On behalf of all Lucio players:



In Overwatch, a team-based first person shooter game set in the future that has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide (Source), players can select heroes to control in their matches, which all have different abilities that can be used to win battles. One hero in particular, Lucio, has the ability to use his mechanical feet to ride walls and jump off of them. In the game, this is a very important utility for Lucio and is also, in many players' opinions, one of the most fun abilities in Overwatch.



The developers of Overwatch update the game with new content very frequently, and also change the game occasionally to balance, or keep it within fair standings so that any player from any playstyle can enjoy the game of Overwatch how they want. These game changes, or patches, are most usually first tested in a different video game realm the Overwatch developers call the "Public Testing Region", or PTR.



On 4/11/17, an Overwatch patch was released onto Live servers that made Lucio what was so fun about him. His wallride ability was given a small speed increase of 20% when active, and when jumping off of a wall, players would receive "a burst of speed".



With this change, players could use their scroll wheel bound to the Jump action to quickly create multiple jumping inputs in Overwatch, which would make Lucio immediately jump off of a wall after initiating a wallride. The Lucio player community named this technique "wallskimming", because the animation made Lucio look like he wasn't riding the walls, but skimming them. Wallskimming off of 2-3 walls in succession could make a Lucio player fly across any map at great speeds. However, this trick is not exclusive to scroll wheel, as you can see in this gif of a Lucio player achieving the same speed and movement fluidity with the jump action bound to right-click. It can be achieved with almost any bind, and even the default space bar. https://gfycat.com/BasicAshamedEmperorshrimp



This extremely fun mechanic created communities of players that all enjoyed the speed, mobility, and versatility of Lucio in Overwatch. Techniques for traversing maps became popular to learn and create, centralizing in a Reddit community called LucioRollouts. This community gained a staggering 300,000 unique visitors in just three months after the creation of the community that was made possible by the change that made Lucio way more fun than he was. YouTube content creators capitalized on the flashy and exciting playstyles that Lucio mechanics allow and single montage videos reached up to almost 1.5 million views each.



The 10/6/17 PTR patch this week removed the now crucial mechanics that have been established for almost seven months, and created mass panic within the Overwatch community and Lucio players. The flame was quickly extinguished when Jeff Kaplan, the Overwatch Game Director, responded to a forum thread that got popular amidst the chaos stating that the Lucio change in the PTR was "just a bug"

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20759288008?page=3#post-46 Following that post was a mass of relieved Overwatch players. Today, the flame is back. And bigger.



On 10/10/2017, Overwatch was updated with a Halloween-themed event and hero cosmetics, but the scariest change in the game was that the Lucio change that created such immediate negativity from the Overwatch community was not only back, but it was officially pushed to the live servers. Geoff Goodman released a statement on the Blizzard Overwatch Forums that completely contradicts that of Jeff Kaplan.

"Let me clarify whats going on here.

Previous to this update, there was a bug that made it possible to input multiple jump commands very quickly while riding on a wall to trigger a super boost. This was only possible by binding mouse wheel to jump or potentially some other macro program to simulate this.

This exploit is now fixed, so those that were using it will notice it doesn't work anymore. This doesn't affect anyone who was using Lucio normally, only those that were abusing this bug.

That said, we are looking at possibly increasing his wall boost speed in the future to bring some of this back in a more reasonable way, but we wont be re-introducing this bug."

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20759328268?page=2#post-31



Players are now outraged that the change was pushed to live after being called a "bug", reverted, and then pushed to live without even being in the official patch notes for today's update, nor was the change brought up until users began to notice the drastic change in Lucio's gameplay. Especially, not only is the change back, but it is worse. Chaining wallskimming does not increase your speed anymore, and further, simply jumping off of a wall gives less of a speed boost than before. Fast movement is simply the identity of Lucio and vital to his ability kit.



Personal Statement to Blizzard:



Destroying Lucio this patch was extremely unnecessary as many professional and high-tier players considered Lucio to be in a perfect state of viable but not overpowered, even in the presence of what was considered a well-known mechanic. This nerf has forced Overwatch's Support role pool into an even smaller space, but now mostly consisting of Mercy. This change not only greatly discourages diversity in hero picks, but also incredibly hinders the amount of fun the majority of the Overwatch playerbase considers Lucio to be as a hero.



My username is Wormy, and I am a Lucio player with a peak SR of 3.8k with a 71% winrate between my season 4 and 5 competitive games.



Player Statements:



“Blizzard, r/luciorollouts is one of the most active, helpful, and accepting communities in overwatch based on a character. Most of this was based around his wallriding. You would be removing all of those hours spent on learning the mechanics.”

-Zonee, 4.2k peak SR



"Blizzard, this is a cornerstone for Lucio's playstyle and has been what's made Overwatch my absolute favorite game since the rework, and going fast on Lucio using what was wildly accepted as a mechanic by the community was a source of much enjoyment for me - and I know many others feel the same way. By not announcing these changes to the majority in a professional and widespread manner, you've pulled the rug out from under many of us and we feel hurt, without any replacement for this part of his kit currently."

-Charmed



"Lucio is now a turtle with rollerskates"

-UnifiedKings, 3.2k peak SR



[https://i.imgur.com/6gyepkO.png

-Rammy, 4.6k SR.

By signing this petition, you agree:



All direct and indirect Lucio changes included in the 2017 October 10 update for Overwatch should be reverted as soon as possible.



Thank you for your time, and on behalf of all Lucio players, thank you for signing.