February 2016 – Page 179

When it comes to system changes and careful attention to character balance, Rivals of Aether patches don’t mess around. The most recent patch, which went live on Steam earlier today, is no exception to this rule.

To get started, the update adds a new wall teching system, allowing players already pressed against the wall when slapped with an attack to prevent themselves from sailing away. Another major change involves the ability to whiff jabs and still string them into tilts, offering interesting pressure and punish options that weren’t previously possible.

Of course, there were massive adjustments across the whole cast when it comes to hitboxes, move recovery, general mechanics–affecting Maypul’s plant and Forsburn’s clone–and much, much more.

If you’d like to see these changes in action, the Beefy Aether Doods have put together a patch preview video. You can watch that below, or continue on to the rest of the post to see the full patch notes.

Rival of Aether ver 0.0.12 Patch Notes

General:

Wall Techs can now be performed even if your horizontal speed is away from the wall. This allows players to tech walls when trying to recover up the wall.
Wall Tech invincibility time increased from 5 frames to 12 frames.
Jabs are cancellable into Tilts even on whiff again. However, you cannot reverse your Forward Tilt on whiff. You can still do that on hit though. This is to prevent players from covering rolls with jab into reverse Forward Tilt.
Fixed bugs on Merchant Port Aether version with platforms and pipes.

Zetterburn:

Zetterburn benefits greatly from the Wall Tech change since he is known to ride up walls when trying to recover. We also wanted to address a few of his hitboxes that were a bit smaller than their animation. Finally we wanted to introduce some risk into using charged Neutral Special by preventing the charged version from being jump cancelled and adding more recovery frames.

Up Special time between last hit and travel hit reduced from 10 frames to 5 frames.
Up Tilt now has a hitbox in the center that reaches above the lowest jumpthrough platforms.
Down Strong Recovery increased from 20 > 22.
Neutral Air Hit 1 and Hit 2 Hitbox radius increased from 55 > 65.
Neutral Special Small Radius increased from 75 > 80.
Neutral Special Final Recovery increased from 12 > 16. This period can no longer be jump cancelled when using charged Neutral Special.

Orcane:

Orcane is adorable…

Up Strong (no puddle) now reaches above the lowest jumpthrough platforms.
Down Strong Whiff Lag of 18 added. Recovery remains at 12.
Hitstun increased on Jab 1 and Jab 2.

Wrastor:

Our aerial ace has been performing extremely well now that some other characters have been pulled back down to earth. The main concern with him right now is how easily Neutral Special can KO of the top at mid to low percents and Forward Special leading into guaranteed Up Special sweet spots due to the ground flinch on it. We addressed both of these and peeled off a little base knockback from his Strong Attack sweet spots to bring him in line with the rest of the cast.

Nspecial will no longer rise faster while hitting an opponent.
Nspecial final hit reduced from 7 Base .4 Scaling > 4 Base .7 Scaling. This is to remove ridiculously early KOs from Tornado but keep it a viable KO option at higher percents.
Forward Special pops up grounded opponents again. Hitstun returned to .1x. Buffer is cleared to prevent accidental air dodges.
Parrying Wrastor’s Forward Special now correctly removes the current and prevents Wrastor from using his Forward Special again for the full cooldown instead of .5x like it was before.
Fstrong Base knockback reduced from 9 > 8.
Ustrong Base knockback reduced from 9 > 8.
Air Acceleration while in Prat Fall reduced from .5x to .3x.
Fast Fall speed reduced from 12 > 11.
Bug Fix: Wrastor’s Aerial Down Special will no longer hit and slide near the end of it.
Bug Fix: Wrastor will now correctly go into Parry Lag when parried during Down Special and then hitting the ground after the kick but during recovery.

Kragg:

Kragg is in a pretty good place but his Forward Strong and Up Strong needed a bit more scaling for the Heavy Hitter that he is. The sour hit of Up Strong was in a weird place considering it is a Strong Attack and should give you a decent reward.

Dash Attack whiff lag reduced from 24 > 20.
Up Strong Knockback Scaling increased from .95 > 1.1.
Up Strong Second Hit (Sour Hit) Knockback increased from 5 base .3 scaling > 6 base .8 scaling.
Forward Strong Knockback Scaling 1.0 > 1.1.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that caused the entire stage to move when a Rock or Pillar was attacked at the start of a match.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where players who were hit while standing on a rock that breaks would take knockback but have 0 hitstun.

Forsburn:

Forsburn players are sad to miss out on the “Clone Bros” playstyle that he has adopted when he could combo with his illusory buddy. We do want to push the special toward deception but feel like the latest update felt awkward with hitbox-less attacks. Until we come up with a cooler deception use for Forward Special, we wanted to give players back their CPU friend for now. We removed the ability to make the clone attack faster to prevent camping with the clone.

Forsburn’s clone creates active hitboxes again.
Forsburn’s clone attacks on a timer of 90 frames after each attack has ended. The clone no longer responds to special inputs. This is to prevent players from running away and mashing special to get their clone to attack. Now the clone will be easily dispatched unless the Forsburn player gets involved as well. Forsburn players can learn the rhythm of clone attacks to get the best use out of comboing with it.
Forsburn’s clone now counts as a hit again for whiff / cancel reasons.
Forward Special Startup increased from 6 > 12 frames.
Forward Special Recovery increased from 4 > 8 frames.
Up Special Startup increased from 15 > 18 frames. This is to give aggressive edgeguarders more of a chance to interrupt Forsburn before he can teleport.
Forsburn Down Air hits 1 and 2 have had their hitbox sizes reduced. Down Air is becoming too much of an all-purpose aerial so we wanted to strip back the hitboxes a touch.
Forsburn Up Special Hitstun Scaling reduced from 1.0 > .85. This is to punish players less for missing an edgeguard against Forsburn while still preventing Forsburn from being punished even when he lands his Up Special.

