Rivals of Aether - Official Thread

[RoA_Zam]

I don't have the new build, but I'm wondering if you still don't go into any lag if the first hit of your jab combo / your jab is parried. I know that was the case in the last build, but is this still the case in the new one?

You are allowed to finish your jab sequence. The reason this isn't a problem is because the character that parries also gains invincibility for the duration of the jab sequence. I haven't tested yet but I think it's different for Maypul who will go into a fall state right after her jab that was parried, finishes.

 

[RoA_Zam]

So just to re-iterate Wrastor down-B to up-B is like, crazy good in this build just as I suspected it would be. Wrastor to me has an even shot against Maypul just because he can often kill her at 45-60% with it. I really recommend you guys try this move it is like CRAZY good... feels like pre patch Zburn Dsmash level of power and it can threaten from the air (but be careful cuz air version of down b sucks)

Initial impressions of this build after about 7-8 hours of play:

1) Maypul is EXTREMELY powerful. She feels too strong, I will write a longer post on this later.

2) Forsburn vs Maypul seems very uneven. Maypul can lay down her trap and spam seeds at it to make a wall. Forsburn can't approach without leaving himself very vulnerable to dash attack punishes and Maypuls speed lets her spam seeds from behind the plant and then run away when Forsburn gets close. That whole time, she is threatening big damage combos on Forsburn and he basically has no choice but to approach in to the wall of seeds and get his *** kicked repeatedly. Maypul seed throw clears smoke and clones away with barely a second thought. Forsburn just isn't fast enough to catch her and even if he does she can usually escape pretty easily. Forsburn just doesn't have time to lay down smoke fields let alone eat his smoke. She also has significantly more kill potential off her basic moves than Forsburn and due to her speed and smashes often feels like she outranges him.

3) Kragg vs Maypul seems problematic as well, with Kragg struggling to get any moves out and it seems even harder for him to avoid/escape Maypul combos than Wrastor combos. For those that predicted Kragg to counter her... I don't think that is going to end up being the case.

Are you playing against humans or CPU's? And if human, what types of skill levels would you identify those players as? because that makes a difference.

 

[VROOM99]

The profiles don't save when re-opening the game.

Actually gameplay talk I should be able to find when I play with my friends Thursday.

 

[Chuck Tatum]

Are you playing against humans or CPU's? And if human, what types of skill levels would you identify those players as? because that makes a difference.

We only play against humans. I would consider the skill of my play group to be 'very high' in terms of video game skill/experience and just their skill at RoA. We play pretty seriously and we play a lot. Compared to what I have seen of other people streaming, the best Maypul player in my group is significantly better than any body I have seen online by a noticeable amount. That being said, I have seen maybe 3, 4 Maypul streams and a lot of people seem to be playing against CPU's still.

Can't say for sure until I see/play people from other crews and see how good people are.

 

[Mum]

I noticed a possible bug where (at least in 4 FFA's) Orcane's puddle persists after Orcane has died and the owner can use down-special whenever they want. It causes a lot of confusion sometimes in the final 1v1 of a FFA. Is this intentional? A gif of it is link on the subreddit.

Seed Wobbling! Using side-b, neutral b, and a single jab all mixed together. Not a true combo but fun to do, takes some quick reaction to DI though

Gotta fix these Gifs

Dan recommended GifCam. I use it and it's really solid if you're looking for an easy way to make gifs. Make sure to set it to 33 fps mode though (lol).

 

[Shrooms2090]

I really need some help

I'm on a trip currently, so i only have a macbook right now. I have been having a blast with the gamecube controllers using an adapter and a keyboard to gamepad thing. But i have a friend here, so i need some help with the xinput and a dualshock 3.

Rivals of aether works on a mac by the way. Use the app wine, and always run it directly. If you make it an app it will crash.

 

[Death By Hugs]

I noticed a possible bug where (at least in 4 FFA's) Orcane's puddle persists after Orcane has died and the owner can use down-special whenever they want. It causes a lot of confusion sometimes in the final 1v1 of a FFA. Is this intentional? A gif of it is link on the subreddit.



Dan recommended GifCam. I use it and it's really solid if you're looking for an easy way to make gifs. Make sure to set it to 33 fps mode though (lol).

It probably only works on cpus. Humans are smarter and know how to DI.

 

[SphericalCrusher]

I have heard so much about this game the past week or two. I need to look into it.

 

[Mum]

I have heard so much about this game the past week or two. I need to look into it.

If you browse reddit, the subreddit for this game is always having things posted on it! Subbing is a great way to keep in touch.

 

[SphericalCrusher]

If you browse reddit, the subreddit for this game is always having things posted on it! Subbing is a great way to keep in touch.

Nice! Yeah, I have so many sub reddits I follow - I haven't looked into this game much but I will probably tonight.

