Doomfist has been suffering from numerous gameplay-related issues for the good past few months, much to the annoyance of players in Overwatch.
Posting on the official forums earlier today, principal designer Geoff Goodman provided a much-needed update on the current status of the highly-mobile and powerful character.
At least four major issues have so far been fixed for Doomfist on the Public Test Region (PTR) and the development team is still working on three more. There are also a couple of more issues that are being investigated, in addition to probably others, but these require more feedback and data before proposing amendments.
Things that are fixed
- Wall slamming should be much improved. The wall slamming logic has also been simplified so players should find that a 45 degree impact angle is the cutoff between the target being slammed into the wall, or sliding off. This is the biggest change that should be noticeable instantly.
- Rocket Punch now breaks breakables again. Not only was the bug fixed that caused it to no longer break breakables, but the system we have in place now should break them much more consistently than before.
- Seismic Slam being canceled when landing too close to a wall should be fixed.
- Seismic Slam will now ‘slide’ a small ways up ramps instead of instantly triggering. Winston’s leap has also changed in the same way. The slide distance is manually tuned so let us know if it seems like he is sliding up ramps too much or too little.
Things we’re still working on
- Seismic Slam has a bug when you or your target is near a corner, it will sometimes not find them as a valid target. We have identified this bug but it is going to take a little longer to get a fix in place.
- Ghost punches. This is an issue where you Rocket Punch and go through an enemy, instead of impact them. Some of these reports are latency related, but we did find an issue that was causing this to come up beyond just typical networking issues. Hopefully we’ll get in a fix in soon.
- Corner bounce. This happens if you use Rocket Punch near a corner or edge, and it causes you to ‘bounce’ off and slide quite a ways away, probably messing up your punch. This is a recent bug caused by a seemingly unrelated change. We have identified why this can happen though, and are working on a fix for it.
Things we’re still investigating
- Rocket punch vs. Rocket Punch/Charge. We get reports that it can feel really ‘random’ what happens when 2 Doomfists using Rocket Punch hit each other, or a Reinhardt using charge hits a Doomfist that is Rocket Punching. We’re still gathering data and information on this one, and hope to be able to improve the consistency of situation. The intended result is that both players should fall over, much in the same way that two Reinhardts charging into each other knocks both of them down.
- Aerial Seismic Slam sometimes causing Grounded Seismic Slam. We’ve gotten reports of people being up in the air and using Seismic Slam sometimes triggering the ‘Grounded’ version instead of the ‘Aerial’ version. This one seems really rare so its pretty hard to track down, but we’re looking into it.
There is no confirmation on just how many fixes will be pushed out for Overwatch with the next patch. The developer may release them in waves or hold back for a single massive fixture.
The community would be glad to know that Blizzard has decided to include detailed information about bug fixes in future patch notes. This should bring everyone up to date on the status of the game, rather than them asking for so on social media outlets.
