The Unofficial Official Beta Discussion Thread

[Liam]

I believe I mentioned this already but I'll mention it again, we don't have resources available to add UI elements right now.

It's safe to assume that if I can't do it alone, we can't do it right now.

 

[the_rpg_king]

I see that now. Then the only thing we can do is to make sure that this patch releases before Combo Breaker. I am hyped to experience the power of Annie's Star Overdrive on the big show and so on.

 

[dezbshf]

She's gotten some straight up buffs (in addition to QoL) to a bunch of things that I think will really move the needle in terms of consistency effectiveness as a point character. I did nerf install DHC damage and recovery, but it lasts a bit longer when used on point now. Clouds post came in after I wrote this, but many things listed there in his post have been implemented already.

Very excited to see how these changes feel, I've never been Hatred Install's strongest soldier but it will still be sad to see even more damage slip from my beloved Lenny > HI DHC (hit on two fronts by the lenny damage nerfs, mind you!)

I am not planning on shipping nail storage. I also experimented with hatred guard charging up some thing (the next buer you do is the installed version), but without a good visual indicator, it feels off. I may circle back to that at some point if we have time.

Really hoping you do get a chance to come back around to looking at Hatred Guard. My biggest gripe with it is that it always feels like an invisible mechanic, on top of it being underwhelming and difficult to create value out of. Hatred Guard in its current state felt the most directly involved against slow, large assists that could be safely armored, like H brass countercalls, annie DP while flying high in the air, or projectiles like parasoul tear. In these situations Painwheel is presented with the decision making opportunity of cashing out onto the assist to dissuade future calls, or continue to store damage in hopes of a massive hit to the point (or point + assist characters.) Its a fun risk reward system that develops through longer sets and flowcharts differently through team compositions and certain assists; I armor through an equal amount of beat extend and H brass assist calls, but I'm much more prone to immediately cash out stored damage on beat extend both because I am likely closer to the opposing point character and can fish for a hit on both, and I personally want to dissuade beat extend calls through bleeding assists more than I do H brass calls.

Really unfortunate that lack of access to visual indicators is a major roadblock in bringing hatred guard to the forefront of Painwheel point play. Considering the changes to HI's run time on point, it seems the simple solution of giving pw the HI glow once she's stored enough damage to gain the earned resource (example given above being an installed buer) is out of the question. In a dream world with infinite time and resources I'd love to see some of the weight get shifted to the understated lightning effects from her intros, HI startup and armor frames.

On the topic of gaining a resource from Hatred Guard, I'd really like to push any discussion of this away from gaining something you would already get in hatred guard (empowered buer, faster/full nail charge). The invisibility of Hatred Guard is the source of pw's constant underselling through her representation being limited to "safe DHC damage engine", which I would argue against being an integral part of her identity and would sooner see completely gone than empowered at all (especially considering Painwheel's assist options and "effort character"-ness made this identity highly underwhelming in the face of Annie's DP assist and pillar DHC).
It would be way more interesting from my perspective for the boons of effective Hatred Guard to be separate from HI, or work in conjunction with the new gameplan of install.

Spend 1-2 stocks to 8 way airdash while shes flying with direction+KK (needs more elegant input to prevent awkward overlap)

This suggestion from Softie is something I would really like to see at least toyed with internally like nail storage, it seems a bit strong but also like something that intertwines with where HI is moving and where I think HG should me moving (I would also really like to slingshot myself across the screen with this because that sounds like an immediate dopamine generator).

As significant as I want the reward of Hatred Guard's armor to be to Painwheel play, for both the sanity of the development side and my own personal preference I really don't want it to become an additional UI element and would love to see the visual aspect of identifying the resource be tied to Painwheel specifically. It feels very "in character" to tie it to the adorable little rageball.

I'll save anything major I want to say about Painwheel assists until after the Painwheel changes are playable, too, but I quickly wanted to mention that I think L and H pinion are both in great spots right now and feel good as they are.

Again, really excited to engage in proper discussion once the Painwheel changes are finally out, and thank you for all your hard work!

 

[05mario]

FUKUA

Next update brings back health drain on shadows, but:
• She restores life spent on that shadow when it hits a character
• Immediate healing sources for shadow drain health (Lv3, armored cmd grab, taunt) are increased.
• Fireballs restore lost life from shadow drain when they return on successful hit.

More avenues to go in and get life back if you're hitting with them, or land cmd grab / Lv3, but holding L Shadow with 99% up time will start to hurt eventually. Doing combos and making a comeback with holding shadows won't hurt her unless you bank on a held shadow reset and it doesn't work out.

I can understand why'd you'd want to implement health drain back to avoid having a clone always held in neutral but in their current state clones are not strong enough to warrant a drawback like this. They are absolutely the most interactable setplay in the game and incentivizing the opponent to just ignore it all together is not the method. I can't even use it offensively if they decide to avoid it since the range on clones is smaller than you would think. Unless clones get some sort of compensation buff which I haven't seen mentioned anywhere this just seems limiting for no real reason. I personally think the health drain should just go altogether but if its destined to stay can we get something to buff clones? I've mentioned it in the past but slightly better scaling and allowing clones to stay if fukua blocks a projectile/assist would allow her to better use clones in nuetral in more mu's and force a little more interaction on the opponents end. Assists should still be able to hit a clone a motion so once you pin her down with something she still cant really use the clone defensively like a discount item drop. This post is probably a little too late for anything to change on fukua for the upcoming beta patch, but I figured I'd post something anyway. Also any word on any other fukua changes? I know throw hkd was mentioned a while back but I haven't seen anything about it since so I'm curious if there's anything else in the back.

