We've overhauled the look of hit impacts, added some polish to the HUD, and made some adjustments to both the competitive balance and the new player experience. New Hit and Block Effects

• Attacks now have hitstop. (When an attack hits or is blocked, both players now 'freeze' for a few frames to emphasize the impact. Projectiles only 'freeze' the recipient.)
• When a player is hit by an attack, a hitspark particle effect is displayed. Bigger hits cause larger hitsparks.
• Blocking an attack also generates sparks. Block sparks look different depending on the frame data of the blocked attack. Blocking a slightly minus attack causes a small spark, blocking a punishable attack causes an exaggerated spark shower. Blocking "plus" attacks creates yellow-tinged sparks, to indicate that the blocker is now at a disadvantage.
• Teching a throw also causes a unique spark effect.

• The AI will now be less difficult at lower difficulty levels. It will make more mistakes, and sometimes stand still when you're playing on Easy.
• Mega Knockdown's AI is quite aggressive compared to most fighting games (except at their harder difficulties), and will quickly KO you for making a mistake. Many new players ignore what used to be the primary upside of Easy and Normal, which is that you get information about the opponent's next move. Now the AI will sometimes back off or do something sub-optimal, giving the player some room to experiment and learn. On Hard, we didn't make any changes to the AI, so it will still try to ruin your day.
• Reduced the Easy mode HP bonus from 300 to 100 to account for the easier AI.
• Difficulty is now displayed next to the current stage in Arcade mode

• PileDebunker and Fist of Euphoria are now -20 instead of -10 if they whiff just outside of range. Paulcano is now -20 if it whiffs just outside of its unsafe range.
• You still need to block to take advantage of this situation on defense. If you whiff a -10 move versus a -20 move, the difference is 'fuzzed out' and you will both return to neutral.
• Marv's Blazing Ent is now performed with Forward + B instead of Neutral + B. Previously he did not have a standard Neutral + B, which left him without a noncommital oki or space control option at range 2. This change should round out Marv's suite of zoning options.
• Marv's Blazing Ent does 50 more chip damage (now 150) to discourage players from simply walking and blocking into close range every time.
• Marv's Gravity Spike (J+A) does 50 damage (now 250) to make it more rewarding to land.
• Fightning Flurry now does 150 base damage + 100 if the follow up hits land, at any range. It used to do 200 to 250 damage, single hit, depending on range. This adjustment, which utilizes the new multi-hit system, makes Flail less rewarding on trade and (usually) more rewarding on hit.

• The mouse controls menu has a new layout designed by artist Alan McMillian.
• Fixed mouse menu buttons lighting up at inappropriate times
• The mouse menu should no longer come up if you click the out-of-focus game window to focus the game.
• Increased minimum size of input display bar so that it usually stays the same size.

• There is a new Character Select theme: BLAZING SALT by Nabil Anthony (Nabooli)
• Implemented a new music system that allows looping segments of songs.
• Fixed the "tech" sound effect sometimes not playing in sync with the visuals.

• PileDebunker no longer causes the opponent to teleport on hit.
• Fixed blocking characters appearing to shrink slightly while entering a block animation
• Fixed Paul's idle sprite sometimes flashing in place of Jerma when Jerma skins are enabled
• Fixed some parsing issues with names in replays
• Potentially fixed an issue where the arcade stage would sometimes not reset after winning arcade mode

• If you win the round on a combo starter, it will no longer continue into a combo. If you win mid-combo, you'll finish the combo normally.
• Reduced delay on anti air moves so they hit further off the ground
• Attack animations have been adjusted to have better synergy with hitstop (usually by reducing the number of 'active frames').
• When a player blocks, they no longer take on a green tint.

• Each stage's grid lines are now lighter/less opaque.
• Lewis' new draft stage shows up when player 2 is using the hand drawn art style, and the old stage shows up if using jermas. Removed the debug key binding that would toggle this stage aesthetic. Eventually both will be directly selectable in the character select menu.

• You can now select a random character in online multiplayer.
• If you lose in arcade mode and rematch, it won't replay the story scene. If you want, you can play it again by going back to character select.
• The Soundtrack's regional price has been adjusted to Valve's recommendations. This has resulted in a price increase for some currencies.
• Fixed Flaskin displaying her old name in the character bio screen
• Adjusted listed archetypes in character bios for consistency
• Optimized some scripts that handle scene changes. This might reduce load times slightly.
• The demo has been updated with current changes.