Sprint inconsistently canceled by dealing remote/delayed damage from sources like Bebop's Sticky Bomb or Paradox's Pulse Grenade. Unintended?

[Riften]

Interaction 1) If Bebop places a bomb on an enemy and then walks away at sufficient speed to continue to sprint, the sprint will immediately be canceled if that bomb damages an enemy Hero, leaving the Bebop simply walking.

In the attached mp4 file, you can see my Bebop kills an enemy using a bomb. As I walk away at speed, I noticably slow down once the bomb detonates and kills an enemy, even though I'm far away and didn't fire a weapon or perform any action other than hold the W key. Just before the kill, you can see Bebop's animation changes to the sprinting animation, but then returns to the standard walk immediately upon securing the kill. The bomb does not have to kill but just inflict any damage for this interaction to work this way.

View attachment Deadlock - 2024-09-11 06-37-44.mp4

Interaction 2) When testing this as Paradox, the same is true for her. If she places down a Pulse Grenade, then achieves a full sprint, but then an enemy Hero runs into the already placed Pulse Grenade, the Paradox will magically stop sprinting due to the actions that remote enemy Hero took rather than the actions that Paradox took.

You can see this in the attached mp4 below; the agency for this specific interaction was in the hands of the enemy Hero and not even down to my direct actions. I placed down a Pulse Grenade, charged forward, and an Enemy Hero positioned in front of me charges into the Pulse Grenade (mimic follower); you can see the Paradox's animations become a sprint and the speed go up, only to immediately return to a walk once the notification comes up that the enemy Hero has sustained remote damage.
View attachment Deadlock - 2024-09-11 07-04-26.mp4
One can then assume this is a universal interaction for all remote sources of damage like this. (Personally untested.)

There's a good chance this is intended behaviour: after all, damage was dealt from a skill, and that usually cancels sprints. It does however feel unnatural to have your sprint canceled for the delayed consequences of a previous action some seconds ago coming to fruition rather than being a result of an immediately recent action. In Paradox's case, my sprint was canceled due to the decisions made by another player (outside of skills/items) which feels somewhat odd. Just in case this interaction hadn't been considered before, I thought it would be a good idea to report it here as a bug even though there's a good chance it's intended: personally, as just one player, my opinionated feedback would be that I find this interaction unintuitive and unsatisfying; walking away only for my sprint to be interrupted by (seemingly) nothing doesn't feel good.

Thank you for working on this excellent game.

EDIT: As is discussed later on in the thread, precisely how or when sprints get canceled from remote sources of damage is inconsistent. For Paradox, her sprint gets canceled both when placing down her pulse grenade and when inflicting damage with it. For Bebop, his sprint is canceled only when inflicting damage via Sticky Bomb and not when activating the skill. For McGinnis, her sprint is canceled by activating the skill (Mini Turret) but not when inflicting damage. These cases are logical independently, but attention should be brought to the inconsistency of it for consideration. I changed the thread's title to put a highlight on this inconsistent nature.

 

[SynthDark]

This seems like a good suggestion, I definitely think delayed damage shouldn't count towards the sprint timer. I agree with your opinion that it feels unintuitive and unsatisfying

 

[Lady Briar]

Ok I can see your point with this, but if I may add another perspective?

If a hero is being chased and throws one of these delayed damage abilities behind them, such as if Bebop bombs and punches someone away, these kinds of abilities being exempt from sprinting interactions would impede any pursuers. This would give heroes with delayed damage abilities a large, and I think unintended, advantage in escapes and mobility.

And I say this as a McGinnis player who often has turrets thrown around and attacking randomly. As much as it NOT affecting sprint would personally benefit me, I also think that, objectively, it wouldn't be very balanced.

 

[Riften]

Ok I can see your point with this, but if I may add another perspective?

If a hero is being chased and throws one of these delayed damage abilities behind them, such as if Bebop bombs and punches someone away, these kinds of abilities being exempt from sprinting interactions would impede any pursuers. This would give heroes with delayed damage abilities a large, and I think unintended, advantage in escapes and mobility.

And I say this as a McGinnis player who often has turrets thrown around and attacking randomly. As much as it NOT affecting sprint would personally benefit me, I also think that, objectively, it wouldn't be very balanced.

I see what you're saying, however sprints are already canceled from activating some of these abilities in the first place: if a Paradox is sprinting away and chucks down a Pulse Grenade, her sprint is already canceled. It would then just be canceled *again* if an enemy runs into the Pulse Grenade while it's active. In that case, I don't think it should pose too much of a problem for chasing down enemies, given they already are relinquishing their speed to activate the abilities in the first place. The interaction afterwards feels strange.

In McGinnis' case, her sprint doesn seem to be canceled from throwing down a turret... but after just testing it in Sandbox, I don't think her turrets dealing damage on her behalf actually does cancel her sprint at all! So in fact, for McGinnis, it seems her turrets already behave as an exception. I can only speculate as to the reasons, but whatever the case, it appears there's an inconsistency here after all! In the mp4 file below, you can see that McGinnis still has quite some speed after placing a turret (though the animation is subtly different; not a sprint), but while the turret is active and attacking an enemy, McGinnis is capable of starting a sprint and continuing it even while the turret continues firing.

View attachment Deadlock - 2024-09-14 04-51-58.mp4

I am aware a large update happened recently, so I tested the interaction with Paradox again and it does indeed still cancel her sprint; I suppose McGinnis is just special.

With that said, your point about Bebop has merit to it. His sprint doesn't get canceled from activating the Sticky Bomb, so it only gets canceled from inflicting the damage. I suppose this just goes to show it's all inconsistent: Paradox is canceled from activating a skill and inflicting damage with it, Bebop isn't canceled from activating a skill but is from inflicting damage, and McGinnis is canceled from activating a skill but not from inflicting damage! Almost all permutations are here. This may have actually convinced me this is legitimately buggier than I first thought...