Last Friday we officially announced the sequel to Rivals of Aether through a trailer packed with fast-paced gameplay, beautiful stages, and even a tentative release date to look forward to. Zetterburn, Ranno, and Wrastor were revealed as the first three characters in the game, along with promises of more favorites returning.
We have an admittedly bad habit of making our biggest announcements on April 1st, so to assure you that you weren't having a fever dream on Friday - here's the serious news on our sequel's announcement and currently released details.
Announcement Trailer
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Our big reveal trailer capped off the Rivals Direct on Friday with the official announcement (and name reveal) of Rivals 2. Our release date is currently set in 2024. We know fans will have tons of questions, so we put together a page of answers to Frequently Asked Questions we've received so far as we teased development.
Game Details and Live Q&A
We also ran a live Q&A session that started with Dan and Trevor going through the FAQ and adding a few insights before taking questions from any twitch viewers who stuck around after the Rivals Direct 4.
You'll also want to make sure to sign up for our Rivals 2 newsletter on the new website to stay up to date on development. Updates won't be frequent yet since we're still deep in development, but you won't want to miss important announcements like the launch of closed beta testing. Sign up to make sure you have a chance to be one of the first to get your hands on the game.
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Press Kit and High Quality Renders
Be sure to check out the official press kit if you want to get some high quality renders of characters, stages, and our new logo. More will be added as updates release.
Jobs at Aether Studios
To make this project a reality, we've been building a bigger team over the last few years to bring our dream platform fighter to life. Along with the game trailer, website, and Rivals Direct on Friday we also announced 4 new positions on our jobs section of AetherStudios.com. If you'd like to work with us and are able to work remotely please apply.
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If you're excited about Rivals 2 so far, you can be sure we're just as excited to be making it! We know it's still a long way out but you can believe the wait will be worth it. Our team is small but our ambitions are high, and we aim to compete against the best games on the market. There is a lot that we want to build to make Rivals 2 the best fighting game that it can be and we know we can reach that goal with time.
Feel free to leave us a comment here or on social media with any questions about the game.
Rivals of Aether Balance Patch 2.1.2.0
After over a full month since the release of our four free newcomers, we are back once again with another round of balance changes!
Last patch aimed to clean up some obvious troublemakers and mechanics. This time we intend to really dig deep and focus on fine-tuning our new friends. This is not by any means our final balance patch, but this will be our last balance touch-up before Genesis 8 and Low Tide City in April. Players looking for changes for our earlier 14 characters can get excited for our next balance patch coming later this year, where we plan to continue work on our newcomers while giving some elbow grease to some of our other favorite Rivals!
Matches no longer desync when switching between rollback and non-rollback modes online.
Fixed Orcane’s explosive bubble rune crashing.
Fixed keyboard controls causing unintentional up/down hard presses while online.
WORKSHOP
Added attack property AG_NO_PARRY_STUN.
Added newcomer names to get_char_info.
As for balance changes to our four newcomers, there are a LOT of updates on this round, so please check them out on our website.
Rivals of Aether 2.1.1.1 Hot Fix Update
MOLLO:
Mollo no longer gets stunned from parrying his own Finisher.
Bombs now push out of each other correctly.
When hitting mollo with a primed bomb in his hand, the timer should now reset on each hit (meaning it won't interrupt your combo).
Thrown bombs no longer teleport to the center of Mollo during the throwing animation.
HODAN:
Fixed Hodan getting stuck in his Up Tilt animation in rare situations.
Charged Up Tilt: Sweatbox hitstun multiplier decreased, 1.5 -> 1.0 (The increased hitstun is supposed to make up for the low KB values on the other moves, but it lead to situations where players knocked offstage would fall further than intended).
OLYMPIA:
Olympia's Forward Special jump cancel now works with tap jump.
WORKSHOP:
Fixed skins having misaligned VFX.
The small_sprites variable should now work correctly. (It now prioritizes init.gml, then config.ini, then the default value).
