The Unofficial Official Beta Discussion Thread

[KuroOneHalf]

Just wanted to voice a tiny bit of feedback about Annie's star power: I wish the sound effect of the stars on hit would be improved. It's very hard to tell by ear when a star has made contact, and makes getting hit by it feel unresponsive.

 

[Mithost]

SQUIGLY

• No urgent changes at this time, changes could arrive later or after another wave of discussion.
• I think she's a decent baseline for character strength. Has some powerful strengths, obvious weaknesses, she's very good or "there are better picks" tier depending on who you ask and who's playing her. Love it, personally!
• Could experiment with giving her access to uncharged versions of specials (while charged) if she performs QCB instead of QCF.

Hi Liam! I appreciate all the effort you've put into communicating with the community about this wonderful game. I'm sure I'm not speaking for just myself when I say posts like this gives us a lot of confidence and comfort regarding changes made to the game.

Re: Squigly:

I had a few worries during the initial testing of changes for her with the Annie alpha but I feel like the changes to her that made it to retail in that wave were great, and that she's in a great spot right now because of it.

That being said, I would love to try out uncharged specials via QCB. Currently it can sometimes feel like a weird quirk to her kit where the reward of getting stance comes at the cost of not being able to use many of her other specials without wasting it. This might be less of a worry in teams that can help her reliably build stance though, I'm not sure.

 

[Totoyoyu]

SQUIGLY

• No urgent changes at this time, changes could arrive later or after another wave of discussion.
• I think she's a decent baseline for character strength. Has some powerful strengths, obvious weaknesses, she's very good or "there are better picks" tier depending on who you ask and who's playing her. Love it, personally!
• Could experiment with giving her access to uncharged versions of specials (while charged) if she performs QCB instead of QCF.

One change that would be cool would be to give uncharged center stage armor. Most people opt to use either DnB or cremation as their assist so I think changing Squigly's most unique assist would be fun.

(This is incredibly specific but I like the idea of center stage making "corner walls." Right now if you're playing Black Dahlia and you try to set up corner specific setups in the midscreen with center stage, the bullets will just go through the wall made by center stage. If your playing in the corner the bullets will bounce back, creating some really fun mix opportunities. Center stage already allows for mid-screen double snaps, so making the walls more akin to the corner would be nice.)

I also really like the proposed idea of saving charge with the uncharged variants of moves.

 

[Nuuance]

@SeaJay def get that vantage point, I was just hoping for more initially. But doesn't take away from what new stuff is dropping. hoping other features/QoL stuff w/UI/UX gets focused on before dev cycles are mostly done. There were some banger ideas.

I guess my only ask apart from eliza thread stuff is her assist specials just being better or at least holdable so she can setplay a bit better with her more slow way of playing rather than depending on jmk & the like so much -- feel like thats fair. The squigly uncharged specials thing'll be fun to try & glad that was considered. Means a lot, thanks Liam and everyone part of SG team.

p.s. will otterUI be a mainstay from here on out? Would love some replay mode additions (replay takeover??) & private lobby modifiers if it doesnt break sg. oh & 'hide menu'

 

[tarrasq]

TWO TOUCHES

Firstly, thank you for the update. Appreciate all your hard work. I like two touches and the way they work in sg, i think the undizzy/ips system is very well designed currently. I think peoples issues with two touches currently revolve around who exactly gets access to them and how, namely fortune/annie teams. It's hard to bring to mind other comps that do the sort of roundstart 2 touch into 2 touching the mid that Liam mentions besides this shell, so I think adjustments to these characters might remove the need for global system changes.

MAX UNDIZZY LOOPS + DAMAGE

Pretty much the same; I think adjustments to fortune and annie, the current primary abusers of this kind of max undizzy loop, will make this kind of sweeping global change unnecessary. If any of the proposed changes to hits at max undizzy went through I would prefer that it be the scaling one rather than the combo stage one. I think it's hard enough to tell what stage you're in and it would require some kind of tutorial adjustment for sure.

I do think theres a good idea here in the form of the proposed "super gold burst", because right now bursting a zoner off you and having them go back to their wincon feels terrible. I think we could experiment with gold bursts forcing this kind of sliding knockdown.

SQUIGLY

I think Squigly is in a good spot right now and is a great baseline for a strong high tier character, so I don't really think she needs the proposed charge storage buff. Largely agree with Juuse's thoughts on that above.

ELIZA

I think sugma brains working on dead characters is fine. It's kinda thematically appropriate, I think it's cool to trade excess meter for a bit of extra healing, and it doesn't seem like an excessive amount of health ever since the nerfs.

PEACOCK

Definitely on board with proposed nerfs to CH damage on her zoning and making her feel more interactive to fight fullscreen, along with the Lenny stuff. Would prefer to see Lenny get its damage lowered significantly along with Peacock having hatred install-level metergain or lower while its out. Regarding the bombs disappearing when you hit her, I honestly think they should just go away, period, without either of the caveats you described. I think the way george works right now is super degenerate and would only make sense if peacock had a significantly weaker defensive toolkit than she actually does. I could see them maybe staying on projectile hits to avoid her insta-losing zoning wars.

PAINWHEEL

Im glad to see Painwheel possibly getting some love, but im genuinely confused as to why right out of the gate we're talking about nerfing her current primary (only?) strength if she gets any of the stuff her players insist she needs. She's not strong right now, arguably weaker than Fukua, who is on track for a gigantic buff, so I think she could stand to get some on point stuff without making her a worse DHC character at least as a test. At the very least she needs at least one more interesting assist choice, ideally having access to charged normals.

CEREBELLA

Glad to hear glide>clap is coming back, that'll be interesting. Can we make it so that j2MP always hits in stage 2? The current state where it can sometimes start you in stage 3 depending on what height you hit it at is unintuitive and frustrating.

I think bella has some lackluster or useless moves in her kit currently. spoilered

Spoiler: bella screed

-L LnL is straight up useless imo, not sure where to start with this. Could make it projectile invuln?
-I think Excellabella is extremely unrewarding on raw hit right now for it's risk. I'd like to see that produce a sliding knockdown like titan knuckle.
-It would be nice if flick staggered for longer to make punishes more consistent
-I think more assists should offer bella some kind of midscreen dynamo conversion

ROBO-FORTUNE

This is the thing where fortune always stays onscreen during H Beam, right? Really want to see that tested again, I think it's crazy that the best neutral assist in the game right now comes from offscreen a significant portion of the time.

ANNIE

Install changes, thank god, so glad that will finally feel like a complete mechanic. Also glad to hear that Destruction Pillar is getting adjusted, but still hoping we see changes to this and a few other parts of her kit before any global stuff.

BLACK DAHLIA

• Something(s) will change with Ice Shot, and perhaps a few other things for shots.

yayyy i get to play

One thing about Dahlia that I strongly dislike right now is that cMK trap stays when I hit her. Annoying and degenerate for the same reasons as george but offers her an easier, more powerful conversion. Would like to see one or both of the proposed george nerfs applied to it.



alright that's it for me, ill edit this post if I think of anything later. Thanks again for you and the team's hard work on Skullgirls, really appreciate it.

 

[Wenzel]

Bit of a tangent here actually: The version of SG that even I would like the most probably has a lot of changes compared to the version we're in front of today, but it's not my game, or any other individual's game, it's the communities collective game. From very early on playing Skullgirls I learned you just have to accept that you'll enjoy 90% of a fighting game and perhaps really disagree with 10% of it. This happens all the time for me, but if you just focus on what you like things end up balancing out, because the things you dislike are often the reason why someone else plays the game at all in the first place! I don't even particularly enjoy reset based gameplay, I find executing the powerful defensive techniques with strict timing under duress that decide if I win or lose a set to be pretty frustrating, I find two touch meta pretty boring, etc, but there's tons of stuff in there I really like, so I don't mind, nor do I think anyone should be pushing too hard to flip it on its head if that's not something the community at large is into. As long as you're not constantly complaining so loudly about things you dislike that you're dissuading potential new players from giving the game a try to figure out what THEY like (or don't like!) about it, it's all fine and part of the process IMO!

For that reason, we'll be trying to focus on slam dunk "EVERYONE (mostly) LIKED THAT" changes first before we dive into adjusting things that are much more likely to be earth shattering and change tons of things at once. I prefer to leave large game feel and pacing things alone, since after all, everyone posting on this forum is here is doing so because for one reason or another they found something they love about the game just the way it is. Of course there's a point where some things are so powerful that they have to be adjusted whether you like it or not, and that's the hardest part of the job for me at least. Not a fan of disappointing anyone, but someone will always disagree with a particular change even if the majority feel it's better for the "health" and overall balance of viable strategies in the game, so onward we go...

I think there are enough reasons to not mess with too many knobs and dials at the same time, and there are a ton of players who really appreciate the pace of 2 touch under the right conditions (TBD). It does feel like the vast majority of players don't think Ms. Fortune should two touch you from basic round start conditions for example, but at the same time I've seen arguments saying that it's fine when other characters and teams do it (not even Beo Band), which still feels very contradictory to me. (At what point does your team having X% better neutral that validate consistent two touches?) I do like the notion of distinguishing between two touching off clean hits such as getting right in their face with your assist off cooldown and landing a high / low, vs two touching off worse starters like an air throw, a down back DP assist call, a stray Luger that leads to a combo, etc. I think starting with more targeted two touch damage nerfs on some of the most problematic examples (in addition to other general balancing for the top tiers, and the "low" tiers) is a good place to start, and we can see how things grow from there.

Thank you for sharing your personal feeling about SG as a player I think it is a very mature vision of your transition from player to developer.

I have been playing since launch and over all these years I have seen biased opinions from the perspective of tunnel vision among players even happened to me at some point.

Thanks for trying to protect the "integrity of what defines and makes the game fun/appealing."I loved the comparisons of your examples! hahaha

 

[DoubleOrNothing]

Feel free to chew me out or destroy anything I say really.
---
For Squigly, curious about having unchanged available whiled charged, I'd like to try that.

For Fortune only thing on my mind would be j.LK, c.LK's hit boxes or frame data to tweak. Fibers being more punishable is deserved. One thing I'd like for Fortune with all these changes is headless s.MP being a bit bigger as sometimes it just whiffs outta nowhere? I do think Fortune's one of those characters that no matter what's gonna be great, lotta people think that. Always saw people complain about Fortune s.LP but it being 6f or 7f wouldn't really be the biggest deal for me at least. If the c.LK loops go though I will miss them it's stuff like that that drew me to her in the first place.

For Peacock, her getting Parasoul rules and the projectiles going away would be a great boon, even if delayed, SoID, also curious where that could go.

For Filia I don't have much but maybe a slight buff on s.MK's hitbox as there've been some moments where I've done s/c.LK into s.MK and it whiffs? Could be me though.

For Cerebella, I don't see why people wanted j.HP to be mid? Honestly it coming back even though I don't play her often would be something I consider good, I always thought it was a few other things that she did there was more ... je ne sai quoi?

For Valentine, I dropped her because for me a lot of her normals felt stiff, juxtapose to the other cast members where I felt it being smooth. Moves like s.MP, c.MK, s.HP, sometimes even s.LPx2/3. One thing I always thought would be interesting was to change Orange vial to a meter drain instead of *Brazil* vial. (Lol). I always have her as a bench warmer and I enjoy her on small doses when I play, maybe some small touches would put her up a notch?

For Parasoul, an M. Egret buff would be welcome, a lot of the times vs Peacock I call him and I dash forward just to get clipped by my tip toe, when I think M. Egret would take care of it. From going farther, to taking 1 hit of non-projectile armor. Curious to see what/if anything happens there.
---For Soul I do ask myself a lot of times, "should s.LPx2 max range confirm into s.MP"?

For Fukua, go for it, looking forward to seeing Softie's Fukua as usual. <3

For Beowulf, no idea, guy just hurts, simple as that. Only thing I ask is if anyone else thinks making the hop dash j.LK go up a little higher would help people block it better?

