A-Button Timing and Long Clearances : A Better A-Button

[Brodeur30]

This topic is dedicated to the A button and the timing of how this works, and exploring possible solutions or improvements to improve ease of aiming and pulling off A button (long) clearances without bringing up the Edit Lines menu.

The A-button hold-down timing has a very small window for which you have to hold down the A button in order to do a Clear Puck without it bringing up the Edit Lines Menu. It is a narrow 8frames-15frames window to do a (Long) A button Clearance without it bringing up the Edit Lines menu.

As I'm sure many of you have, I've gotten "OK" with this timing, I've learned how to do it but it's not natural. It's way too small of a window of needing to have that button held down, especially with aiming involved. Lets face it Buds, however skilled you might be at it, there's a lot going on with the A button and a solution is needed. I don't think anyone would deny how difficult it is to consistently aim clear pucks and get them off without the Edit Lines screen coming up. I'd imagine many NHL 94 players probably don't even bother with the timing since it's too tough they just let the Edit Lines screen come up every time and press the line it's on cause you aren't ready to do a line change. This happens over and over again and it's just become a quirk of NHL 94.

For me, the Edit Lines screen shouldn't be coming up unless you want to change Lines, which often is not when the need to do an angled A button (Long) clearance arises. Doing an A button Flip pass is just a quick tap of A, that's not an issue like the longer version. When I hold down A too long by mistake, and it brings up the Edit Lines screen it takes me out of my NHL 94 rhythm. Not only seeing the Menu but also is releasing when it reaches that 16th frame instead of when I command it to. I'm often forced to think about Lines when I'm trying to focus on chasing the puck. Edit Lines should not be tied to the Clear puck like this in such a manner, we really need more freedom to aim our Clear pucks "freely" with precise timing.

How skilled are you at aiming Long A button clearances and getting them off within the narrow 8frames-15frames window before the Edit Lines screen comes up? In that quarter second, are you able to do that easily / consistently, or do you mess up sometimes trying, have you become frustrated with it and do you some times "give up" on trying to hit that window because it's too hard and you just end up holding A until the Edit Screen comes up, which you didn't ask for but you got anyway, and now you need to pick the line that's already on the ice because you're ready ready to do a line change, and in that time you stop playing, but you just really needed to clear it. We all go through this over and over again. There's an everlasting struggle of trying to Clear the Puck, with a Long A button hold, and to aim it properly within this super narrow window and to do it before the Edit Lines screen comes up. You must hold down A, then with it briefly held down, quick aim your d-pad and have that d-pad position held, then release A before it automatically releases the puck and brings up the Edit Lines screen.

I have been exploring the possibility of having a button dedicated to clear pucks (which can be combined with D-pad input) to distinguish it from a standard A button tap flip pass. The short A button tapped flip passes are easier to pull off on the A button than clearances without bringing up the Edit Lines menu. It would be helpful to do not have to wait, even for between a eighth of a second to quarter second to actually do the Clear Puck. Your player might be gliding so waiting a moment longer would affect the placement. We've really never experienced natural aiming of clearing pucks in NHL 94 because of how multiple functions were tied to the A button. A button clearances are not as popular for this reason, we're so rushed and distracted by the timing of the A button involved and its relation to the Edit Lines menu. So better A-button timing is needed, but short of being able to edit the A button timings, what I propose is a dedicated Clear puck button separate from the A button which would allow free aiming and instant engagement. Think about the kind of moves you could pull off if you didn't have to wait that eighth to a quarter second before launching it? It would be a huge improvement to the control scheme and would help us discover a new way of aiming and making puck clearances. It would also be interesting to see if we could design a mid-range length, halfway between flip pass and a clearance.

If a dedicated Puck Clearance separate button appeals to you. If you struggle with pulling off A button clearances and aiming it properly all without bringing up the Edit Lines, and have been dreaming about a better A button, you are in the right place. I would like to develop a solution that results in greater response and freedom when doing Long Puck Clearances.

