Rivals of Aether - Official Thread

[Death By Hugs]

I have two ideas for characters:
Water Element:
A medium sized yeti or polar bear that uses ice. He would slide like luigi, be medium weight and be about as fast as Zetterburn.
N Spec: A charged punch that goes up to 25% and can freeze opponents.
F Spec: Chucks a snowball at opponents. This snowball does no damage, but slows them down. Use a "smash attack" against an opponent that has snow on them to do more knockback.
U Spec: He does a Hulk Smash type thing.
D Spec: On Ground-He charges head first until he hits an opponent to send them flying. In Air- he dives head first until he hits an opponent. It will meteor smash them.


Earth Element:
A MASSIVE living tree. It would be heavy and slow, but his attacks would be on the more powerful side.
N Spec: He sticks his hand in the ground and an indicator pops up. you can move the indicator across the floor and release the special button to make his hand pop out. This could send the opponent flying upwards! To nerf this attack, you can only hold the button for 3 seconds until it automatically releases.
F Spec: Shoots out a short ranged green orb. If it hits, you steal health from your opponent. The amount of health depends on How much damage you have.
U Spec: An uppercut with his fist.
D Spec: he chucks all his leaves. If an opponent is hit they are wrapped in, unable to move for a short time.

I think these characters have some potential. If you were hoping for guest characters or characters from someone else's mind, you can use these characters as long as you say somewhere in the game that they were my idea.

 

[Death By Hugs]

Done took some artistic liberties with this one.

Nice!

 

[RoA_Zam]

Done took some artistic liberties with this one.

Your zetterburn one better be damn good haha. I can use these for some tutorial videos for each character that I'm working on soon, if you don't mind that.

 

[Chuck Tatum]

Okay so, more thoughts on the game.

My entire play group has gone crazy for the game. They talk about and think about it all of the time. Coming from melee where I had to beg people to play with me and then have no fun because of the technical skill gap this is really nice. Alright, on to feedback.

1) In response to the player who asked me if I was 'sure' people die fast... As we have gotten better at recovering and understanding the underlying systems I have found that people 'can' recover from decently high percentages and it makes for some pretty hype moments. I definitely don't feel like the recovery game (when it does happen) is a problem at all, it is fun, exciting and interesting. HOWEVER

2) Every one in my group still feels that ring-out kills kills come from too close to the edge of the stage. I really don't like dying in situations where I know I could have easily jumped and up-B to get back if I hadn't just ring-outed there.

3) Also, much bigger issue: every one complains about hit stun on many of the moves. Many moves seem to have the ability to lock a player in hit stun for an inordinate amount of time, killing them in situations where it feels really unnatural and we find ourselves scratching our heads saying "Wow I REALLY thought I would have a chance to try to recover there." It's not the knockback that's the issue, often I find myself dying this way without even being moved far away from the stage at all, it's just frustrating to get locked out of your recovery for so long. Okay specifics, this is off the top of my head, but this can happen with a lot of moves I will start compiling a list when I see it.

Zetterburn forward smash, zetterburn down-B, kragg forward smash.

4) Also, my playgroup very much agrees that the edge guarding game could use some work. Although we have gotten better about jumping off of the stage to attain kills, it is still pretty rare. I really feel strongly this is a huge misstep, throwing yourself off of the stage for desperate and insane aggressive edge guards is one of the most exciting things about melee and Rivals doesn't embrace it. The following mechanics make it more difficult than it should be IMO

a) up-B's give too short a distance horizontally. For the recovering player this isn't that important as they can usually angle up to return to the stage with their jump and up-B but for the edge guarding player if you double jump off of the stage to edge guard any moderate distance chances are you are going to have a VERY hard time returning with your up-B. The short horizontal distance on up-B's actually makes it riskier for the edge guarding player to leave the stage... and less necessary for obvious reasons.

b) respawn time is a bit too fast. When you kill someone respawn is almost immediate. This further punishes off stage edge guarding since after a successful off stage edge guard your opponent will be on stage, invincible, and active LONG before you can come back. That means he gets a free edge guard attempt on you. It feels like a penalty for doing something awesome, which is bad IMO.

c) I know you've heard this before but just too much vertical knockback and not enough horizontal knockback on the moves. I imagine you designed it this way because the ring out edges are pretty close to the left and right and it's pretty hard to recover from far away so giving horizontal knockback to moves is dangerous game design wise. However, it just feels weird. Even moves that clearly look like they would cause a lot of horizontal knockback (Kragg's forward-air, Wrastor's back-air, orcane's back air) seem to cause a lot of vertical knock back in many situations. It feels awkward. I think this is the most annoying thing about the game as it feels unintuitive and makes the game less interesting since the moves often feel very similar in their effects. However, if you add distance to characters up-B's and increase the width of the ring-out limits on the stages you could have higher horizontal knockback on many of the moves without breaking any thing.

5) When a character is above the stage a certain distance, the camera will refuse to track upwards to them. This leads to a lot of free hits from Zetterburn and Wrastors down-B when your opponent can't see what you're doing. I don't think it feels good to get hit this way. The distance between the characters is certainly small enough that the screen could reasonably show both. In these situations, the camera should track upwards to show the higher character.

6) Alright, this is just my personal preference, but I HATE Forsyburn's copy move. In a competitive game having my entire down-B be completely out of my control feels way wrong. I hate watching my stupid copy walk around like an idiot and twiddle his thumbs.. other times he is the perfect partner and helps me nail HUGE combo's. It feels like the random behavior of my clone can have a decisive impact on the outcome of a match. I really don't think this mechanic is acceptable in a competitive game. His behavior needs to be more consistent and reliable so that I can feel like it is MY skill that just landed that crazy combo, not just random luck.

7) Also, just my personal preference; I hate Orcane's up-B. It is plenty interesting design wise but to me smash and by extension rivals of aether is about hype edge guards. Orcane's up-B feels very all-or-nothing to me. Either he comes back to the stage effortlessly with the original situation nearly reset or it's a free kill against him. It never feels hype to kill him out of his puddle, it just feels obvious... and when he can't return because he has no puddle it's just... disappointing... Also, playing against orcane is just less fun because you can't do crazy edge guards against him and playing as him is less fun because he misses out on most of the anti edge-guarding game.

 

[CaptainCrisb]

Your zetterburn one better be damn good haha. I can use these for some tutorial videos for each character that I'm working on soon, if you don't mind that.

Oh yeah, you're good!

 

[RoA_Zam]

Writing up my opinions for the March build with things including:

Bugs/Glitches
Problems I have with the game
Suggestions for future addition
Tier statistics and stats for characters and stages (opinions)
Character specific opinions

On 3 pages single spaced 12pt font so far in MSWord and I haven't gotten to the character specifics yet. I'll put in all into a trello list once I'm done rather than flooding the thread with a huge huge post.

Featuring this insane glitch I found while live streaming Friday with Kragg that caused my % to go from 77 to 274 in about 2 seconds:
http://www.twitch.tv/forsburn/c/6529834

 

[Big Papi]

Done took some artistic liberties with this one.

Came out great! Thank youuu. :D

 

[RoA_Zam]

My full detailed feedback from the 3.12.15 build:

if (keyboard warrior == true) {
https://trello.com/b/jxsam07K/roa-alpha-3-12-15-zetterburn ;
}

 

[Chuck Tatum]

Hmm, reading over that post I definitely do not agree with some of it. Kragg is looking very strong among my play group right now with all kinds of guaranteed combos and heavy damage + tough to kill when recovery is properly managed...

Zetter's Down-B can be very good, a player in our group abuses it constantly.

Also, one of our Kragg's has started just jumping up high and trying to get over people and up B over their head CONSTANTLY; surprisingly difficult to deal with.

Let me go through Zetterburns points just to give an alternate idea for some of this stuff according to my play group:

Best Character: Kragg, rest of ranking is a bit unclear for now.
Most Needing Changes: No idea
Most Used: I used Wrastor almost exclusively. Most popular in my play group are Zetter and Krag.
Most Offensive: Suprisingly, Kragg. (Pressure from rocks, double rock hits, awesome combos. And a MEAN d-tilt dash attack chain combo that ends with a down-air spike seems pretty consistent.)
Most Defensive: No idea, game is pretty aggressive in general.
Best Recovery: Orcane

Zetter's recovery doesn't seem that bad to us when used +air dodges and wall jumps. I still think that it should be lengthened, as I think for most of the recovery options in game.