 

[Chuck Tatum]

Alright so here's a small example of what I am talking about:

https://youtu.be/67Rsx3Oq-pE?t=624

Watch the way that Maypul can abuse plant against Forsburn. This guy only does it a little bit but one player in my group spams traps and seeds against Forsburn the whole match and it is VERY difficult to deal with considering he can stop at any time and start doing heavy aggro at breakneck speed.

These guys mention all the things I did as well. "Maypul can clear smoke and clone too easily with acorns and without a projectile Forsburn is helpless to Maypul seed/trap shenanigans."

IMO she doesn't even need it. Even without seed at all Maypul has the tools to fight Forsburn.

Maypuls mark even keeps track of which Forsburn is real.

Forsburn feels like he is moving through molasses compared with Maypul.

More stuff from that video:

You can short hop throw seeds and waveland out apparently -> Reminds me of falco lazers
https://youtu.be/67Rsx3Oq-pE?t=841

Maypul is faster than Wrastor inside wind stream:
https://youtu.be/67Rsx3Oq-pE?t=1315

Maypul Wavedash is super good too:
https://youtu.be/67Rsx3Oq-pE?t=1416

Is this you Bones ? This guy has some pretty good Maypul stuff and is super salty about her.
http://www.twitch.tv/bigfriendlygames/b/669989376?t=1h08m49s

The skill ceiling on Maypul seems very high. She reminds me of Fox or Falco from melee where there was just ALWAYS a way to push their offense further.

Overall I feel from watching other players that Maypul players are heavily underestimating trap+seed spam. I encourage every one to leverage those moves as hard as they can even if they don't find it 'fun' to play that way; just so you can see the 'other' side of her power and give appropriate feedback.

Edit: also, it looks like Orcane has a pretty good matchup with Maypul as his bubbles let him slow her down and dictate the pace of the match. (disclaimer; nobody in my group plays orcane particularly well.)

Btw, I think Maypul is a stellar char and her design is very interesting.

 

[CaptainCrisb]

Raises hand. I'm trying to get it running on my Mayflash adaptor, but something's screwy in that I cannot input strong attacks with the C-stick nor can I dash. Luckily, input lag seems low(-ish).

Ope, if you haven't figured it out already (sorry this took forever) is the c-stick correctly mapped on the x360ce software?

 

[someonetookjacob]

So I played with maypul/against maybul with some friends for about 6 hours yesterday. I definitely agree with what other people are saying about her acorns/seeds/best projectile ever. They are too good. I played alot against my friends maypul (who was getting pretty good with her at that point) with Kragg and a little bit with orcane. I was really trying to parry the acorns constantly and got pretty good at it, but even with that (especially with kragg) maypul moves so fast that the invincibility I gained was basically useless. In fact usually she could just throw another acorn to block the reflected one. If you mistime the parry paypul moves so fast she can punish you with ease. she can also use acorns to start and continue combos. You can hit confirm into a dash attack off of acorns (I think you can airdodge out of this, but you have to react pretty quick) which pops people up for combos really nicely. You can even use it at close range to continue your combos pretty effectively. Then in addition to all that it gives you a beneficial status effect. Its maybe too good.

Its not that different from falcos lasers but in smash you have a shield. In RoA you dont. At higher level play maybe this wouldnt be as different, but its A Lot easier to wait for a falco to approach in shield to deal with him than it is to consistently parry or position yourself around maypuls projectiles while trying to force her into approaching, and I think thats a big deal.

So some ideas on how to change them to make them okay. I making them deal a little less dmg and making them like Fox's lasers (no stun or KB) would work well. It still allows her to get easy marks and get extra dmg with a acorn or two at the end of a combo, but it prevents her from being able to wall people completely out and use such a safe option to apply pressure from across the stage and start combos. Someone else mentioned this idea earlier and I think its great. Another Idea I had was to have throwing an acorn unmark anyone marked. This would maybe discourage players from spaming them once they have their opponent marked. At very least it adds to the decision making that the player hast to be doing. No longer is it a simple, "Throw acorn all the time" Kind of thing. With this change there may need to be some other nerfs to go along with it.

The rest of Maypul is super fun and interesting. Some of her moves are not what you would expect using pre-conceived-smash-notions and I think thats fine, It makes her play style all the more different. For example her d-tilt is alot stronger and has alot less reach than I would have assumed. I really like using it right after tethering behind someone. And her back air similarly has very short reach. I think thats all fine. Just takes some getting used to. Her f-air is awesome. super satisfying. D-air is incredibly interesting.... and annoying to fight against. I love it. It really messes with my orcane.

I see alot of people saying up-air should be nerfed too. And for that matter alot of other things too. Lots of people saying maypul is too strong. Not sure I agree... I definitely see your points. She is real strong strong and fast. I just wanted to say that she is new, and we arent used to fighting her yet. We should give ourselves some time to figure out the matchups and how to fight her before we shout nerf.

