Author: Lance "Tarnot" Hood

General:

We have reworked the DI in Rivals of Aether in hopes to make the defensive game more obvious while keeping some of the leniency that Rivals has in terms of competitive play requiring tight timing. We have also fixed many engine bugs across the board and have changed our order of operations on attacks.

• The Holiday Color Palette has been updated from the spooky Halloween options to jolly Xmas colors. Show your holiday cheer in style while playing Rivals of Aether!
• Rivals of Aether has had three types of DI since its inception Here are the types of DI in 0.0.7:
  • Traditional DI: 18 degree max angle change when hitpause is over.
  • Automatic Smash DI: Similar to the smash series but you actually have to press the input during hitpause for the single hit. That means you cannot hold a direction to get the ASDI.
  • Drift DI: This was an idea new to Rivals to make combos a bit more escapable. During Hitstun (knockback) all characters can slightly influence their trajectory by holding directions.
• Drift DI ended up being far more powerful than we intended. So powerful that holding down during and after an upward attack was actually better than holding left or right. In 0.0.8 here are our three types of DI:
  • Traditional DI: No changes.
  • Automatic Smash DI: Moved to direction hold at the halfway point of hitpause, becoming truly automatic for multi-hit moves.
  • Drift DI: Only affects Horizontal DI now. Hold left or right during hitstun to slow down or speed up your horizontal trajectory. Also weakened slightly in its power.
• These changes were made to simplify the defense game and reward players for good survival DI while Drift DI helps get out of certain combos even if your DI is not perfect.
• Traditional DI has been increased on attacks that cause “Tumble Hitstun”. The max DI angle from tumble attacks is now 28 degrees instead of 18 degrees. Examples of Tumble Hitstun are Kragg’s Down Special and Wrastor’s Down Special.
• Vertical Knockback Scaling has been reduced and knockback angles more accurately represent in-engine angles. To keep vertical attacks KOing around the same percent, many have had their scaling increased.
• The Grounded Hitstun State (Knockdown) has been increased from 11 frames to 13 frames. This is prevent Jab 2 -> Jab 3 from being parryable when Jab 2 is Crouch Cancelled.
• Techs are now invincible on the first frame of making contact with the ground.
• The minimum horizontal speed to be able to air dodge after hitstun has been increased from 4 > 5.
• Adjusted the logic for dropping through platforms to make them easier and more reliable. The drop is now immediately after triggering and the Hard Down Press has a 6 frame buffer instead of a 3 Frame Buffer.
• Player 1 and Player 2 Start Points have been moved farther away from each other horizontally on stages where they were too close.
• Bug Fix: Players can now jump toward the left when facing right from a neutral jump squat.
• Bug Fix: Hitboxes are now active on the first frame they are out instead of the second. This makes startup time for attacks accurate now. This also speeds up all attacks by 1 frame so we will be watching the balance to make sure that faster characters are not too difficult to handle now.

Developer Mode:

Thanks to some awesome work by Trevor, we are allowing fans to experiment with the balance of the game during Early Access. We have introduced a new versus setting called Developer Mode. This setting allows players to customize the balance in their local versus or practice modes.

• To change character stats, navigate to your local app data folder and find Rivals of Aether. For most players the path will be:
• C:Users~yourusernameAppDataLocalRivalsofAetherdev_mode
• In each ini file, you can adjust the attacks and character data in Rivals of Aether, including startup frames, active frames, recovery frames, knockback, damage and more.
• After you have made your changes and saved the files, you can enable Developer Mode in the Versus Settings. Your changes will be grabbed each new match.
• If you are in the middle of a match and would like to implement changes, then press the F3 and the game will load the latest changes.

Zetterburn:

Zetterburn is doing quite well right now in online multiplayer, but we feel that he is falling into a role where he dominates low level play and is much harder to be effective at high level play. To help balance him out, we are taking away some of his reliance on Fire Strongs and giving him a longer dash dance.

• Forward Strong Knockback: 8 Base .6 Scaling > 8 Base .7 Scaling.
• Forward Strong Fire Knockback: 8 Base 1.2 Scaling > 8 Base 1.05 Scaling
• Down Strong Knockback: 6 Base .7 Scaling > 6 Base .8 Scaling.
• Down Strong Fire Knockback: 8 Base 1.2 Scaling > 8 Base 1.05 Scaling
• Up Strong Knockback: 6 Base .7 Scaling > 7 Base 1.1 Scaling. (Higher because of Vertical Scaling changes)
• Up Strong Fire Knockback: 8 Base 1.2 Scaling > 8 Base 1.3 Scaling. (Vertical Knockback Scaling changes actually lower this slightly)
• Forward Tilt Startup increased from 7 > 8 Frames. Wavedash forward tilt is a real terror thanks to the surprising range this attack has. We are bringing the startup in line with the reward.
• Up Special Travel Hitbox Knockback Scaling reduced from .6 to .5. It kills an edgeguarding opponent a bit too early. Does not feel great to die across the screen when missing an edgeguard on Zetterburn.
• Zetterburn’s initial dash time is increased from 10 > 14 frames to improve his dash dance.

Kragg:

Kragg is in a better place regarding his pillar and overall balance but we still find his campy style to be slightly too safe while being quite rewarding. We are adjusting some of the time around pulling and throwing rocks to open up more punish areas.

