Please make teleport intuitive

We all know what the teleporter is. It has been in the game since day 1. Up until this rework it was simply “walk thru it”, “charge thru it”, “dash thru it”, etc. Basically any momentum would carry you thru the teleporter. We are all used to this and know it well.

The new teleporter isn’t like this. You have to use the acknowledge action. I have several issues with this:

  • The acknowledge action is on the bottom row of my keyboard with other communication actions, of which I rarely use in a fight. As such, it’s awkward to use.
  • I frequently use acknowledge out of a fight, and my brain is used to that.
  • Console users mostly use the communication wheel because they have a limited number of buttons, and now have to bind another button, most of which are already used by something else.
  • Having to use a button at all, in a tense moment my brain wants to press the melee button, despite knowing which button I need to press.

Why do we need a buttom to enter the teleporter at all? Why can’t it be “walk thru it” like it was before? The only reasons I can think of are:

  • They want teleporter to be a grav counter, and with no movement there is no momentum to enter the teleporter.

  • With both ends outside the spawn, they don’t want people to enter the teleporter involuntarily.

Here are my solutions to this problem:

  1. Have a configuration option to enter the teleporter using momentum. Have this on by default. If for any reason you don’t like this you can turn it off.

  2. Have a separate interaction key-bindable action that, unlike other key-bindable actions, can be shared with another key-bindable action. If I want to share it with melee or jump, I can do that. If I press that button next to a teleporter the interaction action wins over melee/jump. IMO - the default should be the melee button.

If you do that, then everyone wins because:

  • Everyone knows how to enter a teleporter already. Just walk thru.
  • You can enter the teleporter in a grav by using the button.
  • Players don’t have to sacrafice a button already used, especially console players.
  • Using melee button as the default makes it an accessible button to use on both PC and console.
  • You don’t have to do weird things with characters like Reinhardt where you have to press the interact button while charging. You can just charge thru the teleporter.
2 Likes

A good series of ideas, which will hopefully be considered. I suspect they won’t, and already anticipate the debacle the Symmetra 3.0 release will be on consoles.

I think that anything within reason that has enough noise has the potential to be resolved. They usually do. This is a usability problem that affects everyone, so I am hopeful they’ll do something. It might not be what I asked for, but something.

As an example, I wouldn’t expect them to go back and let Moira heal thru barriers. But they’ll likely fix the bug where she can’t heal even though she has clear LOS next to a barrier.

I don’t think they want players to accidentally teleport them selves mid fight. I agree about it being inconvenient to hit acknowledge, melee maybe? I don’t know, I think blizzard has gotten themselves into a pickle here.
Also HOLY CRAP it’s a grav counter??? I hadn’t thought of that, that’s kind of op if you think about it.

I suspect the new Moira bug where she can’t heal with a barrier in her cone will be released to live. Moira has had a laundry list of bugs that were identified on the PTR, but went live anyway.

Something tells me programming her interactions with barriers and buildables has proven rather difficult. Things like this can crop up when using a proprietary engine.

I dunno, I don’t think I would accidental teleport myself. That’s why it could be an option on by default. If you do have a problem with it, turn it off.

Yes, melee would be the ideal button, at least for me.

Yes, Blizzard has stated in comments even before they released her to the PTR that the teleport ability would be a good grav counter. It’s intentional.

I was just using it an an example of something reasonable to fix. They have done this in the past. Like they reworked how Moira’s soft-lock worked (so you’d hit the intended target) and it caused a bug with hitboxes everyone got frustrated about - they fixed that before it hit live.

My point is, if the request is reasonable, they are usually reasonable about it. They ignore stuff like “omg this rework is terrible” or when people disagree with balancing changes.

the problem is, it works now in both ways, if it was auto teleport you would either make it teleport in “ticks” or you would get teleported back and forth infinitely (which you would with ticks too if you don’t move out of the exit in time)

you also could accidentally walk through an exit that symm placed behind/on you

just imagine a bastion sitting on a teleporter being in basically 2 places at once

I’m not saying it should teleport based on close proximity, but rather momentum going into the teleport. So a Bastion standing still is not going to teleport back and forth. He can push the button and do it though, which he can do now.

sidenote: barriers and its interactions are getting a total rework/ recoding because they messed something up in the old code, “hard to fix”, so i woudnt hold my breath for a moirahealing change till the rheinhard change is comming.

and back to topic:
its a bit more compliacted with the teleporterinteraction.
obviously we dont want another teletrolling meta,
therefore a option to turn off autointeraction with nearby teleporters is a musthave.(currently this is the default setting)

most players woud prefer to use a autointeractionfunction, IF:

