Input Notation

In most fighting games, there is an established notation/language to discuss moves in a way that is universal to the various platforms a game can appear on. Is there already one in use?

From what Iā€™ve seen, the attack buttons are denoted with A, B and C. Where A is for normals, B is the button used for Graveā€™s projectiles, and C is the other special button. Supers are usually shortened with S.

If the input requires a direction, those are usually given by lower-case f or b for forward or backward. Aerial moves have a j for jumping.
If it is necessarry to specify a neutral direction, use a lower-case n.

Some people like to use periods for legibility.

So for example, Rookā€™s BnB jump in combo is fj.A>f.A

The buttons are labelled in-game already as J A B C S. That way it doesnā€™t matter if you set a move to the Playstation triangle button or a keyboard spacebar or whatever else.

So you might do jump A, A, B as a combo with Grave. Grave can also do jump A, f+A, B as a combo. Itā€™s also common to say something like this for Setsukiā€™s standard combo: air C, air A, (land), A, S.

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Yeah, I had a feeling that might be the case (with the JABCS). I was mostly curious if there was currently a method to denote forward, backwards, throws and aerials.

Yeah, right now the convention is just to do stuff like ā€œjBā€ or ā€œfA.ā€ Guilty Gear-style numeric keypad notation has been called out explicitly as something to be avoided.

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Is there any need to talk about normal throws? Iā€™m sure thereā€™s some combo potential with them, thus a need to differentiate between fA (attack) and fA (throw). Also, I feel like jB might not be concise enough. Itā€™s fine for the start of a combo, but what about attacks that need to be executed while still airborne, before landing? Would we also need notation for continuing a combo on ground?

Ex: jB jB jB could be J, B, land, J, B, land, J, B, or it could be J, B, B, B, land.

If there isnā€™t a method for denoting this yet, maybe brackets after ā€œjā€ for any aerial combos, and anything outside of the brackets revert to being assumed theyā€™re performed as grounded attacks?

Also, Iā€™m aware that all this is speculative on moves/combos that may or may not exist yet, but it never hurts to be prepared. :wink:

Normal throws are still useful in notation for things like safe jumps and frame traps.

Personally I like > and < for directions, and - if you want to be explicit about neutrality. I usually prefer numpad notation for directions, but I donā€™t think those make sense for this game.

Since J exists for jump, perhaps G (i.e. Ground) can be used to indicate landing.

As for the comma, I like it to be indicative of your character returning to a freely actable state, while adjacent characters are indicative of cancelling. xx is traditional for cancels, but is it necessary?

Setsukiā€™s standard combo: >JCAG,AS
Jainaā€™s anti air: >A,>AB

ch for counter hits? Why not !

Geiger counter hit combo: !<A,AC

Holding a button? How about |

Setsuki reset: JS,A|C

And maybe ; for cancelling a move late?

Grave super meaty cloud: <A;|B

Just throwing some ideas at the wall :slight_smile: (maybe Iā€™ve been doing too much code golf. Just be glad I didnā€™t start suggesting diacriticsā€¦)

I really like Setsukiā€™s modus pwnens combo. :wink:

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Iā€™m all for concise notation, but the letter notations (f, b, n, j, ch) seem more approachable to me because they are abbreviations of the words that youā€™d use to describe them. For an button hold, Iā€™d lean towards +, and put it after the move. Also, Iā€™m a big fan of spaces for readability. So, weā€™d have:

Setsukiā€™s standard combo: fJCAG, AS
Jainaā€™s anti air: fA, fAB

Geiger counter hit combo: ch.bA, AC

Setsuki reset: JS, AC+

Grave super meaty cloud: bA;B+

To some extent there are already conventions in place, like ā€œA xx Bā€ meaning ā€œcancel A into B.ā€ No need to reinvent the wheel!

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I donā€™t get the use of G for landing. Doesnā€™t a space already specify?

Setsukiā€™s jCA AS already specifies landing after the A, while jC AS would mean land after C and then hit AS.

Also after fA, Jaina is in the air, so shouldnā€™t the combo be fAjB? It would still be different from fA jB, that having a space would specify landing and then jump again into B.

EDIT: Also also, Iā€™m used to write down normal into special as AxxB, and not just AB. Iā€™m not sure if itā€™s necessary though as A B with a space should be enough for this game.

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Spaces for readability is good, I prefer that to spaces for significant meaning as it allows you to group stuff without the notation meaning something else. + was an idea for holding a button but since + is already typically used to indicate buttons being pressed together I avoided it. As for putting it before/after a move, pretty much everything else regarding a button press is a prefix rather than a suffix so I donā€™t see why holding a button should different.

xx is a convention, but Iā€™ve never liked it personally. 1) The convention is biased towards SF. Some games use ->, some games use ~ 2) Why 2 letters? 3) I donā€™t think Iā€™ve ever seen anyone be consistent about cancels with it. Would you write AxxA for DeGrey/Valerie/Setsuki? BxxBxxC for Valerieā€™s special move string?

The G is not a necessity but useful if you want to explicitly note landing e.g. If Setsuki did J<C close to the opponent. For the most part you can omit it if another airbone move would be impossible.

Personally I prefer J to mean an explicit jump (as in, press the jump button here), no need to prefix it to every airborne move.

As for letter notations, using them isnā€™t the end of the world, but it does force everything to be case sensitive. >j ca, as :grinning:

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How about Ā© for ā€˜hold Cā€™?

I did consider [C] but then asked myself ā€œwhy do I need 2 characters for that?ā€ :joy:

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I donā€™t know that character efficiency needs to be so optimized that brackets are a no-go. :slight_smile:

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Actually DeGrey, Valerie and Setsukiā€™s would be written down this way:

  • AA meaning the string, there is no need for ā€œxxā€ as itā€™s a built in cancel

  • A A would instead mean a single A into another A as soon as the animation ends

Valerie similarly would be something like this:

  • BB meaning the string

  • BBfB meaning the full string, as fB is also build in

  • BBxxC meaning cancel BB into C, as C is itā€™s own special

  • AfB is a weird case though as techincally itā€™s built also

Whatā€™s the point in distinguishing between the two though? Input wise, there is no difference. And functionality wise, a cancel is a cancel X_X

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You know, you do make a good point there