Rivals of Aether - Official Thread

[akf09]

yes i am going to a smash fest as well tonight and will be bring my laptop to get some actual gameplay in, is twitch tv terrbiely hard to set up? cuz i could stream it.

@ 4nace i am sure you will come up with a unique character as you have with the first 3. also wall jumps look like a great addition to the game. i think you mentioned somewhere that all characters will have the ability to wall jump and i think this is a good idea. however, i think each character should have different wall jump properties. like some characters pushing off the wall harder and moving hotizontally and some characters gaining more height than others. lastly is ice a possiblity for the next water type character?

 

[Vespa412]

Just got accepted as a tester yesterday. Thanks Dan!

For anyone who wants to use Xpadder to play on a Gamecube controller, use this profile:
www. dropbox.com/s/iva0gkdi3m4dgtf/GC%20controller%201.xpadderprofile?dl=0
(Copy and paste url and remove the space - I can't post links yet)

It has functional dashing without having to double tap, and c-stick works like normal as well. When you load the profile make sure you use set 2, set 1 is for Super Smash Flash 2. Keep in mind if you use Wrastor, you won't be able to use R-Stick only mode because since the keyboard doesn't have buttons for R-Stick smashes, I set the C-Stick to manually use them. So basically if you wanna use Wrastor effectively I'd suggest to stick to an Xinput controller.

I will be posting some feedback later.

 

[4nace]

yes i am going to a smash fest as well tonight and will be bring my laptop to get some actual gameplay in, is twitch tv terrbiely hard to set up? cuz i could stream it.

@ 4nace i am sure you will come up with a unique character as you have with the first 3. also wall jumps look like a great addition to the game. i think you mentioned somewhere that all characters will have the ability to wall jump and i think this is a good idea. however, i think each character should have different wall jump properties. like some characters pushing off the wall harder and moving hotizontally and some characters gaining more height than others. lastly is ice a possiblity for the next water type character?

Yeah I'll play around with the wall jumps being different once I get them working the way I want . Right now they use the double jump animation which should work, but I want to swap out the first frame for a wall cling sprite.

Also I have four characters designed as the main elements. Then I have a bunch of looser designs based on variations of the elements. I will end up picking the strongest ones and trying to build characters out of those. The strongest loose design right now is a "Storm" design that would be a variation of air.

Thanks,
Dan

 

[Xanthus]

Played this for an hour or so tonight with 2 experienced smash players (I've probably put about 4-6 by myself). I'm currently tired and can clarify tomorrow if any of this is unclear. Also if anybody knows how to make this text collapsable / expandable, let me know!

General Design

The game plays really well! I had 2 experienced smash players pick it up fairly quickly and executing combos, although there was a TON of button mashing starting out since a lot of things weren't too punishable (at first). The moves flow together and there is never a moment where you don't feel in control. One of the things I really like is altering the neutral game with special moves. Having a puddle on the ground completely changes how the opponent has to approach you. Having the wind makes it so Wrastor is capable of completely different things so you have to space / play differently. I love that there is this extra element of positioning other than the characters and hitboxes they directly throw out; another way to gain an advantage.

Originally I thought that the moves in the game were all entirely too fast with too little lag so that it would be hard to develop an approach that was superior to another player's (spam hitboxes, wall opponent out and pray). The environmental affects/unique specials go a LONG way to develop an advantage on the other player. But with great dash dancing and always being in control of your movement, you can space and either punish their move with a move that out-spaces or out-prioritizes it. Because moves have so little lag and you can keep moving, you don't have to commit to rock, paper, or scissors. You can throw out rock and immediately run to grab scissors just in case.