Zetter's Strong attack game does seem INSANE. I have definitely died around the 50% mark from strong attack KB with fire; even in situations where I felt like I was nowhere near kill range at all.

Zetter's down B is well liked and seems very good when used sparingly.

Zetter does feel super overwhelming sometimes but I do not actually think he's any stronger than Kragg in terms of raw power. I worry that taking away too much offense from his game will render him powerless to the rest of the casts more versatile options. Even with early kill shenanigans I don't think he is dominant. I am not sure if the nerfs suggested in Zetterburn's post will have the desired effect.

Kragg: Once again, my playgroup sees Kragg as the strongest char. He can combo just as well as Wrastor IMO because his hitstun is more reliable and it's harder to stuff his chains. He gets consistent INSANE combo kills in to down air and his up-B is super abuseable on stage to cause all kinds of frustration and annoyance for opponents + difficult to punish when done properly.

Agree that gimping Kragg out of pillar is WAY too easy. This basically forces him to recover below the stage but he should at least have the option to go higher.

Kragg's up-tilt is mega-crazy strong and spamming it against Wrastor can be reall hard to deal with. I dont necessarily think this is a problem though, just an observation.

Wrastor:

Agreed dash attack within stream is pretty abuseable and not very fun to do IMO. Dash attack off ledge in stream does DEFINITELY send you way too far off the stage, feels super awkward.

No comment on Dstrong, I do rely on it as one of Wrastors only kill moves I can count on.

If FStrong and Ustrong have their hitboxes altered in the way Zetterburn suggests I worry that Wrastor will be really worse for wear. He really needs those claps to get kills and setting them up / comboing in to them can be very difficult against DIing opponent. Very often I feel that to connect with any of Wrastor's kill moves requires taking an intense risk especially with the insane lag on landing from them and his low death percentages.

Maybe I am just a noob but I have found that Kragg just mashing A in the air can often stuff Wrastor combos unless they are timed REALLY well. I often find myself getting my Wrastor combos stuffed like that and then dying to an immediate Kragg counter-combo which chains to kill. If Wrastor's claps were less completely awesome he would need something else to compensate IMO or he will fall behind.

Completely agree that Wrastor's back air should have more horizontal knockback and less vertical. I hate that it hits opponents up, feels completely wrong.

Keep in mind I just have a few days of experience with the game and maybe as we get better things will change. Just my thoughts + trying to summarize the thoughts of my group.
The rest of his comments I either agree with or have not seen enough to directly comment on.

 

[RoA_Zam]

Hmm, reading over that post I definitely do not agree with some of it. Kragg is looking very strong among my play group right now with all kinds of guaranteed combos and heavy damage + tough to kill when recovery is properly managed...

Zetter's Down-B can be very good, a player in our group abuses it constantly.

Also, one of our Kragg's has started just jumping up high and trying to get over people and up B over their head CONSTANTLY; surprisingly difficult to deal with.

Let me go through Zetterburns points just to give an alternate idea for some of this stuff according to my play group:

Best Character: Kragg, rest of ranking is a bit unclear for now.
Most Needing Changes: No idea
Most Used: I used Wrastor almost exclusively. Most popular in my play group are Zetter and Krag.
Most Offensive: Suprisingly, Kragg. (Pressure from rocks, double rock hits, awesome combos. And a MEAN d-tilt dash attack chain combo that ends with a down-air spike seems pretty consistent.)
Most Defensive: No idea, game is pretty aggressive in general.
Best Recovery: Orcane

Zetter's recovery doesn't seem that bad to us when used +air dodges and wall jumps. I still think that it should be lengthened, as I think for most of the recovery options in game.

Zetter's Strong attack game does seem INSANE. I have definitely died around the 50% mark from strong attack KB with fire; even in situations where I felt like I was nowhere near kill range at all.

Zetter's down B is well liked and seems very good when used sparingly.

Zetter does feel super overwhelming sometimes but I do not actually think he's any stronger than Kragg in terms of raw power. I worry that taking away too much offense from his game will render him powerless to the rest of the casts more versatile options. Even with early kill shenanigans I don't think he is dominant. I am not sure if the nerfs suggested in Zetterburn's post will have the desired effect.

Kragg: Once again, my playgroup sees Kragg as the strongest char. He can combo just as well as Wrastor IMO because his hitstun is more reliable and it's harder to stuff his chains. He gets consistent INSANE combo kills in to down air and his up-B is super abuseable on stage to cause all kinds of frustration and annoyance for opponents + difficult to punish when done properly.

Agree that gimping Kragg out of pillar is WAY too easy. This basically forces him to recover below the stage but he should at least have the option to go higher.

Kragg's up-tilt is mega-crazy strong and spamming it against Wrastor can be reall hard to deal with. I dont necessarily think this is a problem though, just an observation.

Wrastor:

Agreed dash attack within stream is pretty abuseable and not very fun to do IMO. Dash attack off ledge in stream does DEFINITELY send you way too far off the stage, feels super awkward.

No comment on Dstrong, I do rely on it as one of Wrastors only kill moves I can count on.

If FStrong and Ustrong have their hitboxes altered in the way Zetterburn suggests I worry that Wrastor will be really worse for wear. He really needs those claps to get kills and setting them up / comboing in to them can be very difficult against DIing opponent. Very often I feel that to connect with any of Wrastor's kill moves requires taking an intense risk especially with the insane lag on landing from them and his low death percentages.

Maybe I am just a noob but I have found that Kragg just mashing A in the air can often stuff Wrastor combos unless they are timed REALLY well. I often find myself getting my Wrastor combos stuffed like that and then dying to an immediate Kragg counter-combo which chains to kill. If Wrastor's claps were less completely awesome he would need something else to compensate IMO or he will fall behind.

Completely agree that Wrastor's back air should have more horizontal knockback and less vertical. I hate that it hits opponents up, feels completely wrong.

Keep in mind I just have a few days of experience with the game and maybe as we get better things will change. Just my thoughts + trying to summarize the thoughts of my group.
The rest of his comments I either agree with or have not seen enough to directly comment on.

Zetterburn DownB is slow enough that I can just dash out of the way of it typically. The only times I've ever been hit by one are being caught off guard from being too hasty with my approaches instead of being patient.

Using a pillar above an opponent was a standard strategy back a few versions ago but we decided Kragg needed some kind of nerf so he got some new endlag added to it. Whenever anyone tried doing that to me I just DI'd hard away and air-dodge away to avoid being with with U-tilt/UStrong/Fstrong.

When your Zetterburn players discover the power of DStrong and Ustrong while the opponent is on fire, the whole matchup and opinions of the character may shift dramatically. As a main of him, I make full use of it whenever possible and it makes taking stocks a breeze around 60-70% when they should be at least around 100%.

Zetterburn's recovery while Kragg has a rock or Orcane uses a puddle can look really freaking pathetic. Just putting that out there.

Good Wrastor combo's come from spacing as well, not just picking the right move to use next from a list and making it connect. If you're trading with Wrastor, you should try to space yourself slightly farther away. Press H and use hitbox mode and see just how disjointed his Fair, Uair, and other moves can be at times. Nair is the only move I really see trading most of the time when you use it, but Nair is still amazing.

I almost never find myself getting kills with Wrastor Strong attacks (with DStrong as an exception). I tend to nair someone to death offstage, fair > nair's off stage, Uair kill off the ceiling, or UpB kill (sweetspot between 80%-130%, ceiling kill with stale hitbox after a Uair sends them above you at around 140%+).

The more you play and the more you experiment strategies instead of sticking to one defined thing until it stops working, the more you learn about your character's strengths and weaknesses. Who you play against and how well they do against you can also really determine your own interpretations. I play against my roommate and also my friend xanthus, whom are a really nub Kragg and a really good Kragg respectively, and I have to play super differently for both of them but my feedback is based on both.

 

[Chuck Tatum]

Oh trust me, our Zetter definitely likes to Dstrong and Ustrong people on fire. That is something we are very familiar with. As I mentioned, I agree that Zetter's recovery needs a buff, if only to improve the off stage edge guarding game.

Also, I still find that Kragg up-B over people's heads on the stage is pretty effective. We weren't familiar with the strategy coming in for the March build and it was independently developed within our playgroup. It seems pretty damn safe to us; so even if it doesn't get kills that often it is worth doing just to be disruptive.

