Monster Battlegrounds version 0.4.0 - Balance update

The goal of this update was to increase damage from individual hits; players should be rewarded for outplaying their opponent in the mindgames of neutral. But to keep the game balanced, this update also decreases the damage of long combos. Characters like Dragonfish, Mad and Lily & Orbit could do massive chunks of damage in previous versions if the player mastered the combos, and this simply resulted in gameplay where monsters could land one important hit and win the round. Therefore this new update has a new damage calculation system that decreases damage after consecutive hits, which I will explain in more detail below. To make up for the damage decrease after landing multiple hits, this update will:

• Buff the damage from pokes and projectiles
• Buff the damage of last hits in multi-hitting attacks
• Buff the damage of last hits in super moves

however, naturally due to the new system changes, combos that end with multi-hitting attacks or super attack are reduced in damage. 

Other goals of this update include:

• Making Happy a stronger character
• Making Mad a more balanced character
• Increasing shield damage to ensure that blocking is less safe

New combo damage system

The new combo damage system works as following:

The first hit of a combo will deal full damage.
Example: Mad's up-attack deals 14 damage.
Any hit after that, the damage of the next hit will be decreased by 25% of the last move's damage.
Example: Mad's up-attack deals 11 damage the second time it's used in the combo. (14 damage * 0.25 = 3.5. rounded down = 3 damage, meaning that the second up-attack will deal 3 damage less, so 11 damage)
Remember, the damage decrease of attacks stacks with the previous move's damage decrease.
Example: Hitting Mad's up-attack a third time in the same combo will deal 9 damage. (11 damage * 0.25 = 2,75. rounded down = 2 damage, maning that the third up-attack will deal 2 damage less than 11, so 9 damage.)

In total, hitting 3 Mad up-attacks in a row will now result in 34 damage. (14 + 11 + 9)
With the previous version this would have dealt 42 damage. (14 + 14 + 14)
The longer a combo goes on, the more you will notice this damage reduction.

Every hit deals a minimum of 2 damage. When hitting a move for 2 damage, the next move's damage will not be decreased further. Any hit higher than 2 damage and lower than 7 damage will decrease the next move's damage by 1.

I understand that not everyone will like this change, but I think it is neccesary to keep the game balanced. This new damage system ensures that high-damage characters can not win a round off of 1 hit & spending the super move. There is much more emphasis on winning interactions while no player has an advantage, while rewarding players for creating combos with many hits.

Version 0.3.0 is still open to download if you prefer it.

Balance Changes

When the balance change has an f behind it, it stands for frames. For example 10f = 10 frames. Since MBG plays at 60 frames per second, 10 frames are 1/6th of a second long.

I will put an asterisk (*) behind a lot of multi-hitting move damage increases. This means that the base damage of the hit has been increased, but in practice the attack will often deal less damage because of the new combo system. You could consider these buffs as nerfs, but the base damage increase is what I will write down.

Shield damage is not to be confused with block damage. Shield damage is the damage your defense takes as you're blocking, as represented by the yellow bar below the health bar. Block damage is the damage to your health you take while blocking.

Dragonfish BUFFS:
- Fireball damage increased (5 > 8)
- Up-attack damage increased (14 > 17)
- Super move fireball damage increased (6 > 7) *
- The last fireball from the super move base damage increased (6 > 13)
Dragonfish NERFS:
- Down-down-up attack damage decreased (28 > 23)
- Super move damage on block per hit decreased (3 > 2)

Shella Snail BUFFS:
- Shella can now cancel her crouching attack into a charged Love on Fire (charge back > forwards + attack)
- Crouching attack pushes blocking opponents further away now.
- Last hit of dash attack damage increased (4 > 7) *
- Increased the size up charged up-attack's hitbox to also cover the ground in front of Shella.
Shella Snail NERFS:
- Up-attack deals no block damage anymore (1 > 0)
- Super attack thunder deals less block damage (12 > 8)

Totem Monster BUFFS:
- Neutral attack damage increased (12 > 14)
- Neutral attack will now tumble opponents and send them upwards if it hits an airborne opponent.
- Crouch attack will now send opponents at a more favourable angle the first time it's used in a combo.
- The acid teardrop projectile will now juggle opponents on hit if they're hit while in the air.
- Air attack damage increased (8 > 10)
Totem Monster NERFS:
- Down-air attack landing hitbox damage decreased (20 > 17)

Happy BUFFS:
- Dash speed increased (230 > 250)
- Light neutral attack blockstun increased (2f > 8f)
- Light and medium neutral attack now gain more pepper meter when used. (1 > 2) and (3 > 5)
- Medium charged neutral attack now sends opponents upwards, which is a more favourable angle for combo and zoning purposes.
- Fully charged neutral attack has less endlag now.
- Rainbow ring projectile blockstun increased (16f > 20f)
- Up attack landing lag reduced (14f > 8f)
- Up attack now sends at a more favourable angle the first time it's used in a combo.
- Dash attack damage increased (6 > 9)
- Increased knockback on dash attack.
- Air attack hitbox is active 1 frame earlier now to match the animation.
- Air attack now has less landing lag (11f > 7f)
- Happy has a unique mechanic where she takes 0.75x shield damage compared to other characters (including Mad), rounded in happy's favour.