  • you enter the tele forward facing;
  • for the 1. time;
  • regardless of entering the entrance or exit
  • if the teleporter is not placed on a “tight fighting space”(control point)(which woud unintentionaly let players walk of the CP, while respectily the symmetra just wants players to move toward the point, also prevents grieving)

this removes problems for most herointeractions
Most Heros/Teams: can enter fast, without being teleported again, only woud want to teleport back if they feel the fightspace is “too hot”.
it doesnt require an additional input by the player for the most intense hot opening.
and semistationary heros like widow, can walk in scoped without having to worry about the reteleportation too much.
players coud switch the setting to confirm to tele, herobased AND globalbased.
example, a widow-defender get reinforments by the defender-tele, when the sym placed the teleexit from base-to-birdnest. symmetra is not griefing as reinforements like to join the birdnest and do so, but the present widow woud be teleported back to base since its her “first interaction”. telling widows to “stand still” while they here a teleporter is not a option eighter. interaction based restrictions to teleportation aka. “dont autotele a widow while scoped” also is no option, forcing her to slowwalk-scoped to get out of the teleporter. idealy you woud like to remain able to teleport as widow with the group for a hot all-in-teleport, having a scoped widow in the center of the point is a different problem of survivabilty.
as responceable symmetra you woud like to be able to rescue-tele a scoped widow in her birdnest while watching grenates flying her way, and a widow shoud be able to allow an auto-tele-rescue in her birdnest.
:joy:i love edgecase scenarios as anyone might be able to tell by now
that also covers the gravition-tele-rescue.
if you as player are caught in a graviton, you have

  • a personal problem of hecktic interactions ahead
  • enemy around you
  • multiple nearbly allys that are as limited as you are
  • idealy rheinhardshields that are inconsited in its position and rotation against the enemy force
  • you are at a controlpoint which you woud not like to leave with your entire team in overtime(in which case that rheinhard woud be the only one who likes to NOT autotele away
  • an enemy sarya that just happens to safe her ultimate, to initiate a graviton-forced-autotele, which likely autosucks tanks off the point, and leaving the “reinforement players” defensless in a graviton with a “i have to find that teleinteractionbutton again which i woud otherwise never have used as example soldier”

that was a scenario with an autointeraction-teleporter,
now lets play it though with NOAUTOMACTIC/ manual teleport(as it is currently)

  • in a graviton-NOAUTOMATIC-tele-rescue
  • you and your team is still in a grafical cluster’’’’
  • your symmetra places a timecritical tele into safety
  • it deploys behind your team in interactionrange, to remain protected from enemy fire, which is in itself already a playofthegame for the sym to pull of
  • then your team just needs to know there is a teleporter activ behind there backs with its current small indicator on the hud( so we need a adjustable confirmation screentext for teleporters, that at the same time doesnt block the screen of a scoped widow in all other instances)

conclusion1: autotele, even just a first-use-autotele-function, sucks even in its easiest implementation. dont autotele if playermovement is forced by enemy actions, also gives junkrats mines a free card to forcepush the wanttouseautotele-player past the teleporter. therefore preventing the autotele or forcing it, depending on the setting. the responce of the enemy to actions forced apon them has to be consistent, a junkrat can not be forced to guess which setting the enemy is using. this might require a interactioncoding for all deplacemantoptions with the teleporterfunytion.

currently even sleeping players can manually teleport, which in itself is already a hughe buff for widows that get sleepdarted, or anyone else.
consider also the interaction of mei-freezings. a team mate not be able to escape a mei-blizzard but they clearly have enough time to group up take a hit and then teleport away while the the teleporter -exit is constucting, which on its own is already another loophole for “making teleporter indestructable during buildup and its downsigns aswell”

so far we have covered “most heros”; time to cover the stationary heros of overwatch
bastion and torbjorn-turret
for bastion to work with the tele-interaction we need a option to not autotele in turretmode.
coud not test tele-torbjorn specificly, do to all torbs/symmetras on my friendslist have left overwatch"silcence-semibans-toxic-history-of-offmetaheros", so just a few examples of teamplay out of quickplay.
being able to teleport the turret on its own, great at least as torbjorn.
but the turret has autoteleport enable by default, which is bad. its already difficult enough to coordinate dedicated symmetras to tell them to teleport the turret out of the spawnarea on attack to clear possible hostile enemys.
its a very strong combo on its own, let me give you an example:

