First Skullgirls Update Almost Completed, Unofficial Patch Notes Released

Mike “Mike Z” Zaimont recently took to the Shoryuken forums to detail a comprehensive list of changes that are set to be included in the upcoming Skullgirls patch. He notes that, while they don’t expect any issues, these changes are not final and may see further tweaking from now until the patch is approved by Microsoft and Sony. If you weren’t able to try the new build out at EVO 2012, now’s your chance to get up to speed with what they’re looking to implement.

So now, without further ado, the list!

Non-gameplay changes

- Unlock colors 11-13 for all characters. Enjoy your freebies!

- Improvements to online play:

• GGPO now rolls back properly instead of slowing down at moderate or high pings, increases playable ping range by quite a bit.
• Reduce the number of tiers for PS3 matchmaking from 9 to 3, and lower the ‘acceptable match’ threshold so more matches will be found for a given number of players online.
• Ranked matches online are now blind-pick, meaning you cannot see your opponent’s character choice until after choosing a stage.
• Add screen flash and notification sound when you find a match.
• Display opponent’s gamertag during a match.
• Display opponent’s chosen assist types on character select.
• Addressed the sound issues. Not all problems are fixed but overall should be much better, especially on item drops.

- Improve loading times on 360. Reorganized the entire filesystem. Hopefully it’s enough!

- Add In-Game Move Lists, now you can ignore them instead of just wishing they were there to be ignored.

- Rebalanced AI Difficulty.

- Added Tournament Mode:

• Disables granting of in-match Achievements/Trophies to prevent gameplay hiccups.
• Forces menu flow of controller select -> button config -> choose characters -> play.
• Uses default rounds and time settings regardless of current choices in the options menu.
• Disables Sparring Mode toggle.
• Allows all non-DLC colors to be used regardless of in-game unlock status.
• Returns to the controller select screen if 1p or 2p controller is unplugged at the post-match menu. (Does not do this if a controller is unplugged mid-match.)
• Forces button config whenever both players choose to return to character select.
• Is part of this complete breakfast.

- Added more Training Mode options:

• The Select/Back button can be set to either save/load state, record/playback dummy actions, or do both at once. Easily test any setup with precise positioning every time, at the touch of a button! (Hold the button down to clear the saved state or actions.)
• The dummy recording can be set to play back as a reversal. This has endless uses…figure out what is safe against Showstopper, learn to deal with reversal Napalm Pillars or opponents mashing LP or throw, etc.
• Input Display (List / Realtime Stick / Both)
• Dummy Action (Manual / Crouch / Jump)
• Blocking (Never / After First Hit / Always / First Hit Only / Random)
• Block Type (High / Low / All)
• Pushblock (Never / After Anywhere From 1 to 10 Blocked Hits)
• Throw Tech (Never / Always / After First Hit / Random)
• Ground Tech (Never / Forward / Backward / Random)
• Escape Infinite Combos (Never / After Anywhere From 1 to 10 Burstable Hits)
• Dummy Playback (Once / Repeat / As Reversal)
• Dummy Playback Side Correction: Choose whether the dummy recording is treated as relative directions (D,DB,B) or absolute directions (Down,Down-Left,Left) when the dummy changes sides. Useful for testing tech punishes or how to deal with crossups.

- Added Character Tutorials: Each character now has simple tutorials in place to teach the beginning players how to perform all of their Special and Blockbuster attacks, with some helpful tips on their use. (Note: Completing these tutorials is now a requirement for the “Sküllgirls” trophy/achievement.)

- Hitboxes displaying when switching characters is replaced by temporarily displaying 8-bit versions of the art, which is much less disruptive to gameplay.

- PAL-50 support with correct frameskip on both consoles.

- Logos at startup are now skippable on both consoles.

- Sparring Mode now saves game state when turned on, and loads it when turned off. Stop the match to check something and resume exactly where you left off! If a new match is started with Sparring Mode already on, the behavior is the same as before.

- Black-and-white super background now fades out in 8f instead of 15f, hopefully helps with determining when DHCs are allowed.

- Only the player in charge of the menu can press the Cancel button to leave the Controller Select screen for Versus and Tournament mode.

- Button config screen now counts mapping the same button or moving the cursor as an action that will keep a player’s screen open when the other player dismisses their screen.

- Button config no longer ignores button presses when another button is held. You can go as fast as you want!

- Main Menu and Training Mode now have 2-player button config, rather than just first player.

- Display chosen assist-type names on character select screen.