Attack scripts should no longer run multiple times on subsequent reloads.
NETCODE:
Fixed Mollo and Olympia's jabs causing desyncs.
Various fixes to rollback netcode that was causing several inconsistent crashes.
MISC:
Fixed Aether Mode version of Treetop Lodge's plant monsters not actually dragging players down into the blastzone.
Fixed Kragg's pillar occasionally leaving a false indicator when disappearing in the bottom blastzone.
Fixed the Down Special part of Mollo's tutorial being impossible to complete.
Fixed Pomme going invisible at the start of some Neo Julesvale matches.
Fixed a single red pixel on Pomme's custom color sprite.
The previous_live_branch has been updated to version 2.1.1.0
Balance Patch 2.1.1.0
A few weeks ago we added a whopping FOUR new characters to the PC and Switch versions of the game for free. Since then we’ve been able to collect feedback and bug reports from the community, allowing for our first balance patch since their release!
While this is by no means the final balance patch these characters will see, our intention with this round of changes is to hit the big troublemaker moves of each of the four. Buckle up, this is a big one.
Mollo is really close to how we want him to play – an aggressive and unpredictable character who can rushdown or zone while using everything at his disposal. Our main goal when updating Mollo was to add more counter play to his bombs – particularly the finisher bomb. We also fixed some bugs and updated a couple of his normals.
FINISHER BOMB
Finisher Bomb countdown increased, 30 -> 50
Spamming a massive kill move was never the intention of the finisher. A longer fuse means Mollo players will need to set up for the big reward.
Finisher Bomb reduced weight, 1.25x -> 1.6x
For reference, other bombs take 1.8x base knockback.
Adjusted explosion VFX layers of Finisher Bomb to primarily appear behind players.
This allows players to see where they are in relation to the explosion, helping with reactionary DI.
FLASHBANG
Increased Flashbang damage, 0% -> 5%
This bomb should not have been dealing 0% in the first place but it was particularly noticeable when Mollo could use it to stall off stage.
Bug Fix: Fixed flashbangs not applying full hitpause to attacking players.
DEFAULT BOMB
Hitpause increased, 6 + 0 -> 8 + 1.0
BKB 10 +1.0 > 8 +1.0
Default bombs were killing light characters a bit too early off the top. Peeling off some base knockback allows us to reduce those surprise KOs while still keeping it a KO option when your opponent passes 150%.
GENERAL BOMB FIXES
Primed bombs now properly explode in Mollo’s hand when hitstun ends.
Held bombs will now continue their timer when Mollo is in hitstun.
One of the goals of Mollo’s bombs was inspired by Kragg holding a rock. Mollo should feel more powerful with a bomb in hand but also at risk. Due to some bugs and timing, this goal was muddy at launch. We have made some adjustments so opponents can effectively use Mollo’s bombs against him. If you can catch him with a bomb, you can combo him while it primes and now effectively use the explosion to extend your combo or even KO Mollo!
Bombs will not bonk players in hitstun moving faster than 6 pixels per frame.
It was a frustrating experience to land a KO attack on Mollo only to have an errant bomb bonk him and negate all the knockback. We introduced a hitstun velocity where once above the threshold, characters will ignore the bonk. You can still use bonks for cool combos at lower speeds but bonks won’t be invalidating your hard work when it comes to KOs.
Bug Fix: Bombs that explode on bonk should now assign the hitboxes to the last player that hit it, and not just the Mollo that made it. (Meaning bonking a mollo with their own bomb should properly blow them up.)
Mollo finally gets a taste of his own medicine.
Reduced bonk hitpause, 12 -> 7
Bonks had enough hitpause to lock opponents in place for too long. This was especially problematic getting hit by a bomb whose fuse was running low causing a likely KO with a finisher bomb. The hitpause has been adjusted to better reflect the bonk and reduce those sticky situations.
