#Design Theory

[s3znl-gr3znl]

Replaying AC6 (its like my 8th run at this point) and I'm only now beginning to wonder why lots of the AC designs you see from characters dont have a more reliable weapon in their right hand.

The only ones that come to mind that do are Rusty, Nightfall, and Iguazu (using kinetic weapons specifically) while many others opt for a more explosive option in their right hand and their main weapon in the left hand.

Some examples of that are Sulla and Volta, both opting for an explosive in the right hand and a more aggressive close-range weapon in the off hand. (Not to mention poor Ziyi who only has small grenade launchers in either hand)

Having learned a bit more about the community and older games I suspect its because many AC vets found it was better to play the game by holding the controller upside down like this

and thus would select a reliable primary for their left hand. So this strikes me as a subtle nod to the series' past, as well as a statement on the character/AC and their design theories/preferences.

[mclalan]

I wrote a flowery text about this style, AI and what I think the future of the design industry will look like soon!

[goblincow]

Been thinking about this & putting it into practice when writing The Perilous Pear & Plum Pies of Pudwick for a while: thanks to the ever excellent @babblegumsam (who you are probably already following and if not now is your chance to rectify that) for the final straw that made me write this up today. I truly believe if you have any interest in TTRPGs, play, or design you'll get something out of it, it's a further 5.4 mins read from here on out.

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Play is interaction.

Reading is interaction.

Below I will argue the necessity & usefulness of thinking the relationship between reading & play in TTRPGs as (almost) the exact same thing to unlock a wide & deep potential as reader/player/designer.

--------------------

Reading & play don't have to be the same thing. But you can't play without reading (in the sense of reading representations, images, ideas, concepts, interactions, etc, not just written text), because then there could be no interaction.

Reading and play can both accurately describe a given act or process. For instance: I read a table or piece of prose in a TTRPG book.

I say this because this is an idea that people struggle with, and while I encourage debate around the concept, we first have to agree on some basic building blocks that I hope I'm able to communicate here. For instance, there exists a potential reality in which tabletop roleplaying games are called tabletop reading games and nothing else about them changes (except for the consequential ability to think of reading in ttrpgs as play, and the potential this tool unlocks), because the prerequisite role for all other roles being played in a role-playing game is that of the reader.

This is true for much more than TTRPGs, but if we simply focus on acknowledging that reading & play in ttrpgs can and often are the same thing, then we are able to make informed design choices on this basis that we otherwise lack the agency to make – and which are nonetheless choices that are being made while we miss the opportunity to observe, read & ultimately interact and/or change and/or play with them.

To not think of the relationship between reading & play in TTRPGs in this way is to limit your agency as a designer, reader, player, and ultimately to cause yourself to be unable to synthesise these roles which are deeply inter-related, perhaps more so than they are disparate.

However you define it, Good Design necessitates the application of the right tool for the job. This requires making, maintaining & improving the tools that you have access to. The reader/player relationship is not only one of these, but an integral one that precedes a great many (if not all) of the other tools that you can & do employ as designer/player/reader.

If you allow this tool to remain blunt and imprecise (and especially if you don't acknowledge that it exists and that you use it in every choice you make), what you are doing is making a choice to blunt all of your other tools, even if you aren't aware of it.

This is poor design, poor play, and poor reading,* and I believe that this is true regardless of how you define each of those terms.

*though of course we could - and I think should - argue over the semantics & limitations of my imprecise use of the word "poor" there and the further ideas it smuggles in unacknowledged, but I trust that you will be able to infer what I'm trying to communicate in my use of it and I further hope that by leaving this imprecise application of a tool here in the way that I have used it, it might serve as a good example of the consequences, limitations & potential dangers of applying tools/terms/ideas that might be best described as "too blunt for the job", which is the very thing I'm attempting to highlight & address here.

It would not seem very sensible to choose to limit yourself in this way unless it allowed you access to new tools, which is a choice that you could only make once you are familiar with the central idea I'm presenting here – in other words, if you break the rules without understanding them you are very unlikely to be taking a step forward and much more likely to just be shuffling in place or even stepping backwards.

I hope that this short interaction has unlocked or reinforced your access to a useful tool that will allow you to sharpen your understanding of the play/reading relationship in TTRPGs and in turn refine & maintain your existing tools and your ability to synthesise new ones.

I look forward to discovering with you what new agencies this allows us to unlock, and I hope you take what you have read here and play with it to design new realities that you & I have yet to imagine.

