Your Only Move Is HUSTLE

Your Only Move Is HUSTLE

‎(READ DESC) - Wraithlord, The Legendary Devilhunter
Py 24 Feb, 2024 @ 11:30pm
Wraithlord Balancing Notes (I talked too long for the comment box lol)
Ok, Wacky Wahoo Pizza man is very cool. His aesthetic is great, and the accuracy to devil may cry is done with love, and it resonates in every frame.

That said, I have notes.

Just know this is meant as both love and constructive criticism. I'm gonna be a bit mean here.

- While he looks stunning, Wacky Wahoo Pizza Man (hereafter called WWPM), is nearly as large in file size than Vanilla Yomi Hustle itself. It's been said before, but let - let that sink in. My beefy PC is always just a bit crunchy when WWPM loads in, and I feel it every turn.

- When I imagine fighting WWPM, I imagine fighting a hyper-mobile swordie fighter with impressive range. In reality, when my opponent is this character, I am fighting not only WWPM, I am also fighting a revolving, swappable tag team of WWPM, Vixen, Miko, and Michael Everloving Jackson, among the - if I'm seeing this right - eight stances? This sheer number of options is overstimulating for both user and opponent, even when separated into distinct stances, AND provided a nearly hour long tutorial video. This also ties to the file size problem aforementioned.

- Swapping has a hitbox to prevent punishing a stance change. While I understand the want to break traditional conventions, I believe it is not outrageous to say something as big as a complete change of moveset should be made a tactical move that must be thought of and planned out carefully in order to better suit multiple situations, putting you in a tricky spot if you do it too brashly. Here, I've seen swapping used to extend combos.

- While the progression of the Devil Trigger and Trigger Heart is reasonable, it adds on lots of offensive options to a character that already had so, SO many. Again, overchoice becomes an issue.

Ok, I know that was a lot. Trust me when I say that your 4-5 months of work really paid off. It did! Also, I'm not gonna just complain without some recommendations on balancing.

+ Cut the number of stances down to 4 at most. I'm sorry, 8's just - do you wanna fight a revolving carousel of eight mechanically distinct characters at any given time? I don't, personally. If you insist on eight, they need to be more RELIANT on one another to succeed, forcing the user to carefully reposition their opponent's position, accounting for their DI, until they have the frames to swap and keep the combo going. At THAT point, I'd be more at peace with an offensive swap hitbox, but with a much, much smaller hitbox so that there's still real risk involved. As it stands, each stance feels like a whole standalone character that you could go the entire match using if you so chose.

+ While the former recommendation could help with this, find ways to make moves more straightforward to DI out of. At times, DI is all a player has to escape a combo, and in WWPM's current state, both the overabundance of options and the moves themselves make DI astoundingly difficult, and Burst is incredibly all-or-nothing.

+ The guard-breaking or otherwise more damaging moves should be more punishing to miss.

+ That cloud of bats. It forces players to block, not allowing escape with an already chance-y dodge, creating an ever increasing block disadvantage, chipping away at their health as WWPM is able to just stride up freely. Just making it a tad slower would work wonders, allowing players to escape, but applying just enough pressure to put them between WWPM and a sharp place.

These are my thoughts in summary. I apologize if it was curt. I want to see WWPM succeed, and, dare I say, COOK, on the battlefield. This character has so much love and thought put into it, and I can see it one day becoming an even greater staple in the YOMI workshop.
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furious creature  [developer] 25 Feb, 2024 @ 1:54pm 
+ The bats can be hit. Just hit it, as it lets you hit cancel off the projectile. You can even use grab as a f3 option.

+ Asking me to cut half of the current stances is asking to cut out around half of the work I've done. The stances themselves *do* require switching majority of the time due to the staling mechanic. If you dont properly manage which moves you're using, your performance will generally decrease as you will obtain less style, therefore less damage and DT, which are vital mechanics to Wraithlord.

