Balance discussion

[xaerock [RVR-42]]

Hey, I've played the game quite a bit since release and generally enjoy it. But there's some glaring balance problems (very bad matchups and so on).

But simpler than that there are also attacks / techniques that seem to have very broken properties, I'll try to list a few glaring ones that come to mind here. Not sure where you guys get feedback for this kind of thing (tournaments in japan?) so maybe this thread can be useful. Most people I've played with agree that there are some broken attacks and nearly impossible matchups. (for example Fabian/Hongo vs Theo, Shinobu vs anyone)

Some glaring attacks that come to mind:

Temjin BOSS (Fei-Yen) hyper beam [M+S]: Dash up next to enemy with fei-yen, push this button and you have an impossible to dodge or barrier attack. Blocks bullets & drains their meter into knockdown. repeat. This makes Temjin nearly unbeatable and he is already strong without BOSS.

Theo (rook mode) rook field [5C]: This move faster startup compared to knight mode & is invulnerable for most of the duration (basically a reversal move). Since theo can dash mid-transformation (M+S -> dash) you can do a normal dash in rook mode, dash up to people and do this move. The enemy cannot escape if he is in close range. The knight mode version has long enough startup that its useful for self-defense but the enemy can react and you cant use it in this way to make Theo dominate close range. I wonder why this faster variant even exists.

Ranatus BOSS (Curtain Call) hyper beam [C]: Nearly impossible to damage the boss core during use even if player uses it very predictably. In previous version using this drained boss hp so you couldnt use it recklessly. Varying this attack with others is often unreactable & the beams eat bullets and drain the opponents meter. This move basically forces most characters to play a timeout game against curtain call. Since activating boss with only 1 charge gives you 20 seconds in this version this is really tough. Finding a good strategy to fight this boss with most characters is very rough just because of this move. In Final BOSS mode you cannot dash through the side beams without getting stunned. A lot of this may apply to Ernula BOSS.

Luca hayate [46(hold)C]: I think this attack homes in too much. It already blocks most bullets and is a quick melee charge with big meter drain out of nowhere. It gives Luca melee ability like Fabian sub melee used to be before getting nerfed but from any range. It would already be effective for punishing opponents who are not moving much if it had less tracking ability. In contrast Luca 360C is almost useless.

I don't want to be negative about the game here. Thanks for your work on the game, I've really enjoyed it so far. Just hope the balance and netcode improves over time like others have said after release.

[76561198345274667]

Hi Xaerock, thanks for your detailed feedback (and for your regular activitiy in the discord!) I'm going to pass this on the devs as they are constantly working on improvements. To have such precise balancing feedback should provide very valuable for us to implement some positive changes.

[xaerock [RVR-42]]

Thanks for the response!
Maybe the most convenient way to balance is to oversee events of the game in japan where you have most of the games playerbase. Competitive players will find broken things & bugs quicker than anyone and subjectivity is much lower than these kinds of posts.

[CodeChannel.ttv]

I'd be really happy to see xaerock's feedback getting passed onto G.Rev. Particularly about Temjin which is probably the biggest issue atm. I'm maybe a league or two below xaerock, qviss, and zenny, but I had been putting together a post the last few days on Senko 2's balance too and was going to post on the Discord, so maybe I should post it here. But glad to see this topic and that Degica/G.Rev listening!

[xaerock [RVR-42]]

I think both DLCs need to be checked overall for balance. Too many things to list for Temjin. On Valken at least the flamethrower is too strong (+ blocks bullets, lets you repeat dash attacks indefinitely & meter drain).
Don't get me wrong, they're fun to play and follow source material great. But really destroy the original cast so using them against people doesnt feel right yet. I'm a huge virtual-on fan and he definitely feels like the temjin from the original virtual-on in many ways.

[CodeChannel.ttv]

Definitely, they both feel like they need a second pass, Temjin feels like he could use a 3rd and 4th pass honesty. Yeah Flamethrower is a little too much, especially with Dash+Main cancel into it. I -kinda- feel like they should keep that cancel, but just nerf pretty much everything else on it damage/meter drain but also the range (it's kind of massive for how it works). Thats really the only thing that stands out for Valken as maybe being problematic though, his other moves feel mostly fine, and his boss is pretty average.