[Brodeur30]

Essentially what I'm trying to do is to make holding down the A button similar to holding down the B button. When you hold down the B button with the puck (without a d-pad input) you enter a pass windup state and there is no limit to how long you can stay wound up for. When you're ready to pass, you can either release the B button or move the d-pad, which will cause a directional pass to the nearest teammate. If the A button was like this, we could wind up our flip passes or long clearances in a similar fashion and release them at the ideal time, rather than being forced to release after a quarter second. Unlike B button passes, A button clearances or flip passes aren't to specific players, so perhaps the length of the flip pass / clearance could be determined by how long the button is held down (if it were its own dedicated button). This way we could do flip passes in our own zone or longer lobs while in the attacking zone. Or (perhaps) we could make it so that there are separate buttons for different clearance / flip pass lengths.

There are some relevant quirks to all this. Notably, I've observed that the B button can serve as an A button "cancel" of sorts, if you briefly hold down A but before you release the clearance or flip pass (and before the change lines screen comes up) you also hold the B button. This will cancel your (brief) A button "windup" and then it turns into a normal B button pass windup. But the fact that pressing and holding the B button after holding A briefly causes the A button clearance / flip pass to be cancelled is interesting. This suggests that there might be a way to either cancel the Change Lines menu from coming up when A is held down or to create an A-button windup state similar to how it works with holding B.

If there was a way to cancel the B button pass with B held in and allow for an A button clearance or cross while wound up like that (instead of a B button direction pass) it would be fantastic. Turning off Line Changes or setting them to Auto doesn't allow an endless windup of the A button, it still releases at the same time it does with line changes on.

So what I'm trying to do here is two-fold, to allow an endless windup to queue an A button pass similar to how it works when the holding B button without any D-pad input. In addition, I would like to (one way or another) control the length of the A button clearance / flip pass, either by how long the button is held down for or creating dedicated separate buttons for specific A button clearance / flip lengths.

One distinction between A button clearances and C button shots are that, interestingly, you can't keep a C button shot windup held for very long like you can with the B button pass. And you can't "cancel" a shot windup by while holding C and then holding B before you shoot (and turning it into a pass) like you can with A. I'm going to try to zero in on what happens in code when you hold A down briefly then hold B before release, causing the A button clearance to be cancelled and turned into a B button pass. Something happens there that I need to take into account to make that happen every time you press A, or in a separate dedicated improved A button.

There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to stay wound up for as long as we hold the button, either when holding A or C (for shots) for that matter. I know there's a way to do a fake shot of sorts as you're on a breakaway but we really need a better kind of fake shot, or cancel shot, functionality. So I'm really trying to research this wind up mechanic that governs the B button and trying to apply that wind up hold function to the A button or the C button if possible as well. So the idea would be when we're holding B in place waiting to directionally pass, if in that instance we can manage to trigger an A button clearance (instead of the B button pass) or a shot from that windup state. Then this sequence of commands can be coded and turned into its own button. Now I know this topic is sort of all over the place but if anyone has any ideas on what I could try please let me know, I am looking for a solution but I'm still working through it, and letting you guys know what I'm trying to do.

I am also looking to discover new moves that can be tied to new controller buttons. Animations like defensive blocks or dives (knee down, or intentional dives on defense to block shots like in NHL 06) have been talked about as possible animations that are hidden and could be unlocked in NHL 94. What about an offensive speed burst, side steps, or defensive B button poke checks tied to its own button (without switching player). What about activating punch animations from Fighting Mode during normal gameplay. There are all kinds of things I am looking into.

Edited February 3 by Brodeur30

[von Ozbourne]

I have to ask.
I have heard this mechanic of holding down the B button to direct a pass before, but have no idea what you are talking about. Any time I'm playing, pressing the B button initiates a pass immediately. I have to direct myself with the d-pad prior to pressing B if I wish to pass to a specific player, or just allow the game to pass to the default closest other skater.
Is there a mod that I am missing? Because this indefinite B button holding is a completely foreign concept to any game I've played.

