Talk:Notation

Notation based on user preferences

It's been suggested that we display different notation based on user preference. This could be implemented by using a template whenever notation is used, e.g. instead of "d/f+1,1+2" we would write:

{{Notation
|text=d/f+1,1+2
|ironfist=df11+2
|numpad=3LP,LP+RP
}}

Reasons not to do this:

Makes it harder for people to contribute, because that's a lot more to write every time you wanna write any notation.
Would put a massive burden on bureaucrats to make sure these are always done right and the notations all mean the same thing. (Imagine if someone wrote the above but wrote numpad=3LP,RP instead. That error can only get detected by someone looking at the code.)
There isn't always a substitute in ironfist / numpad.
Prevents us from making up useful new notation since it won't have a mapping in ironfist / numpad.
For out-of-wiki communication, it'd be a lot easier if everyone is already used to the same thing.

These are heavy costs to pay, so we are currently not interested in doing this. RogerDodger (talk) 06:51, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

What about an interface option for notation: wavu/ironfist/numpad/none. Each option could translate any recognized notation on a page into its preferred method. Would require assigning equivalents for each form i.e. d/f+1 would be the same as d/f1 if read by ironfist. for notation which doesn't have a basis in a different form, it would remain unchanged. The none option would be what is currently the case; notation displayed as described. This could help with localisation, without inhibiting contribution workload. If f+1 and f1 were both read as f1 then we could encourage people to write it as f+1 so that if copy and pasted into out-of-wiki communication it would be written conventionally. Oldmanwang 22:00, 1 February 2021. (UTC)

Even if it was just a template that could be used at the top of a movelist, giving users the ability to choose the way input-ctn was read/translated.Oldmanwang 3:27, 2 February 2021. (UTC)

Rage

R! — Never seen a person use that, while it is probably important for some characters, most have just one Rage Drive and one Rage Art, even with characters that do have multiple, they tend to also use just the name of the move, or it is obvious which one is used (e.g. Deadly Rave), also both when writing combos and writing articles it's generally more readable to write 'RD' or fully 'Rage Drive' than 'R! f+2+3'

The reason to avoid this is to be explicit about inputs as much as possible. For someone new to a character, telling them to use the rage art or rage drive is indirect: They'd have to then lookup the movelist to know how to do that move. Aside from this, it's confusing for characters with multiple rage drives, e.g. some Steve texts right now says to use "RD2" -- well, which is that? It's confusing. RogerDodger (talk) 06:41, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

That is fair, although knowing RD and RA buttons for the character is essential, essential enough that it is always on top of movelists. And also there is a dedicated RA button. It's fair to make it very clear in articles and such, but there definitely should be allowance for characters that only have one of each.

"His Rage Art (d/f+3+4) is quite inconsistent", "His R! d/f+3+4 is quite inconsistent";
"d/f+2 d/f+1,4 S! RA", "d/f+2 d/f+1,4 S! R! d/f+3+4".

Honestly trying it out, disambiguation is needed for if it's a RA or a RD. If passing through combo list, or copying and pasting, any situation where you are not just trying it out in game, RA in the end of the combo just says it's the definitive end to the combo, no possible wall, floor, follow-ups. If it was a Rage Drive there could be something happening worth investigating further. Also that exclamation mark problem, it means if something happens because of the move before it, requirements (which I think are just NH, CH and CL [There are also AA, corner/near wall {not commonly defined}, During Rage]) are written at the beginning of the combo or right before the move (more often than not at the start) "(Wall to the left) d/f+3,4 d/f+1,4" --Hating Mirror (talk) 13:37, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Article on Version 4.01, Kunimitsu Rage move, I have no idea if it's a change to her Rage Art or to her Rage Drive, and it would be quite useful to know, with one there is literally nothing to worry about, with the other there might be some more jank to find --Hating Mirror (talk)

At least in the context of combos and punishers, the written text is primarily instructions. "Do this, then this..." In that context, being explicit is preferable, and the confusion you mention is non-central: it'll be obvious as soon as you try the combo as written. In the context of e.g. a wiki editor who might be interested in investigating more about that Kuni change, they'd also know where the movelist is to answer that question immediately. In the context of a Kuni player reading that change or thinking about how to alter the combo... well, of course they know what the move is! And you know if the combo ends or not because the instructions end. (It would be really strange if someone wrote a combo ending in a rage drive that has a followup, but they just decided not to put that in.) RogerDodger (talk) 15:50, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

