Absolver Gameplay Beta: full Patch Note

Hi everybody,

Please find below all the details for the Gameplay beta that will take place tonight until Monday!

Announcement Post with servers opening hour is here

Attacks

Stamina

Min stamina cost 5 → 10 Max stamina cost 27.5 → 24

We redefined the stamina cost of all attacks to have less difference between the lightest and strongest attack.

It’s mainly a nerf for the fast attack spamming behaviour.

All Stopping Attacks

Impact on guard bonus (+10)

In general Stopping Attacks seem to be weaker than Double Hits (which have the same function against Charging Attacks, plus more advantages)

To buff the Stopping attacks we decided to give a bonus of impact on guard, and, as you’ll see later in this patch note, only Eye Poke still hits high, other Stopping Attacks cannot be avoided by ducking anymore.

Start-Up (a.k.a. Build-Up) (in frames)

We realized that we didn’t have a good distribution of attacks in term of Start-Up length (too many attacks were between 14 and 16 frames).

So we decided to change some Start-Up to have a better distribution.

During this process we favored increasing the speed of the attacks instead of slowing them down.

Breaking Attacks

Rising Double Hand: 16 → 18 (+2) Pommel Bash: 16 → 17 (+1) Hammer Kick: 21 → 20 (-1) Knee Strike: 21 → 20 (-1) Collar Chop: 24 → 23 (-1) Spiral Palm: 27 → 25 (-2)

Charging Attacks

Furious Uppercut: 22 → 23 (+1) Hadrunken: 21 → 22 (+1) Charged Haymaker: 23 → 21 (-2)

Stopping Attacks

Dwit Chagi: 13 → 14 (+1) Crushing Palm: 14 → 15 (+1) Bending Palm: 18 → 17 (-1) Eye Poke: 16 → 15 (-1) Cross Punch: 16 → 14 (-2) Pulmonary Palm: 20 → 16 (-4)

Strafing Attacks

Seven Star Thrust: 25 → 23 (-2)

Regular Attacks

Twist Back Kick: 15 → 16 (+1) Wide Slash: 15 → 16 (+1) Tendon Slash: 15 → 16 (+1) Knife Hand Strike: 13 → 12 (-1) Hook: 11 → 10 (-1) Spin Elbow: 12 → 11 (-1) Spin Back Fist: 13 → 12 (-1) Crouching Elbow: 12 → 11 (-1) Stretch Out Hook: 13 → 12 (-1) Direct punch: 10 → 9 (-1) Back Hop Wrist: 11 → 10 (-1) Fast Punch: 15 → 13 (-2) Uramawashi: 14 → 12 (-2) Wallop Blow: 15 → 13 (-2) Chin Palm: 14 → 12 (-2) Backfall Strike: 13 → 11 (-2)

Standard Release (a.k.a. Recovery) (in frames)

Direct Punch: 4 → 7 (+3) Jab Punch: 3 → 6 (+3) Back Turn Wrist: 4 → 6 (+2) Fast Back Fist: 3 → 5 (+2) Fast Elbow: 5 → 7 (+2) Parry & Strike: 4 → 5 (+1) Back Hop Wrist: 7 → 6 (-1) Spin Elbow: 6 → 5 (-1)

Direct Punch, Jab Punch and Fast Elbow are very fast attacks that end in the same stance, by walking the player can cancel the animation and do the same attack again and again quite fast. We decided to increase a bit their Standard Release to nerf this behaviour.

Other modifications are adjustments to fit with other fast attacks.

Target & Movement

High → Mid

Cross Punch

Drunk Stomp

Back Fist

Mill Punch

Illusion Twist Kick

The goal was to buff Cross Punch, Drunk Stomp and Back Fist, now they cannot be avoided by ducking.

Because of its double hit property the Mill Punch was not consistent to avoid by ducking, now you must avoid it with an avoid side.

The modification on Illusion Twist Kick does not change the gameplay as it’s already a vertical attack.

Mid → High

Reverse Hips Slash

Sickle Slash

Painstaking Slash

Twist Back Kick

Forward Lean Slash

Mill Slash

To avoid the confusion about Mid/Horizontal attacks that can be avoided by ducking, we decided to make the following attacks target High (Reverse Hips Slash, Sickle Slash, Painstaking Slash, Twist Back Kick, Forward Lean Slash)

Modification on Mill Slash doesn’t change the gameplay as it’s a vertical attack.

