Rivals of Aether - Etalus
Hey Everyone!
Love is in the air today, even in the world of Aether, and we’re back with our second update of 2017. Now you can grab your best friend or lover and hop online to battle against other players! We’re adding several cool additions this patch (including team battles) which have long been a requested feature. We’re also tweaking the balance after our amazing Genesis 4 tournament as we gear up for the full launch on Steam next month. You can find the major features in patch 0.15.9 below. There won’t be very many more updates before 1.0 now!
Online Teams
Team battles are here! You and another friend at your computer can now play 2v2 online by going to Online > Team Match. If you’re comboing alone this Valentine’s day you can also play with a CPU partner (we’ve programmed them to be extra romantic this patch). This mode is in beta so please make sure you let us know about any bugs/issues you encounter so we can get them fixed up.
Steam Profile Info
You can now view the profile of your opponent with a simple press of a button under their name on character select. This will open up their profile in a separate browser window. While it doesn’t sound like a big deal, this will make it way easier to add a friend and keep playing with them if you’re enjoying an opponent you found online.
Seasonal Skins
The Genesis 4 seasonal skins have been rotated out to make room for Valentine’s Day skins and the entire cast is looking extra lovey-dovey. If you’ve ever wished the world of Aether had more fluorescent animals, then this is the update for you. Read on for all the fine details on character balance and engine changes.
- You and another friend at your computer can now play 2v2 online by going to Online > Team Match. Note – this mode is in beta so please make sure you let us know about any bugs/issues you encounter so we can get them fixed up.
- The Genesis 4 seasonal skins have been rotated out to make room for Valentine’s Day skins.
- You can now view the profile of your opponent on Steam by opening up their profile page in a browser with a simple press of a button under their name on character select. This will make it easier to add a friend if you enjoy playing with someone.
- Hitstun duration is now slightly more dependent on weight. Lighter characters will have a few more frames of hitstun, heavier characters will have less. The change is fairly minimal, so don’t be too worried.
ASDI (Auto Smash Directional Influence) has been replaced by SSDI (Single Smash Directional Infleunce). You must now time your SSDI inputs during hitpause. You can use either the left or right stick to input a direction, but only one input is accepted per hit. - Since SSDI is now more manual, its effectiveness has been increased from 8 > 14 pixels.
Zetterburn’s charged Neutral Special is pretty hard to deal with and doesn’t exactly line up with the visual. So we are tweaking it to make it feel better. We are also making Forward Strong a little bit faster to promote using it along with his other strong attacks.
- Charged Nspecial sourspot hitbox removed
- Charged Nspecial sweetspot active frames increased from 2 > 3 (effective active frames 7 > 3 after sourspot removal)
- Charged Nspecial size increased from 160 to 170 to better match the visual
- Forward Strong startup decreased from 15 > 13 frames.
We have a new animation for Forward Special and a new hitbox to balance out the move at both high and low level play.
- Forward Special (non-puddled) now has a smaller hitbox, making it harder for opponents to cover/punish multiple distances with a single parry, but also harder for Orcane to hit with. This gives the moves more strength as a high level recovery option while stripping some of its power away from low to mid-level play where spamming it is a decent strategy.
- Bug Fix: Jab 3 hurtbox now lines up with the animation again.
Wrastor is a powerful character but he takes skill and good spacing to be successful. We are stripping away some base knockback from the sour spot of Up Strong to reward good spacing more.
- Ustrong sourspot base knockback decreased from 7 > 6
Kragg’s hitstun gravity in the last update was pretty insane. Making him a monster in teams as he rarely dies off the top. We like the idea of him being heavier but wanted to find a middle ground. We also buffed his Forward Tilt and Forward Air because he likes to knock things forward.
- Kragg Hitstun gravity decreased from .55 to .525 (.50 in 0.15.7)
- Ftilt startup decreased from 12 > 10
- Fair hitbox extended 10 pixels inward
- Fair knockback angle changed from Sakurai Angle (40 ground 45 air) to 35. This makes it KO earlier but also reduces the amount of Fairways to Heaven.
Forsburn has the biggest changes in this update. He has been sneaky for so long but not this time. First of all, we did not like how the empowered specials were playing out as really only Combust and Super Clone actually felt worthwhile of a new “attack”. We have decided to keep those attacks the focus of getting smoke while removing charged Neutral Special and charged Up Special. To balance out his recovery, we are letting him wrap through walls with more leniency on Up Special. Finally, we have tweaked some of his damage and knockback angles to spread power around his kit.
- Down Air hit 1 knockback scaling increased from .5 > .6
- Down Air hit 1 knockback angle changed from 40 > 35
- Down Air hit 2 knockback scaling increased from .5 > .7
- Combust knockback scaling decreased from 1.0 > 0.9
- Combust sweet spot added with knockback scaling 1.1.
- Forward Strong hit 2 damage increased from 8 > 12.
- Up Strong hit 2 damage increased from 8 > 12.
- Back Air sweetspot damage increased from 10 > 13.
- Down Air damage increased from 10 > 12.
- Up Special vertical leniency now allows for more maneuverability 50 > 96.
- Up Special landing lag increased from 16 > 20.
- Up Special landing lag reduced to 10 frames if you reappear in the air.
- Empowered Neutral Special and Up Special removed.
- Getting parried now removes your smoke charges.
- Super Clone now leaves 4 clouds of smoke when destroyed.
For such a rushdown character, Maypul can use Lily to camp pretty effectively. We have decided to prevent Maypul from freely moving Lily around after placing her and made some downtime for when Lily gets parried.
- Can not plant a new Lily when one already exists (as a result, Fat Lily had to be removed).
- Parrying Lily’s attack now puts Lily in a stunned state for 4 seconds. Lily still disappears after being parried.
Forward Tilt has been a contentious move since Absa was added to the game. We think by redesigning it to a two part attack we have a chance to make it useful both at short range and long range.
- Forward Tilt changed into a two-part move. Seeing the first part will be a good tell for dodging the second.
- Down Strong endlag decreased from 21 > 18 frames (on hit: 14 > 12).
- Waveland friction lowered slightly for longer wavelands.
- Down Special charge reduced from 45 > 35 frames.
- Absa Charged Neutral Special Hitstun factor increased from .6 > .7.
For Etalus, we wanted to tweak his Armor to make it more reliable. The Super Armor comes out earlier on his Armored Strongs but he also loses his Armor when his Forward Special is parried now. Finally we buffed Down Air as it is one of the least used moves in the game.
- Etalus Armor Strongs – Armor now comes out on frame 7 (11 > 7) on Up
- Strong and Forward Strong and frame 9 on Down Strong.
- Jump Squat reduced from 6 > 5 frames (now the same as every other character)
- Down Air final hit base knockback 4 > 6
- Down Air final hit knockback scaling .6 > .5
- Down Air Damage increased from 2,2,8 > 4,4,8
- Etalus can now hold down to prevent Down Air from stalling his momentum
- Forward Strong hit 1 hitstun modifier 1.0 > 0.5 (only matters if hit 2 doesn’t hit). Allows players to escape if the attack does not connect.
- Down tilt second hit angle changed from 65 > 75
- Down Tilt hitbox heights increased from 20 > 30 and 30 > 40.
- Etalus now loses armor as intended when his Forward Special gets parried
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Thanks as always and please let us know of any new issues you encounter here or in the reddit thread!
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