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 I’ve seen, the attack buttons are denoted with A, B and C. Where A is for normals, B is the button used for Grave’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, Rook’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 doesn’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. It’s also common to say something like this for Setsuki’s standard combo: air C, air A, (land), A, S.

3 Likes

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.

3 Likes

Is there any need to talk about normal throws? I’m sure there’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. It’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 isn’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 they’re performed as grounded attacks?

Also, I’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 don’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?

Setsuki’s standard combo: >JCAG,AS
Jaina’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 I’ve been doing too much code golf. Just be glad I didn’t start suggesting diacritics…)

I really like Setsuki’s modus pwnens combo. :wink:

1 Like

I’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 you’d use to describe them. For an button hold, I’d lean towards +, and put it after the move. Also, I’m a big fan of spaces for readability. So, we’d have:

Setsuki’s standard combo: fJCAG, AS
Jaina’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!

1 Like

I don’t get the use of G for landing. Doesn’t a space already specify?

Setsuki’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 shouldn’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, I’m used to write down normal into special as AxxB, and not just AB. I’m not sure if it’s necessary though as A B with a space should be enough for this game.

1 Like

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 don’t see why holding a button should different.

xx is a convention, but I’ve never liked it personally. 1) The convention is biased towards SF. Some games use ->, some games use ~ 2) Why 2 letters? 3) I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone be consistent about cancels with it. Would you write AxxA for DeGrey/Valerie/Setsuki? BxxBxxC for Valerie’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 isn’t the end of the world, but it does force everything to be case sensitive. >j ca, as :grinning:

1 Like

How about Ā© for ā€˜hold C’?

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

1 Like

I don’t know that character efficiency needs to be so optimized that brackets are a no-go. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Actually DeGrey, Valerie and Setsuki’s would be written down this way:

  • AA meaning the string, there is no need for ā€œxxā€ as it’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 it’s own special

  • AfB is a weird case though as techincally it’s built also

What’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

1 Like

You know, you do make a good point there