Umbrella, got nothing, would like to see ravenous not be the go-to thing. Would like to see all hunger modes have a boon/bane as it seems like it's 95% ravenous and 5% stuffed. Could be me.

For Annie, Star Power changes would be something I'd be super excited to go and do.

For Dahlia, I'm sincerely shocked anyone considered how j.HK is as a problem? And it feels like the Empower nerf on bodies is a nerf for the sake of a nerf?
---
Ending

With the Annie DP talk, it makes me think, how hard is it to punish all the other DP assists compared to Annie's? Made me very curious, reading the post has actually been refreshing and given me stuff to think about. So thanks for that.

 

[The_laboratory]

Just adding my 2 cents about my characters I play at the moment Beowulf, Peacock, Robo and Band.

Personally I think Beowulf is in the best spot he's ever been in bar pre hype changes in 2017, whilst beotrain is still the shell to play with him. In my eyes it always will be unless you fundamentally change how the character is. I do think he is in a sweet spot right now where he can function without assists quite well look at iDante and Nezo's results. However, Bandless beo won't be as strong as just regular Beo Brass or Beo train, that has always been the case tbh and always will be just because of how Beowulf is. I don't mind if he loses his ToD's/easy 2 touches as a result of nerfs as long as he gets to keep the ability to two touch for one or two bars, his strength is damage and oki at the end of the day. Also I do not agree with the idea of being able to spend hype 1 time per combo it would just kill his combo game tbh and make it boring because cashing out resources for big damage is the point of the character

Band is fine tbh

Peacock: she's been nerfed every beta cycle or at least nearly all of them, I think she deserves to keep certain things like SoID being the way it is. it's fine if it gets nerfed to where an OTG pick up is needed it's fine the move is still super good.
Lenny, I do agree with making it a level 2 tbh, other than that the move is fine, with bombs I am a bit iffy on that one. I think we have to be careful to not just gut characters with endless nerfs and she is a perfect example of that because people will always scream about what they don't like with her and try and get her nerfed, she's been toned down enough now to where she is still strong but that gap that was originally there between her and the rest of the cast is not so big, she is still top 3 but not top 1 imho.

Robo: She's fine nerfing H beam assist is the direction to go, and if it's by keeping her on screen for all of H beam I am perfectly fine with that

I don't feel like I have enough authority or judgement to give an opinion or an assessment to the level of others so I only focused on what I know best which is my team

 

[LalitoTV]

Now that balance discussion is relevant again, i wanted to share that I, as a peacock player, have always found one thing and one thing only to be 100%, unequivocally broken: The teleport 50/50

One thing i love about skullgirls is how you can practically always block through a wave of enemy attacks if you know what to look for, in that sense teleport is actually imposible to deal with, and yet it doesn't feel like it was designed to be this way exactly? After all they DID bother to give peacock different voice lines for each teleport version, but there are issues with that:

1.- Peacock's alternate voices, she has three different sets of voice lines, which makes it difficult to actually try to keep track of the correct one because her lines can and will change. Not to mention that her japanese voice speaks so slowly that is LITERALLY impossible to know what version she's using before she comes out of the other side. On top of that, Skullgirls is such a loud game, there'll probably be something that muffles the voice line anyway.
2.- Fire in the hole: even if you miraculously hear the voice line for the H teleport correctly, peacock can trick you by using her fake teleports.


So i propose two things:

1.- Make it so that H teleport CANNOT be used to iniciate fire in the hole (fake teleport), and let the L version be able to fake teleport instead.
2. Make H teleport more obvious by flipping her sprites before she actually enters in the hole

Spoiler: Food for thought, don't take too seriously

Another big issue seems to be the lenny teleport combo, so, what if lenny couldn't explode during a teleport? Like when he's mere miliseconds away from exploding, if peacock uses a teleport, it will wait until peacock is out of the hole, yes, always hitting peacock in the process, kind of like how argus works right now, so if you really wanna go for it, you can, but you're sacrificing some of your own health in the process, not to mention that it'll actually let the oponent realistically react, not that everyone will react to it, but it will be possible now

 

[05mario]

I think removing health drain is a really good idea but I think before it actually gets removed we should consider a couple things. As of right now it is just there because when she got reworked into what she is now people were concerned clones would be too powerful if she could freely hold them in neutral. That’s turned out to not be true and health drain is just kinda there as an arbitrary nerf. I think instead of just removing it outright, it could be made to be a real mechanic that can be interacted with. Sort of how eliza trades health for high damage fukua could trade health for a very strong neutral presence and mixup game. There are a bunch of ways to go about it but I do recognize it would likely take a good bit of work and would be similar to a rework of the character which the team might not be looking for at the moment. The easiest thing to do is to take health drain away, buff clones, and some various other changes and fukua will be in an excellent spot

General changes:
There are some things that I think fukua could benefit from that would be much less than a rework of the character and would still make her feel better to play/be a better character.

Clones

Clones should stay unless fukua gets hit, the point hits the clone, or the point makes her block a physical hit. Right now assists smoke clones by making them disappear if they hit them stationary or moving or if they make fukua block. Making fukua block a projectile also makes the clones disappear. I think the point should have to commit to something if they want to deal with clones instead of doing something non committal like using projectiles or calling assist.

I think clones should go one or two units farther so they can be more effective when approaching the opponent. However this might be a bit much when combined with the removal of health drain so I think clones should get a buff of one unit or less for consistency to start and see how it plays out from there.Trying to approach with clones right now often falls flat because the clone simply won't reach. Something to think on is that clones going farther indirectly buffs her throw pickups in neutral which could be an interesting way of letting her pickup.

Is there a particular reason all clones can’t cancel into each other the way M can into H or L?
It doesn’t really do much as a restriction besides arbitrarily limiting your combo potential and forcing you to always use M shadow if you want to set up a clone which is annoying. It’d open up some new routing and let you do more stuff on hit. It’d probably also buff her clone pickups in neutral because now you could do stuff like L clone to H or M and get a confirm despite it being turbo scaled.

Throws


I think fukua’s throw should be looked at again. It's kinda weird how all the other “low throw” characters get meterless pickups off their throws as well as having other pre-hit options, but fukua doesn’t when low throw is her only option to actually open people up. I mentioned it earlier but even something indirect like giving clones more range would let her do it more often, especially in combination with no health drain. Getting literally anything meterless off throw even if it’s the hkd experimented with in the past would be really nice.

Airthrow is kinda buns at the moment. Even with a clone out it's hard to convert off midscreen and when you do its a stage 5 pickup that uses otg (unless you use M) on an already low damage character. Fukua already struggles with upback so her having the smallest airthrow in the game as well as one as weak as the current one feels really bad. Some assists let her get stage two pickups so something like that on point would be really nice. Something else to look into is letting her super after her airthrow like she could in the past.

Darts

Darts should give you the meter immediately on hit. The meter gain is based on distance and the max is the highest amount of meter you can get from one hit of a projectile outside level 3 item drop and tenraiha. The extra meter gain on distance is nice but it doesn't really entail the delayed meter gain which messes up hitconfirms sub one bar. If it’s a balancing thing what's the reasoning behind it?

Is there a reason why the hitstun of darts depends on the distance? Other similar projectiles (dead cross) don’t have this sort of “restriction”. It can mess with pickups off dart when falling on someone.

Drills

H drill shouldn’t be +0 on hit. Its already strike invul, slow start up, has one overlapping invul and active frame, easily punishable on block, and part of it can be low profiled allowing your opponent to mash something to beat it. Practically being forced into spending bar against some characters because the rps is in their favor on your dp feels really awful. I think it should be +2 on hit. This makes it so the rps is always favored towards fukua while not letting her get away with a real low throw situation. This could end up being very strong but I can’t really think of another solution that doesn’t also mess with h drill combos or leave her in a very awkward situation.

Speaking of drills I think M drill should stagger. It's much less of a balance change and more of “this would be pretty cool” change. I think the “fun” factor of patches is as important as making sure the game is balanced. It lets her combo into bff (which was experimented with before) in a more interesting way than previously implemented. It’d let her get some of the throw combos she can get with stagger assists solo which would be neat. It might lead to some messed up setups/drastically increased meter gain/damage in combos, but I think it’s worth at least trying out.

Pipe Dreams:

I don’t really think the stuff in this section would get implemented hence the title “pipe dream”, but I might as well put it out there. Something that would be really interesting to experiment with is fukua getting meter from the health she drains from clones. Her getting 2x or 3x the meter she spent on health would be really interesting (I lose 5% health holding a clone and I get 10% or 15% meter in return). It would give her a really interesting niche as a battery character, justify all the meter she spends, and give an incentive to approach her in neutral which she kinda lacks atm.

Letting fukua use multiple of the same clone in a combo would be super sick. It’d probably boil down to just consistency stuff and maybe lead to the looping of some degen mixups, but I think the existence of stacking scaling on clones would prevent that from being too powerful.

What if darts stole a small amount of meter from the opponent on hit? I think it could be neat to see some sort of meter steal in the game and it would justify the delayed meter gain on darts.

What if airthrow gave a bounce off the ground similar to what H buckshot does off the ceiling? It’d let her get real pickups of her airthrow which she’s in need of and it’d look cool.

Qol things:

H and L clones are tracked on the same ips? Is that intentional or just a weird bug? If it’s just a bug can we fix that because it messes with some potential counter hit routing.

Fukua level 3 should have more than a single active frame. Just one more frame would be fine because I’ve definitely had some cornball stuff happen because it only has a single active frame.

This is sort of along the lines of clones should go farther but imo this is much less than something like that so I’ll just put it here. Fukua H clone will often fade away before it hits the opponent in places where L clone will hit them. Giving H clone just a smidge more range so its more consistent in combos would be really nice. Of course this wouldn’t matter if all the clones get a larger range buff, but I thought I would include it if the team decides not to buff clone ranges across the board.

I'll probably make another post down the line discussing my thoughts on the general changes suggested and my thoughts on some other characters.

 

[Lex]

Just wanted to chime in with my 2 cents on a few things. I generally agree with most of the things discussed in this post: totally agreed on why “buff everyone” is flawed, the changes to QM sound cool, a lot of the character change ideas sound interesting and look promising. The assist scaling thing is something I didn’t know about either but a flat 66% sounds like a good idea which should address a good few of the strongest assists (e.g. Brass to name a non-DP example) and serve to help with some of the frustration discussed for the stronger zoners, especially Pea.

I have some thoughts I wanted to throw into the conversation on a couple of the wider system ideas + some character specific thoughts. I've spoilered stuff just to avoid a wall of text.

Spoiler: Max Undizzy

Honestly, I think max undizzy, at a system level, is already in a pretty good spot. It already feels like, with 2 notable exceptions, the risk/reward of max ud incentivises backing up and trying to jail your opponent while ud drains rather than going for 5+ resets to kill and give their next character 5 bars. So I don’t think much is needed at a system level, though the idea of tweaking bursts from combos started at max ud does sound interesting.

The problems with max undizzy are basically headless’ corner max ud damage being silly and Beo’s extended combos at max ud, particularly with hype assists. So I think targeted nerfs to these 2 characters would be the way to go (I’ll leave Beo ideas to others but for Fortune, alongside addressing cLK loops, making throw -> headbutt/zoom start your next string in Stage 3 imo should do the trick without having too many knock-on effects).

I know some people don’t like how some other characters can loop 2 ground strings into an air throw/burst 50/50 (particularly characters who can mixup when they do the airthrow), Annie being one example though there are a few. Personally, I’m fine with this since you still need 5+ hits to kill, the reset options are limited and you get loads of meter. That’s pretty interactive for SG on-hit, plus, if you manage to reverse the situation (e.g. via an air reversal into combo DHC or you catch the opponent over-extending after teching the throw), your opponent is likely in the corner and taking a bunch of damage thanks to all that meter you built up.

But if the community really doesn’t like these sequences, I think a better way of targeting it than doing a large system change to max undizzy would be to target the reward off of the air throw at max undizzy. Just making scaling harsher on max ud throws should do the trick but maybe there are other creative ideas which would be a bit more targeted than suggestions like starting all max ud combos at stage 3, etc.