Down Special now causes bomb detonations 1 frame earlier
Bat hits shouldn’t be overridden by bomb explosions anymore.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug causing bombs to occasionally float in the air.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that allowed several unique explosions when Mollo’s primed bombs blew up in his hand.
FORWARD TILT
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that allowed opponents to crouch cancel at any percent.
It was pretty funny though.
Hitpause increased, 6 + 0.6 -> 8 + 0.9
Reactionary DI should be much easier now.
A few properties leftover from an older version of the move have been snuffed out.
UP STRONG
Cleaned up Ustrong’s animation.
Reduced KB on the last hit, 10 + 1.0 -> 8 + 1.0
Increased Ustrong’s endlag, 12 -> 17
Up Strong is a great anti air tool and Mollo’s strongest grounded KO option. The attack was designed with a large and long-lasting active window to catch fast moving aerial opponents. But the final hit was too strong for his kit and the attack lacked the recovery frames to be able to punish it. We have remedied both of these.
The strongest hitbox had less hitpause frames due to the attack’s previous functionality. Now the hitpause has been updated to reflect the attack’s knockback and improve DI opportunity.
RAPID JAB
Repeated attack inputs should keep spraypainting more reliably.
Removed hitpause scaling to prevent stunlocking (was at 0.6x previously).
The move should feel better to use and to get hit by.
DASH ATTACK
Hit one now breaks Kragg’s rock.
The hitbox meant to grab bombs did not function as a normal hitbox, making interaction with rock a bit puzzling.
NEUTRAL AIR
Fixed an error causing hitboxes to be arranged incorrectly.
Hodan certainly is a funny monkey. His playstyle is surprising and wacky and unlike anything Aether has seen. Hodan’s unique charge mechanic is a hit but it has been hurting hands and driving players to unusual control setups – we saw that taped down dpad! Our changes to charge have made it easier to use it optimally without feeling like you could be charging more. We also looked at Up Special, Forward Air and Forward Special which were his 3 charged moves causing the most monkey frustration.
CHARGE FUNCTIONALITY
Charged moves now reset the charge amount as long as you’re using one.
Charging takes 15 frames, so now back to back charge moves will require those extra 15 frames to execute.
Starting a charged move disables the ability to charge until you let go of Down.
This excludes down strong due to the direction of the move matching the direction required to charge.
Starting a dash disables charging until you let go of Down.
These last two changes make sure that Hodan can be played optimally with either the standard controller settings, the dpad or the keyboard. To be able to dash with a standard controller, you have to let go of down. But a keyboard or a dpad could hold down through that motion and retain the charge easily without having to move the stick back down like a controller would. These requirements for a new down press get all the controllers on the same playing field and also make it easier on your hands for players who were tempted to claw both the analog stick and the dpad for their monkey madness.
UP SPECIAL
Charged variant early hit BKB and KB scaling reduced, 10 + 1.2 -> 9 + 1.1
For how fast this attack is and the places you can use it, it was KOing too early. This change should bring the kill power to a healthier level.
Charged variant early hit active duration reduced, 6 -> 2
Uncharged variant early hit active duration reduced, 6 -> 3
The start of up special is the sweet spot but with how long it lasted, it didn’t feel very sweet to get hit by it. We reduced the duration on both versions. Charged and uncharged variants travel at different speeds, meaning the active frames cover different distances. Both variants now reach similar distances. Example: A grounded up special’s first hit can no longer hit Tower of Heaven’s top platform.
Late hit angle changed, 50 -> 60
Charged late hit angle changed, 50 -> 80
We updated the angles on the late hits of each Up Special to match the angles of the sweet spots which makes DIing the attacks more consistent.
FORWARD SPECIAL
Forward Special endlag increased, 20 -> 28
We are increasing the recovery of Forward Special to reduce Hodan’s spam and also to remove his stalling technique when combined with Up Special. We opted for a recovery hit over a cooldown implementation because we want Hodan to be punished for using his projectile in inopportune situations rather than being able to parry or move away.
