Rivals of Aether II News

After an absolutely massive patch at the beginning of the month, we've been hard at work to implement internal goals and feedback from our community! This mid-month update is considerably lighter than 1.0.3, but still packs some cool changes including the highly requested "claim all" rewards button, the new ability to now progress on ANY event track, plus a few balance adjustments. To kick off the notes - here's the trailer for December's mid-month bundle featuring Hockey Loxodont!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Our Patch Philosophy

In this patch, we wanted to focus on calibrating some of the changes made in the previous update while implementing some quality-of-life changes. In addition to our new event track updates, most notably, Fleet and Orcane are getting a few adjustments to boost their power level back up slightly since they were struggling the most after 1.0.3 dropped. Aside from that, Wrastor is getting a couple over-centralizing moves toned down, Forsburn is getting a bit more risk for spawning clones, and Maypul is getting her doubles-exclusive infinite patched out.

Patch Notes 1.0.4

If you would like to leave feedback on the current build of the game, we encourage you to make suggestions on our nolt board, and report issues and bugs in our official discord.

Alright, let's take a look at our detailed changes:

GLOSSARY

• Knockback numbers are represented as: Base Knockback + Knockback Scaling @ Knockback Angle.
  
  • e.g. 7 + 0.6 @ 45 has 7 Base Knockback and 0.6 Knockback Scaling and sends at 45 degrees.
  • Base knockback is the starting point for the attack's strength.
  • Knockback Scaling is how quickly the strength increases as the opponent's percent gets higher.
  • Knockback angle is measured from 0 degrees at straight forward, with 90 at upward, 180 at backward, and 270 at downward.

• [NEW FEATURE] Event Selection: Added the ability to choose which Event you're viewing & progressing, so you can go back and level up past Events if you missed them at the time! Switch and earn progress for any events whenever you'd like.
  
• [NEW FEATURE] Added a "Claim All" button for Event rewards. This will claim all unclaimed rewards at once on your currently selected event track.
  
• [NEW FEATURE] Implemented support for Steam "recently played with" feature.
  
  • Use this feature to make new friends with players you match with.
• Results: Fixed a bug where clicking A on results to move to the results options menu would also select an option in the menu.
  
• Results: 'Auto proceed to stats logic' in online games can no longer ready you up if it happened at the same time as you pressed A.
  
• Results: Proceeding to stats locks you out of selecting Ready Up or Back to Matchmaking / Forfeit for 1 second.
  
• Results: Possibly fixed logic responsible for placing your focus on the proper button if you swap input types (alt tab / use mouse etc) while on the results screen.
  
• Online: Added more logging information to help track down server/online performance issues. If you're experiencing abnormally bad connections please let us know by submitting a help ticket on our discord. Instructions on how to provide your log file are included there.
  
• Loxodont lava VFX adjustments for performance reasons.
  
• Updated Fleet's swipe texture.
  
• Fixed a VFX bug on Clairen's Down Special.
  
• When tap jump is enabled, you will fullhop if your joystick's Y value is above 0.5625 (was previously 0.2875).
  
  • This should prevent accidental fullhops with tap jump enabled, especially when using a button to jump while dash dancing.
• Getting parried while already in parry stun will no longer queue up a second parry stun.
  
  • This was only possible with some projectiles, such as Orcane bubbles.
• Bug Fix: Projectiles that get destroyed when hitting something will now be properly destroyed when hitting a projectile that gets destroyed with no hitpause.
  
  • Previously, if two projectiles collided, the one with more disjoint would sometimes not be destroyed if the spacing was just right. Now both projectiles will always be destroyed, regardless of spacing.

We've given Ranno back a frame of Down Tilt recovery and slightly increased the strength of Up Strong sweetspot.

• Down Tilt recovery: 19 > 18
  
  • This value is halfway between Down Tilt on patches 1.0.2 and 1.0.3, bringing it more in line with our intended game feel.
    
• Up Strong sweetspot knockback: 8 + 1.02 > 8 + 1.07
  
  • This value is halfway between Up Strong sweetspot on patches 1.0.2 and 1.0.3, giving it a bit more strength since a few moves no longer link into it as often.
    
