XDefiant Movement Nerf and Bunny Hopping Penalty Explained

In case you didn’t know, Ubisoft San Francisco rolled out a patch yesterday that not only added sniper flinch, but it significantly nerfed the movement as well. For those wondering what got changed, here’s a quick explanation on the XDefiant movement and bunny hopping nerf that got implemented and how it changes combat engagements.

In the patch notes, the devs mentioned the following change:

• Added aiming penalties for players who go to town on the jump/crouch buttons, aka the nuanced tactic of jump spamming, aka the maddening exploit of jump spamming. Opinions vary.

It’s a bit vague, right? In action, it looks like this:

Jump-spam penalty aim sway is really strong and I’m all for it (Same applies for crouch-spam)
byu/wedadman85 inXDefiant

What does the XDefiant movement nerf do?

In short: players can only jump three times in a row while in ADS (aiming down sights) before the penalty kicks in. What’s the penalty? On your fourth jump while in ADS, your aim will move on its own randomly, which makes it very, very hard to hit anyone. Note that players will still be able to jump around while shooting, but they won’t be able to spam it like before given the penalty.

Over on Twitter, XDefiant gameplay dev and former Call of Duty pro Patrick “Aches” Price explained it a bit more where he talks about “jump fatigue” and going into more detail on the changes made to ADS, movement speed and more.

We have always had jump fatigue which applies to both jump height and player speed, this dates back to some of our earliest Insider Sessions.

For Jump Height – it is reduced by 30% for each consecutive jump within a period of time.

For Player Speed – it is reduced by 20% for each consecutive landing within a period of time and you quickly resume full speed.

2. Like regular movement speed, the weapon you are using also effects your base ADS Jump Height. This value is 1:1 with the movement speed modifiers we use for each weapon class. So; Pistols > SMGs > ARs etc. (Note: There are some exceptions, like the MDR uses SMG movement speed modifiers)

3. Another thing we do is slow ADS time by 10% if you attempt to ADS anytime during a jump.

So those are all things that we’ve always had, now let’s talk about what we added. If you played during the Closed Beta a year ago, you might remember our ADS Sway penalty for jump and crouch spam behavior. Let’s dive into how it works.

Jump/Crouch spam penalty:

What is the penalty?
Once you reach the minimum number of inputs, we add sway(in ADS) and spread(in hip fire) to your weapon, that will get continually worse until it reaches its maximum amount.

What triggers this?
We will give you 3 inputs within 1s intervals penalty free. Each time you initiate a jump, that timer refreshes and if you hit a 4th jump while that timer is running, we will trigger the penalty. Worth noting Jump & Crouch are fully separated inputs and have independent counters from each other and Sliding does not count as crouch for this.

How long does this last?
Both the sway and spread penalty will last 1.25s

Based on what the devs did, this movement penalty seems to affect PC players who are using macros  the most, which is fine in my book.

Based on my experience after the patch, this seems to have done the trick, as I don’t recall seeing anyone jumping left and right like a drugged-out rabbit anymore.

Don’t forget, we are getting another patch next week, and hopefully, it fixes the console-only crossplay bug.

Are you a fan of the movement nerf or do you want the devs to bring it back the way it was at launch? Sound off in the comments and let us know.

More XDefiant Reading:

• XDefiant Season 1 Launches July 2, New Faction and Content Outlined
• XDefiant Player Count Hits 10 Million in Less Than 2 Weeks; TDM Mode Out in a Couple of Weeks
• XDefiant Weapon XP and Battle Pass XP Gains to Be Evaluated; “Everything” Will Be Looked at in Terms of Faction Abilities Balancing

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