The September 17th 2024 patch includes the following “bug fix”:
Fixed an issue where wall climbing heroes could infinitely ledge grab.
The behavior being affected has been in effect since Overwatch 1, well over 8 years.
This patch changed ledge grab from being usable at any point (as long as you’re near enough to an applicable ledge) to only being usable while wallclimb has not been consumed and has not ended.
I’ll be focusing on Genji (mentions of double jump) since he’s the most affected but the impact extends to Hanzo and Kiriko as well.
The following mechanics/scenarios are no longer possible/reliable:
Completing or interrupting wallclimb and continuing with a ledge grab - when wallclimb ends or is released you still maintain some upwards momentum, often allowing you to reach a ledge just beyond the reach of wallclimb alone with ledge grab.
Interrupting wallclimb and double jumping into ledge grab - This was often done to make yourself harder to hit as you were attempting to climb over a certain wall.
It was also used as means to escape Mei’s slowing effect faster.
It was also used as means to climb onto platforms that cannot be directly climbed to, like any protruding platform next to a wall, like the balconies on Rialto.
And it was also used to reach a ledge if there are “obstacles” on the wall (anything that pushes you off wall climb, slows down wall climb or otherwise makes it inconsistent, one of the most notorious maps for this is Busan in my opinion)
Ledge Grab → Double Jump → Wall climb - Ledge grab doesn’t always put you directly on the ground, this happens more frequently when releasing early, and ledge grab now consumes the use of wall climb, so double jumping in this scenario and attempting to wall climb is no longer possible.
Wall climb → Double Jump (for additional height) → Ledge Grab - There are certain walls that you could only climb over by leveraging a small ledge and perfectly timing double jump to allow yourself to reach ledge grab range.
There are also situations where you choose to ledge grab instead of landing on the platform directly, to make yourself harder to hit or for various other reasons (sample scenario, dash up is meant to imitate wall climbing and doing the same action into ledge grab).
(Double Jump → )Wall climb → Ledge Grab (continuously holding space from wall climb) - A supposedly perfectly normal interaction, you wall climb and as you reach the end of it you’re supposed to ledge grab, unfortunately that is no longer the case.
The impact of this “bug fix” extends far beyond something like the bug fix to Genji’s double jump being usable again after wall climb (“Triple Jump”, double jump → climb → double jump) and that bug was also fixed while the game was still fairly new, however this “bug” has been part of the game for 8 years, much longer, and is core to the wall climb ability.
This “fix” ties being able to use ledge grab into whether you’re able to use wall climb and makes it extremely unreliable and inconsistent, I understand what the fix was intended to do - stop you from being able to repeatedly ledge grab (which is a very niche scenario and mostly assisted in climbing properly and felt intuitive), but that could be fixed by imposing a 1 use limit until touching the ground (potentially also resetting after wall climbing, maybe even double jump/lunge, as ledge grab doesn’t always put you directly on the ground if you release a little early, this would cause scenarios like ledge grab (no ground contact) → double jump → wall climb to not allow you to ledge grab the top of the wall you just climbed), just like wall climb and double jump, but as an independent mechanic just like wall climb and double jump are independent from each other.
I can only hope this gets addressed sooner rather than later as the game is much less fun to play with the movement being so much more limited.
I play Hanzo a bit and this doesn’t seem like a great change but he can also one shot again, so I dunno. It does affect his parkour somewhat like that roof slide spot on Rialto second point.
Actually, I’m trying to do that spot in custom games, maybe I’m just bad but I cannot even reach that ledge anymore. Did they mess around with momentum on non-floor surfaces or something?
The balconies in Rialto, before this update the first climb on the opposite wall and double jumping to reach the ledge would’ve triggered ledge grab, it’s not exactly the same as climbing the wall right next to it and releasing wall climb early to ledge grab the balcony (like I’m suggesting in the original post), it does however show that to make it up the balcony I have to climb higher, which means more time spent vulnerable in a predictable movement path.
Can no longer reach the top of the pillars in Nepal from point.
Climbing on one of the pillars/walls in Ilios to reach the high ground behind the windmill, this will often be done in various places in just about every map, using cover → (double jump → )ledge grab on another platform to minimize the amount of time the enemy has to shoot you, not possible as-is anymore, requires higher climb/saving double jump.
Wall climbing high up and then moving along the wall to ledge grab the window in King’s Row, this will also be done in various places around many maps, especially when facing enemies and trying to be less predictable/harder to hit (climbing right under the window would be begging to get shot in the head while climbing by whoever is up there, this is true for just about any location where you might typically find a Widow/Hanzo/Cassidy/etc).
There are also many similar scenarios where for example Hanzo would wall climb and then lunge towards a ledge, all of these scenarios are no longer possible.
Here’s another video showing how obstacles like something overhead can no longer be climbed reliably. There’s also added lag with ledge grab now (showing that at 1:00).
The lag bit is incredibly frustrating too because it can be disorienting.
This sort of lag (seems like client misprediction) also happens with wall climb on it’s own ever since the patch for the infinite wall climb exploit - if you jump towards a wall (releasing space) with auto-climb off will often make the game “predict” that you’re beginning to wall climb if you press movement inputs only to then snap back.
There’s also been lag with railings, be it using Swift Strike through them or breaking them during ledge grab (melee and ledge grabbing at the same time), this has been going on for years, it hasn’t happened for the first 1-2 years of Overwatch 1 until some update changed it, I believe there was some rework to how breakables and abilities interact and client prediction has been wack with that interaction ever since.
Ledge grab into ledge grab indefinitely did look a bit janky and I can sort of understand why they would remove that. But the problem is that stopping a wallclimb automatically consumes your ledge grab. So on certain walls with weird geometry (since the map designers rarely account for wall climbing fluidity), it’s now impossible to climb to the top because the wallclimb will break shortly before the actual ledge.
There are also a lot of places where Hanzo for example used to climb, lunge and grab onto a ledge to reach someplace. This felt fluid and it makes no sense why you should not be able to ledgegrab if you have not done it during the first wallclimb.
Edit: It appears that unlike before, ledge climb still consumes wall climb (new behavior since the “bug fix”), this causes hoist → (double jump → )climb to remain impossible and causes hoist → continuous space hold for climb (after touching the ground) to trigger a wall climb bug (instant dismount as soon as wall climb starts)
Doomfist getting “bugs fixed” that made the hero fun. Gimme back Beta 1 OW2 Doomfist movement, I miss it dearly