancing a game isn't easy but you shouldn't seek shortcuts to complete your objective. There is no need to limit the game to make your job easier. With constant balance patches you can slowly move towards your goal. Its the lack of changes that keep putting OW in the same spot over and over. Currently, Blizzard is in the same spot they were with dive being too strong - They have the decision to nerf heroes but are unwilling to. Which i believe is the biggest reason Blizzard will enforce 2/2/2
Blizzard is so afraid to nerf popular heroes that they would rather change the game to 2/2/2 and buff non-meta heroes.
At first this seems like a good thing but i believe after a couple months of play a lot of players would be quite upset at this. Heroes that aren't favored or seem "annoying" will need to be buffed to be able to compete with the best heroes in the game. Mei, Sym, Torb, Junkrat will all have to be as viable as Widowmaker or Tracer. Personally, I believe the game has reached its peak in terms of damage and healing. The damage output is very high for DPS, Tanks and Supports to the point that it needs to be toned down a bit to avoid the power struggle between damage,mobility and healing creep that currently exists in the game. If the option is to nerf the strong heroes then we can easily do that now and provide more options without the 2/2/2 restriction.
The third point is what my older posts and video is about. If compositions have a clear weakness then we should see more swaps, but swapping happens too late in overwatch. Hero swapping doesn't take into account attack vs defense. The attackers can easily scout and change their lineup to win against the enemies, meaning the defense will or should lose every time. Eventually teams will come up with a neutral lineup that can deal with multiple strategies and we will end up in the same situation - a single stale meta. Not only that but balancing a game so that strategies have greater weaknesses can be balanced for currently, there's no real reason to employ a whole new role queue just to achieve this.
The last point i believe is the major dream that the community is obsessed with. Everyone is so obsessed with OW being like it is in OWL. The truth is this, ladder play will never be OWL. You will never achieve that level of coordination, teamwork or skill on the ladder. Even if you play the same heroes the community does not have the execution nor the skill set needed to pull off what they see on stream. No matter how many rules you force on your teammates you will never experience a predefined 6-stack experience. If players want to experience that they need to join community leagues and play in tournaments. The idea that you can have the same chemistry with 5 random strangers as you can with month long leagues is ridiculous and to force the game down that path violently is only going to make it worse in the long run when this dream is not reached.
Overwatch will still have its core issues with 2/2/2, that answers are provided by blizzard instead of giving the players balanced tools to deal with the situation on their own terms. As long as blizzard provides unbalanced answers then the meta will fall into a single composition, either based on map or enemy composition. It's when Blizzard forces a player to one option that the player base gets upset.
Currently there's a large push to force 2/2/2 role queue onto the overwatch ladder and professional play. For those of you that don't know what this means, the idea is that you would specify what role you would fill before queuing up on the competitive ladder. (DPS, Tank or Support). Once in game you would have to pick a hero from that category. A team would be locked into having two DPS, two tanks and two support heroes for every match.
The main point for switching to this system is that you'd have more balanced games when queuing on the ladder. Since your team is unable to run 4 DPS players you'd have some form of tanks and support in every game. The idea is that this would create a less toxic environment, allow for players to get the role they want to play and to allow for more teamwork overall. It would also possible to create a system where you have a different SR for each role which would put you into a more balanced game for you to try a new role.
The second point is that limiting the team compositions would better allow Blizzard to balance the game because of less variables. For example, Bridgette is difficult to balance because in the GOATs meta she's very strong, but outside of it shes actually quite weak. So do you make her weaker in GOATs but then run the risk of making her useless in any other composition? Jeff Kaplan did mention that if the 2/2/2 meta was enforced that balance changes would happen before it was rolled out. Ideally we'd see a game where the heroes were more balanced within their roles.
The third point i can find is that it would allow compositions to be more specialized. What this does is create a clear cut weakness that you can exploit and build a counter to. Ideally this would push the game more towards the developers original intention of having players swap heroes more often and allowing viewers/players to see more heroes and strategies.
