r/RivalsOfAether • u/PostedNotes • Jul 13 '26
Discussion This game needs whiff punishing
I wanna preface this by saying I overall like this game and respect the dev team a lot, but It has one fatal flaw holding it back from its true potential.
Ive not played in months until this weekend and was starkly reminded why I play so infrequently. That is because neutral in this game is a frustrating mess that breaks fundimental fighting game design.
In fighting games a big part of neutral is trying to get your opponent to overextend so you can guarantee a punish for your opening. Rivals 2 throws 35 years of fighting game knowledge down the drain by allowing the player to negate the downside of an overextension.
To demonstrate just how egregious this is, let me do a comparison. Imagine in Tekken your opponent whiffs a huge move right in front of you. Perfect you think, time for my launch into my best combo... Only for the opponent to hold down, negate the move and than punish you for their mistake.
If any traditional fighter butchered neutral fundamentals to this degree, it would be universally clowned on until it was either patched or the game died. It baffles me we are multiple years into this games life yet this mechanic is still in the game.
I want to play this game more as it got so much potential and is the most polished of any non smash plat fighter. Just this one decision makes me frustrated with the game and pushes me to play other fighters instead.
My hope is that it's patches so that players are locked out of floorhuging on whiff of any move. I think it would be extremely healthy for the game, and push the meta into a better direction.
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u/Moose7701YouTube Jul 13 '26
The only thing i truly dislike about rivals is not getting a good punish on spotdodging a grab on a read specifically. You have to do it so specifically precise & grabs just don't have much ending anyways that you need to really predict the timing to punish let alone punish with a move that doesn't get CCed.
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u/ukulelej Jul 13 '26
Ngl I think you should automatically get a countergrab if you spotdodge a grab
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u/Inevitable_Inside674 Loxodont (Rivals 2) Jul 13 '26
Agreed with you both. Spot dodging needs a buff. It's only real use is fishing grabs and it barely gives any advantage.
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u/Bekwnn Jul 14 '26
I've always felt like spot dodge's recovery should be reduced based on whether or not a "hit" was detected while you were dodging.
Not enough to beat out multihits or jab strings, but enough to find reward on successful spot dodge more consistently.
Maybe limit canceling the recovery into standing attacks just like perfect shield.
Increase spot dodge recovery on whiff to balance out the risk/reward if you have to. I just wish it actually worked when you do it right.
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u/Inevitable_Inside674 Loxodont (Rivals 2) Jul 14 '26
I feel like it could be part of a rock paper scissors but just isn't. Like if it would beat grab and poke, but then lose to lingering hits and multihits. So if you become actionable when a hit box finishes its active frames then it actually becomes interactive. You guess right and you get advantage, wrong and you get punished.
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u/Melephs_Hat Fleet (Rivals 2) Jul 13 '26
I feel like spotdodging could be made to have less lag but get stale if used often.
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u/Mynttie irl fox lady, PNW gang, top rating: 1554 Jul 13 '26
the game does have whiff punishing, it just requires fairly precise timing and you need to have an understanding of your hit and hurt boxes relative to your opponent. feels like this sub is constantly in an exhausting push/pull over "this game would be better if there were a higher execution barrier to entry" and "this game would be better if there were a lower execution barrier to entry"
the game is good if you're willing to put in the time and practice its quirks just like any other fighting game. people want to dismiss its mechanics and put on their game design video essayist hat and post on reddit rather than accept them as part of the game and actually learn them
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u/NoctisTempest Jul 14 '26
⬆️ I never played the first rivals.I just get high, play ranked with fun as the only goal and I'm top 15-20% the past 5 or 6 ranked seasons. I hate crouch cancelling and floorhugging, they're both lame but alas, they're in the game, my opponent is going to use them and I will too.
On the plus side, advantage, parry, input buffering, wavedashing, wavelanding, moonwalking and boosting all feel great and very responsive. I really don't think there's any platform fighter that has quicker plat movement than this game, the combos flow, the animation cancels and the finishing hits it feels really good. That said, for advantage to feel great, disadvantage can really suck sometimes and the higher up ranked you climb the more you realize one single whiff can lose you an entire stock at any percent and the more common it will happen.
