Aether Legends Event
The Aether Legends in-game event is live and runs from 3/4 - 4/2! Earn iconic cosmetics tied to the legends and history of Aether by progressing the free event track, or grab the Legends bundle in the shop for a pack of storied skins, icons, coins, and bucks! The paid bundle includes Ranger Fleet, Demigod Orcane, and Dark Future Loxodont as the featured skins with associated icons to match. The Demigod Orcane and Dark Future Loxodont skins both feature custom Voice and sound effects when equipped. Check out the event trailer below:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Our free track for March contains the Dark Future Loxodont Emote, the Four Legend death effect, the Ranger platform, and the Smoke Clan Forsburn skin and Smoke Clan Forsburn icon. Players equipping any of the new event skins, any Abyss skin, or Ranger Clairen will receive 20% Bonus XP on the event track.
Training Mode Updates Phase 1
Training Mode is getting some new features! While this is only the first phase of improvements, we have been taking feedback from the community via our
Nolt Board. Thank you to everyone that has left constructive feedback regarding training mode, we plan to continue implementing your feedback as development continues. Here is a list of new options added in today’s update:
- Set player percent
- Grab option (action when cpu grabs you)
- Ledge option
- Counter option air (air dodge or do an attack on the first actionable frame in the air)
- Counter delay (delay counter action by a number of frames)
- Floorhug
- Throw option
- Pummel option
Character Art Update
Etalus’ character model has been given a visual upgrade to really show off his scruffy fur. This update is being applied to every skin except for Honey Etalus. Check it out:
Audio Updates
We have some audio updates addressing feedback from community members and a fix for a Stereo audio bug that appeared in a recent patch.
- There is a new sound for Perfect Shielding an attack making it easier to distinguish in-game.
- Victory Sequence Audio has been improved for all characters!
- Game default volume adjusted to make the slider more usable.
- The top end of the slider was too loud overall. This adjustment may make the game sound quiet, since the settings will still be set to the same number, so be sure to go in and adjust your audio settings as you see fit!
- Bug Fix: Definitively fixed a bug with Stereo audio.
- This was an elusive fix that took a few patches to get right. Now we are happy to have a true fix in the game coupled with extra adjustments to make it sound even better than before!
A New Ranked Season is on the Way!
We’re excited to announce the conclusion of “Ranked Lite” is coming soon, with a reset and a brand new system and season on the way. Fear not, the end is not here, only near! We have added a neat little in-game timer to count down to the reset on 4/2 so you know how long left you have to climb.
More information on the new ranked mode and season will come in a future update, but players can expect more features and rewards as the current “Ranked Lite” gets an upgrade to our full ranked system.
Ranked/Casual Timing Update
One thing that IS going into effect immediately is a new timer update. Timers have been updated for queues/lobbies to help streamline the online player experience in menus:
- Match Join Phase: 25s (unchanged, ends as soon as all players connect)
- Initial CSS: 60s > 50s
- Follow-up CSS: 60s > 25s
- StageBan: 20s (unchanged)
- StageSelect: 15s (unchanged)
- Ranked Results: 30s > 20s (these numbers include victory animations)
- Casual Results: 30s (unchanged)
Balance Updates
It’s time for everyone’s favorite part of our patch notes, balance updates! This patch focuses on power distribution across the cast, focusing on what strengths and weaknesses among the cast were a bit too prevalent. While we won’t be able to cover everything we want at once, we have taken a step towards general game feel improvements, and adjustments in particular to Wrastor, Clairen, Maypul, and Orcane. Our newest Rival, Etalus, has a plethora of changes that address his movement and shield pressure, among other aspects of his gameplay. Let's dive in:
- Grab and Throws can no longer slide off ledges due to leftover shield pushback momentum.
- This can happen with any character, but showed up most often with Etalus because of his low friction on ice and Kragg because of his pillar.
- Buffering a wavedash off a ledge while standing right on it will no longer cause you to airdodge offstage.
- This allows you to wavedash to ledge regardless of the distance to it.
- Airdodge angles will now round to cardinal directions within 20 degrees.
- This was previously 10 degrees, and would sometimes result in a slightly upward airdodge when trying to waveland/wavedash horizontally.
- Fixed a bug that prevented characters from reaching their full run speed on the first frame of run if their dash speed was slower than their run speed.
- This is very minor, but will make those characters slightly faster when they enter full run.
