Rivals of Aether II News

[p]Get ready for some EU Rivals as players flock to Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025 for a weekend at one of Europe's most legendary fighting game events. This official Rivals 2 Circuit Series event brings extra stakes to an already fierce competition, with circuit points and a cash prize on the line. [/p][p][/p][p]How to Watch[/p][p]Tune into twitch.tv/zdamascus Saturday Sept. 13th at 10am PT / 12pm CT / 1pm ET / 19:00 CEST to watch the Top 8 showdown as the Rivals UFA 25 champion is crowned. Check out the full bracket and more event details on start.gg.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Rep the Palette and Support the event with creator code "UFA25"[/p][p]To rep UFA in game, you can pick up the brand new UFA Slam Dunk Ranno palette bundle. Featuring fresh colors on our favorite frog, you can also support the event directly by entering creator code "UFA25" when picking up the palette, or any other purchase in the shop. Don't forget using a creator code gets you extra Aether Bucks, and sends a portion of the purchase to the event, so it's a win-win.

As with past bundles, if you already own the base skin, you’ll receive both the palette and an Aether Bucks refund to keep things fair when you buy.[/p][p][/p]

[h2]Pirate’s Tide Event[/h2][p]Argh mateys, it’s time to roll out the canons and fire off our new event! The September Pirate’s Tide Event has Pirate Clairen, Pirate Absa, and Pirate Wrastor as featured skins with some wanted poster icons to match. The new cosmetics are paired with 25,000 Aether Coins and 250 Aether Bucks.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Our free track for August contains the Pirate Wrastor emote, the piratesplosion death effect, pirate platform, Pirate Wrastor icon, and the Otter Maypul skin. Players equipping any event skins above, and the Pirate Maypul skin will receive 20% Bonus XP on the event track. There is also a new palette for Pirate Maypul in the in-game shop![/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Next R2CS Events: Riptide & Ultimate Fighting Arena[/h2][p]After an incredibly packed August, we’re kicking off the second half of the R2CS! For North America we have Riptide 2025 and an Online event coming your way, while Europe has Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025 and an Online event of their own!
[/p][p]Last month, we revealed the Riptide Pool Party Ranno palette, which is still available in the shop to rep the event! Pick up the classic palette and rep Riptide to show your support.
[/p][p]Coming up on the European circuit is the massive Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025 event. We’ve worked with the organizers to create the UFA Slam Dunk Ranno palette bundle for players to rep the event, stay tuned later this week for the bundle![/p][p][/p][p]If you buy either of these bundles but already own the base skins, you’ll receive an Aether Bucks refund to make it even just like with our other bundles. Keep an eye out for more circuit palettes in the future as the second half of the R2CS is just beginning! These palettes are FREE for all players attending the respective events. [/p][p][/p][p]You can check out upcoming & past events and the region leaderboards on our official league page.[/p][h2]New Shop Items[/h2]

• [p]CoolBlue Olympia Palette[/p]
• [p]Pink Leopard Shark Orcane Palette[/p]

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• [p]Mint Bee Kragg Palette[/p]
• [p]Purple Spangled Wrastor Palette[/p]

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• [p]Black Pirate Maypul Palette[/p]

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• [p]Kingoing Coin Flip Emote[/p]

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• [p]Temple Fleet Icon[/p]
• [p]Temple Clairen Icon[/p]
• [p]Temple Forsburn Icon[/p]
• [p]Temple Loxodont Icon[/p]
• [p]Temple Maypul Icon[/p]
• [p]Temple Orcane Icon[/p]
• [p]Temple Wrastor Icon[/p]
• [p]Temple Zetterburn Icon[/p]
• [p]Temple Ranno Icon[/p]
• [p]Temple Kragg Icon[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][h2]Ranked Shop Update[/h2][p]Champion Clairen has been added to the Ranked Shop! This includes a skin, two emotes, and two icons for the Flame’s Salvation.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Listen-servers for Lobby mode are here![/h2][p]Today’s patch introduces a top-requested feature from players. We’ve added listen-server options to allow players to host matches in a public or private lobby directly off of their machine instead of through servers.[/p]

• [p]Players can toggle the listen-server option from the same menu as the region override option.[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][h2]BALANCE[/h2][p][/p]

