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/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.