Early Access Hotpatch 03/15/19 is now live on steam so if you haven't yet, restart your games to receive it. Verify your files to get the update instantly.
Just a bit of general dusting off of some issues that popped up with the last update, particularly involving the recent backdash + blocking change. Things should be much more consistent now!
Gameplay
General
Instant blocking should now properly reduce maximum knockback while midscreen
Fixed an issue causing inconsistencies with blocking during jump startup after backdashing
Fixed invalid combo counter inaccuracy when throwing an opponent directly out of rolls
Velvet
214(atk)+(atk) (Frostbite)'s frost slowdown effect no longer affects the opponent's throws
Oleander
Fixed Cross Canter not costing the correct amount of meter
Tianhuo
Fixed being unable to do 236A (Volcanic Ash) during Ran Shao Feng
Curious about the details behind our new patch? Oreo from our QA team will be hosting a post-patch stream today at 3PM PST/6PM EST! Come on by, chat, hang out, ask questions! We'll be discussing everything from system mechanics to character balance - Please join us and say hello at https://www.twitch.tv/manesix
Early Access Patch #12 03/08/19 is now live on steam so if you haven't yet, restart your games and pixel lobby servers to receive it. Verify your files to get the update instantly.
As we get closer to 1.0, you're gonna start seeing some big pushes for polish while we continue to work on story mode. This patch brings some much-desired combat HUD enhancements as well as further animation/balance updates.
Also, as a reminder, Oreo of our QA team will be hosting a Post-Patch Stream on Monday March 11 at 3pm PT. Same place as always: https://www.twitch.tv/manesix
Read on...
New Features
Improved JD Bar
The JD Bar now has an animation when filled and changes color as JDG is tightened.
Yellow is the beginning of JDG
Orange is Average JDG
Red is high JDG (Time to wrap up that combo!)
Pink is insane JDG (How are you not done yet? CALM DOWN)
Invalid Combo Display
An 'invalid' combo is a combo that could have been teched out of at a certain point.
The combo number will change color if at any point your opponent could have teched out of your combo
Another number will show up underneath the color change to display on which hit of the current combo the opponent could have gotten out of it
Up to 3 failure points can be displayed at once (at which point how and why are they still letting you get away with this? HIT SOME BUTTONS, NEVER GIVE UP)
Reactive Character Portraits in Combat HUD
Expressions are context sensitive, for example "in hitstun", "performing super", "low health", etc.
Character Select Poses
Characters now strike a pose when chosen in character select! These are still a bit of a work in progress. We hope to finalize the animations by next patch. (it's still Early Access, after all)
Training Mode UI Extras
JDG value is now displayed in advanced data. This number is only ever affected after JD is filled
Frame data in Advanced Training mode now display division lines every 5 frames. This was long overdue and we apologize to all the lab monsters out there
New Tutorial Portraits
We've applied a layer of polish to Oleander and Fred's portraits in the tutorial. Fred is now much more pointy
Pixel Lobby
The Gas Mask accessory is now a face slot item. It was formerly a head slot item
Shadow characters in the Salt Mines now have proper in-fight palettes
There is now an icon in the server select menu that tells you which map it's hosting (though only Velvet's lobby is officially supported until next patch)
Gameplay
General
Replaced Oleander's Intermediate 5 combo trial
You can no longer block during backdash -> jump startup
Arizona
Fixed an issue that caused Trample's recovery to prematurely disable counterhit, including on block
6B hurtbox no longer totally clears the average height of an A
Running now continues if you pass your opponent
Trample animation updated
Trample startup no longer slides forward before launching
Fixed several cases where Trample could be cancelled into Level 2, even if the opponent has not been hit directly
2C now has a new animation
Velvet
Velvet now has several new animations for casting ice missiles and snowballs for air and ground
214A and C have new ice animations. B's ice animation now crumbles
623(ATK) ice animations now crumble
214A and C no longer work strangely when Velvet is under the effects of another Velvet's level 2 frost effect (...finally)
Paprika
Teleport C can now properly be counterhit
Running now continues if you pass your opponent
Pom
Can crouch cancel forward dashes again
The first backdash of the match no longer has 1 additional frame of invulnerability (...yep!)