• Correction from last patch: Forward Strong's sweetspot knockback was changed to 6.5 + 1.0, not 6.5 + 0.95 as the previous patch notes listed.
  

We've taken a look at Wrastor's Up Tilt and Down Air.

• Up Tilt recovery: 18 > 21
  
  • This move is very strong, so we're making it a little more punishable.
    
• Down Air hit 1 hitstun multiplier: 0.9 > 0.8
  
• Down Air first hit knockback angle: 130 > 133
  
• Down Air landing lag: 10 > 12
  
  • This move is an extremely potent aerial mixup tool, but the reward on hit left Wrastor with a bit too much time to follow up afterward. These changes still leave Wrastor with enough time to punish bad DI, but should help give the opponent more opportunities to escape.
    
• Down Air first hit ankle hitbox radius: 50 > 45
  
  • This reduces the range of the move very slightly.
    

Kragg is a bug, and he gets a bug fix!

• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where pillar breaking under an attacking opponent would not fully cancel the attack.
  
  • This bug caused Ranno's Forward Special to leave the opponent frozen in the air when the pillar broke under him.
    

Fleet got a lot of serious changes in our latest update, and while we like where some of those changes landed, we are making some more tweaks to make her more fun to play as.

• Air acceleration: 0.78 > 0.9
  
  • We're moving this value back towards where it was in patches 1.0.2 and 1.0.3, bringing it more in line with our intended game feel.
    
• Walljump horizontal speed: 18 > 12
  
  • This allows her to drift back to the wall without falling nearly as far.
    
• Dash Attack linking hit knockback: 7 + 0 @ 20 > 5 + 0.55 @ 45
  
  • This will make dash attack slightly worse at linking into the final hit, but now the knockback of the linking hits matches the final hit, so it doesn't matter.
    
• Dash Attack linking hit hitpause multiplier: 1 > 0.5
  
  • The new knockback made the hitpause much higher, which made the move feel clunky to hit.
    
• Up Strong now has a middle-strength hitbox for 5 frames between the sweetspot and sourspot with knockback: 7 + 0.9 @ 85
  
  • This gives the move more utility at mid ranges.
    
• Forward Air multihit hitstun multiplier: 0.5 > 0.7
  
  • This prevents opponents from shielding subsequent hits after floorhugging these hitboxes.
    
• Up Throw recovery: 29 > 28
  
  • This value is halfway between her Up Throw on patches 1.0.2 and 1.0.3, bringing it more in line with our intended game feel.
    

Just a few bug fixes and the removal of a cheesy doubles strategy.

• Grabbed opponents can no longer be wrapped.
  
  • This prevents infinites in doubles.
    
• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that prevented her from double jumping after platdrop-canceling Up Special.
  
• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that made angled Forward Tilt come out 1 frame faster than normal Forward Tilt.
  

We've rolled back a couple of 1.0.3's changes a smidge to help make him feel better to play.

• Bubble ASDI multiplier: 1.2 > 1.0
  
  • The extra ASDI multiplier added last patch made his Up Throw notably worse, while the universal frame three projectile parry change helped opponents deal with Down Special better. We believe that reverting the ASDI modifier change will allow a high reward for hitting opponents with Bubbles, while the risk of pressing Down Special has already been raised in the previous patch.
    
• Forward Air recovery: 22 > 19
  
  • The new value is halfway between Patch 1.0.2 and 1.0.3. We hope the new recovery values will find a happy medium to allow opponents to properly punish the move, while making Orcane feel less sluggish overall.
    

Forsburn is getting a fun tool to help turn him around in the air, and a few changes to make punishing unsafe clone use a little more rewarding for his opponents.

• Holding shield will prevent Down Special from consuming smoke.
  
  • This allows him to use B-reversed Down Special to recover even if there's smoke around.
    
• Getting hit after frame 4 of Forward Special will now put it on a 2 second cooldown.
  
  • This is how it worked in Rivals of Aether, and it made it more rewarding for the opponent when they called out this move.
    
• Hitting Forsburn's clone will now deal half the normal hitpause.
  
  • This reduces the risk of attacking the clone while also preventing hitboxes from lingering as long on hit.
    
