Rivals of Aether - Official Thread

[Death By Hugs]

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

Actually, I am not a playtester. I applied but didn't get a response. I hope to be a playtester though! (by the way, i assume i guessed the yeti/polar bear.)

 

[Death By Hugs]

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

rivals of tether was an april fools joke

 

[steak4prez]

rivals of tether was an april fools joke

What?!

EDIT: So I stopped streaming M-F since I rarely had people able to drop by, especially since I streamed early afternoons.

I would like to continue streaming, though, to continue publicizing the game. Maybe just once a week though? When would be a good time to stream that people would be interested in tuning into? I can currently do weekdays with ease, can't do Friday nights or Saturday afternoons, and Sundays are iffy.

Also gonna be looking into hitting up the local smash community for opportunities to stream others besides myself.

 

[Steel Banana]

Ok, so I've been playing a lot of Forsburn and he's definitely my favorite character. My friend, however, insists that he's slightly broken. He had the following problems with the character:

• Clone is what he had the biggest problem with. It's a huge boost to Forsburn's neutral game and can make some combos feel almost inescapable. Since the player isn't controlling it, it becomes an actual 2v1 neutral-wise. It's really hard to defend against Forsburn when a clone is out because you have to commit to something to get rid of it (for certain characters at least).
  
• Smoke. There's just too much of it at times. He suggested a limit of 8 smoke clouds per Forsburn at once, which seems reasonable to me, since it provides a ton of movement mixups and forces the opponent to commit to something to get rid of it.
• Forsburn's knife. His question was: In a game with no shields, do large disjointed moves give the character too much of an advantage in neutral? I thought this was an interesting question and I'd like to know what everyone else thinks (including Dan). How can characters with no disjoints play neutral against a character with a sword?

His complaints aren't coming from salt either, since he actually wins often. He is thinking about the matchups if the characters were played optimally.

His biggest issue with the game in general is the lack of smash DI. He said that if there was smash DI, a lot of the combos that seem free would take more skill to execute and the person being comboed wouldn't feel so helpless. He actually really likes the game a lot and is absolutely in love with Kragg, lol.

I actually have a few suggestions for Forsburn balance that I think would be pretty fair, or at least interesting to consider.

• Make the clone do no damage/knockback, but the player can instantly switch control to the clone by pressing sideSpecial again. This keeps the cool combo game mostly intact (with room for extremely cool setups if the player was good enough). It also takes the AI component out the game, which seems fair for the opponent.
• As stated above, less smoke allowed onscreen at once (and make Forsburns not share the smoke limit). 8 clouds seems fair.
• Teleporting into smoke destroys the smoke cloud. This fixes the stalling issue without killing his tricky movement game (which is one of my favorite parts of the character)
• EDIT: his jab combo is too strong for sure

 

[Chuck Tatum]

smash DI sounds great to me personally. That sounds like it would improve the game as a lot of high leve smash mind games were based on smash DI. I think that in the current system, extensive smash DI could potentially make combos nearly impossible at high level so that would be something to watch for.

Also, I have been playing a lot of Forsburn lately and I am not sure I agree with your friends thoughts.

1) Clone is really no fun at all. I really like the idea of having the clone be an illusion that you can switch places with. That's a lot more interesting.

2) I don't see limiting smoke as really fun or necessary. As a deception tool the smoke is situational at best when compared to the other stage control mechanics that the other characters have. If you let forsburn get 12 smokes or whatever I just don't see why he shouldn't get to have them all.

3) I don't feel that forsburn's disjointed hit boxes are unbalanced when compared to the options the rest of the cast has.

4) Also don't agree that forsburn's jab combo is too strong. Forsburn has very specific kill moves and jab combo is one of them. I see no reason why one character shouldn't have a jab combo that can be a kill move, especially if it's forsburn who has a limited set of kill moves that can be tough to connect with and who clearly has a focus on low altitude spacing and combo game.

I don't really see Forsburn as even the front runner of the current cast in terms of power. If the game froze in time now and were never updated I would expect competitive play at top level to eventually revolve around Wrastor, Zburn, maybe Orcane.

 

[Death By Hugs]

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

rivals of tether was an april fools joke

What?!