As for other controller buttons, my biggest wishlist item is for the X button to be a dedicated line change button. Countless times, I've had tired line out too long and couldn't do anything about it. Since the only way to initiate a line change is to try to gain puck possession, [and immediately give it back up] either by letting my opponent shoot and hoping my goalie can save/freeze the puck or hoping one of my beleaguered skaters can intercept a puck somehow, despite being too tired to skate or check. At this point even an ill-advised change of forwards while my opponent is bearing down is better than having five pylons out there while my opponent is bearing down.
Also, being able to initiate a line change without flipping the puck away would be fantastic since you can get fresh legs while maintaining possession.

[Brodeur30]

5 hours ago, von Ozbourne said:

I have to ask.
I have heard this mechanic of holding down the B button to direct a pass before, but have no idea what you are talking about. Any time I'm playing, pressing the B button initiates a pass immediately. I have to direct myself with the d-pad prior to pressing B if I wish to pass to a specific player, or just allow the game to pass to the default closest other skater.
Is there a mod that I am missing? Because this indefinite B button holding is a completely foreign concept to any game I've played.

Try this : when with the puck, hold down the B button without pressing any D-pad direction. You'll notice that you can hold the B button for as long as you like with your player gliding along the ice or standing in place, and when you're ready to pass, you can either release the B button or with the B button held, you press a D-pad direction to do a quick directional pass.

So it's not a mod you're missing, it's part of the control scheme, just not something players typically utilize.

5 hours ago, von Ozbourne said:

As for other controller buttons, my biggest wishlist item is for the X button to be a dedicated line change button. Countless times, I've had tired line out too long and couldn't do anything about it. Since the only way to initiate a line change is to try to gain puck possession, [and immediately give it back up] either by letting my opponent shoot and hoping my goalie can save/freeze the puck or hoping one of my beleaguered skaters can intercept a puck somehow, despite being too tired to skate or check. At this point even an ill-advised change of forwards while my opponent is bearing down is better than having five pylons out there while my opponent is bearing down.
Also, being able to initiate a line change without flipping the puck away would be fantastic since you can get fresh legs while maintaining possession.

That's the idea, a dedicated line change button moved to an unused button like X would be nice, however that might be harder to implement than what I'm suggesting. At this point I'm merely looking for a way to trigger an A button clearance / flip pass whilst the B button is being held down, while in that windup with the button held. On a related note, when taking a shot, it would be nice to be able to do a shot cancel. These are the kind of hacks that I'm looking into. I am very interested in moving the Line Change Menu to another button, and freeing up the A button to be only about A button clearances / flip passes. Anything we can do in this regard that enhances the controls would be welcomed. And what about when you're in the attacking zone and can only do a short flip pass. What if you wanted to do a longer "flip pass" in the attacking zone. It could be a very effective move. The moment you cross that blue line the A button pass function changes to a short flip and you can barely hold down the button before the Change Lines screen comes up. This means you essentially have to pre-aim your flip passes with a direction held down before hitting the button, which is similar to the normal way of doing B button passes. (have a direction held, then press the B button to pass, rather than holding the B button but no direction held, then pressing a d-pad direction to pass it)

With A button the same choice is there but within a very small window of up to a quarter second before automatic release. And the fact that you can cancel an A button hold/windup briefly by holding B with the A button held down suggests that there is a "cancel" code built in that we might be able to study and turn into something more powerful. What I'm outlining here might seem difficult, but I'm fairly confident that I can come up with something that makes the A button function more like the B button. I'm not sure exactly what I'll come up with but I'm working on it.

[kingraph]

Gents, maybe I can help point in the right direction.   A while back @clockwise worked with Kaneda to make a hack to have the "Y" button be a dedicated goalie change button for Sega.  

 

While I haven't gotten into it myself, I imagine you could find/use the information to enable the extra button.  I would guess there is a command to jump to a routine when the button is pressed, in this case switch to goalie, or more accurately the goalie control button with zero delay. 

Could this then be switched to "initiate line changes", assuming you can locate that function?   I think that'd be a good start.  Simultaneously disable holding A.  

It's probably more difficult than I am making it out to be, but I am hoping it helps.  Ideally you could improve and make the X or Z button be dedicated for the line change.  

[clockwise]

1 hour ago, kingraph said:

Gents, maybe I can help point in the right direction.   A while back @clockwise worked with Kaneda to make a hack to have the "Y" button be a dedicated goalie change button for Sega.  

