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Move phase indication in framestep mode

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#1

In practice mode, I was looking into Valerie’s BBB combo with framestep mode.

First case, holding B the whole time while ‘advancing’ through the move.
Then, releasing and pressing B, before each press of ‘advance’ (eventually the same?).
The effect was that Valerie did 2 separate B moves, not the combo…

It felt like I don’t know when to input the next button of a combo.
It may help to indicate which is the current phase of the move - startup/active/recovery?

I.e. when a move starts ‘startup’ is green/or bold, then when the move will hit ‘active’ becomes highlighted, and in the end of the move ‘recovery’ is highlighted. Thus you’ll know to press the next button of a combo, when ‘recovery’ becomes active.

#2

I think there are two misconceptions there:

  1. How input detection works frame-by-frame. You did two cases that are actually exactly the same as each other. If you hold B the entire time while advancing frames, that’s actually the same thing as holding B, advancing 1 frame, releasing, holding B again, advancing 1 frame, releasing, etc. In both of these cases, B is always down when the frame is advanced, so they both produce the same result (on purpose) because the game is seeing that as one long hold. It sounds like you expected these two things to have different results.

  2. The connection between startup/active/recovery and input windows for cancels. There’s no connection there. If startup/active/recovery lit up, that would not help you at all understand when the cancel windows are.

The actual solution to what you’re trying to do (to get B, B to come out as soon as possible) is an input sequence something like this:

  • Advance a frame while B is held
  • Advance a frame with nothing held
  • Advance a frame while B is held
  • Advance a frame with nothing held
  • Advance a frame while B is held
  • Advance a frame with nothing held
  • etc…

This means the game does NOT see you as holding down B the entire time. So it will now actually be possible to get the second move in the B,B sequence. Furthermore, you will definitely get it as soon as you possibly can. That sequence will have you either pressing B on the first frame the cancel is possible, or 1f earlier, which will still give you the cancel at the first possible moment.

There’s a ton more leniency than that, actually. You could input B 8 frames before the earliest moment, and even if you don’t press B again, you STILL will get the cancel as early as possible. I was just giving one example that works with thing where you alternate B, nothing, B. You could be sloppy and do like B, nothing, nothing, nothing, B, nothing, nothing, nothing, B, etc and that works too.

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#3

Yes, I did initially expected two different things.
Seeing the effects, suggested that they may be “eventually the same”.

Misconception 2 is interesting, I really thought that there is connection between startup/active/recovery phase and input windows for cancels. Like, “you should press the next button of the combo in the recovery phase”. This misconception could be a consequence of my misinterpretation of Novriltataki’s “Exploring Fighting games” youtube series (episodes 5 and 6). Or wrongly projecting some of the combo types explained there to how Fantasy Strike works.

When you say “There’s no connection there.”, do you mean “no connection at all” or “the connection is not strictly at the transition between startup/active/recovery phases, because of the 8 frame input buffer”?

I feel there should be some clever way to guide the player where is the “input window for cancels”, specifically for the framestep mode. Since highlighting the current phase will be misleading, maybe highlighting the active/recovery ‘/’ separator in the line with the frame data “8/10 -> / <- 11”, 8 frames before active phase is over?

P.S. I was able to very easily perform the BBB combo with the suggested “B,nothing,nothing,nothing,B,…” sequence. Thank you!

#4

You can see the effect of Misconception 2 most easily with Jaina’s fA->B combo (knee to jump arrow). If you hit early with her knee, you’ll still be able to cancel immediately after hit into her jump arrow. You can also do the same when you hit very late with her knee. You’ll notice that you are canceling into her jump arrow before she actually goes into recovery phase from her knee since you haven’t even gotten close to the point where the active frames would have normally stopped as evidenced by how late you can hit with her knee.