Welcome to Patch 2.58! We’re adding the best taunt ever created (we think, we’re all pretty excited about it), a new Ember Skin, new Brawl of the Week, new Test Features, new animation system, new networking optimization, new animation improvements and more in this patch! Whew! That’s a lot of new. Oh and if you haven’t heard yet, we are now taking signups for the PS4 Closed Beta! You can signup here. Enjoy the patch!

Mallhalla

• Ember The Hunter – Stalking monsters one silver arrow at a time!
• Taunt: Next Level – Unleash your ki and feel the power!
• Bodvar will now be showing off new taunts, and other items where applicable as the store model for Mallhalla.

Brawl Of The Week

• Snowbrawl!
• 3 Minutes
• 4 Player Free For All
• 150% Damage

Test Features

Added to Test Features

Stale move systems come with a number of pros and cons at all levels of play. They give players some forgiveness while figuring out counterplay for a “spammed” move, and reward more spectator-friendly versatile play at the highest levels. On the other hand, they’re fundamentally restrictive and can punish players for correct move selection when their opponent falls into a habit.

Since the moves on a Brawlhalla legend aren’t all available at the same time, this could be more limiting than other games that employ stale move negation. However, it could reinforce some of the more unique elements of Brawlhalla by rewarding frequent swaps from weapon to weapon.

This test is more of an open question than a feature we’re determined to add. We’re interested to hear whether this ends up causing or alleviating frustration, and if players feel like it leads to any change in their playstyle.

Stale Move Negation

• When hitting with a power, Damage and Force are reduced based on how many of the last six powers that hit were the same as the one being used.
• Damage and Force multipliers decrease from 95% on the second use of a power to a minimum of 50% Damage 50% Force on light attacks and 50% Damage 70% Force on Signatures if four of the last six hits were with the same power.
• Hitting with a weapon (including unarmed) that was not used in the last six powers grants a 105% multiplier, or 110% if the other two movesets have been used.

Modified Test Features

Wall Slip is still a contentious feature. Our takeaway from feedback is that it’s something many players feel is important, and that clear rules and avoiding false positives during normal offstage play should take precedent over making it difficult for abuse cases to reset their state.

We feel the current direction has the best chance of meeting those goals, and hope that its shortcomings at higher skill levels can be supplemented with vertical chain dodges as an approach tool against the wall.

Currently, our plan is to iterate on what the final FX will look like internally and then graduate Wall Slip to ranked next week, but will be keeping an eye on feedback.

Wall Slip

• Once a player has entered a Wall Slip state, combat will no longer reset them until they touch the ground.

Removed from Test Features

We’re still very interested in experimenting with jump height or gravity to keep players in range of each other more often, but are removing this test temporarily to focus on other features.

• Removed: Upward Jump Impulse for ground and air reduced from 59 to 57.
• Removed: Wall Jump Impulse reduced from 55 to 50.

Networking Optimization

Our previous algorithm was a bit too forgiving to people with just a little bit of lag, so we reworked it a bit. Before, the less laggy player might feel more rollbacks than the laggier player, but in our rework, most of that burden has been shifted to the laggier player. Now, even more than before, if you are noticing rollbacks, it will likely be more on your end than the other player. Also, we tightened up the server “too late” packet threshold by another 32ms, bringing it down to roughly 5 frames total. This should lower the worst case scenario during high variance/packet loss occasions.

Now, as with everything, this will be an ongoing process of iteration and feedback. When giving feedback, minimizing the number of variables will help us, so try to give us feedback based on a consistent opponent before and after the patch. these changes in a normal case are 2-3 frames here and there, so it might be subtle. Ultimately, we cannot beat the physical distances between players, we can keep working on techniques to make that unavoidable lag more bearable and enjoyable. Please let us know your thoughts!

• Improved latency compensation algorithm
• Tightened up server “valid input” threshold.  

Animation Improvements

This week we continue on our quest to bring older animations more up to date, and add performance improvements where we can along the way. You can expect more improvements like these as we move towards PS4 release later this summer!

• Minor tweak to hammer’s falling animation to improve the seaming of joints.
• Brought the beginning of spear’s wall jump animations closer to the center of the hurtbox.
• Removed secondary charge effects on Nai’s Down Spear and Hattori’s Neutral Spear signature animations.
• Brought head in closer the body on spear’s launch hit react animation. Also brought the body closer to the center of the hurtbox.
• Improved performance of all spear animations.
• Improved performance of all hammer animations.
• Fixed a bug that would cause the effects on Nai’s Neutral Spear animation to flicker for a frame if fully charged.
• Fixed a bug that would cause Sentinel’s Neutral Hammer animation to end early if used in air.

Animation System Revamp

Our animation system has received a revamp and now runs off of pre-processed files. By pre-processing our animations, we eliminate the need to do so on the fly, improving framerate stability across the board. Animations are now also loaded dynamically on a need to know basis, meaning we can load very small chunks of animation data instead of needing to take the time to load a much larger, time consuming file. What all this means is that you should expect smoother performance and reduced memory usage.

• Animation system overhauled for better overall game performance.

User Interface

• Loading screen now shows File Load percentage.
• Bödvar-mania, nöw with glöriöus umlauts!
• To improve online client performance the maximum length of an online custom game is now 15 minutes, down from 20.

Balance / Gameplay

• Thatch Down Blasters: Updated hitbox behavior on wall collision.
• Changed logic for powers like Thatch Down Blasters and Ada Neutral Blasters to treat some diagonal surfaces like walls when determining collision behavior.

New Legend Rotation

This week’s new Legend Rotation features Barraza, Bodvar, Ember, Mirage, Orion and Val.

Bug Fixes

• When viewing hitboxes, fixed a bug that would cause them to display in the wrong position if the same player had multiple active hitboxes on the same frame such as Thatch’s Down Blasters. (Credit Juxxtapose_)