I don't know if I should post my own balance post, or just tag it onto here. I don't wanna leech on yours xaerock, especially if it's gonna be reviewed. Mine feels more like "dream fixes", where as I think yours has a lot more knowledge of the game backing it.

[xaerock [RVR-42]]

Well it's titled discussion. Post what you like, no point having just one view on things. The similar thread in japanese is 'dream fixes' also.

[CodeChannel.ttv]

I've also been thinking about it a lot on Senko 2's balance lately. For prospective I'm maybe a step or two down from xaerock, qviss, and free_zenny at the game, but I'd consider myself a pretty avid player! So here's my two cents, I can't say I'm super experienced with every character, but here's some of the things I felt were stand out/should be looked at.

And here's just a few quality of life adjustments to the game that'd be really nice to see.
>Customizable Keyboard controls, for some reason can't customize these at all yet.
>An option to turn off the little field lasers. (I've had more friends ask me about this than I can count.)
>An option to back out of quick/custom matches from the character selection screen (this might alleviate some complaints over poor connections).
>An option to reset positions in Training Mode would be wonderful.

Napalm Shots (Universal) : The initial change to Napalm fixed some problems like Ursure spamming Napalm Main, but it made a lot of character's sub-weapons/barrages really meek as a byproduct. I do like how B/C pushes Napalm shots away now. But at the moment, simply ignoring napalm, and flying through it seems a little too convientant. It feels like Napalm kind of needs to be adjusted again because of this. This might mean more damage while passing through it, or adding some knockback, or even a exponentially increasing hitstun while passing through napalms. This could go any direction, but at the moment feels like there should be more cost for flying through it head-on.

Bullet Cancellers (Universal): These vary across the cast from useless, to, wayy too good; the best ones are often feel unpunishable, especially when used in succession. I feel like BC is maybe the single biggest thing to change the dynamic from Rev.X making a lot of barrages really bad. I feel like without more fundimental changes to how they work (such as a small meter cost or giving them animation on whiff to punish) the best ones should have a little more recovery.

Final Boss (Universal): Using Final Boss from Vanish mode even with 1-bar of meter rewards a 20 seconds timer. This feels like a little too much from a single bar of meter especially when dealing with the harder variations of most bosses, often at the end of a match. I feel like even 10-15 seconds would still be generous from a 1-bar.

Temjin: (Everything) Temjin is probably the most glaring problem in the game at the moment. Movement speed is -way- too fast, and his damage output is really high, particularly neutral M/Dash+M. (Sub Weapon) Grenade hitstun allows combos into melee at an exceptionally far range. (Boss Mode) Feiyen's beam tracking is crazy, it does tons of damage, meter damage, I'm not convienced it can be dodged.

Lev: (M-Melee) Does way too much meter drain, especially when confirming off jelly gun. (Boss Mode) When Lev's boss circles to the bottom half the the screen, characters seem to have trouble facing him, which seems to be a property unique to Lev's boss.

Henri: (Bullet Canceller) Bullet Canceller recover feels maybe a little fast.

Ursure: (Boss Mode) Her boss's segments could maybe be a little more duriable or something to help compensate for an otherwise weak boss.

Hongo: (S-Melee) Hit confirming into this moves does extremely high damage/meter drain, feels similar to Lev's M-Melee in this respect. Already seems exceptional good especially w/shadow clone oki setups.

Fabian: (S-Melee) Increase S-Melee tracking/radius, prehaps not pre-patch levels but more than the current patch. The recent patch really nerfed Fabian's pressure/oki, which also in turn hurt his ability to land markers effectively which hurts nearly all his other tools.

Shinobu: (Everything) Shinobu needs a lot of adjustments, a lot of her move deal really low damage. (Sub Weapon) I feel like additional trap duribility to prevent them from being wiped before being set and additional damage from traps, could help offset her overall weakness a little, while keeping her focused on what makes her unique (Boss Mode) Her boss is also noticeably flimsy, especially now that the side-swap attack napalms don't have any hitstun.

Theo: (Boss Mode) At the momment continiously using C-Beams seems like the best option during boss, because it's so vulnerable and it's offensive options are weak. Buffing it's other attacks might help.

