Balancing and Adjusting the Flash Party Hero Skills

There have been many updates since the early access launch, and we want to share more about hero ability changes now that you guys have had a chance to play the game. The usage and winning rate at different player levels (also known as their star count), new fighting mechanisms, and our teammates’ own gaming experiences are all factors that we consider during the process of adjustment. Having said that, balancing the abilities is subjective, so besides telling you how we did it exactly, we would also like to share our thought process behind these adjustments.

(This segment on Sophia’s ability changes will be heavy on the details, so we’ve provided her skills here for your reference.)

Veteran players will understand the challenge of fighting Sophia. If you observe the high-level fights posted by players here carefully, you will notice that these players prefer to continuously use Normal Attack to perform instant counterattacks. On the other hand, the Side Special - Stomp Combo (the second skill pictured above) has a very low usage rate in these cases. If you use it but fail to hit your opponent, you will leave a big opening for punishment. Additionally, even if you do hit your opponent with this combo, the recovery time will not allow you to chain combos with other moves at all.

(Sophia’s original Stomp Combo cannot chain with other skills effectively)

Therefore, we improved this skill slightly: if you use Sophia’s Stomp Combo and hit the opponent at the fourth stage of the skill, you can immediately chain with a Jump to continue hitting your opponent through additional moves, or move away from them. This is definitely a strategy we encourage you to try, now that the skill can be chained with other moves.

Now, onto The Great Magician. The changes made to this hero are a huge part of this series of adjustments. In previous versions, when the Magician’s cards and statues hit the opponent, the relative positions of the flying item and opponent need to be calculated in order for the cards to land successfully. However, there was a bug where the opponent could be sent flying in the wrong direction when hit, which didn’t make sense. A ball that’s kicked forwards shouldn’t roll left, for example.

(Here, you can see the Magician’s cards flying left and hitting Sophia, but Sophia is sent flying towards the opposite direction instead.)

Therefore, and without getting too bogged in details, we altered the mechanism that tracks the movement of flying objects from behind. Now, opponents hit by cards or statues will be sent flying in the correct direction. However this change introduced a new problem: the Magician’s statue will no longer be sent flying when hit by the cards for the first time. Previously, cards that bounced off the statue could send it flying.

Another reason behind these adjustments is related to the series of moves after the Magician summons his statue. In previous versions, he could use his Side Special - No One Knows Cards Like Me to release flying cards and send the statue flying at the opponent. He could then chain these two skills (statue summoning and Side Special) to defend from above, the front, and rear. This made the series of moves quite hard to break.

(When the Magician used a series of cards to send the statue flying, his surrounding areas were within his attack range.)

Hence, when you use the Magician now, we hope you can use his skills wisely depending on the situation. For example, you can use the statue to defend the area in front of you by using charged attack or dash attack to hit the statue, causing it to fly and hit the opponent. You can also use the flying cards to block your opponent when you want to defend the area behind you. However, since his statue can’t be sent flying the first time the cards hit it in the battle, you can hide behind the statue to avoid being hit by cards, limiting the effect of the Magician’s moves (Tip: the cards cause a bit more damage if they hit the statue than if they hit the ground).

Lastly, let’s talk about the adjustments to Cupid. I believe a lot of you had the impression that combat becomes draggy when Cupid is involved. Due to his special mechanism of “clouds”, Cupid could force his opponent away in most situations. This can be frustrating, especially when one finally manages to fight through Cupid’s “shower of bullets” only to be pushed away. Even if you sent Cupid flying off the stage, the long floating period of his Down Special - Wind of Love and the good amount of distance covered by his Up Special - Love’s Magic Spins Round and Round could help him return to the stage easily. It goes without saying that this was a pretty terrible experience for the opponents. As such, we decided to tone down some of his stage-returning skills so that he can’t float his way out of a good knockout so easily.

As we continue with the updates, the balancing of hero abilities is something we will always be working at to better your playing experience. As always, feel free to join the discussion by leaving your comments here if you have any thoughts on the designs and powers of our heroes!

Have a great weekend ahead,

XD