They’ve changed hitboxes in the past though. Both Winston and Torbjorn(possibly more) have had their head hitboxes reduced as a form of buff.
I don’t think they will ever make the hitboxes pixel perfect… However I wouldn’t mind them reducing everyone’s or at least the characters who have overly large hitboxes like Ashe.
So…let’s look at all the major competitive titles.
As much as this game sells itself to being accessible, it’s also selling itself as a competitive game with the Overwatch League. But here’s the most reliable images I could find for each of the most competitive games on the market. Titles for each game will be below the images.
https://www.ggrecon.com/media/images/admin/apex-legends/hitboxespng.png
APEX LEGENDS
https://www.destructoid.com/ul/311081-these-are-the-new-counter-strike-go-hitboxes/h2-noscale.jpg
CSGO USED to use the square hitboxes - but has switched to a more accurate model
I can’t find any images depicting the modern warfare hitboxes, but here’s a video showing how tight they are. Maybe an inch off of the body for the smallest character model - and more importantly - identical for all characters. I don’t expect Overwatch to try that though with their giant character models like Rein and Hog.
Warframe
Rainbow Six Siege has changed hitboxes and how they work multiple times - getting better and better. This was the only image I could find back when they were 2.2.1 - and it doesn’t show different damage areas - but it is smaller than the character models to exemplify padding of clothes/armor - I think they’ve since fixed this to be more well defined to the character models.
The video below goes into more detail.
I will concede that Overwatch is a fast paced game - and probably can’t be made with hitboxes that are identical to the wire frame, but it feels like the hitboxes we have on the live client are comically large when you compare to these other games - particularly for the heroes that are medium size or smaller.
Then there’s Quake - whose hitboxes are purposely made big because the characters move ridiculously fast (like pharah concussion-propelled speeds almost the entire game). This is the only major competitive title I found where the hitboxes are comparable to Overwatch.
As I said in the original post though - I’m not looking for them to make the hitboxes perfect, just see how things would work if they were much tighter than they currently are. I’m also not pretending that this would be able to happen in a vacuum, as abilities and other things like projectile hitboxes would need to be changed to help the flow of the game.
[please feel free to correct me if i’m wrong on any of these given examples, I’m not trying to be an analyst in this - just using the best tools at my disposal as found through google searches]
Basically, the more matching the hitbox is to the player, including the crit ones, the better it is for the players as it reduces unnecessary hinderence and memory process towards the player.
I laughed when I saw WB’s ngl
Edit: Poor Dva.
I am not so sure the current engine is capable of “true” per-model hitboxes… anyone know its in part a technical limitation?
The bigger hitbox makes it easier for more cosmetics to be made. I think that’s why they won’t change it anytime soon.
Come on OW Team. We know you have what it takes.
Well if they where to do that they would need to reduce the Projectily Hitbox and other Abilites like Doom’s punch to adjust to that.
Edit: This is Rezzed rip.
Overwatch needs the larger hit boxes for a good reason: Mobility and survivability
Heroes in this game are extremely hard to hit if it weren’t for them. This is the most mobile FPS among today’s modern and populated FPS titles. Heroes have many different sorts of movements like flight, wallriding, climbing, grappling, swinging, blinking, teleporting, etc.
On top of that, the base movements of the heroes are at infinite acceleration. Strafing side to side usually puts you on a “slow down” penalty where your character slows down in order to make the momentum shift. Heroes in Overwatch don’t do this. The resulting effects of this can be too noticeable on some heroes like Genji, since he leans his head far to the side when strafing. His head instantly shifts from one side to the other at a press of a button. Many animations completely change the hitboxes of their users too, like McCree’s roll, Sigma’s primary fire, Ana’s sleep dart, etc.
What’s more, this game has insane amounts of damage mitigation and healing abilities compared to the other titles. This adds to the problem since you need to give a bit more leeway to the attackers to allow them to kill anything at all. Especially considering that the survival abilities don’t require a lot of aim if any at all, but most offensive methods do.
I’m all for hitbox tightening, really. But in order to have hitboxes tighter on models, those issues need to be addressed with the change simultaneously.
Shh… it’s only by a week.
Also, It’s my thread. Not really a necro - just a bump since staff were clearly on the forums yesterday.
[I know I’m just getting my hopes up]
Do you know where you learned this?
I’d like to share this proof with others but I think you’d rather I not have them come back to you each time.
To be honest, I do hope it does happen. I wouldn’t mind if they tightened the hitboxes while adding momentum acceleration to movements. This aspect has been busted for years in OW.
Hold W while ADAD-ing in Overwatch. You will notice that your forward movement speed won’t change at all. Now do the same in Apex Legends. Huge slow down. It seems that most FPS other than OW understand that having infinite acceleration is highly abusable.
My understanding is based on the explanation in this video: https://youtu.be/94Q3LLyhEig which demonstrates towards the end that Moira’s beam acts strangely with large-hitbox heroes like D.Va, in addition to my own testing which seems to show that Moira’s targeting has some similarities to the other abilities I mentioned (more forgiving at close range, etc).
In short, it’s more about making the animation look good than making the beam easy to use. I’d prefer if they could change it to actually use the player hit box, but they would either lose the animation or have to write brand new code just for that one ability.
As for Roadhog hook, the targeting works the same way (the giveaway is that it shows the same indicator as Zarya bubble, etc) when you’re lining up your shot) with the exception that there were extra LOS checks added to the hook once it hits the target.
They will never fix the hitboxes, they are the way they are because of netcode and 60hz server.
What you see on the client isn’t what the server sees.
i rather them do what valorant did. with the high tick rate servers so when a widow misses a headshot on me, it should register as a miss and not a hit.
It’s nothing to do with ‘fixing the hitboxes’ (although that would be nice). Abilities like Moira’s beam ignore them completely and are just based on the centre of the character model.
I just want them to use the existing hitboxes.
If they do 128hz servers then they can finally slim down hurtboxes because the server would match the moving model (only a few pixels misaligned).
So two heroes who have the same speed but totally differently sized hitmodels (Ashe vs Bastion) then both should find it equally easy/hard to dodge a roadhog hook? But what about the LOS check, if bastion’s wider hitbox is sticking around a corner but Ashe in the same map position would be hidden behind a wall, would ashe defeat the LoS check?
It would be easier for Bastion to step back around the corner and cause the hook to break than for Ashe to do the same, yes.
HUH!
Bastion has a LARGER hitbox surely.
So Bastion would have to go further into cover for the larger hitbox to all be hidden… but wouldn’t have to move as far towards cover for any of his hitbox to be covered.
Wait is the line of sight check for if any of the hitbox is still showing… or is the LOS check to tell if any of the hitbox is behind a wall or something?