EDIT: So I stopped streaming M-F since I rarely had people able to drop by, especially since I streamed early afternoons.

I would like to continue streaming, though, to continue publicizing the game. Maybe just once a week though? When would be a good time to stream that people would be interested in tuning into? I can currently do weekdays with ease, can't do Friday nights or Saturday afternoons, and Sundays are iffy.

Also gonna be looking into hitting up the local smash community for opportunities to stream others besides myself.

The post was on April 1st. Read the end of it.

 

[Steel Banana]

smash DI sounds great to me personally. That sounds like it would improve the game as a lot of high leve smash mind games were based on smash DI. I think that in the current system, extensive smash DI could potentially make combos nearly impossible at high level so that would be something to watch for.

Also, I have been playing a lot of Forsburn lately and I am not sure I agree with your friends thoughts.

1) Clone is really no fun at all. I really like the idea of having the clone be an illusion that you can switch places with. That's a lot more interesting.

2) I don't see limiting smoke as really fun or necessary. As a deception tool the smoke is situational at best when compared to the other stage control mechanics that the other characters have. If you let forsburn get 12 smokes or whatever I just don't see why he shouldn't get to have them all.

3) I don't feel that forsburn's disjointed hit boxes are unbalanced when compared to the options the rest of the cast has.

4) Also don't agree that forsburn's jab combo is too strong. Forsburn has very specific kill moves and jab combo is one of them. I see no reason why one character shouldn't have a jab combo that can be a kill move, especially if it's forsburn who has a limited set of kill moves that can be tough to connect with and who clearly has a focus on low altitude spacing and combo game.

I don't really see Forsburn as even the front runner of the current cast in terms of power. If the game froze in time now and were never updated I would expect competitive play at top level to eventually revolve around Wrastor, Zburn, maybe Orcane.

I agree with Forsburn definitely not being the strongest in the game. I think he could contend for last place, even though I think he's extremely good (says something about the balance of this game :D)

Most of my suggestions for balancing Forsburn come from my desire to not have people complain about how my character is all gimmicks or how he's super janky. I think Forsburn is the most fun character but I want my opponents to be having fun as well, lol. This is why I think lowering the smoke limit could be nice, since a screen full of smoke seems annoying to fight against, especially if the Forsburn is just running away and spewing smoke. I could see the current iteration of smoke being fine though.

The jab combo, though... idk. Dan talked about the difference between openers and finishers in terms of moves, and Forsburn's jab combo seems like it functions as both. The first hit is super easy to land since its big, fast, and noncommittal and the third hit kills extremely early from anywhere onstage.

 

[Deleted member]

A smashbros-like game on Xbox One. Sounds pretty dammn unique and never-before-seen. Although, i own a PS4...

 

[4nace]

Forsburn Jab-
That's fair. I beefed it up because he lacked reliable kills due to the way his FStrong and UStrong function. Will play with him some more and abuse it to see how it lies.

Forsburn Clone-
Trying to come up with ideas still. The switching idea is interesting but goes against his core a bit. The main purpose of the special is "deception". Right now it functions a bit like a projectile that you protect to randomly get more damage / combos out of it.

Will think of changing it up so it still fits his deception motiff.

Swapping back and forth makes it more a tactical move than a deception move. It begins to be about skillfully jumping between the two and the player just wants to hit any of them to clear it out. Currently the player wants to get rid of the fake one as soon as possible so there is a bit of strategy in figuring out which is which.

Another option would be have the clone not attack but move around and then punish players for destroying it (example, it could combust on death). Then if you hit the real forsburn, the decoy turns into smoke like it currently does. Issue with that is that projectiles would still be pretty great against it. Maybe the real forsburn can press Fspecial again to detonate it early for some clutch setups?

I will be thinking about the clone more as it doesn't feel great in a competitive game currently. Although it does fit his deception motiff kinda well currently.

-Dan

 

[Big Papi]

Forsburn Jab-
That's fair. I beefed it up because he lacked reliable kills due to the way his FStrong and UStrong function. Will play with him some more and abuse it to see how it lies.

