Effects “sticking to” limbs#944
This is something that’s been a visual issue with the game since early on, and I think I understand the technical reason behind it, but it does look very jarring and I figure it’s worth suggesting that it be looked into and fixed, even if it’s a tech debt backlog item that won’t get any eyes on it for months.
When characters in this game use attacks with effects on them, like Zetterburn’s down special coating his fist with fire, or Ranno’s up strong producing “blades” of poison on his hands, or La Reina making the magnet effect on her hand, those effects are “stuck” to their limbs. This makes sense from a technical perspective, since it handles the effect placement without having to worry about manual offsets.
However, when I say those effects are “stuck” to their limbs, I mean it. When they get hit out of the effect’s associated attack, those effects just stay there, seemingly for the entire duration of the effect if it hadn’t been interrupted. In most cases this is fine, Zetterburn’s fist staying on fire while he’s in stun isn’t that big of a deal. But in other cases, it looks very weird. La Reina’s magnet hand example keeps the effect around for what seems like 20 frames, and Ranno’s up strong poison throws his tumble silhouette all out of whack because the poison follows his hands as they’re flailing wildly.
As for visual examples, I don’t have any screenshots or videos on hand, but it’s such a common thing that I’m sure everyone has seen it before. If you want to replicate a really egregious example, hitting Ranno into tumble out of his up strong’s active frames is something you could probably do in training mode to get the full picture.
As for a “fix,” without knowing the technical side of the game’s innards, I can’t give a straight solution, but I can offer a few non-invasive ideas that might help.
Delete the effect entirely when getting interrupted by a hit. This would be a little visually jarring, but nothing new for the genre, and Rivals is a game that already moves so fast that it wouldn’t seem that out of place.
If possible, skip to the end of the effects’ lifespan when hit. This keeps them around for long enough that they’re not just blipping out of existence while also preserving the already animated disappearance.
Give each style of effect a unique “interrupted” effect to replace the ongoing one with when hit. This would mean something for fire, poison, magma, wind, lightning… it stacks up, but I believe these could be reused across multiple moves instead of needing to be move-specific.