I don’t want to go into too much detail here as Im sure we can all agree that a sphere can not possibly orientate on all axis while suspended from a zip line that is fired from an internal capsule. surely it would make more sense if the player could reel themselves toward and away from the tether with W and S and small turbines popped out of other hatches that could be activated with space bar thrusting him in the desired direction. so imagine you fire it at a relatively low area holding W would pull you clear of the ground as any angle above 90 degrees will provide lift as long a the reel is fast enough, then seeing you have ground clearance at the lowest point means you can safely stop pressing W and maybe even press S to extend the tether as you pass it while holding space for that boost. working this way means you can avoid obstructions while hurtling round an object like the payload etc and even target specific heroes.
now how does this make WB more lethal?. well if we assert that wrecking ball has no orientation while tethered and hurtling around but using a jet then when he releases the tether he can be sent into a spin depending on the timing. (imagine swinging round a retractable tape measure and letting go of it with the catch off) now whats the effect on the tether going to be as it is reeled back in to Hammond? it will be dragged around him very violently, and it just so happens to have a big spike on the end of it too. i wouldn’t want to be below him if hits ctrl while tethered either which i image to be a reveres Bridgette combo but exponentially more force applied to the flail. Whats more is once fully retracted all that force will be transferred to wrecking ball making him spin far more which could be a great damage modifier for hurtling into enemies. and hitting ctrl with enough centrifugal (not exactly the right term but google isn’t playing… ball huh huh) force should be absolutely devastating on impact.
Honestly i feel like Hammond isn’t operating a mobile wrecking ball at all, in fact if anything, its a Yo-yo, which is fine but not how hamster balls work which presumably is the implied design principle behind his vehicle.
also wouldn’t it make more sense if he had flame throwers as an area denial themed hero?
Are you saying if he shoots his tether at any angle resulting in a positive slope, that the tether would wrap itself up quickly like a yoyo and give him a brief moment to slightly redirect himself while ascending at a very minute slope in an extended parabolic trajectory?
Then upon passing this slightly elevated point you can use thrusters that are angled perpendicular to your FOV to initiate the direction of your tangential path along the circle?
Interesting, but I can’t think of many points on maps where such a conveniently placed low point would be, except for payload maps of course.
I think that giving him a flail with receding radius may be a bit too powerful against low mobility heroes that already struggle to fight him.
I think you catch my meaning, its just so he more or less works the same way IE using tether to hurtle forwards without rolling or being dragged along the ground. the speed would have to be tuned.
and god no they shouldn’t add the whip haha. but really i dont think this could realistically be done at all. were talking about making the hero completely physics based as apposed to fixed cause and effect with animations. they would have to account for velocity, Gforce, momentum, centrifugal force, kinetic energy with all the weight and mass calculations all with damage and knock back multipliers. imagine the possibilities though.
I would argue that most of these things are already in the game including damage based off kinetic energy because he has a max limit to his damage when he reaches terminal velocity. The only thing not calculated currently is centrifugal force, and that’s because the only one experiencing this pseudo force is Hammond (I mean his theoretical hamster body while inside the rotating ball), so it would add nothing.
I will agree that it bothers me how he can rotate indefinitely given how impossible it is that he doesn’t roll into himself like a yo-yo, bit this could be fixed in two ways by addressing the character model:
Have the cable of the hook not connect directly to the mech’s body, but instead have a magnetic plate that glides just an inch or two ontop of the mech. The cable connects to this plate, and the plate can follow several rails below the surface of the sphere that the magnet would levitate over:
If you’re having trouble imagining what this metal magnetic plate would look like, then look at this animation:
Here, BB-8’s head represents the metal plates and BB-8’s body would represent Wrecking Ball’s spherical body. Now just imagine a tether coming out of BB-8’s head and him swinging from that.
That’s what I mean, but the magnetic plate would clearly be smaller.
The other way would require a massive change to his character model, by creating a ring across Wrecking Ball’s body over which the tether would be able to freely circulate, and this ring would also be affixed at polar points on which the ring could spin around the sphere.
Basically the above picture, expect the second ring is “invisible” because it would be represented by the tether running across the ring.
well if he is in a gyroscopic capsule that works as a hamster ball does then the external shell realistically needs to be either a cage the gyro pod can shoot the zip line through and fire jet boosters or flame throwers through it, or maybe some kind of almost honey comb of hexagonal hatches that open from the inside. considering all the kit is mounted to the internal vehicle that stays stable.
for him to function the way he does im thinking he is still in a gyroscopic pod in the middle of a big spherical yo-yo with obviously a grove instead of a split and pin so the zip launcher is mounted on an inset ring kind of like your second example but grooved into the ball so still follows the yoyo principle. essentially the magic would be in holding the tether button and it re orientates the whole wrecking ball while firing when it lines up (as apposed to just clicking it). giving the illusion that the tether is launched from within the vehicle from any axis but in fact its only one axis and the ball is really a wheel that can orientate itself left and right.
From this video, if you look closely at where the tether is located, then it seems that the example that ai gave with BB-8 us correct and the one used in game. I feel silly for not realizing that was the case all along.
Here’s another picture of this magnetic pad:
Math is the only being I can ever truly comprehend! edgy sobbing
But… Its just a VideoGame in a fictional World far gar away from our World not everything need to make sense or be realistic. I mean Just look at Genji He already should be dead but He sadly isnt
TBH that bit should just say “momentum” cuz the centripetal force in this case is just the rope’s tention and cetrifugal force is just completely fake.
i hope blizzard takes this into consideration 