 

[JuuseBox]

Real talk with the patch needing to be wrapped up by May, it does feel like a waste of resources to fine tune health drain as a mechanic.

Let’s see what significant work we can get through and then let it rest.

 

[Swiftfox-Dash]

Well might as well give my final thoughts now while I can.

Cerebella's little quality of life changes are nice and I personally am more fond of this elbow than the groundbounce one. Only thing I might ask for her that I don't feel is egregious in the slightest is to extend the point blank hitbox of titan knuckle a little down possibly? In some corner combos a few light characters such as Val and Fortune have smaller windows to hit them otg with titan knuckle because of their hurtbox. You can still combo them sure, but seems odd that if you're a frame or two late you whiff where you would have hit any other light character. Also you can't hit robo otg in the corner with titan knuckle. Rarely comes up and you can just battle butt, but its easy to auto pilot or such and forget this unique interaction and whiff a kill.

Speaking of feels bad, there is one thing of Peacock's I have a concern with (besides argus damage ). I am perfectly fine with the whole l bang lenny thing not being able to get a free unscaled reset on assists, but the way lenny interacts with assists now messes up other things. Example: If I get in a dynamo as Bella, catch the point and assist, I can't use lenny to then continue the HBD because lenny forces the assist out. It's not like you can use argus to add extra damage since a character is almost assured to fall out 90% of the time and Peacock's level 3 doesn't help in this scenario either. If a character gets a good (or lucky) super mash, why shouldn't you be able to dhc and continue the HBD? (even if there's still a good chance it'll drop given peacock's combos) Just seems like an unfortunate side effect of this specific lenny nerf.

I think everyone agrees that the l bang into teleport stuff was too potent because of the 50/50 into killing two characters, but is there a way to make assists immune to lenny while/after recovering? This would effectively kill the strong reset point with lenny against assists but doesn't cause wonky interactions with assists as described above.
I mean yes, if that nerf is used instead of what we have now, Peacock would get her ability to L bang → Lenny into a corner carry during a happy birthday, but I don't think that's a problem at all. Pretty much all other characters can just carry you to a corner or even side switch as needed, spend a single bar and kill the assist. If Peacock has to spend 1 bar just to get her only HBD combo with a smidge of consistency to corner carry and then spend another bar to get the snap, I honestly think that's fine. (Not to mention she's also meter locked for part of that combo and might not even build that second bar sometimes). So Peacock would still have probably one of the worst HBD potential given how meter costly it is, and the ability to reset the assist into a free explosion would be gone if the assist gets immunity. This might also have the downside that punishing an assist call as Peacock while lenny is out means that the assist might just randomly get to avoid the lenny explosion in some situations, but that might be fine? You'd have to try to combo the assist into the bomb which opens Peacock up to getting smacked by the point.

 

[Will]

I was able to make a post about wanting a three-bar Hype meter for Beowulf before that happened, but I was told that it can cause visual clutter as I learned about it, so instead, a UI element that can track Squigly's stances and charged state, Valentine's equipped vials and Beowulf's Hype level would be nice.

I second this actually. Being able to keep better track of your opponents resources during a set would be huge QOL imo

 

[Liam]

I think everyone agrees that the l bang into teleport stuff was too potent because of the 50/50 into killing two characters, but is there a way to make assists immune to lenny while/after recovering? This would effectively kill the strong reset point with lenny against assists but doesn't cause wonky interactions with assists as described above.

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe. I might be able to have Lenny miss assist characters if they are airborne and not in hitstun, which I believe (off the top of my head) would be the only opportunity to reset damage scaling. (Can others confirm I'm not missing an edge case here?)

This removes the reset point and keeps other things as before. I will see if I can quickly get that working, but I also want to ship a patch today.

---

Dahlia players, we're trying these shot placement patterns for...

H Reload:

M Reload:

I tried to look at a few more things for reload for experiments but forgot her reload is 1000 lines long. That said, I'm still happy with current reload!

 

[Nuuance]

please change M & H reload. No one wants to use meter for a mechanic she's advertised as having. she doesnt get it for free...she literally has to take the time to do it. theres already a ton of ideas in her dedicated thread, but active reload + corresponding button was a genius idea i forget who put it forth. 1 bullet for about 40-60f (forget the value) is more than fair. Like why.

 

[Liam]

Like why.

Because that's how she was designed.

Every time she gets a touch, she is not supposed to do: Assist Call + Reload (pick shot) → Exact set up you want every time over and over. If you want that, you spend meter. I think that much should be obvious from how reload works.

 

[VoltTurtle]

UMBRELLA

I don't think [giving her weak bubbles in Ravenous is] a bad suggestion. I will mess around with it.

We could try bringing back Hunger Meter drain on P normals so that combos speed up towards Ravenous to make that waiting period even shorter, etc. Making sure Satiated has reasonable paths towards Ravenous and Overstuffed is okay, and while it won't be anywhere near as fast and as extreme as old Bobblin' loops, if it needs adjustments that's cool with me, I don't mind either way as long as there's an intentional lock out before you're hitting Ravenous again, hence not being able to Salt Grinder for 1 chew in Ravenous to stay in Ravenous indefinitely.

The mode needs a bit of tuning and the damage is out of control, we're on the same page there. I think it's expected that this version of Umbrella does end up in Overstuffed more often than Ravenous because that's the state she can go to whenever, but I don't think that's a bad thing. If Ravenous is still happening after periods of neutral, or waiting, or intentional taunting, then she's eventually going to enter a state where she becomes very scary and rushes you down for a hit with some extremely powerful tools, which I think is cool!

