It's been a wild summer packed with plenty of Rivals events and announcements, and we don’t plan to stop anytime soon. Strap in and and get ready for the largest patch we've had all year with a brand new guest character, fresh stages, updated animations, and lots more!
Shovel Knight Delves into Rivals of Aether
The wielder of the legendary Shovel Blade joins the roster as our final guest in a collaboration between Dan Fornace LLC and Yacht Club Games. Shovel Knight is available now for $4.99 on Steam, which includes Shovel Knight himself and the standalone Troupple Pond stage.
As always, you can try Shovel Knight for free in our character tutorial section.
New Stages
Two completely new stages have been added featuring areas from both Sylvanos’ and Elliana’s story. You can unlock these stages yourself by purchasing (or already owning) the Sylvanos and Elliana character DLC.
Fight in the deadly undergrowth of the Aetherian Forest on “The Forest Floor”. Make sure you keep an eye on the local flora in Aether Mode, or you’ll find out firsthand the reason the Tree Dwellers never venture below.
Visit the Steampunk town where Elliana built her infamous mech. Fight on the city skyline and across an ongoing delivery operation in the bustling city of “Julesvale”.
As our stage list grows we’ll continue to evaluate its competitive impact. In line with that goal, we’ve also added an additional stage ban this patch (upping the bans to three) along with these exciting new locales.
Game Engine Update
We've been hard at work on a game engine upgrade all summer, and are pleased to announce that GameMaker Studio 2 is back. Once again, this should provide immediate improvements to help gameplay run smoother for most players, as well as set us up for future upgrades and additional platforms.
If you have trouble launching the game, controller problems, or any other issues on the newest patch - please run DXDiag and send us some information about your PC by using the “Save All Information” button. To run DXDiag simply type ‘DXDiag’ into your start bar.
Other General Changes
- Moonwalk duration increased from 18 to 24.
- Moonwalking is locked out for the first 2 frames of initial dash (makes keyboard/dpad moonwalking equal to joystick moonwalking).
- Double jumps are no longer restored when hit within 6 frames of double jumping.
- Reflecting projectiles doubles their base hitpause.
- Being put into the flinch state will now restore your airdodge.
- Bouncing off the ground after missing a tech will no longer restore your double jump.
- You can now parry during respawn invincibility, but you become vulnerable when doing so.
- Kill move shockwaves have been replaced with a new effect. If the move will kill with no DI or inward DI (ignoring drift and obstacles) then you will get the standard burst effect. If the move is a guaranteed kill (ignoring ledge tech, but taking drift and obstacles into account) then you will get a 20 frame burst effect with a special background that covers the entire screen.
Character Specific Changes
- Forward tilt hit 1 now pulls enemies inward during hitpause, allowing hit 2 to connect more consistently.
- Burn is now removed on parry.
- Bug fix: Forward Strong/Down Strong hit 1 now moves enemies during hitpause when connecting with the last frame of the hitbox.
- Down Strong endlag increased from 19 to 21 (29 > 32 on whiff).
- If Nair is held, it now bounces off the ground if you land while the hitbox is active.
- Forward Air and Down Special bubbles spawn/move in preset patterns instead of randomly.
- Down Air semi-spike hitbox angle flipper removed.
- Forward Special no longer interrupts attacks.
- Forward Tilt hitboxes adjusted in size and position. These first two hitboxes now additionally pull inward to make connecting the third hit more reliable.
- Neutral Special disjoint removed.
- Neutral Special hit lockout no longer applies to the final hitboxes of the move. This fixes a bug where they would miss due to the last multihit hitboxes hitting late.
- Down Strong will now bounce if connecting on the frame before landing.
- Down Special changed into a two-hit attack (to prevent it from heavily winning trades).
- Up Special sweetspot angle flipper removed.
- Prat fall air acceleration multiplier increased from 0.25 to 0.5.
- Forward Air landing lag increased from 6 to 8 (9 > 12 on whiff).
- Angle flipper removed on rockless Neutral Special.