- Fixed a bug that prevented characters from reaching their full run speed on the first frame of run when transitioning from the Run Turn state.
- This is very minor, but will make characters slightly faster when they finish a run turn.
- Medium hitstun will no longer force the player to face the opponent. They will instead face the opposite direction of their horizontal knockback the same way they do when entering heavy hitstun.
- This mechanic made some attacks that pulled inward behave oddly if they didn't send into tumble, leaving the opponent facing the opposite direction than intended. This mechanic still applies to light hitstun.
Zetterburn is getting some small changes that reduce active frames on his powerful Down Air, and allow him to keep some momentum when using a grounded Neutral Special.
- Down Air active frames: 5 > 4
- This makes it require slightly more precise timing to land. The recovery frames were increased by 1 to leave the total move duration unchanged.
- Grounded Neutral Special will no longer stop horizontal momentum.
- This allows him to keep a little bit of his velocity when doing running Neutral Specials instead of stopping immediately in place.
Wrastor's new slipstream was getting removed a little too easily, so we're making it take some extra effort to get rid of. We're also changing the way his Dash Attack and Forward Air function, as they were a bit over centralizing for how versatile they were.
- Slipstream will no longer go on cooldown when Wrastor goes into light or medium hitstun.
- This means it will take a stronger hit (or a grab) to get rid of it.
- Weight: 75 > 71
- This weight reduction emphasizes his greatest weakness in order to better offset his strengths.
- Dash Attack grounded recovery: 20 > 22
- Dash Attack aerial recovery: 10 > 12
- This move was a bit too rewarding in both scenarios.
- Dash Attack late hit split into 2 separate hitboxes; a mid hit and a late hit.
- Dash Attack mid hit knockback: 5 + 0.5 @ 80 > 5 + 0.45 @ 72
- Dash Attack late hit knockback: 5 + 0.5 @ 80 > 3.5 + 0.4 @ 80
- Dash Attack late hit hitstun multiplier: 0.9 > 0.85
- This reduces the reward Wrastor gets for hitting with late Dash Attack, since it would too often combo into his most powerful finisher (Up Special).
- Neutral Air hit 1 innermost hitbox knockback angle: 32 > 65
- This allows Wrastor to use the inner and outer hits in different scenarios with varying levels of reward based on his momentum. Generally, the inner hit will link better with no momentum, while the outer hit will link better with forward momentum.
- Forward Air inner hit knockback: 5 + 0.65 @ 50 > 5 + 0.5 @ 45
- This move had a little too much kill power for how large and quick it was to hit when deep offstage. Now it should lean more into its identity as a combo move. The angle was changed in combination with the following change to make the inner and outer hits more distinct.
- Forward Air outer hit knockback: 4 + 0.6 @ 45 > 4 + 0.5 @ 60
- Forward Air outer hit hitstun multiplier: 0.9 > 0.85
- This makes the outer hit a true sourspot, forcing Wrastor to hit the inner hitbox in order to carry opponents offstage with repeated Forward Air chains.
- Getup Special multihits knockback angle: 120 > 140
- This lower angle should help prevent opponents from falling out before the final hit.
The bug is getting some bugs fixed.
- Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that prevented Kragg from landing during the early falling frames of his Forward Special cancel.
- Bug Fix: Parrying one of his rock shards will now count as parrying all of them.
- Previously, all shards were reflected, but only the shard that was actually parried was considered to be parried. This change means Kragg will no longer get intangibility when parrying a different shard than the one the opponent parried.
- Bug Fix: Pillar's hurtboxes are now slightly wider.
- This allows projectiles to break it from the side consistently.
Fleet is getting a small change to prevent her Forward Tilt from whiffing at close range.
- Forward Tilt innermost hitbox moved more inward.
- This prevents it from whiffing against low opponents right next to her due to this move's forward lunge.
Maypul is getting a few knockback numbers shifted around to be weaker at low percent and stronger at high percent, with Forward Tilt also getting a new sourspot at close range. Her dash speed is also being increased, since it was heavily affected by last patch's dash acceleration changes.
- Dash speed: 18.1 > 22
- With the change to dash speeds in the last patch, Maypul's dash became noticeably slower, reducing the impact of what is supposed to be her greatest strength. With this change, she is now just slightly slower than before.
- Forward Tilt knockback: 6 + 0.5 > 5.4 + 0.55
- This reduces the knockback until around 100%, making it slightly worse at boxing opponents out at low percents.