- In the Tutorials, move inputs are now described with button icons instead of text.

Infinite Prevention System (IPS) changes

- IPS now counts stand and crouch moves as the “same thing”.

- IPS now counts all strengths of a given special move as the “same thing”, meaning anything with the same motion but a different strength P or K. This was already true for most characters, so now it is true for everyone. Considering how rare un-chained special moves are, this should not affect very much except specific known instances.

- IPS burst-allowed hitsparks no longer show up on anything except the point character.

- Tag-in attacks are now covered by IPS.

- All tags and DHCs now start you at the correct IPS stage when comboed into.

- IPS correctly handles 1-frame links, for example in Parasoul’s {s.LK->s.HP xx LP Tear Shot, s.LK->s.HP, tear explosion, s.LK}, the last s.LK is now correctly flagged by IPS every time.

- IPS state no longer continues across zero-frame resets. Each new combo should be completely separate.

- Without a jump-in attack, your first ground combo no longer erroneously counts as your jump-in chain. Previously, at the start of a combo the exact same ground chain could be repeated three times, but only twice if preceded by a jump-in. Now, the same chain may only be repeated twice regardless of whether you started with a jump-in.

Gameplay changes

- 3% game speed increase (frameskip interval changed). DOES NOT AFFECT FRAME DATA / RELATIVE MOVEMENT SPEEDS / ANYTHING ELSE RELATIVE TO OTHER CHARACTERS, only player-experienced game speed.

- Increase frames-per-timer-second to offset frameskip change, time-outs still take roughly the same amount of real time.
Command normals count as the same also, so s.F+HK = cr.HK = s.HK and j.B+LK = j.LK.

- Throw tech window increased from 6f -> 10f. Grab Bag tech window is still 4f.

- All assist knockdowns that would be red bounces are now green bounces: still completely vulnerable, techable 9f after hitting the floor, vulnerable as normal if not teched. Requires better timing to OTG off random assist hits now – see MvC2.

- Add LK+HP as an additional command for Assist 1. Should help pad players.

- Add right-stick assist calls: move the right-stick up for Assist 1, move down for Assist 2. More pad-player help. Can be disabled from Button Config screen.

- Specifically disallow same-frame throw plus assist-call inputs like LP+LK+MK or LP+LK+MK+HP to prevent 1-button throw+assist macro abuse.

- Assist calls are now valid for 5f after the input is entered, similar to MvC2.

- Assist character damage taken when hit changed from 6% extra -> 20% extra.

- Assist characters are now always shown behind point characters except when grabbing someone, meaning no more invisible mixups behind large assist moves.

- Changes to prevent dead body abuse: stop time when the point character is dead; attacker gains zero meter from the act of hitting a dead point character, but dead character still gains meter by being hit; dead point characters become invincible as soon as IPS triggers on them.

- 5f input leniency added to chained normals, as well as normals and airdashes from jump/superjump/doublejump startup. You can now hit the next button 5f before your attack connects and it will come out, and you can now press buttons or input an airdash during jump startup and they will come out as if they were input on the first frame of the jump. Does not apply to throws!

- Fix assist call priority to prevent lots of weird cases of getting the wrong assist. Simultaneous inputs always win, so HK ~ LK+MP will be A1 and LK ~ HK+MP will be A2. For kara’d inputs, the input performed later will always win if they completed on the same frame, so HK~LK~MP is A1 but LK~HK~MP is A2. And lastly, calls for both are resolved for A2 (LK+MP+HK and LK+HK ~ MP) because they used to be random…but don’t do those. :^P

- Correct neutral-to-blocking transitions: changing block directions on the frame you are touched should no longer result in blocking a low attack with stand stance / blocking a high attack with crouch stance.

- All characters except Double can now cancel forward dash directly into backdash and backdash directly into forward dash. (Valentine will still get an airdash out of her ground backdash.)

- Allow PP backdashing from preblock animation. Previously when the opponent was attacking at close range B,B would backdash but B+PP would result in a normal attack. Now both will correctly backdash.

- Bug-to-feature conversion: Bursts now scale damage to 50%, plus count as one hit. …why might this be necessary? (^.^)

Overall bugfixes

- Player 2 DHCing at the same time as any superflash or DHC from P1 no longer freezes the game.

- Allow negative-edge inputs for DHCs.

- Snapbacks work properly vs. Cerebella’s Battle Butt.

- Fortune’s head will no longer float offscreen when she dies.