.... but those acorns are dumb.

 

[RoA_Zam]

I noticed a possible bug where (at least in 4 FFA's) Orcane's puddle persists after Orcane has died and the owner can use down-special whenever they want. It causes a lot of confusion sometimes in the final 1v1 of a FFA. Is this intentional? A gif of it is link on the subreddit.

Something intentionally programmed in by Dan that me and him talked about as something fun to do. It's not a bug haha.

 

[Chuck Tatum]

We should give ourselves some time to figure out the matchups and how to fight her before we shout nerf.

That's fair but also keep in mind we are only just learning how to play her. She seems to have a very high skill cap and access to all the tools she needs to dominate. We can always 'wait and see' and indeed we have no choice in the matter of course.

Still; I wouldn't hold my breath for some insane anti-Maypul revelation to be discovered. What is much more likely, IMO, is that dominating Maple mixups and pressure will be discovered that will make her seem even stronger.

 

[RoA_Zam]

Maypul: Analysis of moves, and need for changes.
Green = okay Orange = needs slight change Red = needs many changes

Movement

Spoiler

Movement - Maypul is a very fast character. She is faster dashing than Wrastor dashing in his air-steam. This allows for quick precise inputs and offensive play, while also adding to defensive options with the ability to run away with ease. She has a long roll to match this fast movement as well, and can travel the full length of the Treetop Lodge stage in only 3 rolls.

Ground Moves

Spoiler

Jab - Two Jabs, can be pressed endlessly. Both Jabs do 4% with little knockback diagonally away.
Forward-tilt - Punch. Often can be used as a substitute for not having a third Jab. Does 8% and knocks away and slightly upwards.
Downward-tilt - Swipes her tail on the ground infront of her. Does 9% and has diagonal knockback away with very small range for the attack.
Upward-tilt - Summons two vines from the ground on either side of her, which each do 8% and knock the opponent vertically and slightly away. This attack has a lot of disjointed range on the hitboxes.
Dash Attack - This attack has two hitboxes to the animation. The first hitbox does 4% and sends you diagonally forwards. This can combo into the second hitbox which does 8% and sends you upwards and slightly away. If not spaced correctly, the first hitbox will not combo into the second, and you'll be left vulnerable to be punished.

Roots and Snares

Spoiler

Roots and Snares - Certain moves that you use can mark an opponent with two leaves floating around them at all times. For the remainder of this moveset tutorial, I'll refer to this as "being rooted" by maypul This will come into play later when I describe Maypul's Special moves. Other moves may interact with an opponent differently if they are rooted. They will leave the opponent wrapped up in vines for a short period of time, which I will refer to as "being ensnared." But first, I'll describe Strong attacks and Aerials.

Strong Attacks

Spoiler

Forward-strong - This move has a large horizontal range, has a lot of start-up time, and does 11%.
Upward-Strong - This move has equally large range, but vertically instead of horizontally. UStrong also has a lot of start-up time and does 11%.
Downward-strong - This move has shorter range but has two hitboxes. The first hitbox is infront of the player and knocks the opponent diagonally away from the player. The second hitbox appears behind the player immediately after the first hitbox, and also knocks the opponent diagonally away. These hitboxes will not combo into eachother, and both of them deal 10%.

If an opponent is rooted, any strong attack will ensnare them for a short while and remove their rooting effect until you re-apply it.

Aerial Attacks

Spoiler

Neutral-aerial - Maypul extends her arms outward horizontally. This move has 3 hitboxes, one in the center of her body which does 3%, and one on each of her arms which does 5% each. The middle hitbox can combine with one of the outer hitboxes to deal 8% total with the same amount of knockback as just hitting one of the arm hitboxes.
Forward-aerial - Maypul slashes the air in front of her starting from above her head. This move does 8% and can often be used as a move to spike opponents like Zetterburn, Orcane, and Forsburn.
Backward-aerial - Maypul swipes her tail behind her in the air. This has two hitboxes. The first hitbox sends the opponent directly upwards and does 4%. This typically combos directly into the second hitbox which sends the opponent diagonally upwards behind Maypul, and does 6%.
Downward-aerial - This move detects the ground below Maypul's hurtbox and draws a root out of the ground. This move does not display a hitbox but knocks the opponent forward and slightly upward, and does 6%. If Maypul's hurtbox is not completely above a platform, it will find ground below the platform to spawn the root.
Upward-Aerial - Maypul spins around in the air with 3 hitboxes that if space correctly, can link into each other. The first two send upwards and very slightly forwards, and do 3% each. The last hitbox is much larger than the first two, sends straight upwards and deals 5% with large Knockback.