Knockback is something else you said you were going to change , too many moves have VERY little knockback growth and it feels weird at higher percents. I think it's really cool to keep a few that have an almost set low amount of knockback for late game combos , but it feels like a few more of these moves should be knocking them further away at 170%. And I don't think there's a right or wrong to it: maybe the style you want is mainly combo heavy into specific kill moves / edge guarding or using one of the few killing moves in neutral. But it does feel weird to have the characters barely move when hit by 80% of the moves at high damages. Although I could wrap my head around it if that's the design you're going for, it doesn't have to be like smash

Wrastors Aerial Smashes

Wrastor's aerial smashes (referred to by us as THE CLAP). His aerial smashes are so easy and beneficial to spam. I heard you were going to change the stalling to only the charged smash, which might fix it. But even still, they are huge strong hitboxes, and you can throw another one out. They can be difficult to get past. Projectiles will beat it out, and there MIGHT be enough ending lag to punish them by waiting right outside it's range until you hear the snap, then run in with an attack. Maybe after the update when he can't stall/spam them in midair as much it'll be better, but I might suggest being able to do one aerial smash per time that you're in the air. Anything after that would be the "aerial tilts" until you touch the ground. This would also introduce a decision to the player to save it during an aerial combo until you really think it's going to hit. Then you couldn't just keep jumping and spamming it midair in neutral game, or to try to kill an opponent of the top by spamming upsmash and jumping if he's above.

Ending Accolades

This game is fantastic, and feels AMAZING. I'm the pickiest person about how movement works in a game and how it feels to control your character, and this game feels damn satisfying. Your character always does what you want it to do (except sometimes it's hard to do Wrastors aerial tilts when you want to, I've mentioned this in a previous post).

It's too early to tell gameplaywise whether it's "too quick", and by that I mean whether it's so fast that when two people are good at it, it's not within normal human limits to react to / punish what the other one does. So if this were the case, in the neutral game, you just throwing out moves that you hope will land if the opponent makes the wrong choice/uses the wrong move. Which can still work if you can use spacing and moves to beat out / be safe from their options, without you being able to see what they're about to do and them being locked into a commitment that you can punish. We'll see what happens once we get better at it :>. Just want to make sure there's enough depth to gain a significant advantage over somebody who's got the mechanics down and makes decent decisions.

Loving this game, can't wait to see how it unfolds! Can't wait for walljumping :>

 

[Vespa412]

After playing about an hour with my brother here's some random thoughts/questions.

-Wrastor seems overpowered compared to the other two. He has the same combo ability that the game seems to emphasize, but combined with multiple jumps it makes it even easier to extend combos. Also his aerial smashes are really easy to connect with and end combos with because of his maneuverability. Stringing a bunch of up airs and ending with an aerial up smash is so easy to do and kills off the top pretty easily.

-I know you said you were going to make Wrastor fall slowly while charging a smash. Will he continue falling while executing the attack animation?

-Something that caught my eye being an Ivysaur main in Project M, have you considered giving Orcane's up-air a hitbox on the bottom? I think it would be pretty nifty and would also give more options to the character that in my opinion is weakest so far (by a small margin).

-Generally speaking we found that parrying was too hard to time to use reliably, so the neutral game ended up being mostly about spacing and throwing out hitboxes. Perhaps parrying is just something that will take time for players to get used to the timing.

-Very minor bug: tap jump doesn't work correctly on the keyboard controls. I know the keyboard wasn't a main focus but it's just something I noticed while trying to set up Xpadder for my brother who plays with tap jump on.

I'll try to get more playtime in with different people. I just started a new job so my hands are a little full but the game is so fun to play even in this early stage.

 

[arcticfox8]

You know how Wrastor has aerial smashes?
Wouldn't it be cool if there was a character with dashing tilts?
No? Okay

 

[Zauron]

Sorry I've been busy and haven't had time to do any detailed replies to your reply to my initial feedback.

• I can play with increasing the recovery slightly across the characters and then pushing the invincibility to earlier (perhaps as soon as the 1st frame?) I'll discuss wave-dashing below.

Just to clarify, I only meant adjusting the timing of the invincibility frames to be earlier, not adjusting the length of the actual dodge animation. That's probably what you meant too but just wanted to be sure. Honestly, I'd probably think its fine if you just start the invincibility frames from the start and leave everething else as is, I was just presenting the option that if you felt that was too many total frames of invincibility that you could keep the same total number of i-frames and just start them sooner.