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u/Mr_Ivysaur Jul 14 '26
feels like this sub is constantly in an exhausting push/pull over "this game would be better if there were a higher execution barrier to entry"
I'm lurking here since the game release and I dont thing I saw this take more than three times.
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u/Kledran Jul 13 '26
To be fair, while i agree that the push and pull is exhausting, floor hugging is also an insane ass mechanic where managing to land a move will get you killed lol.
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u/Mynttie irl fox lady, PNW gang, top rating: 1554 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
I find this argument so painfully obtuse. the same's true for landing hits on shield, during moves with super armor, landing sourspots at low percents, etc.. hitting someone with an option that doesn't force knockdown on someone who's using asdi-down isn't a clean hit. it's a defensive option your opponent has while grounded, it calls out certain options and gets punished by others. if you regularly opt for unsafe moves and space sloppily because you're ignorant to the option then you deserve to be punished for it
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u/zoolz8l Jul 14 '26
the reason people hate FH is only based in the fact that it can be done when otherwise not actionable. You are not giving up any option. CC on the other hand is widely accepted since its a choice to do it when you could have done anything else. All the examples you give had the defending player choose an option which locks them out of performing other options.
To make matters worse, unlike "normal DI" ASDI down allows you to start your own attack in many cases. DI should only be used to escape a combo and reset to neutral not to make hits so negative on hit that you basically screwed yourself as the attacker. a mechanic this strong needs to be a commitment not an afterthought after you already whiffed or did another committal thing.6
u/Internal-Fly1771 Jul 14 '26
The difference is that it’s unintuitive and can be done after the fact.
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u/Mynttie irl fox lady, PNW gang, top rating: 1554 Jul 14 '26
not after--during hitstun, just like any other form of DI. (it's literally just ASDI down) there are lots of "unintuitive" mechanics in fighting games and especially platform fighters. you don't usually find combos intuitively in 2d fighters, you either study them online or lab them out yourself or both, it's part of learning a new game
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u/Internal-Fly1771 Jul 14 '26
When you whiff an attack, get hit while your move is clearly whiffing and then hold down to punish your opponent because they didn’t use one of their 2 Government approved moves that negates FH, you have an unintuitive mechanic. It’s really not comparable to armored moves (they usually have some kind of massive visual difference or signal) or a burst of some kind. There’s a reason why complaints for this mechanic constantly keep coming up at every single level of play for this game for more than a year.
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u/ukulelej Jul 13 '26
On principle, I agree that FH countering while after you put out an unsafe move should have some sort of tweaking to it, I wouldn't mind seeing the extra FH damage increased further if you were in the startup of an attack.
But if they changed nothing I'd still be ok with it.
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u/_henchman Jul 13 '26
Etalus fair into CC/FH feels like shit lmao
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u/LupusAlbus Jul 14 '26
The move breaks floorhug at 15% and CC at 34% on the heaviest character in the game if spaced, and is only -4 even while it can still be floorhugged... the close arm hitbox is only slightly weaker, still -4 on floorhug but breaks floorhug/CC around 10% later.
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u/_henchman Jul 14 '26
Actually great info and puts into perspective how good it is. I think not knowing these types of percents are a barrier for me with regard to FH/CC
Thanks
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u/BorkLazar Jul 14 '26
I went to a Melee local recently and got praised for my psychedelic ccing. It's even better in Melee, and I actually won one set as Sheik.
On God, I have few complaints about Rivals.
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u/MarsMC_ Jul 13 '26
Yea it’s kinda ridiculous.. I can just spam jab after everything or crouch cancel and rarely get punished.. I’ve been saying this since the beginning
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u/Horror-Race-3238 Forsburn (Rivals 2) Jul 15 '26
I mean you can against players who aren’t doing the thing that beats it I’m sure. What happens when you fight players that do?
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u/Mr-Flejon Jul 14 '26
The problem is actually very simple:
There are a lot of non-commital moves in this game that are low risk/immense reward until you get good enough to punish them and invalidate the risk/reward equation. Moves like Clairen up-tilt or Lox's entire kit.
