Olympia for Rivals of Aether 2

[Heavy Mithril Bakadere]

tomboy rat 4 lyfe

[Agreus]

Originally posted by Baalf:

Originally posted by Agreus:

In the end you dont have to like it but a lot of other poeple seem to like her and that is more important than the enjoyment of single poeple.

Let's get real, though. How many people would have hated the other four. Even if you aren't a huge fan of the characters, if you give them cool elements and a good sense of expression, you're gonna have a hard time finding people who would actively hate those designs. Meanwhile, you have a character with no expression based on an animal most people either don't like or think little of. La Reina feels niche, at best, with the other characters having a more broad appeal to them. Like, I typically don't like super skinny characters like Awatsu, but there's things about Awatsu's design and expression I like, so I don't hate Awatsu. It's impossible for me to get attached to something with as little personality or expression as La Reina has.

And, I'm sorry, but a cliche grappler in a genre not known for cliche grapplers is still a cliche grappler. It's like how people showered endless praise for the realistic dragon boss in Mario Odyssey just because it was a Mario game using one of the most overused cliches in gaming. A cliche dragon boss in a franchise not known for cliche dragon bosses is still a cliche dragon boss.

Dont get me wrong I dont have the slightest idear how all this stuff came to be, I wasn´t really active in rivals 1, but there had to be some sort of vote or competition.
Rivals 1 had a dedicated but relatively small community so we can rule out any outside interference in the process so its obviously what the community liked most.

I´m sorry that you dont like it but your reasoning is subjective not objective.

[Toxi The Vagrant]

Originally posted by Agreus:

Originally posted by Baalf:

Let's get real, though. How many people would have hated the other four. Even if you aren't a huge fan of the characters, if you give them cool elements and a good sense of expression, you're gonna have a hard time finding people who would actively hate those designs. Meanwhile, you have a character with no expression based on an animal most people either don't like or think little of. La Reina feels niche, at best, with the other characters having a more broad appeal to them. Like, I typically don't like super skinny characters like Awatsu, but there's things about Awatsu's design and expression I like, so I don't hate Awatsu. It's impossible for me to get attached to something with as little personality or expression as La Reina has.

And, I'm sorry, but a cliche grappler in a genre not known for cliche grapplers is still a cliche grappler. It's like how people showered endless praise for the realistic dragon boss in Mario Odyssey just because it was a Mario game using one of the most overused cliches in gaming. A cliche dragon boss in a franchise not known for cliche dragon bosses is still a cliche dragon boss.

Dont get me wrong I dont have the slightest idear how all this stuff came to be, I wasn´t really active in rivals 1, but there had to be some sort of vote or competition.
Rivals 1 had a dedicated but relatively small community so we can rule out any outside interference in the process so its obviously what the community liked most.

I´m sorry that you dont like it but your reasoning is subjective not objective.

There, uh, wasn't too much of a competition where the fanbase had involvement. They looked at the relative play rates of the individual entrants (with all copyright problems being fundamentally disqualified) which is where our input started and ended, and then divided the 70 entrants to like, five to seven per team member, rotating and scoring accordingly to the following criteria: functionality, practicality of mechanics (overtly complex mechanisms with limited payoff would detract points kind of deal), capability of fitting into the lore of the setting, fun factor, ability to be adjusted for the sake of rivals 2's mechanics, and form factor.

As we can tell from the outcome, La Reina's scores in each would have had to be the highest on average amongst those criteria to win, there's literally no other means of victory.

Knowing the criteria, one could see the points where the other four fell short of La Reina's score.

Bhadra was too honest a character for his own good, he had to seriously work hard to get his stuff done, but simultaneously he had some of the most complicated mechanics of the entire competition.

Awatsu was really fun, but there'd be SO MANY adjustments needed due to both having almost oppressive mechanics and the huge noodly form made them the character who would need the single highest number of changes from one game to the next.

Helios didn't really have a lot to tie him into the lore, and there isn't a lot stated as to why he would be pulled into the conficts of Aether.

Yono, according to Dan, was the single most fun character and concept to him. But I think similar to Helios, he's kinda just a dude, and doesn't have a lot of strict lore which would particularly inspire him to go from delivering parcels to delivering a pounding.

[Baalf]

Originally posted by Toxi The Vagrant:

Originally posted by Agreus:

Dont get me wrong I dont have the slightest idear how all this stuff came to be, I wasn´t really active in rivals 1, but there had to be some sort of vote or competition.
Rivals 1 had a dedicated but relatively small community so we can rule out any outside interference in the process so its obviously what the community liked most.

I´m sorry that you dont like it but your reasoning is subjective not objective.

There, uh, wasn't too much of a competition where the fanbase had involvement. They looked at the relative play rates of the individual entrants (with all copyright problems being fundamentally disqualified) which is where our input started and ended, and then divided the 70 entrants to like, five to seven per team member, rotating and scoring accordingly to the following criteria: functionality, practicality of mechanics (overtly complex mechanisms with limited payoff would detract points kind of deal), capability of fitting into the lore of the setting, fun factor, ability to be adjusted for the sake of rivals 2's mechanics, and form factor.

As we can tell from the outcome, La Reina's scores in each would have had to be the highest on average amongst those criteria to win, there's literally no other means of victory.

Knowing the criteria, one could see the points where the other four fell short of La Reina's score.

Bhadra was too honest a character for his own good, he had to seriously work hard to get his stuff done, but simultaneously he had some of the most complicated mechanics of the entire competition.

Awatsu was really fun, but there'd be SO MANY adjustments needed due to both having almost oppressive mechanics and the huge noodly form made them the character who would need the single highest number of changes from one game to the next.