Spoiler: The 2 Touch Meta

I like the distinction Gelato made about “clean hit 2 touches” versus characters who can either improv 2 touches or whose starters tend to lead into those clean hits more easily. Many teams can “clean hit 2 touch”, but that number drops when you consider the typical conversions characters tend to get (e.g. Val AD jMP, PW flight cancels, etc). The number also drops when you consider teams which can 2 touch off of multiple reset points and off of “higher value” resets such as an air left/right/air throw/burst vortex vs doing overhead/low on a grounded opponent.

I’m still interested in exploring ways to make 2 touching less prevalent and I think targeted changes + maybe minor health/system changes is likely going to end up being what gets the right result. But I just want to make sure we as a community are defining what we actually want when we talk about the “two touch meta”, as it’s easy to point to a nebulous idea and to say “three touch meta is better” but we could all have different ideas of what that looks like and what should change currently.

Minor tangent on my own outspoken thoughts on 2 touches: I think there are already good system mechanics and incentives built into the game to encourage higher reset playstyles. I touched on it above but 2 touches usually require fairly rigid routing (so they don’t play well with atypical conversions) and they limit your reset options, often to “lower value” resets which give the opponent more counterplay. High damage combo DHCs go some way to mitigating that, e.g. if just need to do some front loaded damage into my combo DHC at ~150 ud, that’s easier to improvise, which is why I think Annie teams often have an easier time doing 2 touches in actual matches (not just twitter tech videos).

2 touching also builds a lot of meter compared to doing multiple resets. This leads to interesting decision making like “I’ll do lots of resets on their point and 2 touch their mid to leave them with just 1 character” or “I’m going to avoid doing a 2 touch as their shell has a great safe DHC or their anchor is crazy good with lots of meter and I want to avoid setting them up for the comeback”.

All that to say, I don’t think we’re as far off from a fun meta where 2 touching can still be done but it doesn’t feel omni-present or like there aren’t pros and cons to doing it.

Those were my thoughts on the system wide stuff, so I just wanted to touch on some character things.

Spoiler: Ms Fortune

These mostly sound good to me. Some thoughts on what, imo, would be good directions to take these ideas to tone down the “that was BS/unfair” moments while still keeping Fortune’s toolkit fun and (at its core) still Fortune:

• This was probably omitted here as it may be addressed by the system changes discussed but just want to highlight again that headless throw/airthrow damage in the corner at max ud is egregious and should be addressed imo, whether that’s at a system level or a targeted tweak or both.
• Nom confirm time: so long as there’s time in combos for sHK M Gato Nom instant jump jHK H Gato I think, from a combo perspective, that’s fine. Don’t even need to allow time for the run-through (so long as we get the change for the head to fly in a consistent direction). The exact reduction will probably need some trial and error to get it right from a neutral perspective to cut down on the “wtf, that’s silly” moments without going overboard. Maybe Bella reflect can serve as a reference point for confirm time?
  • Here’s a supplementary/alternative idea I had to address this same issue of Nom giving conversions in places that feel unfair and unfun: what about shortening the duration of Nom’s forward lunge when Fortune blocks an attack? That way, it can still be used defensively against stuff like jump-ins when you’ve positioned the head well, as this is a fun part of headless’ generally pretty frail defence that I think is worth keeping. But this change would address moments where Fortune is in blockstun for a good bit and Nom acts like a mini-L George and catches you.
    • Imo, this change should only be for physical attacks from the point character given Nom is a big part of headless’ MUs vs Pea/Robo where she already struggles in neutral.
• Her reversals (H Fiber/Headroll): I think making H Fiber about -25 or so while changing it to strike invuln only would be good way to tone down head-on’s very strong defence. That way, just about everyone should have an HCH punish and it’ll make land cancel punishes more consistent. As I’ve said before, I think Headroll is fine and it’d become purely a niche combo tool for certain teams if it lost it’s current use as a slow, strike invuln only but safe on block reversal.
  • Another supplementary nerf for M/H Fiber: its recovery on whiff could be increased so it’s easier to call out in neutral (especially assist + Fiber). Fiber + assist is a fun part of Fortune’s neutral and team building with her imo so I’d still like this technique to be good, but making the counterplay on a callout easier I think is a good idea.
• jLK nerfs imo should be aimed at its use in resets as a double jump overhead (this enables her highest damage starter by far) and in block pressure as a rising normal. I think making it a rising mid would do a good job at targeting this. I’d like for its use in neutral to stay intact given, while it is a strong button, I think in the context of Fortune’s other air buttons and the plethora of other very strong jumping lights across the cast, I don’t think it’s overly strong. Also, +1 to what PME said about IAD jLK jHP(ff) cLK still working please.

Spoiler: Valentine

While I understand the concern, I’m pretty sure the air bypass fix that was implemented previously would not result in higher damage combos in the end. As Seajay said, it’s not hard to fit lots of bypasses into combos already without compromising on routing.
My best guess of what new tech the bypass fix might enable is that Val may get “uncorner” combos. From what testing I did when we briefly had the bypass fix; in situations where bypass would currently whiff, the fix meant that it hit but left Val with her back to the corner as shown in the two clips. This may have some niche reset/combo uses but I don’t expect it to be that practically useful. Mostly, it’d mean in situations where you slightly mistime your bypass in a corner combo, instead of dying you’d get a jank situation where you could at least recover the combo/not get hit.

Also, just signposting to the old QoL thread where I and a few others listed some QoL issues aside from the well known Bypass/cMK stuff (also some issues for other characters throughout the thread): https://skullheart.com/threads/quality-of-life-changes-suggestion-thread.11603/#post-412911

Spoiler: Big Band Timpany

IMO, the problem with timpany is every other situation where it’s commonly used outside of incoming. Timpany on incoming is pretty easy to deal with and imo timpany on incoming has become something of a red herring when discussing this move. The problem with tympany is its use as an air reversal in air resets and air block situations. In these situations the fact he can be hit from above doesn’t really matter as you are almost definitely going to be below him due to the nature of the interaction. Add onto that the fact his size limits your air mixup options (despite the idea his size is meant to be a weakness), his extra parry options, his grounded reversals being crazy good and it starts to feel rather crazy that timpany also basically does everything you could want from an air super.

Also, throwing my hat in the “please reduce Band’s parry window” camp. I think 13f is overkill and, while reducing the window wouldn’t remove the options, it would make counterplay easier and it would make those options somewhat weaker due to the increased precision.

Spoiler: Eliza / Sekhmet

Just wanted to say that I don’t think Sekh’s tools really need to be pulled back. Though I would also have been fine with her keeping backdash on block before it got removed a while back so I might just be in the minority on Sekhmet. Other Eliza ideas sound cool.

Spoiler: Peacock

Personally, the only changes I’d really like to see are:

• Level 2 SoiD giving blue-bounce on hit instead of dragging down to restand (that way, you need to be a bit more on point to confirm off of it in neutral and in resets, can keep mid-combo behaviour as is to avoid breaking stuff),
• SoiD specifically (I don’t mind about her other bombs) disappearing when Pea gets hit.

If those happened then I’d largely be fine w/the rest of her toolkit staying as is (...well, maybe cLK should be toned down as an anti-air a bit as well).

Lastly, just a few miscellaneous things I wanted to add:

Spoiler: Responding to Miscellaneous Discussion Points

Sure! The wording worries me though, as long as you can't do them with cLP either (you can use cLP on certain characters). So, I am down with "removing head loops" in general.

I was under the impression cLP headloops were far more limited than cLK (both in where you can use it + how many loops it gives)? If cLP gives similar capabilities to cLK then it should be addressed too, I’m just curious since I wasn’t aware of it being useful outside of, like, combo video stuff.
General fyi, sLP can also be used to loop decap attacks but it’s combo-video tech only given the setup required:

For starters I think this character should lose some of her consistency. One example of that is 2lk 5hp. It works at max range, becomes safe on block, can even be a mix up with fiber + assist, converts into a near corner to corner combo.

I feel like it’s worth pointing out that making characters less consistent is always going to just mean they’re more frustrating to play and the impact on balance isn’t going to actually be very meaningful. I'm not sure why you'd want to see characters be less consistent when you can see how every Val and PW player has been complaining about their inconsistencies for years now. Also, complaining about Fortune’s grounded hitconfirms in particular also strikes me as a weird target when talking about her.

If changes to touches to kill are guaranteed, then I would first look at standardizing health and ratio.

+1 to standardising health across ratios. The different health values and damage multipliers feel like an unnecessary obfuscation for discussions and lead to endless confusion for new players. If system changes happen to health, then this may be a good time to streamline the numbers to make more sense (and so that each ratio has the same effective health).

oh god oh god oh god I personally would not prefer this and I understand why people would be more than happy to say no to it. If Fortune players do  not want the sandwich please let me know, other Fortunes. I get you can do CSF 2 bar meter dump and that penpen/others do silly jLP high/low/left/right but Nom -> head going forward stabilizes some cool resets in a tidy way.

The head flying in front would be stronger and would enable the same cool combos and routing that she currently gets off of mid-combo Noms (and if you asked what I as a Fortune player would prefer it’d be flying forwards cus all that is more fun). That said, it would be a buff to Nom conversions off of hits in neutral where you often can’t set up the dash-through as it would give better damage/resets + you don’t have to worry about having the head behind you resulting in a “semi-happy birthday” combo if you get hit. So I think the head flying behind is the right choice from a balance perspective even if it’s not as fun.

 

[Cattfish]

More Beowulf navel-gazing, refining the idea of getting hype from assists somehow.

If Beowulf hype mechanic stays as it is, I'm curious what Beo players think of this:

Currently, H Hurl assist has chair cooldown, and during that state Beo cannot throw it again. What if during that cooldown window, a second Beowulf assist call could (taunt, do the fist holding 2KK pose for a small duration of time) and build  ONE hype max.

•This is not the best buff to H Hurl, as it still does not eliminate the cool down.
•Calling him is still a do-nothing liability that you have to protect.
•He cannot be called mid-combo consistently, because of obvious restrictions on 1 assist per combo.
•This DOES enable his non-point team compositions. Airwulf DHC becomes stronger, combos that involve tagging him in, etc.

This might not even be consistent enough to be something people consider. But as far as beta experimentation goes, it's not too volatile.

 

[Magic]

I personally want to try a 3-touch meta, rather than a 2-touch one, so I would definitely like to test the above during the beta period and see how it fares.

Harsher scaling and a new burst seem like the best way to go about this, specifically the scaling. I'm not keen on the idea of max undizzy routes starting at stage 3, as at the very least, would require a way (probably through a new addition in the Tutorial) to let new players know about this exception to combo stages.

I agree with punishing brazen assist calling. But would it be possible that lights wouldn't be able to trigger the increased lockout? If so, increasing the lockout to maybe 2-3 seconds is right. Maybe a more severe lockout to snapping an assist outside of happy birthdays? It doesn't get used for that purpose at all I feel, and it's probably due to a number of factors depending on the player:
-Not worth the bar vs how long they're locked out for
-Still risky to go for a snap during neutral when the opposing point character could punish you for it

Yes, let's try it
I'll be honest? I didn't even know assists on counterhit scaled it to 90%, I thought it was universally 66% from the start! That explains so much with DP assists...

Sounds fun! Let's try it

Yea, as it stands, some characters have a lot of trouble with punishing it on block. Especially with the Band player "shimmying" the super to catch you for trying to follow it and get in good punishing-the-super range. Let's reduce the blockstun (and maybe the pushback too?)

Let's try these, especially Throne changes. New throne would be a good anti-zoning option to help her get in vs Peacock and Robo, maybe even let her get conversions from far with sHP(1) > H Khat! And after the Sekhmet changes + taunt changes, I've never seen a single Eliza use the new taunt now, so experimenting with the suggested changes to it seem worthwhile during beta.

Sure! The wording worries me though, as long as you can't do them with cLP either (you can use cLP on certain characters). So, I am down with "removing head loops" in general.

