Rivals 2 with 'Crouch Only' Floorhug, 'Both' Whifflag, Drift DI On, and Quick Parry On is the Greatest Platfighter Ever Made.#226

Optionally, ‘Off While Attacking’ Floorhug instead, ‘Additive’ Whifflag instead, and/or Quick Wavedash On. I’ve been tooling around with a variety of combinations, so I’m still not completely certain which combination of modifiers is Number One.

Anyway, I’m unsure if Nolt’s going to anonymize me again, so this is John Numbers, once more. Since the latest update, I’ve been screwing around with the various modifiers of the game with some friends and strangers, and I wanted to put out my thoughts on everything, as I do wholeheartedly believe there is a huge amount of potential for this game hidden within these modifiers. This perspective is equal parts a genuine endorsement for the direction I would love to see the game be taken, and equal parts a glowing praise for how unbelievably incredible the game feels when playing it like this.

Okay, so my thoughts. Here we go:

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As far as the modifiers for Floorhug, ‘Crouch Only’ or ‘Off While Attacking’ largely resolves the problems I have with the mechanic, as outlined here: (https://rivals-of-aether-ii-patch-160.nolt.io/936 ). Reductively, my issues boil down to, “I do not believe it’s good game design for a player to be able to so easily neutralize their opponent’s offensive momentum while they’re in an inactionable state. However, if a player wants to do so while actionable (Crouch Cancel), there isn’t a problem with that, as they’re trading away performing an action to use it.” The latest update that made it so you cannot buffer an action out of Floorhug helped to alleviate this gripe somewhat, but players are still given far too easy of an out from an opponent’s momentum by holding Down and Shield, which does not require any timing. With my whole chest, I believe that Floorhugging should not exist by any measure in Rivals 2 (outside of Crouch Cancel, as mentioned), as it seriously does not feel good that a huge chunk of a given character’s kit just… isn’t practically useable in whiff punish scenarios. So, with all that preamble, playing the game with Floorhug disabled has provided the exact type of gameplay I’ve been wanting to experience out of Rivals 2; if you catch an opponent with a whiff punish, then you can rest assured that it is your turn, and you absolutely have your offensive momentum now. There’s no mental stack weighing you down on whether or not the move is going to work based on arbitrary-feeling factors; if you successfully hit your opponent for making a mistake, then the moment is all yours. Of course, without Floorhug, and with the improved game flow provided by the ‘Subtractive’ part of ‘Both’ Whifflag, the offense in this game would naturally become way too powerful. Which brings me to…

Drift DI. To start, yes, I recognize that the current influence of Drift DI is far too strong, and should be toned down somewhat, regardless of if it becomes a part of the base game’s core mechanics later down the line. However, the idea of what Drift DI brings to the table is undeniable; it allows a player who is being juggled or comboed the opportunity to escape the situation. It gives them a chance to escape via thoughtful movement, but doesn’t allow them to completely wrench the momentum away from the opponent, which is what Floorhug currently does right now. It’s a mechanic that preserves the flow of the game very well, and, compared to Floorhug, doesn’t leave the attacker second-guessing every move they throw out whether or not it’s going to suddenly get no-sell’d by the defender. Also, Drift DI goes a long way in mitigating the effectiveness of very effective, ‘inevitable’ combos that tend to work regardless of your DI. Things like Lox clipping you with the very tip of Dash Attack and then getting a Ustrong, or Clairen hitting one of her many unspaced non-tippers and finding a tipper kill out of it, or even something as simple as Slade hitting one Ustrong at 0% and then he gets another 3 Ustrongs for his trouble. The examples of these kinds of combos aren’t necessarily overpowered, but aren’t quite as interesting as the more dynamic combos and juggles you see when Drift DI is enabled.

The ‘Both’ setting on Whifflag activates the ‘Additive’ and ‘Subtractive’ modifiers together.

The former - Additive - gives a player more lag on their moves if they don’t hit anything. This does carry with it a relatively heavy imposition on the game’s flow, but I feel it’s very necessary as a mechanic in this game, where a huge majority of moves barely have any ending/landing lag to speak of. You can quite typically see players in this game very much throwing out moves repeatedly, backed by the recovery framedata that is very openly hostile towards the idea of whiff punishing (and even moreso with Floorhug, which allows them to shrug off a decent chunk of moves that work decently well for whiff punishing). Additive Floorhug would go a very long way in encouraging players to be a bit more thoughtful with their presence in neutral.

The latter - Subtractive - gives a player less lag on their moves if they successfully hit the opponent. I’m personally neutral on this one, but the game feel that is provided by being able to move even faster upon hitting the opponent is undeniably satisfying to engage with. I’ll leave this one to a jury of my peers.

Quick Parry makes Parry Frame 3 against all attacks (instead of Frame 6 against physical attacks, which is how it works in the base game). As it stands, Parry being Frame 6 makes it somewhat serviceable in fighting back against predictable approaches (Clairen Dair, Zetterburn Dair, Forsburn Dair… just, a lot of Dairs lol), but it’s nowhere near consistent. You see a lot of players belligerently approaching with their big dumb aerials because of this. A Frame 3 Parry would go a long way in allowing players to much more consistently have an option to deal with these incredibly powerful approach options, and would force attackers to be a bit more thoughtful with their approaches. Parry being Frame 3 might be a bit too strong, though, so I would loosely suggest Frame 4 as a good-feeling middle ground. Increasing the recovery time on such a Parry might be a good idea, too.

