Fantasy Strike News

We’ve updated the Fantasy Strike matchmaking servers with several fixes. These fixes are in effect right now and do not require players to download a patch (because they are all server-side fixes). Here’s what’s fixed:

--The server’s performance has been optimized, meaning it can handle more players without getting overloaded.

--Fixed several problems with the matchmaking algorithm that only arose with our new much higher number of players in the queue. It’s correct that if the server can’t find an opponent of similar skill level for you in casual play or player of the same league in ranked play that it will then expand its search. The problem is that, ironically, when a lot of players are in the queue it was much more likely to “expand the search” for no good reason. Now you will (on average) find much closer skill matches than you did since our free-to-play launch.

--When getting in the matchmaking queue, you will now have a minimum wait time of 7 seconds (rather than 0 seconds). This ensures the matchmaking process has a chance to run its course, rather than instantly give you an iffy skill match while other better matches just weren’t quite computed yet.

--Fixed a bug that could give you the same opponent over and over in the matchmaking queue, even when other suitable opponents were available.

--Fixed a bug that could cause the ping check with your opponents to fail. If you were the victim of this bug, you would likely get a bunch of bad 1-bar connections to opponents, even though opponents with much better connections were available.

--Fixed an issue with Friend TV (for Fantasy+ members) that caused it to often wrongly claim there are 0 available replays to watch.

--Fixed an issue where the server generated log files so big that it would eventually force the server to restart every few days, which then locked out matchmaking for a few minutes each time.

--Fixed the visual display of the double XP bonus for Fantasy+ members. These players really have been getting double XP all along (which helps characters get to level 20 so they can wear master costumes) but the score screen has been wrongly showing non-doubled XP values. Now the displayed XP is correctly doubled.

(While we know these are the Steam forums, we include notes on changes to all platforms, for the sake of completeness. Especially because fixes to online disconnects and crashes on PS4 and Switch improve crossplatform play on Steam.)



--[Switch] Having the core pack now lets you challenge any player on any platform to a friend match, even a free player. Free players on Switch can now be challenged by anyone on any platform who has the core pack. This brings Switch in line with how the other platforms already worked.

--[Switch] Fixed a crash that happened right at the end of games, after you had played X number of games previously. This crash could be temporarily warded off by deleting your save file, but is now fully fixed.

--[PS4] Fixed both a frequent source of disconnects AND crashes right as a game ends, which was especially disruptive to ranked matches (because you have to get through best 3 out of 5 games to complete a ranked match).

--Fixed a “desync” that could happen in online games with Quince at the start of matches. Affects all platforms, and on Steam this problem would show a "GGPO Assertion Error" when the desync happened.

--When you start watching a game as a spectator and you specifically join when your friend is on the character select screen, this disrupted the connection and could disconnect the players. This problem only started after our free-to-play patch, but is now fixed.



--The friends list is now sorted alphabetically.

--The on/off switches for joining the casual and ranked queues are no longer “backwards” looking. The button now to the left while off and slides to the right when on.

--[Steam and PS4; will be fixed in a later patch on Switch] Fixed another rare source of disconnects that could happen between games of a team battle.

--Increased the amount of time the server will wait before declaring an inactive connection in order to prevent some spurious disconnects.

--[Steam and PS4; will be fixed in a later patch on Switch] Fixed a rare bug where you could start a ranked game, as player2 as the wrong character (then immediately desync). This could even make you play as "Dummy".

--[Steam and PS4; will be fixed in a later patch on Switch] When a game ends, the save operation for creating the replay file happens faster now. (Note that this save happens whether you have a Fantasy+ membership or not, and that even if you don’t, you can still view the replay of the game you just played.) This optimization removes a slight pause you might experience at the end of a game.

--[PS4] Accessing the “My Replays” and “Favorites” screen (both available to Fantasy+ members) is ridiculously more responsive now. Before, trying to access these would give you a black screen with no loading indicator and you would be stuck there for a length of time proportional to how many games you’d played. This could be as long as 158 seconds(!), but now can only be as long as 1.5 seconds. Also, if you go to these screens, then later go to them again before restarting the app, they have close to 0 seconds loading time.

--[Steam and PS4; will be fixed in a later patch on Switch] You can now report offensive usernames through the search results screen.



[h2]QUINCE[/h2]

--Somewhat improved the framerate when Quince is on the screen. This especially applies to if any of his illusions are on the screen. In addition, it fixes a drop in framerate that could happen because of illusions, even after those illusions went away.

