Hit Flashes, Sparks, Effects, Auras (What's the Difference)

Not all on screen Hit Indicators are the same. Hit Flashes, are different from Hit Sparks, Hit Effects or Hit Auras. Some players think they're all the same, some don't care, but I think things should be clarified for VF5US. Understanding the differences between Hit Sparks, Hit Auras, Hit Effects, and Hit Flashes could possibly , potentially impact the ability to accurately take advantage of frame data, punish, and damage information.


Hit Flash - Is the most generic. It means some kind of hit has landed. It doesn't
indicate any particular kind of hit just that some hit has occurred.

Hit Spark - Indicates that a very damaging hit has occurred and the bigger the spark, the bigger
the damage. Spectacular moves that land will have spectacular Hit Sparks associated

Hit Effect - Indicates the type of Hit that has landed, e.g. normal hit, counter hit, mid hit, etc

Hit Aura - Indicates what kind of hits might be coming. Or what state the attacker is in.


Now of course there are combinations of these, Hit Effects that generate Hit Sparks, or Hit Auras that lead to Hit Effects, or Hit Flashes that are a result of Hit Auras. If the Aura is pronounced enough it will probably result in a spectacular Hit Spark that will obviously have some Hit Effect. The important thing to remember is there is a difference. Frame data is most often associated with Hit Effects. Frame Data is usually not associated with the Hit Aura , unless the Hit Aura is in the process of being activated then activating Hit Auras can be treated like Recovery Frames. Now, sometimes Hit Aura's are used as feints , Hit Aura feints will be somewhat dimmer than the actual HIt Aura activation. So its important to be able to distinguish between Hit Auras, and Hit Aura Feints. Look at this Tekken7 Demonstration of all Blue Moves, it has examples of Hit Flashes, Hit Sparks, Hit Effects and Hit Auras:



So far, VF5US only takes advantage of the Hit Effect animation. Although we loosely refer to them as Hit Sparks. VF5US has genuine Hit Effects but only pseudo Hit Sparks. Recall the Hit Spark has to do with how much damage has been done. The larger the spark the more damage has been afflicted on your opponent. VF5US Hit Effect can in some instances be looked at as a Hit Spark because counter hits can do more damage than normal hits, So a counter Hit Effect, could be seen as a counter Hit Spark in some instances. But this would confuse matters. So its best to think of VF5US Hit Indicators as Hit Effects as opposed to Hit Sparks. A Hit Spark really only indicate the damage amount not the hit type. Hit Effects are meant to indicate hit type, not necessarily damage amount. But in some exceptional cases Hit Effects could be interpreted as a kind-of Hit Spark.


The problem comes when trying to accurately associate precise frame data with the Hit Indicators If the Devs have not made it clear whether the player is looking at a Hit Flash, or a Hit Spark, or a Hit Effect or a Hit Aura then applying Bounding, Frame Traps, Advantage and Disadvantage gets tricky. For instance medium sized Hit Sparks have less recovery frames than large Hit Sparks. Where as the recovery frames for Hit Effects coincide with the particular attack that the Hit Effect indicates. To make matters worse, when generic Hit Flashes occur during the same animations as Hit Effects or Hit Sparks, it makes it difficult to know what the real frame situation is because a Hit Flash can be any kind of a hit. Even though Hit Flashes don't indicate any particular kind of Hit, Every hit indicator is a kind of Hit Flash (so to speak).

So what would be helpful is if the Dojo or Command/Training could have some kind of tutorial for identifying the difference between Hit Flashes, Hit Sparks, Hit Effects, and Hit Auras, and what to do when more than one of these Hit indicators occur on the screen during a combo.

Keep in mind that the attacker and the opponent some kind of on screen Hit Effect Indicator. The Hit Indicator for the opponent will communicate disadvantage and recovery information or possibly if a frame trap is underway, and the Hit Indicator animation for the attacker will indicate how safe the attacker is and how many advantage frames are still available.

Now of course if the Hit indicators are Hit Sparks as opposed to Hit Effects then the attacker and opponent frame advantage and disadvantage has to be scaled according to the size of the spark. Large sparks have more scaling than medium sparks. On the other hand if the Hit Effect or Hit Spark following a bona-fide Hit Aura then all advantage, disadvantage, recovery data has to be scaled even more because the Hit Aura can be a magnifier for Hit Effect or Hit Sparks.

Currently VF5US does not take advantage of Hit Auras but hopefully in an upcoming patch we'll get them The good thing is the colors help us to keep the various on screen Hit Indicators organized

 

Me, I would say that hit sparks in a sense, more suit Soul Calibur. I mean they are attacking each other with weapons, and no one dies from it. Smash Bros is another game, that looks good with hit sparks, and it really fits the cartoony look of the game too.