As long as the hitstun remains unchanged so that IAD jLK > jHP fastfall > cLK still links, then I'm down for tweaks

Yes, absolutely to letting characters hit the head easier. Some characters have a really hard time hitting the head there, so maybe increasing the head's hurtbox to accommodate? Increasing the lockout would also help giving a more definitive way to lock Fortune out of options on her own incoming. At the moment if the head's near the corner and Fortune is coming in, there's literally zero reason to not tell the head to Sneeze and then delay teching throw attempts to cover almost all options. More lockout on the head not only means it would easier to play neutral against headless, but also cut her off from this very encompassing OS.

Yup! Less blockstun and blockstop for them would be a good idea.

Yes, make Fiber have less blockstun. I can't tell you how many times my opponent has missed a punish on blocked Fibers.

I don't know much about GG, so apologies there on how those function. But I think spot-fixing scenarios is probably the best way to go about it. But I will suggest that players route combos that take advantage of hitting both Fortune and her head to really take advantage of the extra damage she takes (some characters can even solo TOD her for minimal bars spent)

Can lv2 SoiD on hit turn into a knockdown rather than dragging down? Still seems a little silly the zoner gets (arguably) the safest 50/50 in the whole game and also have it convert into a stage 2 starter, even with the scaling on it. Rather her at least lose OTG from it in some scenarios

It doesn't need to be 2 bars, but if it stays as a 1 bar super, I think these 2 changes to it are plenty. It doesn't need damage nerfs, but for a 1 bar super? It's doing quite a lot in many situations. I don't think it needs to have that much versality, while also doing that much damage, especially for 1 bar.

I prefer option 1. Having George interrupt you after you punish a full screen H Teleport, only for the Peacock player to twiddle their thumbs waiting for George to come and turn it into their combo starter instead is the worst feeling.

Nail storage sounds super fun!
Stuff like making cLK > cMK > sHP > L Buer always connect, and cMP and jHK to drag down on hit would go a long way for her consistency issues.

To be honest? It would be interesting to try, but I think the above 2 Painwheel changes are mostly what she needs in my opinion.

They can have it, but only while descending as stated. Definitely never as an IOH ever again.

On the train of "Drain during resets, and not during neutral" for me. Having a safe-from-reversals 50/50 option is still an extremely powerful tool (looks at Peacock)

Yup, let's try the H Beam assist nerfs again. Can Band assists have a similar treatment? Don't know how I feel about Annie DP and Robo H Beam assists being touched, but Band's are left alone(?)

I 100% agree with this. However, can Magnet have a lower hitbox? Reading a jump with point Robo and using Magnet feels reeeeaaaally bad when the jumping character can still air super post-flash because they weren't high enough for Magnet's hitbox (I've been H Airballed by Filia once even!)

Currently, it feels really strong vs Eliza and Band, so I agree.

These sound very dangerous, especially the RC addition, but we can try it and see how it goes!

Yea, it feels a little too... "defaulty", for lack of a better term.

I've never really had an issue about where she lands personally. I more have qualms about the insane corner carry on it if anything. But we can try placing her a little forward to see how it goes. But hopefully not too much, as I hope she doesn't become a "meat shield" like Band is after calling him.

Yes, I'd rather this as well

Would bring down the rampant cases of SSJ > Alt+F4 "punishing" by a lot, so this is a great change.

i think this is the best post i've read here and i agree with most of the changes. i only disagree your preferred solution to peacocks bombs going away. i prefer option 2. i think adding scaling to bombs interrupting combos is more true to the character. those situations where both players know a projectile is about to interrupt the combo can lead to some fun weird interactions.

i am ready to try the three touch meta, but i am extremely skeptical. thanks for a well thought out post PME

 

[CatPie]

This is very poorly formatted sorry in advance

TWO TOUCHES

Two touching is fine, there are just a few characters that kind of do it way better than others and way more consistently, these tend to be characters that get clean starters more often than others like mf, annie

I would lean away from a health increase/scaling changes, and advocate more to tune just the egregious sources of damage rather than changing the rules around the whole game. I don't really want these large system changes to mess up less meta synergies and combos. a few things that come to mind are brass assist/annie dp/ms fortune, annie jhp starters, if u get hit by these pre max UD you explode, especially with smart DHCs imo if you just tone down some of these options the "two touchyness" of this game will feel a lot better. Especially if some of the nerfs for the characters described in the original post go through I don't think a system wide "three touch patch" is needed.

MAX UNDIZZY LOOPS + DAMAGE

I wouldn't mind testing out a build with some of the changes from the original post, max undizzy loops are def a pretty big annoyance especially since some characters just do them way better than others. The one I'd lean towards the most is the harsher combo scaling, it gives you some more time to breathe especially when the best abusers of max undizzy loops tend to still do decent dmg at max undizzy.
-I'd have to know more about how the "super gold bursts" work to form an opinion on it, if it just triggers whenever you're at max undizzy (like the first button in a new string) i would not like it. if it worked only at a super high undizzy like 500/235 or something (so the attacker has already executed several undizzy loops correctly) then I would be interested in checking it out.
- the sliding knockdown burst im also interested in checking out, but I would realistically have to play around with it to know how much this impacts games

Ms Fortune

• jLK will see tweaks.

- so true, maybe make it a little easier to stuff with a rising button? Might make contesting it in the air feel a lot better

• Reduced confirm time from Nom seems reasonable.

- yes please, fullscreen nom into dash into getting a stage 2 starter is pretty crazy to me, either make it stage 3 starter so the fortune player gets less reward off hitting it or make it blue bounce so that you generally can't convert off it from long ranges

• Worth trying changes to hit the head more reliably for all characters when it gets stuck behind them, in addition to perhaps locking it out for longer.

Would really like to test a build with longer cooldown on the head after you hit it, especially since some assist calls tend to cover the heads cooldown making hitting it feel really pointless, with everything else that might be getting changed, this might not need to happen though (system changes making her dmg weaker, her best assists being nerfed etc)

• Making her supers easier to punish when they end near the head is a good suggestion.

- she shouldnt be able to move the head when she hits your assist with feral/cancel to headroll if your assist gets hit by csf/feral
- the head should not be able to go off cooldown if it is hit by the super, this prevents csf/feral hitting the head and making it unpunishable with a jab if the mf player does zoom, requiring people to punish it either by pbgcing or by using an invincible move (which not all chars have a good invincible move to convert off off, plus i think the fact that some chars might have to spend bar to even punish should not happen. Weirdness with feral/csf hitting the head in weird ways makes punishing these supers feel very inconsistent and scary for no reason, if the mf player messed up and mashed and I block the super, I feel like it should be a comfortable jab punish.

• She may need targeted damage nerfs on top of any other global changes we may experiment with.

- m/h gato bypassing the 1k dmg scaling thing prolly would be nice to shoot
- her starters are crazy crazy efficient, rekka dmg being lowered a little maybe? (i am not a fortune combo expert but whatever prevents her from setting up dhc TODs from anywhere on the screen)
- make her go from consistent 2 touches to 2 touches given the resources + more touches if needed

• Something about her plethora of very effective defensive options will probably be adjusted, be it Fiber, Headroll, or both.
• For Fiber, letting Ms. Fortune get thrown for attempting it by moving it to strike invuln feels like the right call here. For how fast she can slip away if you're not jumping in front of her, more options to call out Fiber in neutral (with or without an assist backing it, which makes it especially difficult to counter) would be ideal. Making it more unsafe on block so the slower characters can get into position to punish it as suggested seems reasonable too. We'll see where everything shakes out with her defensive options and we're still discussing internally.
- make punishing fiber after air blocking easier, sometimes it kinda pushes u away and it becomes really hard to punish
- make headroll minus or remove the invul, fortune being able to mindgame between dp/upforward button is rly strong and I don't think that belongs on her
- fiber being throwable would be nice but not the egregious part of the character

fortune being one of the best chars in the game i think is fine, the nerfs i suggested above i think are more than reasonable. Depending on how big the other nerfs are, these would be other changes that would be nice but i definitely don't want to nerf her too hard​

there's a meme of "just hit the head" and while most of it is kinda a joke there is def some truth to the whole meme
the consequence of just hitting the head for the fortune player is that they're slowly but surely dying, which forces them to go in
you sitting there and hitting the head staying in one place is kinda exactly what ms fortune player would want
its really hard to efficiently "hit the head"
- hitting it with crouching normals tends to push it away from you which only puts you closer to fortunes threat range
combined with her excellent mobility + assists its not hard for fortune to close the gap and stop you from hitting it
make it a real consequence
- currently all damage on the head is all recoverable health, meaning if the fortune is able to tag/safely dhc there is effectively not a real consequence for risking your life and hitting the head
- probably shouldn't be 100% non recoverable health, a split of non recoverable/recoverable


a suggested change to prevent it from messing up combos (wild ideas but i just wanted to throw them out there)
- head no longer has a hitbox when fortune is in hitstun, but fortune takes a small increase in damage (this removes the skill expression of hitting both the head and the body but imo this is so rare that its not worth the annoyances of ur combo messing up)
- not sure if this would work, but if the head didn't interact with any hitboxes while fortune was in hitstun, but still tracked if a move collided with the head and added that extra damage onto the combo
- would still allow for headless punishes that aren't as boring as a flat dmg increase vs headless but might look kinda weird

TLDR:
Make Fortunes supers consistent jab punishes
Nerf her damage slightly
Nom being harder to convert from at long ranges
jLK tweaks
Headroll being minus/losing invul


Peacock

Extra metergain for the defender and/or damage scaling on projectile starters would give players access to more super options to try and make a play with

- Definitely want to try a build with this

"Lenny needs nerfs and/or should be 2 bars"
• Making Lenny 2 bars and calling it a day is probably the simplest solution.
• There are other things that I think could be explored instead while still keeping it a one bar super:
→ No CH damage bonus.
→ Significantly less damage.
→ Peacock builds zero meter while it's out, down from 30% (?) or whatever the current penalty is.
→ Lenny has a hit when placed, and this hit can be blocked making M Bang x Lenny unsafe. (M Bang x Lenny will be unsafe as one of the experiments for her, this change aside. One bar safe on block reversals were removed for Double and Fukua, Peacock should really not be keeping it as a zoner.)
→ The hit from Lenny could also be implemented to remove the happy birthday L Bang x Lenny into teleport 50/50, completely safe, guess-for-your-assist-character's-life mix up, which I think is very strong and worth looking at.