One thing I'm eyeing here is her ability to leave Overstuffed mid combo by using bubbles. I think it would be more committal to remove that and have her forced to play in Overstuffed for a bit and let it drain out. That way if you go to Overstuffed to cash out on big damage, but the resets and neutral you play with are more committal instead of dropping back down to Satiated for SQRT and other similar things in the same combo you got to Overstuffed.

Late but I'm generally supporting these changes! Especially giving Umby very weak but at least usable bubbles in Ravenous -- no bubbles has felt really harsh and made Ravenous feel weak!

At this point I've let go of wanting a real escape button for Starving/Ravenous, now that I've played Beta Umby a bunch. The new drain rate for Ravenous feels about right and doesn't make it Anxiety mode anymore. I think turning her taunt into giving Hungern ice cream instead of hugging him when she's starving would still be good for the zoner matchups though, if she's not getting anything else to help with those.

Letting bubbles just exist in Overstuffed without draining hunger would be interesting. It'd re-open her funny bubble combos and EX bubbles in neutral while making sure she actually has to stick to Stuffed when she goes into it, which sounds fun!

 

[AloneLULz]

H Reload:
This is really interesting. With H Reload now on 2/4 i theorize she still wont have the assist+reload > setup which you've clearly stated she was not designed to do. So no buffs for the H Train-like Teams. But rather this is actually a buff for the H Brass teams. This is a reload meant for Neutral! You want to reload and use that first normal for pressure as you come up with a plan based on your next 2 bullets!
With a space in between bullets you will never get Ice>Fire setups sadly, tho no other bullet combination is appealing one after the other in combos anyways.
This is straight up buffing Neutral making it a bit more fast paced since us players are now entinced to shoot bullets more often than before and reload after the 4th instead of 3rd/6th. It also fixes a problem H reload had where you couldnt really use the last bullet without now being bulletless and risking it till you reload again. So overall H reload as it is i think it will be great but fair. Seeing bullets more often also unironically balances them. The problem with Laser/Rail most people have with it is that you never use it cause you never use Last Call to load it, and we were barely getting it on Meterless reloads since most people only use the 3rd bullet and reload or die before the 6th, getting to use special bullets more often disipates that disparity and doesnt make railgun look bad in comparison!

M Reload:
This one however feels a bit random. TO BE FAIR, i dont know what you guys could do with M reload to make it... at least usable? We straight up dont need a 3rd type of reload! You either WANT special bullets or you DONT. So either H or L reload. I honestly have no idea what purpose could M have to be appealing to use but i dont think putting a single special bullet on 5th will make me ever use it... not that it needs to be a usable move but honestly, im not reloading with M if im only getting a special on 5th, id much rather L Reload if i wanted +3 normal bullets upfront.

Thanks for looking up for our favorite grandma Liam! The H reload experiment seems like it'll be awesome!

My dude, the special bullet on M reload is the second one.

 

[ReyMercury YT]

My dude, the special bullet on M reload is the second one.

omg im stupid hahahaha

 

[JuuseBox]

H reload should probably be back to back special ammo. In this example it takes 5 shots to get 2 special ammo, whereas you can get 2 special shots in 4 shots with new M reload.

This way H is if you want to play the rng game and M is if you want consistency.

In reality I just think we should give a try to all random, or all random with exceptions like no ice, or fire, etc. Call assist + reload is already fairly standard even despite not wanting it to be her main game plan. Also 1 bar for a reload and dahlias insane meter gain in general means you almost always have bar for assist + meter reload too.

 

[ReyMercury YT]

Dahlia players, we're trying these shot placement patterns for...

H Reload:

M Reload:

i thought H was 2nd/4th and M 5th for not looking at the character icon smh.

H Reload:
One of the problems H reload has currently is that if you use the 6th special bullet you get in a disadvantage entering bulletless so its often better to reload again before using that 6th. Changing it to 5th helps this problem and entices us to use that bullet more often, usually H and M reload while on paper were different, on practice were the same since that last bullet was unused most matches. This is a slightly good change :)

M Reload:
We can now 5HP H_Train M_Reload > 236MP > dash Empower > Ice? 2[HP] 236HP or skip Empower and 5HP 236LP > dash 2LP Karacancel reset, Electric? 5[HP] 236HP, Fire? skip Empower go directily into Fire mix.

Example:

Now, is that OP? i dont think so, but is it better setplay? Yeah, i mean its more varied than either always doing your Last Call setup or relying on Okizeme. Its also not guaranteed you get a reset its quite literally 3/5 cause Rail/Shotgun dont have setups, Shotgun has a burstbait okizeme which is the closest thing to one but thats it.

I like this experiment, i'll have to tinker with M but its good enough to make me use it, as of currently i never use M so this is GREAT!

Thanks for looking up for our favorite grandma Liam! These 2 experiments seem interesting and balanced :)

 

[daryo]

FUKUA

Next update brings back health drain on shadows, but:
• She restores life spent on that shadow when it hits a character
• Immediate healing sources for shadow drain health (Lv3, armored cmd grab, taunt) are increased.
• Fireballs restore lost life from shadow drain when they return on successful hit.

Personally I'm fine with this as long as the health gain back is actually significant enough that helps her gameplan compared to old health gain. The rest of the changes that would be nice for fukua is letting fukua spend a bar to convert from airthrow and the ground throw hkd buff. Consistent m shadow pickups on all of the cast and shadow clones refresh when fukua gets dhc'd in through bff or lvl 3 after the clones have been used as an assist earlier would be nice. If these changes get implemented then fukua would be solid.