So one of the things I most frequently did with Wavedashing was wavedash back then smash attack forward, so that the wavedash back avoided an opponent's attack (by spacing alone since you get no i-frames) and then the forward smash would hit them (this assumes my forward smash has more range than the attack I was avoiding of course, like for instance avoiding and punishing a d-air). With the changes you demonstrated in your gif earlier, is this maneuver now possible without needing to use an actual Wavedash? This would require not only for the controls to allow it but that the dash has enough initial speed to be able to actually successfully "dodge" a move with it. I would love to be able to do this trick by just tapping one direction on the L-stick and then tapping the opposite direction on the R-stick, rather than the complex sequence that was required to do it in Melee!


I think its fine if you don't address tumbling/lying down for now, see how it plays out, it might not ever be needed or terribly missed in the long run. I'm glad to hear you've put some thought into the use of teching though (and have reason to avoid doing it, adding to Depth)!


It seems from other feedback that Parrying is quite difficult to do, so maybe it really doesn't need a counter after all? I don't think we'll know for sure until people have enough practice in and are "playing to win" enough to try basing their strategy around it. I still think the extended-hit-pause style I described before would feel more natural and exciting than the current post-move-freeze+invincibility implementation, but perhaps it will grow on me (its unique, I'll grant you that).


I think adding stuff to the player ID tag is an interesting idea for addressing readability issues like being in danger zone (> 100%), and having used up one-time-only moves (double jump, dodge, now wall jump too?). I hadn't thought of that solution, I'm so used to not even paying attention to the tags but it would be easier than looking down at the bottom of the screen in the heat of combat to see your status (or your opponents!).


On the Wrastor projectile, I actually want to use it sooner not as a projectile but to adjust the position of my wind tunnel. If my initial attempt to use it for a rushdown fails, I feel I have to wait a while before I can try at a different vertical position. Maybe it just lasts too long in general. Or maybe I'll feel its just right once I get more used to it .

Also on the turning around from double jumps thing, its not because of any gameplay reason, so the fact that he can turn around by other means wasn't the point, I was just saying it felt weird, and that that may be why the multi-jump characters in Smash turn around - it just feels odd to jump repeatedly backwards for some reason. I was actually surprised that it bothered me, but I'm fine with the reason given that something can look/feel a little weird if it works better for gameplay .


Anyway excited to see you've already made significant progress on some of my earlier feedback items, I hope I didn't steer you wrong and I look forward to trying them out!

 

[Tybis]

-Something that caught my eye being an Ivysaur main in Project M, have you considered giving Orcane's up-air a hitbox on the bottom?

Semi sex-kick hitbox on stomach as he travels down? I support that.

I know I'm probably just echoing others at this point, but Zetterburn feels like his aerials/tilts don't have enough endlag outside of dair. I've yet to test against other players though.

Is Zetterburn's air downB supposed to be a suicide spike? Because it's really tempting.

 

[Psi Sig]

love seeing all the feed back people are giving on this game, can't wait to see how the game develops

 

[4nace]

Hey Guys. I am working on a post for the Rivals of Aether main page. If you have any Wrastor Gifs that you want to show off, post them here and I will include them in the post and credit you with your smashboards name!

If you want to learn how to create gifs, my process is using Fraps to record footage then using GifCam (found here: http://blog.bahraniapps.com/gifcam/) to record over the video and turn it into a Gif. Try to show off some of the cooler Wrastor stuff like Combos and Specials!

I will announce that Wrastor joins the game. He will still be featured in the second trailer, that will reveal the Earth character along with Wrastor, but he is far enough along to let people know that he joins the game.

EDIT: I am also reading through all your feedback and will comment soon. I have added a lot of the good stuff to my to-do list. Keep the feedback coming and when it comes to balance, feel free to disagree with myself or others! Also many of you will be happy to know I nerfed Wrastor slightly today. I tweaked the numbers on his smashes to have a bit more startup and a bit more recovery. Those are his kills. I don't want people spamming them at low percents!

