Some positivity: I love everything about Rivals 2

[Mario]

Rivals of Aether 2 is a love letter to platform fighters, and it's consistently been an amazing experience for me. For context: I come from Ultimate and a little bit of Melee, and I'm generally around mid-Gold in Rivals 2.

The learning curve is gratifying. The controls feel responsive and tight, which makes it feel good when learning new muscle memory. Plus, each character has unique mechanics and combos that are fun to learn when trying a new character. The useful training mode features help tie this all together, since it's easy to set save points and lab out scenarios to learn a character. The core gameplay loop of learning new things is fun and satisfying, which keeps me coming back.

The game balance feels fair. Whenever I lose, I generally feel like there was something I could have done differently to win. There's usually counterplay you can learn to overcome characters and moves, despite certain matchups feeling oppressive. The devs have also given me confidence that they pay attention to balance and listen to players, so I trust the decisions they make even when my mains get nerfed. No matter how much things get changed up, I feel confident that the game will always try to be balanced.

The community is nice, at least around high Silver to low Plat. I rarely see disrespect or BM, and people often homie stock in casual if I accidentally SD. People frequently send a Good Game after a close match, or they'll be a good sport about losing hard and send "Ouch!" or something. When I lose hard, I almost never see people being a sore winner and spamming chat with messages or teabagging. Queueing up for casual or ranked is usually a good time with good people, and I appreciate that.

That's my piece, I love Rivals 2. The game certainly isn't perfect or complete, and I do understand why some fans are annoyed with things. But we have something special here with Rivals 2. It's easy to focus on the negatives and forget that this is an amazing game. I'm sure you could argue against all the points I raised here, but I'm grateful for what we have any way you cut it :)

[StuckInWashingMachine]

I'm Gold - Diamond, and people regularly taunt or get really toxic if I SD and I barely make it out of a loss. Perhaps texas is just a really toxic place I think, I'm a bit at a loss as to how you find people who are good sports.
Perhaps my play style is annoying or my character is annoying, but I come from games like Quake and Titanfall, I generally like characters that require you to push alot of buttons, and has more mechanical demand than others in terms of technical proficiency. People have coined my character as "Playing as a crack addict" to circumvent the lack of their own abilities to play this character. I don't think my character is certainly perfect, there are moments where certain things feel auto piloted, and easy. Like watching silver - gold matches with him. He does seem very carried in the fact that his smash attacks are so strong, and most lower tier players don't really understand the movement in this game, but later down the line, his lack of disjointed moves and speed starts to show, and he loses alot to other character unless I really hone in and focus on really tight frame data to the point in where it hurts and tires me out to play this game. Still though, that burn is what makes these achievements feel earned in this game.

I agree with most of what you say, the devs certainly seem passionate and wanting to listen to their hardcore fans. aside from slippy, I am very happy with how smooth the online feels for the most part, it's not perfect, but there are times where I'll be on a server against someone else in my area, and the game will feel almost like local, this doesn't happen for all games obviously, but the sheer level of animations and smoothness and optimisation put into this game is a damn miracle.

and the devs should be proud of what they made.

I wish this game nothing but success, I hope it does once the campaign and workshop come out.

[BadRoy]

That's good. I'm also very happy with it, but I really can't wait for it to be more complete. I have total faith in the team after watching Rivals 1 get better and better, but it does take time.

But it's mostly ancillary things that need fixing. The core game experience is already great. It feels good to zip around slanging meatballs, throwing rocks, etc.

[Mario]

Originally posted by Abs-a Main:

I'm Gold - Diamond, and people regularly taunt or get really toxic if I SD and I barely make it out of a loss. Perhaps texas is just a really toxic place I think, I'm a bit at a loss as to how you find people who are good sports.
Perhaps my play style is annoying or my character is annoying, but I come from games like Quake and Titanfall, I generally like characters that require you to push alot of buttons, and has more mechanical demand than others in terms of technical proficiency. People have coined my character as "Playing as a crack addict" to circumvent the lack of their own abilities to play this character. I don't think my character is certainly perfect, there are moments where certain things feel auto piloted, and easy. Like watching silver - gold matches with him. He does seem very carried in the fact that his smash attacks are so strong, and most lower tier players don't really understand the movement in this game, but later down the line, his lack of disjointed moves and speed starts to show, and he loses alot to other character unless I really hone in and focus on really tight frame data to the point in where it hurts and tires me out to play this game. Still though, that burn is what makes these achievements feel earned in this game.

Sorry to hear you run into BM a lot, I thought it happened more in Stone. Maybe you're on to something about playstyle, could be that people don't mind my playstyle as much so I run into less salty players

Don't let the naysayers stop you from enjoying your main though! Sounds like you're still enjoying the game regardless

[Meat Man (Alfons)]

Seriously this game is so much fun. Lox is renewable dopamine as a character

[shadoweddie50]

"The learning curve is gratifying"

Lmfao whatever you say.

[BadRoy]

Originally posted by shadoweddie50:

"The learning curve is gratifying"

Lmfao whatever you say.

Yes overcoming adversity is rewarding. Have you tried it?

You go from getting 3-stocked in every match to maybe knocking one of their stocks off, until eventually you're holding your own more often than not. It's not easy, but it's extremely gratifying. Get that learning mindset going, take the small victories, it'll happen

[Retsubty]

I'm still waiting on Absa and character specific ranked...which apparently isn't happening.

Yeah Idk I'm starting to feel a bit unsure about this game's future.

[The dream to be healthy]

Originally posted by Tygo:

I'm still waiting on Absa and character specific ranked...which apparently isn't happening.

Yeah Idk I'm starting to feel a bit unsure about this game's future.

character specific ranked isn't happening where is the proof for that?

[Retsubty]

Originally posted by The dream to be healthy:

Originally posted by Tygo:

I'm still waiting on Absa and character specific ranked...which apparently isn't happening.

Yeah Idk I'm starting to feel a bit unsure about this game's future.

character specific ranked isn't happening where is the proof for that?

Not for at least a year. Most recent stream about Olympia. He said they want to try non-chara specific for a while.

[The dream to be healthy]

Originally posted by Tygo:

Originally posted by The dream to be healthy:

character specific ranked isn't happening where is the proof for that?

Not for at least a year. Most recent stream about Olympia. He said they want to try non-chara specific for a while.

damn

[Mr.McCloud]

I don't even play online. most of the my gameplay has been with bots, arcade and with a few close friends and i've been having a blast with it.

I know i'm a minority here but i defo agree with you

[BadRoy]

I know in-game shops are controversial to some people but I love all the skins so far, especially the alternate species ones. There's something to be said for being able to customize your char with so many options. Kind of helps to keep things fresh in a long sesh.

And we don't even have buddies yet :V

[Mario]

Originally posted by Mr.McCloud:

I don't even play online. most of the my gameplay has been with bots, arcade and with a few close friends and i've been having a blast with it.

I know i'm a minority here but i defo agree with you

Happy to hear it! Rivals 2 is only going to get more single player content over time

[Mario]

Originally posted by BadRoy:

I know in-game shops are controversial to some people but I love all the skins so far, especially the alternate species ones. There's something to be said for being able to customize your char with so many options. Kind of helps to keep things fresh in a long sesh.

And we don't even have buddies yet :V

I like them too. I usually don't like microtransactions, but I'm happy to support the devs. The meme potential is there too with stuff like Pizza Lox