 

[JuuseBox]

Fwiw she gets super ud efficient vortex on train w/o special bullets

 

[tossle]

Both H and M reload look a lot better this way; H avoids the problems Rey mentioned and M is basically the one I've been asking for since forever! Can't wait to get to mess with it.

 

[Liam]

I will see if I can quickly get that working, but I also want to ship a patch today.

I will release the next patch tomorrow morning at some point when I wake up so that I'm around and awake to make a hotfix if needed.

 

[Nuuance]

Because that's how she was designed.

Every time she gets a touch, she is not supposed to do: Assist Call + Reload (pick shot) → Exact set up you want every time over and over. If you want that, you spend meter. I think that much should be obvious from how reload works.

Crossed my mind believe it or not and I hear you.

But I bring it up because many other characters set up with their special sauce or resource...pick your poison (Val for example). Or hype/seria. You're still under IPS & scaling's mercy and have to reset.

I can appreciate how obvious it seems, but for how damaging the game's already become & seeing some umbrella setups...i think a couple special bullets isnt something breaking the bank. If ultimately that design will never change then you know, that's how it is. But I really think taking a look at M & H reloads being more deliberate rather than what we have now is reasonable. I like the idea of working with random bullets. Just in a more controlled way & think that's what most posts about it say in a nutshell give or take different ideas.

Destroying the previous or first bullet to load a special one would be a sacrifice I wouldn't mind, but the current design's clear. I'm leaning on how M & H reloads feel. Dahlia's been fun, I think theres room for more too.

 

[CaioLugon]

Would it be possible to make characters' air options reset when they tag/dhc or get snapped out?

For example, playing duo pw/band, if I kill a character as painwheel by doing H buer fly L buer xx thresher dhc ssj bringing band in, I'll be locked out of both fly and thresher on incoming as painwheel if that situation happens later in the match. Same would happen with any other option like doublejump, airdash, or even bella glide, marie jmk and other specials.

I get that having them reset only when you jump is deliberate so the opponent can exploit it (which is already a bad idea if you ask me), but when it's a character that you weren't even playing as for a long time it's very counterintuitive and just impossible to keep track of.

 

[HBonder]

I know its unlikely but is there any chance Squigly players could maybe play around with some sort of adjustment to 5MK during this patch cycle? I've seen it thrown around time and time again in the maincord how the move feels so inconsistent with launching on air hit only and would be better off either without or as a mini launcher vs grounded opponents. Just curious if it's within the realm of possibilities or just a pipe dream.

 

[Triviality]

I know its unlikely but is there any chance Squigly players could maybe play around with some sort of adjustment to 5MK during this patch cycle? I've seen it thrown around time and time again in the maincord how the move feels so inconsistent with launching on air hit only and would be better off either without or as a mini launcher vs grounded opponents. Just curious if it's within the realm of possibilities or just a pipe dream.

her standing medium kick

is fine

 

[FuLLBLeeD]

Crossed my mind believe it or not and I hear you.

But I really think taking a look at M & H reloads being more deliberate rather than what we have now is reasonable. I like the idea of working with random bullets. Just in a more controlled way & think that's what most posts about it say in a nutshell give or take different ideas.

Destroying the previous or first bullet to load a special one would be a sacrifice I wouldn't mind, but the current design's clear. I'm leaning on how M & H reloads feel. Dahlia's been fun, I think theres room for more too.

If you are hearing him, he is saying that the core design functionality is not going to change; that means it is not going to change to what specifically you want. The answer isn't going to change, so continuing to ask for reworks is fruitless.

Going forward, I would ask posters to keep their feedback in the scope of what Liam has presented as actually possible. As cool as it would be to change Skullgirls into a completely different game in the span of a week, it simply isn't, and has never been realistic.

 

[Liam]

pick your poison (Val for example)

Or hype

Both of these leading to call Excella / A-Train / Salt Grinder + load your resource up for an optimal gameplan I think is less than desirable and not my cup of tea personally. Knowing what we know now, I don't think Hype would exist as it does today, and Valentine's vials would probably be different too.

Reducing the power of reload by making it somewhat unpredictable helps make that kind of call assist + get your resource → do the optimal set up from round start cLK worse. Here's a quote from her design document back from 2021 before we started picking her moves:

a couple special bullets isnt something breaking the bank.

Totally agreed though, if Dahlia could pick her ammo, it probably would not make her top 1 and destroy the game - but alas that's just not what we went with.

I'm sure Faust players would love the ability to pick the item they want to toss, Zappa would like to be able to force summon Dog when landing a knockdown in the corner, or Sword when far away and about to win by timeout, and Platinum wants particular items for some match ups, but all these characters don't do that, and I think that's ok.

Going forward, I would ask posters to keep their feedback in the scope of what Liam has presented as actually possible.

I never really posted much about why Dahlia is the way she is like this, so I don't mind providing a little extra context in this case FWIW and I'm happy to have the conversation, even if we're not having it for the purposes of actually changing her at this time. I don't have any more to say about Dahlia's reload for now though!

I may wince a bit though if I see yet another post asking for a HUD indicator for some mechanic though, I can't do that right now

Would it be possible to make characters' air options reset when they tag/dhc or get snapped out?

Keeping track of this is absolute peak silly Skullgirls jank and jargon. It feels really awkward to me but I thought that was kind of one of those "never change this" things, so that a player who DOES pay attention to that can know when their incoming is safe against Timpani or Thresher, or other air options. Not sure how I feel about removing the opportunity for this crazy knowledge check, even if it does feel like a "bug" for the defender when their stuff doesn't work.

