Overwatch principal designer Geoff Goodman has revealed in a Battle.net forum post that the tank hero Roadhog will soon be given a small tap with the nerf bat in the form of finally fixing how his hook operates.
"Firstly, the hook victim will now move in to the position directly in front of Roadhog, rather than just a straight line towards him. There is a cap on how far 'to the side' you can be pulled, so you can't just hook someone, spin 180, and dump someone off a cliff," Goodman explained. "This part (along with some other bug fixes) should generally make the hook feel more consistent as to where the victims get pulled."
Roadhog's hook has long been maligned as one of Overwatch's most frustrating things to be caught on the receiving end of. It would often connect despite the target not being in line-of-sight, resulting in players being pulled around corners and sometimes even through walls.
The line-of-sight check to see if the hook can reach its target will be changed to originate from Roadhog's position rather than the hook's, which will ensure that Roadhog can't hook targets he can't actually see. The update will also incorporate a new "persistent line-of-sight check" once the hook is embedded, which will enable snagged players to break free if they're able to get out of line-of-sight through dashing, falling, or being pushed out of the way.
"Overall these changes will likely make Roadhog a bit weaker, but we'll evaluate his performance once we get people playing him and make adjustments as necessary," Goodman wrote. The Roadhog reduction will be rolled out to the Overwatch public test realm "ASAP," possibly later this week.
