Overwatch dev calls for mouse and keyboard ban or full support on consoles

One crucial element to making competition fun is making sure that the victor is decided not by the equipment they bring to the field, but the skill, talent, and teamwork. Imagine showing up to a pick-up ballgame at the park only to find out that the other team was literally robots. They’re going to have fun (assuming robots can have fun, I guess), but you’re not. You’re going to get stomped.

In the same thread, there were claims that the majority of top-level Overwatch players on consoles use a keyboard and mouse via converters. It’s not exactly a far-fetched claim. Everyone is welcome to their preferences regarding controller type, but mouse and keyboard controls are objectively better than analog sticks for accuracy and speed in shooters. If some players are using them and others aren’t, they’re going to find themselves rising quickly up the ranks past people they might normally lose to.

So, is it cheating? Strictly speaking, no. The player is following the rules of the game and controlling the character themselves. It’s not like the aimbots and such we see people using on PC. But it does provide those players with an objective advantage over the other players, and it seems like something does need to be done.

As VG247 notes, PlayStation 4 supports mouse and keyboard use for many system functions, and developers can even make the mouse and keyboard work in their games (Overwatch is not one of those). While Sony doesn’t make a mouse or standalone keyboard for the PlayStation 4, accessory companies like HORI offer up officially-licensed options like the TAC Pro, shown below. You can also just plug in a mouse and keyboard directly. In the rare game that supports them, they should just work.

The Xbox One, on the other hand, doesn’t have any built-in mouse support. Keyboards can be plugged in for code input, but not used in gameplay. Microsoft has talked before about bringing support for mice and keyboards to Xbox One – as recently as the last couple weeks. And then there’s the Xbox Play Anywhere program, which has players owning games on both Xbox and PC and, in the case of games like Forza Horizon 3 and Gears of War 4, even playing across platforms. Microsoft is actively trying to unify Windows 10 and Xbox One gaming into one single, amorphous and indistinguishable mass.

Whether we’re talking about Microsoft or Sony here, it seems unlikely that either company is going to lock out the hardware completely.

So, what are the options?

As Kaplan suggests, making mouse and keyboard support as universal as it is on PC would be one potential step. Most people have access to mice and keyboard, and while it would still be a balance issue, it wouldn’t require people to spend $150 on a hardware converter.

If Microsoft and Sony can detect when these converters are plugged in, they could also allow Blizzard to block those players from playing while those devices are plugged in. As it is currently, though, neither Blizzard nor any other company has that option right now.

And, if they can detect those converters and decide to allow mouse and keyboard support universally, Blizzard could then split the console playerbase into those using controllers and those using mice and keyboards.

There’s the argument to be made that the players using these converters aren’t doing it to cheat and win, but more because the console is what they have access to play on or don’t want to tinker with getting a gaming PC up and running. Those players should be able to play how they want. But there are surely some who choose that method because they like winning. Victory is victory regardless of the means or the rules broken. It’s only cheating if the system doesn’t allow it. There’s no way to differentiate between the intent of those two groups, though, and the end effect on players who use regular old controllers is identical.

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/02/06/overwatch-dev-calls-for-mouse-and-keyboard-ban-or-full-support-on-consoles/