Thanks,
Dan Fornace

 

[Tetiro]

Oh Dan I have a good question. What happens when you want to expand the character roster? I mean you already have fire, wind, water and earth. You have covered all the main elements. What would you do next?

 

[TheCoin]

Hey Guys. I am working on a post for the Rivals of Aether main page. If you have any Wrastor Gifs that you want to show off, post them here and I will include them in the post and credit you with your smashboards name!

You can use the Ken Combo one if you want to, but it's against a cpu so it might not be worth much.
I just upload my videos directly to Gfycat.com and they will automaticly do a gif version of it, but I don't know if it loses some quality that way?

 

[Mum]

Hey guys, I've got a few points I've noticed in my playtime:

• Zet's Down-Special is really spammable, playing FFA's all-Zet turns into everyone using Down-Special because it has wide AOE, and strong smash. It makes the match one-sided, basically "who can avoid the most down-special until it's a 1v1" kind of match.

• Parrying is a bit weird because, for instance, if Zet's Up-Special gets parried but he bounces into the ground, his helplessness is negated due to the bounce. Also, most moves will finish is they are parried, then the rival will be helpless. In my opinion, a lot of parry's issue can be solved by causing helpnessness to happen instantly and it can't be cancelled by anything.

• The banner platform on Fire Capital seems unnecessary.

• When you parry Zet's fire, the color of the fire changes, but it doesn't seem consistent with the parry-er's color, maybe it could just stay the same color as the Zet who fired it?

@ Mum
I understand that reaction, but I think it is mostly due to how easy Zetterburn is to first pick up. I could see his forward smash having a bit more lag and the non-fire version having a bit more knockback. But right Zetterburn is easy but begins to fall off. I think the main reason he falls off is that he is quite predictable. Once you get a handle on his forward special and his desire to combo fire into smashes, he starts to become easier to play against. I would actually rank Zetterburn as even with Orcane but under Wrastor in the build you guys have.

You're right, Zet does begin to be predictable, I'm finding him to be easier to deal the more I play against him.

I'm having a small smash get-together later, hopefully will get a lot of legitimate playtime against opponents (and some recorded footage). I've already put a number of hours playing by myself vs my pseudo AI, but want to hold off on that feedback until I get significant playtime with actual people. If anyone is interested, I plan to stream it from around 4 PM EST

I think it would be useful to be able to use wrastor's aerial tilts with the c-stick by tilting it instead of "smashing" it. (use a tilt independant of the direction you're moving)

I'll tune in. There's an option called "R Stick only" that makes the stick the only way to use smashes, allowing you to use the left stick and button for tilts, which makes Wrastor much easier for me.

Semi sex-kick hitbox on stomach as he travels down? I support that.

I agree, I don't think it'd make that move too strong either.

 

[Puppyfaic]

Oh Dan I have a good question. What happens when you want to expand the character roster? I mean you already have fire, wind, water and earth. You have covered all the main elements. What would you do next?

sub-elements. That is, modifications of the 4 main elements. For example, lightning, ice, smoke, steam, plants, rocks, etc.

 

[arcticfox8]

Will this game have cool alt costumes
I like alt costumes

 

[Mum]

sub-elements. That is, modifications of the 4 main elements. For example, lightning, ice, smoke, steam, plants, rocks, etc.

Smoke-and-Steam, Ice climbers style. :D

 

[pokemandudeguy_1]

Hey! I just joined the play testing team! Most of my discoveries with this game are very similar to the other ones already posted in this forum. The only thing I would like to expand on is that Wrastor seams a little overpowered. OK, a lot overpowered. The main problem with him is that none of his moves have a lot of knock back, so he can chain moves together effortlessly. I would definitely give some of his moves more knock back.

Other than that, does anyone know of a way to get the Wii Rock Band guitar to work on the game? That would be the most fun thing ever, even if just for a joke.

 

[Mum]

Hey! I just joined the play testing team! Most of my discoveries with this game are very similar to the other ones already posted in this forum. The only thing I would like to expand on is that Wrastor seams a little overpowered. OK, a lot overpowered. The main problem with him is that none of his moves have a lot of knock back, so he can chain moves together effortlessly. I would definitely give some of his moves more knock back.

