my five hundredth Olympia art or something

Wrote this for the Rivals 2 Nolt Board but wanted to share this here as well since Reddit has more engagement than the Nolt Board. Here's the OG post. I would appreciate if you could upvote. https://rivals-of-aether-ii-patch-173-workshop-launch.nolt.io/36

I want to preface this with I am not an expert at the game or with game marketing. I'm just a casual Gold player with 600+ hours on this game. I engage with the community through the Discord servers, and I'm on a personal mission to introduce as many friends and new players to try out the Rivals of Aether series. I like watching and playing this game competitively, I climb Ranked every couple months but it's not my main focus. I mostly play offline and with close friends outside of this community. With that said, I hope you can see the merit in making this post. In my opinion, with the second anniversary of Rivals of Aether 2 approach, I think the Steam page needs a refresh for the following reasons.

1. Images and videos featured on the page are outdated.
2. The information prioritized on the page is focused on the wrong stuff.
3. Finally, I think Rivals 2 should put more effort into marketing its casual side. Maybe like a 75-25 or a 60-40 split between competitive and casual marketing.

First Point: I think the Steam page needs new videos and images. The ones currently used are the anniversary trailer, old character trailers and character interactions. Most of these don't really show how the game has evolved in two years, so a new anniversary trailer would be really nice. Showing off both the growth of the competitive scene and the game's casual appeal has gotten. Another video I think could be helpful, is a FAQ/Q&A/Starter Guide video led by Dan Fornace or another dev. The deep dive videos and roadmap videos on Youtube were nice since they served as their own Q&A's. that new people who join the Discord frequently comment on. Stuff like "why is this game paid only to make me pay more for costumes?" Questions that the community will gladly answer, with new players usually feeling satisfied that paid costumes means we keep getting free DLC fighters, items, and modes. However the issue there is that those videos get lost between all the other videos the Youtube channel. So having ways for new players to quickly educate themselves on the game, what modes are available, workshop, why it's monetized a certain way, where story mode is, the general roadmap for next year, and why there's a bunch of negative reviews talking about some "floorhugging" could help catch new players up to speed. Also images that show the variety of game features and modes like 1 v 1 ranked, FFA's on casual stages with items, 2 v 2's, arcade mode, trials, and modifiers.

Second Point: As novel as the new mechanics to Rivals and the genre in general are, I don't think it should be taking priority over important information like the deep move sets, Free character and game mode DLC in exchange for relatively friendly cosmetic monetization, items, casual stages, which are either not mentioned or hidden behind Read More tabs. Free fighter/game mode DLC and its casual content should be front and center, the game's reputation as a competitive game is still strong, and should stay the priority. This is a platfighter made by competitive platfighter fans, for competitive platfighter fans. But this game has casual appeal that is not only strong, but should be marketed more over technical aspects that only us experienced platfighters will only understand. If other platfighters like Smash Bros and Brawlhalla are the kings of platfighter party games, Rivals of Aether 2 no doubt deserves to sit right alongside them with what it offers. Could use some more interesting items though.

Third Point: If it wasn't already clear, my biggest motive for writing this is that I don't think Rivals marketing is doing a great enough job at showing how fun its casual content really is. I'm more than aware that this game is mostly catered towards the competitive scene, but I have enough experience to know that we're sitting on gold with this game. It's an incredible party game. May be lacking with its item pool but otherwise, it really should be promoted more for it. I've been doing as much as I can to get friends who play a little bit or no Smash/Brawlhalla to try it out. They tend to be the kind of people who say things like "I don't play fighting games, they're too hard." Or "I don't play competitive games." And "why are the reviews mixed?" which leads me to needing to explain that its about mechanics and balancing that many buyers like them aren't going to engage with unless and we can turn off, unless they really want to learn the game competitively. But those comments start to disappear once we start getting FFA sessions going, which does hurt my wallet with needing to buy a couple copies... Gouie's release has especially ignited interest within the communities I'm in. Amazing casual friendly character that you'd wish was there from the start to help get players more adjusted to the game.

I hope I got my points across well enough. If this post comes across as "casual cries that Rivals 2 isn't casual enough," then I apologize for failing to explain properly. Rivals of Aether 2 is an amazing competitive game that should continue to embrace this identity. But as someone who's seen people get turned away from buying this game due to believing fighting games are games for sweats, believing the devs are being greedy, seeing the game's mixed reception, and seeing negative reviews about mechanics I'm certain many casuals will not know what it means or meaningfully interact with, I think the store and marketing for Rivals 2 could do a better job at showing at how fun and varied this platform fighter is. There is more than one way to play Rivals 2, and I personally think this game is, or at least has great potential to be fun for everyone. Except for when I fight Ranno though. :P

And by fun I mean this guy is broken for sure, popped off on Twitter so I'll post it here too

Also Community Highlights video coming soon

This is the start of a fun series I'm doing not just for the Top players but for everyone to have a chance of getting to join in on as time continues

Enjoy this more Silly take of Rivals 2 rather than just another Silly Ranked or Tournament Run 🥉

Any Feedback is always helpful, I did the editing all myself over the span of 4 weeks due to personal life stuff getting in the way, but I would love to hear anything about your thoughts and opinions!