[courtingwonder]

Six Principles of Design

[alchemicaldesignquery]

Overwatch 6v6: Interlude

So Classic is coming back. Lots of feelings about it, but there's one persistent sensation that is climbing through all the caveats, possibilities, and, well-

And that relates to Development Experience:

The method in which they have chosen to explore Classic Overwatch, is genius. Now, whether they take advantage of the method or not remains to be seen, but just at a glance?

The development team as a whole is going to get a significant amount of design theory experience and understanding under their belt

The community, currently split between OW1 and OW2, is going to have the gap drastically closed between them after these tests

The staggered historical delivery of various points in Overwatch 1 history are going to address certain persistent arguments made around the format and (hopefully) put those arguments to bed

As far as prepping both the Development Team and the Playerbase for the upcoming experiments next season, this is a great step 1- for all cases, really.

If 6v6 isn't the format going forward and the playerbase doesn't want it, as a whole, then this should provide enough information and detail about the format for people to climb down off the fence and take a side.

(I'm banking on this not being the case, given the wildly different, even chaotic weirdness of Overwatch 1, pre-immortality spam, and excessive healing)

If it is though? Game changing.

Classic should reveal a lot of important information about Tanks, what their job is, and how they navigate the game. Same with Supports and, to a lesser extent, DPS.

I'd like to think it might push folks to recognize design issues in the game more clearly? But that's a big if.

What it mainly does is gives everyone a clear eyed experience. Play it for yourselves and see for yourselves what it feels like.

[noosphe-re]

The reason that iron filings placed in a magnetic field exhibit a pattern — or have form, as we say — is that the field they are in is not homogeneous. If the world were totally regular and homogeneous, there would be no forces, and no forms. Everything would be amorphous. But an irregular world tries to compensate for its own irregularities by fitting itself to them, and thereby takes on form.

Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form

[cannibalhalflinggaming]

"I’ve put a number of hours into a new playthrough of Stardew Valley, having previously put the game down after the 1.5 update. Compared to my last two playthroughs I’ve taken more time to consider the design of the game and what it can teach us about tabletop games. Much like the last time I analyzed a video game like this, No Man’s Sky, the intent is not to imply that the gameplay loops would make much sense at the tabletop; Stardew Valley’s most tactile elements, like its combat and fishing, belong firmly in the digital realm. Instead I’d say there’s a lot to learn about how Stardew Valley presents a world and the avenues by which a player can interact with that world. This world design is, in some ways at least, the opposite of No Man’s Sky. Stardew Valley presents a ‘closed world’ where the avenues of interaction are finite and presented from the beginning, and that mode of world design can teach some lessons to tabletop RPGs, either to designers or GMs." - @levelonewonk

[chiguirolover]

rap battle: cromatic circle vs circle of fifths

[colorbydev]

Triangle Mesh

[amaiguri]

Worldbuilding Eating Utensils in Fantasy

Okay okay okay... so I just watched this Utensil Design video and I was like. Omg. This is SO COOL! It's got some pretty sick real-life worldbuilding, so I immediately began to think about it in my world.

Maybe I am WAAAAY too detail oriented with my worldbuilding but honestly, it's not like I'm neglecting my characters and storytelling -- I just also wanna visually design everything to be slightly to the left of reality...

The Tl;dw:

Forks only became popular because of Italian pasta

Christian Priests thought forks were "the Devil's utensil" cuz like pitchforks. No forks. God gave you hands for a reason.

We should bring back eating knives

Chinese Chopsticks were considered to be refined while knives were considered barbaric by early Confucianists -- and thus, they belonged in the kitchen, while daintily picking up pre-chopped food with chopsticks is good

Chopsticks in Japan are considered a bridge between food and your mouth, just like bridges cross rivers or trees bridge you to the Gods. There are celebrations surrounding chopsticks when you're born and when you die. It's a BIG big cultural thing.

In India, your different fingers activate different chakras, so eating with your hands helps connect you to the natural world

So anyway, with those VERY COOL revelations (but seriously, go watch the video), I did some more worldbuilding on Yssaia's eating utensils. Please reblog or something to tell me about your world's eating utensils!

Here's mine:

Northern Culinary Tools

Northerners primary use eating knives -- cutting off their portion of food at the table -- and everyone carries their own set when going to eat at another person's house. This is also because, if someone is going to stab you, everyone is going to want to have their weapons on them.

