We've made some adjustments to the recovery frames of various moves throughout the cast. Particularly on attacks that we don't expect players to be following up with combos, we wanted to increase the ability for an opponent to punish a poorly placed attack. We'll be taking a look at other moves in future patches, but these were some of the big offenders that we wanted to address in the short-term.
Ashani
Side Strike
- Frame duration:: 55 >>> 59
Kidd
Down Strike
- Frame duration:: 54 >>> 59
Side Strike
- Frame duration:: 40 >>> 46
Raymer
Side Tilt
- Frame duration:: 30 >>> 35
Down Strike
- Frame duration:: 40 >>> 46
Side Strike
- Frame duration:: 55 >>> 59
Down Special (Ground)
- Frame duration:: 55 >>> 60
Weishan
Side Tilt
- Interruptible on frame:: 34 >>> 39
Down Special
- Interruptible on frame:: 44 >>> 50
All characters are now playable in training mode
One of the three major pieces of feedback we outlined on Saturday was that players would like a way to try every character. I'm happy to report that, starting today, all Icons are playable in training mode, including those you have not unlocked yet.
This will give players a chance to find their main faster, as well as study matchups and explore the game.
We're continuing to credit everyone 1100 spectra when they start, so you can choose a character right from the get go. Training mode will now help with that pickup.
We still have a lot of work to do, but we are tremendously excited by the response so far. Here's what is still on the roadmap from our plan on Saturday:
Adding new ways to unlock characters earlier in the new player experience. We will have an announcement on that this week.
New ways to earn spectra, so you can buy more items in the shop earlier in the game.
As always, please keep the feedback coming! Let us know what you'd like to see, and how the game is treating you with the updates so far.
All Players Now Receive 1,100 Free Spectra
We've heard your feedback. While we still have to take some time to work on our monetization model, we wanted to let you know we're listening.
We're crediting all accounts, present, and future with 1,100 free Spectra to buy an additional character, or for our Founder's Pack and Pro Account holders, that new shiny Iconic skin.
This is just our first step in making it right with our players. We are making changes to the F2P system based on your feedback, including how you earn spectra and how fast you unlock characters.
For the full discussion: https://steamcommunity.com/app/684200/discussions/0/3160848559782811668/
Icons Early Access Patch Notes 7/12/18
General
Shield Gust
Shield Gust on Grounded Opponents reduced to the same knockback values as against Aerial Opponents.
In the previous couple patches, there have been some issues with Shield Gust against downed opponents and opponents just starting their jump. We’re working on a more comprehensive fix, but aren’t quite there yet, so we’re reverting the grounded Shield Gust knockback values in the meantime to prevent issues where players get gusted too far away to even recover.
Wallbounce
Knockback reduction upon wallbounce:: 25% >>> 33%
Hitstun reduction upon wallbouncing:: 0% >>> 33%
Wallbounces have been a point of contention for a bit. We tried reducing the remaining knockback when this happens to alleviate things. Unfortunately, we failed to reduce the amount of remaining hitstun, leaving this situation feeling quite bad. We’ve now added support for reducing the hitstun here and tuned things appropriately. Wallbounces should feel a lot better on the receiving end with these changes.
Misc Updates
Taunts are now bound to arrow keys, instead of the number pad, for keyboard users.
We’ll be looking to make these bindable in the future, but for the time being we’re shifting them to arrow keys to support machines without a numpad.
Taunts can now be activated while on the respawn platform.
In local 2v2 play, we’ve reinstated color outlines to identify which team a character is on.
Added a toggle for the AI in Training Mode in the pause menu.
Introduced dynamic Victory Pose durations so that longer Victory Poses play in full before going to the end game screen.
New staging loading tips! Each stage now has multiple loading messages that are chosen randomly
Can now spin items in the gallery using the right stick
Cryostation and Wavedash Arena now have unique music tracks
The client now determines some recommended quality settings based on your PC’s specs. You’re welcome to tweak them further to improve performance.
We have added low-spec versions of all of our Arenas! You can now toggle this feature in Video Settings to help with game performance. You will also find a Materials quality setting here.
