In fighting games, anything that needs multiple button presses or a combination of inputs is just leftovers from the arcade era.
Nowadays controllers have effectively 8 buttons, arcade cabinets used to have from 3 to 6 (with exceptions because arcades were very diverse).
This means that back in the day devs had to find ways to put more actions in a limited set of buttons. Nowadays, fighting games tend to have the same amount of possible inputs while having more buttons work with, which is why Project L can afford to have a dash macro.
In the end just use whatever is more comfortable for you, that's why you have the option.
Yeah, from my investigation this should be like the 3rd time anyone writes an academic document about fighting game design. The downside is that it will (deadline is next month) be in spanish.
It will be public and it shouldn't be hard to machine translate. However, translation to English is not a requirement so I hope it's understandable that it's not a priority.
Also maybe a bit too off-topic, but the thesis is 60% product, 40% investigation. The document is not the main thing.
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Oooh, I love that you're doing it for your thesis. If you haven't already, you should look into how motion inputs started off as a space-saving feature that eventually turned into a balance lever (sometimes). Particularly, things like Charge and how DP inputs actively prevent you from blocking while rewarding you with a reversal (a lot of the time).
I had not found anything about it, maybe my research was poor.
Do you happen to know where I can find that?
I am aware of the game balance aspect, but I have never seen anything regarding the space saving.
Motion inputs were originally borne out of necessity. Arcade cabinets don't have very many buttons, so to assign more moves to the characters, motion inputs were needed.
When you have multiple actions on the same button combination, like say pushblock and dash both being 2 punches, it means that you need to think about when you use it, because if you do it in the wrong situation you will get the wrong action and can be punished. In the pushblock and dash example, it means you can bait someone's pushblock and punish their backdash. Baiting and punishing pushblock might not even be possible if there was a button dedicated to only pushblock and nothing else.
Saying it's "just leftovers from the arcade era" is just a way for you to ignore every nuance that exists and shove it to the side for the sake of validating your own opinion.
I haven't touched the game yet, so this might be a misunderstanding of how it works from my point of view.
If I'm not mistaken, the dash macro is 2 buttons, but it's not dependent on context. So pressing these buttons always results in a dash macro input.
The case you're mentioning is how grabbing works in Xrd, where HS becomes a grab at a certain distance. Which means that HS is dependent on context in Xrd.
But again, I don't know how it works in this game because I have not played it yet.
Is there a context dependent input?If the answer is yes then you are right and there's more nuance. However, I'm assuming that the dash macro works like in Strive. If that is indeed how it works then choosing between the full input or the macro is trivial and would be the case I was describing.
And even then, while it's true that I ignored certain cases, I still believe that input combinations are leftover from the arcade era. I didn't even meant it in a demeaning way.
[https://cdn.oneesports.gg/cdn-data/2023/08/ProjectL\_UniversalMovelist.jpg](https://cdn.oneesports.gg/cdn-data/2023/08/ProjectL_UniversalMovelist.jpg)
back L+M is backdash or retreating guard, forward L+M is forward dash or pushblock.
They already made retreating guard lose to lows. In skullgirls the overlap is bewteen backdash and pushblock so you would do delay low to beat their pushblock attempt, here they built this interaction into the retreating guard mechanic itself so it's more streamlined. But for 2xko's pushblock you'll get forward dash if you try to do it but you're not in blockstun.
What I can't tell you from this image but people who had a chance to try it could confirm, is whether or not the "macro" button that they show on the controller guide is a true dash macro or if it's an L+M macro. I'm assuming it's an L+M macro but if it's a hard coded dash then it's actually not a matter of preference, using this macro will have different implications.
It's also a big quality of life thing for stick/hitbox players, as doing multiple button presses a a lot more than reaching for some buttons. If you are forced to use the two "further side buttons"(other then the main 6) often, it makes stick gameplay uncomfortable, while using button combinations (always with the posibility to bind all of them to single buttons) is farm more combfortable.
