The majority of this post is copied over from my Patreon upload.
The character pack is available for $5 patrons ---> HERE
----- Post update: I made a quick patch to Gejhi's (and Aurumo's) AI. I noticed for some reason Gejhi's AI was having an issue with jumping, so I added a quick fix for that. I'm also aware of another small bug with the AI with certain defensive things that seem to break the AI temporarily. This will be fixed soon.
ZIP FILE AT BOTTOM OF POST
So, the biggest focus of this update is Mango. I did a lot of work on him recently, but first let me go over a universal fix I did for all characters in the pack, and a couple of other smaller changes first.
NOTE : PLEASE GET IkemenGo and use this over Mugen. Mango's Play Ball will not function as intended do to a Mugen limitation that IkemenGo doesn't have. You can get IkemenGo ---> HERE IkemenGo is compatible with Mugen content, but I've been relying on a lot of IkemenGo's expanded features and I can't promise I can find suitable alternatives for Mugen that will work as nicely. I'm likely going to have to completely replace Mango's Play Ball in Mugen with a simplified version of the move. As usual, my modified tag.zss file is included for the tag mode features I have built into my characters to work.
Parry Fix VS. Projectiles. All characters got a fix that I had to trial and error to make parries work better against projectiles. I generally refused to use the full game-pause method. My parries against normal strikes were fine, but there was issues with projetiles that I wasn't really happy with, and I figured out how to address this. The issue was with multi-hit projectiles, slowly going through the character in some cases when parrying each hit. I figured out a method that pauses the projectile right after the invisible parry helper is hit, it will also pause the projectile for the same amount of time if it's still there to hit again. This generally seems to work as intended now.
Feliro also got an update. Feliro now has an added alternative super attack when his omega state is active. I think I worked all of the bugs out of the way it works, but I'm still plannign to make a few smaller adjustments to it, along with added visuals when I get around to polishing his sprites up more.
"Mirage Barrage" (same input as his normal super during active omega state. F,D,DF y+b) is the name of the new "omega-super" unique to him. It's designed to do a certain flat amount of unscaled damage as a finisher to his omega state. Using this move will remove any remaining timer he has left for his omega state. I plan to add in some additional cues for when the timer is running low for players to know they should use it or lose it. The attack will be meter-free, so I'll be balancing it based on that idea.
Aurumo got a small change. He can no longer jump cancel his Up-2 (Up-y) on hit. I felt like this goes against his general design theory. This is hardly a nerf for him though, as the attack still forces a hard-knockdown and juggle state that give him plenty of options. You can still do the similar jump-follow ups if you wish by chaining a Cryosphere after hitting them, then doing your jump-juggles.
AND NOW, Mango. This boy got a lot of new stuff and a lot of tweaks to his kit.
ANIMATION: Mango now has blocking animations, an idle "hold" will be added later" He also has Parry frames. I have plans to expand greatly on this as a unique character trait for him for the next update. Some new attack WIP animation roughs were added for new attacks listed below.
A new special. "Mango Ball" (half-circle OR Z-motion + B). Half circle (R,D,L or L, D, R) version will make mango fly in the direction you do the motion, in a shallow arc. The air-version is slower and won't travel as far. Z-motion (R,D,DR or L,D,DL) version will cause mango to fly at an diagonal angle up or down depending if it was done from the ground or mid-air.
This move has special properties and control options. Firstly Mango's attack is considered a projectile in this state. This means his can collide with other projectiles and bounce off of them. He's also invulnerable to other projectiles in this state. (There is some issue still with certain TYPES of projectiles that I'll try to work out.) THE ONLY EXEPTION is SUPER projectile attacks, to which he will lose outright. The attack itself is also low-priority, which gives opponents a chance to hit him (or even air-throw) out of the attack. So be careful. This attack can be canceled by itself 1 time per time in the air. So, if you first do the attack from the ground, you can chain it into itself with either command for the air-version. However, when the attack is started in the air, this cannot be done. You pretty much get one air-use. Mango is considered airborne once he enters the ball state from any version. This attack will hit opponents that are in a laydown state and he will bounce forward off of them, instead of back like normal. LASTLY, you can change the gravity of Mango during this attack by holding down, which will about double his falling speed while in the ball state. This gives you all sorts of different attack traveling angles to try out. Mango will simply bounce off the floor when he comes in contact with it. I ALSO PLAN to add similar behavior for walls.