Definitely want the lenny happy birthday mixup removed but any combination of these nerfs suggested for lenny I'd be happy with
- would lean towards keeping it 1 bar but just nerfing the dmg a bit + whatever else you think is neccesary
- nerfing peacocks meter gain during lenny would also be nice but I wouldn't want it to be 0, often times peacock players have an assist that allows them to loop several waves of projectiles after lenny is gone which sometimes lets them build just enough bar to loop another lenny so changing the number to like 10-25% instead would avoid this scenario more

"Bombs should go away when Peacock is hit"
→ Bombs go away on hit, but only after a delay. Using M or H to trade against a dash in or jump in would still be viable, but if you just called the bomb mere frames before getting hit, it would explode before it reaches her. Standing inside of L George and playing footsies as you walk backwards with him would still be viable, but him walking across the entire screen to interrupt would not be, etc. You can envision how that would work hopefully.
- def wanna try this out, if this is implemented we might need to rethink all the other nerfs tho, not sure how much this change would feel in practice (too harsh not enough? don't know)

→ Bombs have atrocious damage scaling applied if they hit the opponent after Peacock goes into hitstun. This experiment was tried briefly before, but this would be a more aggressive version, maybe even scaling down to 20%. Peacock would very much be incentivized to reset ASAP or knock the opponent away, lest she donates tons of meter to the opponent for a small amount of damage in return.

if we don't do the bombs going away on hit then I'd like to see this instead, but probably not at the same time imo

ROBO-FORTUNE

All the suggested robo changes I agree with. I do have a suggestion for beam changes though
- want to experiment with assist cooldown like beo has for H chair, make it less spammable
im pretty sure this doesn't mess with any dhc timings but if it does then idk, feels weird to have such a top tier assist like beam and then beo h chair has 10x its cooldown
- beam being dragged by the screen might also be an interesting thing to look at to make the assist less oppressive/easier to counter call

annie pw double fukua parasoul valentine cerebella filia
- agree with what was discussed in the original post

squigly
- would rather not see the uncharged version of specials being accesible because it would mean you could use normal sing/charged sing on demand and i'm not sure how much of a buff that would be, shes in a fine spot imo so id rather her stay as she is

umbrella thoughts
- ravenous shouldn't do dmg, totally fine with rav being crazy but it feels rly bad dying to two jMP iohs and then the same thing about to happen to ur next char and being rly hard to stop her from being rav with the correct routing
- other than that its okay, maybe we look into overstuffed being more useful in neutral?
- gonna leave it to the umby players to think of something tho
- making jMP easier to land cancel
not many chars can just ioh like that from that far away without committing to an airdash or something, what makes jMP feel rly hard to play against is that even if ur right and you block it, its rly hard to get away from umby afterwards
the way i think about it is like in the para vs big band matchup, para can do dash jump jLP jHPfor a rly fast overhead, but if the band player is careful they can land cancel jLP jHP on block which makes that matchup feel alot more fair
i don't think it should be as easy to land cancel as para jlp jhp but if it pushed u down just a little bit faster so that jMP delay jMK was jab land cancel punishable in certain situations id feel a lot more comfortable playing vs umby

big band
- I think big band is in a fine spot, he doesn't rly need any changes but a few things that might be worth looking into
band beat extend -> delay ssj, yeah its skill issue they could have just waited a bit but it does mean band gets to safe dhc and sometimes you just kinda heat of the moment press jab a frame too early kinda stupid u can just die from that
typmani changes dont really need to happen but it is pretty stupid, i wouldn't be opposed to making it more minus so you can get a jab punish if he does the last hit near you
parry changes i don't think need to happen at all, if they do go through i would like to maybe see an armored move lockout when u parry so you dont get accidental parry -> L brass instead of parry -> jab
not blocking in sg is asking to die so being able to block for a bit and then react to something and parry + jab would be really nice, if this gets added i wouldnt mind parry becoming harder to do

 

[CaioLugon]

More Beowulf navel-gazing, refining the idea of getting hype from assists somehow.

If Beowulf hype mechanic stays as it is, I'm curious what Beo players think of this:

Currently, H Hurl assist has chair cooldown, and during that state Beo cannot throw it again. What if during that cooldown window, a second Beowulf assist call could (taunt, do the fist holding 2KK pose for a small duration of time) and build  ONE hype max.

•This is not the best buff to H Hurl, as it still does not eliminate the cool down.
•Calling him is still a do-nothing liability that you have to protect.
•He cannot be called mid-combo consistently, because of obvious restrictions on 1 assist per combo.
•This DOES enable his non-point team compositions. Airwulf DHC becomes stronger, combos that involve tagging him in, etc.

This might not even be consistent enough to be something people consider. But as far as beta experimentation goes, it's not too volatile.

I not a fan of being able to build hype from H chair assist, it's ready a really strong DP + a huge fullscreen projectile and arguably the best alpha counter in the game (also important to note that he ignores the cooldown when using it as an alpha counter). Besides, his team value is already really really good, he has a safe dhc, comboable dhcs, one of the best tags in the game and some of the best super to dhc out of with arm being one of the strongest reversal supers and carrying almost fullscreen to a corner combo.

I always believed very strongly that most of the 'bad support/selfish point' people have of him just stems from how incredibly easy and efficient his compositions with band are, and now having played him in the back of my teams for several months I can definitely say that he carries his weight VERY easily in any position.

 

[KuroOneHalf]

Dunno how other Bellas feel about this but I've always felt elbow to be annoyingly inconsistent to combo from. I'd like to see that being smoother to use.

 

[Ramora and Ramnus]

TEAM BUILDING, CHARACTER CHOICE, AND GLUE CHARACTERS

Spoiler: Wall of Text

I'm quite hung up on articulating a response to this, because you are correct in saying that characters who check most options then check less will give more reason to try out new strategies, however, I could argue that it could also limit it depending on what check box was decided to not be checked. I suppose this is the tricky thing with game design and for a decade old game there will always be a push against change or compromises.

This is just me having my say so I can be at peace knowing I said it. I'm just a consumer at the end of the day and really my thoughts are only that I hope this won't just turn team building into placing the square peg into the square hole but I get to choose what colour square peg I put in. I'm a player who has been spoilt for damage for almost a decade I'll have to admit.

I play the Fortune/PW/Band shell in a modular way in which: Band is a fake anchor, Fortune is switched to anchor post kill and tags in Band if can corpse launch or off PW DHC, Painwheel is the DHC and Tag-combo damage engine who actually helps control moving character positions to better setup the next DHC orders, Band tagged post kill into point to play with life lead and converts off SSJ with assist for big damage off 1 meter. The assists are Fortune/dash, Painwheel/H Pin, Big Band/L Beat. It's quite the defensive version of the shell as opposed to the more damaging H Brass + DP option with Fibre, but I've come to accept that if there were damage nerfs that I would probably end up dropping this strategy of strong defence/neutral and just pick up H Fibre and H Brass, or replace Band with Robo-Fortune instead for an easy chip-out wincon added to the 2 touch DHC wincon. Pick H Beam, change H Pin to L and give Fortune H Fibre and there, my square peg now fits.

This isn't an argument to NOT nerf damage or change it. This is just my perspective coming into this balance patch and my thoughts prior to testing to give an understanding of what kind of player I am.

I'd love to get a read of the room on how we're all feeling about two touch teams from round start. Specifically dash up cLK or overhead, then one mix up into death from round start conditions and spacing, but also for the next character arriving on incoming when teams have ~1.5 bars and can build another one easily for the DHC unscale in the corner.

Round start two touches with a surplus that's quite considerable into follow up high damaging confirm with more meter is an issue and I'm unsure of how to check this without collateral damage or case by case examinations. I can only really comment on proposals, however, I will say that I do like the fast paced and volitile nature of SG and I'm worried that some blanket system changes might shift the goal posts for most characters but leave some in better positionsm, as for them the goal posts didn't shift as far apart for them. You have already touched on this citing Peacock and Robo and the proposed changes seem reasonable. I don't have a good opinion as we can't test or play with the values yet, but be aware that I look forward to testing it.

MAX UNDIZZY LOOPS + DAMAGE

Personally I think reducing the scaling at the start of the max UD combo further more only hurts the entire cast and doesn't actually solve the problem caused by certain characters. Perhaps instead of reducing the initial start of Max UD combos from 0.50 to 0.20 that there's a certain length or duration of the combos where the scaling drops down to 0.10 or so. This could make it so other characters have their short and sweet damage, and the characters who extend it past the appropriate levels get the harsher scaling into lower reward? Just a thought.

There's been some discussion about increasing the assist cooldown when your assist leaves, but I think the fast speed of assist calls is pretty integral to the feeling of Skullgirls. Assist lockout cooldown (when an assist is actually hit) could be increased as an experiment, but I'd want to distinguish between projectile hits and physical hits so that zoners aren't locking your assist out even longer when you're getting walled out.

Assist lockout cooldown being increased with physical hits is something I know will make punishing assists feel worthwhile and rewarding for many players, and can help reduce the feeling like they're held in a stranglehold against certain popular assists. Characters without mobility options will have more time to get in or setup if there was a longer cooldown. Even if those who already have an easy time with acting post-assist call punish will have more time to act I feel like the bottom line is improved as it helps answer some of the complains against the strong assist options used.

PAINWHEEL

• If Painwheel is receiving significant buffs to her point game, she will receive nerfs to her strengths as a "play me second for DHC damage" position by reducing Hatred Install damage and such.

I don't think Painwheel should get nerfs to Hatred Install (HI) for new "point game" tools, unless they crank up her damage too much/new routes become too strong. Especially if there's going to be global changes to DHC damage scaling and/or HP pools. I would like to evaluate her damage after we get to play with the other damage changes first as to be better documented with the other changes if possible?

Since you've played Painwheel in the past I do trust you already have a good understanding of the character. Old habits die hard, so my bias is quite strong, and for me I'm used to Painwheel being the damage engine [on-top of the other damage engine I have] in addition to the safe DHC option into forced scramble/mixup/bait. However, I'm open to change my views as I would like to see more of her played in teams instead of how it is now as just the 2nd slot DHC combo super which Annie does just as-well if not better for a bit less damage. I actually stuck to PW over Annie because I still believe in PW being good, but I will admit, it wasn't easy to stay here.

• I think the "Nail Storage" idea (FC from Nails to save the charge percentage for later) sounds really fun actually! However currently each nail adds Undizzy separately, so using this in combos wouldn't be possible without some minor engine changes.

I've always liked the idea of this as this would give her a better tool to play neutral that she first needs to build it before use. I believe it's worth a try and I can see it increasing damage in routes with assists in both normal and HI modes, not that HI has issues with building full charge mid-combo already. If this was the only change she got I wouldn't complain or ask for more if all else remained the same.

• Some amount of "QOL" (buffs) to hitboxes and frame data here and there as often brought up can be looked at for her.

In regards to hitbox 'QOL' I believe I can already read in-between the lines and assume what is meant by this. How could I deny such a suggestion?

With faster normals, I've read a lot of opinions on Painwheel from both players and non-players asking for this, however, I really don't think this the real issue as she should have slow normals. I feel as if I'm the only one, or I'm some kind of PW freak because to me if she couldn't punish a move with 2LK already then I wouldn't go for it and instead would commit to a pushblocking (PB)/PBGC into Flight Cancel (FC) to choose when and where to engage under my own terms. That's her strength and I feel PW being forced to block and then told you're to slow to punish without committing to PBGC is fine and how it should be for her. I do have a suggestion which will add to this within the proceeding post.

• HATRED GUARD DISCUSSION
→ I don't disagree, Hatred Guard could probably be more interesting if Painwheel had access to something new and fun after using the mechanic properly instead of just dishing some bonus CH damage back ASAP, although that simple mechanic in itself is still powerful, especially post bug fix where it properly returns damage to assist and point on the same hit. She can sometimes have a reason to try and armor a bunch of single hitting assist calls in neutral so that she can get in and dish it back with a move that converts stored damage well, since there are different return values of stored damage depending on the move that connects, but it doesn't go too much further than that.
→ This is off the cuff and probably even irresponsible to just throw out there, but something like "aftering armoring some number of hit(s), her next Buer is the boosted installed version" could be pretty fun and gives her a reason to fish for armor more often, and dissuades opponents from feeding her easy to armor assist calls for a bit of counter play.

This is a real tricky thing to comment on because Hatred Guard (HG) is another factor to consider for sure, but I do love the idea of it giving more reason to armour and take risks, perhaps more refining is needed? I would love more reasons to actually use HI on point as PW without needing to be:

1, at least at <=50% life for a duration long enough to make setplay/stagger pressure worth the investment;
2, at 3~ meter to make the damage worth the investment (as she does more with HG already than using HI with 2 meter [also outclassed by some characters with 2 meter DHCs]); and/or
3, have HG damage stored to make use of M/HCH routes for the investment.

I'll throw my hat into the ring and suggest some changes, however, they're open for change and/or inspire newer ideas perhaps from those with better ideas. Treat it as a thought experiment if they're too insane.

Spoiler: HI Grants Properties Per Activation

Instead of HG granting additional properties to normals/specials it's HI that does so. And with each time PW goes into HI there could be additional properties, something like DBFZ A.Gohan with frame data and the such? Perhaps (not in any order):

HI(1) - The first X.Buer outside of HI gets a HI property and/or better hitboxes;

HI(2) - imroved armour normals; and

HI(3) - additional armour on normals (a little broken maybe, but if you HI thrice in a match you probably already won or something went awfully wrong?).