In Under night I prefer to use just 4 buttons(one for each non-pinky finger) and do everyting with button combinations rather than using macros and it feels SO good to just do everything without ever lifting a finger from the buttons.
It is weird that no one in mentioning plink dashing.
I don’t know if I can explain it correctly but basically, in a similar way you cancel the dash by inputing down, thus doing a wave dash, you can input an attack, say light, to interrupt the dash. After just hitting L you hit M so fast that the game think you tried to press L+M, so it works like a kara cancel for dashing.
Either with a macro or 2 button shortcut the number of buttons to plink is still two, but what matters is the button’s position.
If for example we assign buttons numbers 1,2,3,4 to the button in the top row in an arcade stick corresponding to each finger starting with the index finger. Some combination are harder and some easier. To plink pressing 4-3,4-3,4-3 is way harder say 1-2,1-2,1-2. Whereas for pad, at least for me its easier to plink by pressing a face button then pressing a shoulder button.
Wave dashing and plinking usually are interchangeable but depending on the character, one might be much stronger than the other.
I know that plink dashing is a thing in Marvel and that upcoming HxH game, but I don't know if that is going to be a thing in 2XKO. I've heard that it can be difficult to go from a dash to a jab with 2 buttons since you would have to basically double tap the L button.
you wouldn't need to double tap the l button. That's the point. look at this recording I made. I pres l and then press m. it is so fast that I haven't yet let go of l. its not like I'm necessarily holding l but its just a fast motion [https://imgur.com/a/6KF3O1j](https://imgur.com/a/6KF3O1j)
If you get the rhythm it becomes easy but if you mash then you're accidentally going to attack
And yes plinking is confirmed to be in 2xko. if its easier or harder to do I don't know.
Edit: just to clarify, you can also do plinking by pressing l+dash macro instead of m since the dash macro also includes l(assuming that dash is l+m). It depends on the button layout which version of plinking is easier to press
This is totally of topic but I was going through this thread and recognized your name - you did a comission of my dnd party a few years ago. It was awesome! Still some of their profile pictures lol.
Funny running into you here in the 2xko waiting room lol.
Lol, small reddit eh. Although if one were to bump into me its probably going to be a fighting game sub. Thanks for the kind words. Its always nice to hear. Have a great day
Whenever something requires the use of buttons usually used for something else, you open up the possibility of finding advanced tricks like option selects, plinking, etc.
It matters if there is wave-dashing in the game.
Let's say you want to wave-dash twice and then medium.
On directionals only: ff, d, ff, d, ff, M (not viable in my opinion)
On 2-button: L+M, d, L+M, d, L+M, M (requires a lot of practice to get the end consistent under pressure)
On macro: Dash, d, Dash, d, Dash, M (by far the easiest, simplest, method)
That said, if there is no wave-dashing character in the game, then all of this is irrelevant.
My understanding is that wavedashing exists and is done by pressing the dash macro or buttons repeatedly rather than needing a crouch input to cancel the dash, if I remember right from a Sajam video. The principle remains though.
If a dash automatically cancels the previous one and that makes you move faster, then you might be right. I haven't seen the video but Sajam obviously knows his stuff.
I prefer 2 buttons with the possibility to bind a macro button to the button combination, like in UNI. For stick/hitbox players, it's easier to press two buttons than reaching for the farther buttons with the pinky, as the 6 main buttons are already used for more important stuff, and it's even worse on keyboard, while in controller(or people that prefer macro) you can bind a button to that combination to work just like a dash macro.
In fighting games, anything that needs multiple button presses or a combination of inputs is just leftovers from the arcade era. Nowadays controllers have effectively 8 buttons, arcade cabinets used to have from 3 to 6 (with exceptions because arcades were very diverse). This means that back in the day devs had to find ways to put more actions in a limited set of buttons. Nowadays, fighting games tend to have the same amount of possible inputs while having more buttons work with, which is why Project L can afford to have a dash macro. In the end just use whatever is more comfortable for you, that's why you have the option.
