My Idea for an Active Combat Indicator in Overwatch 2
In this post, I propose my idea for an addition to the Overwatch 2 UI to help players better understand the current state of the match, and identify the best times to engage and to retreat.
Here's a mockup of what the display would look like:
The idea is to communicate to the player how many of each team are alive and actively engaged in combat. This will help players to understand when their team has a player advantage, and perhaps more importantly when they do not.
What the icons mean
Here's a breakdown of what each graphic means. I hope that they are visually distinct and intuitive, once they are explained at least.
A quick note on how 'in combat' would be determined in my estimation, I'm sure that an actual game dev would be able to come up with something better but here's what I came up with. A player/team is considered to be in combat when any of these are happening:
They are dealing damage to the enemy, or the damage they are dealing is blocked/absorbed by the enemy
They are receiving damage or blocking/absorbing damage dealt by the enemy
They are actively firing/using abilities and an enemy is within their field of view
I believe that this should cover most scenarios that would be considered in combat. I had thought about using distance from the objective as an indicator. However, this wouldn't account for long-range heroes that can engage without being close to the objective. The third point also helps to include those of us who don't always hit what we are aiming for.
Match Combat Indicator
The central icon shows whether combat is actively taking place anywhere on the map. This helps to communicate whether you have more time to regroup, or whether some particularly eager teammates have already started pushing, and you need to hurry up and get back into the fight!
In Combat
The solid colour pill icons indicate a hero on that team and role that is engaged in combat. The roles are displayed on the pill and the icons are arranged from the centre to the outside (so right to left for the player's team and left to right for the enemy) in the order Tank, Damage, Support.
When a player changes state, either by being killed or ceasing combat, their icon would move and change to represent this.
Not in Combat
The outline pill icons indicate heroes that are alive but not actively engaging in combat. They may be returning to the fight or retreating depending on the state of the match. This is the information that isn't shown in the current UI. Whether a player is dead or not matters less than whether they are actively engaging the opposition.
Respawning
The greyed-out icons with the strikethrough indicate players that have been killed and are currently respawning. This info is already visible in the game UI, but you have to tab out to the scoreboard screen to see it, which is not always a good idea in a fast-paced combat game like Overwatch. Bringing this information into the main HUD makes it easier to see without interrupting the flow of the game.
I believe it would be technically possible to capture and display this information to players. That adding this tool to the UI will give players that try to think more tactically about their matches more information about the state of the match. This will improve their decision-making, making them more coordinated and helpful players.
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