 

While I haven't gotten into it myself, I imagine you could find/use the information to enable the extra button.  I would guess there is a command to jump to a routine when the button is pressed, in this case switch to goalie, or more accurately the goalie control button with zero delay. 

Could this then be switched to "initiate line changes", assuming you can locate that function?   I think that'd be a good start.  Simultaneously disable holding A.  

It's probably more difficult than I am making it out to be, but I am hoping it helps.  Ideally you could improve and make the X or Z button be dedicated for the line change.  

Kinda expected the goalie control button to be used in more leagues, and had plans to have the 'X' button be dedicated to line changes, but lost interest since I figured it would probably be used even less than the goalie control button is in online games.

Have a few big '94 projects going right now, some known, others Superunknown (great album), but when those are over and done with I think this is worth revisiting. 

[kingraph]

11 minutes ago, clockwise said:

Kinda expected the goalie control button to be used in more leagues, and had plans to have the 'X' button be dedicated to line changes, but lost interest since I figured it would probably be used even less than the goalie control button is in online games.

Have a few big '94 projects going right now, some known, others Superunknown (great album), but when those are over and done with I think this is worth revisiting. 

For a while there were a few leagues that used the dedicated goalie button hack.  From what I remember, at the time there were some additional configurations needed to be made in GENS, otherwise there was an instant desync.  This may not be the case with RetroArch (current main emulator for leagues for many years now), so might be worth revisiting.  Second, despite the intuitive advantage of having a dedicated button for goalie control, the benefits didn't seem to translate as much in league play.  And if they did, there weren't as impactful as you'd imagine.  Might be the years of playing with "holding B", but I think that combination of tech issues and minimal gain in gameplay, is why the use of the hack eventually faded.  

I still place the hack as one of the all-time greatest ever.

 

[Brodeur30]

1 hour ago, clockwise said:

Kinda expected the goalie control button to be used in more leagues, and had plans to have the 'X' button be dedicated to line changes, but lost interest since I figured it would probably be used even less than the goalie control button is in online games.

Have a few big '94 projects going right now, some known, others Superunknown (great album), but when those are over and done with I think this is worth revisiting. 

In your great goalie button mod, you said "Plans for the use of the (X) and (Z) buttons for line changes and a pseudo fake shot button were scrapped when I stopped doing updates."

Since you were working on a fake shot have you tested out the Fake Shot in here :

Your use of 1 the 3 extra unused buttons (X, Y, and Z) for the quick GK switch differs from how he did his Fake Shot which is by Holding C and pressing B which cancels the Shot. But it doesn't work like Ice Hockey on NES for example when you can hold the shot windup for as long as you want then release. I just wonder how your pseudo fake shot button might have differed as its own button compared to how McMarkis did it.

I can appreciate the difficulty of trying to code Line changes on the X button or a Fake Shot on the Z button. With McMarkis doing the Fake Shot with C (hold) + B, which is very natural and effective, it frees up more possible functions to the X, Y and Z button or other unused buttons. The way in which I was going about it was by finding the A button timing instructions in the RAM and trying to edit them in real-time to see changes in the timing. But with this new code injection engine in that topic with an example of a control scheme change, this makes it more doable than ever to make further changes.

It would seem to me that it would take your process of adding the goalie switch function to 1 of unused buttons combined with the what McMarkis was able to do with the Fake Shot with the B and C buttons. If we can enhance the controls that already exist and add new buttons I think we'd have a much more durable control scheme. I don't know how feasible it would be to implement a A button holding mechanism that adjusted the length of the flip pass/clearance based on how long you held it. And on top of that we could use B button to cancel this windup in the same way that it works with the Fake Shot.

[Brodeur30]

3 hours ago, kingraph said:

While I haven't gotten into it myself, I imagine you could find/use the information to enable the extra button.  I would guess there is a command to jump to a routine when the button is pressed, in this case switch to goalie, or more accurately the goalie control button with zero delay. 

Could this then be switched to "initiate line changes", assuming you can locate that function?   I think that'd be a good start.  Simultaneously disable holding A.  