Mad BUFFS:
- Super move hit base damage increased (6 > 8) *
- Super move final hit base damage increased (6 > 14) *
- The last hit of dash attack now deals block damage (0 > 4)
Mad NERFS:
- Up attack damage decreased (18 > 14)
- The last hit of dash attack sends at a less favourable angle to extend combos.
- Super move damage on block per hit decreased (4 > 2)

Lily & Orbit NERFS:
- Up-attack does not deal shield damage anymore.
- Lily & Orbit will not gain any pepper meter from whiffing attacks while their super move is active.
- If a star from the super move is parried, the star will disappear.

Minimum damages

Some attacks will deal a minimum amount of damage. This means that the new combo system can't make their damage go any lower. The following moves are affected:

Dragonfish up-attack: minimum 4 damage
Dragonfish down-down-up-attack: minimum 4 damage
Dragonfish first 10 fireballs of the super move: minimum 3 damage
Dragonfish last fireball of super move: minimum 7 damage
Shella Snail dash attack last hit: minimum 4 damage
Shella Snail charged up attack thunder: minimum 5 damage
Shella Snail super thunder: minimum 10 damage
Totem Monster neutral attack: minimum 4 damage
Totem Monster air attack: minimum 4 damage
Totem Monster down air landing hitbox: minimum 8 damage
Happy Super move: minimum 20 damage
Mad Fully charged neutral attack: minimum 16 damage (if you can combo into this, you deserve it)
Mad up-attack: minimum 6 damage
Lily & Orbit Crystal kick crystal: minimum 8 damage
Lily & Orbit Dragonpunch: minimum 8 damage

Parries

Projectiles that are not part of a super move will now cause a special type of parry animation, which will not pause the screen, and which can be punished with a melee attack. This change will make sure that slow-moving projectiles that are intended to be combo'd out of are viable for better players. Before this change, the defender could simply parry the projectile, and break the entire offense, after the change, they might need to watch out which projectiles they parry. This makes blocking or jumping more effective at certain ranges against certain projectiles. The following projectiles are affected by this change:

Dragonfish fireball
Dragonfish yellow fireball
Shella Snail love-on-fire
Shella Snail love-on-fire-charged
Totem Monster Acid teardrop
Happy Rainbow ring.

Shield damage

Before this update, crouching/blocking was a very safe option, because shield breaks took several (often unsafe) moves to happen. Therefore, many moves now deal increased shield damage. Some moves might also deal less shield damage then previously. The following moves are affected:

Dragonfish

Fireball projectile (2 > 7)
Crouch attack (13 > 11)
Dash attack (4 > 9)

Love on fire projectile (2 > 5)
Crouching attack (7 > 14)
Up attack (4 > 7)
Dash attack (4 > 7)
Charged up attack (18 > 30)
Super attack thunder (2 > 24)

Totem Monster
Neutral attack (7 > 10)
Projectile Acid teardrop (3 > 7)

Uncharged neutral attack (2 > 4)
Mid charged neutral attack (5 > 8)
Rainbow ring projectile (2 > 7)
Air attack (6 > 9)
Up attack (14 > 16)
Dash attack (4 > 11)

Mad

Uncharged neutral attack (3 >5)
Mid charged neutral attack (7 > 10)
Air attack (2 > 13)

Crystal (11 > 14)
Crouch attack (4 > 6)
Upwards attack (5 > 6) per hit
Neutral air attack (3 > 6)
Forward air attack (7 > 12)
Orbit (2 > 5)
Lily has a unique mechanic where the shield damage they deal to opponents is halved during the duration of their super attack, to prevent too easy setups for breaking shields. The crystal from crystal kick and Orbit are not affected by this mechanic, since they count as seperate objects from Lily.

Visual changes:

The healthbar now shows with a red bar how much damage was dealt in a single combo or juggle.

There are new particle effects when a player blocks an attack. A red effect means that the defending player takes no block damage, whereas a purple effect means that the defender has taken some block damage.

Happy's rainbow ring projectile pauses the game for a shorter while when colliding with other hitboxes.