- Fix unnecessary checking for achievements after they are already granted, preventing a once-per-boot hiccup.

- Unranked Online: Player 2 picking “Change Stage” should no longer freeze on Stage Select.

- R1 no longer acts as an “OK” button on menus, hopefully allowing some nonstandard controllers to work properly.

- Pressing up-back while airborne near an attacking enemy if you have a doublejump remaining will no longer cancel doublejump startup into preblock and cause the character to wrongly fall straight to the ground.

- Forward/back jumps no longer override each other, UF~UB will now jump forward and UB~UF will jump backward. Either direction will still override a neutral jump.

- Stunt Double (alpha counter) action can no longer be overridden by pressing a button on the frame the character lands. [Whoops.]

- Floating “15” will no longer randomly appear after Unranked matches online.

- DHCing on the frame before a hit would have made contact will no longer allow the hit to connect after the DHC. ( http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17841164 is now not possible.)

- Ground techs now use newest input if both inputs are entered during the tech window. Tweaked the early/late tech windows to make more sense, previously it was possible to input a tech *very* early and have it count as tech for the 2nd bounce but not for the 1st bounce.

- Fixed a bug where the next character could come in attacking backward after death! Conditions – opponent crosses over the corpse and is facing the wrong way, like during a jump, and the character coming in does a reversal attack on the frame they appear. Well…it’s fixed! (http://www.twitch.tv/leveluplive/b/319893925?t=2h13m40s )

- Fix bug when airblocking an attack right at ground level which caused the character to land and be vulnerable during hit-stop. Removes possible corner unblockable with Death Crawl.

- Assists whiffing through the opponent (for example, an attack during a point character throw, or a throw assist during point-character-induced hitstun) no longer use up your assist call for that combo.

- Bursting correctly resets your OTG and stagger status. Previously, baiting and punishing a burst would not grant you a new OTG or allow the opponent to be staggered again if they had been staggered before.

- Everyone’s throws now face toward the opponent properly.

- Everyone’s airthrow now faces toward the opponent properly during a superjump.

Character specific changes

- On the Custom Assist screen, F,D,DF,F+LP+LK gives Excellebella rather than Diamond Drop.

- Doublejump is also 360-locked, prevents accidental doublejumps when attempting jump-in supers.

- Forward dash horizontal movement starts 3f earlier, 14f startup -> 11f. As with all dashes, momentum on attacks still happens even on the first frame.

- Range on Excellebella increased slightly horizontally and downward.

- Excellebella is no longer supercancellable after the inital 4f, removing the Excellebella xx Showstopper option select.

- Tag-in causes small slide rather than regular knockdown. Still not able to combo afterward, but prevents opponent teching a raw tag and either being able to punish her on hit or ending up a full screen away. Still techable/punishable if you have already used up your OTG when you combo into it, so don’t do that.

- Air command throw properly faces the opponent.

- Merry-Go-Rilla now does correct damage as an assist, rather than half. Assist still scales the followup combo to 50%.

- Pummel Horse now hits crouching Valentine.

- s.HP/HK, c.MP/MK/HP, j.MP/MK damage lowered by 25 per hit. j.HP damage lowered by 50 (1100 -> 1050).

- j.MK hitstun 22f->19f.

- Unchained j.MP knocks back slightly less vs air, but when chained into knocks downward much faster.

- The “stop” part of run-stop no longer gives meter.

- Ground- and air-throw whiffs no longer cancel assist calls, like everyone else.

- 360 rotations now allow only 5f between valid directions, the same as every other special. Down from 7f. Helps prevent getting 360s when you meant to do QCT/QCB.

- Changes to Hornet Bomber: LK version invincible through first active frame, MK version invincible up to first active frame, HK version not invincible. All versions lose active hitbox during descent so it is easier to hit her out of it later on. Supercancel period on landing shortened from 30f->4f to match most other special moves. Landing hit-stop is still supercancellable, so the change is only noticeable on whiff.

- All QCF motions now require the full QCF, instead of just D,DF.

- Zero meter gain during Furoboros (cat heads).

- Changes to Lv3: Sped up overall; no longer invincible for the entire duration, invincibility now wears off after she turns into Filia; last hit knocks the opponent away from Double; reduced damage to make it more even with other Lv3s; recovery on block slightly longer.

- Changes to reduce the ease of hitconfirms: j.HP hitstun reduced by 5f, blockstun unchanged; s.MK(1) hitstun reduced; s.MK(1) and (2), cr.MK, s.HK slowed down by 2f each.