It's probably more difficult than I am making it out to be, but I am hoping it helps.  Ideally you could improve and make the X or Z button be dedicated for the line change.  

That's the idea. What is your reaction to the topic in which a Fake Shot was implemented, and that whole engine? The strategy was to take an unused section of the rom and implement code into that area. That area is then accessed by a small edit to the button press which takes it to this separate code.

Have you tested the Fake Shot and what do you think?

[kingraph]

36 minutes ago, Brodeur30 said:

That's the idea. What is your reaction to the topic in which a Fake Shot was implemented, and that whole engine? The strategy was to take an unused section of the rom and implement code into that area. That area is then accessed by a small edit to the button press which takes it to this separate code.

Have you tested the Fake Shot and what do you think?

I have been pretty inactive in terms of ROM hacking for quite a while now, so I haven't tested or tried it out.  I've been keeping tabs and the explosion of information that came out this last year as a result of the 92 source code find has been absolutely incredible.  @chaos and @McMarkis in particular have gone above and beyond with their time to studying, dissecting and ultimately showering us with these amazing hacks. 

[chaos]

16 hours ago, Brodeur30 said:

That's the idea. What is your reaction to the topic in which a Fake Shot was implemented, and that whole engine? The strategy was to take an unused section of the rom and implement code into that area. That area is then accessed by a small edit to the button press which takes it to this separate code.

Have you tested the Fake Shot and what do you think?

Problem here is you are requiring people to play with a 6 button controller. Many prefer the 3 button feel. The fake shot was done with 3 buttons.

The game will do a long clear on the flip when your team is on the PK. You can remove that check and make it do it all the time, or make it so if the button is pressed longer, it will flip it farther.

You should look at the source code for 92 to see how to implement how to check which buttons are being held and pressed, etc

[Brodeur30]

13 hours ago, chaos said:

Problem here is you are requiring people to play with a 6 button controller. Many prefer the 3 button feel. The fake shot was done with 3 buttons.

In some cases it would be better to edit the existing buttons and stay within the 3 button framework. Especially in the case of the Fake Shot where it is very natural to use the B button to cancel. It is important to remember that there are only 3 additional buttons X Y and Z. That means the more that we can apply to the standard 3 button controller the better. But if we could move the Line Change switch off of A and on to X for example, that could free the A button up for more advanced actions by holding down the button longer without worrying about bringing up the Line Change switch.

13 hours ago, chaos said:

The game will do a long clear on the flip when your team is on the PK. You can remove that check and make it do it all the time, or make it so if the button is pressed longer, it will flip it farther.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. Are you referring to a CPU controlled team or a Human controlled team? I see no difference to the action whether I am on a PK or not. If I tap A behind the opponent's blue line he'll do a clearance. If I tap A in the attacking zone, he'll do a flip pass. What I would like to do is make it so that you can do "clearances" in the attacking zone, and conversely flip passes in your own defensive area. And to see if we can customize the clearance / flip pass length and perhaps tie the length to how long you hold down A. At least inside the attacking zone lets say. Outside we might want to keep the clearance working as it is, but inside the attacking zone we might rather utilize the clearance as the default. So it might be as simple as just "removing the check" for when you enter the attacking zone, so the game still think's your behind the opponent's blue line, which causes the clearance to trigger.

Clearances in the attacking zone would be effective because you could launch high arching lobs over the goal from one side to another. Currently you cannot do that, there would surely be a flag that altered the A button action depending on where the player is are on the ice, either beyond the opponent's blue line or not. If that check could be edited we could allow Clearances in the attacking zone, or customize the length of the clearance when used in the attacking zone but still farther than the flip pass. The idea is to make edits similar to what McMarkis did with the Fake Shot but for the A button. I will be taking a closer look at the specific code that would be needed to edit this related to the A button. But I do think some brainstorming is needed as to how we could best design this. Should we make use of the additional buttons, X for example, to try to shift the Line Change function off the A and on to X as a separate button, or should we start just by trying to edit the A button itself? It might be easier to edit the timing of the A button holds and edit what type / length of action occurs in or outside of the attacking zone. It would be very rewarding to make a meaningful improvement in this regard.