 

[Liam]

3.7.4 is live:

Skullgirls 2nd Encore - (Valentine Cross Update!) Beta Mode Update [4/25/2024] - Steam News

Balance changes, Valentine's new cross redesign, and fixes for an ancient defect with character lighting!

store.steampowered.com

 

[Stuff]

Ship this patch.

 

[hamie96]

RELEASE TIMELINE

......
• A quick turnaround on a patch for Steam and PS4 is possible before Combo Breaker (that's over a month away) if we'd like to play on a theoretical new patch that is prepared around May 1st, and releases sometime later in May.
• If that's too soon, we could potentially delay the patch until after CB + SGCS is wrapped up, so releasing sometime like June 1st, but there will likely be no additional balance changes during the month of May - we'd just be waiting.
• We could maaaaayyybbeee also spot fix some egregious things for CB + SGCS finals, like just shipping Annie install changes and leaving everything else more or less alone. The feasibility of this though I'd need to check with the rest of the team on, I would really prefer to just delay it or ship it before CB.
.....

I want to preface this by saying I am not attending Combo Breaker this year, but I am a bit concerned for you and the team if you choose to release a console patch prior to Combo Breaker. I am guessing based on the responses lately that the resources allocated towards both developing the patch as well as bug testing and console testing the patch is severely limited compared to years prior.

Because of this, I'm worried for your sake (and the team's sake) whether the bugs for this patch will be ironed out and there will be enough proper time to test the patch before Combo Breaker. The absolute last thing I think any of us would want is for some huge bug/glitch to accidentally be released right before CB and be on display at the largest tournament.

With that in mind, if there's anything the rest of us can do outside submitting bugs to the 2e-bugs channel please let me know. Would be happy to help wherever possible.

 

[Liam]

3.7.5 is live, update notes are appended to the top of the old one:

Skullgirls 2nd Encore - (Valentine Cross Update!) Beta Mode Update [4/25/2024] - Steam News

Balance changes, Valentine's new cross redesign, and fixes for an ancient defect with character lighting!

store.steampowered.com

 

[WarpedEcho]

Painwheel patch is alright. My number one wishlist is still more consistent armor mechanics.

I have never understood why she needs 2 separate startups for armor before active frames. There is startup for the held armor, and then after that an additional held startup period (7f) for armor after the button is released for the remainder of the startup frames. I understand full charge for armor during the active frames, but it makes no sense to me that if I m/h armor something (big band 2mpmp for example) within the first few frames of armor, go to release to punish, and the 2nd slow hit of 2mpmp string stuffs my now unarmored move. Players can use the extra full charge time to react and blow through armor with neutral jump or invincible moves anyways.

I think that there should be one startup for pre-active frame armor and that should be the initial unarmored startups.


Besides that, she still going to have a lot of the classic pw issues (poor meter gain, general slow startup moves) and I don't think a little extra install time justifies gutting the install damage. The big issue imo with install damage was the death crawl damage, not the buer damage.

Other QoL stuff is pretty great!

 

[SonicFox]

This is a cool patch list.

H crescent being reduced by two frames made me pop off.

Again to reiterate for the things I’d personally like to see:

Fukua forward throw being a sliding knockdown.

Somebody earlier wanted her to spend meter to combo off of air throw. Maybe change the property of her air fireball(QCF+LPMP) super to be a ground bounce instead could be interesting?

And while in install, I would like Annie’s DP to just be a slightly better version than her current one, since all her heavy special attacks are supposed to be “EX” moves. Design wise it feels weird to see that be the only move untouched.


Even if it’s something small like “an extra 1000 dmg on DP” or something I’ll take it. Ya made all her other heavy special attacks do something SUPER cool in install, I’d wanna see it added to this move as well.

 

[ReyMercury YT]

Opinion on the Black Dahlia changes:
TL;DR: Dahlia stocks are going down :,v

Trap:
These Trap nerfs wont do much. If you got hit and the oponent wasnt already on top of the trap then you almost never get saved by the trap anyways, so making it go away to maybe stay consistent with Peacock Georges now isnt really nerfing Dahlia much.
Same goes for scaling, Trap already puts you at Stage 3 so the damage you get from it was already low, 50% scaling only tries to add salt to the injury so not really something to be worried about if you main Dahlia. The only Trap change that matters a little is the teleport to trap on hit, as i show in this example certain random interactions in neutral wont go in your favor anymore and that IS a noticable nerf to Dahlia against certain matchups:

Ice Shot:
Ice nerfs are BIG and meaningful. From what i understand, Ice shot needed to be nerfed because the neutral was too oppressive for certain matchups to deal with Dahlia making characters like Big Band unable to fight back. The problem i have with this change is that it affects her best setups! My 2 favorite setups are dead thanks to Ice either not knocking up like it did before or freezing for 0.25 less seconds! This is not only a HUGE nerf to her neutral game but also to her Setup game. Ice Fire now cant set up a doily to make the crossup so you might as well not load ice and just go fire. Or even better, dont load anything and go into Okizeme which after the burst changes seems to be the way.
I think Ice had it coming, but the nerfs should've been only for neutral not affecting her setup play. i wish you guys could make Ice freeze for 0.25s more so that Ice > Doily > Fire works again for a low/high into left/right reset point that we still have in retail.

