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September Update Patch Note

[h3]New Contents & Features: [/h3]

1. Added a practice arena, including a set of player tutorials and free training

- Player Tutorial: include guidelines for a set of basic moves (moving, jumping, passing, using Abilities, changing position etc.)
- Free Training: offer a practice range

2. Adjusted the difficulty of the AI

3. Changed ranked mode entry to Lv10

4. Added 2-3 sets of new skins for each character

5. Added new item Reverse Ball

6. Added new daily and weekly missions, while slightly reducing the difficulty of some missions

7. Added surrender system, the weaker side can initiate a surrender vote under the ESC menu if the game passed the 3-minute mark

8. Added real-time notification system for actions such as saves and ultimate blocked

9. Added quick chat message in-game. In ranked mode, the message bar will only show messages from your teammates, while once the game started teammates can only communicate through quick chat messages or voice chat.

10. Added player profile icons

11. removed the settings where players have to use F8 to turn on and off the mouse, now simply use F4 to be ready

12. Added video introductions for character abilities, see them by pressing Tab in the skin menu

13. Added a leaderboard for MVPs

14. Added in-game background music for The Great Harbor Arena

15. Temporarily disabled the camera shaking effects from all kinds of abilities

[h3]Game Balancing Adjustments:[/h3]

R47
1. Slightly reduced the shooting hitbox
2. Ground Pound (Right Click)
- Reduced the hitbox for Ground Pound on both characters and the ball
- Ground Pound can no longer disrupt certain character ultimates and abilities, such as Gridiron when shielding, R47’s ultimate and Pink’s ultimate.
- When used to intercept the ball, the ball will be less likely to stay in control of the players
- Adjust stamina consumption rate of Ground Pound
3. Batter Up (Ultimate)
- Slightly increased the charge needed for his ultimate

Pai
1. Slightly increased his ball control ability

Pink
1. Slightly increased her ball control
2. Adjusted the position of in-game UI for her color cannon
3. Color Cannon: will gradually generate as the time passes, while reducing the generation rate through passing

Lang
1. Slightly increased his ball control
2. Slightly increased the height when performing Acrobat (jump on people’s head) and Parkour (jump on the wall)
3. Wind Tackle: affects R47 again
4. Eye of the Storm: increased AP recovery rate and debuff on opponents

Gridiron
1. Slightly increased his ball control ability
2. A minor increase on his jumping speed and maximum height when jumping
3. When shielding, slightly increased his reaction speed

Eriel
1. Slightly increased the generation speed for her bullet
2. Slightly reduced her stamina consumption

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

1. Fixed a bug where in the custom game, players cannot control characters when typing after the match has finished

2. Optimized server performances for smoother connections

September Update Overview

Hey guys!

Long time no see! Not sure if anyone noticed that there’s little to no information about the major update last month. That’s because after the July patch we’ve announced that the team needs to take some time to further optimize the game while bringing in new exciting content to the SBT community. As a result, we decided to cancel the August update so that the team can put all the hard works and efforts to make the new version happen as soon as possible.

Moving on to the September update, to prepare for the big patch that’s coming out later, the September update will mainly be focusing on these aspects: game balance, in-game tutorial, surrender system, new item and more skins for characters.

Let’s start off with game balancing first, ever since the July patch there have been numerous messages from players complaining about how strong R47 is under the current meta. We’re fully aware of the whole situation with R47 and other characters but since game balancing takes time, we decided to fix this issue in the next major update (which is in September) so that the team will not be overloaded by tasks at all times.

In the September update, players can also expect a brand-new item coming into the game. ‘Reverse Ball’ is a defensive-focused item that can reverse the direction of the ball to the opposite side of where it heads to. It’s an advanced item that has a lot to explore and can be used in conjunction with abilities from other characters to score & defend in the dying moments of the match.



Another big change coming into September is the in-game tutorials. There have been too many requests about having a proper tutorial system in-game ever since the launch of the open development, and it’s now finally here in September!

The in-game tutorial will allow players to take a few pre-designed practice trials and get a better understanding of the game.

For old players, we’ve also taken suggestions by adding a practice arena at the end of the tutorial where players can browse items on the field and practice the usage of each item.

Another new thing we added in-game is the surrender system. As many players have suggested, having a surrender system will help reduces unmeaningful matches. We’re still experimenting with the surrendering mechanics in which it might not be perfect when it first launched but we hope to get better as we go.

Regarding new skins, we’re planning on having another 2-3 sets of new redeemable skins for each character. Here are some of the previews for the new skins in the next update:











Be aware that in the September patch we’ll clean up player coins, while skins that already been bought will still remain in player’s library. So if you happen to have spare coins in your hands, don’t hesitate to spend it right now!

So I think that’s pretty much all the major contents covered in the September update, we fixed & add some of the key things that players have been asking for while saved some time and resources to prepare for more content to deliver in the future.

A more detailed patch note will be out on the day of the patch where you can expect more optimizations coming into September!

Let us know your thought by talking with us on social media and communities:

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SBT Dev Log - Character Skillsets

Long time no see!

We’ve seen some people in the group asking about how we designed characters, especially in relates to character skillsets. Thought it’d be a good topic so here it is! We’ll take a look at the ability designs and share some basic knowledge when it comes to designing characters.



