Role queue, while being a good thing, is just a band aid for the fact that tanks are not fun to play for a large fraction of the playerbase, which needs to be addressed to reduce the very long queue times currently

TLDR: The problem of not enough people playing tanks manifested as 4+ dps games earlier, and after role queue is now reflected by high queue times inspite of rewards.

Kabaji is playing on an actual diamond rank new doomfist account, queued as DPS, and is getting a queue time of 25 minutes even in Diamond. People getting frustrated with the queue times will negatively impact the playerbase.

Is the fix to give increasingly high rewards like multiple lootboxes and 100s of ingame currency or actually understand and try to mitigate the root problem?

It would result in weird things like queue times improving only during events with new skins, for the lootboxes. At those times, people that don't care about playing tanks or their tank SR may just pick tank for the lootboxes and play comp games non-seriously which is a bad thing for game quality.

I want to make it clear at the outset that I am not against role queue at all, I think it was very necessary, and should have been done a long time ago.

But why did role queue become necessary? And outright bribing people to play tank? When the game was designed, Blizzard expected players to switch roles to fill, but that hasn't panned out at all, with DPS being extremely popular, supports being somewhat popular and very few players playing tank, even with new heroes like Sigma and Wrecking ball.

Some of the below points are valid for supports as well, to a lesser extent.

Why is it unrewarding to play tank for most players?

1. Most tanks are extremely reliant on teammates and their communication

This is very true for most main tanks, except Orisa. Your Ana or Moira isn't healing you? You are toast and there's nothing you can do. Zarya not bubbling at the right times? Not calling out her bubble cooldown in voice or when to engage? You will melt.

Not everyone talks in voice chat due to various issues, i.e playing late at night and not wanting to disturb people around you, language issues(esp in EU), people getting toxic against ppl in voice(common against kids, women, minorities with an accent).

Tanks can be really strong with coordination as we see in the pro and high ranked games, but not for 90% of the playerbase.

Supports distracted by playing DPS because its more fun than healing? Good luck enjoying playing tank.

Cannot interact with many of the enemy DPS or support who just sit far back and keep shooting you.

2. Very restricted choices of tanks.

Off tank picked Zarya when the map isn't good for reinhardt? Good luck picking a good tank.

Want to play Winston? DPS like Reaper, McCree(buffed right click, roll, high noon dmg), Hanzo(storm arrow and lunge), Sym and even Mei have been buffed to ridiculous levels to counter GOATs, and tanks like Orisa/Hog/Sigma are in the meta so you will just melt in seconds, and even faster if you don't have a well coordinated Dva as your off tank. Armor changes to nerf GOATs compounded the problem. Doomfist damage goes through shields, Sombra can hack you easily, so you have to one trick Orisa just to be able to play the game.

You queue in the current meta and get Watchpoint Gibraltar? Feels bad to not get to play Winston.

Want to play wrecking ball? In spite of already being a hard tank to play for 90% of the playerbase, the enemy can just switch to a hard counter(sombra) or several soft counters like McCree, Mei, Reaper, Hog.

Orisa is the only decent choice applicable to most situations right now, but she's a bit OP and can be quite boring to play for many, and is also boring and frustrating for the other team to play against.

3. Lack of options to switch to counter the other team's comp.

Tank is the worst role where it feels you cannot do anything to counter the other team without also begging to teammates to switch, which they often won't. A good pharmercy rekting your team? DPS can switch to Widow, McCree, Ashe, Soldier, Sombra. Supports can go Ana, Zen, Moira, Baptiste.

As tank, your only option is Dva which is a weak counter after the DM nerfs, but what if your other tank is playing Zarya or Hog? You could play a shield tank, but if your teammates refuse to counter, it feels really frustrating to take the L.

Meanwhile as DPS, you have a great range of heroes to counter enemy team comp, atleast one or two heroes for any given enemy teamcomp.

Enemy main tank bothering you? Go heroes with lots of stuns and damage. Not getting proper heals? Go reaper, mei, soldier, tracer etc. Pro Doomfist rekting you? Go Sombra.

Support options aren't bad too.

Enemy got a good doomfist?

You can switch to Moira, Lucio. As tank? Have to play Orisa.

What role do smurfs often pick to boost their group mate or to rank up? Almost invariably damage.

4. Game is designed around dealing Damage

From the cover of Overwatch(Tracer), to the Ult system, the kill feed, the kill streak sound feedback, everything in the game is oriented around doing damage. The game is billed as a first person shooter, no mention of tanks or supports.

Make great plays in a game by blocking 4 shatters that would have knocked down 4 teammates each? All you get credit for in the stats system is for blocking 50 damage with your shield.

Put a clutch bubble saving someone's life? No Assist or "lives saved' stat for you, unlike baptiste's immortality field.

There is no metric or feedback in the game for creating space or distraction.

5. Being perceived as lower skill and then insulted by other players

It is common to hear the insult "No Aim No Brain Winston Main".

During various times, even good DPS players filled what the time needed to win with. i.e Rein, Winston, Mercy during Mercy meta.

Their reward for switching to an unfamiliar hero to help their team? People would see their profile and then force them to keep picking those heroes every game, some even throwing because "tank/healer main won't play tank or healer but wants to DPS".

And then get insulted by both teammates, enemy players and on forums, reddit, twitter etc. as "no skill players" even if you used to be a dps player just trying to help your team win.

Some people's advice and philosophy? "Never fill as you will stuck forever, just take the loss and move on".

It got so bad that Blizzard turned on private profiles for everyone, thus hurting the game because you can no longer check what your teammates prefer to play.

What the possible solutions?

1. Make communication more easy. For example, make a way for Zarya to communicate bubble cooldown or usage without having to talk, allow her to bind "x seconds for projected bubble".

2. Introduce more tank heroes. I know there are not many supports too, but we can all agree that supports are in a decent place, well balanced and most are pretty viable both on the ladder and pro meta. And with Echo the next hero at Blizzcon very likely being a support hero, Blizzard should try to expedite trying to make more fun tank heroes.

3. Give more feedback to the player when they make clutch plays like blocking shatters or other ults, with shields or with bubbles. Same when they block 10k, 15k etc. damage or healing a lot without dying.