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 Iāve seen, the attack buttons are denoted with A, B and C. Where A is for normals, B is the button used for Graveās 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, Rookās 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 doesnāt 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. Itās also common to say something like this for Setsukiās standard combo: air C, air A, (land), A, S.
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 ājBā or āfA.ā Guilty Gear-style numeric keypad notation has been called out explicitly as something to be avoided.
Is there any need to talk about normal throws? Iām sure thereās 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. Itās 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 isnāt a method for denoting this yet, maybe brackets after ājā for any aerial combos, and anything outside of the brackets revert to being assumed theyāre performed as grounded attacks?
Also, Iām aware that all this is speculative on moves/combos that may or may not exist yet, but it never hurts to be prepared.
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 donāt 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?
Setsukiās standard combo: >JCAG,AS
Jainaās 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 (maybe Iāve been doing too much code golf. Just be glad I didnāt start suggesting diacriticsā¦)
I really like Setsukiās modus pwnens combo.
Iām 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 youād use to describe them. For an button hold, Iād lean towards +, and put it after the move. Also, Iām a big fan of spaces for readability. So, weād have:
Setsukiās standard combo: fJCAG, AS
Jainaās 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 āA xx Bā meaning ācancel A into B.ā No need to reinvent the wheel!
I donāt get the use of G for landing. Doesnāt a space already specify?
Setsukiās 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 shouldnāt 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, Iām used to write down normal into special as AxxB, and not just AB. Iām not sure if itās necessary though as A B with a space should be enough for this game.
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 donāt see why holding a button should different.
xx is a convention, but Iāve never liked it personally. 1) The convention is biased towards SF. Some games use ->, some games use ~ 2) Why 2 letters? 3) I donāt think Iāve ever seen anyone be consistent about cancels with it. Would you write AxxA for DeGrey/Valerie/Setsuki? BxxBxxC for Valerieās 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 isnāt the end of the world, but it does force everything to be case sensitive. >j ca, as
How about Ā© for āhold Cā?
I did consider [C] but then asked myself āwhy do I need 2 characters for that?ā
I donāt know that character efficiency needs to be so optimized that brackets are a no-go.
Actually DeGrey, Valerie and Setsukiās would be written down this way:
-
AA meaning the string, there is no need for āxxā as itās 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 itās own special
-
AfB is a weird case though as techincally itās built also
Whatās the point in distinguishing between the two though? Input wise, there is no difference. And functionality wise, a cancel is a cancel X_X
You know, you do make a good point there