- Changes to Lv5: invincibility wears off as soon as you press any button to shoot or create a bomb. Rings do 2f less blockstun and have 2f longer cooldown between them, so full-screen random mashing no longer combos.

- Added missing hitboxes below her ground-impact frames so attempting low attacks to OTG won’t randomly whiff underneath her anymore.

- Fixed crumple anim to have crouch-hitstun and OTG-hitstun portions line up with everyone else’s. Previously they both occurred too early in the animation for certain combos to be possible on her.

- Remove 8f of invincibility from the middle of her dash and backdash, total invincibility 13f->5f.

- Assist taunt-before-leaving stops being a physical barrier 20f earlier. It mistakenly occupied space during the part where she collapses and disappears. She is still vulnerable to hits for this 20f, but you can run through her properly now.

- Airball and air Gregor Samson are now possible with negative-edge, and Airball correctly allows assist calls along with the move.

- Flatline DHC to Fenrir Drive vs another Filia no longer misses the rest of Fenrir.

- Hairball fixes: No longer unsafe on hit vs characters with air supers. Final hit vs. standing opponents properly combos to Gregor Samson vs everybody.

- Airball fixes: Recovery shortened, no longer unsafe on hit, still unsafe on block; can airdash-cancel the end on hit or whiff but not on block, and only with a forward dash; will always do the air version of the recovery even if Filia lands during the attack.

- j.HP and j.WP hit area extended closer to Filia’s body to prevent SFA3-style whiffs up close.

- j.WP given more vertical hit area for the same reason.

- j.HP +2f hitstun and knocks back slightly less vs. air. Blockstun unchanged, vs. ground behavior unchanged.

- j.HK hitstop on opponent increased by 3f to prevent crossup bug.

- s.HP hitbox slightly wider and extends slightly lower, it now combos in many situations where it would miss by one pixel previously (after s.MK on standing Painwheel, etc.)

- Ground- and air-throw whiffs no longer cancel assist calls, like everyone else.

- Airthrow recovery on whiff shortened to match everyone else’s.

- Headless Furserker Purrage now connects properly vs. crouching Painwheel and Fortune.

- A successful level 3 will prevent time-up until it finishes, as with other “cinematic” supers.

- During Omnomnom, her head will now fly away from the nearest screen edge when the move ends or is interrupted.

- Head recall now plays 9f of the loop even if the button is not held. This prevents it from being able to be used without ever picking up the head, as well as removing a ridiculous meter gain exploit. Rekka->rekka->recall cancel is still possible.

- Headless Stunt Double (alpha counter) with s.HP and c.HP no longer plays the head-attached attack, as well as having recovery longer than 1f.

- El Gato overhead attack from rekkas sped up.

- Headbutt (neutral+HP) and head slides (F/B+HP) damage equalized to 675, and all give meter equivalent to a projectile rather than a physical attack on hit.

- Screw Attack (head attack when the head is hit by her own body) damage reduced from 575->500, and gives meter equivalent to a projectile rather than a physical attack on hit.

- Can no longer rev Pinion Dash for an obnoxiously long time after winning a round.

- Pinion Dash command changed to hold D+KKKKK…release D, rather than D,D+K. Can press P while revving to cancel. Custom Assist command is D+2K.

- MP/HP nail shots correctly face opponent.

- Changes to air super: Increase minimum damage to 1100, comparable to other supers; on hit only, recovers to jump state which immediately allows flight for continued pressure and prevents it from being punishable if opponent had already been OTG’d; post-flash invincibility reduced from 45f (!) to 17f.

- Death Crawl is now vulnerable to throws. Hit invincibility period unchanged.

- F+HK leniency between hits decreased by 3f, now impossible to have it un-combo by delaying too long.

- Flying upward is slower if the opponent’s point character is also rising. Her rise speed is unaffected if the opponent is standing or falling. This allows everyone’s jump to have a chance to catch her when she’s at the top of the screen, and allows one flying Painwheel to catch another, but doesn’t affect her gameplay much otherwise. Does not affect first-frame momentum for normals at all.

- Tear explosions correctly scale by ratio and are affected by combo damage scaling.

- Explosion hitstun 37->36f, blockstun 19f->14f to prevent certain lockdowns, chip damage 250->150.

- Fix issue with some palettes where certain frames incorrectly showed parts of her glasses.

- Silent Scope no longer misses crouching Painwheel after MP Tear Shot.

- j.HP hitbox extended closer to Parasoul’s body to prevent whiffs up close vs airborne characters.

