>The problem is not how Overwatch was maintained, the problem is that the core formula isn't fun.

This has been a criticism of Overwatch since day one. If the core problem was the actual core formula it wouldn't have grown so large to begin with. Millions of people wouldn't have billions of hours into the game in the first place if the core formula wasn't fun. I think you have a valid point, but I don't think it's why Overwatch hemorrhages players. None of the issues your brought up are any different than they were for the past 5 years (except role queue).

Also, you can't point to queue times, then mention League has a better system. It wasn't rare at one point (I don't play League anymore) to have 30 minute queues even in diamond. DPS queues in OW currently are 10 minutes max even in GrandMaster.

For the first year of overwatch, me and my friends played for hours. Every night. Every day.

Then they started restricting your team choices. You could no longer have two of the same hero.

You then had to be forced into meta-roles ONLY.

You then had to queue specific roles and were not allowed to pick anything else at all.

All lack of balance and content aside, what the hell?

But they did address that a bit by re-adding open queue, also flex queue helps a little bit if say one day you wouldn't mind playing tank and then another day you just wanna go strictly dps. But I guess it should be fairly straightforward to expect people playing first person shooters to want to play mostly damage characters, and there's probably no easy queue-based fix for that.

Yeah, but by the time they addressed it, it has already given everyone many, many repeated large reasons to move on from the game.

The worst part is/was (unsure if this has changed) that you are hard locked into specific hero categories even if you are queued as a full premade. Even when you are with a full team that is OK with swapping, you can't swap roles as needed. Incidentally, I played dps junkrat back when it was categorised as a defence hero. And the categories were decided and changed by Blizzard - Junkrat might have been the only defense hero I'd be willing to play, and now the only offense hero since they recategorised him - I would rather heal than play mccree, but there you have it

Open queue is plagued with stacks of people queueing as tank/support to get easy wins. So one side rolls over the other in the majority of games.

Yeah, they originally had it all open and found out that it was a mess. Having very distinct and static characters is a neat idea but the problem is that there is usually one set of them that everyone wants to play. I've started just playing tanks to get short queues, but it gets boring quick since there are so few of them and not much difference in play style.

The other issue is that if you play casually and get a terrible healer, then you will almost certainly lose. Being a fantastic player only gets you so far.

Other people mentioned Valorant, and it appears it has a very different style with exchangeable weapons that apply to all classes, but just different abilities and more strategic games. It seems like a really good player can make a bigger difference and play solo. I'm going to look into that now.

It's about power spiking. Blizzard committed to designing without power spikes and gamers prefers power spikes.

Maintenance requires switchups to these dynamics, but when you have created a system that's devoid of these events, your game is going to be stale no matter what you do. New maps, new characters, etc.

What are power spikes?

Power spikes are moments in the design of the game where one player/character is really powerful relative to another player / character. Sometimes in League of Legends heroes are designed to be kind of weak at the start or strong at the end. Sometimes a character is just really strong relative to others for a period of time because you unlock a power before the counters are unlocked, or you purchase a powerful item.

Power spikes can be fun because it can be fun to have a feeling of power, or see the balance change in your favor in a game. They can be frustrating because you can be faced with a power spiked player and feel helpless. It is a design choice with pros and cons.

Surely that's exactly what overwatch ultimates are?

They aren't optional power spikes, so the strategy/engagements are predictable from the moment the team composition is revealed.