Rivals Patch Notes [2.0.8.0] – Summer Fine-Tuning and Creatures Steam Launch

As we enter August, patch 2.0.8.0 is ready to hit the beach before the Rivals Championship Series starts at Riptide next month. This patch includes a bunch of small balance adjustments that have come from our behind-the-scenes testing as we prepare to release our first new characters in 3 years. We are anticipating this patch will come to Switch in around 1 month. Work on both the Workshop Character Expansion and the Rollback Netcode Beta is also moving along so stay tuned for updates on those in the future.

In other news – Creatures of Aether on Steam for PC and Mac is launching alongside this patch today with crossover content! Help celebrate with our other Aether team friends at Tako Boy Studios for this big milestone. Download the game for free to unlock a brand new stage skin for Air Armada. Definitely give it a try on Steam if you’re a new or even returning player – the game has changed a lot in the past year!

Lastly, keep an eye out for more exciting RCS news as well. European and Australian monthly events are now available for registration:

• Hot Springs – European RCS Edition
• Hot Springs – Australian RCS Edition

And of course you can still sign up for the first North American event:

• Hot Springs – North American RCS Edition

Onto the patch notes:

• The Diamond Grove stage skin is now available for Air Armada. Download Creatures of Aether on Steam for free to unlock.
• Your selected workshop character now shows their current version number on the CSS.
• Setting the Hide Hud rule override in a workshop stage to 2 will hide the standard hud while still running draw_hud.gml.
• Bug Fix: The bottom blastzone only raises up during hitstun if you’re moving down on the frame hitpause ends.
  • The blastzone was adjusted earlier to be higher for those in hitstun to reduce self-destructs while keeping spiking KOs. But one side effect was that weak attacks or projectiles would KO someone who was recovering low because the blastzone would come up to meet them. Now the blast zone is only higher if you were sent down by the initial attack.

Zetterburn’s Up Air is being adjusted to match his visuals and reach lower at the end which also improves the attack as a landing aerial. Forward Air’s hitbox has also been adjusted to better match the swing’s visuals.

• Uair now has an added sourspot on his hands.
• Uair Sourspot Angle: 75 -> 70.
• Uair Sweetspot KB: 10+0.6 -> 8+0.825.
• Fair’s sweetspot has been increased in size.

Bubbles are getting a minor nerf allowing players to SDI out of them more effectively while Back Air is getting an adjustment to have weaker base knockback and higher scaling so it KOs slightly later.

• Bubble SDI multiplier changed, 1.0 -> 1.2.
• Bair 2 KB changed, 9 + 0.9 -> 8 + 0.95.

Kragg’s Up Tilt is going to be more reliable. The angle is being adjusted to combo better while also not being techable. He is also getting a quality of life fix to Up Special so now you don’t have to know if the pillar reached you or not when hit out of the vertical stall.

• Utilt Hit 1 Angle: 125 -> 150.
• Utilt Hit 1 KB Scaling: 0.1 -> 0.
• Utilt Hit 1 SDI multiplier: 1 -> 0.
• Utilt Hit 2 hitbox extended down by 10 pixels.
• Uspecial now refreshes doublejump and airdodge as soon as Kragg freezes in place.

Forsburn has his hurtboxes adjusted so you can’t attack his cape on multiple attacks. His Down Strong has been adjusted to have more hitpause and we are bumping up its knockback to compensate since it will be more consistent to DI it. Forward Strong is getting a buff to be more reliable and also have more knockback scaling.

• Cape has been removed from his hurtboxes on multiple moves.
  • Namely: jab, ftilt, dtilt, dash attack, nspecial, uspecial, nair, fair and dair.
• Dstrong BKB: 8+1.05 -> 8+1.15.
• Fstrong’s Hit 2 hitbox has been extended forward.
• Fstrong Hit 2 KB Scaling: 0.8 -> 0.9.
• Dstrong now has 0.9 hitpause scaling, was 0.

Dash Attack 1 hitpause position move has been adjusted to be more reliable. Back Air 2 hitbox has been increased also to be more reliable.

• Changed position Dattack 1 pushes enemies in hitpause, 60 -> 50.
• Bair Hit 2’s height increased, 50 -> 65.

Down Tilt hitbox now matches the art better and Up Strong is being fixed so its multihits can no longer be SDI’ed.