- Forward Tilt's innermost hitbox is now a sourspot with knockback: 4.5 + 0.45
- This makes Forward Tilt require good spacing to get the best reward from it. This new sourspot is also less advantageous on shield.
- Up Air multihits SSDI modifier: 0 > 0.5
- Now that Tether Up Air is separate from normal Up Air, we're allowing opponents to use SSDI to increase the counterplay when Maypul is juggling with multiple Up Airs.
- Down Strong knockback: 7 + 1.0 > 6.3 + 1.05
- This reduces the knockback until around 115%, making it slightly worse at putting opponents far offstage at mid percents.
- Up Special hit 2 sourspot hitstun multiplier: 1 > 0.85
- This makes it less likely for Maypul to get a combo after clipping an edgeguarding opponent while recovering.
Clairen is getting a lot of her tipper hitboxes cleaned up, which should make her feel much less frustrating to fight. She's also getting some changes to help the consistency of her Neutral Air and Getup Special.
- Jab middle sourspot hitbox radius increased and slightly moved forward.
- This reduces the tipper range of this move.
- Down Tilt middle and tipper hitboxes adjusted to not reach as far downward.
- This change makes recovering against this move at ledge a bit more lenient.
- Forward Strong hitboxes cleaned up.
- This prevents some situations where a tipper would register at unexpected spacings, such as when the opponent was above and behind Clairen on the first active frame or directly in front of her at very specific spacings on the second active frame. This also reduces the downward range of Forward Strong at ledge.
- Neutral Air multihit ASDI modifier: 1.0 > 0.5
- This should make it less likely for opponents to fall out of the move when Clairen uses the correct aerial drift.
- Both Forward Air hits backward tipper range reduced.
- This reduces the frequency of reverse tippers for this move.
- Back Air now has a new sourspot hitbox on the first active frame.
- This prevents odd tippers where the opponent was directly below Clairen.
- Up Air tipper raised upward on the last active frame.
- This prevents the tipper from hitting opponents far below Clairen.
- Up Throw startup: 16 > 20
- Since her Forward and Back Throws already create a quick DI mixup, we're making Up Throw more reactable to reduce the opponent's mental load when grabbed by Clairen.
- Up Special tipper knockback: 8 + 0.5 > 8 + 0.6
- Small increase to the kill power of this move.
- Getup Special speed boost and ground friction increased.
- The overall movement distance is effectively unchanged, but Clairen will reach max distance much sooner, preventing some situations where the move would whiff when it looked like it should hit.
- Getup Special's innermost sourspot now interpolates on the first frame.
- This prevents the move from whiffing when used too close to the opponent, which would have been more common with the newly increased speed boost.
- Bug Fix: Tipper stun vfx will now play with a shortened duration when a tipper is armored or crouch canceled.
- Previously, the stun vfx wouldn't spawn at all, which made the moves feel weaker than intended.
Loxodont's Down Special is getting a few changes that make it behave like other similar moves. He is also getting a bug fixed on his Forward Special that made it able to drift further away from the stage than intended.
- Loxodont will now lose all molten charge if Down Special is interrupted.
- This adds commitment to using this extremely high reward move.
- Bug fix: Down Special can no longer cancel into aerials if it gets parried.
- Parrying usually prevents cancels, so this fix brings the move in line with other attacks.
- Bug fix: Forward Special can no longer aerial drift while grabbing an opponent.
- This drift allowed him to carry opponents farther offstage than intended when grabbing them at ledge.
Orcane's Neutral Air was a bit of a do-everything move, so we're making it a little more committal to throw out and building up some other options to help vary his gameplay. His rarely-seen Empowered Forward Special is also getting a change that should give it some potential for offstage use.
- Neutral Air landing lag: 7 > 9
- Neutral Air recovery: 13 > 16
- This move was heavily overcentralizing to Orcane's kit, so we're toning it down a bit.
- Back Air sweetspot knockback: 7.5 + 0.95 > 6.9 + 1.0
- This move was often a little too powerful at low percents, especially because it has a built-in ambiguous mixup with the sourspot. This new knockback will be stronger starting around 100%, so it will still be extremely powerful at kill percents.
- Empowered Down Strong damage: 11 > 14
- Previously, the other puddle strong attacks increased the damage by 5%, while Down Strong only increased it by 2%.
- Down Strong knockback: 7.5 + 1.05 > 7 + 1.05
- Slight reduction to this extremely fast move's kill power.