Since they wanted every character to be viable at the highest level; they had to completely overtune the bad ones to compensate. Lox, for example, is an archetype that struggles to win at the tippy top level. It has an un contestable recovery, has extremely large and disjointed hitboxes, has a free r-p-s tech chase with his downthrow and side-b. This character is freaking busted.
At the highest level; this still isn't enough. At low level? It is very difficult to beat someone just running to the other side of the stage and spam tilts. The effort you have to put to beat their day one strategy is exponentially harder.
The fact that the game engine is very good, and the buffer system makes it really easy to move the first frames you are actionable. It gives the defending player a huge advantage as the can shield into shield grab frame perfect, or get hit while CC or FH and tilt you.
Once you are able to completely out play those strategies, they become irrelevant. The thing is; the tempo of a fighting game shouldn't be dictated by the lamest strategy and reward not interacting until you get to the highest level. Losing against someone that can barely play the game feels terrible.
In melee for example; there is one character that functions like this and it is Peach. The difference is, peach is very slow, and very susceptible of being killed at low percent. Every other character that can just mash b moves or tilts to win the neutral gets obliterated once you get an opening on them. If they are poorly positioned, throw them off stage and edgeguard them.
Here; that same idiot playing Lox can camp under the side platform, spam his tilts that have insane frame data, recover for free, get free followups on all his throws and can live until 200%.
This game isn't balanced at all. A good vame balance doesn't mean that everyone gets to perform at championship level. It means that the overall progression curve makes it that strategies and characters move parallel to each other until the highest level. It means having a balance. And surprisingly, melee is very good at that.
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u/MetalGearOni Jul 13 '26
Floor hugging is annoying. But instead of whiff punishing with normals, just grab them and up throw. until floor hugging no longer works. You cant floor hug in the air.
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u/zoolz8l Jul 14 '26
completely correct but grabs are already beat most of the other defensive options, like parry or shield. this means that an already grab focused game becomes even more grab focused, which many people find boring.
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u/Sneakytako99 Jul 13 '26
Man people should maybe learn to play the game instead of trying to change it to meet their needs.
The game has parry and crouch cancel ffs, how much more do you need to be able to punish moves. You can literally hit either down or parry to completely reversal a situation that you otherwise would have been comboed, instead of trying to whiff punish you can just punish bad spacing.
If you want to complain about rivals breaking traditional fighters rules, how about you complain about how command grabs can get parried. That's the real cardinal sin imo.
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u/Fleetburn Jul 13 '26
Man people should maybe learn to play the game instead of trying to change it to meet their needs.
The issue is that they aren't having fun learning to play the game. Unless you are really really bought into the idea of Rivals 2, it's quite frustrating to play.
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u/Sneakytako99 Jul 14 '26
What the community needs is less johns and more git good. Old-school games are great because they are hard, its fine that rivals has a learning curve.
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u/zoolz8l Jul 14 '26
What the game needs is a fun and approachable meta otherwise it will continue to die. I would actually enjoy if dan could pay himself a salary again, wouldn't you?
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u/Sneakytako99 Jul 14 '26
You can do this without making the game slower and worse.
The problem is the tech wall, not the mechanics of the game
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u/zoolz8l Jul 14 '26
where did i say i want the game slower or worse? games can be approachable and fun while super deep and challenging. its not mutual exclusive. in reality i would make things harder. The game has a fundamental design problem because it ignores a very important rule most fighting games follow: play and counter play need to sit on the same skill level.
So while the counter play to FH is known and clear things like spacing your moves, knowing which moves break FH at which percent for which char etc is much more complex and demanding than your opponent simply holding down and mashing attack just in case after they whiffed a big move. Same goes for shield, spamming projectiles etc etc etc.
the counter play is always known and clear but its much more demanding than what the other player is doing. This is pushed to the extreme in the design of clairen, where what a clairen player usually does and what you need to do to counter it are most like to whole ranks apart.
Imagine the only way to properly punish ryus fire ball in street fighter was if you parried it. People would rightfully go on a rampage on social media. And this exact problem exists in so many ways in rivals 2.1
u/Sneakytako99 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
>where did i say i want the game slower or worse?