Finger foods are not unheard of, but are more rare due to the prevalence of gloves year round. They are considered to be more intimate and/or lower class, depending on the context.

Soups are just drunk out of the bowl. Spoons are only for serving.

Demons

Eat with their hands or other shapeshifted appendages. Why would they waste effort making them when they can just bring the food to their mouth with their hands?

Among the Northern Demon Lords, there is probably some etiquette about how you do this (You can't just like gorge yourself with your mouth and dump it into your gullet all the time). It probably has to do with appearances to other people and maximizing your politeness and minimizing how easy it is to steal from you.

Sealfolk

Selkies are known for eating bowls of mackerel, eels, and sea grass whole. Because they can. They probably also invented forks for stabbing slippery things and then eating them. However, unlike in Western culture, you are not expected to eat the whole thing in one bite. You can stab and then take smaller bites off your fork.

Southern Culinary Tools

Southerners use chopsticks and bone spoons in conjunction with more disposable utensils, such as bread, to eat -- due to the heavier reliance on frying and boiling in their cuisine. Their food is generally warmer overall and, in some regions, spicier, thus making it physically harmful to eat with just your hands.

Also, the heavier reliance on fermentation in Telethens means you don't wanna put your filthy hands in the brine or you'll ruin its balance -- you have to use chopsticks to pluck stuff from the jars.

Sidebar: When I do revisions on my webfic, I am ABSOLUTELY going to have to have a scene where Arlasaire learns or even simply complains about having to use chopsticks and that is HILARIOUS.

That being said, the Blood Tsars -- particularly in the South East -- eat more with their hands due to long term connection with Demons. Designing food correctly for manual consumption + the ability to elegantly eat food with your hands and disposable utensils is considered peak culture there.

[drawdownbooks]

After a very long wait, copies have arrived from Europe! Immutable: Designing History by Chris Lee Available at Draw Down Books

Immutable: Designing History explores the banal genre of the document and its entanglement with statecraft and colonial(ism/ity). This is framed as a ~5,000 year chronology, imbricating the developments of money and writing—from Mesopotamian clay tablets to distributed ledgers, like the blockchain.

Immutability figures as a design imperative and hermeneutic for considering a variety of techniques (material, technological, administrative, etc.) of securitization against the entropy of a document’s movement through space/time, and the political. This project is driven by a contrast: design educators tend to teach forms like logos, books, websites, etc., but not passports, money, property deeds, etc., in spite of these being design’s most profoundly consequential forms.

As an alternative historiography, Immutable gestures both towards anthropologist Laura Nader’s call to “study up” (on those in power), and the radical educator Paolo Freire’s recognition of the “limit situation” as a generative condition for emancipatory praxis. The volume’s aim is to orient graphic design towards the vocation of imagining, naming, and remembering beyond the horizons of its role as a managerial, administrative, and colonial instrument that imposes a rationality of vision and accountability upon what is knowable, thinkable and sayable.

Designed by Chris Lee

Published by Onomatopee and Library Stack, 2023

Softcover, 192 pages, 50 duotone images, 5 × 7.75 inches

ISBN: 978-9-49-314842-0

[simplymafu]

Study

[burnwater13]

Grogu was fascinated by starship design. From the small single person fighters and scout ships to the huge transports and industrial processing  centers, they all spoke to him. Mostly they said, wow, should resources have really been used this way? And then they said, we never thought anyone other than humans would fly us. Finally they said, sure if just one critical component fails the whole thing fails, but what of it? 

Okay, okay. They didn’t really talk to him like that but they did make him worry that the people who designed them weren’t always thinking about what the occupants needed. They didn’t even think about what the droids and mechs needed. That was a big cause for concern because it was pretty apparent to Grogu that the Imps, former or otherwise, didn’t like doing maintenance work and avoided it whenever possible. When you realized that their ships weren’t designed for maintenance it became much more understandable when they fell out of the sky like a rock. 

Now, Moff Gideon’s ship hadn’t done that. At least, not yet. But Grogu was pretty sure it would. Look at that thing! All sorts of angles and harsh planes. Nothing natural about it all.  It was just an engine, a cockpit and a couple of wings. Hurt anyone of those systems and the whole things fails. That wasn’t good design! Nope. It wasn’t. 