Sports Game vs Real Sports

Sports game has always been a niche genre in gaming and people often relate it to real-life sports due to the popularity of games like FIFA and NBA 2K. As for real football (soccer), there are different positions including forward, midfielder, defender and goalkeeper. It’s a common knowledge that different rules were assigned based on their positions, and it seems like this rule have passed onto many sports games as well and people would’ve assumed that character abilities should naturally tight with their positions, so if you’re a defender, your skillset should then only focus on defending.

Things were a little bit different in Super Buckyball Tournament however, we quickly abandoned the idea of linking character abilities with their positions as we found very few people in our studio are willing to play goalie due to its inability to show off in-game and scoring goals, needless to say that in our game character don’t even have a pre-set positions. Therefore, instead of giving characters stereotypical skillsets, we offer each character abilities that are versatile and can be used for both attack & defense.

For instance, Pink‘s ultimate ‘Point Ray’ and right-click ability ‘Color Cannon’ can be useful for both scoring goals and interrupt other’s control over the ball, the same for character R47’s ultimate. As for Lang, although being a striker but he did have a tackling ability, with his ultimate ‘eye of the storm’ being quite supportive rather than attacking-based. Or more generally speaking, we designed all our characters with the mindset of having at least some level of attacking abilities, since players can feel the excitements when scoring goals, even if they play as a goalkeeper. This does not only makes the game more fun but also creates more possibilities in the field.



Characters need versatile skillsets





Balancing The Skillsets

When it comes to ability designs, balancing is something that developers cannot get away with, especially in multiplayer games. In SBT, each character has 2-4 abilities so it took us a lot of time just to balance the game so that each character is not too overpowered and there’s always counter play between characters.

Character Pai is arguably the most popular character among new players, he’s fast, can dash while being very agile. Most importantly, he has the ultimate that can blast the ball into the net without the need to aim. Is he too powerful? Probably yes, but for new players only. Once new players got used to the game and played enough of Pai, they’ll gradually start to realize the advantages of other characters. With the arrival of Gridiron one month after the release, Pai’s effectiveness was further reduced as he was directed countered by him.



Pai's ability can also be useful for defense and counter



Overall, as our first multiplayer project, we still need to learn how to balance characters along the way and there’re a lot more to be done once more characters added in.

The use of basic elements in character abilities

When designing character abilities, it’s worth adding some personalities into it. In SBT we paired each character with some basic elements such as air, fire, energy, lighting and water before we even started to design their skillsets.

Air/Wind: The design of character Lang was inspired by Japanese ninja. Since ninjas are often very fast and disappear without a trace, therefore we believe air/wind should be the most suited element for Lang, and then designed skillsets based on it.



Fire: Both Gridiron and R47’s ultimate has some forms of fire elements, in which you can see from Gridiron’s engine and R47’s girder when blasting out the ultimate. The fire element makes their abilities more alive and vivid.



Energy: Energy usually comes with bright colors and high contrasts, which in line with the designs of Pink.



Electricity/Lighting: Pai is by far the fastest player in SBT, we believe it would be a great fit if his skillsets can be paired with lighting, therefore his entire skillsets are based on lighting and electricity.



Water: It’s pretty obvious that Eriel’s ability sets were based on water, her animations are mostly blue and watery.



Best Ultimate Design

If anyone asked for the best ability we ever designed in SBT, its probably the ultimate from R47. As a character, he not only has excellent defending stats, which you can see from his bulky appearances but also showed amazing talents on both ball control and shot power. As one of our first few designed abilities, R47’s ultimate ‘Batter Up’ uses a girder to hammer up a high-speed fire strike. Unlike the ultimate from Pai which will aim the goal automatically, ‘Batter Up’ completely relies on players' precise control. Sometimes you can score a stunning two-pointer, but in some occasions, it might go completely wide or even ended up scoring an own goal through deflections. It’s an ultimate that’s simple, easy to use but hard to master, which basically sums up the core ideology of the game and sets a cornerstone of our ability designs.



Ever since the start of open development, we have been actively collecting player feedbacks while making the game better. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to discuss with us!

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Training Day

Hi folks!

Two weeks ago we started a community activity called 'Training Day', which basically to group up a bunch of players (especially new players) in a designated time and teach them all the tricks and skills about SBT while having some fun time playing together.

The training day will be arranged and hosted by our community players every week and after talking with them we've decided to have our training day set to 9 PM CEST (12 PM PST) every Sunday

The training will last about an hour and feel free to join our Discord
for more details about the training day!

The 3rd Tournament is Just Around the Corner!

The 3rd Western Community Tournament is scheduled to take place on Sunday the 6th of September from 11 AM PST/8 PM CEST to 1 PM PST/ 10 PM CEST!

The Schedule is:
- 11 AM (8 PM): All teams will play their first match at the same time.
- 11:30 AM (8:30 PM): The Semifinals will be played one after another.
- 12:30 AM (9:30 PM): The Finals - All matches will be played best out of 3.

Teams will be made by the devs after the signup based on player levels.

We already have enough players for a 2-bracket tournament. But we will keep the signup open until Thursday evening and if we reach 36+ players, we will do a 3-bracket tournament.

You can sign up HERE

We have a prize pool of 240$ for the winners:
1st price is 50 dollars for each player*
2nd price is 20 dollars for each player*
3rd price is 10 dollars for each player*

Here is a little inspiration from the final at the last Chinese Tournament

See you on the 6th!