Rapid, repeated crouching in Overwatch is annoying – that’s exactly why it is being nerfed.
An opposing player shoots us down, rushes in, and repeatedly crouches on our character’s corpse. This behavior, intended solely to humiliate the opponent – essentially shoving one’s genitals in the opponent’s face – has spread in Overwatch in recent months: the so-called teabagging.
However, with the upcoming patch, the repeated, rapid crouching might be a thing of the past. Players who crouch and stand up rapidly will gradually slow down until they move like a snail.
Overwatch: Chronic Crouchers Will Soon Crawl
The reason for this is not that Blizzard wants to punish “teabaggers,” but rather that absurd situations have arisen where permanent crouching has become part of the playstyle. Many players have mapped crouching to their mouse wheel and spam the movement during gameplay.
Especially snipers like Widowmaker are finding it difficult to hit a target. Until now, crouching was only associated with a minimal reduction in movement speed. In higher skill rating matches, the constant, accelerated crouching has become commonplace.
The change to repeated crouching was not mentioned in the patch notes, so it could just be a glitch or an experiment. At least on Reddit, most players welcome this change – even if it is not specifically aimed at “teabaggers,” but rather addresses the exploitation of another game mechanic. Only a few gamers, like this Reinhardt, wonder: “How else am I supposed to provoke?”
Cortyn says: No matter in which game, “teabaggers” are a plague. I wouldn’t mind if Blizzard went a few steps further – anyone who crouches more than 3 times per second would take damage because the character’s bones can’t handle it. I really appreciate D.Va, who, despite her pro-gamer career, never resorts to teabagging – because her mech simply can’t crouch.
Elsewhere, Overwatch is also tackling annoying players – for example, against 10,000 hackers.