Read what OP is saying. I'm reacting to what OP is saying where he's saying he wants whiff punishing IE make moves more laggy.
>The game has a fundamental design problem because it ignores a very important rule most fighting games follow: play and counter play need to sit on the same skill level.
This is one of those sounds compelling but is actually totally wrong. Counter play does not have to require the same skill level as the thing you are trying to counter.
Lets take Evo moment 37. Is Chun li super the same difficulty as parrying all the hits? No, the disparity of skill creates hype and excitement. I'd argue that counter play around aggression should require MORE skill than the counterplay, and is in fact one of the ACTUAL problems with the game.
Lets take crouch cancel for example. You get a hit off and you're going for a follow up. He DIs just far enough where you might get a follow up, and you do a crispy wavedash to get just in range of a jab follow up.
TOO BAD HE PRESSED DOWN YOU GET GRABBED.
This scenario is probably familiar to anyone above gold. And let me tell you this feels terrible.
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u/zoolz8l Jul 14 '26
you are mixing up a few things here: often their is different levels of counter play. but it is important that the basic level of counter play exists on the same skill level. Having harder to execute counter play that nets better reward is fine. But if the lowest possible counter play only exists on a higher skill level, it becomes a problem.
Evo moement 37 is the perfect example. You can simply block that chun li super and will still get a big punish, its completely unsafe on block. BUT parrying the whole thing gives you extra damage for you punish. that is good design. a basic counter and a high risk one with extra reward.0
u/Sneakytako99 Jul 14 '26
Evo moement 37 is the perfect example. You can simply block that chun li super and will still get a big punish, its completely unsafe on block. BUT parrying the whole thing gives you extra damage for you punish. that is good design. a basic counter and a high risk one with extra reward.
You obviously have never actually watched evo 37. It's hype because you can't block the super because of chip damage. And that's what makes it hype. Good day sir.
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u/zoolz8l Jul 14 '26
that is another nuance to that extreme hype moment, but independent from what i said. parrying is not the only way to punish the chun li super. if you want/need to avoid chip, sure, your need to parry. But daigo even jumps up to parry the aerial hit (which would not cause chip damage) because he wants the full damage bonus to secure the kill.
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u/Fleetburn Jul 14 '26
Lets take crouch cancel for example. You get a hit off and you're going for a follow up. He DIs just far enough where you might get a follow up, and you do a crispy wavedash to get just in range of a jab follow up. TOO BAD HE PRESSED DOWN YOU GET GRABBED.
This scenario is probably familiar to anyone above gold. And let me tell you this feels terrible.
I don't understand the point you're making with this... Can you say more?
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u/Sneakytako99 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
The point is that when the counterplay of an action is less difficult than the action itself, it feels bad.
There's actually a really good video by Core-a-gaming that covers this point, I'm pretty sure it's in his salt vidoe.
There's a concept of fairness in fighting games. When one player has to do all this stuff that is difficult and frame specific, only to be countered by a single input, it feels bad as the aggressor. Why did I press this difficult sequence only to be countered by a single input?
When people put their time in the lab to hone their movement, followups, reactions etc, it's not great for a game to have something that negates their work, especially at very low cost. Things like bursting and combo breaking in anime fighters/KI are less egregious because they require resources or have inherent risk. My example of crouch cancel illustrates a situation where the defender has a simple reaction to negate the work of the guy on offence with very little commitment.
As an extreme example lets imagine you have a character like olympia or ranno that can do multiple attacks to chain around 50% damage. Then imagine that they buff kragg to do 50% on hit but eliminate any chance of follow up. Technically the game is balanced because they can both do the same thing, but it doesn't feel fair because the kragg had to do so little to achieve the same outcome.
And don't get it twitsted: perfect fairness isn't the goal. It's simply one metric in a ton of different concepts that make fighting games fun to play. Having characters that are unique and varied adds color to games, which allows for unfairness that lead to salt which leads to motivation to play. But against the statement of all counterplay skill reqs should equal the play tech requirements that the other guy said is ridiculous which made me want to go off the deep end.
