Here's a breakdown of why players are having trouble with Street Fighter 6's inputs
Now that Street Fighter 6 has been in the hands of players for a few weeks now and the new game smell is starting to fade a bit, we're starting to hear more about the issues people are seemingly experiencing in it.
The most prevalent complaint we've noticed lately is players having problems getting the inputs they want in SF6 at times, but why is that?
Well, luckily for the community, Loïc 'WydD' Petit already did the work crunching the numbers and testing input interactions to get a much better look at what makes SF6 tick under the hood.
Two things that are impacting players' inputs in this game are the moves priority system and its input buffer system, which both work a good bit differently than they do in Street Fighter 5.
Input buffer refers to the leniency given by the game to determine the amount of time and what inputs are required to pull off a move successfully.
Quarter circle motion attacks have 11 fames of buffering in SF6 according to WydD, meaning that a player has an 11-frame window from pressing down to down-forward and forward to have the game count it as a valid quarter circle.
I've made a document which summarises all the measures I've done on the @StreetFighter 6 input system and the comparison with SFV.
Plenty of details to read, plenty of small changes.
It might be subject to further edits but most of it should be there.https://t.co/aU1yaHO6dF pic.twitter.com/R7ClGsg5v4 — Loïc *WydD* Petit (@WydD) June 12, 2023
Pretty much across the board, Street Fighter 6 is 1–3 frames more strict for inputs compared to Street Fighter 5, but there are a few notable exceptions.
Half circle inputs have seen their input buffer increase from 8 frames to 12 frames while full circle / 360 motions have been increased from 25 to 32 frames.
This may not seem like a ton of difference, but it does make an impact and especially when inputs start overlapping, which we'll talk about more shortly.
Fixed some small stuff here and there. But the biggest change is: I've updated the HCB definition to fit the fact that 6314 is valid. pic.twitter.com/WE1B46TDVp — Loïc *WydD* Petit (@WydD) June 13, 2023
The developers also seems to have removed many of the input shortcuts that benefitted leverless controller players in SF5.
Capcom had previously changed their rules regarding what leverless controllers would be legal in official Capcom Pro Tour events going forward.
Instead of the generally accepted method of two conflicting directions still resolving in an input (like up + down = up), Capcom ruled that opposing directions must negate each other out, which has had mixed reactions from the community.
Street Fighter 5's competitive scene itself ran into some controversey over the Gafrobox and other leverless controllers like it to be ruled as illegal for official tournaments.
Input Priority
The other notable thing that's different in SF6 is the game's priority resolution system, which assigns certain actions to take priority over others in case of overlaps.
In pretty stark contrast to SF5, the new game has moved Overdrives and Super Arts up to the top of the food chain with OD specials taking priority over everything else.
That means if you do double quarter circle forward and two punches with Ryu, you're going to get OD Hadoken in instead of his level 1 Super Art.
It also explains why you may be getting accidental Supers when you don't intend for them to come out.
The developers also moved down half circle's priority below quarter circle and Shoryuken motions, which on paper could mean that you could accidentally get a quarter circle special over a half circle depending on your inputs / timing.
We've seen other complaints though too like Lily players saying they're getting her 360 command grab when they say they're going for quarter circles.
Since the 360 has a wider input buffer and a higher priority than quarter circles, a player could have the game register a 360 motion if they inputted enough required inputs immediately before the quarter circle.
We can't say for certain that these explain all of the input foibles players have been experiencing, but those are the general rules that control how SF6's main mechanics operate. If something does break these rules, it's quite possibly a bug that'll hopefully get addressed in an update.
There's also an interesting change to how the game handles its input polling.
Basically, instead of reading button inputs once every frame like Street Fighter 5, SF6 is reading for inputs thrice per frame.
In early testing, WydD found that inputting three different directions within the same frame would output in the game as a seemingly random pick of one of them.
Since it's still early, though, more testing will need to be performed to see how exactly this impacts players and the game.
There's always going to be an adjustment period and acclimation issues when attempting to start a new fighting game, so our best advice is to just hit Training Mode and do your own testing on what inputs you're doing and how they're working.
If these perceived input issues are not what Capcom intended or produce problems for the game, we can expect the developers will make adjustments to the game's systems and mechanics in the future.
You can find the full breakdown of information regarding how Street Fighter 6 handles and interprets its inputs on WydD's website here.
Source: EventHubs