--Fixed a bug that caused the diagonally downward kick of Quince’s B, B to do 2 damage during his super’s “two truths” mode, rather than the 1 damage it should do.

--When Onimaru or Setsuki parry your Patriot Mirror super, it no longer counts as a “hit” that triggers your two truths mode.

[h2]ONIMARU[/h2]

--Neutral A, proximity block distance reduced. (Used to trigger the opponent’s blocking animation more than half screen away, accidentally.)

--[Steam and PS4; will be fixed in a later patch on Switch] During the cutscene when the robots are summoned with the air super, the robots now appear at the correct brightness, rather than looking too dark.

[h2]VALERIE[/h2]

--Fixed a visual bug that could cause her to sometimes have her paintbrush in the wrong hand during gameplay.

[h2]ROOK[/h2]

--[Steam and PS4; will be fixed in a later patch on Switch] During Rook’s victory pose where birds land on him, the birds now land at the correct height, rather than floating above him. This fix especially improves the alignment if you’re using his Tree Rook alternate costume.



--[PS4; will be added in a later patch on Switch] Added a new feature to button config to “unset” a button by holding either left or right for a couple seconds. For example, if the Jump function is assigned to the X button, highlight that then hold right. The X button icon will slide off the screen, resulting in no button at all assigned to Jump.

--Slightly improved memory “garbage collection” overall. While this doesn’t “increase framerate,” it does prevent framerate from dropping in the form of occasional brief spikes of bad framerate. While this is a global improvement, the optimization applies to Quince at least an order of magnitude more than to other characters.

--In Survival modes, you heal 2 hit points, rather than 1 hit point after beating an opponent. (Except for in Cruel 10, where you already healed 2, and still do.)

--In Survival and Daily Challenge modes, our last patch introduced a problem that caused gameplay to pause for up to 1 second (depending on platform) right when the body of your last opponent disappeared, and another long pause a few seconds later. All these long pauses are now fixed.

--Fixed a crash in Survival mode that happened when destroying remaining mini-Lums after a full-sized Lum was defeated.

--The default volume level is now set to 50 out of 100 on all platforms. Previously, PS4 correctly was this way, but Steam and Switch wrongly defaulted to 100 out of 100 volume.

--[Steam and PS4; will be fixed in a later patch on Switch] Fixed a bug in button config that started with the f2p patch where going “down” twice after arriving on this screen would put the cursor in an invisible spot.

--[Steam and PS4; will be fixed in a later patch on Switch] When you purchase items with gems, then lose your internet connection, you still had access to them, which is good. But if closed the app then relaunched it while still having no internet connection, you would need to connect once to the server to have access to those items again. Now, you no longer need to do that. If you ever had access to items bought with gems on a given device, the items will be always be there, even across restarts, and even without ever connecting to the internet again.

--[PS4 and Steam] If you own the founder's pack, core pack, or collector's pack, you no longer need to connect to the server once to use the features associated with that pack; it's checked offline. (Switch already checked pack ownership offline.)

--[Steam and PS4; will be fixed in a later patch on Switch] Reduced the jump height of all Boss Rush enemy power ups that uses a jump height increase. This prevents things like Setsuki becoming too high and staying in the air and being completely unhittable.

Fantasy Strike is now free to play. The term “free to play” has a wide range of meanings and we’re excited to tell you that we’re not talking about “one character is free, please buy the rest for $5 each.” No, we mean all characters are free.





Specifically, you can play all characters in online casual play, online ranked play, offline practice mode, and offline “single match” mode against AI…completely free.

Also we are also adding two new characters: Chancellor Quince and General Onimaru. Everyone gets these characters for free, too.



To learn more about the gameplay of these new characters, check out their character spotlight videos, narrated by our game director, David Sirlin:

Quince Spotlight Video Onimaru Spotlight Video

This is something we wanted to do all along. We know that it’s a huge benefit to the playerbase, not just in that they can play for free, but also in that it attracts a ton more opponents for everyone and helps vastly expand the community. The problem for us was always that in order to make the game free-to-play, we have to develop a bunch of other stuff to actually sell. Well, we did that. And we’ve been careful to keep the game completely competitively fair in the process.



There are three broad types of things people can buy.

First, the core pack: this gives access to five additional game modes: Arcade Mode, Survival, the awesome powerup craziness of Boss Rush, local versus, and online friend matches (founders who already bought the game already have and will retain all these modes). Next, there’s a lot of new cosmetics. Players can buy (sensible!) alternate costumes as well as alternate (non-gameplay) animations such as intros and win poses. Finally, there’s an optional subscription called Fantasy+.