Charged Forward Special endlag increased, 14 -> 28
While Forward Special spam was formidable, the amount of sweat you could swirl by repeating Charged Forward Specials was devastating. This recovery change brings both versions in line.
Sweatwhirls can now only absorb new spirits after 40 frames, once the spirit’s spawn animation has finished.
This helps players escape several whirls being chucked at them in a row.
Bug Fix: Spirited sweatwhirls are no longer transcendent.
Attacks that beat projectiles can now destroy all sweat whirls.
A moment of silence for the Kraggs that lost their pillars to this bug.
FORWARD AIR
Charged Forward Air landing lag increased, 8 -> 10
Charged Forward Air endlag increased, 14 -> 16
The move is meant to be big and strong, so we targeted endlag in conjunction with the new charge mechanics to make it much harder to combo more than one in a row.
UP TILT
Bug Fix: Charged variant’s (Splash Kick) final 2 hitboxes moved to the correct window, removing the four hitbox overlap it had before.
SPLASH YA LATER!
UP STRONG
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where players under very specific platform heights (Treetop Lodge’s upper platform) would not be thrown properly.
Pomme is a flashy popstar who introduced a float double jump to Rivals of Aether! Pomme didn’t require too many updates in this first balance patch. We did target some of her problematic stalling options in addition to her lack of recovery frames on her strong attacks.
FLOAT MECHANIC
Getting hit while floating now removes any remaining float time.
There is a 6 frame forgiveness window at the beginning of a float.
Up Special now only restores float time to a maximum of 45 frames.
Pomme leaves the ground with 150 frames of float time. If her remaining float time is above 45 frames when using Up Special, the remaining time will be available as a second float.
Fixed being locked out of fastfalling when using a move out of float.
In addition to a sweet spot KB nerf, the sour spot and sweet spot angles are now identical, making DI less of a guessing game.
Bug Fix: Fixed a momentum bug related to a floating Forward Air in Pomme’s Harmony Field.
FORWARD SPECIAL
Increased Forward special damage, 0% -> 8%
We told Vince to stop holding his punches. The Rivals aren’t fans of Pomme. Well except for Kragg. He owns all her albums. This should also prevent crouch-cancelling causing some odd trajectories.
Forward Special Cooldown has been increased from 15 frames after Vince disappears to 55 frames after Vince disappears.
Now that Vince is not holding back, we have to deal with those times when Pomme is too reliant on him. This cooldown increase should keep Vince as a combo starter while reducing him as a spam option.
Vince’s whiff endlag reduced, 40 -> 30
This change makes Vince block projectiles for a little less time but also allows Pomme to use Vince sooner effectively reducing the increase in cooldown above from 40 frames to 30 frames.
DOWN SPECIAL
The harmony field now moves towards the stage if it’s far away enough from solid ground.
We saw the videos of the Pomme stalling from launch week. This attempted solution should keep a floating Pomme away from the edges of the blastzone, while also giving the Harmony Field more utility near stage.
STRONG ATTACKS
Fstrong endlag increased, 12 -> 18
Ustrong endlag increased, 10 -> 15
Dstrong endlag increased, 10 -> 15
Pomme’s strong attacks were incredibly hard to whiff punish especially considering they pack quite the punch for an Air character. These changes should bring her closer in line to the rest of the cast.
UP TILT
Bug Fix: Removed an extra hitbox from Utilt that was spawning later.
A relic from an older animation that added a lot of disjoint to her attack.
MISCELLANEOUS
Slightly increased harmony field opaqueness.
Bug Fix: Fixed crouching using the standing hurtbox.
Bug Fix: Up Special now has a walljump cancel window during active frames.
Olympia is a fan favorite! But more importantly, she is a Dan favorite. He told us not to nerf her so please don’t link him these patch notes. We took a good look at her Forward Special and a couple of her aerials for this first balance patch.
