itch.io

the basic math shakes out to be pretty much weighted against you.
The chances for success (without succeeding in the instruction task and ability modifiers already applied) are:
60% to succeed in grinding the herbs
45% to succeed in infusing the oil
40% to succeed in mixing and emulsifying.
So your chance to succeed in at a single salve at base level is

60%*45%*40% = 10.8%

with the successful instruction task it boosts each chance by 10% so it shakes out to

70%*55%*50% = 19.25%

It is definitely a tough challenge and the odds for a single attempt were against you

first impressions: while i am sad as a ninja main i can understand the nerfs. Quickstrike and uppercut were far too good. Using caltrops while certainly good before now becomes a really nice choice between caltrops or 3 quickstrikes, so i feel both options are in a good spot now in comparison to each other in usefulness.

Will play more later for sure to test out all the new stuff :D

Thanks for the hard work :)

Great Thread, as a ninja main myself i can completely see where you are coming from. 

I have also only played two good cowboys so far while the rest got roundstart lightning strike parried and never really thought a move ahead. With Ninja you have to vary your combos and go for different routes depending on DI while cowboy has his "I combo now" teleport, which is nice but also doesnt encourage exploring your whole moveset and looking into what moves combo naturally into each other. While ninja also doesnt want to be in the air forever i feel like cowboy has an even harder time with air combos as his 3 slash specials are especially weak to DI and can easily end your combo.

The main thing i feel hinders cowboys though(which incidentally makes him the worst beginner character IMO) is that you need to be really good at the Yomi part of Yomi Hustle. Cowboy doesnt get really fast moves except his gun, pommel and lightning strike so he has trouble getting in(especially vs ninja). He needs to have read what i will do and make his choices in a way that doesnt let me whiff cancel out of them easily.
While teleport is a great combo tool both wizard and ninja can deny viable teleport space with their projectiles so it gets easier to read the teleport and punish it. Lightning strike is the only real tool cowboy has at range to get in as it is quick and it is a decent threat because of its fairly wide hitbox. Cowboy otherwise doesnt have a lot of tools to either keep pesky rushdown ninjas off of himself or get a hit in on those evasive wizards.
His 1000 Cuts can fill that role as it negates projectiles and makes his teleport a combo starter, but it costs 3 Bars and only one cowboy really saw how annoying that is. The other characters get some really good options from 1 level of super meter but cowboy only really has 1000 cuts because instant cancelling is just not necessary when you have teleport.

One great cowboy did his big lunge attack at a fair distance away so i thought it was safe to throw out a shuriken only for the cowboy to whiff cancel and be in perfect lightning strike range. While still using lightning strike i feel like this embodies what i mean about cowboy needing to be good at the Yomi part. Without hard reads or spending burst bar when they have more whiff cancels than me cowboy has a lot of trouble to get in on people. When they do they have their easy lightning strike times X -> teleport -> pommel -> lightning strike again combo which is not really all that fun to watch either. i love getting combod by wizards or other ninjas as the setup and flow feels really fun(and funny sometimes with all the wizard projectiles bouncing me around lol)

Cowboy needs *something* to threaten space better at longer ranges or he will always be on the defensive in a neutral environment. Cowboys best position atm is the default roundstart because its in lightning strike range, but afterwards they have to work real hard to get in.

you can set the timelimit at character select if you are the host. if you just want a sudden death round set it to like 5 seconds, thats what you get when the timer naturally hits 0 anyways

i have not really labbed combos but i can see some pros really going to town with combos on burst. Though i feel like it is at least in line with the game in the sense that some nasty fighting game stuff happens :P

So it might be a bit much, because i really feel its only a small bit too weak. there are places where you get a combo out of it already(when you burst your opponent into the corner) but that is also balanced by being glaringly obvious. It certainly has its uses but it doesnt feel like an option i really want to take 90% of the time.

I guess its that Bursting is the only option you have when getting combo´d(disregarding DI for the moment) so it becomes increasingly easy to read and bait as people get more acquainted with the mechanics and setting up combos. It just feels bad to spend all your burst bar only to still be in a really bad spot even when you are successful.

But to your point: i know wizard is very happy to be far away even without meter and burst bar so getting bursted and losing meter would not be as bad for them but it would at least level the playing field measureably. If i send the wizard flying and they still have meter from their previous combo they just start using their supers to set up the ideal wizard ball pit of hell while i have to think about actually getting in.
Without meter Wizard is limited to their usual magic missile spam which can be annoying but it is not that bad. Ninja losing access to quickstrike also really limits the approach options and cowboy not getting free access to damaging teleports with 1000 cuts also helps to enforce a more neutral game state.

Sure at the end of the game its a game about reading your opponents mind, but limiting options makes that a lot easier. If i spend two of my whiff cancels i could be using to get a combo on something else I better not be in a bad spot afterwards

tl;dr: I feel that Burst as a purely defensive mechanic is a bit too weak at the moment (0.3.0).