[h2]New Cosmetics[/h2]



[h2]Fantasy+ (optional service)[/h2]



First, Fantasy+ gives you access to our new replay system. We tried very hard to give this feature awesome UI and usability. You can save replays of your own games, watch replays of others, and you even get four new “channels” in our Netflix-like video screen that are all devoted to replays.



Next, every character has a special Master Costume that’s like their ultimate progression. These costumes can’t be bought in the item shop. They are only available to Fantasy+ members, and even then, only if you are level 20 or higher with that character. Fantasy+ members also get an XP boost to cross that threshold faster. (XP does not give any gameplay advantage.)



Finally, Fantasy+ members get their names in green in the game to show their support. Every time you see someone with a green name, you know they are supporting more development of the game.

To everyone who already bought the game, we want you to know that you lose nothing and you gain 2 free new characters to play. We also want you to know that for other people to have all the game modes you do, they’ll have to buy the core pack. And that our founders already have 60 additional costume colors that free-to-play players don’t have.

[h2]Get Ready to Dive In[/h2]

Don’t miss the huge wave of new players that will come with this change. Get in on the game now. While it’s designed to be a deep game for experts, it’s also the perfect “second game” for everyone in the FGC because you can learn the basics so quickly and get right to the strategy. It also happens to be a great game for anyone wanting to try out fighting games for the first time.

For experts, we have a one-year anniversary tournament coming up on Saturday, July 25th and we challenge you to see how well you can do in this simple-seeming, but brutally difficult game.

Welcome to the community!

Discord chat: discord.gg/FantasyStrike
Twitter: @FantasyStrike
Patreon: www.patreon/sirlin (new tabletop games in development now!)



[h2]CHARACTERS[/h2]

Rook
--Jump forward/back A (the splash) has smaller defensive boxes on his feet, so that he can more easily jump over projectiles with this move.

--Air C has narrow defensive boxes on the back part of the move, so that he can more easily jump over projectiles with this move.

--C throw has slightly more range. About the same range as “the old throw range plus walking forward for 3 frames”.

Valerie
--Fixed a bug with some of her hit reactions that caused her hand to spin her paintbrush around in a strange way.

Setsuki
--When doing Starlight Tumbler (C button) then doing her air super in the middle of it, the B+C command to do the super now has the same slop factor as all other supers, rather than requiring B and C to be pressed on exactly the same frame. (Simply jumping and doing air super already had the standard slop factor, this fix only applies to doing air super specifically during ground C.)

--Fix: Setsuki’s air parry super now correctly triggers against Argagarg's bubble shield pop.

DeGrey
--Sometimes wall bounces (most notably DeGrey’s counterhit B,B (Tyrant Crusher)) would seem to not work. This is when the wall scrolled over a microscopic amount right as the opponent touched it. Now it bounces when it looks like it should.

Midori
--Fixed Midori back throw not doing damage to Rook.

--Fixed a bug with Midori ground super involving a “kara cancel.” It is correct that when the B+C macro is enabled, pressing B then 1-2 frames later pressing C (or vice versa) cancels the very beginning of the special move and starts the super move. The bug was that Midori could do this after cancelling from a normal move. For example, A cancel to C then 1 frame later press B should NOT perform the super. That’s a stupid kara cancel trick that’s disabled for all other characters, but was accidentally possible here. There is some advantage for Midori to use this, which would force everyone to enable this macro for competitive reasons if we kept the bug.

Geiger
--Fixed the exact same kara cancel bug with Geiger’s ground super that was explained above about Midori’s. This had no practical use for Geiger, but it’s fixed anyway.

--B (and hold B) gears no longer knock down opponents who get hit while jumping. They land on their feet. This prevents him from getting a 2-damage combo when hitting in this situation and prevents his air super from being able to juggle for 3-total damage all the time.

--B (and hold B) have +3f recovery.

--Time Stop (ground super) now automatically ends with a Flash Gear attack, rather than in neutral. This means a successful Time Stop will net him 1 damage total, rather than 2 damage.

Lum
--Fixed a bug with Lum’s fireworks which for the last few months has caused them to track LUM rather than the opponent when the players switch sides after the rocket is summoned. In practical terms, this made the fireworks do nothing in this case, rather than be very powerful as they are supposed to be. The fireworks now work correctly again, the same way they worked for years before this bug was introduced a few months ago.