Other than that, does anyone know of a way to get the Wii Rock Band guitar to work on the game? That would be the most fun thing ever, even if just for a joke.

Yeah Dan is already working on balancing wrastor; as for the guitar, no idea.

 

[4nace]

Yup working on Wrastor now and getting a new playtester build for you guys in the nearish future!
As far the guitar, probably with something like XPadder? I'm not sure :D

 

[Puppyfaic]

Yup working on Wrastor now and getting a new playtester build for you guys in the nearish future!
As far the guitar, probably with something like XPadder? I'm not sure :D

The only way to play Rivals of Aether is with a DDR Dance Pad.

 

[4nace]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I have a big to do list with tasks from you guys! Also I took some of the more achievable tasks and made a smaller list. My plan is to tackle them tonight. If you guys would be interested I was thinking of streaming that process tonight around 10pm eastern / 7pm pacific.

Is that something you guys would be interested in watching? If so I'll come back to confirm and post a link to the stream!

Thanks,
Dan

 

[Mum]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I have a big to do list with tasks from you guys! Also I took some of the more achievable tasks and made a smaller list. My plan is to tackle them tonight. If you guys would be interested I was thinking of streaming that process tonight around 10pm eastern / 7pm pacific.

Is that something you guys would be interested in watching? If so I'll come back to confirm and post a link to the stream!

Thanks,
Dan

I would definitely tune in if you did!

 

[Tybis]

Is that something you guys would be interested in watching? If so I'll come back to confirm and post a link to the stream!

I'd be interested!

 

[4nace]

Glad to hear. I will be streaming some Rivals of Aether development tonight at 10PM EST / 7PM PST! Come hang out and ask questions! I will also be able to make quick changes. Want to see what a move looks like with double recovery? Let's try it!

You can watch here when I go online:
http://www.twitch.tv/zetterburn

Thanks,
Dan Fornace

 

[Jeffls]

Just randomly looked up Super Smash Land again today and eventually hopped over to your twitter to see if you've ever had any plans to work on the game or something new. Obviously I saw the new game you're working on and I have to say it looks awesome. My friends and I are crazy smash fans who have been playing the series since the day 1 release of Smash for N64. I'll be sure to tell them all about this game right away, and spread the word as much as I can. Awesome job so far and keep it up. Super Smash Land was great and this looks like you're pushing yourself to make your next game that much better.

 

[randomnerdchris]

Ok I just got accepted as a playtester so I'm gonna share some impressions and weird stuff I've found. I've mostly been messing with Zetterburn and I found a glitch maybe. When you up special with Zetterburn you can cancel the start of this into an air dodge. It's not super useful but I figured you could use it to halt your momentum when recovering, then airdodge up. I guess its not super useful because your essentially trading using air dodge to come back instead of jump. Although I you could use it as a mix up when your being edge guarded. Either way it's pretty interesting.

Overall the game feels amazing like everyone's been saying. Movement is super fluid and parrying seems fun (haven't had a chance to play against anything but bots). Speaking of bots, is there anyway for you to change what character the bot is because I'd like to test the weights and such of other characters. My only grip so far is that Zetterburn's dair seems underpowered as a spiking tool. It doesn't seem to kill till late, much later than his sweetspotted up air so there isn't a whole lot of incentive to take the risk inherent in spiking. Compared to Wrastors strong dair it feels very weak, I mean obviously Wrastor is all about the aerials so it makes sense that his is stronger but it seems like a larger gap than maybe there should be. I don't know I could be off these are just my Day 1 impressions.

 

[Puppyfaic]

One thing you might wish to consider for those who can't use the designated controllers required:
Why not take a note from Crusade and have a button to perform Smash Attacks with? There's already an option to disable Smash Attacks with your Attack button altogether. That combined with a separate Smash button would be incredibly useful to those who lack a right analog or the ability to simulate one.