Rail Gun:
I guess im loading Rail against certain matchups like Eliza now?
The big thing about Ice having armor break was that it stayed on screen for long. Rail is just shoot "pew" and done so its not nearly as strong, you cant use it to advance you just gotta run away shooting lasers. Between the two bullet changes i think i'll just load Shotgun from now on; +on block, overhead, disjoint, fast, big, big damage that can burst bait. Shotgun is the way now!
Also btw what is the hitstop change? We still cant convert from 236LP(Railgun) with a teleport so its not hitSTUN. (Btw literally give it 2 more frames of hitstun and we could convert with teleport)

M/H Reload:
After testing it a bit, i can surely say this is enough to make M reload useful, i lowkey will M Reload from now on exclusively, but thats just my taste, i can actually recommend either M or H to people and let them figure out which one they like the most cause both are equally powerful great options!
There were 2 options and those still remain, either:
1) You dont want to deal with special bullets:
So you L Reload and dont stress to think about them!
2) You want to have special bullets in your chamber:
You either get 1 on express fast delivery, or 2 slowly. To justify H reload you should expect yourself to use both specials so you are thinking on spamming a bunch of bullets, zone.
I can see M reload being better to rush in and pressure while H reload much better when running away and making space.
I think you can let them be like this and the character's reload problems would be sasiated. Although i would really like to see some cool things people have said in this thread, these 2 things already make for what i think Dahlia needed really. She needed a purpose for M reload and she got it!
Great stuff!
This is what M reload enables setup-wise:

 

[softie]

pw changes feel great

fukua life drain stuff seems very reasonable

probably not enough feedback to actually make a post but w.e, not contributing to discussion this time i just like the patch

 

[SeaJay]

I messed around a bit in training with Beat Extend happy birthdays.

As far as it scooping two characters raw and then picking up is concerned, it doesn't feel like too dramatic of a change. The timing is a bit tighter/more specific and I think I'll probably drop a few pickups in the short term due to the unfamiliar timing, but it's still doable (with Val or Bella, anyway). Edit: I only tested M Beat since that's the assist I play. I think H Beat is probably even less affected, since the extra hit gives you a little more time to prepare to pick up.

However, there is a big change to HBD Dynamo > 6HP+M Beat pickup. The conversion afterwards is now much more difficult (I thought impossible until Caio set me straight). Air buttons will now never connect against both characters. There is a tight window to hit a microwalk forward 5LK 2MP (which needs to be a microdash on about 40% of the cast), and even then the point character is higher up which can cause it to drop afterwards.

Example of beta pickup on one of the easiest characters (Peacock is both wide and light, so the 5LK reliably connects without microdashing and there's less height difference to deal with):

For comparison, a typical conversion on Retail involved sj jLPs to stabilise them, which was much easier/more consistent:

 

[Stuff]

Painwheel has never been more fun than she is now, other than the 8f rising overhead she now has on jLP (my opinion on this is that remove the rising overhead, keep everything else 6f jLP is awesome for starting pressure) I think you've all done an amazing job at keeping the spirit of the character while also rewarding what she was already good at.

I've gotten to a2a and win, my armor has been more useful, my AA is exceptional, my combos work, I've gotten HAPPY BIRTHDAY SNAPS to pick up, truly amazing. It's only day 1 and unfortunately I don't have a lot of time to play on quick match all the time (and that means my feedback won't be particularly useful other than the first impression, sorry) but the few matches I've played, Painwheel has never felt so good.

I know a lot of people are probably sad about install but tbh I've been so happy this patch and have had so much fun in just one day that I really don't care. Sorry install likers, and maybe some people don't it's warranted and maybe they're right because I don't like install anyway so I have a bias there.

It's not been very long but GOD I haven't had this much fun in literal YEARS I was smiling, I was laughing, I never do that when I play this game, please keep the painwheel changes I'm BEGGING

 

[Nezo]

I know I've been gone for quite a while and I'm pretty much irrelevant at this point when it comes to Beowulf talk but I thought I'd give some last minute ideas I've had/compile all the suggestions I've had into one post and just throwing it all out there. Some may seem ridiculous and would probably not work when given to him all-together, but I figure I might as well just throw all of it at the wall and if something sticks then that's great. Anyway, here's everything I've thought of:

Game-Plan Adjustment​

I believe that the healthiest shift that Beowulf's design philosophy should take when considering his game-plan and overall future balance should be, to put simply, Less Damage, More Options. Rather than being a total powerhouse/bulldozer once he gets in with thoughtless hype and meter dumping through flowchart-y routes, take away/adjust his damage options and replace them with more options in neutral and mix (round him out a bit more is what I'm trying to say). Less Damage from either quite literally combo scaling adjustments and individual moves' damage numbers or a forced shift in combo routing, and More Options from giving certain moves specific properties or new moves to help where he struggles now currently. Below I have some concepts and ideas that revolve around this adjustment, though perhaps even on their own they would significantly help how is currently if he were to remain the same otherwise.

Overall Hype Rework Concept​

Rework: Only one EX Finisher per combo unless during Airwulf or Wulfamania. Airwulf being a temporary way to cashout and use all 3 finishers, while Wulfamania being an install where, after used and landed, you are free to use all 3 without meter.

Idea: This will force Beowulf to not be able to always go for optimal damage and having to choose how he wishes to spend his meter/hype given the circumstances. Want to use the highest damage to combo ratio finisher EX Grendal Killa? Well you're forced to side-swap. EX Press Slam/Wulfdive? Well now you can't combo off your next regrab. EX Chair Dance? Gonna have to cost you OTG (even though you should only really be using this for birthday's or as a killing finisher into Arm.) And if you simply MUST cash-out when you have all 3 hype then you'll have to use meter for it, forcing him to think more about his meter as well.