Once again, could cerftainly be wrong and you have a lot more experience with the game it sounds like.. I would like to see some match videos of high level play, we have only seen the one grand finals match on Youtube and I can't find any thing else with really good players.

 

[I_R_Hungry]

will this have ggpo

 

[RoA_Zam]

will this have ggpo

In all of my time as a tester here I've never heard mention of this once so it's unlikely. I'll mention it to Dan though and see what his opinions/stances are on GGPO stuff.

 

[RoA_Zam]

In all of my time as a tester here I've never heard mention of this once so it's unlikely. My best guess is "no", but I'll mention it to Dan and see what his opinions/stances are on GGPO stuff.

 

[Streetwize]

In all of my time as a tester here I've never heard mention of this once so it's unlikely. I'll mention it to Dan though and see what his opinions/stances are on GGPO stuff.

GGPO is an online connection system used for fighting games. Many high-end fighters use it such as Skullgirls and Street Fighter III. I heard it's efficient, but I don't know how it functions with more than two players.

 

[RoA_Zam]

GGPO is an online connection system used for fighting games. Many high-end fighters use it such as Skullgirls and Street Fighter III. I heard it's efficient, but I don't know how it functions with more than two players.

I know what it is. I was stating that it was never mentioned in this thread or by Dan on Skype or anything.

 

[I_R_Hungry]

skullgirls and divekick use ggpo and it's basically undeniably the best netcode a fighter could have.

lethal league, a ffa game, uses it too

 

[Death By Hugs]

I think you meant to say: You should make Rivals of Aether a mode in Rivals of Tether.

haha very funny

 

[RoA_Zam]

haha very funny

@ 4nace is this not the correct way to say it?

 

[4nace]

Hey Guys.

Sorry I've been afk for so long! Been loving the feedback coming in but haven't been able to think about the current characters with a new one in the works and other features filling my brain .

I do have some thoughts about the current roster and I want to address some of the great posts from recent playtesters!

@ Death By Hugs

Cool ideas . You're not too far off with one of those. Won't tell you which haha.

@ C Chuck Tatum

Really happy to read through your posts particularly as your group became more familiar with the gameplay. Let me address some of your points:

So the edges on the sides are kinda close currently. In some ways they are to prevent extended edge-guarding. I don't want a situation where Zetterburn is around 60% and tries to recover for 30 seconds before finally getting killed. I could see pushing them out on a stage or two to give some variety though.

Hitstun being a bit high across the board is something I have noticed and will be addressing. The base hitstun seems to work pretty well (the combo game at lower percents is close to where I want it) but as scaling goes up, players are locked in hitstun a bit too long. In my build, I have made this change:

• Hitstun scaling as knocback increases reduced from .8x knockback increase to .7x knockback increase.

I will be playing a bit and might hit that even harder depending on how things go.

Recovery game:

This is something I have been watching and thinking about. One issue for me is that fun edgegaurds (spikes, gimps, etc) are less reliable than the lame tactic of punishing the prat fall landing. Right now that is hard to adjust without nerfing the recoveries in some way. Both Orcane and Forsburn have teleports that are quick and nearly impossible to punish off stage. Wrastor has a quick and huge hitbox with his Wing Slash (Up special). That only leaves Kragg and Zetterburn as characters that are wise to pursue off stage. Both of them are quite gimpable if done correctly.

a) Horizontal Recovery and Risk of going off stage. I'm not seeing this issue in practice. On none of the characters, other than maybe orcane without a puddle, do I feel at risk pursuing someone off stage. Could you explain which characters you would like to see more Horizontal recovery on?

b) Respawn is too fast. Yes. true. Respawn is a bit too fast right now. Being able to punish someone who went deep is unintended In my build i have made this change:

• Respawn time before platform appears increased from 30 frames to 60 frames.
• Can act from platform time increased from 10 Frames to 30 Frames.

I will be playing with that this weekend when playing with friends to see how it feels. Unfortunately I can't kick out an updated build because in prepping for more features I have broken some things (like dinput controls haha)

c) Too many vertical KOs. Yeah I can see that. It was worse in past builds. It has been hit a bit honestly, with the ceilings increased and knockback increased across the board. Many of those moves (such as Kragg Fair and Orcane Bair sweet spot) are using a modified Sakurai angle. In Rivals moves that have that angle deal 40 degrees of knockback to grounded opponents and 47.5 degrees to airborne opponents. When you combine 47.5 degrees with perfect upward DI (18 degrees max) you get 65.5 which is pretty far upward. I landed on 47.5 as that was something I felt worked well. However in my latest build I did bump it down a bit to see if I could get some more horizontal aerials doing work:

• Aerial Sakurai Angle reduced to 45 degrees from 47.5 degrees.

Some of the moves you call out honestly have higher angles. Wrastor's Bair used to have a Sakurai angle. That wall of pain was way too good. Since Bair is more disjointed than Nair and has a bigger hitbox, you could carry some one all the way to the blastzone with ease. At least with Nair, you have to get close enough to leave yourself exposed. If i wanted Bair to have that angle, i'd have to nerf it elsewhere (start up most likely). Orcane's first hit of Bair has a higher than 45 angle. You have to sweet spot it if you want to kill with it. Zetterburn and Kragg both have good horizontal aerials (Fair on both, Bair on Kragg).

Camera upward. Yeah this is a bit of an issue. Part of it is that we only have so much background art so I have to adjust the parallax to move the camera more. Can't easily fix this but I'll keep my eye on it.

Forsburn copy - Right now he is digging into the standard AI. He targets your opponent and will pick attacks just as an AI would (based on positions etc). I do agree the randomness is a bit harsh. I plan to remove a good amount of randomness from the AI in general so they are more predictable. This will also help because all randomness will have to be handled strictly moving forward and I will need to keep track of every random call. That being said, I am not sure if Forsburn will keep his clone as strictly AI or some kind of custom AI so players can use it better. Any change here will take time so I'll see what I can do.

Orcane Up Special - Get used to Orcane a bit more haha. With Air Dodge + Side Special + Wall Jump + Side Special, I often play entire competitive matches without using Up Special once as a recovery.

@Everyone

Zburn Strong attacks will be hit in the next build, here are some notes:

• UStrong Fire:
  • Reduced from 10 base 1.2 scaling to 8 base 1.2 scaling.
• DStrong Fire
  • Reduced from 10 base 1.2 scaling to 8 base 1.2 scaling
• FStrong Fire
  • Reduced from 9 base 1.1 scaling to 8 base 1.2 scaling.
• DStrong Standard
  • Reduced from 7 base .8 scaling to 6 base .8 scaling.
• Fsmash Standard:
  • Remains at 8 base .6 scaling.

Basically I am lowering the base knockback across the board and standardizing the Fire hits to have the same knockback and scaling. This should decrease the 40-50% kills while not affecting the 100%+.

Wrastor DStrong will be seeing some changes. I am not happy with how it plays in his kit. It feels like a noob move honestly. It can be used to kill when you're reaching for one for example when you arenot comboing well due to your opponent's percent being racked up. But it's hard to use at low percents. Trying to jump cancel is tough because you risk jumping out of hit before you hit confirm. I am changing it to be a combo starter at low percents and a risky kill off stage.

• DStrong can no longer be jump cancelled during movement. Only during charge.
• DStrong now has a hop on hit that has reduced recovery from hitting the ground (12 frames of aerial recovery on hit vs 20 frames of grounded recovery)
• DStrong now sends at a 270 degree angle causing a ground bounce or a spike off stage. The spike power increases if you charge the attack. TIME FOR SOME EARLY KO's!
• This is a both a buff / nerf to Wrastor. It removes a reliable on stage killer for a chance at early KO's and another combo tool at low percents. I will be looking at FStrong and UStrong startup if this ends at too much of a nerf.

Oh also I fixed some of the rock issues. An aerial rock should no longer trigger a break and then appear in the air (looking at Kragg Side Special for this one). My logic for breaking a rock was kinda silly so now it should feel smoother. It will no longer appear, adjust then break. It will simply break right where it was when hit by an attack.

Also fixed the Forsburn in teams issue. Also fixed the invincible prat falling off Kragg's pillar issue.

I still have A TON of bugs to hit and Zetterburn/Earthbones has done a good job compiling them! I am super grateful for his trello list. If you guys find more crazy bugs then let him know.