Now good design would have answered the question, what are we trying to do here? Then a bunch of things would have been recorded. Need to be able to fly in planetary atmosphere on a repeated basis. Need to be able to fly in the vacuum of space, also on a repeated basis. Need to… what? Hold cargo?, hold people? The choices there were pretty limited. Most cargo didn’t need life support systems, but all people did and some cargo did, other wise you wouldn’t have Rancors living on more than one planet.

Grogu laughed at that. He could just imagine the person designing the space craft that needed to move rancors from Dathomir to Tatooine. 

“Hmmmm, let’s see. You need to move twenty full grown Rancors, from here to uh… where? Tatooine. That’s a dessert planet. Rancors can’t thrive there. Oh, you want them for ‘pets’? And you’ll build them an appropriate enrichment center underground to keep them from getting sun and wind burned there? Well, I’m not really concerned about that, but does the ship need to remain on the planet for any length of time? After all designing for a jungle’s level of heat and humidity for a quick trip there is very different than designing for a holding facility that will be utilized until the proper enrichment center is constructed.”

Grogu laughed again. The voice in his head was kind of a cross between the Client’s and Greef Karga. Two men who had very specific ideas about what looked good and what was necessary. Then his dad’s voice popped into his head.

“Listen, what do you have available right now? I can make them cold if I have to.”

Yup, there was always someone willing to do the thing a completely different way. Didn’t make it better or worse. Just different. You needed to pay attention to those people because sometimes their ideas were great, but other times their ideas, well, they weren’t the thing any other designer would want to underwrite. Like the time Din Djarin used the N-1 to help Greef Karga put in a new entryway arch for Nevarro City. 

The old arch had been damaged by pirates, not Moff Gideon this time. High Magistrate Karga had been able to get a new one fabricated, but he didn’t have a crane, a work sled, or even the mechs to help with it. Grogu considered that just a problem that you had when you didn’t plan far enough ahead, but the High Magistrate managed to spin out a tale of woe that got Grogu’s dad to say,  “Let me help you out.”

Well, first they tried to just use Din’s flight pack. Grogu found that fascinating. But as much as they tried different rigging set ups and lengths and types of ropes and materials, Grogu was pretty sure that no matter what Din tried the arch only lifted up a 2 tenths of a meter. No where near far enough for it to be properly installed. 

Then, some of the other Mandos came over to help but that didn’t work either. They kept bumping into each other, getting burned, flying in the wrong direction. Din Djarin sent them home. Then he offered to use the N-1. 

Grogu could have told him that the N-1 wasn’t designed for that sort of work. He could have told him that heat of the exhaust would melt the strongest cable they had. He could have told him that hover mode in that ship caused a lot of vibration that could affect the foundations that had been created for the archway. But he didn’t. He was too busy healing the various injuries for the Mandos who helped earlier. 

So he wasn’t on hand to watch them attach the durasteel cable. He wasn’t there to remind them to put the thrust on it’s lowest setting. He was mostly sad that he missed being there to see Din position the archway and watch it fall onto the foundations and see them crumble into dust and the archway sink deeply into the ground. 

But he did see the finished product and leaned next to it and asked his dad to take a vid. The Mandalorian refused and stomped off. Grogu wondered what was bugging him. The  design was perfect. It was exactly the right height for Grogu to lean against and rest his hand on the ‘Welcome to Nevarro City’.  It looked great next to him.

[thecreativelab]

A Book on Brand Design for Beginners

by Andy Rivera https://www.coachedbyandy.com

Brand design is a fundamental aspect of any business or organization's identity. It encompasses various elements, including the logo, color palette, typography, and overall visual style, that work together to create a unique and memorable brand presence. While it may seem daunting at first, brand design is an exciting journey that can help you establish a strong connection with your target audience. In this beginner's guide, we'll explore the key principles and steps to create an effective brand design that leaves a lasting impression.

1. Understanding the Essence of Your Brand

Before diving into the design process, it's crucial to understand your brand's essence. What does your brand stand for? What values and emotions do you want it to evoke? Take some time to define your brand's mission, vision, and target audience. This foundation will guide your design decisions and help you create a cohesive and authentic brand identity.

2. Choosing the Right Color Palette

Colors have a profound impact on how people perceive your brand. Choose a color palette that aligns with your brand's personality and values. Research color psychology to understand the emotions and associations different colors evoke. Use a combination of primary and secondary colors to create contrast and visual interest. Remember to consider color accessibility to ensure your brand is inclusive and easily readable by all.