The last point that has been briefly spoken of is that it would allow viewers to better experience what they see in OWL. They watch OWL and see this great unity with all players filling their roles and doing whats expected of them, then they hop on ladder and experience what could be some of the worst games they've ever played.
I've looked at forum posts both on reddit and battle.net, reviewed some of the main interviews with blizzard developers both on live streams and off. These are the core reasons that I've been able to pick out with good amount of reasoning behind them but I have issues with all of them.
The first point is technically true. You would undoubtedly have more balanced games if every team was forced into 2/2/2. The problem is that this doesn't necessarily mean you'll have less toxic games. Players can still pick heroes you may or may not like having on your team, or heroes that aren't good against what the enemy team is running. Secondly, having the correct heroes selected doesn't mean your team will work together. Everyone has played a game where everyone made the correct hero picks but couldn't follow up on execution. This means more players will play towards what the meta tells them to and away from what their personal skill set enables them to do. Limiting the player's expression which leads me into my next point.
The biggest disadvantage of forcing 2/2/2 is that it removes a significant amount of creativity in the current game. Some will say that it actually encourages more heroes to be picked since there will be better balance and compare it to when Blizzard locked 1 hero limit per team. The problem is that with 1 hero limit per team balance was impossible. Simply because of the immense amount of combinations you could create, if one winston was weak, two could be over powered. The difference is that while hero limit made balancing impossible, not having 2/2/2 forces only makes balance difficult. There is a great difference between impossible and difficult. To say that the game needs to be easier to balance is to say that Blizzard is bad at their job which is our second point.
Balancing a game isn't easy but you shouldn't seek shortcuts to complete your objective. There is no need to limit the game to make your job easier. With constant balance patches you can slowly move towards your goal. Its the lack of changes that keep putting OW in the same spot over and over. Currently, Blizzard is in the same spot they were with dive being too strong - They have the decision to nerf heroes but are unwilling to. Which i believe is the biggest reason Blizzard will enforce 2/2/2
Blizzard is so afraid to nerf popular heroes that they would rather change the game to 2/2/2 and buff non-meta heroes.
At first this seems like a good thing but i believe after a couple months of play a lot of players would be quite upset at this. Heroes that aren't favored or seem "annoying" will need to be buffed to be able to compete with the best heroes in the game. Mei, Sym, Torb, Junkrat will all have to be as viable as Widowmaker or Tracer. Personally, I believe the game has reached its peak in terms of damage and healing. The damage output is very high for DPS, Tanks and Supports to the point that it needs to be toned down a bit to avoid the power struggle between damage,mobility and healing creep that currently exists in the game. If the option is to nerf the strong heroes then we can easily do that now and provide more options without the 2/2/2 restriction.
The third point is what my older posts and video is about. If compositions have a clear weakness then we should see more swaps, but swapping happens too late in overwatch. Hero swapping doesn't take into account attack vs defense. The attackers can easily scout and change their lineup to win against the enemies, meaning the defense will or should lose every time. Eventually teams will come up with a neutral lineup that can deal with multiple strategies and we will end up in the same situation - a single stale meta. Not only that but balancing a game so that strategies have greater weaknesses can be balanced for currently, there's no real reason to employ a whole new role queue just to achieve this.
The last point i believe is the major dream that the community is obsessed with. Everyone is so obsessed with OW being like it is in OWL. The truth is this, ladder play will never be OWL. You will never achieve that level of coordination, teamwork or skill on the ladder. Even if you play the same heroes the community does not have the execution nor the skill set needed to pull off what they see on stream. No matter how many rules you force on your teammates you will never experience a predefined 6-stack experience. If players want to experience that they need to join community leagues and play in tournaments. The idea that you can have the same chemistry with 5 random strangers as you can with month long leagues is ridiculous and to force the game down that path violently is only going to make it worse in the long run when this dream is not reached.
Overwatch will still have its core issues with 2/2/2, that answers are provided by blizzard instead of giving the players balanced tools to deal with the situation on their own terms. As long as blizzard provides unbalanced answers then the meta will fall into a single composition, either based on map or enemy composition. It's when Blizzard forces a player to one option that the player base gets upset.