Overwatch 2 devs reveal Ping system changes coming in mid-season patch

The Overwatch 2 devs have confirmed some changes to the game’s Ping system are coming after months of player requests.

Overwatch 2 introduced an assortment of new offerings from the original game, with one of the most popular being a Ping system so players can communicate more effectively without a mic.

While the system has been very useful for targeting enemy locations and ensuring that a squad goes in together, there have been some flaws with how information is shared, sometimes even incorrectly.

In response to a player on Reddit taking issue with the “Group Up” ping saying “I’m with you” instead, Systems Designer Gavin Winter confirmed that updates were on the way later in Season 4.

Overwatch 2 Ping upgrades coming in Season 4

According to Winter, the mid-season patch coming further into Season 4 will include a new setting for “contextual pings.”

“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,’” Winter revealed.

Winter further noted that some mistakes were made with communication wheel adjustments going from the original Overwatch to OW2, but the bugs have since been fixed.

“When I reimplemented this feature for OW2 just before launch I made some mistakes, like letting this ping type pass through walls and letting it go an effectively infinite distance,” he added.

However, the dev further stated that although there are plenty of Reddit posts discussing this system and its issues, the amount of players who want this change is “likely much smaller than the number of players that do not want this feature,” so it’s taken some time to be implemented.

Overwatch Systems Designer Gavin Winter has confirmed that there will be changes to the contextual pings for 'Group Up' and 'Need Healing' for the upcoming mid-season patch on May 9th. pic.twitter.com/0acGyltC7v

— Proto VI (@Proto_VI) May 1, 2023

Furthermore, Winter suggested that players change their default Ping Wheel options from the .18 second default to a number like 3 to avoid placing the wrong pings in the world.

The dev says that he and the rest of the team are working on other solutions to the Ping system going forward, but at least players should expect some much-needed new options once the mid-season patch arrives.