The Only Rival to Rivals of Aether is Itself 

Regardless of how Any of us Feel about The handling of Rivals 2 Its all love and I know the players at Genesis are gonna kill it cant wait to tune in this weekend LETS GO RIVALS!!

Dude had to take a deep breath there at the end lol. IMO, I think it'll be fine. Dan is the boss. At the end of the day, his trust in Trevor is part of Dan's process. No one man can do it all. Especially with the jump to 3D. I watched that Q&A stream as well. I think this is a normal and healthy part of development. Sometimes when someone is dreaming for the sky, someone needs to be like "Now, hold on there, Icarus. The sky is fine and all, but don't fly too high." There have been some very unfortunate creations that were ruined by the loss of a person from the team that would pump the brakes so the crazy train doesn't go off the rails. I bet Trevor is trusted by Dan because of that very thing as well as many other things that happen behind the scenes that we will never be privy to. I say trust the process and be sure to give your feedback during the beta testing. BTW, that new trailer was so goood! Clairen looks so cool! Loxodont looks like a beast! Oh, and lastly. Rivals 1 will always be there for you. And who knows, it may grow in popularity with the release of Rivals 2. Remember that in the Q&A they said they will still be supporting Rivals 1.

Baby dashing is still in the game, we saw fleet do it in one of her gameplay trailers. Theyre just thinking about rebalancing it to be a 2 frame window instead since right now its like dash back in melee where it can often be very controller dependent

We needed this video. I felt all the passion. You got all the great points across. I probably wouldn't have been as nice, but I'm glad it was you that made the video.

Gotta hard disagree with saying Dan's and Trevor's design philosophies are at odds with each other and r2 isn't really "Dan's game." Dan wouldn't be allowing Trevor to spearhead so much of the design if Dan didn't agree with and appreciate a lot of how Trevor thinks. What you're saying is an oversimplification and antagonizes Trevor

I am going easy on the game because from my understanding shields and ledges were stuff Dan actually wanted to begin with and only didn't make it due to limitations of making the first game so I see this game as Dan making the game he originally wanted. That said my personal opinion is that I like the shield/grab system but I prefer the lack of ledges rivals had it was a lot funner. Also while I know they are releasing zzz characters first because of development speed reasons I really am sad I haven't seen Orcane yet.

EVERYONE GO WATCH THE CLAIREN VS LOXODANT TRAILER AND WITNESS THE VALUE OF DAN IDEAS!

babydashing is still in the game

I've had a really similar experience before I was super into Rivals when the switch from smash 4 to Ultimate happened - because despite the obvious glaring flaws the game had, 4 had so much more unique expression and felt so much more personalized and even then that wasn't to the extent that we're seeing here. I have faith in the team and I'm very excited but I can't say I'm not scared too. I absolutely love Rivals and I don't want to see it go if what takes its place is just an imitation of the thing that brought me so much joy.

I definitely see both sides of the isles. I think we are just forgetting WHY its changing. And putting our feelings into it a little much. Cause its nice to point at tekken and look at the amount it added. But tell me. Can you block in tekken? Right. You can. Neutral is balanced around that. And other things Nuetral in rivals 1 has to be dedicated to movement and parries. Meaning you gotta be ultra precise. And that spacing is kinda... off. And its a casual killer. Theyll play workshop. But deficate time to rivals? After getting creamed cause theres no enough defense? Prolly not. At least you csn block in tekken. So guess what? We add shields. And guess what? People keep looping the same combos offstage to kill people? Its also a casual killer. So we add ledges. NOW that we add these things... we gotta think about if these other mechanics FIT. Maybe Quenne has some retorts. But if nuetral is safer now and you dont need to be precise... guess what? Now you feel more in the drivers seat. Cause when you get hit it was YOU. instead of hitting 2 pixels into someone... YOU LET GO OF SHIELD. So not having drift di shouldnt feel too bad. Cause i shouldnt be getting hit as often... CAUSE I HAVE OPTIONS NOW. This is why its weird to talk about. Cause the same way drift di lets you take control. Now shields and ledges do that. Along with casuals understanding and learning how to play. Even when they lose. I dont hate anyone that has your opinion rott. I UNDERSTAND. and you know what? MAYBE they should bring back walljumping. And even baby dashing... that actually makes sense for creativity. But for drift di and other stuff i feel like we need to understand WHY its not in here. We gotta be reasonable. And maybe along the way. We might have a comprimise. Im glad this is being talked about now though. So before rivals 2 releases we can NOT be anxious. And im gonna enjoy doing my own vids on the topics. Again. I dont hate you or anyone that feels this way. Its honestly very valid. But there are other sides to the coin.