Special Attacks

Spoiler

Neutral-special "Acorn" - Maypul throws an acorn out at a very fast speed which travels a distance of roughly 400 pixels from the center of her hurtbox in windowed mode (200 in-game pixels). The acorn roots an opponent, has a slight knockback, and does 3%.
Side-special "Boost" - Maypul boosts herself forward about the same distance as her roll, which can be used as an attack or a recovery move. Using this in the air only improves the distance travelled by a very small amount of pixels because of Directional Influence while in a fall state after using the move, which you can fast-fall during. The hitbox is deceptive and ends before the actual animation ends for the move. This move roots the opponent and does 4%.
Down-special (Aerial) "Boost" - Maypul boosts herself downwards at a quick pace. Unlike her Side-special, this move does not put Maypul into a fall state after use. This move roots an opponent and does 4%.
Down-special (Grounded) "Plant" - Maypul plants a seed which grows into a plant on the ground. From the frame you input this move, the plant lasts 10 seconds, unless it is activated or replaced by another plant, which causes the original plant to disappear. If you feed the plant 5 acorns, it transforms into a much larger plant that will last permanently until it is activated or replaced by another plant. If an opponent is rooted and comes in contact with the plant, they will be ensnared by the plant for a short while, causing both your plant to dissappear, and their rooting effect to dissapear until re-applied.
Up-special (Non-rooted opponent) "Boost" - This move is almost identical to Maypul's Side-special except that Maypul travels vertically instead of horizontally. Maypul will go into a fall state after the move, which you can fast-fall during. This move is deceptive in that there must be several in-game pixels in-between your character hurtbox and the ground for you to be able to directionally Influence your character enough to land on the ground after using your boost Up-special. This does 8%.
Up-special (rooted opponent) "Grapple" - This move draws a line for you to grapple on to your opponent from any distance on the screen if your opponent is rooted. This move deals no damage and has a bit of cool-down after you reach your opponent, which means it is punishable on reaction timing. Using this move will remove the rooted effect of an opponent. Where you are in relation to your opponent depends whether you grapple above them, in-front of them, or behind them.

My concerns and changes for Maypul:

Spoiler

Movement - When playing a fighting game, generally you don't see faster characters that have powerful attacks alongside their quick movement. The general consensus is that faster characters (lets say SSBM Fox for example) have moves that tack on much smaller numbers of damage than other characters that do not have the speed that Fox has. With this said, a character in Rivals of Aether like Maypul has many moves which do an unnecessary amount of damage, with some specials, aerials, and other moves that do 8% or more. These moves need toning down, which I will get to detailing below, but even after nerfing damage of moves, movement is still an issue. This character is ridiculously fast, and being faster than any other character allows for Maypul to have both an amazing defensive game and offensive game all-in-one. Proposal: Lower Maypul's dashing speed to be equal or slightly less than Wrastor's speed while in an Air current.
Dtilt - This move is problematic for two reasons. For one, the range on it is ridiculously small, so when you do use this move, you have to be so close to an opponent for the hitbox to connect that you usually don't even see the animation for the move. Second, the knockback for this move is ridiculous. It becomes a viable kill move as early as the mid-70% area off the ceiling while on a platform. Proposal: Buff the range on the move to actually be accurate to the animation, while lowering the Knockback to 65% of it's original knockback, and the damage to 6-7%.
Utilt - My only problem with this move is that it has a disjointed hitbox that is much larger than the animation for the move. Proposal: Fix the hitboxes to be less wide, and potentially lower damage to 6%.
Dash Attack - 10% from a dash attack that kind of auto-combo into other moves like fair and nair is a bit annoying, but not the worst thing in the world. Proposal: Lower the damage from the second hitbox to 4%.
FStrong & UStrong - For how easy these are to pull off on opponents because using it usually means baiting a parry from the opponent which often misses because of the long start-up. 11% for a slight mistake in timing seems a bit irritating. Proposal: Lower damage to 8% and lower knockback to about 90% of original.
Nair - The knockback is perfect for a move like this, but 8% for a move that's easy to have other moves that guarantee to combo this makes it quite annoying. Proposal: Lower damage from the middle hitbox to 3% and damage on the arm hitboxes to 2%.
Fair - This move is too easy to spike with or link into itself mid-combo for a character that is as fast as Maypul. It should take more skill to use effectively. Proposal: Increase start-up lag on the hitbox by a few frames, lower the damage to 5%, and lower the knockback to about 85% of its original knockback.
Bair - If there are two hitboxes that are almost guaranteed to link into eachother, 10% is too much. Proposal: Lower damage on first hitbox to 2%, lower damage on second hitbox to 4%. Keep knockback the same.
Uair - This move is a staple kill move against Wrastor and Kragg as of right now. The third hit of the move has way too much knockback, and getting 11% from one aerial that also has a large knockback is wholly unfair for a character as fast-paced as Maypul, which should only be tacking on small damage instead of larger damage like this move does. Proposal: Lower damage from the first two hits of the move to 2%. Lower damage from the third hitbox to 3-4% and lower knockback on the last hitbox to about 65% of it's original knockback.
"Acorn" - The damage on this move is alright, but what concerns me is how rapidly the move comes out, and how far it can travel. Sure, it arcs slightly and sometimes misses characters right in-front of Maypul, but this is very widely seen as the best projectile in Rivals of Aether because of distance and speed. Proposal: Lower distance of projectile to about 3/4 of original distance, and increase time the acorn travels until it touches the ground to 1.2-1.33x original time.
UpB "Boost" - Proposal: Allow the player the use more directional influence near the peak of the move to allow better recovery with it.