  • place turret(facing futher direction)
  • upgrade to lvl2
  • place teleporter
  • moltencore to lvl3 at a far distant location

this almost always whipes out any pharmacy in the game, clear the telelocation of ANY remaining miniturrets/mines/traps etc, provides 2 angles of attack(lets stay with the pharmacy as enemys) a leftcklicking moltencore and a teleported turretlvl3 is the ranged damage version of a divabomb. very few symmetras or torbs use the combinations currently on ptr to its peakperformance. with the torbturret being able to autoaim the flying miniturrets.
turretlvl2 is already a hardcounter to miniturrets. personaly i am an attacktorb and attacksymmetra hybrid, while playing zen/torbj on defens in live
useing the teleporter midfight, to reposition your teammates, providing possible evacuations midfight is imense. specially around the payload where enemys might not be able to take out the tele in time to prevent an escape.
asuming the defenders use junkrat to get rid of an attacktorb, bleed the attackers armourbuffs and damaging/destreuing the turret, with the teleportation of turrets midfights it becomes a nightmare to deal with. calling out turretpositions is necessary to destreu them, changed positioning by just useing a throw-away ability of another hero messes the communication up. making it almost useless in prioitys to call out, unless it becomes a lvl3. having that old weakness almost removed by being able to switch turretpositions without rebuilding is huge.
turretbastion+teleporter is nice, turretlvl3+teleporter is a throwaway ability with 0 risk for your own team, that already is armourbuffed.
if the enemy tries to focusfire a ported-lvl3 torbjorn has 2 options leftclick the enemy from distance with the rest of his team and sacrificeing the turret, which will be already off cooldown by the time its sacrificed, providing another lvl1.
also the turret provides additional cover to the teleporter(or reverse, which woud require testing if the hitboxes overlap, unless we spam aoe on suchs a stack of building anyway)
OR he teleports in (armourbuffed) hammer its turret while hiding behind(because we all enter our teleporters in presight of our exitlocation and positioning at the exit) and if needed teleport back after the short teleporter-reuse-cooldown, which puts torbs slightly below 200hp, just to buff himself up again with additional armour. which makes torbarmour used on teleporting allies, and/or armourpacks placed around teleporters even stronger. the old disadvantage of stacking armourpacks, just to lose them all to some high rate of fire damage is completly negated.
_so the useability of teleporter and torbjorn is a nice buff, that completly destreus any lowranked enemys, creates even more hate among lowranks if used corretly and puts torbjornturrets that are placed intentionally away/outside of field of view from the point to total uselessness if its not combined, which creates just even more hate in lowranks. it was already difficult to judge the usefullness or tactical skill/strategic play or a torbjornplayer. to the point of 2 mainphrases

  1. only a torb-main, can judge another torb( yes if a torb is actually bad, the torbmain woud also come to that conclusion as well)
  2. noticing another player, playing torbjorn, as torbmain just leads to “i need time to judge this players” actions/strategy/and tactics over 20sec or more up to 4 minutes of preperation time for an attacktorb just to initiate there first “real” attempt of attacking an controlpoint_
    it was already difficult anough to tell your teammates to not pick up the 10 armourpacks laying on the final controlpoint, and “just prepare the battlefield” now it requires additional cooridination with your symmetraplayer too.
    i question a bit the viablitly for competitiv play of this interaction in its current form, sure it might be usefull in fully trained and coordinated teams. but its so off the current skillset with completly different playstyles to play it reactilvy when enemys start cpunteracting it in highlvl play, that it might not be worth it at all, in its current state. this is basicly asking proteams to have a benched niche player to play widow or torb when required, to pull of suchs combos. since if they just slightly fail are useless again, to wich point nothing woud have changed to the current live play

torbjorn + turret + armourbuff with teleporterinteractions is basicly broken in its current state if pulled off in any combination. (large lvl3turretpush or midfight relocationing/ practical a torbturret with ranged placementoptions).
there simply are not enough symmetra-players and torbmains on the ptr to show this much in overall statistics is this buff what it woud need to make syms/torbs “more” viable in highrank play? yes, as combo.
so can i now enjoy that sweet upcomming raise in ranking because my personal mainheros get buffs with its counterpart-combo, jain.

because, the interaction is broken. currently torbjorns, have NO controll over the turretteleportation, because of it multiple stages of autoteleportation (which requires additional testing with 2 players)so this next entry might be complytly wrong
the turret gets teleported as soon the teleporter has finished building.
the turret gets teleported as soon the turret has “finished building up”
the turret might get teleported as soon it reaches lvl2
the turret might get teleported as soon it reaches lvl3
the turret might have a internal cooldowntimer to its autoteleportation

i asume that the teleporter handels every instance of a building( build-up-phase and finished-phase and upgraded-phase) as a seperate entity.
therefore the turrets get teleported back and forth between teleporters, which results in awkward moments where you currently cant upgrade to lvl3 because it woud initiate another teleportation, bringing the turret back to its entrance.
i also asume this does not only effect torbjorn turret, but also symmetras miniturrets did test, cant reproduce the following asumption ,: near the end of the tele buildup-phase launch a miniturret onto the teleporter, it shoud teleport over while the tele gets ready, and the turret just build up(the initial delay of placement and starting to fire), which might teleport then the miniturret back to its entrance.