Tianhuo
Air normals can no longer be cancelled into specials on whiff
Tomorrow, on Thursday the 28th, we'll be holding our 19th work stream on Twitch! The stream starts at 3pm PST / 6pm EST so please be sure to stop on by and join the celebration.
It's been one year since Them's Fightin' Herds went into early access, and we're excited to share our progress as we inch ever so closer to the full 1.0 launch!
As always, feel free to hang out, chat, and ask our team questions.
Our stream this month will be focused on pixel art! Jay Wright will be taking us through his process of making sprites for story mode NPCs, and guest star Alco will be hanging out to answer questions about environment tilesets.
We'll also be showing off our next patch, which is to be released next week! Bugfixes, some cool UI improvements, we really think you're going to dig it.
We thank our community for the continued support. You're all awesome.
Work stream #18 was first mentioned about a week ago in Aaron's announcement video, but here is the dedicated post. This is a bit short notice, but don't worry! You can watch the replay on our YouTube channel or catch next month's if you miss this one.
That's right. Devstreams are happening again, every month, until 1.0 and beyond!
Our number-one goal is to show you some spoiler-free story mode tools and content. Keep in mind that everything's still very much a work in progress. Things will be changed between now the final product. There's still many months of work to be done to get it ready for you to play.
Other than that, the rest is up to you! We'll be around for about two hours total to hang out, talk about the latest patch, and answer questions.
Early Access Patch 01/29/19 is now live on steam so if you haven't yet, restart your games and pixel lobby servers to receive it. Verify your files to get the update instantly.
This patch introduces a new save file format to fix a previous issue of saves being inconsistent and unreliable. Unfortunately this means that current saves involving target mode will be reset. We tried our best to preserve this data but there wasn't anything we could do. Going forward things will be much more stable.
General
Fixed some inconsistent collision boxes for Oleander and Velvet knockdowns
Cross Canter attackbox now ends much sooner
There is now a proper graphic for item pickups (gifts)
Arizona
Trample no longer forces preblock during its long recovery
Trample now has a new animation
Cleaned up animation for Rebound
Velvet
Fixed mistiming of Shatter C which made the recovery slightly faster than intended when the new animation was introduced
Ice Tornado is now animated (the final hit(s) will also soon be updated)
Fixed some inconsistent collision boxes for knockdowns
Oleander
Fixed some inconsistent collision boxes for knockdowns
Maximum magic regen from reading has been reduced
There is now a UI element for Fred's Summon timer
Paprika
There is now a UI element for Picnic's timer
There is now a UI element for Picnic's remaining gifts
Pom
j.B now causes slightly more hitstop on grounded opponents. This should further ensure Unblockable Protection kicks in consistently
Tianhuo
Fixed 4D acting strangely during Ran Shao Feng, it should now more consistently pass through opponents.
Volcanic Ash now hits 3 times during Ran Shao Feng, with the third hit causing a groundbounce like before
Volcanic Crash now causes hard knockdown during Ran Shao Feng
During Volcanic Crash, the flight cancel window is now strictly after the knockdown has been completed. Previously tian was able to let go too soon which would force a soft knockdown
Flight Speed reduced in all directions
There is now a UI element for Ran Shao Feng's install timer
Known Issues
If Velvet gets hit by another Velvet's level 2, some specials may act particularly weird/disappear.
4D into j.A with tianhuo reads out to be 14 frames of startup before earliest possible hit, but it's actually 18.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=285Ysrl_lYE Aaron Stavely is now an official member of Mane6! He has joined forces with us to make more high-quality video tutorials for TFH and also manage the dev team, who was definitely in need of management.
Who is Aaron?
Aaron is an old, long-term friend of the devs who has been helping us solve a variety of challenges with the project on his own time since before we launched into Early Access. He is a bit of a Renaissance man who has worked in the game industry professionally for over 4 years.