Forsburn Clone-
Trying to come up with ideas still. The switching idea is interesting but goes against his core a bit. The main purpose of the special is "deception". Right now it functions a bit like a projectile that you protect to randomly get more damage / combos out of it.

Will think of changing it up so it still fits his deception motiff.

Swapping back and forth makes it more a tactical move than a deception move. It begins to be about skillfully jumping between the two and the player just wants to hit any of them to clear it out. Currently the player wants to get rid of the fake one as soon as possible so there is a bit of strategy in figuring out which is which.

Another option would be have the clone not attack but move around and then punish players for destroying it (example, it could combust on death). Then if you hit the real forsburn, the decoy turns into smoke like it currently does. Issue with that is that projectiles would still be pretty great against it. Maybe the real forsburn can press Fspecial again to detonate it early for some clutch setups?

I will be thinking about the clone more as it doesn't feel great in a competitive game currently. Although it does fit his deception motiff kinda well currently.

-Dan

Yeah, in my opinion the character seems really fun but I just cant figure out how Fburn is supposed to be played. The biggest turn offs being that he feels clunky, hard to KO with, and the times for spawning smoke/decoy and absorbing smoke.

His clunkiness. Kragg feels a little clunky but his power makes up for that and makes it feel like it fits the character. So my suggestion if you rather not make Fburn stronger, then make him faster on the ground. His running animation with his little dagger behind his back and him leaning forward makes me feel like he should be able to run faster than he does now.

His specials feel very awkward. The only things I love about his specials are the combo potential you get with your decoy and the combustion after absorbing the smoke. However, everything else just doesnt feel right for some reason.
The smoke trail and being able to hide behind them is an idea that I agree with, but the smoke can get hit away so easily. I suggest making it like Kraggs rock where only a few moves from other characters can make a cloud disappear. Buff it in that way and then maybe nerf it by putting a smoke cloud limit on the battlefield, or something like Fburn cant hit his own smoke cloud away but rather he becomes slightly visible whenever a hit box comes out of his moves.
Another idea is to make there be 3 levels of combustion because at the moment I feel like getting 3 is alot of work, especially when you lose it all when you die. One smoke charge could be just a hitbox that burns the opponent. Combusting after absorbing the second smoke could just be a smaller combust, similar to Zburns uncharged neutral special. And then keep the same hitbox and knockback that you already have for his 3 smoke charge. The character should also get darker with each smoke inhale or just keep it the same color for each inhale to keep the deception feel of the character.
His down special without being close to smoke should be able to do something in my opinion, maybe this is where your walking detonation decoy could come in. If the decoy is out and you down special without being in smoke or without his full combustion charge then the decoy goes boom (obviously this wouldnt work with my previous 3staged charge idea, but maybe it should only detonate when you dont have any smoke inhaled). Not sure if youre able to find a way to keep the comboing decoy in while incorporating the the detonation system, but maybe you can by having the detonation not so powerful (or by having him only detonate without having inhaled any smoke).

I know alot of these suggestions are buffs, but in summary, I think he needs to be faster and his specials slightly changed. If you make his run speed a little faster then I dont think his specials would need too much of a buff. But if youre deciding to keep him the same speed, then please give him a little more use for his specials in competitive play. Losing inhale when you die kinda sucks, especially when it take 3 inhales to get it. Decoy is fine in my opinion, but if you do change that then please make him a walking C4 lol.

Thanks Dan for everything you do. The final game will be a masterpiece. So I know whatever changes you make from here until then will be a move in the right direction. Thanks again.

Last Note: Small suggestion from UMD club member who mains Wrastor. He said that his uptilt being able to kill seemed out of place. Already told him about the changes you mentioned about his downsmash spiking and he agrees with that because he too thought his downsmash trajectory seemed out of place from his other moves.

 

[Steel Banana]

Yeah, in my opinion the character seems really fun but I just cant figure out how Fburn is supposed to be played. The biggest turn offs being that he feels clunky, hard to KO with, and the times for spawning smoke/decoy and absorbing smoke.

His clunkiness. Kragg feels a little clunky but his power makes up for that and makes it feel like it fits the character. So my suggestion if you rather not make Fburn stronger, then make him faster on the ground. His running animation with his little dagger behind his back and him leaning forward makes me feel like he should be able to run faster than he does now.

