Them's Fightin' Herds News

Hello everyone,

Thank you for your patience while we’ve worked through a number of issues and bugs introduced in the last update. In this patch, we have resolved a number of crashes and bugs players had identified as well as made balance adjustments to both Baihe and Nidra. Our goal with this patch is to ensure a better player experience for both competition as well as improved stability. We remain committed to ensuring TFH stays competitive and viable for all players, and we will continue to patch the game as needed moving forward.


[h2]General Bug Fixes:[/h2]

• Fixed localization issues on Salt Mines end screen.
  
• Fixed issues with Baihe combo steps being tracked and localized incorrectly during combo trials.
  
• Fixed a phenomenon where combo trials were inaccessible with the appropriate DLC downloaded.
  
• Fixed a potential crash when fighting Texas on Mac and Linux versions.
  
• Fixed lagging cosmetics and body parts on pixel lobby training animations for Nidra and Baihe
  

[h2]Baihe Balance Changes:[/h2]

• Baihe's Air-Backdrafts can no longer be used as a stalling technique high-up on-screen.
  
• Baihe's Tactical Retreat now has an additional landing state.
  

[h3]Siege Cannon (SC) Changes[/h3]

• Added a 1.5 second cooldown during which Magic cannot be regenerated.
  
• Added 3 Siege Cannon levels that are dependent upon Magic available.
  
• SC Level 1 requires at least 1 Magic stock.
  
• SC Level 2 requires at least 3 Magic stocks.
  
• SC Level 3 requires at least 5 Magic stocks.
  

[h3]Phalanx Strike (PS) Changes[/h3]

• Introduced 3 variations that work like Siege Cannon.
  
• PS Level 1 requires at least 1 Magic stock.
  
• PS Level 2 requires at least 3 Magic stocks.
  
• PS Level 3 requires at least 5 Magic stocks.
  

[h3]Counter Changes[/h3]

• Counter now has 5 frames of startup.
  
• Counter loses invulnerability if the enemy does a super before Baihe hits after the Counter is triggered.
  
• Counter, once active, now has a single point of Armor.
  
• Counter now only triggers from physical attacks.
  

[h2]Baihe Bug Fixes:[/h2]

• Baihe's projectiles should now cause proper Juggle Decay, preventing infinites.
  
• Baihe's Cinder Shots and Backdrafts should no longer have any invincibility during their duration.
  
• Fixed a phenomenon with Baihe's Scorching Nexus projectiles accumulating and crashing the game.
  
• These were caused from fighting opponents with invincible attacks, such as Arizona's Magic Dash and Pom's Puppy Pummel.
  
• Fixed Baihe’s animation during crouching pushblock.
  
• Fixed Baihe’s animation during an unsuccessful Last Round super.
  
• Fixed Baihe's Magic-Counter attack not getting hit properly by supers.
  
• Fixed an issue with Baihe building incorrect meter amounts when being hit.
  
• Fixed an issue where Player-2 Baihe's Last Shot did not do the correct amount of damage.
  
• Fixed Baihe’s Intro and Outro related game stalls.
  
• Fixed a previously missing palette name.
  

[h2]Nidra Bug Fixes:[/h2]

• Dream Drop and Magic Dream Drop now despawn when Phantasmal Feast hits.
  
• Cross Canter now has the same startup and invulnerability timings as other characters.
  
• Fixed a freeze phenomenon that occurred when Blooming Lotus was canceled into Lotus Seed.
  
• Fixed Nidra being able to do her Wake Up! attack during her Sleepy Sweep attack without requiring Magic.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when an opponent’s projectile hit Nidra during Blooming Lotus while the opponent was blocking.
  
• Fixed game slowdown/crashes that would occur when Nidra was hit by projectiles when the opponent was blocking Nidra's attacks.
  
• Fixed Nidra's P1 intro not playing on Oleander's level.
  
• Fixed game stalls related to Nidra’s Intro and Outro.
  

Let us know what you think about the Version 6.0.0 Rev2 patch in the comments!

In 2013, Hasbro sent a cease-and-desist letter to the creators of a My Little Pony fangame called Fighting is Magic (it began as a fanart project called "Marevel vs. Clopcom"). While the creators, Mane6, accepted the cease and desist, they kept the basic idea and mechanics and used them to create an original game called Them's Fightin' Herds. Lauren Faust, producer of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic TV show, agreed to create a new cast of hoofed mammal fighters for the game and came up with the basics of a setting and story as well. Following an Indiegogo campaign that raised $586,346, Them's Fightin' Herds was released on Steam in early access...
Read more.

Hello everyone,

Today, in this special Development Update, we have some important announcements to cover.
First, we've just released a game update! Version 5.1.0 is now live on all platforms and contains balance adjustments, bug fixes, and a new gameplay mechanic called "Armor Break" which gives players additional tools to deal with characters that make heavy use of armor mechanics... like Texas! Details are in the patch notes.

Second, we have an update on Nidra, the 3rd character in our Season 1 Pass, as well as a reveal of character #4 which we’ll be sharing for the first time today.

And finally, we have an update on where TFH goes from here.