3. Typography: Communicating with Style

Typography plays a crucial role in brand design, as it sets the tone and communicates your brand's message. Choose fonts that are legible and match your brand's personality. Combine different font styles (such as serif and sans-serif) to create hierarchy and visual contrast. Limit your font choices to a few, as using too many can result in inconsistency and confusion.

4. Consistency and Cohesion

Consistency is key when it comes to brand design. Establish a set of design guidelines that dictate how your brand elements should be used consistently across all platforms. This includes guidelines for logo usage, color usage, typography, imagery, and any other visual assets. Consistency fosters brand recognition and strengthens the overall brand identity.

5. Flexibility and Adaptability

While consistency is essential, it's also important to allow for flexibility and adaptability in your brand design. Your brand will evolve over time, and you may need to adapt it for different applications or target audiences. Create variations of your logo and design elements to accommodate different formats, sizes, and contexts while maintaining the core essence of your brand.

6. Seek Inspiration and Feedback

As a beginner, it's always helpful to seek inspiration from successful brand designs in your industry or beyond. Look for trends, innovative approaches, and design techniques that resonate with your brand's vision. Additionally, seek feedback from your target audience and design professionals. Constructive criticism can help you refine your design choices and ensure your brand resonates with its intended audience.

In conclusion, brand design is an exciting journey that allows you to visually express your brand's identity and connect with your audience on a deeper level. By understanding your brand's essence, creating a memorable logo, selecting the right color palette and typography, and maintaining consistency, you can build a strong and recognizable brand presence. Remember to stay open to inspiration, seek feedback, and be willing to adapt your brand design as your business evolves. Embrace the process, and enjoy the creative journey of shaping your brand into a lasting impression.

Sign up for weekly group coaching alongside other creators 👉 https://www.coachedbyandy.com

[mnaxxo]

Effective Visual Communication Strategies for Social Media Marketing: Impactful Graphics

In today’s digital landscape, social media has evolved into a pivotal marketing tool for businesses, irrespective of their size. Research indicates that posts featuring compelling visuals receive 94% more views than those devoid of them. This statistic underscores the undeniable importance of effective graphic design in social media marketing. In this article, we shall explore detailed strategies…

[alchemicaldesignquery]

Overwatch 6v6: Roles or "How each part makes a damn good whole"

(This is part of an on-going series around a recent Dev. blogpost about testing 6v6 as a format in Overwatch 2.

First Post: Prelude is here

Second Post: Game-modes is here

Dev Blogpost part 1 is here)

This is going to be an expansion from a more truncated thread I did on another site:

This section of the 6v6 blogpost that the Game Director put up, is particularly interesting to me because it earmarks one of the more abstract qualities about the format that, despite it's chaos, was integral to it's function - The Role Triad.

When looking at an MMO as the Role Triad standard, there is, often, a lot going on with different 'puddles' on the ground providing various effects/mechanics; individuals (both friends and foes) in different locations and positions; the predictable, if overwhelming at times, hordes of enemies and their own personal effects-

-but all of this can be effectively streamlined when the Roles each individual player is operating in, are well-defined. Or, more accurately-

Roles help players define what the player should, can, and will pay attention to during the chaos of a match, because each Role has specific tasks they are attempting to accomplish

If each Role is abiding their respective tasks and all the responsibilities that entails (and the designs reflect those tasks, without a heavy overcompensation on mechanics i.e bloat) it helps to pave a crucial path through all the chaos of 12 separate heroes activating dozens of mechanics, and all the resultant sound/visual clutter that goes along with them.

You could find rewards and learning moments in the chaos, based on how effectively you were accomplishing the tasks of your chosen Role.

By contrast, your Teammates also gained valuable ease and approach to each of their Tasks by you accomplishing yours effectively.

The Overwatch community knew this fairly reflexively (if not entirely accurately) within the terms of Main/Off Tanks, Flex/Main Supports, etc.

Having a road to walk while playing your Role, provided the necessary structure for players to not only play a match, but learn at a pace that was suited to their preferred Role(s).

This promoted stylistic choices in how they played, easier hero selection (a strong requirement for a game that allows you to switch heroes mid-match), and also gave player's a firm sense of identity where their interests were, even when playing off Role.

If a Player could reasonably find enjoyment with positioning and strategic angles, across a multitude of heroes, there were individuals in each Role that could satisfy that enjoyment, drawing connective experience between a Reinhardt, a Brigitte, or a Torbjorn to a modest degree.