 

[Zauron]

I don't use "Tap Jump" myself so didn't notice this, but a friend uses it in my test session this weekend and found a problem with it. Its way too sensitive. He kept accidentally jumping whenever he dropped through platforms, ending up right back on the platform he dropped down from. How? Because this particular player "flicks" his stick downward (meaning he taps it downward and then lets his thumb off the stick so it returns to neutral position on its own). However when he does this, as the stick springs back into nuetral position it seemed to register this as a tap upwards for the jump. This was on a standard 360 controller.

Also in this test session, we found Orcane to be much more powerful than other testers have reported. The guy that played as him literally won every single match for 3 hours straight. We actually found Zetterburn to be the hardest to win with because his recovery is just so predictable. The Orcane-playing guy even mentioned that it was "way too easy to smash attack Zetterburn's recovery as Orcane, it doesn't seem to have the priority that the Firefox move did, I don't have to space very well in order to knock him him out of it every time". Once I was off the edge as Zetterburn I could never get back, his Orcane would smash-attack me every time and I couldn't figure out any mix-up options since it has such an obvious long build-up and when you are any decent distance from the stage you don't have a lot of options for what direction to go in. This may change with the upcoming wall-jump feature though.

While on the stage, the Orcane player also made consistent use of Orcane's power-up'd smash attacks and "puddle camped". He would stand on his puddle and use whichever smash attack he needed to knock away any approach, then immediately re-form it with Down-B. It was very difficult to get past, as Wrastor has no spammable projectiles and Zetterburn's projectile is slow and weak enough that it was easy for him to just jump over it or just take the hit and ignore it, and any physical approach he had covered for any angle from his powered-up long-range smashes. Thus he didn't even really need to combo most of the time, though when he did, he found he could get vertical kills very well with Orcane's UAir.

I'm not saying Orcane's overpowered and I'm not asking for any changes to his design, I'm just saying perhaps those that claim he is the weakest character just haven't gone up against someone that uses him to his fullest potential.

 

[Puppyfaic]

I'm not saying Orcane's overpowered and I'm not asking for any changes to his design, I'm just saying perhaps those that claim he is the weakest character just haven't gone up against someone that uses him to his fullest potential.

This just sounds like a bad case of player skill gap. The Orcane user was simply much better at the game than the others.

 

[oksas]

holy **** this game looks amazing. I'm absolutely thrilled to see someone developing a (sprite-based!!!) Smash-inspired fighter with some neat new mechanics and tweaks. you seem like an awesome guy Dan and your level-headedness and openness about design and mechanics makes me extremely optimistic. can't wait to play it :D

 

[4nace]

@ Zauron ,

Good feedback once again! I'll go through them in order.

Tap Jump:
Ahhh I can totally see that actually. I think I coded a way that is too susceptible to flick back. I will make a note to fix that.

Orcane Camping Strategy:
So my friends and I went through this exact phase, the campy Orcane. It was particularly bad when Zetterburn and Orcane were the only two characters. But we did manage to slowly combat it. Here are some ways that Zetterburn can get around an Orcane who stays locked to their puddle
1. DI up when you get hit. You don't want to have to recover from below the stage vs Orcane, that means he can get an extended forward smash if he is quick to set it up (neutral special, dash, forward smash)
2. Approach Orcane on the diagonals. This is because his extended Smashes are very strong straight up and straight left or right. One of the best approaches against Orcane is jumping in with a Nair. Jump above the F-smash, and pull back if you see the Up Smash coming.
3. The lamest way - Outcamp him. Zetterburn is designed to be the balanced character who can play rushdown or a camping style. If Orcane puts his puddle in the middle of the stage (which we found to be the best place) then put fire in front of you and go all the way to one edge. Only side special when you are out of range of the Fsmash as Orcane's extended Fsmash will beat your side special.

Zetterburn Recovery being abusable:
So the wall jump addition should help this a little bit. But the hurtbox on him is large. I think its too large when he is in motion. I'll look into that. You should be able to gimp him out of the start up though as the move is designed to be vulnerable then.