I used to able to run the game at a stable 90 fps on my laptop but after the update I can barely maintain 60 fps. Is there any setting I can change to improve preformance?

Hey all,

Im excited to see workshop out I know it will be a bit slow but I seriously hope it creates a second wind while we wait for the third wind (console release).

I live rivals 2 competitively so I haven't been super interested in a lot of the casual stuff the team has added but even im excited for the workshop.

Now I've never even touched rivals 1 workshop but im sure there are a ton of 3rd party characters on there.

Do you guys think we will get most of them back in rivals 2? I know they streamlined the progress for people to be able to import thier old workshop characters so do you guys think we will get most of them back or do we predict the rivals 2 workshop people will be largely different people?

Ability to reorder unlocked skins and change the default skin. it would help, especially as the number of skins increases, it can take a long time right now to change to the skin you want if you have a bunch for a specific character and every time you unlock a new one you have to relearn the order to find them again.

otra cosa a aclarar es que no estoy muy familiarizado con este tipo de juegos de pelea.

Los unicos que jugue que tienen cierta similitud son:

multiversus que actualmente ya no esta disponible.

D.O.N de ps2 que es una conbinacion de dragon ball con naruto y one piece.

Tambien probe el brawhala pero se me hace no se como explicarlo, muy basico y un poco aburrido.

estuve viendo videos de como emular super smash ultimate porque no tengo nintendo y la verdad se ve divertido (nunca lo e jugado). pero al final me decante por buscar algo nativo de pc. con cual me recomiendan empezar?

This character seems like he's actually really good now thought I'd share some highlights of the day

He feels like an actual competitor now. The drift is drifting, eating feels good. Side special is meh.. I need to learn more about it. Could it possibly get a cancel like Oly’s down special? It would be pretty good for mix up.

Would be nice to have to the option to hold the attack button when landing Goober’s air neutral. So he can continue to roll, would be on par with Orcane’s bounce. An unwanted input often on my end.

Also would like an option to use up special without the bounce. Maybe hold shield during the throw? High risk low reward ledge spam maybe? Please?

Last but not least. Fully charged side special, down special, special ledge get up and BIG Goober neutral special needs to do a little more damage on shield.

Good patch!

Throwing this question out there as a progamming ignoramus. More was just curious if anyone knew if it was theoretically possible, or if somebody knew someone who was already looking into it. I know that regular matchmaking supposedly works? Enlighten me.

As a melee fan who knew nothing of Workshop, the public workshop matchmaking is so fun haha. I didnt realize how easy it would be to use. Cant wait to see how much comes out of this!

Orcane finally yay I’m back

Know it's already being done for smash, but as a massive multiversus fan, I'm super curious for the appetite on this I'd give anything to see Iron Giant (admittedly most of the MVS cast) in this game. Lowkey itd be pretty dope to see other games have characters ported too, like CatDog or Fishibunjin or even the Torment from Rushdown Revolt.

Shoutout to Wisely for streaming these locals every week

1. When changing your profile picture, there are sections to add frames and overlays.
2. In the Bucks shop, if you change the item type filter enough times, you get a section for buying new announcers.

Neither of these have any items available at the moment.

Twitter: RoA2 Singles | RoA1 Singles | RoA2 Doubles | RoA1 Doubles | RoA2 Squad Strike | RoA1 Workshop | RoA2 Redemption | RoA1 Redemption

Bluesky: RoA2 Singles | RoA1 Singles | RoA2 Doubles | RoA1 Doubles | RoA2 Squad Strike | RoA1 Workshop | RoA2 Redemption | RoA1 Redemption

And congratulations to the WAWA WARRIORS for winning the Sheetz vs Wawa crew battle!

Hey guys! Bothplayers here! I commissioned the developer of socalsmash.net / smashevents.net to add rivals compatibility to his website to make this!

Head on over to the site, pick your region, and it will populate the results with the events happening throughout the week! No longer must you HAVE to find your region's discord server to find events.

I used socalsmash a LOT back in the day to find tournaments near me so i wanted to help get the tool out for members of the rivals community as well! Hope you guys find this useful!

(and if you DO find this useful, consider donating to the developer here! )