[h2]Tutorial Fixes[/h2]

--When Midori demonstrates his yomi counter, it will still work (rather than do nothing) if the player 2 controller is doing inputs.

--Fixed a bug in a recent patch that prevented the tutorial dummies in lesson about throws from doing yomi counters when they should. You’re supposed to strike these dummies anyway, not throw them, so it was minor. But now if you try to throw them, they yomi counter correctly so you learn that that’s what happens against opponents who let go of their controls.

--Fixed a bug with the tutorial dummy who must be beaten by jumping S that accidentally allowed it to sometimes also be beaten by ground B.

[h2]Online Fixes[/h2]

--[Windows] When you get an online opponent ("Here comes a new challenger") and the game application isn't in focus, we now flash the taskbar button for the game once, to attract attention.

--Fixed a bug that caused invites to watch to not show the name of the player inviting you, which somehow broke 17 months ago.

--Fixed an issue with players profiles that caused their “best boss rush” to show incorrect data.

--Fixed an issue where characters in menus and gameplay appeared as pure black silhouettes. This could happen as a result of online play loading wrong lighting settings when a game ended.

[h2]Misc. Fixes[/h2]

--Walking left and right now feels more responsive. This does not affect gameplay in any meaningful way, just the feel. When you stopped walking forward or backward before (meaning you let go and returned to neutral specifically), we used to have a short transition of about 6 frames. This transition period was NOT recovery, so you could block instantly, yomi counter instantly, etc. But if you just let go and waited, your character would appear to keep walking for those frames. We’ve eliminated that and now rely only on animation blending to make it look good. The net result is walking and stopping will feel more responsive, yet not allow you to do anything faster than you could before.

--Characters in a blocking pose now continue to have a slight animation if they stay in the blocking pose for a while. Before their animation would freeze if they blocked for a while. (Very minor, doesn’t affect gameplay.)

--When the music volume is set to 0, the music is now actually silent, rather than very quiet.

--[Steam] Fixed a bunch of UI elements disappearing if you launch the game in a very tall aspect ratio (heavily letterboxed).

--[Steam] While the VS screen is loading, pressing Tab to get to your friends list then clicking on the profile icon would cause you to be stuck on your profile screen. Now fixed.

--Fixed sometimes being unexpectedly thrown into a "Single match vs CPU" after quitting another 1P mode such as arcade mode.

--[PS4] If you boot the game while holding down a direction on the gamepad, it no longer messes up your directional after that.

--Fixed bug where projectiles would spawn with the wrong offset after side-switching when a previous projectile is still on the screen. For example, Geiger air S (Cycloid Revolution), opponent switches sides, then Geiger does B (Time Spiral) and the Time Spiral would start offset from Geiger’s character.

--When opening the button config screen, the input focus now starts on the "Done" button rather than on the first assignable button (Jump). That means going to button config then immediately pressing the “back” button will now leave the button config screen, rather than set that button to be jump.

--[Switch/PS4] The button config screen now lets you go to a separate panel called “other controls” that allows you to remap the buttons for frame step mode (to turn it on/off) and frame advance.

Give the gift of fighting games to your loved ones this holiday season! From December 19th - January 2nd you can save 34% on the Steam version of Fantasy Strike, our colorful, modern take on the fighting game genre. Easy to learn but difficult to master, Fantasy Strike is a great starting point for not just newcomers to the genre, but also veterans looking for something new that emphasizes strategy and great decision-making.

Also, don’t forget to check out our other games, Yomi and Puzzle Strike; they’re 50% off during the sale, too. These are the digital versions of our strategically deep tabletop games that directly inspired Fantasy Strike, taking place in the same universe and featuring the same cast of characters.

Already own all of these games on Steam and you’ve already gifted them all to your friends? Check out David Sirlin’s Patreon page, where about twice a month we’re giving our Patrons a behind-the-scenes look at what’s next for Fantasy Strike as well as new developments in our tabletop gaming series. If you’re a longtime fan of our titles, the Patreon is the best way to support us while also gaining access to some awesome new content.

We hope you have a fantastic holiday season! Be sure to support all of your favorite indie companies this week. We all really appreciate your support, and we hope to see you on the servers.

This update is live on all platforms right now.

(While we know these are the Steam forums, we include notes on changes to all platforms, for the sake of completeness.)