​

New Move​

C.LKLK

Idea: It would be him using his other leg to kick as well just like he does for his chair dance but only twice. This would allow him more options for staggering, which would increase his potential in opening people up on block as well as allowing us to make his block strings a bit trickier to "successfully" pushblock.

Move Adjustments​

Chair Recall

- More pushback/forward on block. Have it drag in the opponent more on block so that it doesn't feel as much of a waste as it does when it is blocked. I was thinking about a quarter of the screen.
- Armor on hold rather than gaining hype when caught. I think I speak for most Beos when we say we don't hold it till it reaches our hands pretty much ever. Armor on hold would be much more worth it while still needing to forfeit meter if wanting to combo off of it after. I was thinking only one hit and only after it's been held after a certain number of frames. I leave that decision to you if interested.


c.HK
- Larger horizontal hitbox. I'd like to see this use more as a poking tool since I only ever really see it used for OTG combos. I think an increase in range would help with that.

Random Ideas/Concepts​

These are random ideas I've had for Beowulf that I haven't truly thought through in a balancing perspective and moreso "what-ifs" and what I think would be cool or would love to at least see tested in a future beta just for us to play around with. I'll stick to bullet points and, if requested or interested, I could go into further detail through either my expanded thoughts or a conversation.



- Being able to Chair Recall after any of the chair tosses acting as a bit of a pseudo special cancel, allowing it to be used as a frame trap/baiting tool, on-the-fly change of mind, and more combo potential.

- j.2HK launching Beowulf at different angles depending on if holding back, neutral, or forward. And, if held down the whole way through, he will drop down with his chair.

- Wulf Blitzer having a backwards variant with , specifically for when in the air. I understand how this would lead to undesirable mix options so I was thinking that this would strictly be used to mix up his jumping approaches by taking away it's hitbox. The angles I were thinking of as well being , , and .

- Wulf Blitzer having an EX variant where it would lose it's hitbox but gain projectile invincibility, costing 2 hype. The buttons to use it being + . Also being able to be used as the first blitzer and being able to regular blitzer after as accordance to if used on the ground or air like normal.

- Mic Drop being able to be held for twice as long, granting one hype only if blocked or hit for the max length. An "oooooo" from the crowd would also be a nice touch for an sfx

- Being able to control where 3 Wulf Moon lands based on the direct held on the last hit.

- s.LP having more of a disjoint so it can be used as anti-air. Not like Annie or Peacock size, but just a bit more would be nice. More to the right and a bit higher rather than right above his head.

- Cancelling Snap Back with chair with hype like he does with EX Take a Seat. Make it cost however much, I'd just love to bait people/combo with it.

- Do SOMETHING with Wulfamania knees. Literally no reason to use them since you don't gain meter and headbutts do more damage. Actually useless.

- Let s.LK be able to kill the ant PLEASE IT ONLY MAKES SENSE

Conclusion​

I got a bit off-track there and a bit too dream happy but in all seriousness I love this character and have always thought of him of the actual coolest fighting game character there is from his looks and story and concept alone. And I would love to say gameplay as well, but it seems that he's become solved and people only doing the optimal routes and using hype build assists and as bias as it is I hate seeing him played that way. I believe that if encouraged to do other things with him either through new moves, damage adjustments, and other modifications then he can be that hype character that he was literally designed to be. A direction where he is more free-form with his combo routes, resets, pressure, and neutral and more in-depth in how to use his resources and needing to make smarter decisions with them. A character that you can only find and only works in Skullgirls. I hope we can have more discussions about him and get him there. He definitely deserves it.

 

[UnderratedOak]

3.7.5 is live, update notes are appended to the top of the old one:

Skullgirls 2nd Encore - (Valentine Cross Update!) Beta Mode Update [4/25/2024] - Steam News

Balance changes, Valentine's new cross redesign, and fixes for an ancient defect with character lighting!

store.steampowered.com

Maybe consider reverting Umbrella's overstuffed rush change? The bounce it gave was a game changer for overstuffed routing.

It solved a lot combo consistency issues that were present previously, especially when heavies are involved. On heavies, 5MPx2 6HP leaves them too far for a final 6LP string to connect and you don't have enough time to do 5MPx2 6HP M bubble into sns bubble pop to continue the combo.

Umbrella's overstuffed combo structure relies on a lot of juggles, making it inherently harder and more limiting on heavies. I believe rush giving a bounce into an OTGless confirm is a needed QOL change.

 

[keninblack]

A lot of the Painwheel changes are perfect and are changes that help her really get up to speed with the Encore, and now season pass characters.

Aside from armor ideas Warped brought up, or the idea of making buer hitboxes better which I know has always been a hot topic.

I think the install damage nerfs are fine, I understand nerfing buer and it really doesn't impact her damage that much in a 2 bar on point combo, or a dhc into her for a 2 bar combo. With the HI Death Crawl nerf, her 3+ bar routes have for sure taken a hit, but I can live with that too.

Personally, I feel like the recovery nerf is too much. If we can revert one of the nerfs and one stays I think this would be the best way to go. It makes conversions from certain supers a little more difficult (not impossible, but noticeable.) Maybe a nerf less than what it is, but this is really the only part of the nerfs I feel she could have back that wouldn't thread the needle too much.

Its not end all or be all either way with new HI, and overall I think Painwheel got stronger and more consistent.

AC L Pinion causing a knockdown is fucking TIGHT by the way.

Need to test Parasoul stuff more but its all really great stuff in the little bit of messing with, this whole past set of patches have really been great.