• [p]Bug fix: Parrying after powershielding will no longer restore your momentum from when you started shielding.[/p]
• [p]Bug fix: Fixed a bug that could cause the game to freeze if an article was spawned between two pieces of solid ground (e.g. the stage and Kragg's pillar).[/p]
• [p]Canceling a waveland into a dash will now multiply your horizontal speed by 0.2 before applying your dash speed.[/p]
  • [p]This increases the speed of dashing after wavedashing in the other direction, as it felt a little too slow after the dash changes in 1.3.3[/p]
• [p]Bug fix: The critical hit knockback threshold will now be adjusted for downward-sending moves the same way that it is for omnidirectional moves like Zetterburn Neutral Special and Up Special.[/p]
  • [p]This means that spikes will be able to activate the critical hit effect at more reasonable percents.[/p]
• [p]Added a vfx for untechable knockdowns.[/p]

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• [p]Up Special will no longer start spinning when holding the right stick in a direction[/p]
  • [p]This allows Ranno to ASDI with the right stick without canceling Up Special into the spin.[/p]

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• [p]Enemies will no longer be pushed out of Wrastor's ECB during Up Special's startup window.[/p]
  • [p]This prevents Wrastor from pushing enemies away from the sweetspot of the attack, which would occasionally cause it to whiff even if he was right next to them.[/p]
• [p]Bug fix: Dash Attack will no longer cancel parry stun when transitioning from ground to air.[/p]

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• [p]Pillar will no longer be broken by Clairen's plasma field's lingering hitbox.[/p]

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• [p]Dash Attack hits 1 and 2 are no longer untechable.[/p]
  • [p]This was a leftover from when they were weaker than the final hit. Now that they have the same knockback, that is no longer necessary.[/p]

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• [p]Down Tilt tipper radius: 36cm > 25cm, hitbox moved forward 11cm.[/p]
• [p]Down Tilt outer sourspot radius: 45cm > 35cm, hitbox moved forward 10cm and upward 5cm.[/p]
  • [p]This preserves the forward range of the move while shrinking the vertical range, both upward and downward. This makes it less effective at poking recoveries unless they miss their sweetspot.[/p]

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• [p]Back Air's swipe adjusted to better match the hitboxes.[/p]
• [p]Ledge Attack active frames: 7 > 6[/p]
  • [p]We're removing the final active frame to make it not hit as low behind Clairen.[/p]

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• [p]Forsburn's overhead HUD will now be disabled if he is touching smoke at all.[/p]
  • [p]This prevents it from giving his location away when traveling through a patchy cluster of smoke clouds. This also makes the overhead HUD visibility correspond with his ability to inhale smoke with Down Special, giving players an immediate way to tell if they're close enough to the smoke.[/p]
• [p]Smoke cloud hurtboxes radii: 120cm > 80cm.[/p]
  • [p]The enormous size of the hurtboxes made clearing smoke more forgiving than we would like.[/p]

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• [p]Clone will now disappear 13 frames faster after detonating.[/p]
• [p]Clone detonation will now put Down Special on a 2 frame cooldown.[/p]
  • [p]This allows Forsburn to inhale smoke with Down Special immediately after the clone detonates instead of being arbitrarily locked out for a short duration.[/p]
• [p]Destroying your own clone by starting a Ledge Special or Getup Special will no longer put Forward Special on cooldown.[/p]
• [p]Bug fix: Up Special will now land instantly when teleporting into smoke with ground underneath it.[/p]

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• [p]Max horizontal jump speed during Run Turn: 16 > 19.8[/p]
  • [p]This reverts his hydroplane jump speed to its pre-1.3.3 value, since getting a boost from Run Turn is his unique mechanic.[/p]
• [p]Forward Special is now visible during travel.[/p]
  • [p]Making it hittable but not visible was confusing, so we're making Orcane morph into a water ball instead of disappearing. Because the movement is extremely quick, Orcane's movement mixups are still unreactable even though it is now visible.[/p]
• [p]Bug fix: Fixed a bug that prevented Orcane from fastfalling during Forward Special's Special Fall window after the animation had looped.[/p]

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• [p]Up Special's maximum charge time can no longer decay lower than 25 frames.[/p]
  • [p]This means that he will always be able to at least halfway charge his Up Special.[/p]
• [p]Bug fix: Forward Strong will no longer lose ice armor when canceling into Up/Down Strong on the first 2 frames.[/p]
• [p]Up Strong hit 1 is no longer untechable.[/p]
  • [p]This was ported directly from Rivals 1, but ended up causing some overly-advantageous situations even when the correct counterplay was applied, such as when the opponent DIs to avoid hit 2 but then ends up landing on a platform.[/p]