• Defense Ball Counter: Kragg’s Side Special has only one counter – Parry. Now it has two. Kragg retains some of his horizontal knockback while in Defense Ball. At high percents, a powerful disjointed attack can knock him back enough that he cannot follow up.
• Kragg Rock Pull Time increased from 27 > 29 Frames.
• Kragg Rock Throw Times increased from 4 > 6 frames in every direction. This allows some characters to combo Kragg with a rock more easily.
• Bug Fix: Moving Rocks that break no longer create a solid rock for 1 frame. This should fix many of the bugs with Kragg causing players to disappear. This also prevents Kragg from regaining his double jump by breaking his own falling rock beneath him.

Forsburn:

Forsburn is doing extremely well right now and his combo game has been at the forefront of his development. However, the change to the Forward Strong is making some of his kills feel unearned which when coupled with his incredible combo game, makes for an overwhelming opponent.

• Slightly Less Reliable Cape: The Cape Hit of Forward strong is still untechable but we are reinstating the scaling Hitstun. It scales from .5 normal to 1.5 normal depending on how long you charge the Strong. Half charged should be enough to guarantee the Dagger when spaced correctly.
• Up Strong now also scales from 1.0 hitstun to 2.0. Fully charging the Cape should improve follow ups after the bounce. If they DI away then follow up with a back air.
• Both Forward Strong and Up Strong have had their Startup Reduced from 14 to 12.
• Forward Air Recovery increased from 6 > 8 Frames.
• Up Air Knockback Scaling increased from .25 > .3.
• Forsburn’s Initial Dash Time increased from 10 > 16 to improve his Dash Dance.
• Combust Power Comeback: Combust Scaling was powerful because of its vertical KO power. Now that we have adjusted vertical scaling, Combust’s scaling has been increased from .85 > 1.0. This improves the horizontal knockback for the attack as well.
• Bug Fix: Forsburn can no longer Down Special immediately after Neutral Special causing no clouds to spawn.

Orcane:

Orcane is performing well in the hands of players who have put the time in. The only part of Orcane that concerns us is his reliance on bubbles. To help balance him out while keeping him fun, we are stripping some of his damage from bubbles and redistributing it across the rest of his moveset.

• Orcane’s Bubble Damage per hit decreased from 3 > 2.
• Orcane Back Air Damage increased from 4 sour 7 sweet > 5 sour 8 sweet.
• Orcane Down Tilt Damage increased from 6 > 7.
• Orcane Down Strong and Forward Strong Base Damage increased from 8 > 9.
• Orcane Up Strong Base Damage increased from 8 > 10.

Wrastor:

Wrastor is a real terror in the air. While he will remain that way, we wanted to address a couple of problem areas. With the Tumble State change affecting his Down Special, we also wanted to look at his Strong Attacks and Down Tilt.

• Wrastor’s Forward Strong and Up Strong Aerial Recovery increased from 21 > 33 Frames. The Landing Lag on both attacks now scales with the amount of time left on his aerial recovery instead of being a flat number. This removes the ability to charge the Strong attack to remove landing lag.
• Wrastor’s Down Tilt hitbox has been reduced to match the visual.
• Wrastor’s Knockback Factor reduced from 1.2 > 1.15. He was a bit too high compared to the rest of the cast which affects when he is KOed and how hard it is to combo him.

Maypul:

Maypul is a very fun character with a few mechanics that are very unfun to play against. Her camping is still an issue for us and her Sling Shot to Up Air true combos a bit too early. We looked at both.

• Plant Camping II: Maypul’s Plant, Lily, no longer wraps a marked opponent. Now it wraps opponents who are both marked and in hitstun. Maypul must knock her opponents into Lily into order to trigger a wrap. We are trying to stop Maypul’s ability to slow a tight match down to a crawl. Now she actively has to combo into Lily or fight close to her.
• Fat Lily has permanence again. It will last until it wraps or a new one is planted.
• Skinny Lily Base Wrap Time increased from 30 > 50 Frames.
• Fat Lily Base Wrap Time increased from 60 > 70 Frames.
• Maypul’s Sling Shot has between 0 and 8 more frames of Travel Time on the way up depending on distance. It’s harder to sling upward! This is to make Sling Shot to Up Air true combo at higher percents than it does currently.
• Maypul’s Down Tilt Damage increased from 7 > 9. This gives her some reason to use it as opposed to Forward Tilt which is faster and has more range.
• Maypul’s Forward Special Scaling increased from .35 > .4. This is to address Forward Special spam at low percents.

Menus and UI:

• Added a Blastzone Data Display to the Stage Select. This will display information regarding the blastzones based on the ground level of each stage (the lowest solid ground). You can turn it off and on by pressing RB on stage select.
• Added a “Local FPS Catchup” option the Graphics Option Menu. When on, this will have the game run faster in Local games even if your FPS cannot reach 60. This happens automatically in online matches now.
• Added Full Hop, Short Hop and Off options to the Controller Customization options.
• Bug Fix: Pressing Back and Start at the same time in Practice Mode no longer causes a freeze.

Online:

• Gameplay Slowdown due to GPU related issues has been addressed. Now if you cannot run at 60 FPS, then the logic will update more often to keep the game running the same speed. This should prevent many players from causing terrible input lag when they play online. If you were getting slowdown for CPU related reasons, then you may still have issues.
• If there is a disconnect mid-match, then the game will no longer restart but rather will return to you the Main Menu.
• Timing out of the choosing to rematch timer causes a rematch instead of a disconnect now.