Mika: (Sub Weapon) He needs missiles for pressure but in many matchups missiles are wiped out by bullets/barrages too easily, might be the source of all his worst matchups. Having them either absorb more bullets, or ignore bullets similar to Changpo's Homing lasers would likely help a lot. (360+B) Remote Wings very rarely does anything before exploding by enemy bullets, feels like it either needs faster startup, or more duriablity to be useful.

Lili: (S-Melee) S-Melee active hitbox just hangs forever, often causes it to trigger super late while trying to punish it on whiff. (Final Boss Mode) Using Lili's final boss attack at 01sec on the clock causes the clock to stop til the attack pattern is finished. Feels too good.

Ernula/Ranatus: (Boss Mode) Boss mode C-Beams are maybe offensively/defensively too strong, little incentive to use other moves. Most characters can't barrage through them, and on hit they will completely empty meter. More often then not it's better to simply time out these bosses because consistantly hitting it is near impossible. **Basically everything Xaerock mentioned above.

Sakurako: (Boss Mode) Fix blind spot on her boss (near the tips of the wings).

Karel (Sub Weapon): Hyper>Barrier+Main is both offensively/defensively a really strong option, many characters don't have the ability to drain any meter under this pressure and have to run from this until Karel's Hyper runs out. This is -mostly- fine but in conjunction with Overdrive assist it might give Karel too much time in Hyper per round.

Valken (Neutral Barrage): Flamethrower is wayy too much damage/meter drain and range. The Dash+Main cancel into Flamethrower is very good. (Assist) Valken probably could have assists unlocked, to offer him some more flexibility/keep him inline with the rest of the cast.

Offensive Unit (Assist): Because BC is so good, it basically just refills an opponents meter when used outside of vanish mode. Not sure what can really be done with this. Napalm Shot and Bomber Strike feel like definitively better choices.

Armor Drain (Assist): This should drain a little more health. At the moment it's pretty meek compared to how fast Regenrator is.

Explosion (Assist): Seems to do next to no damage to opponents boss, it could do like three times as much damage and still probably be a worse pick then Hyper Beam, or ECM.

Thanks anyone for reading over this, the game's been good and nothing pleases me more as a long-time fan of the series then to see a new Senko game finally come out on Steam! I'm really looking forward to balance patches to hopefully tighten up the overall experience, and what will be coming next for Senko!

[GF202020]

Something you can do to balance matches between controllers and keyboards:

ALLOW CUSTOM KEYBOARD CONTROLS ALEADY.

[degicagames]

Thanks for all the feedback. It's making its way to the developers steadily as we translate it.

Originally posted by GF202020:

Something you can do to balance matches between controllers and keyboards:

ALLOW CUSTOM KEYBOARD CONTROLS ALEADY.

Sorry we haven't been able to prioritise this.
Hopefully we'll have something for you in the next update.

[degicagames]

Originally posted by GF202020:

Something you can do to balance matches between controllers and keyboards:

ALLOW CUSTOM KEYBOARD CONTROLS ALEADY.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/574160/announcements/detail/1574437108307728272
Hope this is of some help.

Also, thanks to Xaerock, Code and all our Japanese players who sent in feedback too: we have a balance fix live now with details coming a little later.

[CodeChannel.ttv]

Definitely!! Thank you Degica/G.Rev for listening and like putting work in to tighten up and continue to improve Senko no Ronde 2! We'll have lots to sort through and check out with the new patch. I know this might be a little out of date now with the patch, but G.Rev might find this interesting, it's a playlist of all my SnR2 streams I've run, just for seeing various matches, might help with continuing to improve the game's balance. Newest streams are always on the bottom https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1QtVvfeFZ4C8TArsrzXsDRT5ED07KRbD

I'll see about continuing to post stuff, as well as information the discord channel has put together (I really should have posted the first tier list we put together a few weeks back). But yeah super glad to see Degica/G.Rev taking in feedback, looking forward to checking out the patch!!

[degicagames]

Originally posted by Code:

Definitely!! Thank you Degica/G.Rev for listening and like putting work in to tighten up and continue to improve Senko no Ronde 2!

Please feel free to say thank you to Grev on Twitter; I'm sure they'll be happy to hear back from overseas fans. Thanks for all the videos too; will pass them on!