+ There is only 1 swap that has a hitbox, and that is Nevan. Otherwise, all of his stance switches are f12 iasa out of combo, with all but Null Slayer being f4, as Null Slayer is a f5 switch.
yeesaw 25 Feb, 2024 @ 2:39pm 
Unorganised overly long post adding to what sev said: cutting down on stances would be a massive hit to style play (I say this as probably the main wraith style player right now) and overall would really suck for literally anyone who likes or worked on the character on any level.

As for DI, DI against wraith matters in alot of situations as it limits what he can follow up with and in some cases just kills the combo (DI down on alot of moves) or force him to spend a decent chunk of meter to keep going.

Wraith if he wants to do either anything stylish OR optimal has to swap stances quite often to suit a given situation and alot of stances have notable weaknesses, no proper grounded frame 4 in swordmaster as of recently, gunslinger up close kinda explodes, null slayer is literally just a ♥♥♥♥ version of miko featuring delayed, balrog blow mode is 'be in the enemy's face or achieve nothing ever', kick stance is Garbo in neutral (rip burn vector iframes you will be missed), could go on but you get the point. And he can't really swap on the fly.

The woohoo wacko pizza lord of hell owner of the wraithlord mafia maniac already can and in anyone who's competent with him's hands does cook. He's also considered one of the more balanced characters on the workshop by most competent players from what I've seen but idk maybe I'm missing something.

I probably forgot to mention some things but oh well. Overall most of his stances are pretty tame in terms of what they have going for them compared to most characters movesets from what I've seen and heard from others. He certainly could do with some changes (e.g summoned sword not being a absolute comedy but iirc sev is potentially gonna fully rework summoned swords which'll be cool for style play. Wraiths sadness gain is through the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ roof it's kinda hilarious but it's manageable) but overall balance wise he's doing surprisingly well considering how massive he is.

As one final note: smh he actually has ten stances technically more but just listing main ones here (sword, gun, null, Faust, balrog punch, balrog kick, cav, cerb, nevan, sin devil trigger)
Py 25 Feb, 2024 @ 3:38pm 
Good points, I hadn't looked at it that way. I again apologize if I sounded curt, or my tone was otherwise off. I now understand in retrospect, halving the number of stances is quite harsh. These fighting tips are also extremely helpful. Thank you for taking my thoughts in good faith, and I again apologize if my tone was unhelpful or rude. I might seek more wraithlord matches to better refine my notes and understand the boundaries of his modular playstyle.
Py 25 Feb, 2024 @ 3:40pm 
Originally posted by Py:
Good points, I hadn't looked at it that way. I again apologize if I sounded curt, or my tone was otherwise off. I now understand in retrospect, halving the number of stances is quite harsh. These fighting tips are also extremely helpful. Thank you for taking my thoughts in good faith, and I again apologize if my tone was unhelpful or rude. I might seek more wraithlord matches to better refine my notes and understand the boundaries of his modular playstyle.

I'll have better, stronger notes later :3 Thank you guys, and again, sorry for how I sounded, halving the stances sounds very cold and callous of me to ask.
Last edited by Py; 25 Feb, 2024 @ 3:55pm
is there any way to preset stances
Py 25 Feb @ 11:25am 
Okay so after further analysis I see the vision here! Very fascinating how the different moves tie into different stances. Still a lot to digest, but I get why now. I suppose I was frustrated with the way I didn't get how his operative range ebbed and flowed at the time, changing on a dime. Seeing some of the feedback here also helped a lot. A year later, and I can't seem to find anything more to say than "It's LOT of character to digest", but there's good reason for it.

... and say that I'm sorry. In retrospect I sounded kinda condescending. Thank you for reading fully though! <3

Originally posted by Py:
Originally posted by Py:
Good points, I hadn't looked at it that way. I again apologize if I sounded curt, or my tone was otherwise off. I now understand in retrospect, halving the number of stances is quite harsh. These fighting tips are also extremely helpful. Thank you for taking my thoughts in good faith, and I again apologize if my tone was unhelpful or rude. I might seek more wraithlord matches to better refine my notes and understand the boundaries of his modular playstyle.

I'll have better, stronger notes later :3 Thank you guys, and again, sorry for how I sounded, halving the stances sounds very cold and callous of me to ask.
never decrease the amount of variety this character has please I beg you
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