My pitch for Role Queue

Before I start, let's go over the benefits and drawbacks of role Queue:

Pros:

- You are guaranteed to be able to play your role

- No more games where you have 6 support mains and get stomped

- Guaranteed to have tanks & supports who know what they're doing

- Possibly different ranks for each role on the same account (I'm a GM-Celestial support, but like platinum DPS on a good day)

- Less likely to have OTPs of the same character on the same team

Cons:

- Limited flexibility within team comp (for example, you can't switch from healpool to tankpool)

- Forces 2-2-2

- Longer Queue times for popular roles (ahem DPS)

We all know that games of rivals tend to be a stomp one way or the other. It is my belief that a large part of that is because people are playing off-main. When you load into a game and have 4 support mains and 2 DPS mains, and the other team has 2-2-2 or even 1-3-2, you're just cooked, the other teams tanks will run you over while your flexing tanks constantly die. Or if you have no support mains, you just take the L on heals. Obviously there are players who are very good at flexing, but it's no surprise that everyone is especially good at one area while being maybe not quite so good in another, that's just how humans be.

Now onto my proposal: I'd like to pitch you, a "soft" role queue. This is how it would work:

1. When you are ready to queue, you will choose which roles you are comfortable playing. You can choose all 3, just two, or just one.

2. When you load into a game, each player will be restricted in terms of which role they can play, however, this restriction isn't necessarily to a singular role. You could be marked as a tank/support player for example, and only barred from DPS.

3. Importantly, the restrictions will be equal across both teams. So both teams might have a player forced to tank, a player who can tank or support, a player who can DPS or support, two players with no restrictions, and another player marked tank / DPS.

Doing this would allow players who enjoy flexing to still flex, it would drastically cut queue times for players willing to flex, and it would also enable those who can't/don't want to play certain roles to flat out never be forced to play them. It would also not remove the possibility of doing 3 support comps, or 3-0-3, or GATOR, but it may not be possible every match. Importantly though, if one team does stray from 2-2-2, the other team will be guaranteed to be able to match, keeping it fair. There is also no reason that 2-2-2 should be required, if there are wayyy more DPS in the Q than other roles, Netease could do the funny and allow a game of mandatory 1-4-1, again, it would be for both teams so while it may not be very meta it would still be absolutely fair. If anything this might be kinda interesting in forcing bizarre team comps, potentially even just flat out banning an entire role? (All 12 players could be locked out of playing tank, so you just don't have tanks for example).

I believe a system like this would be pretty cool because it wouldn't remove the creativity & flexibility that people enjoy about the game, Possibly even increase that aspect by forcing the occasional game to run non 2-2-2 comps, while simultaneously providing the benefits that many of us want to see from a role Queue, namely guaranteed fairer games, not being forced off-role, better team cohesion, and less likely to be "handed" wins/losses by having 6 DPS mains on one team, or completely lacking supports/tanks etc. Meanwhile, if you don't want role queue, you can just lock in with all 3 roles, benefit from reduced queue times, and accept that the game might force you to play one particular role in some games, but in other games you'll have no restrictions and it'll be as if nothing changed.

Comment below what you think about this idea.