Spoiler: Successful HG Reduces HI Meter Gain Penalty

HG tracks and reduces meter gain penalty for (X%) during HI in the same way Robo has it for her Det Mode. My ideology here is that Robo builds and spends a resource for this and has better ways of building meter than PW. Whereas PW first needs to armour (X) times therefore taking more risk before seeing the reward, but might see double dipping in terms of meter gain with HG damage as a consequence? Feels a bit tricky, but I like the idea of answering one of the big complaints I hear about this character which is meter gain in an assist game.

Spoiler: Successful HG Normal Boosts Itself (X) Times

A HG normal boosts its own properties upon each (?) succesful absorption of a hit as a way to increase risk + reward and maybe further improve point netural and pressure. These boosts may take the form of: faster startup, armour activates sooner, armour stays active longer, and/or gets an additional point of armour.

To clarify, Painwheel already kept numerous armor buffs through the last beta period, such as armor through the first active frame when fully charged and armor covering all active frames on 5MP. If you're talking about four armored active frames on 2[HP] and such though, I don't think that will return.

She's supposed to absorb then counter per the HG archetype IMO, not absorb and counter on the same frame as an AA or something from the 4th active frame of 2HP as it was very briefly for that one beta patch. I don't interpret her armor as accomplishing the same goal as an armored active hitbox running into you like LNL or Battlebutt for example.

Just my 2 cents and feelings, I think 5MP has always been kinda whatever except for very niche situations or I'm not fighting high level players. 2MP has always been seen as the better anti-air option and I would sooner use 5[MK] for the 2nd catch-all check even if I have to convert with H.Buer > Thresher > FC. 5MP retaining the full armour buff didn't change much at all, and I understand that PW cannot become a bully with armour like Cerebella can, but I do think her HG armour should be better, improved, or bestows something for the effort and risk she takes.

HG armouring a 1 hit assist at fullscreen is very different to armouring a 1 hit assist up-close in-front of an opponent who doesn't hold down back for 100+ frames waiting for the assist to hit or be blocked. I think the biggest problem with HG is how limiting PW's options are when committing to them and it's hard to really understand if this is just a skill issue or risk/reward issue. I understand that any armour buff could push PW into broken tiers, hence why I feel like if there was such an option it should be locked behind a resource investment such as HI for (X) times mentioned somewhere above.

I also couldn't make the best use of 1 frame armor startup in HI. When I'm in HI, it's either because I'm comboing, or using it in neutral for the nail upgrade when she's anchor to force my way in. On defense, like say when Painwheel is waking up, all the opponent has to do is call assist + neutral jump and come down with a multihit to stuff pretty much anything she wants to do

This I feel a lot and is how I feel about HG in HI mode. If HI had the bully armour values that feels good for a 2 meter resource that she has to go into first, and that which if DHC'd into the duration expires after the combo she came in ends anyway. Just a thought of mine here.

oh god oh god oh god I personally would not prefer this and I understand why people would be more than happy to say no to it. If Fortune players do  not want the sandwich please let me know, other Fortunes. I get you can do CSF 2 bar meter dump and that penpen/others do silly jLP high/low/left/right but Nom -> head going forward stabilizes some cool resets in a tidy way.

Funny enough the head being fixed to always fly behind her post-Nom would be a nerf compared to it flying forwards and although head being left infront of Nom would be better it's something that I can live without if we can have consistency for Headless. She just needs to use more UD or resources if it flies behind and I think it's reasonable.

I still think nerfing Nom on-top of all the other changes if they come through could be stepping overbounds potentialy. I think nom is really not much of a problem if the rest of the changes come through like damage nerfs, head-on normals/damage, the head is easier to hit, that when the opponent hits the head the lockout cooldown is longer, etc. It all piles up and I think the character could lose player expression with potential loss of routes or setups if not carefully considered. Not many people play Headless midscreen, only Head-on midscreen into rekka > assist > reset > kill > headless corner. To me that really shows which mode is the most dominant and which needs changes the most. I think Lex's idea of scaling/IPS starter is good for Nom is gun was to my head and I had to choose an option instead of reducing Nom's time to convert off.

 

[Max]

Thoughts on current metagame​

For context I have been playing since around the Annie beta cycle so a few years at this point. I am a big fan of the current state of the game, in my mind Fortune and Peacock are the clear top 2 characters in the game and from my view they have the most depth, so I like that they reward you so well for putting effort in. I think there are a few aspects to each character that could do with tweaking down and bringing them down slightly would bring a lot more equality to the cast as a whole. As they stand currently, I do really enjoy playing against these characters.

As others have said, changing the game to 3 touches in any way would probably have countless unintended side effects, but I am very interested to see how that may look and is one of the possible beta changes I am most excited for. I also think some of the lower cast members could use with tuning up but personally don't have enough well formed ideas on what they could use.

In terms of other top tier characters I think Annie's inclusion has been an interesting thing to watch over the course of her implementation. To me, the character just offers way too much utility, she could do with her damage being toned down and a change I would personally very much like to see is making her H DP assist easier to punish. Final comment on the current meta is about Robo: I will just say beam assist is my least favorite thing to play against in this game. I have no idea how it should be changed, all I know is the entire assist feels insanely uninteractive and way too powerful. Anyway, here are my ideas on Fortune.

Fortune​

I have been playing Ms Fortune for around a year and seeing very good results with the character. For me she is the gold standard for expressive play, I particularly enjoy watching other Fortune players and seeing how different the character looks in different hands. It always feels like there is more to dig into with this character and I appreciate that.

My personal ideal vision for the character would be inherently incentivizing more headless play, by toning down head-on's strengths and slightly reworking the headless play to feel less frustrating to play against. I think it's great the current state of the character is so approachable but I do think it's a shame that you can play her more or less completely head on and see such good results, to the extent where a lot of people have never learned any headless at all.

Changes for both:
Reduce jMP's Blockstun:
I think this change has a lot of value, particularly as a lot of people are complaining about jLK. Tweaking jMPs blockstun would help nerf the button indirectly as I think the current jLK airdash jLK jMP is a bit too strong of a neutral tool, giving you a combo on hit and a bit too much pressure on block.

For head-on:
Make fiber weaker:
I like a lot of the ideas people have posted previous but generally speaking I think that fiber should be easier to punish, and should be strike invul only.
Lower damage:
I think her damage head on could just use overall toning down, probably by adjusting the numbers on jHP, 5HP and particularly H Rekka.

For head-off:
Make the head easier to poke:
This would be a very big change in terms of the experience when playing against headless, I would like to see this implemented in some way, maybe just simply by making the heads hurtbox bigger.
Increase head cooldown on hit:
I think currently as a headless player it never feels overly pressuring when someone hits the head, as they are either going to have to commit to hitting it again so soon or just going to have to deal with the head a split second later. I think experimenting with higher cooldowns would be a good move, and a pretty small change on the cooldown would make the experience feel much better.
Reducing nom scaling:
I saw nom hitstun nerfs being mentioned and would very much prefer if the scaling just got shot instead. I think the threat of nom / zoom into nom is one of the most important parts of playing as and against headless, and making it much more difficult to confirm would be a big change to the risk/reward of lots of interactions against headless.

On a small final note, it seems the devs are pretty set on removing 2LK loops and if that's just how it's gonna be then I get it. Just wanted to mention that I love 2LK loops, it's extremely rare that a player does them consistently in tournament and if there are going to be max undizzy changes then maybe some of there more problematic instances will be fixed smile? :)

 

[Cattfish]

I not a fan of being able to build hype from H chair assist, it's ready a really strong DP + a huge fullscreen projectile and arguably the best alpha counter in the game (also important to note that he ignores the cooldown when using it as an alpha counter). [More broken up in post]

Thanks for your post! I appreciate the feedback.

Re:H Hurl specifically, I'm more than happy to give it to L & M Hurl's cooldown if H Hurl sounds too volatile for players.

To others as well, please keep in mind at its core this is is a concept to experiment with his hype gain. I'm not advocating on the basis of "oh but he needs this to be functional".

Besides, his team value is already really really good, he has a safe dhc, comboable dhcs, one of the best tags in the game and some of the best super to dhc out of with arm being one of the strongest reversal supers and carrying almost fullscreen to a corner combo.

I do recognize that at least he has a safe DHC, and I do recognize that his raw tag is okay. However, there are [so] many safe DHCs out there that provide more than that. The biggest draw is escaping the corner- I get that. In most scenarios of mash > safeish DHC, positioning wise, I (personally) would even rather have Robo's magnet as far as DHCs that do nothing.

As far as complimentary DHCs, Arm's drag to the corner is relevant to:
•Cerebella Dynamo, currently common by nature of his needs.
•Painwheel HI. HI is basically the death dhc anyways, especially on dual-high damage characters.
•Potentially Dahlia reload routes or Annie 236KK. Both of these characters also have satisfactory routes midscreen.

I wouldn't consider his tag to be in the conversation of best either. It has some setups, yes. Almost every character has setups with theirs.

I always believed very strongly that most of the 'bad support/selfish point' people have of him just stems from how incredibly easy and efficient his compositions with band are, and now having played him in the back of my teams for several months I can definitely say that he carries his weight VERY easily in any position.

Countering your outlook, I don't believe this is a Beowulf player skill issue nor should ideas of expanding synergy be denied on the basis of what the top current Beowulf players are doing. Yes, they are picking an optimal strategy. That doesn't mean we can't foster other strategies, especially when this change is so incredibly particular to being taken advantage of.

 

[Wenzel]

I don´t know if this is the right place to put it but for community visibility sake tough.

I think its worth for the casual player retention to create a ranked match mode and leave Quick Match the way it its. I have friends who are casual players and get demoralize because they connect with high skilled players.


I know its not a easy task to do could be a nice feature for QoL player base imo.

 

[Banana Cat]

Firstly, excellent post, and I personally like many of the ideas you're proposing for the cast and the systems entire. I wanted to add my two cents for what they are worth on Eliza and Dahlia specifically:

ELIZA

• I think some things about Sekhmet could be made a little bit less frustrating to deal with, with more obvious windows to go for a hit on her (if you risk it) when playing neutral with her or dealing with her mix ups.
• Sekhmet backflip likely won't be allowed if the point blocks it even if it hits an assist, just like how Upperkhat and Fiber work, for consistency.
• Crimson Scourge shouldn't work on dead characters.
• Maybe Throne can try red bounce instead of blue bounce.
• Crimson Scourge as an Eliza super (not a Sekhmet super) after Eliza taunts as suggested elsewhere could be a fun experiment. It would let her DHC into it after taunting, but not from round start if she's on second.

First, some clarification:

Sekhmet backflip likely won't be allowed if the point blocks it even if it hits an assist, just like how Upperkhat and Fiber work, for consistency.

Does this refer to specifically Sekh 5H or to all her moves, as currently that is how 5H works. I agree with making it consistent for hitting assists, but I think removing the ability to backdash on block for 5/2L and 5M would be a horrifying change and gut the use of skeleton outside of extremely specific scenarios and make the backdash effectively pointless.

Secondly, I was going to suggest as an additional/alternative buff to Throne, you could try making it destroy projectiles on the ground or otherwise absorb projectile hitboxes so she has something to run behind without a dedicated assist in the zoner matchups. Right now, it feels like you're not allowed to gain much if any ground against Pea particularly because you're usually stuck blocking bombs while she blocks the Throne and that's assuming throne reaches her and it's not just 5LP'd away. This may be remedied by the proposed changes to those characters or to the system, but just food for thought.

Thirdly, just for consideration, I don't even know if this would be a healthy change or not, it would be nice for her to have faster or better options for controlling the midrange so she doesn't feel like Slow Filia + Skeleton so often. That's often talked about or mentioned on the wiki, but it feels like outside of blowing through stuff with Sekhmet on the read, you mostly just get clipped on an extended hurtbox for trying to check people. This is another thing that might be remedied by changes to other characters, but I like the idea of giving her more of that identity personally to definitively separate her from the other airdashers.

Finally, I disagree with removing Bite on dead characters. Spending 2 bars to heal is cool and I think removing it detracts from her unique blood mechanic. End of the day, you're spending meter on it to begin with which is a choice and having the choice between doing it to heal or saving it to make a kill easier is an interesting one that I find myself having to make on the fly. There's also something thematically appropriate about the character known for brutality and cruelty getting one last gory munch in to prove a point.