@ O oksas
Thanks a lot! Hoping you stick around and see where the project goes .

@ Puppyfaic
Yeah I can look into a button for that. I also plan on having some GC controller support in the next playtester build.

 

[4nace]

Hey Guys!

Check out our official Developer Update for September 2014 right here:
http://rivalsofaether.com/blog/?p=64


Thanks!
Dan

 

[Jeffls]

Hey 4nace, awesome update man. I continue to be super excited about this game. I've been having a BLAST with the testing build and can hardly believe how successfully you nailed all the major mechanics.

As the others have said, the game feels great, super fluid, and plays awesome. My favorite thing so far is the unique moves with the characters, really unique, fresh, awesome stuff.

I kept checking your site every week waiting for a new update, glad to see it. Keep up the amazing work and looking forward to more info and next build! Until then, going to keep playing.

 

[vileguy]

Thanks for accepting me as a tester. I've wanted to play more and provide feedback, but I haven't been able to get my friends to play with me. I've gotten some experience in "training" and have some feedback.

Zetterburn feels really good and comfortable for people familiar with space animals. Being able to use the down special offstage would really improve him. Right now it goes all the way to the blast zone with no way to cancel it. I think after a distance it should end and let you act. I can't really judge the knockback or damage of his moves well, but I think neutral B knockback feels a bit strong.

Orcane is a much more difficult character to play but also a lot of fun. My first suggestion is that while turnaround-B is possible, it would be nice to have B-reverse even if it didn't alter your momentum. His up aerial also has kinda ridiculous knockback. It kills very early, especially on Fire Capitol with the high platform.. I was able to kill at 0% with downspecial-downspecial-up air.

Wrastor feels good and his a nice moveset, but I feel his smash attacks lack variety. They feel like they all have the same properties, strength, and hitbox, just in different directions. His side-B feels lacking. He might dominate the game with how easily he can extend combos, but I'd have to get more practical experience to judge this. I don't personally have a problem with him being able to stall using smashes.

The controller options are really nice.

Fire Capitol is okay but I'm not a fan of it. I don't mind the layout, but the top platform is pretty close to the blastzone it seems. Maybe it's not an issue and this stage is fine. I don't have the experience to judge it properly.

For the game in general, I like being able to act out of dodge, the inclusion of wave dashing, the look and feel. I'm not a fan of the 1 song currently in the game, but only because of the drum intro. I'm fine with the exclusion of blocking, grabbing, and ledges, but I think it makes the game more shallow. Overall the game is great and I look forward to the next build and final release. I'll still be trying to get some multiplayer time in on it.

 

[Vespa412]

Nice update, good to hear that development is going smoothly. Can't wait to try out the fourth character. Keep it up man

 

[4nace]

Thanks for all the feedback guys. You'll be glad to hear that I am taking all your balancing suggestions to heart and have been making tweaks and playtesting them!

We also have released our official Developer Update for October 2014 right here:
http://rivalsofaether.com/blog/?p=103

In it we announce that Johan Vinet has joined the team as an artist and will be tackling stages! Below you can see a teaser for the first stage he tackled. If you think it looks cool here, wait until you see it in motion!



Thanks,
Dan Fornace

 

[Puppyfaic]

That spring looks like it came straight out of Sonic the Hedgehog.

 

[4nace]

That spring looks like it came straight out of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Well its about time I started injecting my Brawl main into Rivals . Perhaps there will be another nod in an upcoming character?

-Dan

 

[Xanthus]

Side or Down-b earth rolling, CALLIN IT NAO!

 

[Sorry:(]

I've been upset with shield dropping in melee lately so I thought I would look to the future by posting here.

Just in case you are including similar shield options in this game, I would recommend making pressing down the control stick + shield make your character shield drop like in smash 64. If you are including spot dodging, that could be done with shield + down on c-stick, or shield + b.

Just out of curiosity, will there be shield angling. Will there ever be a need to block low, tilt your shield downwards in this game? Don't make shield options as difficult and controller dependent as they are in other smash titles. There are ways to do it better.