Don't Use Overwatch's Lucioball Exploit or You Might Be Punished

Overwatch players who are deliberately playing as characters other than Lucio in Lucioball could be punished, Blizzard said today.

The limited-time, Rocket League-esque mode puts players in the shoes of a modified Lucio who can't attack; he only has abilities that help him to push a giant ball around the map. Through an exploit, it's possible to play as other characters--characters who still have their guns and can thus quickly ruin a match. Blizzard has already said it's aware and is working on a fix, but that hasn't gone smoothly.

"Apologies for this bug. We've attempted to fix it numerous times and have had unrelated issues preventing the fix," director Jeff Kaplan said on Blizzard's forums. "We hope to have a fix this week."

He also warned against taking advantage of this bug, as it could have repercussions.

"In the meantime, we are in discussions with our Customer Support group to start taking action against those deliberately using the bug to play heroes other than Lucio," he said. "Please do not exploit this bug. Fair warning."

That sounds as if using it by mistake (or perhaps even a single time out of curiosity) won't net you any kind of punishment. However, that's unconfirmed; the Overwatch Twitter account advised one player to "not abuse it" when the character-select screen was mistakenly presented to them. Another tweet made it sound less like discussions are taking place regarding penalties, stating matter-of-factly that "abusers will be punished."

Lucioball is part of Overwatch's Summer Games update, which also adds new cosmetic items that can only be obtained through special loot boxes that are only available for a limited time. Some players have complained about the way these items are unlocked, as you can't purchase them with in-game currency. This is intentional, though, as Blizzard doesn't necessarily want all players to earn every item.