I play on console, which has 14 usable input buttons. Now that reworked Symmetra has brought a new type of input trigger (Interact), all 14 of those buttons are spoken for by default. There are:
- 2 for primary/secondary fire
- 3 for abilities (including ultimate)
- 1 for jump
- 1 for crouch
- 1 for quick melee
- 1 for reload / hero swap
- 1 for interact
- 1 for chatwheel (chatwheel menu allows navigation to voice line and emote menus)
- 1 for spray menu
- 1 for weapon change
- 1 for hero info
This means that now that we can bind individual comms commands to buttons (and get the bonus functionality that doing so provides), there’s no space to do so universally without giving up some other functionality. The “hero info” button is easy enough to go without, and you could decide to just not use sprays, but deciding to give up the communication menu in order to bind a single comms command means limiting yourself to using just 3 of the communication options. And all of the other actions are needed for gameplay mechanics.
Meanwhile, there is one whole button that is currently only useful if there is a Symmetra on my team, and another that is only useful if I’m playing Mercy or Torbjörn. At least the “change weapon” button can be bound to a comms option for other heroes (and I can just live without being able to quickly say “thanks” on Mercy and Torb), but Interact has to be bound on every hero, or I might basically nerf my teammate.
And the thing is, there’s no reason that each input needs to be bound to just one action. The hero-switch functionality is already on the same button as reload, and they are differentiated by short press/long press and context. The Interact action is only viable in some contexts, so it could easily share a binding with something else. Games like Fortnite and PubG have transferred significantly more complex control schemes to console by allowing a button press to switch the controls into a different mode - Overwatch could do something similar by giving all the buttons a separate binding slot when, say, the comms menu button is held.
I get that Blizzard’s bread and butter is PC gaming, but console frequently feels like an afterthought. Please consider adding some more expressive control options so that we can actually make use of full gameplay functionality.