Thrust → Horizontal

Jar Bash

This Attack has enough range of motion to be considered Horizontal.

Thrust → Vertical

Reverse Rising Thrust

Even if it’s called “Thrust” the movement makes it weird to be avoided by ducking.

Vertical → Thrust

Duster Blow

Drop Slash

Pushed Back Kick

Jump Out Elbow

All these attacks are now considered thrust so they can be avoided by ducking.

Other

Reverse Twist Slash: High/Thrust → Mid/Vertical

The animation doesn’t correspond to a thrust.

Backfall Strike: Mid/Vertical → High/Thrust

Backfall Strike can now be avoided by ducking.

Special abilities

The goal is to have a more common base between the 3 main abilities.



Same stamina cost + similar releases → mostly same penalty when spamming the ability.

Less differences of advantage frames → the Parried Stun has been nerfed to decrease the feeling of combat flow broken.

Then the balancing was based on the difficulty to use the ability (choose the right direction) and the effects/rewards given.



Note: Release Cancelled is when you cancel your ability release by doing an attack or a dodge.

Note 2: You can see a recap of all special abilities properties at the end of this patch note.

Kahlt

Absorb

Release (in frames) Cancelled 0 → 6 (+6) Standard 6 → 10 (+4)

Now the Absorb have the same kind of anti-spam as other abilities. It still has the shortest Standard Release, but the longer Cancelled one.

Windfall

Avoid

Stamina Cost 10 → 15 Release (in frames) Cancelled 4 → 5 (+1) Standard 9 → 11 (+2)

Avoided

Duration 0.5s → 0.4s Avoided Effect: Stamina Refill Coeff x0.3 → x0.5

With the avoided state almost working 100%, this effect was a little bit too strong.

Forsaken

Parry

Stamina Cost 5 → 15 Active Frames 5 → 6 (+1)

Release (in frames) Cancelled 6 → 4 (-2) Standard 14 → 12 (-2)

Parry Successful

Stamina Bonus 15 → 30

Parried

Duration 0.65s → 0.5s

Parried Effect Duration 1.5s Damage Received x1.25

The parry has a lot of modifications because we decrease the stun from 0.65s to 0.5s (No more guarantee heavy damages with the Side Kick).

The cost in stamina is the same as for the other abilities, and the Standard Release is still the longest one but the Cancelled one is now the shortest.

To balance these changes, the number of Active Frames is the same as the other abilities, the difference between the stamina bonus and cost is a little bit bigger, and now the parried character has a penalty on the damage received during 1.5s (compared to the Side Kick the damages received are still below)

Stagger

Side

Release (in frames) Goldlink 1 → 0 (-1) Standard 9 → 7 (-2) Range 170cm → 180cm Decreased side movement

Down

Release (in frames) 9 → 8 (-1) Range 30cm → 40cm

Up

Release (in frames) Goldlink 3 → 2 (-1) Standard 11 → 10 (-1)

The main issue we want to fix with the Stagger is when its attacks doesn’t connect when it should.

We decreased the side movement of Side Attacks and increased a little bit their range to limit the issue.

Here is a recap of the Special Abilities Properties :

Stamina Shard Effects BU Active Release canceled

by attack/dodge Release Adv frames When att. goldlink Cost Gain Diff Gain Attacker Defender min max min max Absorb 15 20 5 0.2 def +20 (5s) 3 6 6 10 4 14 1 8 Avoid 15 40 25 0.25 stam -10

refill stam x0.5 (1.5s) 3 6 5 11 12 20 12 20 Parry 15 30 15 0.35 damage received x1.25

(1.5s) 3 6 4 12 15 15 15 15

Stamina Shard Effects Def (avoid/absorb) Attack Cost Gain Diff Gain Attacker Defender BU Active BU Active PL Release Drunken

Side 20 0 -20 0.1 refill stam x1.2

action cost x0.8 (5s) 3 6 17 4 0 7 Drunken

Down 20 0 -20 0.1 3 7 17 5 1 8 Drunken

Up 20 0 -20 0.1 4 13 15 3 2 10

About the saves

You can copy and paste your main save folder content in the newly created “Beta” folder, once you have launched the Beta game at least once (so the branch folder and its corresponding save folders are created).

Please note that we do not recommend using your Beta save in the actual game, during Beta or once it is over: compatibility issues can occur.

In any case, we recommend backing up your save folder if you want to use it in the gameplay Beta.