CHARACTERS

JAINA

--Knee (forward+A), the last 2f of active frames are now recovery frames.

--Ground super is 2f faster, 0+24f -> 0+22f (0 frames before the super flash, 22 frames after)

--Upgraded all Jaina’s moves to our new hitbox system.

--Adjusted animation smear on back+A kick so that it no longer smears during the recovery.

ROOK

--Fixed a bug with air C that caused Geiger and Argagarg to get up too quickly when they get knocked down by this move.

--Air C hangs in the air 4f longer before falling, but also recovers 4f faster after it touches the ground. This is to make it a little easier to jump and counter if you know it’s coming. It also allows Rook to act 4f sooner relative the opponent if they get knocked down by air C, compared to last month’s patch. (Well, against Geiger and Argagarg, Rook can act 4f sooner + another 13f or so because of the bug-fix above, which was unrelated to any intentional balance change.)

GEIGER

--Changed the animation for forward+A poke to look cooler and more like his Yomi card. No gameplay change.

DEGREY

--Fixed a hitbox bug that caused DeGrey’s B->A (Daggerfall Thrust) punch to always miss vs a ghost-grabbed opponent.

MIDORI

--Dragon Form’s jump A. The second hit no longer has a huge hitbox extending way below his body. We adjusted these hitboxes when we added animation smears, but somehow a very large crazy hitbox got in the mix. Rolling that back, but this move is still very high priority.

--Human Form’s jump forward A. Upgraded this move to our new hitbox system. Priority is lower than before but still good.

ARGAGARG

--Switched the commands for neutral A and back+A. Before, the faster anti-air options was on neutral, but now it’s on back+A so that it’s easier to block, then do that move at the last moment.

--Back+A (the fast anti-air) is now active to hit 1f sooner (same total number of frames).

--Neutral A (the long range diagonal anti-air) can now be cancelled to B and C specials on hit or block.

--Forward+A (long range punch) has 4f faster startup, 16f -> 12f. This is specifically so it can punish a blocked Setsuki B kick at most ranges.

--Bubble Shield (ground super) no longer pops automatically when you block. Now, you pop it manually whenever you want (while you’re on the ground) by pressing S again. You can do this when you are in neutral state (just standing there or walking) or in blockstun. Note that while it’s popping, you can walk forward and the hitting zone of it moves forward with you.

--Bubble Shield no longer shifts between small bubbles and the large bubble surrounding Argagarg. Now it’s always the large bubble. Before, the small bubbles tried to communicate that Bubble Shield did nothing when he wasn’t blocking, but now it’s cleaner to always keep it the big bubble and always allow it to pop when you press S.

--When you activate Bubble Shield then do air C, you can still press C again to get the super pop in the air. Now, you can also press S to do that same super pop. Also, after the air super pop, you can now do another air move before you land. It’s now possible to, for example, hit with air super pop then combo with air A before you land.

--Fixed a small graphical error where Argagarg’s skin would clip through part of his pants on his hips.

MISC

--The connection quality indicator during online matches was accidentally hidden last patch, is now back to displaying properly.

--Converted hitboxes for all characters’ idle animations, walks, and blocks (except Grave, which was done previously) to our newer system. While this doesn’t change that much from a player’s perspective, it makes attacks vs these states more precise. The hitboxes generally match the art well and they don’t bounce around during animations. They have straight, stable lines. This fixes various 1% edge cases that were buggy and would randomly causes some hits to miss before. Examples are Geiger’s neutral A punch vs Rook (who is blocking) and DeGrey’s B->A Daggerfall Thrust vs Midori who had the glowing yellow throw state (and who was standing still in idle pose). Both of these missed before due to irregularities in hitboxes, but both now hit as intended. Hit detection might feel a bit more solid now.

--Landing recovery for empty jumps (meaning you didn’t do an air attack) changed from 1f -> 0f, and landing recovery for all moves that used to have 1f -> 2f. This is experimental. It means that jumping and not doing any move has some slight advantage, as it usually does in fighting games.

--Fixed (we think?) an occasional crash that could occur during online play, that showed a “GGPO assertion” error. It was when a player received UDP packets out of order, we were not handling the older packets correctly.

--When you get a draw game, the rematch screen now says “DRAW GAME!” instead of “D G !”

--Hitsparks now appear in more accurate locations. Though it sounds like a small thing, it really helps the hits look better. Before, there were too many cases where the spark would appear strangely far away from the point of impact.

