Most of OW’s game design is pretty good and consistent, but this one’s always puzzled me.
I don’t even mean this in a nerf-Mercy sorta way, but it’s clearly a bug. It looks like a bug, it’s performed like a bug, it acts totally contrary to the ability’s description and is in all ways counterintuitive for new players.
If Mercy needs more vertical mobility, why not buff her to give her vertical mobility, rather than just making the casual meta to spam a Blizzard endorsed bug?
Because it’s good for the game. Superjump is consistent if you know how to do it, make it an ability and not a tech and all you have accomplished is an even further reduced skill gap for Mercy.
You can make techs that don’t act like bugs though. We’ve already gotten several heroes with skill based mobility.
I’m in no way advocating blizzard try to design her to be lower skill, I just think that this sorta thing should have been designed in the first place.
Because in this case, I would expect it to be hard to replicate as a not bug.
And the bug would also be hard to remove, so, you would end up with the bug being able to interact with the “not bug” version.
Sometimes if you get lucky with the physics engine, you leave it the hell alone.
Physics engine stuff is the hardest stuff to code and debug.
I wouldn’t mind them making it more consistent to perform or something, but it’s definitely one of the few defining characteristics between people who are good at Mercy and people who aren’t.
They’d be better off just refining the animation for it a bit and then tacking it on as a passive with a cheesy name like ‘Angel Spike’ or something.
Honestly that’d probably be enough. Some sort of sensible visual, some sort of mention in the hero page, some sort of intuitive way to execute it, and we’d be good to go.
Yeah, pretty much. I don’t think there’s really anything wrong with the way it functions, but the fact that the only way to even know that it exists is by looking for info outside the game is a bit of an issue. A bit of a tune-up on looks and some mention of it in Mercy’s how-to-play thingy and it should be golden.
The same reason why Doomfist/Moira/Brig ledge launches exist. Physics exploitations/techs that are also adjustable by the developers. They weren’t originally intended but are not bugs because the devs have control over it.
All of these share the property that they keep their momentum in the air and that allows them to launch. Genji once had a similar but much stronger ledge dash exploit but that was removed because he is supposed to lose all momentum at the end of Swift strike.
Why should superjump be the only tech described in the hero pages?
There’s entire videos of Ball techs, rollouts, Doom jumps, Genji tricks… It’s honestly boggling why Superjump must be brought up so much when it’s not different than any of those.
Because those aren’t bugs?
Go into Mercy’s hero page and tell me how guardian angel’s ability description translates to fly upwards and away from someone standing next to you. At no point are you flying to your target.
Or, just look at the visuals of it all. It’s clearly broken.
Many of them were / are.
Widow ledge jumping was a bug, a bunch of the ball techs a bugs, and a HUGE HUGE number of Doom techs are bugs.
Go to any hero page and tell me how any ability description shows any tech whatsoever?
Did you know Ball can get momentum towards the direction the player is facing when piledriving, enough to no be booped off an edge or reach usually unreachable places? Or the variety of Moira and Doom jumps across many maps? Is Soldier healing station-visor cancel in his hero pages?
Superjump is just like any other tech.
Mercy’s slingshot in general was actually a bug. She was meant to lose her momentum at the end of her leap, but due to a physics quirk on the ptr that went away. They didn’t leave it how it was when it was a buggy mess, they bound slingshot to the space-bar and made it function in a physically intuitive way.
Other momentum techs also function in generally intuitive ways, and don’t have broken visuals.
I’m not sure why this one thing isn’t polished.
I mean…none of the other techs are listed either.
Listen, SJ was a bug, during the AMA Goodman admitted this. However, they saw the potential it had, and worked it with BunnyHop/SingShot/AngelBounce and implemented it.
Could it have a better animation? Sure, but then again her rez animation and sound have been busted since its last nerf and nothing had been done to address it.
What matters is that the devs know about, the devs have acknowledge it, and have stated it’s there to stay.
The point of “why not make it more normalised as part of a persons kit” is a good one though.
They are not arguing it should be removed, but made more of a normal part of the kit.
I think the Devs would have if it was easy to do so.
You’re right I remember that happening. I didn’t play her on PTR at that time but surely her losing momentum or trajectory at the end would make GA feel clunky?
Like how Swift strike abruptly stops mid air. Or was it done differently?
Edit: she was supposed to lose momentum on GA hop right? Like if it was a brake.
The fact that it’s brought up so often is a sign that it’s something users aren’t happy with the design quality of. That’s the justification.
I’m honestly not sure why people are arguing against things having higher production quality here. Users feel like that’s a bug, that’s the issue.
There’s a Wrecking Ball tech that has him slamming into a 45-degree angle corner, and propelling himself up 40-ish meters. He doesn’t roll back, or to either side - he slams the corner, and launches.
Most of them look buggy, most of them are here to stay.
So…make something that separates the skill of Mercy players into something easier?
Again, the AMA said it’s consistent once you know how to do it. Not to mention how many videos are out there? OWL has it’s own segment explaining the tech.
Also there was a suggesting in the AMA to have SJ dedicated to it’s own button-but that was met with mixed reactions.
And AGAIN-so does this mean all other techs should be normalized too? Doom’s techs? Rocket Jumping?
We’ve already seen that “normalizing” and making aspects of kits “easier” can hurt the character gestures to the Lucio Wallriding changes
User’s ignorance is not my problem. They should learn about it like any other tech and move on.
I’m arguing against the simplification of Mercy’s kit, something that happened far too much already.