Bluetracker
Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.
Expanding on the misaligned bullet paths
After making this post yesterday showing the differences between the shooters perspective of Orisas bullet spray path and a spectators perspective, user /u/okteej asked us to do the same test with other heroes. With the help of /u/Wex_the_X, /u/Zikushimo, and the dancing gorilla Sigsus, we did just that. Below here I've compiled a list of all the heroes we felt were reasonable to test.
We avoided heroes with spray patterns that were too chaotic, such as Sombra and Tracer, as well as heroes using shotguns, such as Reaper and Roadhogs primary fire. This is because it's too hard to really see where the bullets are actually hitting, and the spread makes it tough on longer range.
To test the bullet paths we created a custom game, but changed no settings except turning on manual start of the game. We then had a infinite duration skirmish with no AFK kick. Both me, /u/Wex_the_X, and /u/Zikushimo stood in the same spot for all heroes with the exception of roadhog, as his alt fire has a short range before bursting out into a spread.
I've have also made a playlist with all the videos.
Heroes:
- Genji
- Primary fire
- Projectile
- Hits the left side of the target
- McCree
- Primary fire
- Hitscan
- Hits the center of the target
- Phara
- Primary fire
- Projectile
- Hits the bottom right side of the target
- Soldier 76
- Primary fire - Tap fire
- Hitscan
- Hits the center of the target
- Bastion
- Primary fire - Recon mode
- Hitscan
- Hits the center of the target
- Hanzo
- Primary fire
- Projectile
- Hits the right side of the target
- Junkrat
- Primary fire
- Projectile
- Hits the center of the target
- Mei
- Alternate fire
- Projectile
- Hits the center of the target
- Torbjörn
- Primary fire
- Projectile
- Hits the center of the target
- Widowmaker
- Scoped shots
- Hitscan
- Hits the center of the target
- D.Va
- Primary fire - Out of Meka
- Projectile
- Hits the center of the target
- Orisa
- Primary fire
- Projectile
- Hits the bottom right side of the target
- Roadhog
- Alternate fire
- Projectile
- Hits the center of the target
- Zarya
- Alternate fire
- Projectile
- Hits the center of the target
- Ana - Unscoped
- Primary fire
- Projectile
- Hits the bottom right side of the target
- Ana - Scoped
- Primary fire
- Hitscan
- The most interesting one. The dart misses the target, but the bullet path hits the center
- Lúcio
- Primary fire
- Projectile
- Hits the center of the target
- Mercy
- Primary fire
- Projectile
- Hits the center of the target
- Symmetra
- Alternate fire
- Projectile
- Hits the center of the target
- Zenyatta
- Primary fire
- Projectile
- Hits the center of the target
The results show that hitscan weapons hit where the player is aiming. This goes for all heroes except Ana. Her shot hits the mark, but the dart misses. The dart hits roughly the same spot as when Ana doesn't scope. For most of the projectile weapons there were no noticeable difference. That is: Junkrat, Mei, Torbjörn, D.Va, Roadhog, Zarya, Lucio, Mercy, Symmetra, and Zenyatta. The ones which did show a difference, although at some times marginal, are: Genji, Phara, Hanzo, Orisa, and Ana (Both scoped and unscoped). The shot also registers where the shooter was aiming, not where the other players see the path going.
As many pointed out on the original post This deviation is most likely due to the difference between the camera and the weapon. Illustrated by /u/Slight0 here. As seen by the tests this is an issue with most of the heroes, but it was most noticeable with Orisa. Although this won't have much of an impact with most heroes, such as Genji and Ana, it might for Orisa. The problem gets especially big when the distance grows. The player being shot at might not even realise what he/she is taking damage from. It is difficult to "Fix" as this is probably the way it was intended to work. Even so, Orisa might need a tweak. It could be enough to change her model a bit so that her weapon is closer to the camera.
Edit:
We tested how this difference affects the actual damage:
- Shooting next to a Reinhardt shield
- Shooting a Reinhardt shield right side
- Shooting a Reinhardt shield left side
- Shooting a stationary target
As you can see from the footage here it is clear the bullets are actually hitting where the player is aiming.
Bill Warnecke
(I updated my original post with the following but I'm putting it here too so it shows up as a new post.)
Hey folks, I have an unfortunate update here. We were ultimately not happy with the fix we made and have backed the change out for the 1.12 patch. The findings in this thread were spot on and the research was impressive, apologies that we're not going to be able to fix this as quickly as we'd originally hoped.
Bill Warnecke
My advice regardless of circumstance is to apply. Even if your first try isn't successful, it'll give you a good idea of what to address to have a better chance in the future. Several close friends of mine who work in our Quality Assurance department applied several times before the right opportunity opened up for them!
We have a really diverse programming skill set here. Some of our most talented programmers work on behind-the-scenes technologies like our authentication or billing systems! It's possible you could join a team that more closely matches your background and work over time to move on to a game team.
Cheers!
Bill Warnecke
Thanks for the exceptional effort and level of detail in this bug report. We have a fix for this internally that we think we can get into our upcoming 1.12 release.
(For those who commented we should hire the folks who did the research, I agree! We have a lot of positions open and we'd love to hear from you.)
edit: Hey folks, I have an unfortunate update here. We were ultimately not happy with the fix we made and have backed the change out for the 1.12 patch. The findings in this thread were spot on and the research was impressive, apologies that we're not going to be able to fix this as quickly as we'd originally hoped.