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• [p]Forward Special's cloud will now be destroyed if Absa gets hit before its active frames.[/p]
  • [p]This prevents it from hitting opponents after they interrupted Absa's Forward Special.[/p]
• [p]If Up Special part 1 is grounded on the frame that it would normally go into the Special Fall window, it will now go into a 9 frame grounded recovery window unless it hits an opponent.[/p]
  • [p]This makes it function similarly to Up Special part 2. Previously, Absa could avoid almost all of the landing lag of the move if she ended it a short distance above the ground, which was unintuitive/difficult to punish. The move still functions the same on hit, but will be more punishable on whiff when ending on/near the ground.[/p]
• [p]Up Special part 1 will no longer count as grounded if it travels upward and ends right above the ground.[/p]
  • [p]This removes a situation where Absa could avoid going into Special Fall after using part 1 to go upward right above the ledge, then going into the air with part 2.[/p]
• [p]Special Pummel's Static Electricity will now be removed from all opponents when Absa is KOd.[/p]
• [p]Forward Tilt part 1 backward range reduced by 20cm.[/p]
  • [p]This makes it less likely to hit opponents behind her.[/p]

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• [p]Forward Tilt part 2 can now clash with other Absa Forward Tilts.[/p]
• [p]Forward Strong inner multihit now reaches farther both upward and downward[/p]
  • [p]This should make it link into the final hit more reliably when clipping opponents with the inner corners of the move.[/p]

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• [p]Up Strong hits 1 and 2 now reach 40cm higher.[/p]
  • [p]This makes them able to reach low platforms, increasing the move's usefulness in tech chasing below platforms.[/p]

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• [p]Getup Attack will now lose its intangibility halfway through the active frames instead of being intangible for all of them.[/p]
  • [p]Her Getup Attack has extremely long active frames and a relatively short recovery window, so we're reducing the intangibility to be more in line with other characters' Getup Attacks.[/p]

[p]The first half of the Rivals II Championship Series has been a wild ride so far - featuring record breaking events and players coming together from across the FGC to make their mark. With our Summer Split wrapping up with Riptide 2025 in North America, and Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025 in Europe both in just a couple weeks - it’s time to reveal what’s next. [/p][p]
[/p][h2]New Upcoming Events[/h2][p]The race is ON for both regions as our second half of the season and finale approach over the next several months. We are SO excited to see what the rest of the year brings, so let’s dive into what we have in store.[/p][p][/p][h3]North America:[/h3][p]Players are jockeying for position with each event shaking up the leaderboard. There’s a lot here so feel free to check out our R2CS landing page here to find registration info and results for all of these R2CS events as registration goes live. The table below includes a preview of our upcoming online events (reg to be posted soon), along with offline events you can register for now:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Europe:[/h3][p]Check out the new events joining the EU R2CS, and check out our R2CS landing page here to find registration info and results for all of these brackets as registration goes live. The table below includes a preview of our upcoming online events (reg to be posted soon), along with offline events you can register for now:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Power Rankings Guidelines[/h2][p]The original Rivals of Aether had a robust power rankings system with an 8 year track record, and we've been getting many questions about how power rankings will work in Rivals 2. Since we loved highlighting the players and their achievements this way, the R2CS power ranking structure will look familiar to previous circuit years.

After our Finals event, rankings for the North American region will be determined via a hand selected panel that will painstakingly comb through data accrued throughout the season. Our ranking system is typically in a Top 50 format for North America, but this could expand depending on total players over the course of this inaugural season.[/p][p][/p][p]In past seasons from our previous title, community events have been considered for rankings. Considering we are in our first season, we wanted to keep things simple for the R2CS rollout, so up until now, only official circuit events have contributed to rankings. Since we’ve found our footing and knowing that there are some fantastic events out there, we are opening up the rankings to more events. These events will not be official R2CS events, so they will not receive Pot Bonuses, custom palettes, etc, but they will be recognized for their individual strengths in their own tier below the weight of official circuit events.[/p][p][/p][p]We’re excited to announce that the first non-circuit event counting for end of season rankings will be Hitfall 4! This event series has shown strong commitment to the Rivals community over the years and consistently brings out some of the best talent for both Rivals of Aether titles.[/p][p][/p][p]We don’t have any more events to include on this list YET, but we’re interested in what the community is backing. If you think your event is a good fit for the end of season power rankings, please reach out! We will be accepting events on a case by case basis, considering elements such as lead-up time, size of event, out of region talent attending, and more.[/p][p][/p][p]Now, with this and our circuit considerations in mind, players in North America will be expected to enter a minimum number of events to be considered for power rankings in order to determine accurate data.[/p][p]The NA R2CS power ranking requirements and event weight are as follows:[/p]

