Apex Legends Ping system in Overwatch

[Balsty-11353]

Overwatch is too fast paced of a game for something like that. You can die in a second if you aren’t on top of things and I could see people dying from pinging instead of playing their hero. Pings could get chaotic with everyone pinging different enemies. Overwatch has excellent voice chat and that’s all we need.

Imagine playing a game and having six people pinging six different things. Teamfights are chaotic enough as it is, so I would hate to have a ping system. Just buy a mic and learn to target call, it isn’t that hard.

[Apsilon-1108]

n to revisit the system and see if we could make something like that workable. We do have some designs for improvem

Thanks for the reply on this Father Kaplan

[KucingIsCat-1260]

Please fix the quote box or people will misunderstand my post that you quote.

[Gaze-11763]

I agree, there would have been too much chaos for something that complicated.

Still, the philosophy of Apex’s ping system is that players can play entirely without a mic and communicate all necessary information to their teammates. I think Overwatch still leaves a lot to be desired in that aspect.

Something I feel like we need is an “Attack” and “Retreat” ping. We already have a “Defend/attack the objective” ping (which is very difficult or impossible to perform on console, but that’s a different issue), but the enemy isn’t always at the objective, and “Group up with me” doesn’t always convey a retreat. A diving tank like Winston or Wrecking Ball would see a lot of use in telling their team to engage on their mark.

[Flik-21740]

@JeffreyKaplan

Respawn did such a good job with the Ping System in Apex Legends. It works really well.

Back in early development of Overwatch, we actually had a very similar ping system. Ours was inspired from MOBA’s like League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm.

We eventually removed it because of a few issues.

1. With 6 people on the team, it got very spammy if more than a few people were using it
2. The geography of Overwatch maps as well as the engagement distances is fairly constrained. This made pinging upwards challenging and often frustrating. An example is standing at the gate of point A of Temple of Anubis and trying to ping the upper ledge above the gate entering point B. Our engagement distances tend to be in the 10-30 meter range (for perspective it’s about 45 meters all the way across the entire dojo in Hanamura B). In Apex, you have very long engagement distances and very big maps… it makes it easier to ping below you

It would be fun to revisit the system and see if we could make something like that workable. We do have some designs for improvements and customization to the communication wheel that we’re trying to get in. But we’re always appreciative of feedback and suggestions.

woo I got it right! I figured you guys had tried that out at some point.

Apex Legends has one mechanic that could help OW

I wouldn’t be surprised if a ping system was considered for Overwatch at some point in the past but was decided against because of the game’s fast speed, and visual clutter that a bunch of pings could cause. Plus they do really want people to use voice chat even if some won’t and proper voice chat > pinging. Not opposed to the idea. Would certainly help a lot in situations where people aren’t speaking but it’s just a matter of how to implement it into Overwatch.

[Remedy-12480]

The geography of Overwatch maps as well as the engagement distances is fairly constrained. This made pinging upwards challenging and often frustrating.

All I could think of when you said this is trying to get Reaper’s Shadow Step to stick on a ledge, particular one with railings. I feel like trying to land a ping to the team would’ve been similarly frustrating. Limitation in tech perhaps?

[Frostbite-12612]

His name is Zenyatta.

[Remedy-12480]

Imagine playing a game and having six people pinging six different things. Teamfights are chaotic enough as it is, so I would hate to have a ping system. Just buy a mic and learn to target call, it isn’t that hard.

Other MOBA games like League of Legends did it just fine with five. Six doesn’t seem like a stretch. Granted, they have bigger playing fields in those games. However, a cooldown just like on spamming emotes and voice lines seems adequate enough.

I have a microphone, but can’t always communicate as much as I’d like to due to people sleeping or whatever. It’s not always the answer, and being able to do simple call outs like, “Let’s go this way” without having to speak or stop to type would be beneficial for everyone. Stop hating.

[Krojack-1117]

You can still report people for non-stop spamming voice lines. Also you can squelch chat of the spammer and it will mute the custom voice lines from them. It just sucks that you have to stop for 2 seconds to open the menu, find them and click that.

[Silawatsi-1430]

My biggest pain point with the current communications system is that it is very reliant on using mic and text chat.

I am a PS4 player, and from my personal experiences it is very rare to find someone in team chat. Mic users are practically unheard of. It’s not as bad in ranked, but even there it is still a persistent problem.

I would really like for there to be systems in place that let teams to communicate and coordinate effectively without text chat or mic.

[Krojack-1117]

They need to make it so everyone on the team can see who Zen’s orb is on. This would be better. The non-stop naming who the orb is on can be annoying.

[Frostbite-12612]

Everyone can…

[Flare-12560]

We do have some designs for improvements and customization to the communication wheel that we’re trying to get in. But we’re always appreciative of feedback and suggestions.

I’m thinking like maps that you can pull up

[SamDLIVE-1610]

I don’t think there’s really much Overwatch needs to learn from Apex. Real voice comms are still are the best way to win even in Apex. I give it a few more weeks before people start to fight against better players and realize that while the ping system is kinda nice during the borderlands, lets just loot together away from the action phase, its novelty is useless mid-fight vs any team using voice (basically the phase that the majority of OW takes places in.)

On a side note though, if you do take inspiration from anything in Apex, maybe you could add hero w a run/slide momentum ability, because that’s actually pretty satisfying in Apex. Also, maybe give it that Platinum Games slo mo from Vanquish as well and top it with your teams industry leading polish.

[The18thFret-1386]

A ping system would be nice for those who don’t like using vc in comp. It would be better than nothing

[Zijkrial-1523]

we dont need the ping system… overwatch is faster than apex, you ping a tracer and she is already gone. it will cause more confusion than doing good.

Your example is of one of the most mobile heroes…so it’s not a great argument.

That’s like saying “Guns are useless; if you try to shoot a humming bird from 100m away, you’ll probably miss.”

There’s a time and place for everything.

[Reapfield-1716]

Cause the heroes that pings would benefit the most are Sombra, Tracer, and Genji.

[MerlinBrando-11655]

You guys need to do something because you’re falling behind in a bad way.

Maybe revisit some good ideas you sacked for some bull-pucky reason a little bit faster?

[Bioshyn-2761]

maybe add a 7th “player” who sees the map in top down view/spectator mode being a dedicated “pinger” aka coach

at least for custom games/scrims

[Baja-11423]

Falling behind…is this a race?