Why can’t you ping as cool in Overwatch as in Apex Legends? Game Director Jeff Kaplan provides the reasoning.
Apex Legends has taken the gaming scene by storm. The cool battle royale shooter has captivated millions of players. This also affects other games. Fans continuously suggest that certain aspects of Apex should simply be adopted into other games. This led to a discussion in Overwatch about “pings,” which was even addressed by Game Director Jeff Kaplan.
What is pinging in Apex? In Apex Legends, players can set “pings.” They look at a target point, quickly open a menu, and give a command. This way, locations can be marked with commands for teammates, such as “Someone was here,” “Loot this area,” or “Attack from here.” This allows for quick and clear instructions to a team and facilitates communication without many words. The system is widely praised.
Overwatch has experimented with it: Kaplan also praises Apex Legends’ system and admits that in the early days of Overwatch, they experimented with a similar system inspired by MOBAs like League of Legends. However, there were two good reasons ultimately against the introduction of such a system.
Too much spam from pings: With a team size of 6 players, the system was perceived as too annoying and too much “spam.” As long as only a few players used the pings, it was tolerable, but with 6 different ping sources per team, the system confuses more than it helps.
Overwatch is too small: Most locations in Overwatch are simply too small. Even the largest distances in Overwatch that can be overviewed are between 30 and 45 meters, while most are rather between 10 and 30 meters. In such confined spaces, it is difficult to set accurate pings or mark things that are far away.
Pinging could still come to Overwatch: At the end of his statement, Kaplan explained that it would “certainly be fun to revisit the system and see if we could implement it after all.” They are always looking for improvements for the communication wheel and are open to feedback and suggestions.
Would you like a ping system in Overwatch? Or does it not fit the number of players and the size of the maps?
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