• [p]A minimum of three (3) total Official R2CS events, with two (2) of them consisting of LAN tournaments.[/p]
• [p]The R2CS Finals and EVO 2025 will carry the highest weight.[/p]
• [p]Other LAN events will be considered in the next group, with potential order within this tier being determined based on entrant count and overall strength.[/p]
• [p]Online events will be considered with the lowest weight overall, with entrant count and strength potentially ordering them within this tier.[/p][p][/p]

[p]The EU community has historically determined their own requirements and ranking system, so stay tuned for more information on this region's ranking. Until then, we recommend EU players attend what they can in order to cultivate an exciting first season![/p][p]North American and European events can all be found on the R2CS landing page here, so be sure to sign up and let's finish out an amazing year![/p]

[p]Some keen eyed players caught this shot in our Mecha Event trailer earlier this month and asked, "Did they really model a random chair for the meme?" [/p][p][/p][p]While, "they would", was a completely accurate answer.... that wasn't the case this time. If you were someone who guessed this was actually a sneak peak of La Reina's chair - you nailed it! Development for La Reina has been going on behind the scenes for some time now. But who is La Reina? Let's Recap.[/p][p][/p][p] [/p][h2]A Rival with a Unique Background[/h2][p][/p][p]It's been over 2 years since we launched our Workshop Character Contest. Throughout the second half of 2023, tons of amazing creators submitted over 80 high quality characters to the Rivals 1 workshop - with the winning character chosen to eventually join Rivals 2. La Reina, a magnetic grappler by Onyx and Sa-V, was that winning entry. Check out footage of her and other entrants below for a taste of some of the competition:[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]Since La Reina is in the unique position of being the ONLY character that's actually been revealed before her reveal trailer, we thought we'd do something a little different as we lead up to her future release.[/p][p][/p][h2]Enter: La Reina in the Making[/h2][p][/p][p]Since the cat (ant?) is out of the bag with La Reina, we plan to take players along on a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into creating a character, with her in the spotlight. Stay tuned for with us as we start a series covering:[/p]

• [p]Sound Design and Voice Acting[/p]
• [p]Gameplay Design[/p]
• [p]3D Character Design[/p]
• [p]Character Animation[/p]
• [p]Narrative[/p]
• [p]and more![/p]

[p]Our first behind the scenes stream will feature Mend from our audio partner Moonsailor to chat about Sound Design, Voice Acting, and other audio related goodness. Make sure to tune in this Thursday live, but don't worry, we'll save the VoD as well if you can't make it. [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Don't forget, this is an early look at La Reina, and we're not ready to reveal when her release date is just yet![/p][p][/p]

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• [p]Bug fix: Critical Hit Effect selections will now work properly in infinite-stock matches and Training mode.[/p]
• [p]Bug fix: Fixed a bug that allowed certain moves that cannot normally fastfall to do so when holding down after dropping through a platform (i.e. Olympia Down Special).[/p]

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• [p]Bug fix: Fixed a visual bug with Mecha Wrastor's swipes.[/p]

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• [p]Tethering to an opponent will now put Down Special on a 30 frame cooldown.[/p]
  • [p]This prevents Down Special tether loops, which were unintentionally enabled by Down Special's newly increased knockback.[/p]

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• [p]Bug fix: Fixed a bug that caused empowered Forward Special to transition back into normal Forward Special after the movement window.[/p]

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• [p]Bug fix: Fixed a visual bug with Black Mecha Etalus' ice colors.[/p]

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• [p]Bug fix: Canceling Forward Special into Gem Dash will now reset Forward Special's cooldown.[/p]

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• [p]Bug fix: Fixed a bug that caused her cloud kick hitboxes to be centered on her foot instead of the cloud.[/p]