Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Mike Z
Hello, Skullfans! Yes, hello. It's me! Did you miss me? :^)

WHAT
A member of our very own Skullgirls community came up with a way to improve online play! So I'm trying it out...the worse your connection to your opponent usually is, the more improvement you should see. It should make long distances like US <-> EU more playable, and possibly help with wi-fi or bad connections, but it's not gonna suddenly be perfect everywhere it wasn't before.

HOW
Join the ggpotest branch and play online!
- In your Steam Library, rightclick Skullgirls
-> choose Properties
-> choose the "Betas" tab at the top
-> in the box, type goodgamepeaceout and CLICK "Check Code". PRESSING ENTER WILL JUST CLOSE THE WINDOW WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING, so don't do that. :^P
-> it will say "access code correct"
-> in the "opt into" dropdown menu right there, choose "ggpotest"
And you're all good! Go play online!

Note that you CANNOT play this branch against people who have the normal version. I think.
But if you can, it won't break anything, but only the player in the branch will see any possible improvement.


WHAT again
because WHY, WHO, and WHERE didn't really seem appropriate
Normally, when GGPO detects that your game is ahead of the other player's inputs by too much, the game will wait for a small amount of time during which nothing happens. That's standard. However, Skullgirls has frameskip - that is, it runs faster than normal by 'skipping' rendering one frame out of every seven. So instead of simply waiting, now when GGPO detects that your game is ahead, it will simply not skip frames sometimes, rather than waiting, to slow down little by little and allow the other player to catch up without interfering with gameplay. Hopefully.

tl;dr - There should be less dropped inputs in bad connections.

I tested it a bit in a California-UK match, and it did seem to make a noticeable difference. Let us know if it works for you, I guess!
Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Mike Z
At CEOtaku, a number of people approached me and asked if I would add an option to the PC version to increase the input lag by 1 frame so they could practice for PS4 tournaments on PC.

Well, I done did it.

If you use the launch option
-ascendhigher
(which, you may remember, existed before)
it will now add the option
EXTRA Frame Delay (0 to 10)
to the Settings menu in-game, below GGPO Frame Delay.
This will let you choose from 0 to 10 extra frames of input lag at all times, and you can even change it from the pause menu. (That's 3-13 frames of total input lag, because the base amount is 3f.)

Online GGPO delay will be modified by this setting as well - if you choose 1f of EXTRA delay and 1f of GGPO delay, the actual GGPO delay will be set to zero so you still experience 1f of total lag. If you choose less GGPO delay than your local lag, GGPO delay will be set to zero.
Making it work the other way around was impossible, sadly...

To those of you hoping for more: I'm going back to working on Indivisible now, ya louts. :^P
Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Mike Z
Hot on the hooves Oh c'mon you knew I would! of the launch of Them's Fightin' Herds, we have a patch fixing one last Skullgirls bug!

General
- Hopefully fixed the issue where Training lobbies would sometimes be a normal lobby (without infinite life/meter/etc.) for one of the players. Thanks to Mane6 for discovering the cause and providing the fix!

Title screen build ID 15795
If this issue still happens on that build, please tell me!
Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Mike Z
Hot on the hooves Oh c'mon you knew I would! of the launch of Them's Fightin' Herds, we have a patch fixing one last Skullgirls bug!

General
- Hopefully fixed the issue where Training lobbies would sometimes be a normal lobby (without infinite life/meter/etc.) for one of the players. Thanks to Mane6 for discovering the cause and providing the fix!

Title screen build ID 15795
If this issue still happens on that build, please tell me!
Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Mike Z
Them's Fightin' Herds, the second game to use Lab Zero's Z Engine*, is now released on Steam!
For the next Two Weeks™, Skullgirls owners get 25% off purchasing TFH...and owners of GGXrd, BlazBlue whatever the latest one is now, and Skullgirls all get exclusive unlockable cosmetics for TFH's "pixel" characters!
Them's Fightin' Herds' store page is here.

And if you haven't yet registered for Combo Breaker 2018, do it!

* Mad props to the dev team for wading through my code, fixing it, and somehow still managing to make a game. :^)
Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Mike Z
Them's Fightin' Herds, the second game to use Lab Zero's Z Engine*, is now released on Steam!
For the next Two Weeks™, Skullgirls owners get 25% off purchasing TFH...and owners of GGXrd, BlazBlue whatever the latest one is now, and Skullgirls all get exclusive unlockable cosmetics for TFH's "pixel" characters!
Them's Fightin' Herds' store page is here.

And if you haven't yet registered for Combo Breaker 2018, do it!

* Mad props to the dev team for wading through my code, fixing it, and somehow still managing to make a game. :^)
Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Mike Z
It's been a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time! ...Lenneth.

Ladies and gentlemen, over four years after the initial PC release I am proud and sad really mostly sad to present the final Skullgirls PC patch! It addresses a major bug, a minor bug, and a launch option - no gameplay changes, don't panic. :^)

General
- FIXED a very old bug that led to certain people experiencing frequent disconnects on character select! The character select socket was not allowed to use Steam's relay servers, so people with draconian firewalls or very bad connections that required relay servers would experience disconnects very often at character select or the end of matches. Extra special thanks to Mane6, who discovered the bug and the fix.

- Re-enabled the Salt character when you win a game with Squigly's Lv5. Oops.

- Added the -debugkeys launch option. With this enabled, extra debug functionality is available in Training Mode or Replay Theater (-enablereplays):
-- The minus - key (on the full keyboard, not on the numpad): Press it once to place the game in slow-motion. Press it again to stop the game completely. While the game is stopped, pressing the key again will advance the game by a single frame. That's the important bit. :^)
-- The plus + key, does the opposite of the minus key.
-- The zero 0 key, toggles between regular speed and stopped.