For all the fans asking about the playtester builds. We don't have an April build planned at all. Next build will likely be May at some point maybe even late May / early June. Certain things will be in flux. Whenever the next build comes out, it will have patch notes like the past builds and everything bulletted here will be a patch note unless it changes further. Hopefully will have online play too, but can't confirm that just yet.

For those with an issue with controls. You will be able to assign a button for strong attacks. I also plan to allow custom assigning of the right stick (tilts, specials or strongs).

Back to work though. On things unrelated to all this!

Thanks,
Dan

 

[someonetookjacob]

Oh man! I was just talking about how I wanted Wrasters down strong to spike tonight. The changes you mentioned here all sound great!

 

[GatorFace]

Zetter strong attack nerfs, and Wrastor with a spike?! THANK YOU BASED FORNACE

 

[FunctionFn]

Alright, 2 weeks with the playtest build. I've had a number of sessions since my last post, and here are some of the updated thoughts/feelings from myself and the others who have played it:

General Game Feel:

---
Here's what I think to be the most important part of the post, as it's what I feel most strongly about:

The combo game of RoA just isn't varied enough. I don't mean that they're flowchart or anything like that, I mean that there's no combo progression through a stock. The combo game feels bland because (and this is especially present on Wrastor, but is a problem for every character other than Kragg tbh) it doesn't really matter to me as the person who initiates a combo what % the opponent is at.

Let's take a look at Sheik in Melee, for instance, who arguably has one of the easiest/most flowcharted combo and neutral games in Melee, and Sheik's combo game is still varied in more ways than any of the RoA characters. First, low % sheik. When the opponent is at low % (approx sub ~40%) Sheik has very few safe options on hit. Almost all of her moves are punishable on crouch cancel, so she is forced to either approach with Grab or zone with needles. Her neutral game against low % opponents has to be inherently defensive as a result of her being inherently disadvantaged on hit. After chipping away at the opponent, she slowly gain access to each of her fantastic neutral game options, ie ftilt, dtilt, Dsmash, etc. I, as Sheik, have to constantly be aware of the opponents' % to be able to begin a combo or string. Then, at mid %, you see the general Sheik stuff: ftilt to fair or uair, dtilt fair, reverse bair combos. These are strong, short strings that are incredibly good at linking together and wracking up percent, but one of the key pieces of the puzzle is that none of these strings work at kill percent. Once the opponent is above ~60-70%, ftilt straight up will not combo into fair with good DI, and below that Fair won't kill on its own without extraordinarily bad DI or a good edgeguard from Sheik. At that point, I need to start using dtilt, which is much slower, and even that only works for another 10%, which still doesn't put the opponent at kill% for sheik's fair. To get a fair at kill % is difficult, Sheik can't necessarily combo into it, all that she can really do is go back to grabs or get a raw fair in neutral. This kind of progression is notably absent from RoA characters.

Another example is Fox, namely hit utilt. At low %, it's a strong CC-breaking move that leads into some really strong combos. At very high%, it becomes a potent kill move. This is true of just about all of his moves (bair, uair, nair, etc). They all combo at low%, and kill at high%. In RoA, that progression just isn't prevelant enough. As Zetterburn, it's not uncommon to do the same combo at 0% that would work at 130%. The game doesn't progress enough during a stock, and the game feels like it just kind of blends together. Wrastor is probably the worst offender of this, each of his tilt aerials seem like they effectively have set knockback; nair>nair>nair>bair>fair>whatever you want will work just as well at 200% as 50%.

I feel like the best way to address this issue without drastic changes to mechanics (not adding grabs, crouch cancelling, etc) is to increase non-finishing moves' knockback growth across the board. This would at least make characters' combo flowchart not feel as homogenous as the stock progresses in %. At high% these non-finishers don't necessarily have to kill, but they should at least put the opponent out of range enough to no longer be in hitstun or set up for an edgeguard or something similar.

TL;DR: Increase knockback growth on non-finishing moves to increase combo diversity.

---

The game tends to be hit-or-miss among smash players. Some of them love it, some of couldn't care less about it. Some of the common sentiments from those who didn't enjoy it:

- Not enough feedback on hit
- Not wanting to invest time in an alpha
- Not interested in the characters
- Didn't enjoy the music on particular stages
- Hitstun (varies from too much to too little depending on the player)

I generally agree with not having enough feedback on hit. I'm not really sure what could be done, but maybe an on-hit sprite (or a brighter one if there is one) + increased hitlag/hitstop on some moves might help with the impact feedback?


Character Specific:


Zetterburn: A couple of the people who play regularly claim that he's the strongest. I'm probably the most experienced smasher of the group that plays RoA, and I play Zetterburn regularly, so I think that's probably why, but I do think his knockback on his fire absorbed smashes is too strong. I agree wih your noted changes with the next build. Another member of the group has suggested lowering the amount of time the burn lasts.

I disagree with the other users saying down-b is useless. The initial blast is probably not always usable, but creating the field of fire is one of the strongest aspects of Zetterburn. Side-B is unreliable for setting opponents on fire, as is neutral B to n extent, as a skilled parry user has taught me. Therefore, Zetterburn is fairly reliant on both bair, and comboing the opponent into a pre-set down-b field to reliably combo into a fire-absorb strong attack.

Kragg: Kragg's in an interesting position. Neutral B is a very strong projectile, and its power and versatility seem to be his most common complaint among us, but I don't think that's his biggest issue. I think his biggest issue is his Up-B pillar. Kragg has an inherent design flaw that some characters in 3.02 PM suffered from, and that is being at an advantaged state when above their opponent. Ness and Meta Knight suffered nerfs to their side-b and down air respectively because they messed with a natural tennant of Smash to too large of a degree; that tennant is this: don't be above your opponent. Ness, with PK fire activating on shield, became too strong when he was above his opponent, he could pressure shield while safe on a platform, making platform camping not only difficult to deal with but outright advantageous. Meta Knight's was a problem of mobility, he could immediately go from in the air to right behind his opponent's shield and be in a pressuring situation from almost anywhere above his opponent, and at any time could choose to disengage across the field. Kragg's problem is one of combo-breaking and platform camping. Kragg's pillar gives him an incredibly strong get-out-of-jail free card. If his opponent ever even slightly overextends for a combo, kragg can Up-B reversal and immediately take away not only stage control from the opponent but also possibly link into kill moves depending on the opponent's position and DI. I personally don't think Kragg's pillar should extend through the stage. It's not only strong, but makes the game play in a weird way where you must play around Kragg's ability to pillar through the stage whenever he's above you. He can platform camp very strongly because of this, as well as force the opponent to play defensively, a position where he is incredibly strong with his vertatile projectile.

Forsburn: Clone AI is incredibly inconsistent. Sometimes it will set up for some insane team combos, sometimes it will walk around slowly and do nothing. Forward and Up Smash don't link properly and should be adjusted. I think only one of these should stay as a two-hit combo, having both forward strong and up strong be double hits seems a little much. Recovery seems fine, he has a lot of mixups with clone making and using the clone's smoke to recover. Being able to teleport through stages trips me up consistently, as I expect it to be like Sheik's where she stops upon teleporting and hitting a wall. Could benefit from better knockback on the bair for a good aerial finisher, but I think he's fine without having as consistent kill options.

Orcane: A very strong character. Being able to double down-b offers very, very strong stage control options. His grounded tilts are amazing and lend themselves to a strong combo game. Fair is both usful and interesting as a move. His recovery is definitely not too strong, up-b is incredibly punishable and can only really mix up recover if he's in range to side-b to stage.

Wrastor: He's fun and easy to use, but ultimately ends up being a pretty boring character. His biggest problem is that playing the character is essentially just playing the same character for 150% 3 times a game. There's not real variance, just throw out a bunch of light aerials until they're at kill percent and then air strong. Side B is still too strong for stage control in my opinion, I would definitely give it a cooldown after it expires. One of the group suggesting shortening the amount of time the airstream stays out, but in all honesty I would see that as a buff to Wrastor. he's be able to throw it out more often and adjust his stage control to air/combo control more effectively and more often that he can currently. I would only see this nerf working if it was accompanied by a cooldown for the move that is as long as its current duration.

Other Stuff:


Hitstun: My complaints mirrors others'. At high % hitstun scales a little too strongly; I shouldn't be sent up and then die off the bottom blastzone, it just feels wrong. Hitstun seems fine for comboing, but I'd like to see it adjusted to along with kockback to make combos more variant at higher %s.