The "!" doesn't have any well-defined meaning anywhere, so we could have it not merely mean "something happening because of the move before it", but also other things if it's still pretty clear. Do you have another proposed notation for "requires rage"? Also, we'll need a notation for moves that require meter as well (which if R! stays would naturally be M!). How does a question mark sound? i.e. "R?" and "M?". Main thing I'm concerned about is being explicit about the input, not about the exact notation used. It's also possible we could think of these as stances, and with the proposed "." notation write them as e.g. "R.d/f+3+4" and "R.LFS.u/f+3,4,3+4" (one of Hwo's rage drives). This is already how most people treat Claudio's starburst (writing STB like it's a stance), which is functionally similar to rage and meter. This has some complications with calculating damage numbers in combos. The following combo is one I've written for Lee, with the damage numbers of the launchers being increased by the rage bonus (since the non-rage numbers are misleading in this context). If it were instead a stance it'd have to be written ws2,3 R.d/f+3+4 ..., and then I can't boost the damage of the launchers without some extra note. Not the end of the world but a bit inconvenient, and perhaps it can be solved separately (some examples below). RogerDodger (talk) 15:50, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

[39] R! ws2,3
[26] R! CH u/b+3: [+55] d/f+3+4,f~n ws2,3 b+2,f~n(x2) f+4,1 S! f+2,1; [+52] d/f+3+4,f~n ws2,3 b+2,f~n f+4,1 S! f+2,1

[39] R? ws2,3
[26] R? CH u/b+3: [+55] d/f+3+4,f~n ws2,3 b+2,f~n(x2) f+4,1 S! f+2,1; [+52] d/f+3+4,f~n ws2,3 b+2,f~n f+4,1 S! f+2,1

[36]^[1] ws2,3
[24]^[2] CH u/b+3: [+55] R.d/f+3+4,f~n ws2,3 b+2,f~n(x2) f+4,1 S! f+2,1; [+52] R.d/f+3+4,f~n ws2,3 b+2,f~n f+4,1 S! f+2,1

[36 / 39] ws2,3
[24 / 26] CH u/b+3: [+55] R.d/f+3+4,f~n ws2,3 b+2,f~n(x2) f+4,1 S! f+2,1; [+52] R.d/f+3+4,f~n ws2,3 b+2,f~n f+4,1 S! f+2,1

[36 R.39] ws2,3
[24 R.26] CH u/b+3: [+55] R.d/f+3+4,f~n ws2,3 b+2,f~n(x2) f+4,1 S! f+2,1; [+52] R.d/f+3+4,f~n ws2,3 b+2,f~n f+4,1 S! f+2,1

[36 (39 with rage)] ws2,3
[24 (26 with rage)] CH u/b+3: [+55] R.d/f+3+4,f~n ws2,3 b+2,f~n(x2) f+4,1 S! f+2,1; [+52] R.d/f+3+4,f~n ws2,3 b+2,f~n f+4,1 S! f+2,1

↑ 39 with rage
↑ 26 with rage

Well, there are several options in my mind which none of are really common or used. I guess R! or Mn! (n = amount of meters) before or right after (preferrably right after to avoid "S! R!") the input notation will work, maybe circle brackets (R) (M2), maybe full words (Rage) (2 Meters). But still I prefer to keep RD and RA as well, because it is very common in the character communities to just use RA and RD, as it does increase the reading, writing, and comprehension speed. Also talking of that, QCF, HCB, Pretzel, and just using the name of the move (as exceptional cases) are also a thing to discuss in a similar manner, no one wants to write the pretzel motion in full way every time --Hating Mirror (talk)

Wall bounce

W! as wall bounce — There is no common way to define wall bounces, but I do argue against using wall splats for wall bounce as well, because they are different, mechanically and visually they are very different, there is also an incentive not to create confusion like "Why is that wall combo not working, oh, because it's wall bounce combo" or similar. I propose Wb!

In what situation would this confusion occur? If it's used before a move that wall bounces, then it's obviously a wall bounce. Even if this is not apparent to the reader immediately (because they don't know that the move wall bounces), it'll be immediately apparent to them (a) when they try the combo (b) because the combo is naturally going to have another W! after it. For example, if you see the combo b+3+4 W! 4,3,4 W! 4,u+3 f+4,3 d+3 without any context, you can already tell that b+3+4 is wall bouncing, because how else was there another W!? A disambiguiating notation like !Wb creates unnecessary knowledge burden on readers and writers, who'll have to remember the difference between !WB and !Wb, on top of being longer. This is distinct from the above issue of R! vs RA and RD, in which we want to be explicit about inputs (which are never obvious without instruction), because this is about an outcome, which will be obvious to the reader (following the other, explicit instructions) eventually. RogerDodger (talk) 06:41, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

when going through wall combos written like "W! uf+1 d/b+4". When copying and pasting, someone asks "What are the wall combos", no one asks for wall bounce combos in that situation, but they might get this weird combo that just doesn't work. Although okay it's fine, but just need to be very careful not to put Wall combos near Wall bounces, also far from Ballerina spins, but I guess it's fine