BLACK DAHLIA

• Something(s) will change with Ice Shot, and perhaps a few other things for shots.
• JHK confirms may see a scaling penalty.
• H Reload may see changes, but it may not! At the moment, I'm pretty happy with how H is being used, but I could see us changing around the order of where the bullets are loaded into the chamber such as [3 and 5], or[2 and 5], instead of the current [3 and 6].
• M Reload could be more interesting, so if there's an opportunity for control over your ammo choice, it would live here. I will mention that it's (obviously) very intentional Black Dahlia does not have access to: Reload + Pick shot type, Shoot shot type, Reload + Pick shot type, Shoot shot type...
• Empower shouldn't work on corpses and give you the buff.

I wanted to bring up the topic of how her Reload super works entirely, since I have concerns that regardless of how the shot properties are nerfed, changed, or moved around, we may end up in a very similar situation of "Shot X wins the MU > load 6 X shots > gamestate is reduced to atoms". I understand and appreciate the intention of allowing Dahlia to spend meter to pick what she gets and don't think that agency should be taken away, but I fear without limitations it may result in removing any agency on the part of the other person in the match, similar to how Ice Shot currently interacts with characters like Band, Eliza, Beo, etc. I don't know what a proper solution to this would be, but off the cuff ideas like "she can only load 2 of any given shot during the super" etc came up. I think as it stands, there's often little incentive to mix shot types together (allowing for more dynamic neutral interactions and combo routes) outside of trying to just style on someone and personally I would like to see some kind of system in place that would require you to make use of multiple different lines of play, especially given how strong things like Ice Shot have proven to be when they are the matchup winner, if only to give the other party some degree of counterplay and room to breath in the event that "I block flame shot" becomes the next community meme.

Thank you for your time, looking forward to what the team has in store for the future. P.S. remove the extended hurtbox on Eliza j.MK, it'll be fine I promise :^)

 

[acfan]

Hey there Liam! Thanks for all the hard work you, HVS, and FC do for the game!

I'm here to talk shop about the proposed Painwheel changes.
As someone who still plays point Painwheel in current year, she needs quite a lot of help and I'm looking forward to seeing the changes made to her; I know players have requested the same things for her for a while now.

However, until we know more, I do disagree that changing or nerfing how Hatred Install DHC as a countermeasure to her point buffs is unnecessary- I have stuck with Painwheel all these years due to her flexibility in team order or composition (once upon a time, this doesn't really hold water anymore).

As a longtime player of the character I would love to see how Painwheel shakes out being both competent in all roles on team compositions.

 

[No Funny Name]

My issue with parry
To me the most powerful use of band's parry is as an anti air, it's the only risk free anti air in the game - at least 6P style moves can whiff! - There's absolutely nothing you can do jumping in vs a band doing 6 . 5LP, press any button and you get parry 5LP'd, block and band gets to mix you. There are no other options. If you have ever sucesfully jumped in on a band they messed up and could have won the interaction for free (A few characters are exceptions, but either they don't win the interaction or band can just not parry vs chairless beo).

With SG being as air focused as it is I don't think "don't be in that situation" is a good answer, and this is the same reason I disagree with the game having strong anti airs in general.

I don't know what could possibly fix this.

Parry OSs
Band gets to take any strike mixup and upgrade the 'guessing correct' outcome from blocking to getting a combo, but that isn't an OS, it's just parrying, and saying that Parry OSes are the problem missattributes blame, if a targetted nerf shot parry OSs specifically, then I don't believe it would do anything and parry would be just as strong.

His parry OSs are (to my knowledge, and with the exception of left/right) OSs that already exist for blocking, just replacing block with parry. In the case of parry/throw OS it's worth noting that this loses to mids when the block version doesn't, probably only relevant to Double and others who lack instant overheads/good overhead options.

So for the left/right OS we have two cases, airborne and grounded. In the case of grounded you can maintain the 50/50 by layering mid/low, and for airbone there's nothing you can do except not doing the mix. I welcome this targetted annie nerf. Potentially a fix to anti air parry mentioned above would also help here.

 

[Pol]

@Liam
I've always been on the fence about this. To adjust it would be to really break the "hurtboxes on average line up with the character art" paradigm that Skullgirls has had for so long. Very light adjustments to standing and crouching idles (which populate to crouching and standing hitstuns) are a potential option we could explore, I feel like they'd come with numerous unintended changes though removing tech and character specific set ups that work on these characters. I know Cerebella has a ton of hurtbox issues that are unique to her too, like how far above her point she is when falling from a knockdown state. Eager to hear more input honestly!

I am definitely looking for closer consistency between the smaller bodies in the game. I realize that this may ruin some niche fun tech certain characters can do to each other, however, these situations are so rare and require specific hits that they should not be held over a game that runs smoother. Again, I do not advocate for Squigly to become as big as Parasoul but closer to Filia's height and width. Your proposal for slight changes to standing and crouching hitboxes is interesting and potentially air hitboxes too. As far as fringe cases like Cerebella having weird shapes those can be explored too. I will keep an eye out for more examples but the biggest ones for me were how droppable "stable" routes are on Annie, Umbrella, and Squigly.

@Liam
For that reason, we'll be trying to focus on slam dunk "EVERYONE (mostly) LIKED THAT" changes first before we dive into adjusting things that are much more likely to be earth shattering and change tons of things at once. I prefer to leave large game feel and pacing things alone, since after all, everyone posting on this forum is here is doing so because for one reason or another they found something they love about the game just the way it is. Of course there's a point where some things are so powerful that they have to be adjusted whether you like it or not, and that's the hardest part of the job for me at least. Not a fan of disappointing anyone, but someone will always disagree with a particular change even if the majority feel it's better for the "health" and overall balance of viable strategies in the game, so onward we go...

A game made by the people for the people. That's what I like to see!


P.S. You will have to forgive me. I could not for the life of me figure out exactly how to add the "Liam says" at the top of each quote.

 

[Façade]

TWO TOUCHES

My main concern about addressing two touches is that making sweeping general changes might indirectly hurt characters whose weaknesses include low damage. I'll be cautiously optimistic about how this will be handled.

MAX UNDIZZY LOOPS + DAMAGE

I initially thought about forcing stage 3 as a way to nerf these max undizzy loops, but thinking about it some more it might just end up adding another layer of system complexity that the game doesn't need. So right now I'm more of a fan of a combination of the other changes.

BIG BAND

I still think the parry window should be adjusted regardless of whether parry OS remains. And implying Tympany is fine because you can meaty his blind spot on incoming is a tad reductive, especially when the main contentious point of that super has nothing to do with it being used on incoming. So my point still stands that Tympany should be more consistent to punish on block.

MS. FORTUNE

I'm liking pretty much all of the proposed changes so far. Not really sure why strike invuln Fiber is being brought up now when it was implemented initially only to be reverted soon after. On the topic of j.LK, as long as it no longer hits high while rising from a double jump I'll be satisfied.

PEACOCK

Also a fan of most of the proposed changes here. Making M Bang into Lenny unsafe on block I especially like. The reason I wanted bombs to go away on hit was because I wasn't aware that bombs staying on hit is a core part of her kit now that she could cancel bomb tosses into each other. I always thought that aspect felt like pure top tier privilege, especially considering L George is -2 point blank for some reason. As for Lenny, is it possible to have a clearer visual element when he's close to exploding, similar to Robo level 3?

VALENTINE

Like most of these changes. I'd imagine the "Bypass Fix" specifically refers to specific cases where bypass just whiffs when it shouldn't have rather than just a general hitbox increase. I'd imagine Orange Vial (and the others, too) would be nerfed in a way where you can't load 2 levels and use them in the same combo, making running Excellebella assist less of a requirement.

DOUBLE

I've said this before and I'll say it again: revert the L Luger air knockback change.

ROBO-FORTUNE

Liking what I'm seeing here. I've never agreed with the notion that she "sucks on point" and that nerfing Beam assist would gut her entirely, given the buffs she got to her kit.

ANNIE

Also liking what I'm seeing here. I'd also like it if Destruction Pillar's damage would be reduced from 700→900→1100 to 700→850→1000, but I'd imagine that change would be in line with addressing the two touch meta. I'm seeing quite a few people dooming about c.LP getting slightly nerfed, but that move is very obviously over-tuned as an anti-air that chains into itself (unlike Peacock c.LK) AND has head invuln (unlike Robo c.LP). It most definitely deserves slight nerfs.

 

[sheep]

can we also consider further cd nerfs to lvl 2 mitem? with the way she is right now even if you manage to bait mitem and put it on cd it feels like she's able to get item drop back really fast, and the strategy with pea mitem is to not let it get to lvl 3 to incur the really awful cd

also imo -2 lgeorge feels way too much when she has stuff like 2hk and also tp cancel means she doesn't have to commit if something feels off about it, as well as being able to challenge on -2 if she chooses

PEACOCK

• Look at SoiD losing its hitbox and / or having a delay on dropping post flash as mentioned.

Watch 2023-11-01 18-07-38 | Streamable

Watch "2023-11-01 18-07-38" on Streamable.

streamable.com

 

[DoubleOrNothing]

I do wanna throw this out there. Would it be too big of a deal for people to be able to call assist without it being a combination of buttons? Just call the assist without it being a P+K?

 

[ShakyFingers]

I'm sure this is an old gripe people have brought up in the past, but I've had this issue coming up a lot recently so I'd like to bring it up just in case it might have the chance to be looked at.

The recovery of Bella's standing pushblock moves her forward quite a significant amount, to the point that it allows her to be crossed up in the corner. If at all possible, I'd like to see this changed so that it doesn't happen because, as far as I'm aware, this isn't an issue with any other characters, though if it does I feel like it would be good to change it for everyone since not being able to be crossed up when cornered during pressure was, I believe, an active design choice with the game.
(Of course I have no qualms if this happens because of an assist that vacuums on block or from a reset, obviously. It just feels "off" in this situation)
[Sorry that I'm so wordy]

(Example video here)

Skullgirls Encore 2023-11-02 18-41-21 - Trim

Watch "Skullgirls Encore 2023-11-02 18-41-21 - Trim" on Streamable.

streamable.com

 

[Liam]

Quick update, Marie bugs have calmed down but addressing them took a lot more time than expected. We are working on balance patch changes each day trying to get enough of them ready for a meaningful "first build" to release soon. I don't have an ETA on when that will drop exactly, but we are actively working on it - thank you for your patience!

will there be any changes to the Vial symbols? As it stands now, I cannot understand whether my opponent is loading green or orange vial since I'm colourblind. It'd be cool if you could read this (since i had already tried to make this issue know but everytime I try it just vanishes into thin air T_T).

Just wanted to confirm we'll be starting on this this month with some new VFX so that color blind players can tell which vials are being loaded - thanks for being a squeaky wheel about it.

We're also planning on creating new VFX to show when the PBGC window occurred but was not taken, and when a PBGC was activated successfully to make that mechanic easier to explain to new players. After that, I think almost every hidden defensive mechanic (land cancel would be next) should be highlighted in some way visually, hurray!

 

[lumin]

if we're gonna touch on colorblind accessibility i want to share my two cents about the stages as well :) in stages like gehenna, annie stage, atrium and more that don't come to my mind right now some colors and projectiles just blend to the background and it becomes near impossible to react to stuff. i had this problem especially with annie's stage with some robo beams where i couldn't see where the end of the hbeam is to parry it. i have most of the stages i mentioned modded in my game already but it could be nice to have some default, easier on the eyes version in the base game. or maybe a way to lock online opponents to default colors could be cool.

 

[Lawnalog]

Yup, should be just those 2. Every other normal is either too slow to use, or not worth going for since their hitboxes are bigger and would hit the opponent anyway.

you can also use Fortune's sLP to get head loops @Liam

https://twitter.com/x/status/1596078266330537984

 

[DoubleOrNothing]

Can we get a command line option to skip the epilepsy warning that'll send you straight to character select or online lobbies? We've played for hours upon hours, the warning is superfluous to us and just slows things down.

