I’m convinced that the way Overwatch is being treated is a massive oversight on Blizzard’s part, and the game deserves better. Not only does it seem to have an audience of more than 13 million, it is a game that has proved its worth in terms of both quality and popularity. And yet, it is being released in a state where it is riddled with bugs. Just last week, an update to the game left many players unable to play for a period of time. I wrote an email to Blizzard months ago, about this very issue, but no response was given.
It’s been a roller coaster of a week for Overwatch, to say the least. “D.Va bug fixes” is a phrase that has been uttered more than a time or two over the course of the past few days.
While I’m all for wanting video games to be developed more quickly and with less bugs, I’m also not above a little bit of complaining about it. This is because I want to play Overwatch, and because numerous bugs keep appearing in the game and my PC. Maybe I’m just overly optimistic, but it seems like Blizzard is taking forever to fix the bugs that are present, and there are so many of them. This is especially irksome considering that the game has been out for less than two months and is already reaching the point where some features are probably obsolete as a result of bugs.. Read more about replayability in games and let us know what you think.
Bug 1: D.Va’s Hero Unit isn’t configured correctly.
Impact: Low-to-moderate, with almost no impact in games like Abathur or The Lost Vikings that include troops that trigger selection adjustments.
When D.Va first enters the match, the “hero unit” is set after the Mech is chosen; however, the hero unit is set before the unit is chosen for every other hero. This results in layout systems that employ the SelectionUnitStatusPanel frame type not displaying the chosen unit until any player (including the observer if it’s a custom game) enters the game.
As a consequence, the talents tab does not show D.Va’s chosen talents until the issue is resolved; you can witness this for yourself by loading into Try Mode and setting your Allied Hero to D.Va after Arthas has spawned, or by making D.Va the final player on a team in custommatchmade games.
Here’s a little video of me recreating the problem in a custom game, as well as showing how changing the selection of another player solves the problem.
There is also another bug where the hero unit is not properly set when D.Va respawns, but this seems to have no impact on standard games, only on custom game observers & replay users who use a custom interface, which is why I’m aware of it(from creating my observer interface) as there’s a pesky bug I can’t reliably solve that is caused by it
Bug 2: Liquid Cooling does not have the duration bonus & cooldown reduction to Healing Fountain properly applied if you Call Mech too quickly after using Self-Destruct
Moderate impact
When D.Va uses Self-Destruct(meaning when she actually presses the button), the Liquid Cooling state goes to being disabled, meaning that the increased duration & reduced cooldown are not in effect, but for a brief window(18th of a second, by my reckoning) after the Mech has detonated, if D.Va were to use Call Mech, that mech being called would put the Liquid Cooling state back to being enabled but the Mech that detonated still exists briefly, and puts Liquid Cooling back into the disabled state.
Here’s a video where I use a modified Try-Me-Mode to replicate this situation and display the events as they unfold.
The remedy is simple: instead of the Liquid Cooling controller being deactivated by Self-Destruct counting down, it is deleted (and Liquid Cooling is disabled as a result), the Mech that Self-Destructed is unable to change Liquid Cooling’s state again.
Bug 3: If D.Va’s Mech is deactivated after receiving fatal damage and receives damage that is not configured to not be given to invulnerable targets, the Mech is immediately destroyed.
Because of the rarity of these effects, the impact is low to moderate.
This is a problem caused by a patch for another issue – before, when this happened, the Mech takedown would be awarded twice, giving the opponent 1 full takedown per mech instead of the intended 0.5, giving them extra experience from that Mech.
This is shown in a movie using Lunara’s Invigorating Spores, which is an effect that can accomplish this.
There are a few methods to solve this, one of which is to remove the patch that was put in place and add an exception to the triggers that handle the mech takedown so that credit is not given if the mech has previously been recorded as having killed by triggers.
Bug 4: The kill feed does not correctly show when the Mech is killed by a dead unit that does not have a death timer (or hits after their death timer has elapsed).
Low, mainly visual impact
A small number of units have a “death time,” which is usually infinite for Heroes so they can be revived, but for most other units, the death time is either not present, or is only present for a brief period of time. For example, D.Va’s Mech has a death time of 1 second, and Chromie’s Sand has a death time of 1 second. The Archer Lane Minions and Summons, such as those produced by Zagara, are two additional instances that may cause this problem.
Here’s a video that demonstrates this.
Bug 5: D.Va’s A.I. Tree lacks the necessary parameters to utilize Self-Destruct at any time.
In games with A.I. D.Va, the impact is significant.
The 6461518EE320338F node, which is a child of 6881C38DDD84C9D4, the node that decides whether or not Self-Destruct should be utilized, is to blame.
When the other requirements are fulfilled, removing the 6461518EE320338F node leads the Mech to utilize Self-Destruct.
Other problems exist (such as Diverting Power not boosting Self Healing or the Self-Destructing Mech slipping after roots), but these are the ones that concern me the most — I’ve seen them in my games, I’ve seen some of them in competitive-level games, and for the most part, they’re simple to fix.
Are you looking for PC games to play? Here are all of the new PC games to keep an eye on in 2021.
The pace of PlayStation 4 game releases isn’t going to slow down in 2021. Here’s everything to look forward to in the coming months.
The Overwatch League is entering its second season, and the hype train is getting to full speed. It’s hard to believe that we’re just a few short months away from the start of the Overwatch League with teams like the Toronto Defiant and the Florida Mayhem bringing the world of competitive Overwatch to life.. Read more about replaying games and let us know what you think.
Related Tags
This article broadly covered the following related topics:
- repetitive
- repetitive games online
- repeat adjective
- define repeatedly
- something which occurs over and over again