You may have seen him moderating the Steam forums and hanging out in Discord under the tag Infinaron. He also did the effects on Fred’s voice to make him sound all demon-y!
Why is Aaron?
Aaron has been hired to address two specific concerns:
a. It takes a dedicated person to coordinate a team of distributed game developers with unbridled passion to make the best four-legged fighting game ever.
b. We need to start communicating more frequently with you, the community.
Aaron has been with us fulltime since December of last year. By the power of spreadsheets, calendars, and good old-fashioned JFDI, he has already completely revolutionized the way we work.
The Road to 1.0
There is always more work to be done, but we are getting close to the point where we can call the game “version 1.0”. How close? Well, it’s definitely for sure happening this year.
From now on, we are committing to monthly game updates and monthly devstreams. Delays may still happen, but going forward we will make every effort to explain why, and for how long.
The next devsteam is Thurs, Jan 31 @ 3PM PST. We will do our usual Q&A and also show you our tools for Story Mode, which have undergone a complete overhaul since we last talked about them.
At 1.0, Story Mode will only include the prologue and chapter one (Arizona). After 1.0, the remaining five base characters’ chapters will be added later on, free of charge. We have plans to expand the roster, starting with goat, with more following. Development of goat will begin after 1.0 releases. No day-one DLC.
As mentioned before, the goat DLC will be free for backers of our indiegogo campaign as a thank you for helping us reach our stretch goals. The standard price for goat and further DLC has not been determined yet and will be revealed alongside actual content.
Video Tutorials
Aaron will be making a dedicated post later this week to fully outline his plans for new video tutorials. We can say that right now he will be focusing more on general gameplay rather than character-specific content until 1.0 is released, since everyone has been rapidly receiving balance changes, new moves, and visual polish with each Early Access patch.
His old videos will remain up on his personal channel for now but will eventually be redone to reflect the current patch and improve clarity. All new videos of his will be posted on the Mane6 YouTube page and website.
Epilogue
That’s all our updates for now. More posts are coming to expand on things. You guys are awesome. Things are moving more quickly and efficiently now. We’ve got some really cool stuff coming your way. Can’t wait to show you.
Early Access Patch 01/04/19 is now live on steam so if you haven't yet, restart your games and pixel lobby servers to receive it. Verify your files to get the update instantly.
Heya! Hope everyone had some tasty holidays and happy new years! This is a quick patch to clear up issues collected over the holidays with our recent patch, namely a rather sizable one that made Cross Canter almost unpunishable(!!).
To be completely honest, with all of the underlying system changes of last patch, we're surprised many more things didn't fall out from underneath the game. Apologies, regardless! Keep up the bug reports!
Gameplay
General
Fixed an issue causing Cross Canter's window of vulnerability to fluctuate during recovery, making it difficult to punish.
Arizona
Fixed the coloring of ropes for all palettes
Brushed her teeth
Velvet
Fixed an issue causing most Victory animations to go to an odd pose after she's done speaking.
UI/Game Fixes
Predators are now less festive
Festive hats are no longer defaulted on pixel lobby entry, but no worries, all players will still have one in their inventories!
Fixed some layering issues in Velvet's Pixel Lobby and Salt Mines
Players that are AFK for too long will be removed from the matchmaking queue. You can manually go back in at any time after
Legacy lobbies are more stable, players should be able to invite and start fights once again
Fixed a crash related to entering character select after going through certain game modes
Known Issues
If Velvet gets hit by another Velvet's level 2, some specials may act particularly weird/disappear
It is still possible for Tianhuo to occasionally lose momentum during some airdash cancels
There may be some cases where pushblocking at less than 300 health still occasionally allows damage to pass through
Patch (12/23/18) is now live on steam so if you haven't yet, restart your games and pixel lobby servers to receive it. Verify your files to get the update instantly.
This one's been a long time coming.
Tons of new content that we've been excited to deliver is finally here. Most importantly: Matchmaking! You can now queue for online matches from the main menu!