• Bug fix: Forsburn can now buffer special attacks while a clone is summoned.
  
  • Previously, the special input would get consumed from giving the clone commands. Now there is a 6 frame cooldown on giving the clone commands instead.
    
• Bug fix: Grabbing Forsburn will now stop him from spewing smoke.
  
• Bug fix: Inputting a strong attack before Forward/Up Strong's cape hit recovery window's IASA frame will no longer consume the strong input, preventing the strong from coming out.
  
• Bug fix: Forward/Up Strong's tilt cancels are no longer delayed by 4 frames when using Tap Strong and hard pressing the direction.
  

Known Issues

While we continue to squash bugs and implements feedback from the community since launch, be sure to check out the feedback board we made for the community to leave feedback and suggestions!

If you encounter any bugs, please report them and let us know over in our official Discord.

Our newest seasonal event, the Winter Festival, is live now and packed with holiday goodies in patch 1.0.3. We’ve got a new event track, event bundle, plus other bonus free and unlockable cosmetics this month. This is also our first patch that includes gameplay changes as well as some of our standard quality of life updates - but more on that below. First check out the event trailer:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Here’s all of the event related items this month. Using any skins from the event will give you a 20% bonus to your XP track, plus Winter Stoat Maypul and Husky Fleet (a new skin you can pick up for coins on the featured shop) also apply.



[h2]New Skins for Every Character![/h2]

[h3]Animal Skins[/h3]
On top of the skins related to our monthly event above, each Rival is getting a new common skin you can pick up for either coins or Aether bucks in the shop. These are all themed around different animals, and are super useful for when you want your animals to look like other animals.

These common skins include Cheetah Zetterburn, Tree Frog Ranno, Puffin Wrastor, Bee Kragg, Marten Maypul, Husky Fleet, Tiger Clairen, Cow Loxodont, Blue Tang Orcane, and Dalmation Forsburn.



[h3]Abyss Skins[/h3]
You might have already seen our Abyss skins in Arcade Mode or on some event streams over the past month. We’re excited to share that these skins are now available for FREE as unlocks for reaching level 100 on each character. Once you reach this level, you’ll now receive the skin so you can show off your mastery and warn your opponent that you’re truly an eldritch horror to behold. Don't worry, if you're already above level 100 the system will grant you the skin automatically in the next 24 hours.



[h2]Patchnotes and Patch Philosophy[/h2]



This patch also includes our first round of gameplay changes, with updates for every Rival in the cast. Since our goal is for Rivals II to be a long term competitive game (just like Rivals 1) we know that achieving perfect balance is a constant pursuit. There’s a careful stability to be struck between letting the community adjust and adapt to a meta vs. knowing when to patch.

Our plan is to update the game twice a month with new store content and we’re not afraid to include a small number of gameplay changes in those updates as issues arise. But you can typically expect at least a couple months between big balance updates like this one.

Now for this first update, the game and the meta are still very fresh. While we are tracking overall roster balance, that is not our priority right now. We are more concerned about mechanics and gameplay that are both frustrating to play against and reward players for avoiding interaction. For this reason, we looked across the cast to identify particular pain points when playing against these characters and made changes to incentivize more variety and introduce counterplay into some of the less interactive options. In later patches, we will be looking closer at how the roster is stacking up against each other, but for now we want to let the meta develop after adjusting some of the more frustrating tools.

As always, please leave feedback for this patch on our nolt board. Even if we don’t answer every post, we do read them!




We want to address a lot of the annoyances that have been expressed throughout the past month. Some high priority targets are:

• Shield being too strong
  
  • When looking at the numbers for optimal shield pressure (i.e. low aerials, spaced tilts, etc) the attacker has a clear advantage. In practice, however, getting perfectly spaced shield pressure isn't always feasible, so shields end up being strong in neutral. If we adjust the frame advantage of shield pressure, then attacking will be too strong at the top level, so instead we want to focus on increasing the risk of shielding in neutral so that baiting people into shield is more rewarding. We're also nerfing the shield hp regeneration time again, but adding a mechanic that rewards offensive play by restoring your shield when you land a hit.
• Parry being too weak against projectiles
  