also testing needs the autospawned grenates on junkrats death, if they autoteleport or not.
and the diva interactions regarding her entity-creations.
there already is another topic to autointeractions and mercys flight towards teammates aswell.
can the teleporter being interacted with from below the platform?(like a tele on the moving platforms, at least the upper range of the teleport-interaction is limited to the objectsize)

the teleportation-hud-info has a delay, the tele can be used again prior to the tele-promt showing up, but this is a necessaty for hot teleports(graviton-escapes)

teleporter always teleport towards the center, very large teamgroups push each other away from the exit, 6players+torbturret is a bit much to be able to reenter the teleport since everyone gets pushed around. doesnt matter if you can manually activate a teleport if you cant press the button since you get pushed out of range.

all teamteleport still need the option for symmetra to see a hollowversion of the entrance on selection anyway, for hot placements

physicprobs, dont seem to autointeract with the teleporter at least on the practicerange. asuming this is intentional to get rid of the basketballs of spinning deathrays and some players being able to interact with it by shoting trought the tele.

possible solutions for torbjornturret:

  1. dont let it teleport at all(which i asume is not intended to be forbidden, since the ineractionoptions with junkratwheel and divabomb)
  2. give torbjorn an option to manually teleport its turret(this might as well go along with an option to turn the turret on/off entirely for ambush strategys)

coud use the activationkey, as a “hold button shortly” to activate the turretteleportation, rather then the playerteleportation. at least this woud prevent a turret from being teleported away from trob at 90%upgradestatus.
this also allows full control over the turret reteleportation, like porting her back to safety near destruction, or for a torb to stay at the entrance and to repair it in safty rather then to teleport himself to its turret.

all this go along with a lack of hudinformation, about the teleporters health for symmetra in-hud, turretupgrade-status for teammates at least in 3d-world.
visual identification to be in range of the teleporter to interact with, having a teleporter sitting in its back is awefull(graviton-emergency-tele).
the teleporter-bubble animation is to visual hindering, new tele-trolling, place both teleporters in front of widows line of sight, or any other hero that needs to aim(and where woud a responceabnle symmetzra place her tele? towards the enemys) removing the entire transport-bubble effect while looking into the bubble might help. still lets you notice a teleporter at the edge of your screen, but does not block the view while aiming as much, if i look into the middle of the bubble, i already know there is a teleporter.

i know a wall of text is not the “prefered guideline” but there are just too many interactions, and in its current state symmetra feels like the QA did only test her by 1 tester at the time, and barrely some interactions with other heros, much of which coud have easily prevented if symmetra-mains woud had at least been asked about opinions in the designphase

i agree, the interaction button seems too much for us to handle mid fight, also the teleporter seems to have a shorter lifespan or uptime than I would like, maybe increasing it would be nice

Keep in mind that having an exclusive Interact button opens up possibilities of future hero abilities utilizing that action.

what if you didn’t have to hit a button, but had to be touching the floor(minus Zen) to use the tele?

Like the way to avoid the tele is to jump over it. Accidently go in the tele? just run back in.

I don’t like how you don’t know where the exit is if youre not Sym

The teleporter is still a huge issue.

I’d like an option to remove the interaction key/button. It’s unnecessary. I think most players playing games are used to walking through portals (there’s even some games about this sort of thing…), and it won’t happen by accident very often. Additionally, this might actually be hugely beneficial gameplay from a support perspective (throw down a tp and get your ally out to safety).

Overwatch’s teleporters are already more intuitive shape and design than other games with floor pad teleporters.

The main issue though is that I don’t have enough free binds on my controller to add another. So I cannot walk through teleporters.

She is one of my preferred characters, but this specific control issue means I cannot take advantage of her tp when playing her.

Second issue is the teleporter placement:

I think it would be better if it involved two key/button presses. One to place the exit, and one to place the entrance wherever you currently are. This would allow for more dynamic gameplay.

The change to making her tp a normal ability was completely necessary but it just seems a bit too clunky to use. Still most games I see either no teleporters from Symmetra players, or the ‘two tps right next to each other and no more teleporter attempts for the entire match’. It’s just not that fun to place and use.