 

[GatorFace]

Ope, if you haven't figured it out already (sorry this took forever) is the c-stick correctly mapped on the x360ce software?

Dw bout it. And I believe so; I've tried mapping it to the stick axis', and also just the stick up/down/left/right slots. I think my main issue concerns these screens.

This is the current set up I've experimented with. The main issue (at least for dashing) seems to be because dashes are only registered when the dot reaches the edge of the square, but in order to do so, the entire line is skewed in a way that dashing requires too little effort. C-stick still p much doesn't work at all. Could I possibly see your settings for comparison?

EDIT: Good news, C-stick magically works now, but dashing in general with my left stick is still really awkward.

 

[Chuck Tatum]

Hey just a thought; how would it be if Forsburn clone would parry along with him? That way you could protect your clone from projectiles and snipes and such by parrying but it would leave you vulnerable too.

Or... maybe that makes no sense because your clone might be inside an animation any way.

overall, I would really like a way to leverage the clone more directly as a move.

When we first started playing there were murmurings that Forsburn could switch spots with his clone surreptitiously which seemed pretty exciting.

 

[RoA_Zam]

Hey just a thought; how would it be if Forsburn clone would parry along with him? That way you could protect your clone from projectiles and snipes and such by parrying but it would leave you vulnerable too.

Or... maybe that makes no sense because your clone might be inside an animation any way.

overall, I would really like a way to leverage the clone more directly as a move.

When we first started playing there were murmurings that Forsburn could switch spots with his clone surreptitiously which seemed pretty exciting.

As of this version, dan forgot to re-enable CPU's parrying at all. He needs to fix that. And to answer your question about the forsburn clone, here's his explanation as to why he does not have it coded to parry anything (Since I've actually asked him the same thing already haha) :

Dan stated that the CPU and the Clone are completely different hard-codings of AI. The clone is only meant to be offensive with no defensive options, which already in-itself eliminates the logic behind it having a parry at it's disposal. Dan has tested with the clone being able to parry and while testing, the clone did not want to listen to Dan's coding logic the way it was supposed to and would either break the game or the CPU would parry way more than it should (I think he said it would try to any chance it got). This would obviously make it really broken and overpowered, so he decided against it.

 

[Chuck Tatum]

Well that's fine but I would really like to see Forsburn able to more directly affect his clone somehow, use it in a more deliberate way. If he could explode it, or switch places with it or leverage it some type of more deliberate fashion...

It is very frustrating to drop a clone and not know what he's going to do; whether he goes and stands around and watches you get your ass kicked or runs in to the fray and finishes your opponent off with a down smash or saves you from a kill combo... seems to be entirely up to chance.

 

[someonetookjacob]

Well that's fine but I would really like to see Forsburn able to more directly affect his clone somehow, use it in a more deliberate way. If he could explode it, or switch places with it or leverage it some type of more deliberate fashion...

It is very frustrating to drop a clone and not know what he's going to do; whether he goes and stands around and watches you get your *** kicked or runs in to the fray and finishes your opponent off with a down smash or saves you from a kill combo... seems to be entirely up to chance.

I think Dan said he agrees the clone is currently not right, and it should be changed in the past. I assume he just hasn't figured out how, or hasn't gotten to it yet.

I agree with you though, And I personally quite like the exploding idea. It might still be really annoying to set up though... Maybe if you had three smokes absorbed and you used side-b while the clone was out it combusted for you (as if you used down-b)but was destroyed in the process. hmmmm.... that might not happen much though...

 

[elliotnz]

Be able to give clone commands?

 

[4nace]

Just landed back in Seattle. It was one crazy week at E3. Wasn't able to keep up with the awesome first impressions on the build, but I will be reading through them this weekend.

After playing Maypul a ton at the conference. I do have some thoughts about her balance already as well as a couple of bugs I've found that I am sure are in the June Build.

@ RoA_Zam is being a champ and compiling bugs that you guys report again.

But keep the discussion going if you have access to the June build . Maypul's main weakness is her weight (Wrastor levels but not as susceptible to vertical KOs). Her other weakness is that she has no quick kills other than the low-range down tilt. (which honestly could maybe be hit to push her weakness further). After she racks up damage she has to commit to land a kill. Her Strong attacks do have amazing range though so she's not SUPER unsafe. Try to get a hang of parrying her fstrong. It's got a ton of startup and is very recognizable.