  • Parry is a bit slower than it was in Rivals of Aether, which reduces its effectiveness against quick projectiles in neutral. We want to make sure projectiles have enough counterplay, since they can be frustrating to play against otherwise, so we're making parry faster specifically when used against projectiles.
• Recoveries being too strong, making successful edgeguards too rare
  
  • Because of the inherent strengths of walljump-cancellable recovery moves, it can often feel impossible to prevent characters from making it back to the stage without sending them directly into the blastzone. We want to increase the chances for counterplay against most recoveries, with changes to universal mechanics as well as character-specific recovery nerfs.
• Character balance
  
  • It's too early to make balance changes based on any tier lists, so instead we're targeting specific annoying, overcentralizing, or overly safe strategies. It turns out there were quite a few of those, which is to be expected in the very first live version of the game, so character balance will be shifting quite a bit. These sweeping changes will be less common as the meta settles, but we want to make sure the obvious problems with the characters are addressed quickly.

• Replay Menu Rework
  
  • This was the first menu on our rework list (as previously mentioned in our year 1 roadmap). This screen now beautifully shows match info, plus includes features like favoriting and deleting. Other menus will also continue to receive updates as we work on improvements.

• Bundle Improvements
  
  • You can now purchase bundles if they include an item that you already own. This was one of those things that seem simple, but is actually fairly complicated on the backend. We’ve finally got this change in though and now bundles will refund Aetherbucks to your account after purchased based on items you already own.
• Tourneymode DSR
  
  • In ranked you can now no longer go back to a stage you’ve won on in that set when it’s your turn to pick stage (they are automatically banned by the system).
• Event XP Adjustment
  
  • We adjusted the XP requirements for Event leveling since players were progressing through the levels much quicker than we intended for a month long event. The main event track (level 1-20) could previously be completed in about 5 hours. We'll continue to keep an eye on the total gold earned this month and make sure it's still in a good place.
• Winter Main Menu
  
  • Swapped the main menu background to Hyperborean Harbor for the winter vibes.
• Lobby codes are now displayed on screen, with a show/unshow button. Copy to clipboard has been reimplemented slightly differently.
  
• Performing a parry will now parry projectiles starting on frame 3 as long as your shield was not hit by anything.
  
  • This allows parry to be used reactively against projectiles, while still preventing players from parrying multihit projectiles after shielding early hits.
• Parrying a cancelable jab will now let you cancel the parry recovery instantly.
  
  • This allows you to punish the opponent if you act quickly, instead of just resetting to neutral, since jabs do not put foes into parry stun.
• Parrying an article after already successfully parrying something else will now give you half of the normal hitpause.
  
  This is a pretty rare situation, but one example is parrying Loxodont's empowered strong attacks, which would lock you into the parry state for long enough to make Loxodont fairly safe from being punished.
• Tilt cancels will now use the same joystick mapping as normal tilts.
  
  Previously, you would get an Up Tilt/Down Tilt if your joystick was above/below the deadzone threshold, even if it was tilted mostly horizontally. Now it will perform an Forward Ttilt in those scenarios instead for consistency.
• Colliding with another player will now apply a constant force to push them apart instead of applying a gradually increasing force.
  
  • This makes the pushback happen faster, decreasing situations where players are overlapping for a long period of time.
• Minimum number of shield frames before you can release shield: 0 > 7.
  
  • The lockout is removed if someone hits your shield.
• Shield Release duration: 10 > 15.
  
  • These two changes add more commitment to using shield in neutral, since you will have to either jump or wavedash to exit shield quickly.
• You can now parry during the Shield Release state using the Parry button.
  
  • This does not activate the frame 3 projectile parry, otherwise you could release shield after someone hits your shield to circumvent the mechanic's restrictions.
• Shield recharge time: 20 seconds > 25 seconds.
  
• Hitting the opponent or their shield will now restore shield health equal to half the damage dealt.
  
  • These two changes make holding shield more risky, requiring players to use it less, or to mix in some offense to restore shield health.
• Shield pushback formula adjusted to have more pushback from high damage attacks.
  
  • Low damage attacks are mostly unchanged.
• Spot dodge intangibility window length: 14 > 17.
  