• Dtilt’s hitbox has been changed to use a rounded rectangle instead of a circle. It’s also been extended downwards by 2 pixels.
• Bug Fix: Ustrong’s multihit SDI multiplier: 1 -> 0.

Menace finally got through to Trevor and Dan and they crumbled and made an adjustment to make Etalus’ Forward Strong more reliable.

• Fstrong’s second hitbox has been extended inwards on both his armored and unarmored versions.

Charged Flame hit lockout was removed because it was preventing cool charged flame into aerials while not affecting kill confirms with it. Forward Tilt is no longer so disjointed since Ori is not meant to have good disjoint. Dash Attack startup and knockback has been adjusted so its not as spammable into itself because Dan played against 3 Ori players in a row on ranked earlier this year and couldn’t handle it anymore.

• Charged Flame hit lockout removed, was 6.
• Ftilt now includes the tail on the hurtbox.
• Dash attack KB: 9+0.3 -> 9+0.45.
• Dash attack Angle: 45 -> 50.
• Dash attack startup: 6 -> 8 frames
  • This also slightly reduces the Dash Attack distance.
• Uair’s sprite has been changed to match the hitbox better.

Jab 2 has been adjusted to not whiff when Jab 1 lands very close. Up Strong is being adjusted to reduce the Up Strong fishing that we see late game especially with DACUS. If you have ever played against a Ranno online, then hopefully you understand.

• Jab 2’s hitbox has been extended inwards and downwards.
• Ustrong’s wide sourspot KB: 7+1.15 > 7+1.0.
• Ustrong’s tall sourspot KB: 8+1.15 > 8+1.1.
• Ustrong recovery: 23 -> 25 frames.
• Ustrong wide hitbox’s hitpause changed, 8 + 0.35 -> 7 + 0.6.
• Ustrong tall hitbox’s hitpause changed, 6 + 0.35 -> 8 + 0.7.

Clairen Down Strong is getting a little bit of love as a KO option. Now the angle is consistent and the scaling is slightly higher so both the Clairen and her opponent can react to the attack better. Forward Strong is getting a consistent angle on aerial and grounded opponents which will make it just as strong of a KO option during a combo as it is raw on the ground.

• Sour Dstrong: 7+.9 > 7+1.0.
• Dstrong’s tippers on hit 1 now have angle flipper 6.
• Dstrong is now angle 70 on all hits. (previously some were angle 50).
• Fstrong’s angles on all hitboxes have been changed, 361 -> 45.
• Fstrong tipper hitboxes now all have 1.2 KB scaling.
• Fstrong sour hitboxes now all have 0.9 KB scaling.

We found out that people would like to at least try to DI’s Sylvanos’ Down Strong.

• Dstrong Hitpause scaling: 0 > 0.7.

Missiles are cool but it can be annoying when they are used to combo break and the opponent has already forgot about them. The new offscreen indicators should help the opponent be more aware of their positions.  Up Tilt with heat has become a nasty kill confirm for Elliana and while we still want it to be strong, we are adding recovery frames so it’s not as guaranteed. Neutral Air and Forward Air are having their angles flipped because Neutral Air has outshined Forward Air in nearly all Elliana scenarios. Now we hope that both can see usage in high level play. Neutral Special early hit was adjusted to combo into the rocket fist more reliably.

• Fspecial’s missiles can now be seen offscreen.
• Utilt’s recovery time scales from 10 frames to 20 frames based on how much heat is used.
  • Fixed utilt’s recovery time not resetting along with KB.
• Nair’s sourspot and Fair have swapped angles and knockback values, detailed below:
• Fair Angle: 361 -> 60.
• Fair KB: 5+0.45 -> 6+0.4.
• Fair’s hitboxes have been widened by 20 pixels and moved inwards by 5.
• Nair sourspot Angle: 60 -> 361.
• Nair sourspot KB: 6+0.4 -> 5+0.45.
• Nspecial early hit KB: 7+0.3 -> 8+0.

Shovel Knight Down Tilt was adjusted to not whiff inside him when it looks like it should hit. Down Air was adjusted so the spike has a sweet spot and sour spot since the late spike can feel cheesy to be caught with late.

• Dtilt 2 extended inward.
• Dair Spike sweetspot lasts 2 frames (same as normal sweetspot).
• Dair Spike sourspot lasts forever with .55 scaling (sweetspot has .7) and 8 damage (sweetspot has 10).

We hope everyone has been having a safe and fun summer so far in 2021! Let us know what you think of the patch in the comments below or on social media.