Without further ado let's dive in, starting with new characters.

[h3]DLC Character 3 - Nidra[/h3]

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, Nidra's release has been delayed to allow us more time to get her ready. Here are some updates on her progress:

Nidra is, first and foremost, a Stance character. Sporting a total of 3 different stances, she moves through them fluidly during normal combat.



These stances may not usually have a large range, but have quite a bit of forward momentum on them. This allows Nidra to reposition herself mid-string and swap stances as she sees fit for the given situation.

Do be on your guard, because her stance moves will require you to switch blocks accordingly.



Nidra has a maximum of 4 magic stocks, and her usage of them comes in the form of bouncy, slow-moving projectiles.



These allow Nidra to both take control of areas of the screen, as well as potentially lock down an opponent for mixup opportunities. Each button strength of projectile has a different trajectory.

When at full magic, Nidra can enter her Awakened State.



Awakened State is an install that has a screen freeze on activation, allowing the player a bit of extra time to see what is happening on screen, or to use as a way to completely take their turn back during a series of blockstrings.

She may look and act sleepy at almost all times, but Nidra is far from a pushover. Be on your guard, or you will be overwhelmed by her large moveset and various stances!

Nidra’s Stage - “Slumber Sanctuary”:


[h3]DLC Character 4 - Introducing “Baihe”[/h3]
For the first time, we are revealing the final character in the Season 1 Pass: Baihe!



Baihe and Tianhuo have known each other since childhood, where fierce rivalry eventually transformed into a strong friendship. They both joined the Longma Special Forces to protect the Huoshan Empire, but a mission gone awry led to Baihe's injury and disgrace. She sought a transfer to the Empress's Royal Guard and became Tianhuo's second-in-command. Now, they work together to safeguard all of Foenum from Predator threats and demonstrate the might of the Huoshan Empire.

Baihe is a zoner style character that specializes in long-ranged combat. Though she shares some movement options with Tianhuo, she is far less agile, preferring to plant herself in a fortified location and armor through incoming attacks.

Baihe’s Stage - “Smoldering Heaven’s Nest”:



We will unveil more info on Baihe as we head into 2024. She and Nidra will release together in early next year's update, version 6.0.

[h3]The Future of TFH[/h3]

As we look forward to the release of Nidra and Baihe, let's talk about what comes next.
After the Season 1 Pass is complete, we will be ceasing active development on TFH. We will still be able to release small patches to address game-breaking bugs, but no new content will be produced. Unfortunately, that includes Story Mode.

Story Mode has always been an ambitious feature and one we truly desired to implement. We know how much our fans have been looking forward to Story Mode chapters, and we hope you understand how much we looked forward to working on and releasing them.

We are looking for opportunities to release content that has already been produced for Chapter 2, starting with a new stage, "Restricted Section". This stage will be a part of the version 6.0 update alongside Nidra and Baihe.



[h3]Crowdfund Rewards[/h3]
For any outstanding items related to our original Indiegogo crowdfund, this shift in development does mean we will need to adjust some of our originally planned perks. More information on this will be shared in the coming weeks via email and on our Indiegogo channel.

[h3]Conclusion[/h3]
Thank you all for taking the time to read this announcement and for sticking with us all these years. We will continue updating our players on our social channels and look forward to our new characters releasing soon.

Mane6 and Modus

Missed our livestream on Twitch? Don't worry - catch the vod here on Steam! The Mane6 dev team breaks down the patch notes, Stronghoof's design, and showcases some high-level matches featuring the newest mid-range master!

Today is the day that Stronghoof releases onto the field of battle! We'll be doing a developer stream later today at our usual time (3pm PT / 6pm ET / 11pm UK) on our Twitch channel to celebrate, hang out, answer questions, and play some launch day matches. Come join us!

In this update we're shipping a number of bugfixes, including fixes for critical issues with Paprika's gift eating and Pom's dog attack canceling, both of which originated in 4.0.1.

These particular two problems presented significant, unnecessary disadvantages to those characters, and we would have preferred to address them immediately, but we were unable to release an update any earlier due to the long lead times on console patches and the close proximity of the 4.0.1 release to our initial submission of the Stronghoof release. It was not an ideal situation to say the least, and we will be taking extra precautions to reduce the chances of bugs like this making it out to live releases. We apologize for our mistake and for how long it took to fix.

There is one more piece of news we want to relay before getting into the patch notes. Stuart Ferguson, one of our two musicians, has left Mane6 to pursue other projects. We are on good terms, he is still around making music, and there may be a chance for us to work together again in the future. Whitetail will be the sole producer of music for TFH hereafter.

Without Stu, we are not able to produce music at the same capacity as before, so we have made the difficult decision to limit the scope of the Dynamic Music System for new stages going forward, starting with Stronghoof's. From now on, the DMS on new stages will model that of the Hidden Waterfall stage, featuring stage-specific intros, outros, round transitions, and idle/final round versions, but no character-specific themes. Stages that already feature "full" DMS (like Texas' stage) will still get character themes for new roster members.