... or Training Mode. Or the Pixel Lobby. In fact, you can run matchmaking from nearly every mode in the game! There is no central server involved; all of the matchmaking calculations run directly through Steam. Lots of blood, sweat, and most importantly, time, went into making this feature as solid and bug-free as possible.
All of that extra time spent working on matchmaking means that we were able to sneak some gameplay changes in there, too! While we still have more changes coming soon, it wasn't the focus in this update, so they aren't as substantial as previous updates. What they DO include are:
Fully voiced and animated fight intros and winposes
New predator attacks and AI behaviors
Updated attack animations, some with brand new facial expressions
While it did take quite some time to get this update out, the good news is that puts us right at the end of December, conveniently in time for the holidays. To celebrate the season, the Pixel Lobby has received some winter cheer. Be sure to hop in and check out what surprises are waiting...
(NOTE: This patch does not contain Salt Mines 2.0 yet. That content is still upcoming.)
The next patch is already being planned and worked towards, and will contain even more updates and substantial changes. See you guys in 2019!
New Feature:
Matchmaking
You can now use matchmaking to find opponents, anywhere on the planet, from almost anywhere within the game!
To begin matchmaking, select it from either the Main Menu under Multiplayer, the pause menu during Training Mode, or the Pixel Lobby context menu (accessed by holding your D button).
here here orrr here!
Just hit one of these to join the queue and the system will begin looking for players. A banner will display at the top of the screen if you're in the matchmaking queue, and the matchmaking system will search for opponents.
heads up, this matchmaking's about to explode!
Once a match has been found, to accept a match, use your Utility 1 button, and to decline a match, press your Utility 2 button. Right now, the only option available is Casual.
Even though this is only Casual Matchmaking, there is a hidden skill rating in the background to ensure fair, balanced matches with opponents of equal skill. Over time, it will learn your skill based on wins and losses against other players. A Ranked Matchmaking queue, with visual ranking points and tiers, will be added in a later update. Until then (and ofcourse after then), we have a....
Leveling system
After every battle you play online from the pixel lobby or through matchmaking, you will now gain exp. You will gain bonuses based on match performance and difficulty, which will help you level up even faster! For now, the levels are linear and rewards are absent. In the future we will be adding milestones and various rewards which may include palettes, hats, artwork and some other fun and/or silly things. Much like our players, the system itself will level up as we move forward!
Fixed several missing hurtboxes during air throw recovery of certain characters
Both fighters are now able to play their intro animations in sequence
The opponent will now respond if the speaking character's intro is considered to be of 'short' or 'medium' length
Character specific intros are now a thing (81 new lines of dialogue!)
Randomization of intros in general should now properly, consistently work in online play when hitting rematch
All characters now have proper victory animations
Cross Canter advantage on grounded hit has been reduced a bit
Cross Canter now always does 350 damage, whether or not it's a counterhit
Red health now tanks chip damage before regular health
Pushblock continues to function as it always has (chips health and converts it to red health), but at 300 health and lower it now totally negates lifebar damage
Fixed an issue where preblock could become throwable
Attacks that force standing on hit now also force standing on block (This does not affect how you block, only where your hurtboxes exist)
Throw teching in the air no longer fails to reset combo ingredients (Such as groundbounces, staggers, etc.)