NEUTRAL SPECIAL
Reduced Neutral special’s break hitbox size, 284 x 284 -> 270 x 270
This should remove scenarios where someone gets crystalized while barely touching the field.
Nspecial’s projectile now resets its despawn timer when parried.
A parried projectile will now reach the Olympia that threw it.
Crystalized sprite is now bi-colored.
FORWARD SPECIAL
Forward Special now includes the gauntlet as the hurtbox.
Forward Special’s hitbox moved inwards, 12 -> 6
Forward Special’s endlag is now 28 to 36 frames, depending on charge – was 20 to 36.
These changes to Forward Special will make contesting the move less dangerous and whiff punishing the move easier at low charge. Forward Special still has IASA frames on hit and it starts 25% of the way through the recovery which means the IASA at low charge is slightly slower now.
Reduced the amount Forward Special can push up when hitting a ledge, 40 -> 32 pixels
Olympia will still get a boost onto stage, but now it won’t be so much that it’s visually jarring when she pops up onto the ground when hitting the wall.
UP AIR
Uair landing lag increased, 5 -> 8
Uair endlag increased, 7 -> 10
Uair 2’s base knockback increased, 6 -> 7
Up air should now be a little less powerful when used in hitfall strings, while also sending opponents further out, making follow-ups a little more difficult.
DOWN AIR
Dair sourspot knockback reduced, 6 Base + 0.8 Scaling -> 4 Base + 0.6 Scaling
Dair sweetspot knockback reduced, 10 Base + 1.0 Scaling -> 7 Base + 0.8 Scaling
Dair sourspot hitpause reduced, 6 Base + 0.8 Scaling -> 6 Base + 0.6 Scaling
Dair sweetspot hitpause reduced, 20 Base + 1.0 Scaling -> 12 Base + 1.0 Scaling
Those Down Air numbers were pretty intense, huh? It turns out when sending downward, gravity only adds to your speed. The numbers have been adjusted to be in line with other powerful spikes in the game.
BACK AIR
Reduced Bair’s second hitbox active frames, 14 -> 11
Reduced Bair’s active window, 14 -> 11
Increased Bair’s endlag, 2 -> 5
Back Air’s hitbox now ends when Olympia’s art changes, giving the move more endlag while keeping the total frames the same.
Adjusted Pomme’s tutorial so hitting all 4 nspecial notes should be easier.
Adjusted Olympia’s tutorial so hitting bair into another aerial should be easier.
Fixed a typo in Mollo’s tutorial.
Bug Fix: Updated Pomme’s portrait colors to match shaders better. (Also got rid of a red pixel on her custom color sprite.)
Bug Fix: Fixed Olympia’s custom color screen only having one color slot on the diamond.
Bug Fix: Olympia’s crystalized effect should use consistent colors instead of blinking between swapped colors.
Bug Fix: Removed a black line on Mollo’s landing sprite while holding a bomb.
Bug Fix: Removed a white pixel on the start of Mollo’s parry.
Bug Fix: Fixed the Flashbanged double-visioned effect not displaying correctly.
Bug Fix: Fixed various issues with Ori bashing Mollo bombs.
Bug Fix: Ranno’s Dspecial hitboxes now ignore rock as per hitbox properties instead of being hardcoded. While this doesn’t actually change how ranno interacts with kragg’s rock, some newcomer articles (like Mollo bombs and Olympia gem) rely on this property when checking for hitbox collisions.
Bug Fix: Fixed odd animations when moonwalking as Olympia, Pomme, Mollo, or Hodan.
Bug Fix: Fixed the preferred palettes of Olympia, Pomme, Mollo, and Hodan not saving to profiles.
Bug Fix: Fixed selected palettes not saving.
Bug Fix: Fixed Olympia, Pomme, Mollo, and Hodan not getting an animation when you unlock their milestone.
Bug Fix: The Random Stage button should now be able to choose from any stage skins you’ve unlocked.