What a level headed and logical take on simplified controls
Irony? I hope it's not irony, inputs in fighting games is the topic of my college thesis so I'm trying to learn and understand everything about them.
I am being genuine!
Thank you
This is a badass topic for a thesis btw
Yeah, from my investigation this should be like the 3rd time anyone writes an academic document about fighting game design. The downside is that it will (deadline is next month) be in spanish.
Ah, i was going to ask if i could read it too
It will be public and it shouldn't be hard to machine translate. However, translation to English is not a requirement so I hope it's understandable that it's not a priority. Also maybe a bit too off-topic, but the thesis is 60% product, 40% investigation. The document is not the main thing.
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Oooh, I love that you're doing it for your thesis. If you haven't already, you should look into how motion inputs started off as a space-saving feature that eventually turned into a balance lever (sometimes). Particularly, things like Charge and how DP inputs actively prevent you from blocking while rewarding you with a reversal (a lot of the time).
I had not found anything about it, maybe my research was poor. Do you happen to know where I can find that? I am aware of the game balance aspect, but I have never seen anything regarding the space saving.
Motion inputs were originally borne out of necessity. Arcade cabinets don't have very many buttons, so to assign more moves to the characters, motion inputs were needed.
Yeah basically what I was trying to say in my first comment of the chain. I thought it meant something else, maybe I had missed something.
When you have multiple actions on the same button combination, like say pushblock and dash both being 2 punches, it means that you need to think about when you use it, because if you do it in the wrong situation you will get the wrong action and can be punished. In the pushblock and dash example, it means you can bait someone's pushblock and punish their backdash. Baiting and punishing pushblock might not even be possible if there was a button dedicated to only pushblock and nothing else. Saying it's "just leftovers from the arcade era" is just a way for you to ignore every nuance that exists and shove it to the side for the sake of validating your own opinion.
I haven't touched the game yet, so this might be a misunderstanding of how it works from my point of view. If I'm not mistaken, the dash macro is 2 buttons, but it's not dependent on context. So pressing these buttons always results in a dash macro input. The case you're mentioning is how grabbing works in Xrd, where HS becomes a grab at a certain distance. Which means that HS is dependent on context in Xrd. But again, I don't know how it works in this game because I have not played it yet. Is there a context dependent input?If the answer is yes then you are right and there's more nuance. However, I'm assuming that the dash macro works like in Strive. If that is indeed how it works then choosing between the full input or the macro is trivial and would be the case I was describing. And even then, while it's true that I ignored certain cases, I still believe that input combinations are leftover from the arcade era. I didn't even meant it in a demeaning way.
[https://cdn.oneesports.gg/cdn-data/2023/08/ProjectL\_UniversalMovelist.jpg](https://cdn.oneesports.gg/cdn-data/2023/08/ProjectL_UniversalMovelist.jpg) back L+M is backdash or retreating guard, forward L+M is forward dash or pushblock. They already made retreating guard lose to lows. In skullgirls the overlap is bewteen backdash and pushblock so you would do delay low to beat their pushblock attempt, here they built this interaction into the retreating guard mechanic itself so it's more streamlined. But for 2xko's pushblock you'll get forward dash if you try to do it but you're not in blockstun. What I can't tell you from this image but people who had a chance to try it could confirm, is whether or not the "macro" button that they show on the controller guide is a true dash macro or if it's an L+M macro. I'm assuming it's an L+M macro but if it's a hard coded dash then it's actually not a matter of preference, using this macro will have different implications.
Thank you
It's also a big quality of life thing for stick/hitbox players, as doing multiple button presses a a lot more than reaching for some buttons. If you are forced to use the two "further side buttons"(other then the main 6) often, it makes stick gameplay uncomfortable, while using button combinations (always with the posibility to bind all of them to single buttons) is farm more combfortable. In Under night I prefer to use just 4 buttons(one for each non-pinky finger) and do everyting with button combinations rather than using macros and it feels SO good to just do everything without ever lifting a finger from the buttons.