The DMS is an iconic part of TFH, but it presents a unique production issue as the game grows. With "full" DMS, we have to create themes for all existing characters on new characters' stages, and a new character's theme has to be written into all existing stages. That means for each new character, the total amount of work required for a "full" DMS increases exponentially, and with the (relatively) rapid pace at which we're producing new characters these days, it has become unsustainable for our (now singular) musician to maintain for the foreseeable future.

If you have any questions about this, we'd be happy to discuss things further in our Discord server or during the stream today.

That's all the news we have for now, so let's talk about what's in store for 5.0!

[h2]New Character: Stronghoof[/h2]
Stronghoof the Reindeer joins the roster as the second character in the Season 1 Pass!

Unlocking Stronghoof requires the purchase of the Season 1 Pass or his individual Character Pack. Owners of the Deluxe Edition are automatically graced with his presence without any extra steps!

Regardless of whether or not you own the DLC, you may still fight against him in online play. He also sometimes shows up as a CPU-controlled opponent in Arcade Mode!



KNOWN ISSUES:

• The DMS on all stages contains Stronghoof-specific intros, outros, and transitions, but not his domination character theme. We ran into some last-minute bugs and had to disable it for safety. They will be patched in the next update.
  
• If you have the Pixel Lobby avatar for Stronghoof (or Texas) equipped and you leave/rejoin a lobby, you'll be reset to Shanty. We will fix this!

[h2]Tutorials[/h2]

• Revised the position of the hazards in Velvet's (and now Stronghoof's) Slide tutorial, to make it easier to complete (and possible at all for Stronghoof).

[h2]Command Lists[/h2]

• Texas' command list now properly says "bullseye" instead of "tipper" (English only; it's correct in all other languages).
  
• Fixed missing move property icons (Low, Overhead, Grab, etc) for level 3 supers on non-English command lists for Tianhuo and Shanty.
  
• Fixed the word "Magic" not being highlighted blue for "Ran Shao Feng" in Tianhuo's Russian command list.
  
• Fixed the word "Super Attacks" being misaligned in Arizona’s Russian command list.
  
• Fixed Texas' 6A description "blockable while the opponent is descending" being in Spanish instead of Brazilian Portuguese on that command list.
  
• For Russian command lists, retranslated "Projectile Invulnerable" (where it appears), "Retreat Flip" (Tianhuo), and "Launcher Attack" (All Characters).
  
• For Brazilian Portuguese command lists, retranslated "Parley" (Shanty), "Dark Cataclysm" (Oleander), "Digging Pup" (Pom), and "Volcanic Bash" (Tianhuo).

[h2]Gameplay[/h2]
[h3]General[/h3]
Cosmetic

• Added one new palette for each character:
  • Arizona - "Marching Fishes"
    
  • Velvet - "Koyousetsu"
    
  • Oleander - "Hell's Grenade"
    
  • Paprika -" Fifth Slash"
    
  • Pom - "Double Typhoon"
    
  • Tianhuo - "Mega Flame"
    
  • Shanty - "Night of Fire"
    
  • Texas - "Hammer Spark"

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue present in the last patch that was causing Max-JD hitspark sound effects to play louder than they used to.

Bugfixes

• Fixed certain chain attacks not coming out consistently. Players would get forward attacks instead of low attacks. (6A > 3B or 6A > 3C).

Bugfixes

• Fixed Velvet not being able to super cancel during the first few frames of 3C.

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where 5B could be canceled into 3C on whiff.
  
• Fixed grounded Magic Spark (level 3) appearing as the size of a normal Spark, instead of being enlarged (this seemed to have broken at some point in the past).

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue present in the previous patch that caused normals performed as a reversal to no longer trigger gift eats (only specials should bypass gift eating).

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue present in the previous patch that caused dog attacks to stop attacking when Pom was put into preblock (dog attacks should only stop attacking during actual blockstun).
  
• Fixed an issue where if Momma dog was hit by Texas' 2D during Rally, she would instantly activate her counter the next time she used it.

Features

• Texas now has an onscreen timer for his level 2 super (Pummel Pillar).

Bugfixes

• Fixed trades of Prairie Pummel with Paprika's cinnamon roll causing Paprika to fall out of the super prematurely.
  
• Fixed an issue causing Texas to fall backwards instead of straight down when being thrown by Shanty's air grab.
  
• Fixed an issue causing the camera to not follow Texas properly if launched offscreen by certain moves while his Prairie Pillar was active.
  
• Fixed Texas sometimes being invisible during the cutscene of Oleander's level 3 super.
  
• Fixed Texas being vulnerable to projectile hits during the grab of his 6A. He is now invulnerable immediately after a successful grab.
  
• Fixed Texas being able to activate Cowbell followups after triggering the counter from Pom's level 3 super.
  
• Fixed opponents gaining extra height after being hit with Prairie Pummel during the middle of being ground bounced.
  
• Fixed an issue where j.C could be canceled into an air throw at a very specific time, even on whiff.
  
• Fixed an issue that allowed a trade with Cowbell against a KO'd Texas to do followups.
  • KNOWN ISSUE: This fix has created another issue where same-frame trades with another Texas Cowbell cause mismatched frame advantage, favoring Player 2. We are looking into a fix.