  • We're pushing back the first actionable frame to make spot dodging easier to punish in most situations. We opted for extending the active window instead of the recovery frames to slightly increase its utility while lowering its punish potential.
• Successful techs will now reset the tech lockout timer.
  
  • This allows you to tech multiple attacks in a row.
• Airdodging to ledge will now remove all ledge intangibility.
  
  • This option made recoveries a little too simple when near the ledge, so now it carries a bit more risk with it.
• Hitting an opponent will now only restore 1 of your intangible ledge grabs instead of restoring all 3.
  
  • This makes intangible ledge grabs a more limited resource when using them to invincibly attack someone offstage.
• Starting an attack will no longer reset the ledge grab lockout timer.
  
  • When releasing ledge, you cannot grab ledge again for 30 frames. This lockout also applies after a walltech, which is why attacking would reset the timer. Now attacking will only reset the timer if it is input after a walltech.
• Getting flinched by a new attack while already in the flinch state will now reduce the flinch duration by 30%.
  
  • This removes some guaranteed flinch loops (Ranno Forward Air, Fleet Down Air, Orcane Down Air).
• Ledges will now be displayed in training mode when stage collision drawing is enabled.
  
  • The ledges will be colored green when unoccupied and red when occupied.
• Bug fix: Tilt boost joystick inputs must be performed after starting the jab.
  
  • Previously, you could buffer the joystick input before doing the jab, making tilt boosts more lenient than intended.
• Bug fix: You can now parry/counter when you have respawn invulnerability.
  
• Bug fix: Shield DI could sometimes still cause the player to fall off the edge of a platform due to rounding errors.
  
• Bug fix: Leaving the ground on the 2nd frame of PlatDrop will now clamp your aerial speed as intended.
  
  • This removes a frame perfect bug that allowed players to retain full grounded momentum while platdropping.
• Bug fix: Hitting the ground on the first frame after being spiked will no longer always cause a ground bounce.
  
• Bug fix: The game will no longer crash if a character is thrown into a spot that's too narrow for them to fit.
  
• Bug fix: Increased the length of Zetterburn, Maypul, Clairen, and Loxodont's intro animations by 1 frame to match the rest of the characters.
  
• Bugfix: Fixed a local tourney mode bug that could occur when returning to the CSS mid set.
  
• Bugfix: The overtime clock now updates properly.
  
• Bugfix: Fixed a UX bug that could occur when backing out of the CSS that caused it to take you to the wrong menu.
  

[h2]Character Patch Notes:[/h2]
To read the full patch notes, please visit our website for the full notes article. The character section was simply too long to be included on Steam.

We hope you enjoy this latest update along with the Winter Festival event. Keep an eye out for our mid-month update later this month!

Calling all Rivals fans - we need your support for the 2024 Steam Awards! Please consider nominating our friendly little indie game for the "Best Game You Suck At" category. We've checked your ranked scores and have confirmed that this is the best category for us.



Jokes aside - it's been a long journey to come out with our take on the next generation of platform fighter. This is always a great category for fighting games, so even though we're being a little cheeky with it, we think we have a shot at getting nominated with your support! We're proud to see how much everyone is enjoying the game so far and this would be a great way to close out 2024 for our community.

Of course we've got our eyes on the future as well, and are already working hard on continuing support with planned features like free character updates, new modes, and more. Thank you again for helping make our launch last month such a success, and here's to the future of Rivals II!

With Love,
The Aether Studios team

P.S. To vote for us - just click the box in the widget at the top of this post.

The Steam Autumn sale is live! From now until next Wednesday (12/4) at 10am PT, get Rivals of Aether II at 20% off. Along with the sale we've also got a mini-patch today with a new feature plus some other improvements. Enjoy your holiday weekend and tell your friends to pick up the game on sale if they've been holding out!





[h2]New Feature: Bot Match Lite [/h2]
This is a new mode that loads you right into a 1v1 match against a random level 1 bot. If you can beat it, the bot levels up, but if you lose, it goes down. We have more plans for this feature in the future, but for now we thought we'd add the light version as a way for new players to find a good training ground that scales as they get better. This is a good place to start before you go online!

• Added the Bot Match option to the Local menu.
  