Maypul:

Lily has lost some of her cool identity in recent updates now that her impact on a match is lessened. We like Lily being an important part of Maypul’s identity. While we don’t want Maypul to have too powerful of zoning tools, we wanted to bring back some of Lily’s glory and address the camping issue in different ways.

Lily now wraps all marked opponents again. They no longer are required to be in hitstun.
Fat Lily has been removed from the game. Maypul can still feed Lily or Taunt to extend her life time but she will no longer be fed to permanence. This is to reduce her camping ability with a Fat Lily.
Parrying Maypul’s attacks now removes her Watcher’s Mark from opponents. This is to reduce the viability of spamming seeds against a marked target and opens up a way for opponents to work around Watcher’s Mark.
Neutral Special seed start moved back 10 px closer to her hand to make feeding Lily up close easier.
We have changed the input for using Maypul’s Up Special Uppercut while opponents are marked. Many new players will accidently uppercut when they want to tether. Some new players are unaware of the tether mechanic at all. Now to perform the Uppercut if your opponent is marked, you must be holding dodge during the startup frames after starting Up Special instead of just releasing the special button early. This is to keep the uppercut viable for skilled players but make the tether more likely to be used by new players.
Down Strong Startup increased from 10 > 12. Down Strong Knockback scaling increased from 1.0 > 1.1.
Maypul’s Strong attacks no longer deal increased knockback on wrapped opponents. This is to remove the extra benefit she gets for wrapping with Lily in order to secure an earlier KO.
Maypul Down Special Ground cast total frames increased from 24 > 27 Frames.
Maypul Up Special Tether end location moved from 40px away from the center of her target to 46px. This moves her out of range of Orcane’s Puddleless Up Strong and Maypul’s Up Strong as guaranteed punishes for all 3 tether directions.

Absa:

Absa lost some of her close range power last update with the removal of Down Special into Up Special. To bring it back, we are increasing her air max speed and acceleration to allow her to weave toward opponents better. We are also increasing the cooldown on Forward Special to motivate Absa players to follow up their clouds with other options instead of another Forward Special.

Absa Neutral Special on the ground now pops her up like her aerial Neutral Special does.
Absa Back Air knockback angle reduced from 40/45 to 32.5.
Forward Special Cooldown increased from 8 > 24 frames.
Air Max Speed increased from 5 > 6.
Air Acceleration increased from .35 > .4.
Clouds now draw in front of Wrastor’s currents.

Dev Mode:

Trevor has made a huge number of adjustments and improvements to Dev Mode. You can now create new hitboxes and have much better control over attacks. Check out his thread to get all the information on how to use Dev Mode 0.3.

Dev Mode v 0.3 Updates

Online:

You can now enable Dev Mode in Online matches by hitting the gear in the upper left corner. You must ensure that you both have the same exact files in the dev_ver_0.3 folder to avoid desyncs.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where the Short Hop button was causing desyncs.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where the Mayflash 4 Controller Adapter would not work if you started an online match with the Steam Overlay up.

Sources: Aetherboards, Beefy Aether Doods

When you have a universe as varied as SNK Playmore, you’re always going to be inundated with questions as to who will be playable in King of Fighters. Originally conceived as a dream match of sorts between their various properties, the franchise has always garnered a ton of attention, and King of Fighters XIV is no different.

During a recent interview with GAME Watch, producer Yasuyuki Oda provided some clues on parts of the roster that have yet to be revealed. “I can’t reveal the number,” he explained, according to translations by MM Cafe, “but there’s quite a few of them when you include the new characters and SNK characters.” Those of you who read Shoryuken on a regular basis likely understand what that last statement might mean.

Back in November, we reported on a rumored cast list. Among the regulars, newcomers, and surprises, the rumor stated that the roster might include an Alternate World Team comprised of Samurai Shodown’s Nakoruru, Sky Love’s Love Heart, and Dragon Gal’s Mui Mui. Oda’s mention of “SNK characters” may be a small confirmation that these guest characters are the real deal, or perhaps that more fan favorites are moving up to the big leagues.

Later on, Oda was asked a question concerning King of Fighters’ popularity in China and whether or not the developers are taking steps to make sure the region is represented in the final cast. While no specifics were mentioned, the producer did reveal that King of Fighters XIV will feature Chinese characters as well as a stage set in the East Asian country.

Back to the possible roster leak! In this case, Oda may be referencing either the Chinese team comprised of Fatal Fury’s Tung Fu Rue and his two new associates, or perhaps the Psycho Soldier squad (pictured above) comprised of Athena Asamiya, Sie Kensou, and Chin Gentsai, who in games past have taken up the mantle themselves.

In any case, these details should give King of Fighters fans a lot to think on while waiting for the title to drop on PlayStation 4 this year. For more translations of GAME Watch’s discussion with Oda, be sure to follow the link below to MMCafe.

Source: GAME Watch via MMCafe, tip via NightmareSteam