- Removed invincibility from clone creation.
- Shortly after starting Forward Special, it will now go on a cooldown. This makes it so you can't Forward Special again immediately if it's interrupted.
- Forsburn no longer retains smoke charges when super clone dies from the bottom blastzone.
- Parrying clone explosion now allows you to cancel parry's endlag, like other projectiles.
- Forsburn can now use regular Down Special immediately after the clone explodes.
- Forward Air decreased in size to match animation better.
- Up Air active frames decreased from 16 to 10. Endlag added so that it's the same on hit, but has more whifflag.
- Getting interrupted while performing Forward Special or Neutral Special while fully charged now causes you to lose all smoke charges.
- Forward Special and Neutral Special Cloud Pop will no longer hit Absa if parried near her.
- Fixed a bug that made Up Tilt 1 frame faster on hit than it should be. Increased from 8 on hit, 14 on whiff to 9 on hit, 14 on whiff.
- Forward Special hitbox size increased to make hitting with and parrying this move more consistent.
- Neutral Special now gains armor 1 frame earlier so that trading with the move doesn't stop it from getting armor.
- Down Special is now walljump-cancellable when done near a wall.
- Enemies can no longer be frozen during the respawn state (fixes a bug that turned enemies invisible).
- Hitpause removed from Sein taps when they do no knockback.
- Bashing rock on the frame it hits the ground should no longer crash the game.
- Sein's Team-up Down Strong hitboxes increased in size inward to stop the move from whiffing opponents in the center.
- Team-up Forward Strong back hitbox now carries opponents into the front hitboxes.
- If a projectile is destroyed while being bashed, Ori will now be launched upward instead of going into special fall.
- Charged Flame will no longer hit Ori when parried near them.
- Neutral Special endlag scales from 18 to 12 based on how many needles were thrown. Endlag was previously 12 for aerial needle and 18 for grounded needle.
- Getting hit during Neutral Special now causes Ranno to lose all needle charges.
- Forward Tilt endlag increased from 12 to 15 (18 > 23 on whiff).
- Dash Attack endlag increased from 13 to 16 (20 > 24 on whiff).
- Down Special will no longer create a plasma field if the counter attack is parried.
- Tail removed from hurtboxes (except during the active frames of Forward Tilt).
- Solo Up Air2 base knockback decreased from 9 to 8.
- Forward Tilt startup increased from 5 to 7.
- Forward Tilt projectile now comes out 2 frames later so that trading with Forward Tilt will always prevent the projectile from spawning.
- Up Tilt startup decreased from 8 to 6.
- The first hit of Down Tilt (both hitboxes) now has 4 extra frames of hitpause for the opponent, making it link reliably in most cases.
- Down Special will stop spreading if Sylvanos is hit.
- Holding taunt while emerging from Up Special now cancels Up Special into a taunt.
- Sylvanos no longer creates grass while rolling or tech rolling.
- Grass on cooldown will now be removed on death.
- Down Special will no longer hit Sylvanos when parried near him.
- Bug fix: Forward Tilt projectile hitbox height increased to match the visual.
- Once per airtime, hovering in the opposite direction of your horizontal momentum will give you a boost in the new direction (the same boost other characters get when they double jump). Going into hitstun resets this ability.
- Uncharged Forward Special knockback increased from [6 BKB .1 Scaling] to [7 BKB .2 Scaling].
- Uncharged Forward Special cooldown increased from 0 to 20.
- Charged Forward Special knockback scaling increased from .9 to 1.0.
- Charged Forward Special hitpause increased.
- Up Special will no longer hurt Elliana when parried near her.
- Elliana's mech now moves with moving platforms when left behind with Up Special.
- Down Special's mine now takes 100 frames to become active when stuck to a player, unless they're in parry stun.
- Up Special's mech now only explodes when it's overheated. When deployed, it will automatically build up heat. This change adds 30 frames of startup time if you have 0 heat built up, while keeping the startup the same if you're overheated.