His specials feel very awkward. The only things I love about his specials are the combo potential you get with your decoy and the combustion after absorbing the smoke. However, everything else just doesnt feel right for some reason.
The smoke trail and being able to hide behind them is an idea that I agree with, but the smoke can get hit away so easily. I suggest making it like Kraggs rock where only a few moves from other characters can make a cloud disappear. Buff it in that way and then maybe nerf it by putting a smoke cloud limit on the battlefield, or something like Fburn cant hit his own smoke cloud away but rather he becomes slightly visible whenever a hit box comes out of his moves.
Another idea is to make there be 3 levels of combustion because at the moment I feel like getting 3 is alot of work, especially when you lose it all when you die. One smoke charge could be just a hitbox that burns the opponent. Combusting after absorbing the second smoke could just be a smaller combust, similar to Zburns uncharged neutral special. And then keep the same hitbox and knockback that you already have for his 3 smoke charge. The character should also get darker with each smoke inhale or just keep it the same color for each inhale to keep the deception feel of the character.
His down special without being close to smoke should be able to do something in my opinion, maybe this is where your walking detonation decoy could come in. If the decoy is out and you down special without being in smoke or without his full combustion charge then the decoy goes boom (obviously this wouldnt work with my previous 3staged charge idea, but maybe it should only detonate when you dont have any smoke inhaled). Not sure if youre able to find a way to keep the comboing decoy in while incorporating the the detonation system, but maybe you can by having the detonation not so powerful (or by having him only detonate without having inhaled any smoke).

I know alot of these suggestions are buffs, but in summary, I think he needs to be faster and his specials slightly changed. If you make his run speed a little faster then I dont think his specials would need too much of a buff. But if youre deciding to keep him the same speed, then please give him a little more use for his specials in competitive play. Losing inhale when you die kinda sucks, especially when it take 3 inhales to get it. Decoy is fine in my opinion, but if you do change that then please make him a walking C4 lol.

Thanks Dan for everything you do. The final game will be a masterpiece. So I know whatever changes you make from here until then will be a move in the right direction. Thanks again.

Last Note: Small suggestion from UMD club member who mains Wrastor. He said that his uptilt being able to kill seemed out of place. Already told him about the changes you mentioned about his downsmash spiking and he agrees with that because he too thought his downsmash trajectory seemed out of place from his other moves.

Definitely disagree with the clunky part. His movement feels super smooth to me and fits his combo game very well. If he was faster, his neutral game would be absolutely insane. Sword + speed is a scary combination that is really hard to deal with if you don't have a shield.

Also disagree with the awkward specials part. Smoke is extremely powerful in its current iterations if you know how to use it. The opponent is hitting it away? Good. Bait them into committing to an attack and punish them for destroying your smoke. Combustion is also super strong and a really well-designed move. You have to choose between using smoke for movement options/deception or using a super fast, super strong finisher. I love that part about him. The suggestion of having different levels of combust is pretty interesting, as long as the level 3 version is MUCH better than the level 2 version, since smoke clouds would still be available with the level 2 option.


And in reply to Dan:

That's a pretty interesting idea, especially the part about detonating the clone. Having the clone as an auto-exploding decoy could be really annoying to deal with though. If you could imitate the clone, the situation becomes a 50/50 for the opponent with no way of really knowing if they will get punished or not when they attack. Strategy-wise (for the opponent) that version of the clone seems even more frustrating to deal with than the current version, since the opponent kind of has to use projectiles to safely deal with it.

I think the idea of switching with the clone doesn't necessarily go against the deception motif, especially with this small change: If the clone still did attacks, just with no hitboxes, then it would be deceiving for sure. I think as long as switching with the clone has some sort of indicator, like a flash or a small puff of smoke, it would be a fair way to implement the move while keeping the deception factor.