Note on Movement: I'm not quite sold on the movement in RoA. The movement feels fluid, it's whatever you want your character to do, it will do it. But the movement doesn't feel rewarding. Wavedashing is essentially useless; you don't need to use it basically ever. Every character's dash dance is long enough that it doesn't need to be extended, turnaround animation out of run isn't even punishing so their dash lengths don't matter. Wavelanding is kind of useful for landing on platforms easier, but that's it. Being able to strong attack out of run and not having traditional shielding takes away just about every single use wavedashing has in Melee and PM. Wavedashing is just kind of there so I can say, "hey, melee players, check out this game, it has wavedashing and stuff." I can't necessarily advocate for limiting movement options, so I don't know how to feel about movement as a whole, but wavedashing as it is now doesn't really fill any movement niche. Dashing and running is all around better for just about everything. Strong attacking out of run doesn't feel broken, but I think it might be. Not having the ~10-13 added frames that Melee when having to do run > wavedash > Smash meant that most character's kill options were either forced to be used while immobile or suffer effectively a slightly longer startup. Just some thoughts to consider.

---

Final Opinions: The game is fun, and very polished for an Alpha/Beta. Definitely looking forward to seeing what kinds of stages in particular you have in mind, but more characters will also be cool. Knockback growth and hitstun should definitly be adjusted. Character's like Kragg and Wrastor have some design issues but not necessarily balance ones. A frame-by-frame mode for debug, or at least an indicator that will flip/toggle/move every frame during 10-frame-per-second mode would be incredibly helpful.

 

[HermitHelmet]

Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but can we have a character that utilizes Double Jump Cancels? I think it would be great have at most one in the planned roster of 8.

 

[Chuck Tatum]

I would like to see a character devoted primarily to projectiles/zoning. Something like link from melee with a down, forward, and standing projectile specials but you know... actually good.

 

[Big Papi]

WOW! Looove these changes you mentioned, Dan. Your post mentions many of the little concerns that were talked about at the last UMD fest. Take your time on releasing that next build, because it sounds like alot of great things are coming with it. Cant wait for May/June now! :D

Honestly, I believe people will continue to love Zburn regardless of those changes on his burn bonus smashes. As long as you keep the time stopping burn bonus animations, players will use him solely on how satisfying it feels when those moves connects.

I was never fond of Wrastor until those changes mentioned in your post. A greninja-like down smash sound much more fitting than the one in the march build. Also, being able to remove strong attack from right stick is what I needed most because I use it for aerials. Having Wrastor aerial strong attacks on right stick was really a turn-off for me ever using the character.
(...Also, not too sure about how I feel about giving him a spike. I agree, if he does end up with a spike in the final build, then dying should be the risk in missing the spike when used off stage. Personally, I love the idea of the aerial based character not having a spike.)

I also thought Kragg and Orcane 's recoveries were lacking without their up b's, until I played the CPUs. Blew my mind how they were able to recovery without them. Now I just gotta practice my puddleless Orcane recovery.

 

[akf09]

i think the next air should have a double jump cancel! alsoa living tree for the next earth character is a really cool idea

Living Tree Ideas:

(N Speial) strong projectile that passively charges, when charged tree has leaves and when he fires it all his leaves fall out. projetile saps health from opponent if it hits.

(D Special) Roots itself to the ground changing many of its moves while rooted, also slowly regenerates health and increases the speed that it grows its leaves back (charges N special) inreases range of many normal moves and changes U Special to be an attack rather than recovery, can root to walls in order to go in deep for KOs.

(S special) fires vines out forward at a moderate distance and pulls the enemy in an slightly upward.

(U special) shoots upward at a pretty short distance ( abou 2/3s of zetters) if he has leaves they fall off and he is not put in free fall and can up special again. if rooted tree fires a projectile upward that lightly spikes the enemy back towards the tree.

Note: tree would be tall and almost as heavy as kragg and would have only one above average jump

 

[Galaxy Ace]

Hey everyone! I haven't been posting here recently, but many of the points that I would have talked about (hitstun at high percentages, offstage game being too centralized around not going offstage, Zetterburn's ridiculous kill potential when an opponent is burned) have already been touched upon.

FunctionFn's most recent post is very informative. I agree with his assessment of the need for combos to evolve and not be able to be used at any percentages. I also agree that it feels as if everything can be done out of a run, so there's not much need for wavedashing apart from wavelanding. Of the top of my head, longer wavedashes across the board would make the option more appealing, but I'm not sure if that's the right path to take.

I'm not sure I agree with Kragg's pillar being problematic. Kragg standing on his pillar with the opponent right below him puts him in a disadvantageous position because of how easy it is to break the pillar, especially if you don't need to use a projectile. That should make Kragg players hesitant to play the platforming camping game - one misstep and they can be taken advantage of. On top of that, it's a very ineffective strategy on Merchant Port and Fire Capitol due to their layouts. In addition, I think all the characters have good options for dealing with the situation - Wrastor has multiple jumps and can approach from a level ground, Forsburn can use the camping scenario to set up smoke and gain control of the rest of the stage, as well as send out a clone to force the Kragg to react to two things at once, Orcane can attack from below very safely with his puddles and bubbles. Zetterburn doesn't have much special he can do against it, but all characters have the ability to bait the pillar and punish, especially with airdodges not sending one into helpless fall. Approach aggressively, airdodge to the side of the pillar, punish. I don't think pillar camping is an issue, I haven't had any problems with it at all.

I'd like to echo the ideas about removing the instability on Merchant Port B. Either making the platforms stationary, making only 1 or 2 move in a circle, or something along those lines should be done. For a Basic stage it feels like it still has a little bit too much going on.

With finals coming up, I won't have as much time to play or respond to things, but once the end of May rolls around, I'll be much more active in bringing the builds to local Melee, PM and Sm4sh events in order to gain feedback from a variety of players.

 

[Streetwize]

I'm personally not big on having the C-stick being aerials on Wrastor. I wanted it initially myself, but I grew used to how it is. It would also require a special case of altered controls for just one character, which isn't worth it in my opinion. Besides, growing used to no tap-jump I'd rather just use cross and square (A and X on 360 controllers) to do my aerial combos. It's not like he needs much spacing either with his aerials being a rushdown character.
It's really not that big of a deal that Wrastor cannot use the C-stick for aerials. I can still play Zetterburn using the C-stick for aerials, so it doesn't interfere with my general muscle memory. The way he's designed using the C-stick to finish combos is probably for the best.

 

[Dark Hogosha]

I echo a lot of what people have said so far, for the most part. I do think that the off-stage game isn't all that bad and definitely isn't too risky (outside of puddleless Orcane or just not being confident with your character), but it does feel like it pales in comparison to simple on-stage edgeguarding, if not kinda useless due to quick deaths from high hitstun.

I'd love a hitstun indicator in the hitbox mode. It'd definitely help people recognize when they can escape attack strings and when they're just straight being combo'd.

Is there a way to steal stocks in Team Battle? We couldn't figure it out.

At an Iowa tourney recently, we had a player mopping everyone up with Forsburn by the end of the night. Would combo and chase for days, get you to run away, and then use the time to activate smoke/clone and apply more pressure before exploding all over your face (ahem). I still think Forsburn is slightly weak compared to the rest but he is a monster in the right hands for sure.

Overall, I love this game. I'm a huge fan of the "don't get hit" mentality this game has.

 

[Xanthus]

I'm hosting a Melee / Rivals of Aether tournament this Saturday along with ZetterBones. It'll be streamed at www.twitch.tv/xanthus1 . RoA should start about 2:00 PM EST but I'll post here when it goes up. It'll probably switch to RoA for a tiny bit, then back to Melee for a good while, and back to RoA for the end of the bracket.

 

[RoA_Zam]

Get Rivals of Aether to Indies Crash E3!

http://indiescrashe3.com/nomination/2B92CF8D-8614-49C0-1DBC-EC0E453B5426

Like the game cookie clicker? well you'll love this then. All you have to do is click to earn points towards Rivals of Aether on a worldwide leaderboard. The top 10 games get to go to IndiesCrashE3!

Support this game that I know all of you love (and are lying if you say you don't) by helping as much as possible.

If it seems like you aren't supporting that much then trust me, points pick up in speed very dramatically and very quickly, and every little point counts!

Have fun!

 

[FunctionFn]

Hey everyone! I haven't been posting here recently, but many of the points that I would have talked about (hitstun at high percentages, offstage game being too centralized around not going offstage, Zetterburn's ridiculous kill potential when an opponent is burned) have already been touched upon.