• Load right into a 1v1 match against a random level 1 bot, with locked match settings similar to what you'd play online.
  
• Bot starts at level 1: win a match and it levels up, lose a match and it de-levels.
  
• The Stage is selected at random so you can just hit start to play.
  
  

[h2]CPU Enemy Adjustments[/h2]

• CPU difficulty scaling adjusted to be easier at lower levels (mostly unaffected at higher levels).
  
• Abyss CPU levels adjusted based on new CPU difficulty scaling.
  

[h2]Settings Updates[/h2]
Separated Gameplay and Menu Frames per Second into two settings.

• Gameplay FPS applies during gameplay and the results screen, Menu FPS applies everywhere else.
  
• Menu FPS defaults to 60. This helps prevent resource hogging when just navigating menus.
  
• Fixes a UI crash that could occur.
  

[h2]Matchmaking[/h2]
This patch includes some small matchmaking polish to build on our updates from the mid-month patch.

• If you have no regions selected and queue, the game will now ask you to select at least one.
  
• Fixed a rare beacon ping crash.
  
• In the last update we put in some new region preferences, and we're aware that there are still some cases with issues. Please bear with us as we work on a solution.
  

[h2]Tourney Mode[/h2]
Good news for doubles enjoyers!

• Fixed Doubles Tourney Mode / Stage Banning bugs.
  
• Stormswept Pillar properly shows up as struck by the system in the first round of a doubles tourney bo3/bo5.
  
• Fixed your ban getting eaten in an online doubles match if you banned the same stage as a teammate right as they also banned it.
  
• Fixed the stage ban process not moving forward properly if each teammate banned one stage each.
  

[h2]Miscellaneous Updates[/h2]

• Winter Stoat Maypul belly/nose graphics fixed.
  
• Improved visual effects for Ladybug Kragg and Bluejay Wrastor.
  
• REALLY fixed Fleet's HUD UI bug. Now only 1 empowered arrow will show at a time.
  
• Ranked score should now always update properly.
  
• A "Lost connection / Server crash" pop up will now appear when arriving back on main menu for one of these reasons.
  
• Abyss Clairen now has teeth. (The better to eat you with.)
  
• Attempted to fix a bug that causes Loxodont's limbs to stretch when graphics quality settings are low.
  

After this patch, our next update is planned for December 3rd. This next one will be a larger update - featuring a new monthly event rollout + some gameplay changes.

ICYMI: You should also check out the LACS Rivals event which just happened last weekend. This invitational featured platform fighter pros with an amazing commentary couch of Ludwig, EE, GPik, Alpharad, and Dan.

Check out the Top 8 highlights here:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

And the full VoDs (including the crew battle!) over on VGBootCamp here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF2oIoM78bM&list=PLcMdMmtHkPpRAJ3h6ffQ9mR_sRDxfvZdo&index=35

It's time for our first mid-month patch! Each mid-month update will feature a new epic skin plus other features and bugfixes we can roll out. This November, shred with the new Rockstar Bundle including the Rockstar Kragg skin, icon, emote, Rock Out Death Effect, plus coins and Aether Bucks. We've also got plenty of other updates players have been asking for including some big improvements to matchmaking, controls, and more.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



[h2]Matchmaking[/h2]
Per-server region-preference matchmaking:

• Region Preferences menu now allows you to select which of the available server locations you would like to play on. Deselecting less ideal servers or a server that is being problematic will now no longer place you there, so you can select just the servers you like to play on there and then only play there in the majority of cases.
  
• Region Preferences menu now shows full list of server locations with ping or approximated ping in cases where there's not an exact beacon. Each location has an associated list of beacons, the pings to the beacons in their list are averaged to determine the approximate ping for a location, locations with no good beacons are sorted to the end of the list.
  
  • Region preferences are now saved to disk.
    
  • Region preferences and region override lists are now properly sorted by average ping.
    
  • Adjusted leniency setting ping values.
    

• Added a limited-form of player rematch protection. After any 1v1 match you are locked out of matching into your previous opponent for ~40 seconds.
  
• Ranked matchmaking now takes into account your Rank in addition to your Elo. This helps us prevent matches with large Elo disparities while still accounting for the Ranks at the ends of the skill curve that cover a wider range of Elos.
  