Title screen build ID 15694 (lobbies are now fixed!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8ClltY7bqk
See ya on Indivisible!

Yes, the physical versions, JP PS4/Vita patches, and XBox patch are still coming.
Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Mike Z
It's been a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time! ...Lenneth.

Ladies and gentlemen, over four years after the initial PC release I am proud and sad really mostly sad to present the final Skullgirls PC patch! It addresses a major bug, a minor bug, and a launch option - no gameplay changes, don't panic. :^)

General
- FIXED a very old bug that led to certain people experiencing frequent disconnects on character select! The character select socket was not allowed to use Steam's relay servers, so people with draconian firewalls or very bad connections that required relay servers would experience disconnects very often at character select or the end of matches. Extra special thanks to Mane6, who discovered the bug and the fix.

- Re-enabled the Salt character when you win a game with Squigly's Lv5. Oops.

- Added the -debugkeys launch option. With this enabled, extra debug functionality is available in Training Mode or Replay Theater (-enablereplays):
-- The minus - key (on the full keyboard, not on the numpad): Press it once to place the game in slow-motion. Press it again to stop the game completely. While the game is stopped, pressing the key again will advance the game by a single frame. That's the important bit. :^)
-- The plus + key, does the opposite of the minus key.
-- The zero 0 key, toggles between regular speed and stopped.

Title screen build ID 15694 (lobbies are now fixed!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8ClltY7bqk
See ya on Indivisible!

Yes, the physical versions, JP PS4/Vita patches, and XBox patch are still coming.
Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Mike Z
Combo Breaker is NOW!
The year's biggest Skullgirls tournament is underway, at the Pheasant Run Resort near Chicago! ...and I'm at it, so let's hurry on up here.
:^)

The full schedule is here but the relevant bits for SG are...
Friday 5/26
Auction tournament - 1-3 PM CST on twitch.tv/bgcallisto
A small portion of pools - 3-5 PM CST on twitch.tv/bgcallisto
Saturday 5/27
Top 24->8 - 2-4 PM CST on twitch.tv/xsplit (apparently?)
Top 8 - 6-8 PM CST on twitch.tv/teamsp00ky
CRAZY EXHIBITION MADNESS LIKE ALWAYS - 10+ PM CST on twitch.tv/bgcallisto
There is also a Third Strike tournament on Saturday and Vampire Savior on arcade boards and aaaaahhhhhh....!

Skullgirls Mobile is out!
...did you know there was a Skullgirls Mobile? Well there is, so dreams do come true - it's made by Hidden Variable Studios, and you can play it right now and stuff!
If you own a cellphone-like device that was made more recently than mine was, ch-ch-ch-check it out:
iOS App Store
Android on Google Play Store
The official SG Mobile forums are HERE (not on Skullheart!) if you have bugs to report, rants to rant, or things to praise.

An update about the Limited Run Games physical version
tl;dr
We had to wait for a lot of things to happen, and we weren't super great about telling everyone that we had to wait, and it took an exceptionally long time, so we apologize. :^( But we're finally ready to get at making the builds so they can be approved and y'know, pressed and sent out and stuff!
Full version:
https://twitter.com/Skullgirls/status/867924998811402240
[or]
http://skullgirls.com/2017/05/skullgirls-lrg-update-3/

Congratulations on wading through the giant text wall! Your reward is one last spoiler text: I'm not a huge fan of the word "roundup", but "cluster" sounds kinda weird too. Ah well. COMBO BREAKER TIME!
Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Mike Z
Combo Breaker is NOW!
The year's biggest Skullgirls tournament is underway, at the Pheasant Run Resort near Chicago! ...and I'm at it, so let's hurry on up here.
:^)

The full schedule is here but the relevant bits for SG are...
Friday 5/26
Auction tournament - 1-3 PM CST on twitch.tv/bgcallisto
A small portion of pools - 3-5 PM CST on twitch.tv/bgcallisto
Saturday 5/27
Top 24->8 - 2-4 PM CST on twitch.tv/xsplit (apparently?)
Top 8 - 6-8 PM CST on twitch.tv/teamsp00ky
CRAZY EXHIBITION MADNESS LIKE ALWAYS - 10+ PM CST on twitch.tv/bgcallisto
There is also a Third Strike tournament on Saturday and Vampire Savior on arcade boards and aaaaahhhhhh....!

Skullgirls Mobile is out!
...did you know there was a Skullgirls Mobile? Well there is, so dreams do come true - it's made by Hidden Variable Studios, and you can play it right now and stuff!
If you own a cellphone-like device that was made more recently than mine was, ch-ch-ch-check it out:
iOS App Store
Android on Google Play Store
The official SG Mobile forums are HERE (not on Skullheart!) if you have bugs to report, rants to rant, or things to praise.

An update about the Limited Run Games physical version
tl;dr
We had to wait for a lot of things to happen, and we weren't super great about telling everyone that we had to wait, and it took an exceptionally long time, so we apologize. :^( But we're finally ready to get at making the builds so they can be approved and y'know, pressed and sent out and stuff!
Full version:
https://twitter.com/Skullgirls/status/867924998811402240
[or]
http://skullgirls.com/2017/05/skullgirls-lrg-update-3/

Congratulations on wading through the giant text wall! Your reward is one last spoiler text: I'm not a huge fan of the word "roundup", but "cluster" sounds kinda weird too. Ah well. COMBO BREAKER TIME!
...