Bug Fix: Closed up a gap in collision boxes on Neo Blazing Rail that let players go under the main ground.
Bug Fix: Fixed workshop buddies crashing on load.
Bug Fix: The RCS Season 5 name color now has its trim back.
WORKSHOP
Added the following macros for characters: CH_MOLLO, CH_HODAN, CH_POMME, CH_OLYMPIA
Added the following macros for player states: PS_FLASHED, PS_CRYSTALIZED, PS_BURIED
Rollback Netcode + Workshop Character Pack Release
The time has come! Last April, we announced the inclusion of four community-created characters into the base cast of Rivals of Aether. After an intense year of development we've worked internally, with the original creators, and with our closed beta team to finally bring these characters to life in our free update today!
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What's Included
The workshop character pack is filled to the brim with new content. Each of our four new characters come with their own stages, music, and Abyss Runes right out of the gate. Players familiar with their Steam Workshop versions will find updated kits, animations, sound effects, and much more.
Players who already own Rivals of Aether on Steam will automatically receive the Four-Pack update for free.
Check out that fancy new Character Select Screen!
Mollo
The Smoldering Rage from the future is here! Mollo is taking a break from the rebellion against the treacherous Loxodont to utilize his explosive arsenal of weapons in an all new battlefield. Item management and stage control are key to mastering this moth, as he can do serious damage from a distance, or up close and personal.
Hodan
The Hot Springs Sage cannonballs into Rivals of Aether! Hodan uses his expert technical abilities to empower himself when the time is right. Build charge by holding a downward directional input, then unleash the beast with powerful secondary versions of key moves.
Pomme
The Superstar Songstress has arrived on the scene and is ready to put on a show! Pomme's unique understanding of sound waves allows her to quite literally float through the air, making her a potent threat in even the hardest to reach corners of the battlefield.
Olympia
The Amethyst Fist puts her deep understanding of martial arts to the test as she brawls her way through Aether! Olympia is a fundamental warrior with a clear game-plan of hitting her opponents hard and making each hit count. Stand your ground and strike fear into your opponents, because this one is going to hurt.
Rollback Netcode
Finally, we are excited to announce that Rollback Netcode is leaving our open beta branch to officially become part of the base game with the February 3rd update. Experience the Workshop Character Pack in all its glory with the launch of the long awaited rollback netcode update on PC.
We hope you check out the newest additions to Rivals of Aether today. Thank you to our wonderful community for being with us on this journey. These new characters would not have been possible without the fantastic Workshop community that has blossomed over the years. We hope everyone will have as much fun with them as we have.
Rivals Community Awards Nominations Open
The Rivals Community Awards nominations are officially open! Showcase your favorite creators and players in tons of categories spanning workshop, tournaments, and more. Get involved by writing in your top nominees on any category. Nominations run until Dec. 1st, 2021.
Join us on December 8th as we celebrate our own in a live show hosted by the dev team and special guests.
RCS October Online Majors
Our Rivals Championship Series majors are now available to register for in October! Get your hands on our latest Steampunk themed skin for this year's Rivals Championship Series just for playing.
We'll see you on Twitch for the stream complete with commentary and chat giveaways! North America and European region streams start at the same time as their events.
Skins will be sent out 2 days following weekend events via the email linked to your smash.gg account. Make sure to look in your promo or spam folder if you don't see yours.
Rollback Netcode Open Beta Now Available
Rollback netcode in Rivals of Aether has been a long time coming, and it's proven to be quite the struggle to rebuild our original 1v1 netcode into something more modern. Today we are finally pleased to share that we have reached a point where we are ready to open our Rollback Netcode Beta to the public. Though this is only an open beta phase, it is the culmination of years of work from our team including YellowAfterlife, newcomer Yosi, and contributions from Zach Reedy and Juju.