Well yeah, even seeing "W! u/f+1 d/b+4" without context, you can be confident that that's just a splat. I mean, a wall bounce into two moves, with no followup wall splat? When's that happening? Pretty much every wall bounce combo has two "W!" in it, and the ones that don't are never gonna make sense without context anyway. RogerDodger (talk) 15:57, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I guess would do --Hating Mirror (talk)

Floor break

F! — F! is a meme, but also it's inconsistent with other breaks, WB! BB! F!

All else equal, the priority is for the shortest notation possible. WB! and BB! would be W! and B! if they could be, but W! is used already (and not clear without context, so disambiguation useful in this case), and B! isn't used for Tekken 7 but is used for bound in Tekken 6, so still better to avoid. Not sure what meme you're referring to. RogerDodger (talk) 06:41, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

F the meme is the "Press F to pay respects" meme, which people type in chats and comments for some unfortunate events in games or in real life. UD: "A way to show the utmost form of respect during an unfortunate or tragic event. This form of flattery stems from the world of gamers. Press F to pay respects is the caption in a scene that occurs at a funeral in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare."

If there would ever appear a mechanic that would fit either F! or FB!, would be unfortunate if we got stuck with "WB - Wall Break, BB - Balcony Break, F - Floor Break, FB - Flying Bind" or "F - Floor Break, FA - Final Act". WB/BB/FB - easy to remember and read, for just 1 additional letter that can only be used in a combo once --Hating Mirror (talk) 13:37, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh, that meme. Don't see how that's concerning at all. F! is currently used by Tekken Library and in the TZ legend, and it's all I've ever seen used for it. In the extremely rare situation that some FB! mechanic were introduced, it wouldn't be that hard to change the notation to avoid that issue, or grief the new notation a bit, e.g. FL! for Flying Bind. Something we can deal with if it ever actually comes up. RogerDodger (talk) 16:03, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Crouch cancel

cc! — Crouch cancel is an action a player does, but '!' exclamation mark asserts it's the result of the last action

I can see this being confusing. My idea with the '!' is that it indicates something non-essential (i.e., just a helpful tip). But the cc is essential, so it might be more sensible to put this (and other things like "dash", and "iws") into another section called "Techniques". RogerDodger (talk) 06:41, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Instant while standing

iws — Instant ws is a common thing specifically in combos, and it isn't anywhere else on the page.

The reason I think this notation should be avoided is that iWS describes a broad range of different techniques. So on its own it's not clear which technique to use, and thus not useful notation. If the combo says e.g. W! ws4 d/f+1,4 1+2 (Kazuya wall staple), this is sufficient notation for anyone who knows the crouch dash iWS technique - it's implied - and both "ws" and "iws" are totally useless to someone who doesn't, or only knows about the universal iWS method. The way this is handled in Lee combos is to explicitly tell the reader about this character's iWS technique at the top of § Staples (and/or wherever relevant), and then have it implied to be used from there. Essentially, passing the buck on where to be explicit. RogerDodger (talk) 06:41, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

In Zafina combos we use iws4 in some combos to indicate that you do need to manually crouch, and quickly do ws4, specific technique doesn't matter, as long as you get ws4 quick enough. Just ws4 may confuse reader on that the last move forced crouch on you, which it didn't, hence iws4 is required. --Hating Mirror (talk) 13:37, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Held input

Held input * — T7Chicken uses "*", RBNorway and thus Tekken bot uses "*", lots of different games use "*", Geppo just uses Hold.