Quick Wavedash I don’t have a strong opinion on. It definitely improves the game flow, but might make movement a bit too overwhelming, especially against less-experienced players. I could take it or leave it.

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tl;dr for all that:

• Floorhug (and not CC) disabled allows whiff punishing to be more freeform in how players go about establishing their momentum.
• Drift DI (which currently needs to be toned down in strength) gives players a way to fight back against powerful combos and juggles, without allowing them to wrench the momentum away from opponents like Floorhug currently does. Having no Floorhug and also ‘Subtractive’ Whifflag also very much necessitates the need for a mechanic like this.
• The ‘Additive’ part of ‘Both’ Whifflag forces players to be a bit more thoughtful with their approaches in neutral.
• The ‘Subtractive’ part of ‘Both’ Whifflag allows for more free-form combos and improves the gameflow in general.
• Quick Parry gives players a more reliable option to deal with predictable approaches.

This game absolutely rules, and the above modifiers really do complement each other very nicely to make an experience unheard of by base Rivals 2. It could absolutely reach some seriously untapped potential if the devs are willing to give some consideration towards making some of their modifiers a standard as part of the base game.

Agreed with pretty much all of it. I’ve messed around with similar modifiers and my god it actually feels like a Rivals of Aether game, it’s wild. Drift DI as currently implemented is far too strong as mentioned, but with some tweaks it can be a boon to the game. For me personally, I’d like a game without both FH and CC. But if CC were to stay, I think a good modifier to add to it would be “On Projectiles Only”.

Overall these modifiers have proven beyond doubt that the game is much better without FH as a whole, and would only require some minor character balance to fix any problems caused by its removal. There needs to be some serious consideration for at least having the competitive standard have FH off and balancing the game around that.

@SneakyController939 Crouch Cancel is in a bit of a weird design space for me, because I do personally find it obnoxious to interact with, but only from a surface level “wow I got the hit why isn’t it my advantage now??” gripe. It’s similar to Floorhug in that regard, but as I always mention, CC is a mechanic with more proper game design, since you are deliberately giving up your action to try using it. There’s a proper risk-reward aspect to it, so I don’t mind giving it a pass, even if I could personally take it or leave it.

I’m also more willing to accept CC, as it does lend itself to more varied and dynamic gameplay in the neutral, in terms of what options an attacker needs to consider against a passive CC user, and which options a defender has access to for using it, in comparison to Shielding/using movement to dodge.

I feel that in a game with so many more defensive options, why do we need CC? Same with FH, if some moves are “broken” without it, that’s a design issue, not a “need” for CC. Like you said, it’s the same gripe I have: “I hit my opponent, why do I get reversaled?”. And as you said as well, you give up actions whilst crouching, and as much as I hate CC, I will concede that it is an option you do have to have at least SOME risk/reward consideration, even if at the moment it’s still very much skewed in favour of the person getting hit.

If we did have actual low blocking (Like Combo Devils with the angled block), then I’d totally be on board. But right now, it just doesn’t read as an actual defensive option. You land a hit, see the hit sparks, your opponent takes damage, but then they just don’t move and outright reversal you. It’d be interesting to have CC be reworked into a mechanic that has a resource, similar to Burst that resets to neutral, but takes time to regenerate.

An indicator for when CC is active could be helpful. Maybe a little sheen, like a very slight version of the intangible color. Or a small white outline around the overhead arrow.

I could be mistaken about this, but isn’t the pile of downwards arrows that appear when you’re holding Down the visual effect for CC? Because I feel that would certainly be more than enough indication.

Meanwhile the visual effect of FH just has your character flash blue, which definitely isn’t strong enough of a tell. Though… I think it would be hard to make a VFX that makes a distinction between CC and FH. Maybe have FH just copy the VFX of CC, but make it have less punch to it? (weaker sound, smaller and less arrows, etc.)

Could you post some matches with it please? Sounds dope, but I feel like footage is the most important thing to visualize what you’re saying. I love both whifflag and nurse rules

@Johngnumbers I think what’s missing is the preemptive part of it. Since it’s often unclear when a character has CC active because there’s only a visual indicator after the attack connects, you can’t plan around it like you can with shields. If someone’s holding shield, I chart my offense and spacing around that, which I can do because I can see it. The same thing doesn’t exist for CC and, in the game itself, floorhug. Floorhug is always after the fact so nothing can be done there, but CC is something that you could indicate happening preemptively by detecting “can CC” and “stick held down.”

If the opponent is crouching for more than what is reactable, it’s not too hard to tell in most cases. If the issue is their crouch animations not being distinct enough, there could be an argument for that. As it stands, most of the time for CC and shield, it’s up too quick to distingish until after you’ve already thrown out a move.

I agree with all of the points on modifiers. Such a better game.

honest to god if the whifflag penalty didnt apply to shield and drift DI was toned down, this would be so peak