 

[iDante_SG]

I know time limitations are a huge factor, but the biggest wish list for me is if we can revive the cut content for NMO Arena by having the Smash Bros. character chants to it, and other chants, that was recorded at Salty. IIRC, most of it was cut content due to the limitations of the PS3 and I was wondering if it could ever realistically be implemented into the game, and if so I think it'd be really really really really REALLY cool. :)))) That's to say if the audio files are still around and are to be found. :`)
Only thing is, there wouldn't be one for the Season 1 characters.

Crowd chanting character names and various slogans.

 

[CaioLugon]

I would've liked to have more time with this patch before having to voice an opinion but we're out of time so here it is.

Regarding Painwheel changes:

Spoiler: Essay

All the QoL is so so so so very nice. New hitboxes are great, combos and conversions feel sooo much more consistent because of the faster 5lk and 5mp, new jhp, 2mp, L nails, etc, and omg the armor fix is huge. Feels MUCH less like a gamble now. The few instances I had where charged normals still traded I could go into the replay (takeover absolutely goated btw) and just hold the button for longer and get the armor to win. I'm definitely echoing the sentiment from warped though, releasing the button a frame too early and losing the interaction is not cool but it is what it is I guess.

Also I don't understand why the last hit of 2mp still has to ruin stuff? The pull-down on the first hits is great, sure, but I really don't get why make it deliberately inconvenient, especially with buer still thinking its a command grab.

The new first hitbox on thresher is really really nice and getting reversals to win when they feel like they should is awesome. Conversions are still weird depending on character and height, I really don't like that you need to have flight available, fully scale your combo and do a weird situational conversion from this super that you can't even happy birthday with. The giant gaps between the active frames are also still very weird and frustrating.

And are we really leaving buer hitboxes as they are? Why does she have to deal with this man... Metergain buff is definitely noticeable and very much appreciated, as well as the longer range and lower recovery, but the change about her not being pushed by other characters introduced some weird interactions like her going past bella during copter, and I had one instance where she just passed through the opponent's assist during M buer and I lost an opportunity for a happy birthday which made me sadge :( The situations where you got pushed out by a character were rare enough that I'd really prefer if this change is reverted (only happened to me once that I can remember). Maybe the ending hitbox on buer could be increased instead to prevent whiffing? I wouldn't mind at all just having the retail version as is though.

New H buer is fine I think? I had some moments antiairing with it where I thought it should have won but didn't, but I also did feel more comfortable going for it with the shorter recovery and had a solid success rate. Not sure how effective you want this move to be on it's own so I won't complain, and really her AA kit feels pretty good with 2mp, 5mp and H buer all being decent options on specific scenarios. Very technical and hard to get optimal value but that's 100% fine by me. I will say though, I HATE confirming from 5[mp] specifically, having to react to the side you hit on, whether it's blocked or not (-5 on block) and knowing how to convert from the variable heights is SO much to keep in mind and it happens way too fast to get consistently. Would be awesome if it just put the opponent in knockdown state at full charge, or at least wasn't negative on block so I don't have to worry too much about being punished for it, but either way I'm not losing sleep over this.

Death crawl feels exactly the same. Still terrible to DHC into and out of, and still a very unreliable reversal. I'm sure there will be situations where it'll win now where it would've lost before, but I haven't come across any I don't think. Still no clue why this move needs to have only strike invul on those first active frames.

L Pinion knockdown on AC is nice but please please look at pinion and lv3 ending when reaching the corner, it's a really significant downside that she really doesn't need. Lv3 in particular is already quite bad, losing to throws, not having proper hyper armor, being reactable from really close and being a death sentence if it hits anything other than the point character.


The install nerfs HURT man... on top of losing ~1500 damage (1.0) on combos, she lost so much DHC synergy from the extra recovery it's insane. Install death crawl being essentially the same as the regular version really really sucks. Even on point we lost a ton of damage from install routes so now that low value it had feels like its pretty much gone, and the little benefit you get from faster charged nails and armor buffs is never worth it in my experience. I'll just save the bar for lv3, thresher, or to DHC out.

This current version of Painwheel gets put in a weird spot where she's still very slow, still has a bad roundstart, still has below average meterbuild and still has bad defense, so you still don't want her on point over most other typical candidates, but with the much worse install and her low assist value do you really want her mid anymore?? Probably now you run her as fake anchor and try to tag in mid-combo but no matter what I think it's always gonna be less value than before with her primary strength being neutered and point game only slightly stronger.

Closing thoughts / TL;DR:

I'm very conflicted about this patch.

The QoL changes are a godsend and she feels soooooo much better to press buttons with now, but still, this current iteration of Painwheel feels a good bit weaker than the retail version imo. On point, even though she's more consistent and feels a lot smoother post-hit, she plays the same, and the only things that feel like real buffs are the faster jlp and the meterbuild (which are both significant!), everything else was QoL that could be mitigated by skill and knowledge most of the time, even if it did require a lot of effort that most people weren't willing to put in (and most of it still does so we'll see how that turns out long term).

That being the trade-off for the massive nerfs to her biggest strength is crazy to me on a character that was always so low on the tier list, but at the same time, I don't wanna have to go back to a version where she has to fight so hard to run her game on point. I really don't want this version of install to make into the main game, but if the damage nerfs are really here to stay, please please at least revert the extra recovery on DHC install. It makes her SO awkward for teambuilding and far more restrictive to develop a gameplan with. Even though I play her on point primarily, I don't want her to lose the 'doctor strange' function, so I hope we can find a happy medium before shipping the changes.