I don't like the speculation that dan is being pushed out of his own project, there's so much we don't know about what goes on behind the scenes. Dan has stated on twitter some of the same things that encompass 'trevors philosophy' like how he "didn't understand smash before" which is why he made some of the changes he did. I'm gonna give the benefit of the doubt that dans ideas are being implemented and they're just playing it safer till they add some wacky stuff down the line. It's still early days too. Genesis stuff was wack but I understand wanting to advertise. One 'weakness' for aether studios is the fact that they are so close with the community tbh, you can tweet out something like "the devs don't care about balancing the game" fully criticising their jobs whole time dan follows you (darai lol). It's so lame to see outcry like that when they just want to make sick stuff for a community and figureheads just shitting on them doesn't help. I think geenral criticism is great tho but the way it happened that day was ew Drift DI is kinda uncool but the extra up B is a good idea and I hope dan ends up doing the thing where some characters have it. Would really add another layer in certain mu's that keeps it from getting stale. I liked your video a lot and you brought up solid arguments despite what I disagree with, will you be streaming the rivals 2 qna?

You are the voice of many fans of this game, including my own.

I never really got into Rivals 1 cause it’s difficulty and insular nature turned me away from it, I am looking forward to Rivals 2 but I deeply agree with everything you said. Playing Tekken 8 shows me a game can be hard and still be very enjoyable to newcomers and those willing to learn. Dumbing mechanics down doesn’t have a good track record of bringing in newbies.

I've never played rivals 1 but I am looking forward to rivals 2 so i guess I'm indifferent lol

Great video

I want wally from the workshop to be an actual character.

Babe wake up, Rottweiler uploaded!

I want Drift DI to return but i don't think this is the argument to make

Honestly agree with you on a lot of this. Especially the game feeling more like a reboot than a sequel. I think they have room to stay more in touch with Rivals 1, and from the perspective of making a great sequel, its absolutely the correct move. However, Rivals 2 is ALSO the game thats supposed to salvage Aether Studios finacially. In one of his QAs, Dan talked about how they launched the kickstarter because they were running out of budget. Hell, he even mentioned putting his personal finances towards keeping things running in the last year. Rivals 2 NEEDS to pull big numbers and build an incredibly large fanbase to sustain the studio through the rest of development. And the most accessible place to get this new audience is from Smash. And from this perspecitve, the correct choice is so much murkier. And these two goals could totally overlap. Aether Studios could make a proper sequel and it could blow up just off good marketing, visuals, and game feel. But there's so much riding on the success of this game that I don't blame the development team for trying to capture the "smash players that hate Nintendo" crowd. It definitely seems like the safest, and safe is what they need. As a final note, mad respect for putting yourself put there to criticize the direction of rivals 2. Maybe the devs will hear you, maybe they won't. Maybe they'll go for a safe release and then move the game more towards Rivals 1 once they've captured an initial audience. Honestly, I just hope the decision they make allows the game to succeed and allows the studio to once again branch out into new ideas.

Dude the game should be more like melee, RoA2 is insane and good looking! but the gameplay does not guarantee that smash players are joining the comunity ! So it should look more like smash in order to get a bigger longetivity !

who removed plat boosting? for what

I’m so sad with the way they’re taking rivals 2 😭

Another great vid rott gives everyone a lot to think about

I don't like how trevor is so dismissive of stuff from rivals 1. Drift di bad, wall jump bad, parry bad. I assume he's exaggerating to be funny but he always says stuff like that so it doesn't seem like a joke anymore.

It's really funny how you tunnel-visioned on the aspects that the game takes out instead of also looking at the aspect the games give. You compared Tekken that added stuff to Rivals 2 without exclaiming the stuff they add. Shame. It's not really your style.

Idk how the devs think rivals 1 mechanics actively detract from the experience. Drift DI, platboosting, and wall jumping after Up B really aren’t things that casuals or seasoned players hate. It really does just seem like it’s dumbing down the game for the sake of dumbing down the game, which is sad to see. I still have hope that if enough people express this during the beta they’ll add some of that stuff back in, but it’s just unfortunate seeing them swap out these options for shields and ledges, when they could’ve easily complimented each other