Helios didn't really have a lot to tie him into the lore, and there isn't a lot stated as to why he would be pulled into the conficts of Aether.

Yono, according to Dan, was the single most fun character and concept to him. But I think similar to Helios, he's kinda just a dude, and doesn't have a lot of strict lore which would particularly inspire him to go from delivering parcels to delivering a pounding.

So, because all four of those characters had minor flaws that could have been worked, La Reina is the one that needed to win, despite not fitting the lore, not looking interesting at all, not being a likable character, etc.

And I just played as her right now, and no. She isn't fun. She's not even remotely fun, and a lot of her moves are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid. Her normal jab is just "U Can't See Me." She just waves a hand in front of her face, and that's supposed to do damage. Frankly, I just want to facepalm upon seeing it. A lot of her normals are just poses with a few grapples, with a lot of others being, once again, very stereotypical of wrestlers. She can summon a chair, I guess, but so what?

There's so much that could have made La Reina more interesting. Get rid of "U Can't See Me," make her look less stereotypical, pick a more interesting animal, don't have her rely too heavily on grapples, give her expression, give her personality, etc. Yes, I know I'm going on and on, but I'm honestly getting tired of people trying to justify this character. Yes, the other four aren't perfect, but their pluses outweigh their minuses, to me. La Reina is a character I just have nothing nice to say about other than "at least she's not human." She's not interesting, she's not unique, she's not brimming with personality, and to top it all off, no, she's not even fun.

-

What especially hurts about La Reina is, honestly, Rivals of Aether 2's initial roster... isn't that good, to be honest. None of the characters are La Reina boring, but the only character in the base roster I really, really like the design of is the VILLAIN of the game, and I never want to like the villain more than the protagonists. Etalus being absent hurts because he was my main in the first game, the snake isn't in the game, yet, and they picked my least favorite of the Dungeons characters for the base roster. While no one in the base roster is... unlikable, per sey, Loxadont being as badass as he is just makes the protagonists feel that much lamer, tbh. I don't think any of the four honorable mentions would have fixed that, aside from maybe Yono, IMO, but La Reina just hurts that much more because of all of that.

[Toxi The Vagrant]

Originally posted by Baalf:

So, because all four of those characters had minor flaws that could have been worked, La Reina is the one that needed to win, despite not fitting the lore, not looking interesting at all, not being a likable character, etc.

And I just played as her right now, and no. She isn't fun. She's not even remotely fun, and a lot of her moves are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid. Her normal jab is just "U Can't See Me." She just waves a hand in front of her face, and that's supposed to do damage. Frankly, I just want to facepalm upon seeing it. A lot of her normals are just poses with a few grapples, with a lot of others being, once again, very stereotypical of wrestlers. She can summon a chair, I guess, but so what?

There's so much that could have made La Reina more interesting. Get rid of "U Can't See Me," make her look less stereotypical, pick a more interesting animal, don't have her rely too heavily on grapples, give her expression, give her personality, etc. Yes, I know I'm going on and on, but I'm honestly getting tired of people trying to justify this character. Yes, the other four aren't perfect, but their pluses outweigh their minuses, to me. La Reina is a character I just have nothing nice to say about other than "at least she's not human." She's not interesting, she's not unique, she's not brimming with personality, and to top it all off, no, she's not even fun.

-

What especially hurts about La Reina is, honestly, Rivals of Aether 2's initial roster... isn't that good, to be honest. None of the characters are La Reina boring, but the only character in the base roster I really, really like the design of is the VILLAIN of the game, and I never want to like the villain more than the protagonists. Etalus being absent hurts because he was my main in the first game, the snake isn't in the game, yet, and they picked my least favorite of the Dungeons characters for the base roster. While no one in the base roster is... unlikable, per sey, Loxadont being as badass as he is just makes the protagonists feel that much lamer, tbh. I don't think any of the four honorable mentions would have fixed that, aside from maybe Yono, IMO, but La Reina just hurts that much more because of all of that.

Not to sound rude but I can't necessarily casually trust your assessment of fun factor to be objective, due to your incredibly strong bias against La Reina and seemingly against the Standardized Grappler. You're allowed to have your bias and opinion, but one can easily sway the other to drastic levels, as is just kinda the human experience. Bias is also ultimately what would get La Reina a win or loss no matter what, even if it was a vote based competition.

This also isn't necessarily a justification to try and convince you, inasmuch as it's me trying to as accurately and politely relay my own assessments of the "why" from as objective a position as I can (the one I wanted the most, Coldwyn, didn't even place, and while this does upset me, from an objective stance a character who appeals strongly to me might not necessarily be what the best call is for the game in the long run, and I have to accept that.)

And some of these aren't exactly "minor", especially for Awatsu, who likely would have required substantial reworks, the more you have to change, the less of the original you can rely on as a matter of basis.

As far as initial roster selection... Yeah, I actually hard agree, especially when most of the ones that changed at all only saw changes to one move apiece. I do like Fleet, and in Rivals 1 I mainly played Ranno until Pomme dropped, and subbed Clairen, Ori, and Elliana, but I honestly did feel that Forsburn in particular was actively a misstep for the launch roster since the ambiguity of his smoke can negatively impact the first impression of an outside viewer, but their plans are to give us four characters a year for the foreseeable future, so I've resolved myself to finding what I like and sticking to it until something I like more comes along.

Edit: I do understand WHY Forsburn in particular, with his inclusion, the entire roster from the Story of Rivals 1 is in the game, and since the story of this game is intended to pick up where Rivals 1 left off for chapter 1, they'd definitely need to have everyone from the antelogue of Rivals 1 available. It doesn't mean I think that he's the best person to be the last roster member announcement until the first character update drops though, especially with chapter 1 not actually playable as of the launch of the game.