 

[Death By Hugs]

A smashbros-like game on Xbox One. Sounds pretty dammn unique and never-before-seen. Although, i own a PS4...

thats alot of mains

 

[Death By Hugs]

Following my character ideas, I have added smash attacks for each one.
Polar Bear
U Smash: Icicle Uppercut: an icicle forms around him and sends enemies flying
F Smash: Cold Claw: pretty self explanatory
D Smash: Swirl: he spins in a cold wind

Tree (I AM GROOT)
U Smash: Big Branch: branches strech far and pokes an opponent uppwards but not enough to kill (for juggling purposes)
F Smash: Leaf Whip: wacks a green whip forward
D Smash: Root Crash: jumps a little, then slams down with great power

 

[Chuck Tatum]

okay so we have recently discovered Zburn charge B and have been experimenting with it.

My personal feeling is that nerfing Zburns smashes as 4Nace mentioned he was going to do is a mistake (except maybe Dsmash which might be a bit too much). Zburn's smashes really aren't the problem IMO, it's fine for him to be the guy who gets stupid low percentage kills.

It's possible this is because we aren't 'good enough' yet, but charge-B is just INSANE. Killer knockback in any direction with a very short charge time, almost no ending lag, and a disjointed hitbox? The charge time is really trivial for the power that you get from it and how safe it is.

This move just completely dominates Zburn vs Zburn with stand on the stage and charge-B being an almost inescapable edge guard and jump up charge-B covering almost all other options. Even if you do it improperly it will still usually place you in position to hit from below which has great knockback and will often just kill them off of the top any way. It's a combo starter, a combo mixer, and a combo ender. It's an insane edge guard, and it's even good for pokes... this is Fox shine on steroids without the tech skill requirement.

edit: on water stage it's even worse. Just stand on either the far left or far right platforms (non moving ones) and your charge B covers the entire area under the platform and a huge area above the stage as well. Brutal. On aether mode it will active the gusher and cover above you as well @_@

I also think that his up-air has a bit too much knockback for easy low percentage kills off of the top which seems out of character for him.

If I could trade Forsburn's down B for Zburn's B I would do it in a second and it would be a significant buff to forsburn which makes forsburn's down B just seem really underwhelming by comparison.

I feel very strongly that if you nerf Zburn's smashes and leave charge-B untouched you are going to see Zburns using it A LOT more than you would like once they understand how powerful it is in comparison to their smashes.

Also, I think in order for Zburn to have an up-B like he does, he really needs to have a second recovery option. Fox and Falco only got away with having such a predictable crappy recovery because they had two dfferent predictable crappy recoveries and you could use that fact to trick your opponents. For Zburn with just the one option to recover in most situatioins it doesn't feel like a thoughtful edge guarding game against him. More like "if I let him back on the stage ever I feel bad" kinda thing.

 

[Death By Hugs]

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

I applied to be a playtester but didn't get a response. May I please be a playtester? My e-mail is kennyfuher@gmail.com

 

[Steel Banana]

I think if ZBurn's neautral special auto-released once fully charged it would be fine. They would have to time the attack really well to get the full effect of the move.

 

[Malkasaur]

Game looks interesting. I can't wait until I get to play it (whenever that is). I look forward to seeing more of this.

 

[Big Papi]

I think if ZBurn's neautral special auto-released once fully charged it would be fine. They would have to time the attack really well to get the full effect of the move.

I agree with this, or maybe make it so it just doesnt release at all and lose it if you charge it for too long, to keep people from wanting to use the charge all the time.
But I really do believe that being able to hold the charge for as long as you want is something that should be changed. No other character has a move that is able to charge until they release, right?

 

[Mum]

Have people talked about Kragg behavior when being parried yet? When people playtest RoA with me, they often mention how at first Kragg's moves don't seem to get parried correctly. Particularly, his down special doesn't get parried at all, and he's not affected by his side special being parried until after it's done, however long that is after the parry happened.

It seems some of Kragg's clunkiness might arise from these eccentricities, but I'm not sure. Did other people experience something on these regards?

 

[Chuck Tatum]

I think if ZBurn's neautral special auto-released once fully charged it would be fine. They would have to time the attack really well to get the full effect of the move.

fully agree that is the best solution although it might make the move too weak?

 

[4nace]

I think if ZBurn's neautral special auto-released once fully charged it would be fine. They would have to time the attack really well to get the full effect of the move.

Interesting Idea. Would definitely make edgegaurding more difficult for Zetterburn. I'll look into this.

