I believe Apex Legends' ping system was the most revolutionary advancement in the FPS genre last gen

[xir]

Pills here

 

[Serpens007]

So what you're saying is that Apex is simply an evolution of Battlefield's ping system, which was actually revolutionary.

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Lol no. What I'm saying is that Battlefield's ping system is nothing like Apex's. Before BFV, Battlefield's system was just spamming the button to mark doritos and vehicles. In BFV it moved onto placing a marker and maybe saying that there are enemies in the area. At best, BF let's you say that you need ammo or health (and be totally ignored by your teammates because either they don't care or the system isn't as clear as you'd like).

Apex's system actually lets you say stuff that's contextual for the current match you're on. It also varies according to the character. For example, Bangalore gives you info about the weapons when she pings them. Octane lets you know that the backpacks don't influence your movement speed. And again, it's sensitive to what's already happening. When you ping enemies, the voicelines also tell how far they are. If you ping an open door that none of your teammates opened, it warns that there have been enemies nearby. You just can't do it in Battlefield. You were only able to place doritos on enemies, and at best, in BFV, just place a generic marker over that basically says nothing.

 

[DontHateTheBacon]

It's been hugely welcome for people like me that avoid voice chat like the plague.

 

[Jawmuncher]

It's great and to the point. I just wish I had a controller with paddles to make it easier to use in Fortnite.

 

[Ricky]

Not an FPS but I remember being able to spot enemies in Gears.

 

[Zaro]

It is a must have feature in coop game.

 

[spam flakes]

It's so good.

Makes playing without a mic viable too. and sometimes I just don't feel like talking to random people. Most of the time I'm partied up with friends too, so we can't even hear the 3rd player, but the Ping system makes that not a concern.

 

[Fisty]

Sounds like what Deep Rock Galactic has, yup its almost completely removed the need for voice chat on basically anything below the Elite Deep Dive and definitely gives it an international player boost. Great stuff

 

[Legacy]

Completely agree OP. A vital feature as well if someone doesn't have a mic for whatever reason, or has to mute.

 

[Arttemis]

Shazbot - this sounds useful!

 

[degauss]

Good thread, yeah it's pretty universally good. It's pretty much now a standard, expected multiplayer (at least, battle Royale) feature now.

You know what though? I miss those early days of PUBG... calling out numbers on the compass, struggling to communicate where something was coming from... it felt more organic than having HUD spam.

 

[Akita One]

As you mentioned, many other FPS shooters have attempted to mimic Apex's ping system, and Battlefield had a (much more primitive) ping system years before Apex even came out.

But there is one particular reason (that OP and many others often miss) why Apex's ping system is still MILES ahead of any other game: every ping is voice lined. Literally anything that you ping, from the obvious stuff like enemies/ammo/weapons, to the mundane stuff such as an open door/lava/zip lines, is fully voiced by every character in the game.

There's so much nuance to the system. If you ping ammo in Apex, your character will specify that it is light/heavy/shotgun etc. ammo. In other games, at best there will be a slightly different ping sound to indicate ammo, but you will still need to read text on the screen somewhere to see what type it is.

It's really easy to overlook but difficult to overstate just how important the voicelines are. When you ping in any other game, usually a marker Is placed and a generic audio cue is played. Sometimes there will be a label or text somewhere in the UI to provide further details for what the ping is for. This lazier approach is certainly cheaper & easier to implement, but has a multitude of drawbacks that aren't immediately obvious.

In the heat of battle, the voice lined pings in Apex minimizes the need to divert attention to see what your teammates are pinging. For example, let's say your team is losing a fight, and you want to ping a zip line that could be used for escape. In Apex your character will say something like "zip line here", which immediately conveys your intentions. In other games, your teammates might hear the ping sound, but they will have to waste time finding the location of the marker, or reading the text that informs them of the zip line. In the middle of a fight, that extra second or two can easily cost you the victory.

Also, because squads in Apex can't have duplicate characters, the unique voice lines allow you to immediately determine which teammate is pinging, even without looking at the screen.

It's genuinely impressive how much Respawn has (and continues to) invest into their ping system - it certainly can't be cheap to hire and retain dozens of voice actors for years to keep it running. Keep in mind that new voice lines (for every single character) have to be added each season, either to compliment newly added weapons/maps/features, or to incrementally improve quality of life. For example, one great addition from last season was the ability to ping (and have your character call out) an enemy that's being revived.

