WARNING: This thread isn’t about the Sombra nerfs. If that’s why you’re here, you’re in the wrong place. But if you want to talk about what the leeway was there for and what the change could mean for the game, read on.
This is the part I’m interested in:
Ok, so the .1s leeway on Hack currently exists as a workaround that prevents it from being interrupted by small objects in the game. This is obviously a good thing. Without it the ability would be frustrating to use at best. This leeway doesn’t come without it’s own set of problems though. To use Geoff’s examples, Zarya bubbles and Tracer recalls don’t interrupt hack if they’re used during that split second, even though it makes better sense gameplay-wise if they do.
If this change works as intended, that leeway will no longer be necessary. Zarya, Tracer and every other hero who has the capacity to interrupt an ability now have a better chance at affecting the outcome of a hack attempt, while the hack itself won’t be affected by small objects getting in the way for a split second.
This means that Hack will finally work as intended. If it works as intended, they can more reliably balance the casting time, the duration, the cooldown, the range and the penalty for interruption. They might not get it right on the first try, but that’s OK because now it can be balanced without needing to consider the X factor that’s introduced by an imperfect workaround that was there out of necessity rather than design. They can finally make it work the way it’s supposed to, rather than the way it has to.
Now think about all the other tether-type abilities that use this leeway mechanic, because I’d bet that they all use it for the same reason that hack does.
- Mercy’s heal/dmg beam.
- Moira’s succ beam.
- Sym’s microwave.
Assuming it works as intended, these are all potentially candidates for the same tech change, meaning all of them are potentially up for balance changes afterwards.
Remember all those times you swore you should were safe from Symmetra’s microwave or Moira’s M2, but you died anyway? Remember trying to protect a team mate at the last second, only to have them die behind the supposed safety of your shield? Discounting the effects of lag, these kinds of scenarios are a thing of the past if this change is applied to those abilities. How might the game be tweaked if these abilities are finally able to work as intended?
This is bigger than just one ability on one hero. Even if some of us disagree with the change to that one hero, what this change enables is overall a good thing because it means that the underlying technology is no longer dictating how these aspects of the game are designed and balanced.
I’d love to hear more from a dev about this. Am I right about the other tetherable abilities? If the hack change works as intended, is it possible that you’ll look at using the tech in other places?