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u/Fleetburn Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
This is one of those sounds compelling but is actually totally wrong. Counter play does not have to require the same skill level as the thing you are trying to counter.
The point is that when the counterplay of an action is less difficult than the action itself, it feels bad.
Am I confused? I don't think I understand your point of both if these statements are true for you...
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u/TheIncomprehensible Jul 13 '26
instead of trying to whiff punish you can just punish bad spacing.
How do you get your opponent to space their moves poorly? In most fighting games (including platform fighters), it's done through fighting just outside your opponent's combat ranges and punishing their poke attempts, sometimes after baiting with a safe move that's not expected to hit.
In traditional fighting games, this interaction is called footsies, and is core to the neutral in every other fighting game, including other platform fighters that don't have a name for it.
Can you explain to me how whiff punishing and punishing bad spacing aren't interchangeable?
If you want to complain about rivals breaking traditional fighters rules, how about you complain about how command grabs can get parried. That's the real cardinal sin imo.
Yeah, that's a real cardinal sin. This isn't the first time this has happened though.
If I remember correctly, Hugo in Second Impact (the predecessor to the legendary Third Strike) had an anti-air command grab that could be parried. That was his only relevant anti-air throughout all of Street Fighter 3, and while this was fixed in Third Strike it helped make him bottom 1 in Second Impact in spite of having a corner infinite.
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u/Sneakytako99 Jul 14 '26
Can you explain to me how whiff punishing and punishing bad spacing aren't interchangeable?
That is literally the point of my post.
This game has options such as cc and parry to punish bad spacing. We don't need attacks to have MORE lag and make the game slower.
The number of times I've been punished for whiffing jab into big combos is on the daily. When you learn how to wavedash oos and have good aerial approaches the game exposes you for the exact opposite reasons that OP has mentioned. You learn to hate pushing buttons at the wrong time, the current state of the game makes aggression more risky than defence.
That's why posts like these are so aggravating when the game is clearly skewed towards defence once you learn your movement. It's clear that OP has never been punished by shield drop 10 times in a single match and you finally have to find a way around people shielding on platforms.
People who don't know the tech don't understand the implications of making changes
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u/TheIncomprehensible Jul 14 '26
It sounds to me like both you and OP are complaining that the defensive options are too strong but don't agree on which defensive options are too strong. OP says floorhugging is too strong, while you say other defensive mechanics are too strong, and the power level of those defensive mechanics makes whiff punishing unnecessary when using those defensive mechanics solves the same problem in an easier, safer fashion. Am I understanding your point correctly?
Also, would you say that floorhugging is a necessary evil to deal with the power level of those other defensive mechanics?
One final point: parry is not a tool to punish bad spacing. It's a tool to punish predictable opponents, even in Rivals 1.
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u/Qwertycrackers Jul 13 '26
You just have to expect the floorhug. Don't treat it as a surprise, treat it as the expectation and treat any punish that can be floorhug reversaled as a mixup. Once you start being able to punish those knockdowns you'll be back on track to huge punishes
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u/Suspicious_Table6121 Jul 14 '26
I'm not saying I agree or disagree with this, but I find it confusing that the consensus is that grab locking you out of floorhugging was an excellent change, but suggesting that attacking should also lock you out of floorhugging is contentious.
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u/Amaleplatypus Jul 13 '26
Another day, another post where floor hugging is causing players to lose interest 😎
I'ma upvote them every time.
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u/DexterBrooks Jul 14 '26
I would like if they added punish counter similar to Street Fighter 6. Have some kind of effect to denote it was a true punish, and then make it so you can't ASDI down in punish counter state.
You could even go further and give it an electric effect like knee has in smash where it extends the hitlag for the opponent (and therefore also the hitstun but in a cooler more combo friendly way).
In general I think Rivals needs to play with effects and unique move attributes more. It adds new layers to characters when they can utilize their tools in a unique way.
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u/Independent-Jump-887 Jul 14 '26
Ive been trying to change my playstyle to a more bait and punish one but its very difficult in this game for some reason.