- j.MK +1f hitstun; held-button float moves faster forward/backward and allows another attack immediately when button is released.

- j.D+MK->j.MK is now a chain rather than a reverse-beat, meaning your first Stomp->j.MK is valid even though they count as the same move under IPS now.

- Lengthen DHC window on Motor Brigade by 8f.

- Motor Brigade now drags opponent downward on hit, allowing more of the super to connect more of the time. Hitstop on opponent increased slightly for the same reason.

- Remove erroneous 3f invincibility after the hit was already finished on Napalm Pillar.

- Blockstun on Napalm Pillar shortened by 1f to prevent strange interaction with Crimson Hunting at max distance.

- Parasoul will no longer ground-tech the wrong way if crossed up after a knockdown, for example after being hit by Death Crawl.

- Ground- and air-throw whiffs no longer cancel assist calls, like everyone else.

- Egret Charge should always cause wallbounce now. Previously it may not have, if the camera were moving too quickly.

- Window for inputting QCB+PP for Goodfellows (Lv3) after a successful throw widened.

- All special moves correctly face opponent, no more backward gunshots after ground-teching past the opponent. (Oops.)

- Slightly reduce meter gain for connecting with Bang shots, HP cannonball, and all Georges.

- Overall meter gain reduced to 1/3 while holding a Shadow of Impending Doom.

- Redistribute damage for Argus Agony: ~300 lower unscaled damage, same minimum damage (on average, subject to randomness).

- Lenny damage 3000->3800, chip 650->800.

- Lenny fix: DHC window is the same but it is no longer possible for a DHC to be “too early” and result in the bomb not being created. Placement and explosion timing unchanged.

- Teleport now recovers 4f more slowly, starts up 3f faster; still vulnerable for 2f at the start; able to be supercanceled 3f earlier during recovery; fake teleport startup and recovery unchanged.

- All Lv1 items will always OTG in the proper direction, towards Peacock. Accomplished by allowing the Jippo bottle to be flipped (oppiJ!). Any Lv2 and Lv3 items which always face the same direction may still knock them the wrong way as OTGs, so be careful.

- Argus Agony hitbox extended closer to Peacock, no longer whiffs up close vs standing Painwheel or vs random other close attacks.

- LP and MP Bang! hitboxes extended back toward Peacock to prevent them from whiffing up close in certain circumstances.

- LP and MP versions of Bang! carry over their specific invincibilities (LP invincible to hits, MP to throws) through the entire active portion, as opposed to just the first active frame. First 2f of both moves are still fully vulnerable.

- HP BANG! shots do 33 more chip (300 total -> 400 total, or to look at that differently, at base dmg 48 triple shots to kill by chip -> 36 now, same as Cable’s Viper Beams.)

- Item drop chip increase: Lv1 150->200, Lv2 250->300, Lv3 400->500.

- Argus Agony small lasers +2f hitstun to prevent certain patterns from allowing the opponent to recover and retaliate. Blockstun unchanged.

- Airthrow recovery on hit shortened to prevent low airthrows being punishable by Double.

- Lv3 cinematic is skippable by the Valentine player holding any Punch during the fade-out.

- Flatline will only hit point characters, never assists/heads/Lenny/etc, and will not kill until the final hit.

- Hitting Valentine during her counter stance with her own Lv3 or Mortuary Drop no longer wrongly costs her 4 bars of meter. Only takes the correct 2 bars away.

- Hitstun poison (MP) only lasts 2/3 as long when the opponent is in hitstun. Blockstun does not affect the time.

- j.HP hitstun reduced by 2f, knocks up 1 pixel higher vs airborne opponents. Prevents an exploit. Still combos into HK Savage Bypass, etc.

- Countervenom (Lv2 poison counter) hitbox much taller, will no longer whiff on max height Painwheel j.MP. Can still whiff vs. Parasoul max height sj.HK, be careful.

- c.HP blockstun shortened by 6f, “feels” like all other launchers now in terms of punishing it.

- Air and ground Savage Bypass recovery shortened.

- Fortune is no longer able to move her head during the Prescription freeze; Peacock item drops disappear properly if she is hit by Prescription freeze.

- Counter super now properly faces opponent on startup.

Marie

- All attacks now give the opponent meter on hit or block.

- Small skulls have energy background, easier to see.

- Add Apocalypse-style hitstun. Triggered by taking enough damage quickly, and more easily by supers.

Sources: Skullgirls, Mike Z