The Cross|Up definitely brings up a lot of discussion on how to get the most out of SOCDs and directional commands from multiple input methods. This might be new to some of the community, so we want to shed some light on how some popular games (don't) resolve these instances. We're going to ignore any SOCD resolutions from the controller-side, and assume that the game is receiving both sides of an SOCD. Refresher on SOCDs: What's an SOCD?
SOCDs
Vanilla Marvel vs Capcom 3
When you input Left + Right, the game will activate both. This leads to game-breaking things like blocking on both sides.
UNIST on PC
UNIST is already unique simply as a fighting game, but it's also unique in the fact that its PC and PS4 versions do things differently with directional inputs.
On PC, it has an absolute priority for Left and Up. So:
- Left + Right = Left (always)
- Up + Down = Up (always)
How the PS4 version differs is explained below.
Tekken 7
A very basic but fair approach to it all, Tekken 7 gives SOCDs a Neutral resolution. Left + Right = Netural. Up + Down = Neutral.
Street Fighter V
Probably the most forward-thinking approach to SOCDs: when you input Left + Right you get whatever direction you're facing. This can be useful for charge characters.
Cross Inputs
Cross Inputs is when two directional input methods, typically Left Stick and Dpad, are actuated at the same time. This is an important subject because most fighting games will read from both the Left Stick and the Dpad for their directional inputs. The Cross|Up takes advantage of this.
Hybrid
Most games treat both Left Stick and Dpad inputs equally. This is what we call "Hybrid." An example would be pressing LS Back and Dpad Down. With Hybrid you would simply get a Down-Back output.
Priority
Few games, however, decide to give priority to one of the input methods over the other. The best and most popular example of this is UNIST, since it prioritizes Dpad inputs over Left Stick on its PS4 version. This is a rare way to deal with Cross Inputs but is very valuable to understand.
For example, holding Downback (1) on Left Stick and the pressing Forward (6) with Dpad ends up sending out Forward (6). This works a little differently than Second-Input Priority, so be sure to check out our blog post on this: Second-Input vs Input Method Priority.