It is weird that no one in mentioning plink dashing. I don’t know if I can explain it correctly but basically, in a similar way you cancel the dash by inputing down, thus doing a wave dash, you can input an attack, say light, to interrupt the dash. After just hitting L you hit M so fast that the game think you tried to press L+M, so it works like a kara cancel for dashing. Either with a macro or 2 button shortcut the number of buttons to plink is still two, but what matters is the button’s position. If for example we assign buttons numbers 1,2,3,4 to the button in the top row in an arcade stick corresponding to each finger starting with the index finger. Some combination are harder and some easier. To plink pressing 4-3,4-3,4-3 is way harder say 1-2,1-2,1-2. Whereas for pad, at least for me its easier to plink by pressing a face button then pressing a shoulder button. Wave dashing and plinking usually are interchangeable but depending on the character, one might be much stronger than the other.
I know that plink dashing is a thing in Marvel and that upcoming HxH game, but I don't know if that is going to be a thing in 2XKO. I've heard that it can be difficult to go from a dash to a jab with 2 buttons since you would have to basically double tap the L button.
you wouldn't need to double tap the l button. That's the point. look at this recording I made. I pres l and then press m. it is so fast that I haven't yet let go of l. its not like I'm necessarily holding l but its just a fast motion [https://imgur.com/a/6KF3O1j](https://imgur.com/a/6KF3O1j) If you get the rhythm it becomes easy but if you mash then you're accidentally going to attack And yes plinking is confirmed to be in 2xko. if its easier or harder to do I don't know. Edit: just to clarify, you can also do plinking by pressing l+dash macro instead of m since the dash macro also includes l(assuming that dash is l+m). It depends on the button layout which version of plinking is easier to press
This is totally of topic but I was going through this thread and recognized your name - you did a comission of my dnd party a few years ago. It was awesome! Still some of their profile pictures lol. Funny running into you here in the 2xko waiting room lol.
Lol, small reddit eh. Although if one were to bump into me its probably going to be a fighting game sub. Thanks for the kind words. Its always nice to hear. Have a great day
Whenever something requires the use of buttons usually used for something else, you open up the possibility of finding advanced tricks like option selects, plinking, etc.
It matters if there is wave-dashing in the game. Let's say you want to wave-dash twice and then medium. On directionals only: ff, d, ff, d, ff, M (not viable in my opinion) On 2-button: L+M, d, L+M, d, L+M, M (requires a lot of practice to get the end consistent under pressure) On macro: Dash, d, Dash, d, Dash, M (by far the easiest, simplest, method) That said, if there is no wave-dashing character in the game, then all of this is irrelevant.
My understanding is that wavedashing exists and is done by pressing the dash macro or buttons repeatedly rather than needing a crouch input to cancel the dash, if I remember right from a Sajam video. The principle remains though.
If a dash automatically cancels the previous one and that makes you move faster, then you might be right. I haven't seen the video but Sajam obviously knows his stuff.
I've heard that repeatedly pressing dash macro is slower than doing the crouch cancel so it's better to just lean to wavedash.
If the devs are reading, dash macro on pinky gonna be hard as hell man. Can barely press DI with pinky.
Yeah. I've been trying out using right thumb for dash macro instead.
Macro everything, it’s just cleaner
I hope there is a dash macro. 2 button dash is kinda annoying. Easier on the fingers too, if I’m playing for long hours.
There's both.
I prefer 2 buttons with the possibility to bind a macro button to the button combination, like in UNI. For stick/hitbox players, it's easier to press two buttons than reaching for the farther buttons with the pinky, as the 6 main buttons are already used for more important stuff, and it's even worse on keyboard, while in controller(or people that prefer macro) you can bind a button to that combination to work just like a dash macro.