I'll definitely be wanting to talk about her balance this week. There are some ideas I have to make her a bit more obvious in terms of strength/weakness. I will also be watching the videos from the AZ PM guys to see what kind of strategies they are working with.

-Dan

 

[Big Papi]

To test Maypul's "brokenness", I played my best character, Orcane, against my younger brother and his first time using Maypul (mains Kragg). Both of us are pretty decent at smash (melee, PM, and smash4) but he has always been more technical and better player overall so I thought it would be a good way to test what Maypul is capable of on day 1 of a better player.

I ended up winning 90% of the games, even after he familiarized himself with Maypul's hitboxes and range etc. But he was determined to get better with Maypul and ended up always destroying my Orcane on air armada.

Conclusions:
She is not as broken as everybody has been making her seem. Yes maybe she should be slowed down just a tad. Yes her up air is greatness, but everyone's up air is good. Yes, the seed throw is quick and long ranged, but I only found it as an annoyance rather than a game changer. Her strong attacks are what stun you, but just as Dan said, they come out relatively slow.

And me and brother both agree that she has the worse recovery in the game. No seed = a short horizontal recovery, and can be easily punished if she has to wall grab and recover vertically. With seed = punishable but I found the timing to be a little weird. At times my moves would connect, other times they looked as if they should've connected but didn't (I'm guessing some sort of invincibility). But we would like to note that my brother has never had to use/practice the Aether wall recoveries because he mains Kragg.

Anyways looking to stream some PvP this weekend so I'll post in the thread when I do.

 

[someonetookjacob]

To test Maypul's "brokenness", I played my best character, Orcane, against my younger brother and his first time using Maypul (mains Kragg). Both of us are pretty decent at smash (melee, PM, and smash4) but he has always been more technical and better player overall so I thought it would be a good way to test what Maypul is capable of on day 1 of a better player.

I ended up winning 90% of the games, even after he familiarized himself with Maypul's hitboxes and range etc. But he was determined to get better with Maypul and ended up always destroying my Orcane on air armada.

Conclusions:
She is not as broken as everybody has been making her seem. Yes maybe she should be slowed down just a tad. Yes her up air is greatness, but everyone's up air is good. Yes, the seed throw is quick and long ranged, but I only found it as an annoyance rather than a game changer. Her strong attacks are what stun you, but just as Dan said, they come out relatively slow.

And me and brother both agree that she has the worse recovery in the game. No seed = a short horizontal recovery, and can be easily punished if she has to wall grab and recover vertically. With seed = punishable but I found the timing to be a little weird. At times my moves would connect, other times they looked as if they should've connected but didn't (I'm guessing some sort of invincibility). But we would like to note that my brother has never had to use/practice the Aether wall recoveries because he mains Kragg.

Anyways looking to stream some PvP this weekend so I'll post in the thread when I do.

Thats interesting, My extended play session was similar (when not playing maypul) I used my main Kragg, my friend who is a smarter and more technical player used only maypul. I will say I am alot more familiar with RoA, but when we both used our mains we usually go about 50-50. I think I took more games, but not by alot, probably like 65-35. And that was only after I got a little more used to parrying the acorns and DI-ing away from stuff. Maypuls recover is reaaally bad against Kragg, a well timed d-strong covers 2/3 options, and if she goes above and DIs just slightly wrong it covers that too. and if she doesnt have you marked shes dead. Rocks strooong. All that said though, I still think maypul might be a bit overpowered. Especially her projectile. But I agree with you Papi, probably not as much as people are making it out to be.

Just to note, my friend wasnt really using the plant very effectively, and also went for a lot fewer up-airs than was optimal. He also never used the up-b to get in to punish me doing stuff, which I think is an amazing option. (Up-b -> d-tilt for a quick kill at 130%+ is such a cool thing. The synergy between her up-b and the weirdly short, normally hard to land d-tilt is really cool in my opinion) So its possible playing someone with a different style would change my opinion.

 

[Xanthus]

Thats interesting, My extended play session was similar (when not playing maypul) I used my main Kragg, my friend who is a smarter and more technical player used only maypul. I will say I am alot more familiar with RoA, but when we both used our mains we usually go about 50-50. I think I took more games, but not by alot, probably like 65-35. And that was only after I got a little more used to parrying the acorns and DI-ing away from stuff. Maypuls recover is reaaally bad against Kragg, a well timed d-strong covers 2/3 options, and if she goes above and DIs just slightly wrong it covers that too. and if she doesnt have you marked shes dead. Rocks strooong. All that said though, I still think maypul might be a bit overpowered. Especially her projectile. But I agree with you Papi, probably not as much as people are making it out to be.