• Matchmaking no longer automatically times out after 2 minutes, so in smaller regions at slower times of day you should no longer need to babysit the queue and can alt-tab and wait for the Match Found notification sound.
  
• Fixed Matchmaking exploit that allowed you to match with players far outside your actual Elo.
  
• Fix for online results stats showing all 0s for players 1-3.
  

Online

• Increased Match Prep time to 25s. Match Prep is the time after one player has connected until all players have connected. If not everyone connects the server will cancel the match. For some slower PCs the 15s time was too short and sometimes they were unable to load into the server and would arrive after the match was cancelled.
  
• The game will now stop the connection loop when processing a forfeit / match cancellation. This fixes an issue where if you forfeit or otherwise left the server during the window of time before your client confirmed your connection it would place you back on the server incorrectly.
  
• Locked InputProcessor from assigning a controller to a slot when alt-tabbing in, helps prevent the keyboard from claiming your slot incorrectly if you were alt-tabbed while matchmaking.
  

[h2]Controls Refactor Pt. 1[/h2]

• New Taunt bindings: : All Taunt, Taunt 1, Taunt 2, Taunt 3, Taunt 4.
  
  • Taunt 1-4 only shown for Keyboard players.
    
  • Taunts are set to dpad on controller by default. If you prefer dpad movement, there is a new bind for controller called "All Taunt" which is a single button you press that will taunt based on the direction your movement stick is being held.
    
• Can now unbind a binding without binding it somewhere else.
  
• Added Shorthop Attack during jumpsquat macro binding.
  
• Changed cursor movespeed logic / curve.
  
• Cursor now interacts with edges of screens differently in a way that allows for snapback testing.
  
• Nothing option added for choosing what your grab or parry buttons do in the air.
  
• Save tag for players who sit out when playing rotations.
  
• Hard Press Threshold added to Stick Sensitivity settings.
  
  • This highly requested controls setting from Rivals of Aether allows you to choose how far you have to move your joystick for it to be counted as a hard press (e.g. dash and fast fall inputs). Previously all players had the default value of 80%, but now you can choose any value between 50% and 95%.
    

[h2]General Updates[/h2]

• Fixed settings menu input forwarding on character select screen.
  
• Updated button displayer in rebinding tab.
  
• Adjusted UI position of "Steal Stock".
  
• Level 0 will no longer be incorrectly displayed on a character when you received exactly enough XP to level up.
  
• Button bindings now right align in the options menu.
  
• Tweaked tooltip wrapping.
  
• Added padding to the bottom of player slot option scroll boxes so that tooltips dont cut off buttons.
  
• Currency popup edits.
  
• Refactored free cam widget to allow keyboard input for moving up / down. Added follow player camera mode.
  
• Fix timer showing up in matches where timer setting is 0.
  
• Main game clock can now count upward in Arcade mode.
  
• Playerslot Options Menu tooltips now correctly resize when multi-lined.
  
• Player Slot Tooltips now hide themselves when switching tabs.
  
• Fixed Advanced Controls not showing up for keyboard players.
  
• Changed top bar options Discord link to fire off of Select instead of X/Left Face Button, and also does not happen if you're currently rebinding controls.
  
• Playerslot Options Menu tooltips now correctly resize when multi-lined.
  
• Fix for CPUs getting not getting marked as ready correctly + other misc ui fixes.
  
• 4 digit character levels no longer extend out of the character box.
  
• - Reset to Default now closes properly on confirm, Added a couple tooltips.
  
• Server properly handles forfeits that occur during the window of time after all players have connected but before the server has rank data.
  
• Miscellaneous crashfixes.
  
• Improved coupon error messages.
  
• Improved ownership checks on items.
  
• Removed dithering from outline clip - cleans up visual in areas with no outline.
  
• Attempted to fix a weird leg stretching bug with Loxodont.
  
• Slam Dunk Ranno skin fixes
  

We hope everyone's been enjoying the launch month of Rivals II. Our next update is scheduled for December 3rd, and includes a new event plus some balance changes. In the meantime make sure to also check out our highlights from some great recent events here:

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[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]