FunctionFn's most recent post is very informative. I agree with his assessment of the need for combos to evolve and not be able to be used at any percentages. I also agree that it feels as if everything can be done out of a run, so there's not much need for wavedashing apart from wavelanding. Of the top of my head, longer wavedashes across the board would make the option more appealing, but I'm not sure if that's the right path to take.

I'm not sure I agree with Kragg's pillar being problematic. Kragg standing on his pillar with the opponent right below him puts him in a disadvantageous position because of how easy it is to break the pillar, especially if you don't need to use a projectile. That should make Kragg players hesitant to play the platforming camping game - one misstep and they can be taken advantage of. On top of that, it's a very ineffective strategy on Merchant Port and Fire Capitol due to their layouts. In addition, I think all the characters have good options for dealing with the situation - Wrastor has multiple jumps and can approach from a level ground, Forsburn can use the camping scenario to set up smoke and gain control of the rest of the stage, as well as send out a clone to force the Kragg to react to two things at once, Orcane can attack from below very safely with his puddles and bubbles. Zetterburn doesn't have much special he can do against it, but all characters have the ability to bait the pillar and punish, especially with airdodges not sending one into helpless fall. Approach aggressively, airdodge to the side of the pillar, punish. I don't think pillar camping is an issue, I haven't had any problems with it at all.

I'd like to echo the ideas about removing the instability on Merchant Port B. Either making the platforms stationary, making only 1 or 2 move in a circle, or something along those lines should be done. For a Basic stage it feels like it still has a little bit too much going on.

With finals coming up, I won't have as much time to play or respond to things, but once the end of May rolls around, I'll be much more active in bringing the builds to local Melee, PM and Sm4sh events in order to gain feedback from a variety of players.

Thanks for the kind words. Regarding your thoughts on Kragg's platform camping ability, I don't I was quite as clear as I could have been about Kragg's platform camping ability. It's not that camping on top of his own pillar is too strong; that's an incredibly weak option for Kragg to take, and as you've said, it's easily punishable. It's using the pillar to stuff approaches from below that's too strong, in my opinion. I agree that characters like Orcane and Forsburn can deal with the situation through those methods, but at that point we have an "outcamping the camper" situation, rather than giving the advantage to the aggressor as Dan has stated to be one of his design goals. Wrastor probably does have the best way of dealing with it, but his approach would still tend towards disadvantaged due to Kragg still having access to his parry on platform, while Wrastor would not. Baiting it out might work, but after Kragg's pillar Kragg can be so far away that even if put into helpless he might still be nonpunishable.

Sidenote: I personally disagree with changing Merchant Port Basic, I think variance among the basic stages is important, and the stage as it is gives a pretty important counterpick to Orcane, as the constant platform movement can really mess with his puddle game. I think there are plenty of upcoming opportunities for a battlefield clone or less "busy" basic stages, and I really like the personality of Merchant Port.

 

[Cowhunter]

Hey everyone! I'm one of the March testers and I'd like to apologize for my silence over this month. I have played the build, and before I give my long winded thoughts (which should come over the weekend) I'd like to mention a couple of aspects of the game, and hopefully go more into detail later.

First, and my primary concern, is the ability to do strong attacks out of a run. In Melee, whether your opponent is still or dashing is very important, because it shows a limiting of options. In other words, they've committed to something. What dashing commits a player to as opposed to the standing position is:
1. You have gained momentum which can't be immediately lost save, for dashing in the opposite direction or by shield stopping.
2. You are unable to perform forward or down smashes unless you pivot smash, which takes both technical skill and an extra frame longer to perform.
When we examine Rival's commitment to dashing we find:
1. You have gained momentum which can't be immediately lost, save for dashing in the opposite direction.
In both games, when you use an available grounded option out of a run, you slide proportional to your character's speed and friction coefficient.
When comparing the two dashes to each other, it can immediately be found that Rival's system of dashing is extremely non-committal, to the point of it being almost identical to a standing position. This removes the need for walking, which is used for the sole purpose of being able to move while reserving the entirety of your character's options, at the price of a slower speed. But, perhaps more importantly, it removes any value given to reading a dash, and reduces value given towards reading an opponent's movement. Rivals has done a great job of allowing lots of movement in the game, but in doing so it removed almost all commitment to its movement options. The final concern with being able to do any attack out of a dash (or run!) is that it improves a character's threat range to an incredible extent. This is particularly notable with Zetterburn's forward strong. Albeit I know this is receiving a nerf, the threat range and power that this attack gives out of a dash is incredible. This extraordinarily strong threat range extends to the other characters as well, and overall this seems to create a non-committal neutral game with extremely powerful rewards. In other words, low risk-high reward neutral.

While on the topic of dashes, I also want to bring up dash dancing in this game. As a Marth/Fox player in Melee, I love dash dancing. I think it's super fun and is a great strategical addition to the game. That said, it is applied very liberally in this game. What I mean by this is that every character in the game is given an easy, long-range, option-filled dash dance. There is no almost no difference in dash dancing between characters in the sense that they all dash dance the same distances, at the same speeds, with similar options available to each. When compared to Melee, you see things like Peach having a relatively short dash dance with a few primary options, and this is further specific to her character in that she sometimes holds a turnip in hand, changing the dynamic and approach of her dash dance. Then, you can look at Fox who has an incredibly quick, medium-small dash dance range with a nice range of options, but a couple of primary ones that are generally used. The difference between playing against a dash dancing Fox and a dash dancing Peach is subtle, but enormous. How you approach and deal with these situations varies not only between these two characters, but also depending on stage, items in hand/other conditional hazards, and what character you are playing. In Rivals, I see no such distinction between dash dances. Each is dealt with the same way, and each feels the same to play against.

This leads into my third and final point of this short discussion, which is a lack of feeling the difference in each character. Perhaps a bit nit-picky here, but my complaint is that each character, while they look different and have some different play aspects, each feel very much the same. There are certainly some noticeable differences, hence why I could tell you who my most and least favorite characters are, but the more I play the more each character feels awfully similar to the next. When I do a more concrete write-up, I want to list and explain the reasons why, but for now this is all I got.

Haven't edited this wall of text yet, so bear with any grammatical errors.

 

[AbsoluteBlack]

I came in here to talk about how the next thing in the game I think needs to be fixed is Wrastor's Dstrong, and that 50percenterburn is a common complaint. So... Congrats, 4nace. >_>

 

[LeeYawshee]

Hey guys, first I want to apologize for being super quiet to devs even though I said I would post a lot. I'm here now and I'm ready to start talking about everything.

@ Death By Hugs

Cool ideas . You're not too far off with one of those. Won't tell you which haha.

Dan

It better be the polar bear. Bears are the best animal ever according to my brother and I actually kind of agree. A bear is a must have for any game.

With that said I encountered a strange occurrence that causes my game to restart after pressing start. I apologize if someone has mentioned it already but wow is it annoying.

Edit: I restarted and it's still there. I checked the email with no solution found.

Edit again: I found out that this happens whenever you pick 99 stocks. Doesn't even happen when you pick 98. Really strange but still kind of funny.

TRIPLE EDIT TO AVOID DOUBLE POSTING
I got bored and recorded the %s of each of Zetterburn's moves. Could be useful, might have been done already. To anyone interested: Here you go. Assume that Zetterburn is facing right (→) and use the arrows to know where the attacks send the enemy. As everyone knows, Zetterburn deals extra damage and knockback on his smashes with his burn mechanic. The way this is programmed in is by adding in a third attack to all of his smashes.
Let me know if I missed anything!

Spoiler

Jab 1: 4% (Will always combo into Jab 2)
Jab 2: 4% (Will always combo into Jab 3)
Jab 3: 6%
Up Tilt: Has two hitboxes. The first deals 10% and the second deals 11% Two hits do not connect
Down Tilt: 9%
Side Tilt: Two hitboxes, 5% and another 5%. for both
Dash Attack: 11% (My favorite attack to use as him, just as Gatorface)
Side Smash: 4-6% on first hit →, 8-12% on second hit , 10%-15% on burned hit
Up Smash: 7-10% on main hit ↑, 8-12% on burned hit
Down Smash: 5-7% on back hit →, 8-12% on forward hit , 10%-15% on burned hit
Neutral Air: 3% ↑, 3% ↑, 5%
Forward Air: 5% on beginning, 10% , and 15% on sweetspot
Back Air: 3% and causes burn
Up Air: 7% depending on which side hits from, 14 sweetspot ↑
Down Air: 15% ↓ (Get Dunked!)
Neutral Specia: 2% ↑ when uncharged, 8% ↑ when charged. Causes burn on both
Side Special: 4% projectile that causes burn
Up Special: 7% as a multi-hit when charging up, 8% after flying in a direction , causes burn
Down Special: 8% , causes burn.