(On the flip side, I don't think fully charged B is as big of a problem as instant B in higher level play. The shine is super good, the charge is best in predictable situations - such as edgegaurding)

-Dan

 

[CaptainCrisb]

Interesting Idea. Would definitely make edgegaurding more difficult for Zetterburn. I'll look into this.

(On the flip side, I don't think fully charged B is as big of a problem as instant B in higher level play. The shine is super good, the charge is best in predictable situations - such as edgegaurding)

-Dan

Just saw your custom controls tweet! Looks so sweet!

 

[Death By Hugs]

Interesting Idea. Would definitely make edgegaurding more difficult for Zetterburn. I'll look into this.

(On the flip side, I don't think fully charged B is as big of a problem as instant B in higher level play. The shine is super good, the charge is best in predictable situations - such as edgegaurding)

-Dan

can i please be a playtester

 

[CaptainCrisb]

can i please be a playtester

Did you fill out an application?

 

[AbsoluteBlack]

Yeah, I think shine is fine. It being frame 1 is way more of a utility than it being chargeable.

 

[Death By Hugs]

Did you fill out an application?

yeah i emailed them

 

[Chuck Tatum]

from these replies I just can't shake the feeling that you guys haven't seen the full power of heavily abusing full charged Zburn B, especially in Zburn dittos.

I think that move is much stronger than you guys are giving it credit for when used properly. I know I am new to this game but I have played a lot of smash and I have played a lot of videogames and all of my experience with those games and with Rivals tells me that fully charged B is going to be a problem.

Before you discount what I am saying 'really' play a good number of matches trying to abuse Zburn full charge B as much as possible and I think you'll find you have been underestimating it's power. Play Zburn vs Zburn and use it against them while they are recovering; jump out after them and release the charge at full power, stand on the stage and release it from right next to the side after their wall jump is spent... I think pretty fast, like my play group,you are going to see your opponents adapt and start doing it too...

It's possible I am wrong as you guys do have a lot more experience than I do, of course, and I know sometimes playtesters just talk out of their butts and maybe that's me today.

Uncharged B also being extremely good and for different reasons just makes the problem a bigger deal than it already was. Charge B is a one stop shop for all your needs.

 

[AbsoluteBlack]

Dude I've played every character against a ton of Zburns, and a lot of Zburn myself, for almost a year now. Charging shine is a commitment; therefore it is punishable. Pretty easily, too. I might argue that charging should be slowed slightly, but that's another conversation.

Also lol at 'it edgeguards well so it's broken'. Edgeguards are absurd in this game all around. Kragg edgeguards low recoveries as well as Zburn and high recoveries better, and no character really has a hard time closing out stocks in Rivals regardless.

 

[4nace]

yeah i emailed them

I got you. Had to search through apps. I'm adding about 5 more people so I'll drop you in too.

-Dan

 

[MintChipper]

Dan did you hear you could showcase your game at Super Smash Con?
http://supersmashcon.com/indie-game-form/

 

[4nace]

Dan did you hear you could showcase your game at Super Smash Con?
http://supersmashcon.com/indie-game-form/

Neat. I was planning to attend anyway. Going to be in PA for that time visiting family. Might as well submit now .

-Dan

 

[TonyMcConkey]

First day playtester, so excuse me if this has been mentioned already -- I didn't see it in the recent pages.

March build -- I can't seem to charge Wrastor's strong attack. Work's fine with all others but both tap hold and right stick hold don't allow charge. Not sure if that's intentional or not, definitely doesn't feel right.

 

[TonyMcConkey]

NM! I see it's air based only! Genius!

 

[Chuck Tatum]

Dude I've played every character against a ton of Zburns, and a lot of Zburn myself, for almost a year now. Charging shine is a commitment; therefore it is punishable.

It's possible that you have missed something even after a year, or perhaps haven't been using the move to it's full potential. I'm sure you have played a lot more than I have and know a lot more than I do... but have you played against a player that works hard to use full charge-B as much as possible and has done every thing they can to get as good at abusing it as possible? Because I know such a player and it has been consistently difficult for many people in my play group ( all experienced gamers and smashers) to deal with and has drastically altered the pace of Zburn dittos in basically all instances. (and made it less fun with almost every one in my group referring to the tactic as "cheesy feeling." and almost all Zburn vs Zburn edge guards boiling down to charge-Bs which is MUCH less interesting than it was before we figured this all out.) I disagree that the move is 'easy to punish;' it requires less commitment than a smash attack (it can be done while jumping and is safer .)