- Empowered Forward Special no longer goes into special fall on whiff.
- This reduces the risk of using this move against offstage opponents.
- Forward Throw knockback: 9 + 0.45 > 9 + 0.55
- Slight power increase to this positioning throw.
- Empowered Forward Throw knockback: 9 + 0.7 > 10 + 0.7
- Slight increase to the reward for landing a grab on a puddle or successfully using Special Pummel.
- Empowered Forward Throw damage: 10 > 12
- This throw is basically another strong attack, so we want it to also increase the damage by 5%.
Forsburn's Down Air was huge, safe, and powerful, so we're toning it down to increase the counterplay against it and reduce the frequency of unexpected reverse hits. We're also increasing the cooldown when an opponent destroys his clone to reward them for overcoming his deception.
- Forward Air knockback angle: 65 > 60
- This helps opponents escape more frequently when DIing out.
- Down Air front hit damage: 10 > 8
- Down Air spike hit damage: 11 > 9
- This decreases the advantage on shields.
- Down Air spike knockback: 6 + 0.5 > 6 + 0.46
- Very slight decrease to the spike's power at high percents.
- Down Air innermost hitbox removed, next innermost hitbox shifted forward.
- This reduces the chance of reverse hits on the early active frames.
- Clone cooldown: 2 seconds > 3 seconds
- This matches the Rivals 1 cooldown, giving more reward for destroying the clone and making it more of a limited resource during recovery. It also has a cooldown indicator on the HUD now.
- Bug fix: Up Special no longer casts a shadow while traveling.
Etalus' Dash Attack is getting a significant speed boost, which should allow him to be much more aggressive with it, while also opening up new combo routes. He's also getting some shield damage buffs and a new ice armor interaction with Down Throw.
- Max horizontal jump speed: 17 > 15.5
- Max horizontal jump speed when Dash Attacking: 17 > 18
- This makes jumping during Dash Attack better than just a normal jump from dash.
- Neutral Special damage: 15 > 25
- This damage felt too low for such a slow, heavy attack.
- Neutral Special shield damage multiplier: 1 > 0.66
- After the damage increase, it dealt 45 shield damage (50 is a full shield). This change brings it down to 30, which is actually an increase from the previous patch's 20.
- The falling and landing hits of Down Special can now both hit a shielding opponent.
- This greatly increases the shield damage inflicted by this move, since it previously would only hit shields with one of the two hitboxes.
- Special Pummel will now freeze shields when shielded.
- This makes it more dangerous to shield, incentivizing opponents to go for more punishable defensive options like roll or spotdodge.
- Jab 2 recovery: 13 > 18
- Jab 3 recovery 19 > 21
- These jabs had relatively low endlag for how large they are.
- Dash Attack speed boost: 26 > 30
- This increases the effectiveness of Dash Attack as a burst movement option, especially on ice. This does not affect the speed he retains when jump-canceling it.
- Dash Attack ground friction when not on ice: 0.43 > 0.7
- This keeps the travel distance on his normal Dash Attack around the same as it was before.
- Dash Attack's recovery window can now be jump-canceled during the first 10 frames.
- This prevents situations where a late jump-cancel input would be ignored if the move's active frames just barely ended.
- Forward Strong final hit knockback: 7 + 1.1 > 7 + 1.15
- Slight boost the kill power of this attack, to compensate for the upward knockback angle and inconsistent linking.
- Down Throw now has unique knockback when armored: 7.5 + 0.45 @ 65 > 8.5 + 0.75 @ 45
- This gives the throw more utility in specific scenarios. Armor is lost upon use.
- Etalus will now have normal friction when in the Knockdown Start and Parry Stun states.
- This prevents him from sliding off too easily when missing a tech or getting parried.
- Bug Fix: Grabbed players will no longer be frozen by Down Special's shockwave.
- Bug Fix: Dash Attack no longer loses its momentum when reaching a ledge in the Jump Cancel Squat window.
- This prevents Etalus from jumping straight up if you press jump just before reaching the ledge.
- Bug Fix: Strong Attack ice shards can no longer all hit on the same frame.
- This matches the Rivals 1 functionality and prevents them from dealing massive damage to point-blank targets.
That's it for today! Thank you for reading this far and please be sure to check out our
Nolt Board, where community members can leave feedback about the game and help us continue to add helpful features!
^The crowd seeing the reveal live at GX2.
