Talk:Hitlag

This page may seem useless with the lag and flinch articles. However, I think there's a big distinction between them:

• Freeze frames are the lag that occurs with attacks.
• Flinching is when a character's current action is interrupted and cannot take action, not the fact that the character suffers lag.
• The lag article was to be split anyway, so maybe now it can only encompass Wi-Fi lag and TV lag.

Toomai Glittershine The Table Designer cntrbs 16:14, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Move

Oppose definitely used more, but i like freeze frames better Poultry(talk) the Team Liquid 07:12, 22 April 2016 (EDT)

I am going to push very hard against this one. "Freeze frame" isn't exactly an unknown term and is actually descriptive of the effect. "Hitlag" may be more popular, but it is extremely confusing when used in conjunction with the more set-in-stone "hitstun" - both terms sound like "the period of time after you're hit before you can do anything", so I think it would be to our benefit to only use one to major effect around the wiki. I also suggest that due to this similarity, "hitlag" doesn't sound like it can apply to damageable items and stage elements, which it indeed does. Toomai Glittershine The Brazen 09:32, 22 April 2016 (EDT)

Oppose. While Hitlag is way more used, as Toomai said, the similarity between that term and hitstun will probably be very confusing to readers, and one of the most important things on a wiki is readability IMO. Nyargleblargle (Contribs) 12:59, 22 April 2016 (EDT)

Oppose, per Toom and Nyargle. Miles (talk) 13:49, 22 April 2016 (EDT)

Oppose per obligatory agreement Toomai. Disaster Flare (talk) 13:56, 22 April 2016 (EDT)

Move (take #2)

This was brought up before, but I think it bears being considered again, as it is still relevant to this day. The term "freeze frame" is a pretty niche and even rather juvenile one. It is my understanding that the only reason we still call it freeze frames instead of hitlag is because of the potential for hitlag to be confused with hitstun. However, aside from the fact that Nintendo is doing a pretty good job at making sure of that themselves, I don't think this is a particularly good reason to use a more obscure term. Of the 3 terms used (hitlag, hitstop and freeze frames), freeze frames appears to be the least commonly used in my experience, and I think it's pretty clear to anyone that hitlag is the most commonly used, especially with Ruben's script viewer becoming more and more widely used as a resource by the community. We tend to use the most common community terms in our page titles, and I don't think there's a particularly good reason for this to be an exception, especially when the alternative we are using is such a poor one. Alex the Weeb 05:47, February 21, 2020 (EST)

Your argument seems to be based on the premise that "freeze frame" is a "poor" and "juvenile" choice. You have provided no evidence of this. Conversely, here are the Google results I am currently seeing:

• Smash Bros "hitlag": 4,880
• Smash Bros "hitstop": 2,630
• Smash Bros "freeze frame": 121,000

SmashWiki by itself is not going to be the cause of "freeze frame" being dominant in search results; something else is displaying a community preference for the term overall. Toomai Glittershine The Chilled 06:49, February 21, 2020 (EST)

If you're going off of the number of Google search results then I'm not surprised the number for freeze frame is so much higher. Freeze frame can refer to a lot of things, such as entertaining Smash Bros. screenshots, but hitlag and hitstop are very specific terms that can only really mean one thing. As for freeze frame being a poor term to use, I guess that is subjective, but given the kinds of things the term freeze frame can refer to, such as childrens' party games, I think there is at least some case for saying that it is a term with juvenile connotations at least. Alex the Weeb 06:55, February 21, 2020 (EST)

I agree with Toomai. Freeze frame, no matter how juvenile it is, is just much more commonly used. In fact, I don't think I've heard "hitlag" outside of this wiki. 72.203.118.154 10:34, February 21, 2020 (EST)

As I have explained before, the Google search results are incredibly misleading. If you want an example of why, just take a look at the differences in content you find from searching for hitlag and freeze frame on Twitter for instance. You'll notice it's far easier to find smash related content for the former than the latter, because hitlag is almost exclusively attributed to smash, whereas freeze frame is not, and even in the context of Smash can refer to other things. However, a consequence of this is that there will be a larger pool of search results for freeze frames due to its range of uses. As I mentioned before, hitlag is also the term that appears in game scripts, and on many technical sites as well. Please stop using this misleading statistic, or personal anecdotes. It is trivial to demonstrate hitlag's common usage in the Smash community. Alex the Weeb 10:53, February 21, 2020 (EST)

I agree with Alex, here. The game's scripts refer to hitlag as hitlag and not as freeze frames. I was denied the term "windbox" for frame strips because that's not what they're called in the game's data. If that also applies to freeze frames, it should be called hitlag. Alex is also correct for saying that hitlag is more widely used in the Smash Community. When people refer to it, they don't say freeze frames.Hitbox Enthusiast Zeck (talk) 14:50, February 21, 2020 (EST)

I also agree with Alex. It is officially refered to as hitlag within the game's files and not as freeze frames. I understand that freeze frames may have been a more common term years ago when people's knowledge of Smash was lower as a whole but it is not used as much anymore due to being not fully accurate. It's the same reason why FAF has been a more accepted term than IASA in more recent years as IASA is not always an accurate term whereas FAF is.User:SuperSqank (talk) 16:06, February 21, 2020 (EST)

I would like to clarify that "hitlag" is not used in any game data, but rather "hitstop". The "hitlag" on any data websites is fan-assigned.

Other than that, I don't have any other argument than "hitlag and hitstun are too similar". Toomai Glittershine The Sharp 18:51, February 21, 2020 (EST)