‘Chiu on This’ is a short and regular opinion blast

Recently on twitter, Taimou complained about the state of the Overwatch Ladder:

I really want to play ranked and improve but it's fucking impossible to play and like it. From a scale from 1-10 i'd give OW ranked experience a 0. — Timo Kettunen (@DF_Taimou) October 12, 2018

This started a dialogue among various different pros that included Taimou, TviQ, Mendo, Surefour, and others. The prevailing dominant thought is that the ladder needs role queue and as Taimou points out, that likely won’t be implemented before 2020.

Jeff Kaplan did address this earlier this year by saying the essential problem was grouping and how the Overwatch Ladder has been unable to group players with other players they’d actually want to play with.

As that is the case, I think it’s time to again suggest that a third party client be allowed to make a pickup system like FACEIT or ESEA for Overwatch. We don’t know how long role queue will take to get implemented into the game and from what I’ve seen, no pro actually enjoys playing on the ladder. So as it currently stands, I don’t see a problem Blizzard allowing someone like FACEIT to make these types of ladder systems while they work on their own in the meantime.

Not only would this fix the problem for the pros, but it also gives an avenue for the more hardcore audience to play in. It will help alleviate burnout among pros as playing a pug is far more enjoyable than playing ladder games right now. Finally, it would also give a boost to Overwatch streamers as I’ve found pro pugs to be generally highly received by the community at large.

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