If the phrase "rollback netcode" leaves you feeling a little lost, the short explanation is that this feature will massively improve online Rivals matches for laggy connections. Once rollback is fully polished up and on the live Steam branch, you can look forward to silky smooth matches with opponents far and wide. Check out this article on why it's a great system for online games, especially fighting games, if you'd like to get more into the nuts and bolts.
Please note that while this beta is functional, there are still some known quirks that we are working on internally related to one-sided rollback issues. We are also aware of a possible crash on match start, but are looking for more data to help debug this one. We expect to polish our rollback implementation over several months with the help of this beta.
Remember the more reports we get from players during this phase, the faster we can roll out fixes and get rollback into the live branch! With all that out of the way - here's how to get started:
How do I get it?
The Rollback Open Beta can only be accessed via Steam. First find Rivals of Aether in your Steam Library. From there:
Important: You can only queue against other players that are also using this branch of the game. You'll need to have no betas selected to find your opponents in official tournaments and events, which you can easily switch back to by following these instructions again and selecting "None" in the dropdown menu.
Improving the Beta
To get rollback netcode out of beta and into the Definitive Edition, we'll need your help! You can start by joining the Official Rivals of Aether Discord. Once you join, you’ll want to navigate to the #rollback-general channel. From there you can discuss the beta with other players, find players to play with and against, or submit bug/desync reports.
If you run into bugs or desyncs, you’ll want to navigate to the appropriate bug submission channel. There you can easily submit reports following the directions as pinned in the channel. This information is extremely valuable to our team and the more reports we get, the easier it is to find and fix issues. If you are participating in the open beta we highly encourage you to submit reports.
For desync issues that happen during testing we'll want some extra information that you can provide like this:
Future Features and Workshop
Right now, rollback is only confirmed for Steam and does not support Workshop characters or other modes outside of 1v1 online play. As we make progress in this open beta we’ll test it on other platforms to see if it’s feasible for consoles performance-wise.
We have no plans currently (or ability) to support Workshop due to how rollback needs a very controlled game state. For modes like teams, FFA, and spectating our goal is to eventually have those all working with rollback.
Rivals Patch Notes [2.0.8.0]: Summer Fine-Tuning and Creatures Steam Launch
As we enter August, patch 2.0.8.0 is ready to hit the beach before the Rivals Championship Series starts at Riptide next month. This patch includes a bunch of small balance adjustments that have come from our behind-the-scenes testing as we prepare to release our first new characters in 3 years. Work on both the Workshop Character Expansion and the Rollback Netcode Beta is also moving along so stay tuned for updates on those in the future.
In other news - Creatures of Aether on Steam for PC and Mac is launching alongside this patch today with crossover content! Help celebrate with our other Aether team friends at Tako Boy Studios for this big milestone. Download the game for free to unlock a brand new stage skin for Air Armada. Definitely give it a try on Steam if you're a new or even returning player - the game has changed a lot in the past year!
Lastly, keep an eye out for more exciting RCS news as well. European and Australian monthly events are now available for registration:
And of course you can still sign up for the first North American event:
Onto the patch notes:
Zetterburn's Up Air is being adjusted to match his visuals and reach lower at the end which also improves the attack as a landing aerial. Forward Air's hitbox has also been adjusted to better match the swing's visuals.
Bubbles are getting a minor nerf allowing players to SDI out of them more effectively while Back Air is getting an adjustment to have weaker base knockback and higher scaling so it KOs slightly later.
Kragg's Up Tilt is going to be more reliable. The angle is being adjusted to combo better while also not being techable. He is also getting a quality of life fix to Up Special so now you don't have to know if the pillar reached you or not when hit out of the vertical stall.
Forsburn has his hurtboxes adjusted so you can't attack his cape on multiple attacks. His Down Strong has been adjusted to have more hitpause and we are bumping up its knockback to compensate since it will be more consistent to DI it. Forward Strong is getting a buff to be more reliable and also have more knockback scaling.