Supers now ignore the OTG 'popup' state on first hit as a general rule, rather than certain exceptions
Arizona
Magic Headbuck is now always a counterhit when thrown, as intended
Now has character specific intros
Now has proper win animations
Now finally has expressions on a ton of animations
Rope animations are no longer cardboard
Ropes have reduced recovery time
The first few frames of 6B now have grounded hitboxes
6B startup increased slightly
6B slides forward a tiny bit before leaving the ground
6A has a new animation
6A now whiffs distant crouching opponents
Velvet
Fixed a case where the startup of Ice Cyclone could potentially allow Velvet to block an attack
Now has proper win animations
Now has character specific intros
Shatter A and B have updated animations/expressions
Shatter C has a new animation
Oleander
Fixed oversight that allowed Fred to be usable during pushblock
Now has character specific intros
Now has a proper win animation
Fixed yet another case where the hitbox could seperate from the graphic with Magic Trap
Magic Teleport no longer steals meter from pets and projectiles
Fel Sparks deal less damage
Fel Sparks now all deal the same amount of JD, grounded or not
Magic Sparks deal less damage overall
Magic Sparks deal additional JD
All Sparks deal additional JDG
Super meter requirements increased
Super meter gain through reading now ramps up over time, with a capped maximum speed
j.2C now ground bounces grounded opponents
j.2C no longer has such a significantly larger hitbox at the beginning of the attack
Can no longer meter steal when the opponent is KO'd
Paprika
Teleport C should more consistently aim for the front of the opponent
Gifts cause less blockstun to airborne opponents
Smother should no longer be capable of eating ground techs
It should no longer be possible to be grabbed out of Teleport from offscreen
Air throw no longer causes hard knockdown
Smother camera no longer freezes/focuses on opponent when it hits
Smother leaves paprika slightly further away from the opponent
Smother on hit recovery increased
Now has character specific intros
Now has proper win animations
Pom
Closed up a few remaining cases that could potentially allow pom to control certain puppies while in pushblock
Big Papa is no longer vulnerable during the summon animation
The last hit of Stampede now launches more horizontal than vertical
The last hit of Stampede has less hitstop
Fixed even more cases that allowed Big Papa to show up on screen twice
All remaining exceptions and workarounds to STILL be able to call up multiple big papas...have finally been destroyed.
Now has character specific intros
Now has proper win animations
Fixed a ton of inconsistencies that allowed some grounded puppies to get stuck in the air for extended periods of time
j.C now spins through the active frames more slowly
Normals should no longer interfere with puppy commands if pressed on the same frame
Big Momma and Papa no longer come to the foreground to cover players, now only Momma will do so when readying her counter
Big Papa should no longer have a chance of getting stuck in a loop if pom gets counterhit
Tianhuo
Ran Shao Feng now properly only reduces Tianhuo's damage output, rather than also reducing incoming damage (!!!!!!)
Fixed miscalculations causing incorrect damage reduction near the beginning of Ran Shao Feng combos
Men Shao Ti no longer locks up grounded opponents if the second hit is the first one to strike them
Flips now have a grounded startup animation
j.A collision box now matches j.:B:'s
7D startup time now matches the other versions, but retains its strike invulnerability
7D now travels a slightly shorter distance horizontally
Blocked Volcanic Bash no longer continues the attack
Ran Shao Feng now allows Tianhuo to control her horizontal position during Volcanic Crash
Volcanic Crash leaves Tianhuo closer to the opponent
Now has character specific intros
Now has a proper win animation
2B no longer forces standing
Hitstun/Knockdown animations have been updated with many more inbetween frames
Predators:
Wolf
AI has been updated
Now has a dedicated air attack
Single hit, causes stagger to grounded
Can now jump cancel grounded basic attacks
Now has a super
Max supermeter is 1 bar
Feline
AI has been updated
Jump Arc is now tighter
Now has a dedicated air attack
Multi-hit, causes tumble
Can now jump cancel non-grab basic attacks on hit
Now has a super
Max supermeter is 1 bar
Snake
AI has been updated
Now has a dedicated air attack
Single hit, causes groundbounce
Can now jump cancel Tail Sweep on hit
Now has a super
Multi-hit, Causes higher damage than normal in the form of red health
Poisons afterwards, continuing to expand the red health until the effect ends or until snake is hit
Max supermeter is 1 bar
Bear
AI has been updated
Hurtboxes given a pass to prevent rapid size changes during neutral/movement
Now has a dedicated air attack
Single hit, Causes stagger on grounded, Groundbounce on airborne
Can now jump cancel non-grab basic attacks on hit
Now has a super
Max supermeter is 1 bar
Known Issues
If Velvet gets hit by another Velvet's level 2, some specials may act particularly weird/disappear.
It is still possible for Tianhuo to occasionally lose momentum during some airdash cancels