This concept, however, would largely begin to suffer when the game shifted into 5v5 and, ultimately, deteriorate to incomprehensible as the years ticked by.

Downsizing creates more work, for less people

Each Role was meant to have 2 members per team.

3 members to a Role presented big issues when GOATs (3 Tanks + 3 Supports) was a dominant team composition in the game.

The inflated healing numbers that could be easily inputted into 3 separate health pools well above the 200 health threshold made Support Ultimates happen in the span of seconds-

-while 3 Tanks provided health pools that required multiple clips of ammo, multiple cooldowns, and maybe some ultimates (and even then, a big maybe) just to burn through.

All while ensuring no other composition was possible and that players were forced to play just to compete.

All that to say-

3 members of any one Role can spread enough of the responsibilities for that Role's tasks between them, that enemies did not have any reasonable windows of opportunity to retaliate

On the other end of that spectrum, 1 member of a Role on a team, leaves too many responsibilities for that lone individual to cover.

As is the case with Tank in the 5v5 format.

Picturing a singular Role Individual trying to keep track of 4 other team members, would be not unlike a lone cashier trying to operate the till, help customers find what they're looking for in the aisles, and keep the store clean.

Is it possible? Maybe.

Is it functional? Let alone enjoyable?

Absolutely not.

Expecting a Tank (or even a DPS) to be the sole provider for their Role's tasks is to play a game of triage, with those tasks -- you will inevitably have to make every decision and use of a CD cover for a least 2-3 responsibilities in your Role, just to keep up with what the enemy is leveraging against you.

And for those responsibilities you miss (and you will miss them, b/c the cognitive demand to always multi-task will eventually break down), there will be a long term effect that sees those responsibilities disappear from the Role's playstyle.

Peel, Objective Security, and Sightline Pressure have all taken significant hits in Tank Objectives with the advent of 5v5.

Resulting in increased workloads for responsibilities that the other Roles were never designed to accomplish by themselves.

Peel is better served by heroes who have the Health Pools and Damage Mitigation that is foundational to Tanks, as is triggering Overtime, or pressuring Snipers.

But when your Role demands you maintain the front line at all times, or worse, dump into the enemy backline because it is the most efficient use of your abilities, the crux of the Tank Role as both a Defender and Space Maker for your team, becomes...confused.

Nevermind the poor "squishies" in said backline who suddenly have to figure out how to deal with a 700 health monstrosity barreling at them with both CC and Damage Reduction that they can't reasonably be expected to do anything about.

On Role Passives...ugh

A quick note to highlight-

Role Passives are each designed not as supportive and versatile elements that improve the quality of the Role's gameplay. Instead-

Role Passives are each selectively designed to make other Roles worse at their tasks.

The DPS passive punishes healers/supports by reducing their effectiveness at a flat value.

The Tank Passive(s) reduce CC impact, Ult charge reward, and Headshots from both DPS and Supports (not even your own Healers can get the full Ult charge gain for healing their Tanks).

While the Support Passive demands the other two Roles find the fastest ways to secure an elimination, which often revolves around heavy burst, damage amplification, and/or broad AoE effects.

Passives both narrow the gameplay options and create artificial frustration for the other Roles, all while providing "value" at an uneven distribution.

There will always be certain heroes that benefit more than others from a Role Passive.

In a 6v6 environment, Role Passives would be irrelevant, and impressively obvious in their irrelevance given the broad coverage each Role Pairing could provide across all responsibilities.

6v6 provided significantly more clarity for each of the Role's, allowing them all to be defined within their necessary tasks. This ensured Players were not overwhelmed with excessive cognitive demand and, instead, could focus on the most immediately important elements of the game to their respective Role.

It was a defining trait of the 6v6 format, that allowed those who were looking to "Just Heal/Defend" to perform that function adequately without the expectation to pop off, get kills, and peel to any excessive degree-

-and in a format like 5v5, these additional qualifiers become almost mandatory for success to be measured.

The bleed over between Roles has muddied the pool of options to the point that the overt chaos of what makes Overwatch into the game that it is, feels less and less navigable by feel, and more by a requirement for memorized numbers and strategies that are not intuitive to the design.

And considering those numbers and strategies can't even be found inside the game? That you have to search them out on different websites and from youtube videos?

That says something we should be paying attention too.