That's it folks!

 

[4nace]

Hey Guys,

Got a bit of time before my play session so thought it would be good to respond to some feedback.

@ F FunctionFn
Thanks a ton for the write up. Lots of good stuff in your post for sure.

Combo game variety:
I get where you are coming from for sure, but this is an issue with the core of the attack designs. Moves in Rivals are designed as "Openers" or "Enders". This is because defensive tools are limited so part of your defensive game is how well you get yourself out of a bad position (getting hit by an opener).
Your DI and your opponent's ability to use Enders IN their combos are important. Most Enders out of combos require good reads, good reaction or an edge guard that was gained by using your Openers to get your opponent in a bad position. There is skill in being able to land them at the right percents and being able to close out a stock. Now you might just say, why not just increase the scaling of openers across the board? There are three reasons for that:
1.) To avoid the Sheik issue in Brawl. It's not fun to have to fish to land 1 or 2 kills moves in the neutral because your other moves now knock too far away to follow up. Sheik in Brawl is quite fun up to 70% when nothing combos any more and you have to wrack up a bit more damage in order to get a grab release boost smash kill or just fish for a Usmash. I honestly feel Wrastor has this problem a bit currently because against a smart opponent it can be come very difficult to land a kill other than the Up Special strong box.
2.) There are no grabs in RoA to set up for kill aerials. That means tilts take that place.
3.) To avoid having the neutral break down because low-risk openers can now kill. If you could just kill with a 4-8 frame ftilt with decent range, then why ever use a smash attack?

I get that combos become samey after some play, but I disagree that in RoA you never need to look at percent. My follow ups are usually dictated by percent. During low percent combos, I use strongs knowing that I can still follow up. (example, Orcane, dsmash -> uair) At mid percents I stop using strongs and try to reach for another opener or wait for a reaction from my opponent then punish. At high percents I get back to using strongs as finishers. On a character like Wrastor, I won't even touch strongs until my opponent is in kill range because the recovery is too high to follow up.

The sameyness is something I will watch, but I will not be increasing knockback scaling across the board. I have done it in the past to get the game to where it is now. At this point, I will be designing the game with the mindframe that learning when to slip your Enders into your playstyle are just as important as landing the first hit.

There are exceptions I will make of course. Increasing knockback scaling on specific attacks can open up more combos as damage increases, especially on characters with good movement options. But I will be looking to avoid getting into a space where moves are hard to string together and people generally fish rather than combo into KOs.

Feedback on hit:
Something we still need to work on. Particularly the strong hits. However, the hitpause is already quite high for a fighting game. Strong attacks go past 10 frames and special effects like Zetterburn's fire strongs go past 20. I probably won't be increasing the time because they will impact pacing. I will definitely be hitting the visuals though. We need our "black lightning" that smash 4 has and still haven't figured out what our version will be.

Zetterburn:
Zetterburn likely is the strong character in the March build. (In my opinion). Slightly above Orcane. He KOs so early and can fit a variety of playstyles. Campy Zburns who rely on Down Special, Fspecial and then Nspecial to get out of combos create a situation where they have burn up the majority of the time and can just fish out Strongs for KOs.

Kragg:
Can see where you are coming from about the pillar but it is pretty predictable. If you stay close to him it wont give him time to pull one (Wrastor can combo Kragg from below). If you expect it then just roll / dodge horizontally and punish him before he can hit real ground.

Also, I'm okay with messing with tenant of being above your opponent isnt terrible for every character . If pillar camping becomes an issue I will hit it in other ways. But I dont see it as a design flaw. RoA is a different game with different rules than PM or Melee.

Forsburn:
Clone AI. Read you loud and clear on this. The clone has issues. Not sure how I will be fixing but I will be looking to do something.

Wrastor:
Yeah the stream being out for a while IS its cooldown in many ways. If you use it just for the projectile not thinking about where you are then you can't put a stream in a better position for a set period. But if Wrastor plays carefully and always streams the solid ground then it can be strong. Wrastor is in a weird place right now where I am not in love with his playstyle. (Feels close to Sheik where he has to fish for kills after doing sweet combos up to 80-90%)

Hitstun:
Yup. The scaling on hitstun time is a bit high. I've hit it in my build. Reduced it a bit further for my playtest today. from .8 - .65.

Movement:
Wavedashing into tilts is still faster and easier than trying to dash -> crouch. Plus you can do a retreating Ftilt much faster than if you relied on dash.
The reason you can use strongs out of run is because of the limited options in RoA as well as taking out execution barriers. If I wanted to let players able to quickly run then crouch then Fsmash then why not just let them do it out of run? RoA is meant to be flashy and fast without all the technical barriers that other fighting games have.

Final:
Yeah hitstun will be hit. Scaling won't across the board, but possible for individual attacks. Kragg and Wrastor might have issues but RoA is its own game . Frame-by-frame is looking like it might be possible in the near future.

@ HermitHelmet

DJCs you say? We have one more air based character coming. Sounds like something that could be a good fit no?

@ Galaxy Ace

Basic Merchant Port has stationary platforms in my build. My friends hate it less now. Will likely stay that way for next build playtesters see.

@ Dark Hogosha
Hitstun indicator would be cool. Although currently hitstun is a single frame so it should be relatively easy to tell in-game. I will look into adding it for practice mode though.

No way to steal stocks yet. Need to add that to my to-do.

@ Cowhunter

Thanks for the write up.

Dashing -> Smashes
So I addressed a bit in Function's post. I understand the issues with it. I'm not fond of having it just be technical barriers. The argument that doing anything out of dash should take more time / more risk is fair though.
I could see increasing the start up from run into Smashes by a set number of frames. That would make it a bit more committal across the board. Will have to see a bit more high level play to see the extent of this issue.

Dash Dancing:
Yeah. This could be seen as problem. They all have similar dash dances. This is because I don't want any characters to be limited out of dash. Without grabs / grab ranges, it's hard to balance them in other ways. Kragg though probably doesn't need a Dash Dance as good as his is due to his strong zoning capabilities. These are just numbers but at the end of the day I adjust them so every character plays the way I want. I usually start from extremes and then tone things back so you are playing the toned back version which is why I can see them feeling samey.
Will make a note to look into distinguishing their ground games / speeds more.

Samey Characters:
I agree with you in some ways here. This is again a bit of an influence of the way the game is designed. It is an offensive combo based game. Everyone needs tools to start, extend and end combos. So because they all have similar tools they can be played in similar ways. I don't forsee this changing in RoA. Maybe in a possible RoA 2 we can address that by giving players more options and variety in gameplay styles.

@ LeeYawshee
Setting the stock to 99 is my "attract mode" for use in public places. I would have a button combo that started a match with 4 cpus and 99 stock. Won't be in the final game.

Also polar bears are sweet. Bears in general are sweet. Particularly bear cavalry.

-Dan

 

[RoA_Zam]

@ 4nace after mine and @ Xanthus 's tourney today I have changed opinions about balance that I will write out soon

 

[FunctionFn]

Hey Guys,

Got a bit of time before my play session so thought it would be good to respond to some feedback.

@ F FunctionFn
Thanks a ton for the write up. Lots of good stuff in your post for sure.

Combo game variety:
I get where you are coming from for sure, but this is an issue with the core of the attack designs. Moves in Rivals are designed as "Openers" or "Enders". This is because defensive tools are limited so part of your defensive game is how well you get yourself out of a bad position (getting hit by an opener).
Your DI and your opponent's ability to use Enders IN their combos are important. Most Enders out of combos require good reads, good reaction or an edge guard that was gained by using your Openers to get your opponent in a bad position. There is skill in being able to land them at the right percents and being able to close out a stock. Now you might just say, why not just increase the scaling of openers across the board? There are three reasons for that:
1.) To avoid the Sheik issue in Brawl. It's not fun to have to fish to land 1 or 2 kills moves in the neutral because your other moves now knock too far away to follow up. Sheik in Brawl is quite fun up to 70% when nothing combos any more and you have to wrack up a bit more damage in order to get a grab release boost smash kill or just fish for a Usmash. I honestly feel Wrastor has this problem a bit currently because against a smart opponent it can be come very difficult to land a kill other than the Up Special strong box.
2.) There are no grabs in RoA to set up for kill aerials. That means tilts take that place.
3.) To avoid having the neutral break down because low-risk openers can now kill. If you could just kill with a 4-8 frame ftilt with decent range, then why ever use a smash attack?