Added support for displaying the current system time. Find this toggleable setting in Video Settings.
Every character now uses their own unique animation for Holograms and Voicelines.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug where a player could end up in a state where they were unable to drop through a platform after tech rolling on it.
Fixed a bug where a player currently in hitlag could become grounded. This primarily caused issues with spike bounces not functioning correctly when spiked close to the ground.
Players can no longer equip items on characters they do not own.
Fixed a bug where the store screen would remain despite finding a match in the Quick Play queue.
Fixed a bug where players would stay in matchmaking queue when entering the Portal Pack menu.
Fixed a bug where using random select in offline play could result in more than one player having the same skin.
Fixed a bug where it wasn’t possible to exit the Collectibles menu within the Gallery using a controller’s “B” button.
Fixed a bug where Collectibles tab navigation was vertical (up/down) instead of horizontal (left/right) as the visuals would indicate.
Afi & Galu
Last patch, we made some adjustments to Afi & Galu with the intention of increasing their power. After closely observing gameplay both before and after these changes, we concluded that the changes were instead a net-negative both in power and fun for Afi & Galu.
To resolve this, we’ve mostly reverted their changes, as well as introduced a couple quality of life fixes. In the future, we’d like to take a closer look and see how we can help Afi & Galu out while taking great care to retain what makes them appealing to their current playerbase.
For now, we hope the bugfixes and landing hitboxes added to Back-Aerial and Down-Aerial help with how it feels to play as Afi & Galu.
Back Aerial
- Now has a 3-damage hitbox that occurs if they land during the move.
Side Special
- Fixed a bug where Galu's sSpecial would not be usable again when grabbed or thrown. Afi's sSpecial was not affected by this bug.
- Grounded version has +15 endlag (total duration:: 54 >>> 69). Hitbox remains unclankable.
- Hitbox size:: 0.6 >>> 0.8 (VFX increased appropriately)
- Damage:: 8 >>> 9
- Base Knockback (Afi):: 70 >>> 50
- Base Knockback (Galu):: 70 >>> 65
- Knockback trajectory (Afi):: 55 >>> 45
- Knockback trajectory (Galu):: 80 >>> 90
Kidd
Kidd’s Down-Aerial was a big point of contention prior to the last patch’s KB adjustments to spikes vs airborne opponents. It’s a delicate balance trying to make it potent for comboing onstage without being overwhelming as an edgeguarding tool. That being said, it's clear that the new tuning is too cautious and removed many of Kidd's combo options, so we're nudging the base knockback up to open up those options once again.
Kidd’s abilities now have unique SFX.
Down-Aerial (vs. Air Opponents)
- Base Knockback:: 10 >>> 20
Xana
We’re making a couple changes to Xana’s hitbox size & positioning on a few key moves with the primary goal of preventing opponents from low-profiling underneath them. We can’t account for all possible heights of an aerial special move, all possible distances and frames of animations of Xana’s opponents without the hitboxes getting silly, but we feel these small adjustments go a long way to making these moves feel more consistent and usable.
Xana’s abilities now have unique SFX.
Dash Attack
- Moved the hitbox that exists on her torso downward slightly.
Side Strike
- Moved hitboxes that are on her right leg downward a bit and increased their size.
Pivot Grab
- Grab-box duration:: 9-10 >>> 9-11
Neutral Special
- Fixed a bug where the final hitbox had a drastically higher base knockback value than the rest of the move.
Side Special
- Grab-boxes re-positioned to have less overlap with each other for better coverage.
- Grab-boxes reduced in size to account for the new lack of overlap
- A grab-box that previously overlapped heavily with a grabbox on her hand has been moved down to her upper thigh.
Zhurong
Zhurong’s abilities now have unique SFX.
Final Beta Test Weekend
Join us for the final Beta Test Weekend before Icons launches in Early Access on July 12.
Servers will be live on Friday 6/29 at 11am - Sunday 7/1 at 11:59pm Pacific.
If you still need a key, claim yours at beta.icons.gg now.