I agree, other characters have better edge guards as well... edge guards that require timing and where you need to choose from one of a few different moves based on the situation. Zburn vs Zburn charge-B edge guarding is comparitively boring and mindless but just as effective, if not more so in many situations.

Just my two cents.

 

[Death By Hugs]

I got you. Had to search through apps. I'm adding about 5 more people so I'll drop you in too.

-Dan

Thanks a bunch! I got it and it is amazing! I played as all the characters and I have to say, Wrastor feels very unique to the rest of the cast. I think Kragg's side special should automatically stop at an edge because I have had times when I almost died. You could also make it jump-cancellable. I also believe that Zetterburn is superior to the rest of the cast. His fire can really put the player at a disadvantage. I think his shine should not burn opponents. Forsburn's side special needs nerfing. One thing you could do is that it doesn't attack, it will just move around and turn into smoke when hit. He should be able to run off the stage and take the hit of an up b to make the opponent would go into freefall. The chance of this is unlikely however, because you can't control where he goes. Other than those changes, I think this game is great and Orcane and Wrastor feel complete. I hope to have a stream to spread the word about Rivals of Aether.

 

[Streetwize]

If I were to guess, the main reason Zetterburn's Side-B probably became so effective is due to Dan increasing knockback all-around to compensate the larger blast zones. As an example: Wrastor's U-tilt was toned down in January from December, and now since Dan increased knockback it became as powerful as it was initially. The charging time was increased from when I started as a tester.

If anything, I'd probably like to see a little more endlag on the charged version. Since Dan is lowering the stun I don't think lowering the knockback so much as well would be a good idea.

 

[Malkasaur]

How many playtesters are there? I'd love to be one, though I'm not sure what the qualifications are, so I'm a bit hesitant to submit an application.

 

[Xanthus]

I haven't been as active lately, but aI still play this game! There was a tournament I held a week ago (8 entrants), I should be getting the VODs up tonight. Might do a detailed analysis now that the game really has been played for a while and the important issues that I've brought up since the beginning have pretty much been addressed, as well as plenty of praise for how amazing this game is :>

Quick Note about Forsburn: I agree the clone doesn't really fit that well as it currently works. Right now I don't really feel his specials do much unless you're technical with them (aside from throwing out side-b's for the chance that it's useful). His moves don't really give an immediate reward like with the other characters. But if you want Forsburn to use deception without complicated smoke setups + being technical with upB, you could change Side B to split into two smoke clouds; the direction you hold chooses the cloud. I'll have to think more about ways to make smoke/deception immediately useful beyond "I could be in position A or B: which are you going to pick". And right now it feels a little difficult to make the opponent guess that you're in one smoke, and punish him for it by being in another/ being spaced a little differently.

Replying to the recent posts: Zetterburn's Charged B is very useful and I haven't seen it utilized too much by others except for edgeguarding. I streamed myself one time playing against Bones and heavily abused it a few versions back, causing it to get a slight charge-up nerf. That being said, I don't think it's overpowered; but I do think many people here underestimate how difficult it is to punish when used properly. Zetterburn is a beast on stage, and he has one of the best edgeguarding tools, but also a recovery that is 100% guaranteed interceptable/punishable with decent option choices / reactions. It's definitely okay to have a unbalanced design. Not everything has to be equivalent on characters.

 

[Chuck Tatum]

Xanthus, although I do think the move is very strong; my primary concern is that, especially in Zburn vs Zburn, charge B is just not very interesting as an edge guard. It makes the edge guarding game feel very 'samey/stagnant' to have this one move make so many other options obsolete.

For instance, why would I jump off the stage and down air to spike with Zburn, really? When I could just charge B on the stage or jump off the stage and charge-B. It is rare for down-air to be an attractive option; down-air, IMO is a much more interesting and fun move to use and more interesting and fun for your opponent to try to avoid/get killed by.