I get that combos become samey after some play, but I disagree that in RoA you never need to look at percent. My follow ups are usually dictated by percent. During low percent combos, I use strongs knowing that I can still follow up. (example, Orcane, dsmash -> uair) At mid percents I stop using strongs and try to reach for another opener or wait for a reaction from my opponent then punish. At high percents I get back to using strongs as finishers. On a character like Wrastor, I won't even touch strongs until my opponent is in kill range because the recovery is too high to follow up.

The sameyness is something I will watch, but I will not be increasing knockback scaling across the board. I have done it in the past to get the game to where it is now. At this point, I will be designing the game with the mindframe that learning when to slip your Enders into your playstyle are just as important as landing the first hit.

There are exceptions I will make of course. Increasing knockback scaling on specific attacks can open up more combos as damage increases, especially on characters with good movement options. But I will be looking to avoid getting into a space where moves are hard to string together and people generally fish rather than combo into KOs.

Feedback on hit:
Something we still need to work on. Particularly the strong hits. However, the hitpause is already quite high for a fighting game. Strong attacks go past 10 frames and special effects like Zetterburn's fire strongs go past 20. I probably won't be increasing the time because they will impact pacing. I will definitely be hitting the visuals though. We need our "black lightning" that smash 4 has and still haven't figured out what our version will be.

Zetterburn:
Zetterburn likely is the strong character in the March build. (In my opinion). Slightly above Orcane. He KOs so early and can fit a variety of playstyles. Campy Zburns who rely on Down Special, Fspecial and then Nspecial to get out of combos create a situation where they have burn up the majority of the time and can just fish out Strongs for KOs.

Kragg:
Can see where you are coming from about the pillar but it is pretty predictable. If you stay close to him it wont give him time to pull one (Wrastor can combo Kragg from below). If you expect it then just roll / dodge horizontally and punish him before he can hit real ground.

Also, I'm okay with messing with tenant of being above your opponent isnt terrible for every character . If pillar camping becomes an issue I will hit it in other ways. But I dont see it as a design flaw. RoA is a different game with different rules than PM or Melee.

Forsburn:
Clone AI. Read you loud and clear on this. The clone has issues. Not sure how I will be fixing but I will be looking to do something.

Wrastor:
Yeah the stream being out for a while IS its cooldown in many ways. If you use it just for the projectile not thinking about where you are then you can't put a stream in a better position for a set period. But if Wrastor plays carefully and always streams the solid ground then it can be strong. Wrastor is in a weird place right now where I am not in love with his playstyle. (Feels close to Sheik where he has to fish for kills after doing sweet combos up to 80-90%)

Hitstun:
Yup. The scaling on hitstun time is a bit high. I've hit it in my build. Reduced it a bit further for my playtest today. from .8 - .65.

Movement:
Wavedashing into tilts is still faster and easier than trying to dash -> crouch. Plus you can do a retreating Ftilt much faster than if you relied on dash.
The reason you can use strongs out of run is because of the limited options in RoA as well as taking out execution barriers. If I wanted to let players able to quickly run then crouch then Fsmash then why not just let them do it out of run? RoA is meant to be flashy and fast without all the technical barriers that other fighting games have.

Final:
Yeah hitstun will be hit. Scaling won't across the board, but possible for individual attacks. Kragg and Wrastor might have issues but RoA is its own game . Frame-by-frame is looking like it might be possible in the near future.

@ Cowhunter

Thanks for the write up.

Dashing -> Smashes
So I addressed a bit in Function's post. I understand the issues with it. I'm not fond of having it just be technical barriers. The argument that doing anything out of dash should take more time / more risk is fair though.
I could see increasing the start up from run into Smashes by a set number of frames. That would make it a bit more committal across the board. Will have to see a bit more high level play to see the extent of this issue.

Dash Dancing:
Yeah. This could be seen as problem. They all have similar dash dances. This is because I don't want any characters to be limited out of dash. Without grabs / grab ranges, it's hard to balance them in other ways. Kragg though probably doesn't need a Dash Dance as good as his is due to his strong zoning capabilities. These are just numbers but at the end of the day I adjust them so every character plays the way I want. I usually start from extremes and then tone things back so you are playing the toned back version which is why I can see them feeling samey.
Will make a note to look into distinguishing their ground games / speeds more.

Samey Characters:
I agree with you in some ways here. This is again a bit of an influence of the way the game is designed. It is an offensive combo based game. Everyone needs tools to start, extend and end combos. So because they all have similar tools they can be played in similar ways. I don't forsee this changing in RoA. Maybe in a possible RoA 2 we can address that by giving players more options and variety in gameplay styles.

-Dan

Thanks for the response. I'm also very much in agreement with Cowhunter after reading his post. That was probably the point my brain was itching at in my post: movement options shouldn't be limited, but they should be a commitment in one way or another. I'm not sure if straight up adding frames to things like strong out of run is the right decision, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

To respond to each of your points (i'll try to keep your same formatting to help clarify to what I'm responding):

Combo Game Variety:

I understand the idea of set "Openers" and "Finishers/Enders," and it comes out quite clearly in the gameplay, it's just that I enjoy the fluctuation that moves in Melee and PM have where moves change sometimes even multiple times per stock between being good openers, enders, and extenders (a good example is Marth's fair, which transitions from being an opener, to an extender/opener, to a strict extender, and then an opener/finisher straight up kill, and I'll talk more about that in 1) ), but that's really just my own disagreement with the design choice.
1) Honestly, I don't think this is such a bad thing when it isn't pushed to the extreme that SSBB Sheik was. Marth suffers pretty heavily from this in Melee, and it's part of why he's such an interesting character. As the old saying goes, he either kills at 70 or 170, and that's not much of an exaggeration. Marth has an amazing early-mid% combo game, but if he's sloppy and neglects to Tipper Fsmash, Dair, edgeguard, etc. (his own "Enders") his opponent before his moves start pushing the opponent out of combo range, than he's screwed until his other aerials start reliably killing. Playing Marth against a 30% opponent is a completely different game from playing against a 100% opponent. And I personally think that's exciting.
2) Understandable, but at least as Forsburn, I've never really felt the need to. Part of what makes aerials such a commitment in any other smash game is the threat of shield. Even if I decide to empty hop in that game, often times characters still have amazing OoS options that will beat out my grab attempt after. In RoA, aerials in general feel so much safer as tilts that I'd rather use them in a majority of cases.
3) To avoid the Marth syndrome. I'm not advocating for Openers to kill at percents anywhere near comparable to Finishers. Just because my fair could kill at 180% doesn't mean I'm going to forgo my fmash that kills at 90%.

I totally understand the appeal of having "Openers" and "Finishers," and I honestly don't think that my proposal conflicts with that. It's really more of a "reward" for understanding and playing to that. If I'm a forsburn, and I just keep comboing and comboing with my oponers and extenders that are slowly growing in kockback, and completely neglect my Finishers, I'm going to end up killing 70-80%, while my opponent is going to hit their openers and finish with an Ender at a reasonable percent. But that's just my 2c.

Feedback on Hit:
Sounds good. Focusing on the visuals sounds like the right course of action then.

Kragg:
I can understand that. Our playgroup probably just isn't utilizing RoA's airdodges to their fullest extent to bait out the pillar, but pillar camping as yielded some really strong results for me so far and feels like a pretty degenerate playstyle that might develop.

Haha, alright, I understand that RoA is a different game, just pulling from PM and Melee because that's where all of my experience is at.

Wrastor:
Yeah, I just feel like the stage control the stream offers is incredibly strong, and that the entirety of the cooldown being accompanied by the uptime of the stream (meaning he can always have a stream up somewhere) might be a little much imo.

Movement:
See beginning of post.


Final Note:
I remembered something else that was commented on in the playsessions: the camera.Some have noted that the camera doesn't feel very dynamic, and having it always be completely zoomed out can make the game a bit stale to look at for extended periods of time.

 

[akf09]

polar bear!!!!!!!!!
name him FrostBite xD