I am not on the discord so maybe its already discussed there but here are my 2 cents:

I feel like the opportunity cost of Bursting is not really in line with what you get out of it. It sends the opponent flying faaar away which is only really beneficial to wizard as they can start spamming their projectiles. But for cowboy and ninja losing two uses of whiff cancels is just such a huge tradeoff that you basically only do it when you get combo´d at 30% hp or something when you know the combo will probably kill.

Just taking the damage on the first or second combo and keeping the threat of burst is far more valuable as it allows you to set up your turn better when the combo eventually ends. There have been so many people that used burst early and then didnt have the resources to get out of some whiff cancel traps, but maybe thats because people need to learn to play defensively when you dont have access to whiff cancels.
When you burst and you are wrong you just reset your opponents combo scaling and will likely be eating another big chunk and give the opponent lots of meter or just straight up lose the round to the following combo. And even if your opponent didnt bait it or parried it you are now in a spot where you are down in resources(burst bar) and not in a good spot to actually do anything to your opponent because without burst bar you cant whiff cancel so you need to play really defensive for a while.

As an aggressor I am not really worried about getting bursted, as it only ends my combo and depletes my opponents resources AT WORST. When i read it and parry it or make it miss some other way its combo town, population: Opponent with some free super meter on top.

As a defender there are only two real uses: The threat of activation making my opponent try to parry it so they end their combo early or try to prevent getting combo´d to death. Even for preventing a game loss its quite bad as it becomes very obvious that you NEED to burst sometimes in the next 3 moves or are dead, so it becomes very easy to play around.

That is why i feel like Burst is a bit too weak right now as a defensive tool.

I am not a game developer so my ideas on how to fix it are probably bad but I had two thoughts:

- hitting the burst makes it the defenders turn and lets them combo the aggressor

This would make it so the aggressor would really fear a burst and actually play around it. It would keep people in the game more and promote some active (and probably sick to watch) gameplay as now parried burst are even more hype and players getting combo´d can exact their revenge immedietly(which might be cathartic after getting combo´d for a minute or two).
Bursting just resetting the player positions means that the defending player just used lots of resources for very little gain in a game where execution doesnt matter.

- hitting the burst reduces the aggressors meter. Burst or super, maybe both?

This addresses the opportunity cost issue that having no access to whiff cancels is extremely bad, especially when your opponent still has one or even two. It would make it so that bursting doesnt put you from a bad spot into another, slightly less bad spot, but into a truer neutral game state.
Evening the playing field by either reducing the aggressors burst meter so they dont have whiff-advantage or reducing super meter so they dont have access to all the fancy moves(especially ninja and wizard profit greatly from super meter).

What do other people think? 

Also obligatory thanks for the game ivisly it has been a phenomenal amount of fun and i hope threads like this are not grating on your patience :D

That button is there in case the game gets actually stuck(aka when both timers dont have a green circle around them and nothing happens). then you press that button to send the resync request

got to play 3 games before i had to sleep and the ninja changes feel really fun. New tools are always fun, but the incresed knockback for same moves makes me vary my combos a bit more which is very fun. Backsway took a bit getting used to but it is excellent against cowboy at lightning strike range :D

Though the Yomi Advantage uppercut seems absolutley brutal. +70 when i instant cancel and +50 when i just land lets me basically set up a devastating combo no matter what, where before i had to spend meter to get a combo out of it. Not saying it is bad, but it got my cowboy friend to shout many bad words :D

Making Yomi Advantage a Thing seems like a good idea as i found myself going back to neutral far more often so i could read a move with backsway or other shenanigans and the increased whiff cancel cost made me consider my moves a bit more instead of always forcing the triple whiff cancel dance.

Getting burst bar while getting comboed combined with the increased whiff cancel cost means that you actually get to use Burst defensively now because its not such a huge waste of resources and you often have ~50% while starting to get combo´d

Havent played against a wizard but really liking this patch :D

force resync does its job and let me keep playing with others. Only encountered one instance where it took ~2 minutes to resync.
Also if both players send the resync request and click accept the game tries to resync twice which is probably why it took so long in the above example. when only one request was sent it usually went through pretty fast, only sometimes the menu to choose your move would disappear, but that can be fixed by another resync

there is no CPU. in single player you control both characters at once

check the options in the replay. that feature is already present :D

but that is the whole concept of yomi though. you gotta get into the mindgames of "alright i know they feinted a slow move but will probably cancel that so i have to feint a move as well but they know that so i should do...". you have to be better at "I know that you know that i know etc" stuff and know when to take a calculated risks.
I enjoy it a lot, though early matches sure involve a lot of whiff canceling chains. As i played another person for a few matches we got to the point where i outplayed or got outplayed and even whiff canceling would just not work, because we thought 3 moves ahead while the other only looked 2 moves forward. Depleting an opponents burst bar by forcing whiff cancels is a very valid move and while it does not get you a hit in now, it will ensure that they cant get out later

Also managing your cancel bar is very important so you dont get caught in a really bad spot. So IMO it is fine as it is now