A curious bug from the Overwatch PTR has been discussed on Reddit. It turns out: It has existed for a while, and it also exists on the live servers.
Dead at the base: A Reddit user posted a short clip showing a player as Widowmaker standing directly in front of their opponents’ base. An enemy is currently changing characters and gets killed at that very moment – even though they are in spawn.
While switching heroes in PTR, you are susceptible to damage for a very brief moment. from r/Overwatch
The spawn kill bug works live as well
Why is this curious? Anyone in their own respawn point cannot actually be killed. As long as you are within the walls of the room, you are invulnerable and quickly regenerate health points.
Enemies cannot enter the point but can shoot into and see into it if the position allows. Shots that go into the spawn should not be able to deal damage to players.
However, due to a bug found on the PTR, players can be killed for almost half a second when they change heroes.
The bug is old – and live: In the following discussion under the original Reddit post, many other users have chimed in. Most of them report that the bug has supposedly existed for a long time.
According to users, the problem is even reproducible on the live servers and is not a bug of the new PTR patch, in which Pharah is also being revamped. Users see various reasons for the bug’s recent appearance:
- The bug was fixed on the live server and is now for some reason back on the PTR.
- It has been forgotten or occurs too rarely to be mentioned.
- People still remembered it and rediscovered it on the PTR.
Whether and when the bug will eventually be fixed is still open. There are also bigger issues, like Reinhardt, that need to be worked on and which are currently unplayable on the PTR.
Reddit immediately noticed this: The PTR bug was already pointed out half an hour after the release of the new PTR patch. The mass of players instantly found the error, despite the small time window.
Finding such an error in such a short time is unlikely, as it has to be specifically induced. The sheer number of players makes this possible. A Reddit user sees this as both an advantage and a disadvantage for developers:
Seriously, the community can be the best and the worst quality assurance at the same time. The best because such a large number of testers in-house is impossible to achieve. The worst because thousands of people see immediately that you messed up before you can even notice it yourself.
In this case, however, it is quite possible that players found the bug so early because it has simply existed for a while.
Also might be fixed soon: This trick makes Brigitte even stronger.