Moves like Charge-B that have easy edge guard ranges from the lip of the stage are large part of why edge guarding in RoA can feel less dynamic than melee.

Edit:

Also, in regards to this screenshot

That looks super polished and nice and it's great to have control config. However, I strongly advise against using this method of setting controls. Controls should be set like they are in Jamestown or Street Fighter HD Remix or Guilty Gear for the xbox 360, where it says 'push button for jab' and you push the proper button on your controller that you want. It should not be configured by scrolling through a list of possible options for each command and choosing them with a selection box, like in SFIV (original) for xbox 360. My apologies if I am mistaken, but It looks like you are doing the latter here.

There are a few different reasons why I think this is important, especially for a tourney game.

1) A controller config screen that works by scrolling the controller options in a menu is confusing to people who don't know controllers well ( non-gamer players won't intuitively understand where the 'y' button is, for example... it's an extra level of abstraction for new players that serves no purpose).

2) Worse yet, your players could be using non-standard joysticks where the button names don't match up. Now the player has to figure out what button on his controller is mapped to 'x' in order to set his controls properly bearing in mind his controller might have buttons labelled '1', '2', '3', and '4'

3) it takes longer to administrate for players which can really matter in a tourney setting where most players may be setting their custom controls on 8, 9, or 10 different systems in a night and having to restart matches because of mismatches.

4) To illustrate the previous point; To configure five buttons using the Jamestown system of control config takes 5 button presses that are completely straightforward and intuitive. To configure five buttons using the SFIV system might take upwards of twenty button presses as I scroll through each of the button menus looking for the proper selection for each one and when I am finally done... there's a good chance I have made a mistake without noticing. Big headache for tourneys.

Watch tournament matches of GGXX and SFIV back to back to see how big a difference it can make to set up time to have SFIV style control configs. I

This is a nightmare to deal with in many fighting games scenes and really made running old SFIV tournaments a chore (don't know if they've fixed it in the new version.) Now, since you guys will have profiles and most players won't be using different joysticks with different layouts it isn't as big an issue here as it could be but, if only for the sanity of TO's, it's still worth addressing... I don't think there's really any reason, in any game, to have selector box style control config.

 

[Mum]

For instance, why would I jump off the stage and down air to spike with Zburn, really? When I could just charge B on the stage or jump off the stage and charge-B. It is rare for down-air to be an attractive option; down-air, IMO is a much more interesting and fun move to use and more interesting and fun for your opponent to try to avoid/get killed by.

This is where I think the design philosophy of ZBurn comes out. He is designed to be predictable, and so his charge-b part of that philosophy I think. You touch on two questions:

1. Is his charge-b too good to recover against? It would need to be nerfed if it left the opponent with no options to recover. Predictability doesn't matter if there's nothing you can do when you see it coming. This is the question that isn't so clear.

2. Does charge-b leave ZBurn with no other edgeguarding options, not even for mix-up value? Although I think this one is more clear that gimping is still valuable to ZBurn, to me, his down-air is strong enough to use against an opponent who tries to predict a charge-b. But I think as far as ZvZ goes, I think it's inevitable to have stagnant guarding with a good-onstage/bad-offstage character. Remember though, that this means ZvZ will have more exciting onstage gameplay because he has a lot of ooption in his kit for that.

That looks super polished and nice and it's great to have control config. However, I strongly advise against using this method of setting controls. Controls should be set like they are in Jamestown or Street Fighter HD Remix or Guilty Gear for the xbox 360, where it says 'push button for jab' and you push the proper button on your controller that you want. It should not be configured by scrolling through a list of possible options for each command and choosing them with a selection box, like in SFIV (original) for xbox 360. My apologies if I am mistaken, but It looks like you are doing the latter here.

Great write-up. Dan will definitely have to consider this now. You really reinforced your point.

Btw, Dan: WOW! Treetop Lodge is a million times better. Kudos to Johan. I could only maybe question whether the saturation of the stage is too high for in-game. From the second picture you posted, it looks like ZBurn's color palette is competing with the background for focus, so in-game players might have to struggle a bit more than they would on say Air Armada to know where the boundaries of the player sprites are.