Just to note, my friend wasnt really using the plant very effectively, and also went for a lot fewer up-airs than was optimal. He also never used the up-b to get in to punish me doing stuff, which I think is an amazing option. (Up-b -> d-tilt for a quick kill at 130%+ is such a cool thing. The synergy between her up-b and the weirdly short, normally hard to land d-tilt is really cool in my opinion) So its possible playing someone with a different style would change my opinion.

How far from Louisville are you? I feel like me, you, Bones, Xexis and anybody else nearby should do an RoA meetup sometime!

 

[someonetookjacob]

How far from Louisville are you? I feel like me, you, Bones, Xexis and anybody else nearby should do an RoA meetup sometime!

hmmm... Like 4 hours. I live in Columbus (Super nice that shuffle was here) I agree a meetup would be great. not sure how practical it is though. Do you Bones and Xexis all live in Louisville?

 

[Xanthus]

hmmm... Like 4 hours. I live in Columbus (Super nice that shuffle was here) I agree a meetup would be great. not sure how practical it is though. Do you Bones and Xexis all live in Louisville?

Bones is currently in Louisville, I'm in Richmond KY (~1.5 hours away from Lou, 3.5 from Columbus), as well as Xexis.

Doesn't seem like a meetup would be practical . Can't wait for online / the game to be out, I really wanna play against more people! And mainly I want to abuse the **** out of Maypul lol. And see how well I can do against somebody decent with her.

 

[Chuck Tatum]

You guys are crazy. Maypul is DEFINITELY too strong from what I have seen. My friend picked up Maypul and day one he was easily dominating people who have been maining other chars since we got in to beta. Most Maypul players seem to not quite understand how to leverage her speed + trap/seeds yet; if you do not think Maypul is too strong I hate to say it but I imagine you are playing her wrong.


@ 4nace

Response to your post. A lot of stuff here so I organized it in to categories for you.
Also, the best Maypul player I have seen streaming so far is the guy from this video. http://www.twitch.tv/bigfriendlygames/b/669989376?t=1h08m49s
He doesn't 'like' seed/ trap spam so he doesn't leverage those abilities as much as he could though.
The AZ PM Maypuls I saw were just not as solid as this dude is so I would watch him over them even though he is like crazy salty and complaining about you/Maypul the whole time.

Spoiler: Commitment

I do not find Maypul to be a committal character at all when it comes to kills. Kragg is committal, he puts his rock down and that's where it is; his opponent can force him away from it. He is forced to live with his decision; his smash attacks are slow and his move speed is slow... those are the things that force him to commit.

Maypul does NOT have to commit to get kills. Her up air requires very little commitment, she can throw out very safe dash attacks to set up for it. Her forward air is not committal, she can throw it out shiek style. Her trap is not commital, she can just play and run around it... force her opponent in to a situation where they are gonna get wrapped up and then smash for kill. The whole time she peppers with acorns, her acorns are not committal, she can just throw them willy nilly at essentially no risk -> even at close range!?

*maybe* her smash attacks are committal (in addition to being some of most consistent, reliable, and strong smashes in the game.) But again, not really, they have such good range that you can pretty easily set up situations where they are pretty safe and if you miss you can often RUN AWAY which is something Maypul can almost always do.

Her speed makes her completely non-commital.

Spoiler: Weight

I do not see her weight as a disadvantage at all. I would MUCH rather have Maypul weight than Kragg weight tbh; at least she can escape from combos and pressure that way.

Being light isn't nearly as much of a disadvantage as it was in melee. If an attack is strong enough to auto-kill a light character it set up a very good edge guard against a heavy one and heavy characters are 2-3x easier to combo.

If any thing, being heavy in RoA is just a pure disadvantage because of the way combo's work. Whereas if you are light or medium it's a bit of a toss up. That being said, II would still rather be light; It's SO hard to combo Wrastor/Maypul compared with the mediums.

Spoiler: Basic Issues

Overall I find the following combination to likely be a mistake

1) Fastest character in the game
2) Best projectile in the game
3) Awesome trap setups.

Those three things do not traditionally go together in any game that I can think of. For instance in Guilty Gear Testament has a great projectile game and awesome traps but he is SLOW. If you want to balance it you are going to need to give Maypul MUCH more prevalent weaknesses than what she has right now.

Being super fast, having traps, and having an awesome projectile is inherently always going to be a problem IMO. She has insanely good keep away game from speed and acorns, insanely good punish on people coming in due to trap (and just... being awesome in general.) And she can bait you out and force you to come to her because of her long range aggression + acorns. Ouuuuch.

Spoiler: Problem Matchups

Additionally, Maypuls intense speed creates SERIOUS problems in the matchup against Kragg and Forsburn who, IMO, do not have many legitimate answers to what she can do (especially if she wants to be a **** and throw seeds the whole match). Wrastor was already hard to deal with but at least he had to take to the air to pressure and he has to manage his jumps to combo effectively as well as having a much harder time setting up combos and kills off the top.