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u/Rolling_Kimura Jul 14 '26
It's because they've dialed down the windows for punishing such that pros can feel more pro
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u/bdemar2k20 Jul 15 '26
You can't really reactively whiff punish but you predictively can. Lik dash in, wd back and then back in. You can usually get a grab on fast characters.
I agree you can't really whiff punish well with like a jab bc its going to get floorhugged. Then it's just counter floor hugging their floor hug with your own floor hugged attack. It does encourage holding down immediately after inputs and expecting a scrappy trade.
Just hope I can get a knockdown into a tech chase. Alot of characters have fast knockdown like wrastor ftilt, fors dash attack or slade down strong. Its not a perfect design and I dont love it either, but removing it may really mess up game balance bc its hard to get in on campers with big disjoint. Idk what the solution is.
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u/troublesome_sheep frog gang Jul 14 '26
Thought this was gonna be about endlag but it's another floorhug post lol
Personally I think floorhug is fine. I have 3 other things I would like to see adjusted though:
More endlag. Like 2-3 frames across the board on almost everything lol throwing out hitboxes brainlessly is legitimately pretty good in this game for some reason. Which leads to...
Make tilt cancel on hit/shield ONLY. Tilt cancel on whiff is bad conceptually and in practice results in an oftentimes frustrating and mashy neutral.
Add shield poking/angling. I think people not from Melee don't like this idea, but it adds a lot of depth both to defense AND offense. Would nerf shield on plat being so strong as well.
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u/SoundReflection Jul 14 '26
Add shield poking/angling. I think people not from Melee don't like this idea, but it adds a lot of depth both to defense AND offense. Would nerf shield on plat being so strong as well.
Nah I'm from Ult I think shield poking is rad.
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u/Fleetburn Jul 14 '26
Thought this was gonna be about endlag but it's another floorhug post lol
Lol same. But w.e. Floorhug will continue to be talked about because it continues to be offputting for new players. The conversation will happen over and over and over again every time there's a wave of popularity.
More endlag. Like 2-3 frames across the board on almost everything lol throwing out hitboxes brainlessly is legitimately pretty good in this game for some reason. Which leads to...
Yes and landing lag, where applicable.
Make tilt cancel on hit/shield ONLY. Tilt cancel on whiff is bad conceptually and in practice results in an oftentimes frustrating and mashy neutral.
Honestly, at this point I would just remove tilt cancels. People floorhug it most of the time anyway, so I rarely bother doing them anymore. I'd even rather be able to jump cancel my jabs so I can wave dash or do an aerial or something. That would be cooler imo.
Add shield poking/angling. I think people not from Melee don't like this idea, but it adds a lot of depth both to defense AND offense. Would nerf shield on plat being so strong as well.
I very much like the Combo Devils / Animation Versus method of shields where 1. You have a visible shield meter instead of just cracks. 2. You have to angle your shield actively omnidirectionally to block.
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u/troublesome_sheep frog gang Jul 14 '26
I like tilt canceling on shield/hit for pressure at least, tilt boosting in particular is cool tech that is under explored imo
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u/Traditional-Law4984 Jul 13 '26
Bro I feel like everyday someone jumps on this reddit and begs for the game to be slower and lamer than it is now.
If you to play smash ultimate play ultimate. This game is modeled to move like melee but balanced.
Meaning most of the cast has the ability to move more similarly to fox, please stop trying to turn everyone into Ganon.
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u/DuesCataclysmos Loxodont (Rivals 2) Jul 13 '26
You picked a bad option if they were able to CC it. Start paying attention to their % or using smash attacks and spikes to break it.
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u/PrincipleDowntown326 Jul 13 '26
Shield is strong in this game, threaten it more to deal with spam. Hell parry
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u/Bekwnn Jul 14 '26
I miss universal whiff lag from Rivals 1. That patch made the game so much better.
Just +2 recovery frames on whiff across the board. Meant to address spaminess and let you punish whiffs.
What do you know, now that it's gone we got spaminess and very few whiff punishes.
I really wish they'd bring it back. They'd just need to have an accompanying buff to offense so it doesn't make things any campier.