 

[R.C. Simon]

PAINWHEEL

• If Painwheel is receiving significant buffs to her point game, she will receive nerfs to her strengths as a "play me second for DHC damage" position by reducing Hatred Install damage and such.
• I think the "Nail Storage" idea (FC from Nails to save the charge percentage for later) sounds really fun actually! However currently each nail adds Undizzy separately, so using this in combos wouldn't be possible without some minor engine changes.
• Some amount of "QOL" (buffs) to hitboxes and frame data here and there as often brought up can be looked at for her.
• HATRED GUARD DISCUSSION
→ I don't disagree, Hatred Guard could probably be more interesting if Painwheel had access to something new and fun after using the mechanic properly instead of just dishing some bonus CH damage back ASAP, although that simple mechanic in itself is still powerful, especially post bug fix where it properly returns damage to assist and point on the same hit. She can sometimes have a reason to try and armor a bunch of single hitting assist calls in neutral so that she can get in and dish it back with a move that converts stored damage well, since there are different return values of stored damage depending on the move that connects, but it doesn't go too much further than that.
→ This is off the cuff and probably even irresponsible to just throw out there, but something like "aftering armoring some number of hit(s), her next Buer is the boosted installed version" could be pretty fun and gives her a reason to fish for armor more often, and dissuades opponents from feeding her easy to armor assist calls for a bit of counter play.

Haven't posted in a while but now that balance is opening back up I just want to give my personal opinions on painwheel

quickly I wanna say that I am a point pw player, thats my favorite way to play painwheel and while I practically am forced to play her mid due to the meta, these are all opinions from a point pw player

I feel that painwheel's inherit problem is how dysfunctional she is, and how her tools fail to aid her against the rest of the cast. Where others get to have intentionally strong tools that support their archetype, painwheels options often work to disillusion what her gameplan is even meant to be(no seriously ask 10 different sg players what pw's archetype is and youll get atleast 3 different answers). I am not a Future Club Dev myself so I don't know of the hassle or extra work it might take to implement these ideas, but these are just a few of mine

Massive QOL Update
Painwheel is in desperate need of tools that bring her in line with the rest of the cast. Her quirk of being slow and heavy hitting was interesting on paper, but in a game focused more and more on quick in-your-face rushdown that explodes you, painwheel has unsurprisingly been left in the dust. Many of her normals, namely s.lp and s.mp, should be sped up, and having armor startup being later in the move is a fine trade-off. As for j.hp, a move which you will rarely see painwheel's use due to its long startup and 1 hit of armor(in a meta where aerial multihits dominate the air-air game), I feel that she should either get faster startup and charge time, or atleast 1 more hit of armor( would balance out since c.hk also has 2 hits of armor)

Buers need to be touched as well, having pw be HCH punished for being a couple frames too slow in her combos or for a callout is kind of insane, especially when you realize how hard her combos are and how other characters go off the hook for often even stronger options(keep in mind buer is a mid, and even max range buers allow for your opponent to punish you). Buers should stay unsafe but not with such a massive vulnerable period, and atleast make max range buers safe so that pw players dont just explode for going for max range confirms. adjusting the hitboxes on atleast l and h buer would be appreciated so that hbuer can work as a better anti air when you call out your opponent correctly.

Currently I feel that overall nails are fine but maybe speeding up m nail so that it can be used as a less commital option for pressure(making it less plus for pw on block is a fine trade-off as well)

I'm not the first to say this but her meter gain is abyssmal. I don't exactly know why the game gives her so little meter in comparison to others, but i feel it should definitely be adjusted if you want to make her a better point. This shouldn't apply to HI since most pws will know what routes to do depending on their meter when they dhc

Flight is the move that defines painwheel, and its pretty fitting since its also relatively weak and a bit counter-intuitive. No other character in the game currently has as much movement capability in the air as pw, so in exchange they move much faster in the air(double jumps/airdash). Painwheels lack of air speed results in her being much less effective as an aerial-controlling character and so her aerial neutral isnt as strong. She doesn't need super fast flight speed or any other extra air options, she just needs to be sped up by a bit, especially in regards to her backwards flying speed which practically eliminates retreating as a viable option for her unless you have an assist to keep your enemy from just superjumping at you. Limitations like restricted flight height and inability to block during flight should stay.

Dealing WIth HI DHC
While i personally feel that if you were to implement those qol changes to her that HI still shouldnt be touched, if you were looking to rework HI to aid in her point game then here are some of my ideas

Increased flight speed in all honestly should've been an aspect of HI from the beginning but It should most definitely be added now, especially since pw HI combos usually have you trying to chase your opponent across the screen when you combo them. This would also make using Hi on point more viable since youd have stronger mixups and by extension neutral due to the speed. I feel that out of all of these changes, she truly needs this one the most(this can single handedly make HI more useful on point)

If not added to her regularly, faster normals/armor should also be another strength of HI. It again would make her neutral and pressure much more competent

A new armor mechanic she gets only in HI, maybe an armor parry that she can use only after she armors something

Teamplay
just some extra points id like to add to better her team synergy

Charged assists as an option would be pretty interesting, There is no real use in running uncharged s.hp, c.hp, c.hk assist so making these by default the charged versions when you pick them would go a long way in her usability in different positions. I feel the same way in regards to nail assist(adjusting angles for h nail so its easier to jump through feels like a good trade-off)

bit of a pipe dream but it'd be cool if we got pinion dash back as a point special move too

 

[Stuff]

Hey everyone, I just wanted to say that I don't think speeding up Painwheel's buttons will overall buff Painwheel and I don't want silly gimmicks for this character. I'm in the process of writing a really long paper of what I think Painwheel is and what I'd personally want the character to get because I feel that these are what she really needs because I've decided to really just point out what I like rather than try to be agreeable to get an overall buff but since I like this character a lot I'd hate to see it changed in a way that would make the character no longer fun for me so I'm gonna be selfish from this point on.

Honestly a lot of proposed changes make me want to say "If you want faster, then play Filia, Fortune, or Annie"

Painwheel is an incredibly unique character and unlike any other character in Skullgirls, I'd be really sad if she was lost to all these silly gimmicks. I don't believe her supers need to necessarily be better or button to be faster (a 7f normal isn't going to change anything for her). I just want the things she's already doing (flight, nails, armor, unfly) to be better, I'm a really firm believer that her movement being buffed alone would be huge, if she could bait DP assists even better with backwards flight being faster (including retaining more momentum on backwards unfly) for example would be HUGE for this character that's so good at baiting approaches. The way flight is now is that it encourages forward without giving Painwheel anything where forward is good unlike other characters who are incentivized to move forward which have fast and/or long buttons to use with that forward speed. Keeping in mind that Painwheel's best poke is 22f. [please don't misunderstand and think that I want jMP to be faster, I don't! Or that I want her to have buttons that incentivize forward, I don't! The beauty of the way Painwheel is now imo is her focus and having to space correctly which I'd go as far as to say, she's the HARDEST character to space with and that's good! Think Dhalsim.]

In terms of button buffs, I have other things in mind, namely properties and hitstun values maybe even hitbox sizes. But overall I think Flight, Unfly, Nails and Armor are the very core of the character and those same tools have a lot of constraints that should be changed first imo.

Also, not to be mean but I'm going to be mean. Why do you all want Pinion on point? I really don't get it, at best it was just a combo tool otherwise you're minus as hell and can't cancel it into anything safe (Yummy, I love eating Brass assist, here I come!). And why do you all want armored overheads and lows? Most of you already can't deal with Dahlia 2MK assist, please think about it, do you really want that with armor? The same thing with charged nails, you all hate beam, why do you want Peacock to have even MORE coverage? I don't get it...

 

[bigbandpro69]

I have a bit of a weird post. It's not focused on any character but moreso the way the game is being balanced right now. Some caveats: this isn't mean to educate anyone, but rather put out some of my thoughts to see how aligned others are, maybe generate some discussion. Skullgirls is a game that I'd say is balanced with player feedback in mind - I want to make a distinction quite clear that what people say is not often the same as what people actually do - this is the attitudinal vs behavioral split that I've learned in my work outside of the game. Attitudinal data represents thoughts, feeling and opinions. Behavioral data is what people do based on observations. This presents an interesting problem for player feedback in a competitive game - how do you trust what people say (attitudinal data)? Indeed, some of us do things on the contrary to what we say, without even realizing it. Similarly, how do you trust behavioral data (e.g. tournament winners, character representation, other stats, what people do in game)? Ultimately... I think it's a balancing act that requires Liam, or whoever else involved with deciding on changes, to try and cut through the noise to find what is closest to the truth as possible. I'd expect most mains of any character to insert their own bias into keeping their character strong and their least preferred characters weak, most people are not advocating their characters to be nerfed - even if they believe it's appropriate. I think ideally you want to figure out the underlying player needs from the feedback you're getting - what do players *need* to play the game? I can name fun and competition, but it very well may go a lot deeper than that for others. Start with these needs, and consider them when making changes.

When suggesting changes to the game, for any specific character - all the following must be considered:
1. The character's toolset - what does each normal/special/super accomplish? (at least, on a surface level - peacock c.LK, robo c.LP and annie c.LP are what most people would traditionally call anti airs). Does this character have tools that another character doesn't? What is the relative strength of these tools? One character might have less tools than the other, but have one or two very strong tools to compensate (looking at squigly here, with no bias, it's simply how she works with jLK/charged sing forming most of her gameplan). How much damage do they do on average?
2. The character's matchups - tricky one. Yet another thing mired in behavioural/attitudinal noise, but absolutely necessary - how does this character fare against others? I feel like this can be encapsulated a bit better by looking at what situations you can force the opposing character into after they are hit, and how little options they have (besides blocking) against them. Otherwise trying to understand how the neutral would work on a broad level - can be quite tough and requires consideration of each toolset.

Ultimately... fighting games are incredibly complex due to the extreme amounts of variation in the game's values (player 1's x/y position, player 2's velocity, player 1's undizzy level, player 1's meter level, player 2's assist lockout time value, etc...). Any of these values could be slightly different and generate so many different experiences when playing. This, to me, is what keeps skullgirls and fighting games so fresh - I love that about the game and it's what keeps me coming back - but it's also a behemoth task to understand all these various possible situations and scenarios, and what could be considered the "right" play at any time for any of these... anyway I hope these thoughts are of some value

 

[clawmaster]

Hey folks, but more specifically for Liam.

I have been meaning to post on here one small QOL change for Squiggly. Have some indicator of what charge she has. It's not a huge deal since I can just do the motion to know for a brief second, but having on the screen somewhere helps in the cases I am doing a combo and forget sometimes if I have punch charge or not.

 

[Façade]

With regards to the recent beta changes, I'm liking almost everything that's posted, except for this:

Does it really have to be three buttons? Or was there no way to make this move two kicks instead?

 

[HellCofer180]

With regards to the recent beta changes, I'm liking almost everything that's posted, except for this:
View attachment 17229
Does it really have to be three buttons? Or was there no way to make this move two kicks instead?

Probably still keeping guilty gear references with Annie. Though I wish they do 2 buttons instead. Not a big deal if you have a macro button ready

 

[Façade]

Probably still keeping guilty gear references with Annie. Though I wish they do 2 buttons instead. Not a big deal if you have a macro button ready

Forcing pad players to use up a macro button for the sake of a reference doesn't hold much weight especially considering this game only has 2 macro buttons compared to Guilty Gear's 3.

 

[HellCofer180]

Forcing pad players to use up a macro button for the sake of a reference doesn't hold much weight especially considering this game only has 2 macro buttons compared to Guilty Gear's 3.

It's a bit of a stretch on my part, but it makes sense considering where her new move's inspiration comes from. Also, you don't have apply all 3 buttons on 1 macro If you don't want to. You can just apply only 2 buttons to it so that you only have to essentially press the assigned macro button and any other button instead of a 3-button macro. Considering macros handle several uses, it shouldn't be hard to just press it along with another button, especially on pad.