The end result of Respawn's efforts is that Apex has a much smaller handicap to play without a mic, and virtually every player in the game actively uses the system, all the time. Whereas I've noticed in Battlefield, Warzone, and Fortnite, players will mostly only ping enemies (and not much else).

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Anyone who comes in here and says X game did it first or Y game has done it better, stop right there. Just stop. No they didn't. You are incorrect.

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Right? So many games have done it before, no one is saying they haven't. But it has never been done this well. They just don't know

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Yup, all of these things. It took recently playing Fortnite to see how much better it is implemented in Apex.
Also, the next advancement is the visual audio in Fornite...we need it in every game now.

 

[Kei-]

Yup, all of these things. It took recently playing Fortnite to see how much better it is implemented in Apex.
Also, the next advancement is the visual audio in Fornite...we need it in every game now.

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Good shout, that's also a great feature for accessibility

 

[Sotha_Sil]

I initially thought it would be mostly helpful for non-mic'd people only, but my friends and I use it extensively when we play together in Warzone as well. It is a nice thing.

 

[texmechanica]

The contextual voicelines from the characters are arguably even more impressive than the pings. Even when on voice chat with buddies I'm constantly gathering info from the characters' voicelines that my teammates did not verbally communicate themselves. Training your ears to listen to "Enemy landed near me" and "We're getting hit by a third party" etc. can make a huge difference in your game sense.

 

[Filipus]

Shadowrun for 360 was the first game I played with a ping system. And it was significantly better than Apex's was.

Like everything else involving Shadowrun 360, it was awesome and no one noticed.

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Anyone who comes in here and says X game did it first or Y game has done it better, stop right there. Just stop. No they didn't. You are incorrect.

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Yup. But some people have to find a way to be contrarian

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This gameplay gives a good idea of how it worked:


Shadowrun's pings were voiced and contextual, way back in 2007.

The beauty of Shadowrun's ping was that, with one quick button press, your character would call out what was on your screen at the time. If you were downed or bleeding out, the ping would let people know your location.

It allowed for insane levels of co-operation with complete strangers. The fact that the ping call-outs had detailed names for every little part of the map meant that players quickly learned the maps and were all using the same vocabulary to talk about them.

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I'll let you guys fight it out.

 

[DarkFlame92]

Yes,communicating with randomers became way more efficient

 

[-Tetsuo-]

I played hundreds of hours of shadowrun and it still wasnt the same. Apex goes beyond map pings. I can ping my ult and it will tell my teammates what % it is at. I can ping that i need ammo, or a scope. I can ping a mastiff and if Maggie is on my team, my character will talk to her. I can ping a 30/30 if im bangalore and she will start breaking down how to fire it properly.

It takes it a step beyond functional callouts and it does it in charactwr and a lot of it is interpersonal.

 

[Akita One]

There are very few pings being used in that Shadowrun clip, and that game doesn't have large maps with a wide loot pool. It's literally built into the way you communicate in the game...in Shadowrun, by the nature of the game it is more macro and for "big picture" communication. You can tell with Apex, they used psychology or something to make sure players actually listen for info, and not just hears it.

Shadowrun = *ping* Move here, *ping* I'm down here...*ping*here is an enemy over there but *ping* I did find something you might need (in generic language)

Apex Legends = *ping* Move here, I'm down but the game already told you that without doing anything...*ping* shows the enemy is running over there...*ping* here is light ammo which I know you need from the map screen, you can lock that ping on the screen (in conversational language)

 

[Bing147]

This gameplay gives a good idea of how it worked:


Shadowrun's pings were voiced and contextual, way back in 2007.

The beauty of Shadowrun's ping was that, with one quick button press, your character would call out what was on your screen at the time. If you were downed or bleeding out, the ping would let people know your location.

It allowed for insane levels of co-operation with complete strangers. The fact that the ping call-outs had detailed names for every little part of the map meant that players quickly learned the maps and were all using the same vocabulary to talk about them.

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I don't know that Shadowrun did it better, but it did it really well more than a decade earlier. It's a really impressive game that never took off because it wasn't ultimately what those who wanted a Shadowrun game wanted, and it didn't match the shooter zeitgeist of that moment. Still, from the first time I tried it at E3 I knew it was special and I was so sad that it never found the community it deserved.