The TZ legend says to use °, but that's obviously a bad idea because most keyboards don't have that symbol. If T7Chicken and RBnorway use "*", and there's no other widely used prior notation, then yeah we should use that here as well. I'm not aware of RBnorway using this however. The lee page for example lists "1, 2, 4 (Hold long as possible)". Even still, if T7Chicken uses "*", that should also be sufficient precedent. (There's also a comment on that Lee page saying that "*" is for holds.) RogerDodger (talk) 06:49, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I used Alisa hold inputs as reference (She's one of the first characters in the alphabet, her first hold move is 1,2,2* with frame advantage difference). When Fantasy Strike community was working on their big combo list, there were also arguments for a lot of notations actually, but specifically for the hold input, people said some games use "[move]" to indicate, which is a fine notation, but we decided to use '*' overall, for long holds we use double asterisk '**', but also since there is only one move currently that has 2 levels of hold, we use "gBlock This" to indicate it (gB is the base move, gB* is a delayed version, gB** - gBlock This - very delayed unblockable, character literally says "Block This" in game) --Hating Mirror (talk) 13:37, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Overloaded "just frame" symbol

The ":" symbol currently has two meanings.

"Pressed on the same frame", replacing a "+", e.g. f,n,d,d/f:2 (Electric)
"Tight input window", replacing a ",", e.g. 1,3:3:3 (Acid Rain)

This seems to be okay, since there isn't to my knowledge any case where this is ambiguous. It would have to be a direction followed by a button on its own, where the ":" is replacing "," and not "+", e.g. something like f,F:2 meaning "f, then F, then (2 with tight input window)", but I'm not aware of any such moves.

Nonetheless, this is pretty confusing, and it might be better if one of these usages were instead given another symbol. Suggested candidates for this are:

Use "#" when replacing "+" (since it looks similar to a plus) e.g. f,n,d,d/f#2 (Electric)
Use ";" when replacing "," (since it has a "," in it) e.g. 1,3;3;3 (Acid Rain)

Between the two, my preference is to use "#", since ":" to replace "," is the more common current usage.

RogerDodger (talk) 07:09, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Or could combine them and say they just mean Just Frame in general, with disambiguation, that Just Frame may or may not have more or way more frames in the input window than one or zero. You may be uncomfortable with using Just Frame for what isn't a perfect just frame, can maybe rename it like "Just Frame*" or something else --Hating Mirror (talk) 13:37, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

That's already what's being done. I'm suggesting a way this notation might be improved. I'm not worried at all about the fuzziness of the "just frame" term/jargon itself. For that, we can just have a page clarifying it somewhere. (Note that "just frame" is intentionally not used in the current article at all because it only adds to the confusion.) RogerDodger (talk) 16:08, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Spaces, commas, and stances

The current approach with spaces and commas is a part of the overall goal of the notation to have strings read like words. By doing this, a combo with standardised notation is extremely quick to read, because you can quickly identify the strings/moves (words) in the combo (sentence).

However, stances kind of throw a wrench in this idea, because they're really a part of the "word", but there's a space between it and the input. This causes people to want to use commas in combos which have a lot of stances moves in them, compare:

(Example Hwoarang combo)

WS 4 1 f,F+4 RFF 3,4 RFS b+4 S! RFF f+3 LFS b+3
WS 4, 1, f,F+4, RFF 3,4, RFS b+4 S!, RFF f+3, LFS b+3

(Example Kazumi combo)

WS 4,4 S! f+3+4 RSS 2 d/f+1 f+3,F RSS 3+4
WS 4,4 S!, f+3+4, RSS 2, d/f+1, f+3,F, RSS 3+4

Because of the spaces between the stance and input, the first option doesn't read that well. People naturally try and resolve this by either getting rid of the space (e.g. writing WS 4 as ws4) or by adding commas. But adding commas just makes things worse, because now commas are being used for two different grammatical purposes (separating moves within strings, and separating whole moves from other parts of the syntax) and with unclear rules (should there be a comma before/after the S!?, or before/after a move that transitions to the stance?). Writing WS 4 as ws4 can work sometimes, but this doesn't look good for a lot of stances (particularly if the last letter has a riser, e.g. rff3,4 looks a bit funky) or if there's also a directional input (e.g. you can't write lfsb+3 or LFSb+3)

My proposition to resolve this is to introduce the notation "." to mean "from stance", e.g. RSS.1 means "1 from RSS". The above combos would then be written:

WS.4 1 f,F+4 RFF.3,4 RFS.b+4 S! RFF.f+3 LFS.b+3
WS.4,4 S! f+3+4 RSS.2 d/f+1 f+3,F RSS.3+4