Dash Attack 1 hitpause position move has been adjusted to be more reliable. Back Air 2 hitbox has been increased also to be more reliable.
Down Tilt hitbox now matches the art better and Up Strong is being fixed so its multihits can no longer be SDI'ed.
Menace finally got through to Trevor and Dan and they crumbled and made an adjustment to make Etalus' Forward Strong more reliable.
Charged Flame hit lockout was removed because it was preventing cool charged flame into aerials while not affecting kill confirms with it. Forward Tilt is no longer so disjointed since Ori is not meant to have good disjoint. Dash Attack startup and knockback has been adjusted so its not as spammable into itself because Dan played against 3 Ori players in a row on ranked earlier this year and couldn't handle it anymore.
Jab 2 has been adjusted to not whiff when Jab 1 lands very close. Up Strong is being adjusted to reduce the Up Strong fishing that we see late game especially with DACUS. If you have ever played against a Ranno online, then hopefully you understand.
Clairen Down Strong is getting a little bit of love as a KO option. Now the angle is consistent and the scaling is slightly higher so both the Clairen and her opponent can react to the attack better. Forward Strong is getting a consistent angle on aerial and grounded opponents which will make it just as strong of a KO option during a combo as it is raw on the ground.
We found out that people would like to at least try to DI's Sylvanos' Down Strong.
Missiles are cool but it can be annoying when they are used to combo break and the opponent has already forgot about them. The new offscreen indicators should help the opponent be more aware of their positions. Up Tilt with heat has become a nasty kill confirm for Elliana and while we still want it to be strong, we are adding recovery frames so it's not as guaranteed. Neutral Air and Forward Air are having their angles flipped because Neutral Air has outshined Forward Air in nearly all Elliana scenarios. Now we hope that both can see usage in high level play. Neutral Special early hit was adjusted to combo into the rocket fist more reliably.
Shovel Knight Down Tilt was adjusted to not whiff inside him when it looks like it should hit. Down Air was adjusted so the spike has a sweet spot and sour spot since the late spike can feel cheesy to be caught with late.
We hope everyone has been having a safe and fun summer so far in 2021! Let us know what you think of the patch in the comments below or on social media.
Diamond Grove Crossover Stage Skin Coming to Rivals
We've got a surprise next week for fans of both Creatures and Rivals of Aether! When Creatures of Aether releases on Steam next Monday, we'll also be adding a brand new stage skin to Rivals styled after the Diamond Grove arena. Players who download Creatures of Aether, our free-to-play card game on Steam, will automatically unlock the stage skin at no charge. Be sure to add Creatures of Aether to your wishlist today.
Diamond Grove arena originally comes from the world of Creatures of Aether, and was brought to life in the Steam Workshop by fespadea and BatitThePlant. We loved their adaptation, and after reaching out to the creators, we've made a few adjustments to convert the stage into an official reskin of Air Armada! The stage features several well known creatures from the Aether universe in their natural habitat, and new music from flashygoodness.
Here comes Gorillanado! Original CoA concept by @rephildesign
New Music!
With a new stage skin comes a new alternate track, and flashygoodness sent us a sneak peak for Monday's release! Check it out:
[previewyoutube="fSCL0tfM2vQ;full"]
About Creatures of Aether
Creatures of Aether is a free to play card game created by Tako Boy Studios in collaboration with Dan Fornace and the Rivals of Aether team. Collect elemental creatures from around the world of Aether including powerful Rival cards. Inspired by the card game Triple Triad, Creatures of Aether blows the doors off the formula with its elemental gameplay. Once you learn the basics of flipping cards, you’ll need to account for the four elements and powerful abilities to turn the board to your favor.
Creatures of Aether on Steam will feature crossplay, allowing players to match with its already thriving mobile playerbase. Accounts are shared between versions, so current players can sign in with your Aether Account and take their collection from mobile to the big screen and back again. If you’re new to Creatures of Aether or want to learn more, you can read more about it on our Steam page.