Changes to Mango's Play Ball. This move got a MASSIVE rework and recoding to both improve and fix various things about it. THE BIG ONE is that the ball almost never "trades" hits now as long as an attack box interacts with it. It's attack is now delayed by 1-frame when coming into contact with something it can hit, making sure the bounce box takes priority. This SIGNIFICANTLY improves the ability to volley the ball back and forth and off of walls and avoiding goofy trades or double hits it had before with some moves. The only way it can trade now is if an attack is poorly times too late and it comes into contact with a hurtbox with before there's an active hit-box over it. The ball's damage was changed to more heavily be effected by the speed the ball is traveling, and generally does a lot more damage. But, it won't guarantee a juggle setup anymore, as the stun and knock-back are also effected by the speed of the ball when it hits. It no has an exploding hitbox. It's purely just for effect, so it only hits once and is then gone. Similarly, the ball will just blink and disappear after a while of not hitting any target. The ball's life-time was extended from 4 seconds to 6 seconds. The ball will not "explode" when hitting an armored target, (or something like a parry helper) and will simply bounce off of the target similar to if they blocked the ball. (There may be some hitches based on how the target armors the attack, but I think my code covers that, I will make a fix if it is discovered it still ends when hitting an armor's target.)
Changes to Mango's KEESS. Damage was tweaked to generally increase it's damage more as the heart travels away from Mango. Right now, only the x-axis effects this, but I will change the math to account the y-distance as well. The Heart graphic itself now grows with distance, and flashes two different ways to imply explosion size. The explosion size has 3 levels, each increasing the attack size by 20%. This is purely all effected by distance from Mango, not the lifetime of the projectile. I MAY consider changing this to the lifetime instead. (or more dangerously a mix of the two?)
Changes to Mango's up-1 (up-x) "High kicks, High kicks." This attack can no longer be jump canceled on hit but this attack gained a new extension of a 2nd jumping High-kick by inputting the command a 2nd time. This can set up some situational juggles, but it's main purpose is to give him a chain to use his new Air-P (air-b) attack. The high kick's knock-back was adjusted to shorten the ability to do the repeat loop-chain of Up-1, stand 2, into itself. So a combo like 1, 2, up-1, 2, up-1,up-1 is possible. Up-2 will no longer cancel up-1.
New Air-P attack, Flippity Floppity Split. Mango finally has a proper Air-p attack in the form of a silly flip that he will land on the ground in a split pose. The air portion has a 3 different hitboxes. The first of which is a more standard hit, but the tail and falling hit-box interact with the target differently based on which one hits. The tail will spike the target down into a knock-down. The second will still knock-down and do less damage but only if the tail missed. The last hit-box is when he lands on the ground for the flop as the end of the attack. This attack is very unsafe on block, and the ground landing split isn't great on-hit by itself either, it's best when the air hits already knocked the target down (or something else knocked them down for an OTG tag-juggle)
New standing Up-P attack, "IMAGINATION." This attack is admittedly still a WIP concept. I'm definitly keeping the move, but it's function is still up to change. It's a very large, but low-priority attack where Mango creates a rainbow effect over and around his top-half as a disjoint. While this move on the surface might seem like a great anti-air option. I'm not designing it to be, and actually made his top-half hurtboxes bigger to make this more unsafe to anti-air with. It's instead being made an a wide coverage move that can possibly lend itself to juggle options or try to cover both sides of him as a riskier defensive option. I was experimenting with how to handle the hits when it's hitting foes on both sides of him, and it's still a lil janky thanks to IkemenGo's limitations on hit-defs, which is largely still the same from Mugen's behavior. Changes to this attack are likely to come next patch.
WHEW... I THINK THAT'S EVERYTHING. I've obviously been on a huge inspiration kick for Mango to hammer out a lot of new stuff for him... (admittedly at the expense of lagging on commission work) but it honestly felt good to get a lot of work done on this for a change. I plan for Mango to also finally have his own get-hit animations on the next update and hopefully have all of his borrowed sprites filled out with WIP ones of his own. Feliro still needs a couple too, like his gaurd, parry and crouch transitions.
I put a ton of work into this update and I've been typing for like 2 hours, so I really hope you all enjoy it!
![[Animation] Shiren - Idle Stance](https://va.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/4052/4052393_VinVulpis_shiren_-_stand_noncustom.jpg "[Animation] Shiren - Idle Stance")
