One thing we can all agree on

We love rivals! We want the game to succeed with every fiber of our being. This game makes us angry and want to throw our controllers at the screen. We have our own balance and mechanic ideas we want implemented NOW! We love this grass roots indie smash game that's a natural, more competitive, spiritual successor to our childhood game Smash Bros. Everyone is posting their thoughts, ideas, and ways to improve or in some of our minds save the game. At the end of the day, we just need to keep supporting this gem of a game that somehow Aether studios was able to make coming from a 2d sprite platform fighter. We all can see the vision of what this game can become and even the ambition of the devs to someday gain a foothold for competitive platform fighters on the grand stage of large tournaments.

Rivals is the platform fighter we need and want. It's a live service game that is constantly being worked on to improve and provide us with more content. The dev team truly loves the game and the community around it. This is a huge overtaking for them, and I believe we need to embrace the long-term vision and support the product. It's been a bit disappointing seeing player counts drop, but players will return, and new ones will try it out. If you needed a break from this sometimes rage inducing game, I understand. If you love platform fighters, please support this game! We know there are tons of things they are and need to work on, but they've given us a great core foundation. Not trying to guilt trip anyone into playing but at the very least just come back for content drops and if you're having fun stick around for a bit. There were too many doom and gloom posts on here, so I wanted to make something more realistic and positive.

This game is here for years to come, and the dev team isn't going anywhere. If you want to ride the hype trains and only play viral popular games so, be it. Just know a large group of us will be waiting for everyone to come back as the game drops more content and gradually gets better and better. Waiting long queue times sucks but I've waited years for a true challenger to Smash bros. I think a lot of the hype currently is around the switch 2 and people hoping that means for better performance or features for smash. Some are even hoping for Smash 6 to release soon. Regardless of all that, I will always love Smash, but I've come to accept that it's a fun party game that was never meant to be a hardcore competitive fighting game. The community has willed Smash for decades with zero support from Nintendo. They attempted to care about the tournament scene pre-Ultimate release but would much rather you play an items on tournament. Once they stopped selling DLC they abandoned balance patches and essentially the whole community. I'm not saying I wouldn't be excited for a new or improved Smash game but I want Rivals to succeed as a alternative hardcore, highly competitive, tournament focused platform fighter that's also a fun spectator esport with devs who care about us and actively support the competitive community.

TLDR: We love Rivals! It's deserving of our support. The devs are awesome, love the game, and care about our opinions. They support the game with their blood, sweat, tears, and its competitive community. Rivals 2 is the hardcore competitive esport platform fighter we all want and need.