Overwatch 2 Devs Confirm Changes to Ping System Are Coming
A while back, you may remember Overwatch only having a base set of ping options, with heroes spamming “Group Up” and “Need Healing.” But players felt that there were a lot of important pings missing that would better help a team strategize and communicate without mics. So Blizzard made more changes — but players are even more frustrated now.
You may notice now that when you try to use certain pings like “Group Up” that you’ll actually say “I am With You” instead. This is due to an un-decoded issue that has made the ping system inaccurate.
On April 29, an Overwatch 2 player took to Reddit to complain about this ongoing problem. WitheredBarry said that he was sick of saying one thing when he intended to say something completely different.
“Voice lines should only say what they are written as. I'm also very tired of Ping - In World randomly placing pings from the wheel, such as ‘Defending Here,’ ‘Fall Back,’ and, most confusingly, ‘Countdown,’” he wrote. “The new communication system has so much potential that is being squandered by stubbornness and lack of maintenance. Can we get it polished up, please?”
Blizzard devs respond to ping system complaints
The Reddit post instantly gained traction, with more Overwatch 2 players coming forward to support the OP.
Said one tank main: “It’s super annoying as a tank. I always want to say “Group Up,’ as in ‘come to me.’ But instead it says ‘I’m With You,’ which implies that I support my team pushing forward or that I’m behind them in a meaningful way.”
The importance of the ping system being accurate wasn’t lost on anyone, including Blizzard. A developer shared a long response about the ping system, claiming an update was coming soon.
“Hey all, in the mid-season patch we're adding a new setting that will control whether contextual pings for ‘Group Up’ and ‘Need Healing’ would be used when aiming at an allied hero. The default will be ‘Off,’” they wrote.
The developer also added that the Ping - In World problem is possibly due to the default setting being too low for some players. They suggested increasing it to a higher value by going to Options, Controls, Communication, and then Ping Options.
The OP replied that the issue is actually due to players putting in any directional input while attempting to make a ping, at least on console. The ping wheel delay function works fine unless a player moves their thumbstick, which makes the wheel pop up instantly.
“In the heat of battle this results in players repeatedly quick pressing Ping - In World only to have the ping wheel flash onto the screen for a millisecond as a specific ping is chosen by accident because they were moving. This is unavoidable unless you are inputting absolutely nothing into your POV controls. And as we all know, an unmoving player gets a hole in their head,” he replied.
In response, the developer said that they would work on a way to remove the shortcut feature from controllers. Unfortunately, however, there is no timeline for this specific issue.
But players should expect some big ping wheel changes in general when the midseason patch drops, which will be a huge relief for console players especially.