Fantasy Strike now has full crossplay amongst all its platforms: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, and Steam (Mac / Windows / Linux). That means when you’re in the casual or ranked online queues, you get the benefit of a larger playerbase across all platforms. You can also directly challenge or spectate any player from your in-game friends list, regardless of which platform either of you are using.


--Fixed an issue that broke the menu UI when the poupup for "The opponent has quit the match" appeared while you were playing local team battle. The problem could also happen when playing ranked online in bronze league.

--Fixed an issue during friend match’s team battle. If the opponent disconnected during the roulette screen specifically, a popup would tell you (good), but then you’d be stuck on that screen forever (bad).

--[Switch] When opening the main menu for the first time, then choosing “Play Offline,” the game no longer tries to connect to the server. It also no longer displays a signup screen for Nintendo Online in this case, because you’re, well, playing offline.

--Fixed resuming survival mode after it's interrupted by an online game.

--When playing Single Match (vs an AI opponent), then getting interrupted by an online match, then returning to Single Match, it now returns you to the same AI opponent character you were playing before.

--Fixed a visual issue with the round win icons (the blue circles) during online games. When online rollbacks happen, the animation of getting a round-win icon could wrongly play twice for no reason. This did not affect anything substantive about who won, it was just a visual glitch.

--[Switch & PS4] Slightly reduced the CPU strain of rollbacks in matches with pings worse than about 160ms. This means framerate should a bit better in this case.

--Fixed a spectating issue that could cause the spectator to disconnect when trying to spectate a friend match after the players had chosen to rematch.

--Fixed spectators wrongly seeing the fake FantasyTags "Player 1" vs "Player 2" when starting to watch a friend match game at the character select screen.

Setsuki

--Hold C (Starlight Tumbler) when whiffed now has 12f more recovery when it lands.

--C, C (the Flying Fox move to hit jumpers) now has 9f more recovery when it lands.

--Air S parry used to fail against DeGrey’s ghost, but succeed against Argagarg’s poison fish. Now the opposite is true: it works against DeGrey’s ghost (which is a projectile, so it’s supposed to work) but does not work against Argagarg’s poison fish (which is a weird exception move that passes through everything and gives no hitstun, and it felt wrong to parry it before).

Midori

--Midori’s human and dragon form both have a slight fix to their normal throws. These throws now impose the same air recovery arc against all characters, rather than an arc that varies based on the victim's jump's Y acceleration value(!). Everyone now flies in the same arc that Grave does when getting hit by these throws.

--Dragon's ground C and air C throws now correctly preserve block damage like all other throws. This means if the victim’s has a hit point that’s flashing from possible block damage, then they get thrown, their next remaining hit point will now correctly retain that same kind of flashing.

Argagarg

-Argagarg’s fA recovers 1f faster.


--The AI can now be fooled into blocking crossups the wrong way sometimes. The lower the AI difficulty, the more likely it will be fooled. Tighter crossups fool the AI more often.

--Fixed Daily Challenge crash when you win "too fast" and the incoming opponent was not finished loading. Mainly noticeable on consoles. This only happened on Daily Challenge, not in Survival.

--Fixed a case where you could stay stuck on the Boss Rush powerups screen if you mashed buttons during the transition to gameplay.

--Fixed an issue introduced in the previous patch where Grave and Jaina’s projectiles could give them super meter for no reason if they collided with the opponent’s projectiles.

--[Steam] Fixed a menu issue that occurred when you paused the game, then double tapped Esc. This resulted in showing the pause overlay while the game was not actually paused.

--Fixed an issue that caused music to be turned off by default on a fresh install. This problem was accidentally introduced in the previous patch, but is now fixed.

--[Switch and PS4] The Polish language is now available in language settings.

--Fixed a crash that happened when mashing the cancel button on the opening cinematic when the game is launched for the first time.

--[Switch] When choose Local Play, then choose one of the submodes to actually play, if two controllers are not available, the game now opens the controller sync screen to let the player connect a second controller. It was still possible to connect a controller in this situation by pressing the Home button and going to Nintendo’s controller setup screen, or by detaching/attaching JoyCons, and so forth, but this way it’s simpler for everyone.

--Set some ground moves' voice-overs were accidentally set to start playing on frame 1, rather than frame 3 of the move. Now that they are set to frame 3, this prevents them from wrongly playing in the case where the player did a J+A or A+B throw macro, where we only saw the first 1 or 2 frames of the “A” move. The moves with this sound fix are:Grave fA, Setsuki A, Geiger A, Argagarg bA, Argagarg fA

Enjoy the new enhanced crossplay amongst all platforms!