Spoiler: Final Thoughts

Every single person in my play group thinks that Maypul is too strong. Almost every one I have talked to thinks that Maypul is too strong. The best players I have seen online tend to think that Maypul is too strong... whereas the streamers who seem to be a bit weaker players don't always think there's a problem.

Also: I have seen the final hit on dash attack -> upair -> upair kill at literally 40% from just a non-committal basic setup. No other character can do that. Hell Kragg can't do that... and Zburn can't any more either. I would say of all the characters in the game, Maypul is most capable of getting kills without committing.

She simply has too many tools... too many advantages... and no prevalent weakness that defines her as a character.

 

[AbsoluteBlack]

Hey, I'm the best? <3

I agree with most of what Bones and Chuck are saying. Maypul has a lot of design elements I love but her neutral game is insanely strong, even without her trap or projectile, and her punish game is both very strong and very low risk to go with that. Literally spamming dash attack at different timings can be very hard for most people to punish or work around and results in very low % kills, or at worst a large amount of damage and amazing positional advantage.

For another way of looking at it, compare to Wrastor. Wrastor is slower (even in his movement enhancing special ability!) and lighter than Maypul, has lower damage output almost everywhere, and has a (in my experience) a FAR harder time setting up kills, even with his upb and dstrong buffs in this build. And Wrastor is far from underpowered at the moment.

Most of my suggested changes are in line with Bones' post, so I won't make a huge post yet, but I would add a few things:

• her dash attack initial movement is also insanely quick (ala Sheik) which makes punishing/avoiding it quite difficult, especially given how much reward she gets off of it
• I don't think her Fair needs to come out slower, because a weak but fast/disjoint spike is a super fun/interesting combo tool

Everything else Bones said I agree with in principle if not in exact specifics, so lend whatever weight my opinion may have to his.

Also, any saltiness on my stream is not because I don't love and appreciate Dan and all the work he's put into this game. I really, really like this game, so my shock at seeing such a crazy character may have been over-passionate and over the line into salt.

 

[RoA_Zam]

Yeah @ 4nace if you haven't read my super long spoilered post then you should. That's what people are referring to

 

[Big Papi]

I don't believe my bro was playing Maypul wrong. Maypul's recovery is her greatest weakness. He had way more longer combos and stock ending combos, but I took advantage whenever he was close to the edge or off the stage. Maypul is the easiest to edge guard. Maybe it's just the Orcane match up, but I also played Kragg against him and was able to edge guard easier with Kragg.

 

[AbsoluteBlack]

Maypul never has to get hit offstage, her neutral game is too strong. And as said above, in a lot of situations she can basically gimp people off the top blastline at any percent. Saying her poor recovery makes her balanced is like comparing pichu to captain falcon... if falcon could teleport straight to you when you were 'marked', and was even faster.

 

[ChimaeraUltimo]

Ok, I have bee playing ZBurn for a while now. When I fight my friends [Who use hard dual stick DI(Is dual stick DI in this game?)] I can kill them with DStrong with fire at around 90-110%. But when I fight CPUs, they die at 50-60%. Why?

 

[ChimaeraUltimo]

And can you add taunts?

 

[AbsoluteBlack]

I don't believe rivals has smash DI (making double stick DI pointless) unless you toggle it on with the keyboard command. Your friends live longer because survival DI is important and cpu's are bad.

IIRC d4nace has said that taunts are not a priority to add.

Also, please don't double post! The edit button exists for a reason, and this thread is already insanely long.

 

[Puppyfaic]

With the x360ce method someone posted a bit earlier, I can finally play RoA again! ;-; I really hope I end up making the cut for this build now. I had planned to practice RoA with someone now that online exists.

 

[CaptainCrisb]

With the x360ce method someone posted a bit earlier, I can finally play RoA again! ;-; I really hope I end up making the cut for this build now. I had planned to practice RoA with someone now that online exists.

I know right! When I figured it out I was ecstatic, and played it a ton. But I think all the builds have been sent out already ;_; looks like a lot of people got cut (but still, 20 old and 20 new is still a ton, but I would've thought I'd make it for at least one more)

 

[Cirby64]

With the x360ce method someone posted a bit earlier, I can finally play RoA again! ;-; I really hope I end up making the cut for this build now. I had planned to practice RoA with someone now that online exists.

Online isn't part of the current build sadly.

 

[Chuck Tatum]

Alright a bunch more play with Maypul vs Kragg and hte matchup is really not that bad.

Kragg's down-B is exceptionally good vs maypul and you can do very aggressive rock combos if you're willing to pick up your rock, throw it, down B to break it, go again. You can force your way through Maypul's seed wall. Maypul actually has a good deal of trouble dealing with it. The trick is to try to have a down-B down whenever possible to protect yourself and give you kill opportunities.

Try it and see how it treats you.