This is a significant change to notation with no prior use, but one I think would dramatically improve the readability of combos and notation in general. Because of how significant the change is, it shouldn't be done without overwhelming consensus. RogerDodger (talk) 07:41, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Also, using "+" for this doesn't work that well because it's so big and ugly, and it ends up overloading the symbol (to mean both "pressed together" and "from stance"). RogerDodger (talk) 09:56, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree, no separation between things makes it blend, however, using dot between stance and move is very uncommon in the community, what has been working on different servers: '>' in-between strings except for ! notations [Lei combo sheet] "f3,1 > 1+2,1 > BT 4,1 S! wr3,4", comma after each string except for when followed up by a big letter notation [Alisa server pin] "f+2, d/f+1,1, d+4,1+2 S! d+3,1" [Zafina combo sheet] "uf+1, df+1, f+2,3 SCR 3+4 S! dash b1:1+2". Asuka server pins use just spaces --Hating Mirror (talk) 13:37, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

">" is very unwieldy and suffers the same issue of unclear rules as using ",". Applay told me that Tekken Library uses double spaces to resolve this, which works well. Unfortunately, that's not practical for a wiki to do (enforcing this would be a huge pain; people would need to learn how to use em spaces, because double spaces don't work on wiki; and everyone would need to be told to do this, since it would not be obvious to anyone without instruction). Prior usage in this case is pretty much wild west (with "+" in my experience being most common), so I think anything that works and is intuitive should be considered. The "." is both of those. Once it's decided, enforcing this across the wiki would be easy. RogerDodger (talk) 16:15, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I mean is it really intuitive, 'works' is arguable, but I've not seen a person use a dot between a stance and a move in a general chat, I have seen people use st.3 to say standing 3 though just to make the single numbers clear (f1+2,2 2 df1,4 vs f1+2 st.2 df1,4), but even that is exceptional, and caused arguments if it is okay to use st. at all --Hating Mirror (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I still don't think it marginally improves readability, or at least isn't worth enforcing as a general rule as the main issue isn't the stance things merge with everything else, it's numbers being not enough separated in links Lei BnB:

d/f+2 f+3,1 1+2,1 BT 4,1 S! f,f+3,4
d/f+2 f+3,1 1+2,1 BT.4,1 S! f,f+3,4
d/f+2, f+3,1, 1+2,1, BT 4,1 S! f,f+3,4
d/f+2, f+3,1, 1+2,1, BT.4,1 S! f,f+3,4

Lei meme combo:

d/f+2f SNA 2,2f DRG 4,1f TGR 2,2 S! f,f+3,4
d/f+2f SNA.2,2f DRG.4,1f TGR.2,2 S! f,f+3,4

And on Leicord veterans don't seem fond of it, quote: "No point | They are understandable without dots | And universally written without them | So no need to reinvent the wheel" Hating Mirror (talk) 09:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

The main case of readability issues isn't stance move into stance move. It's stance move into non-stance move. For example, “d/f+2,F SNA.1 1 3,B S! PHX.3~4,4”. If this were instead written “d/f+2,F SNA 1 1 3,B S! PHX 3~4,4” it'd be confusing. People would then feel like they need to add ">" or more "," to it and just make it worse. If we keep each move together as a single word we dissolve the issue entirely. It's not even that we want to add the "." so much as we want to remove the space, because that's the issue, and why the "." is optional. RogerDodger (talk) 09:30, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

And yeah, again, generally people prefer to have a between strings separator instead. "Optional for movement stances if there's no directional input to the move. If this is done, the stance is written in lowercase, e.g. “ws2” instead of “WS.2”, but not “wsb+1”" makes it read as it's not optional for everything but ws and wr.

d/f+2f SNA 1 1 3b S! PHX 3~4,4
d/f+2f SNA 1, 1, 3b S! PHX 3~4,4
d/f+2f SNA.1 1 3b S! PHX.3~4,4
d/f+2f SNA.1, 1, 3b S! PHX.3~4,4

Hating Mirror (talk) 09:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

That could be loosened to allow the dot to be optional for all stances, with just motion stances being also optionally lowercase. e.g. You can write “ws4 1 f,F+4 RFF3,4 RFS.b+4 S! RFF.f+3 LFS.b+3” but not “ws4 1 f,F+4 rff3,4 RFS.b+4 S! RFF.f+3 LFS.b+3”. RogerDodger (talk) 10:19, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Remove "/"?

Motion inputs are harder to read with the "/". For example, b,d/b,d,d/f,f (hcb) could be b,db,d,df,f. Main reason I can think not to is it could encourage people not to use a "+" and you end up with inputs like df1+2 which look weird. I can't think of any functional purpose it has, so it might be purely aesthetic. Tekken Library already does this, and most people don't bother with it. RogerDodger (talk) 10:06, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

[1] 39 with rage

[2] 26 with rage

[1]

[2]