Keyboard Control Tips

Playing without a controller! It's not so bad!

Intro

As you may have gathered, a vast majority prefer to play Fighting Games with analogue controls i.e. a controller or fight stick. However, not everyone has a compatible controller, or can afford one, and some clinically psychopathic people like myself actually prefer janky digital controls like a keyboard.
Since Rivals of Aether, like most fighting games, has functional but somewhat obtuse keyboard support, you may need this guide to get you up and fighting with Mr. Qwerty.

Orientation

Many people, when first starting up ROA, are confused as to how to navigate the menus: Arrow keys for movement, Z is the A button for selection, X is the B button for back, and Enter and Backspace seem to be the start and select buttons... sometimes. To at least familiarize yourself with the controls, you're going to use these to navigate to the options menu and look at the default keyboard controls:

Master Them!

The default controls are actually serviceable enough, but most players I hear complain about them feeling really weird to use and then switching to controller. There's an obvious reason for this:

They're on the opposite side from familiar Smash controls

If your keyboard is a regular keyboard and your arms are human arms, you use your right hand on the arrow keys and your left hand on the attack button group. Unless you're a lefty who plays Smash with a Wiimote+nunchuck the other way around, this is opposite to what you're used to, with the control stick on your left thumb and your attack buttons on the right.

With that in mind, use the arrow keys to move the cursor around, J to select a binding, and enter to confirm your rebinding after pressing your preferred button. The first thing I did was change the movement to WASD, so as to put movement on the "proper" side of my brain. Don't forget to change the selection buttons too unless you want to use a whole different set of buttons on menus than in game. You'll need to actually save your choices to start using them, and if you don't like them you can always mash F2 to reset.

For the attack buttons and jump, I'd reccomend trying to use what comes instinctually from other games and requires a minimum of finger movement, like laying out them out on the right-hand home row. Leave ancillary functions like taunt for later, and just figure out what plays well.

If you're spoilt for choice and can't think of a good layout for yourself, here's mine:

Or in a more visual, if incredibly ugly sense

Playing With a Keyboard

With practice, you can get good while playing on the keyboard. While it may be difficult to DI, it's actually an interesting mental excercise to think about fighting games procedurally, one button input to the next. Playing Skullgirls this way made me better at playing Smash 4 with an actual controller.

Things to Keep in mind:

1. Adding directions to inputs will feel weird at first. It's unclear whether it's the game's buffering policy or the input method but you have to very decisively put the direction before the attack button.

2. You might want to experiment with Auto-Run, but you definitely want a dash button over double tapping to dash.

The Run Button is Your Best Friend

See the Addendum

3. I myself haven't reached a level where I'm working on my Smash DI, but I'm interested to see what the engine thinks of ultra fast mechanical keyboard clickings 90 degrees from each other in terms of combo escape. I don't know how the Rivals of Aether SDI system works, but there might be all sorts of interesting or even powerful "Japanese DI" out of this. There's no smash DI in this game, I'm dumb.

4.Consider Using a Controller: While using a keyboard is not quite as much like playing with a hand behind your back as people say, there are definite advantages to analogue sticks and good buttons.

Further Observations:

5.With the newest update (Patch 0.0.7) the short hop window on the keyboard has been cleaned up a little, but if you're used to playing Smash, it takes time to adjust to an entirely different button switch style.

6. Wavelanding is perhaps a little suboptimal, but if you just hold your down key and a direction you'll get a *good enough* waveland going. Wavedashing, just like dash dancing, is fast and easy on a keyboard however, with a little practice you can be flawless at it, the question being of your timing on the keys as opposed to slop in the control stick.

Happy Rivaling! Good Luck!

Addendum: The Run Button is your New God

I could just leave this as: The Run button reinterprets all your movement inputs as "taps", you need it to fastfall and drop through platforms if you're using digital inputs. But, perhaps I'm a little overexcited

The Year, is 21XX. Tapping inputs have been abolished, there is only the Run Button

The Run/Dash button, something unfamiliar to Smash players, interprets all movement inputs as "taps" right now, allowing you to cleanly and instantly drop through platforms while on the move. It allows for such a level of movement platform movement before restricted to high level Melee players that you'll probably mix-up a lot of people online with the right application. Furthermore, with a keyboard you're actually inputting both a forward movement command and the drop command together, allowing you to drop from a platform while dash dancing without breaking your stride or moumenteum.

Just look at this video of an amateur like me who never played Melee and can't waveland dash dancing all over the place while platform dropping unpredictably.

Combine that with some good wavelands and actually timing his dash dancing properly and you're getting somewhere in terms of tech.

Addendum 2: Check your Keyboard!

If you're facing particular trouble, check the "key rollover" of your keyboard (how many keys it registers simultaneously). If you have a cheap keyboard, it might only have 2-3 key rollover, in which case you'll drop quite a few inputs.

In general, you might want to invest in a mechanical keyboard. Having precise feedback of when a key has actually registered is very helpful. While short-stroke keys are okay for fighting games, a mechanical keyboard with good feedback is even better as you know *exactly* when each input is registered.

[tigercubboy]

i use wasd, e to special, x to normal, q to strong, r to parry, z to advance menus, and space to jump. sadly when characters like mega man have an eight slot joystick menu i cant select some of the diagonals at random because of key rollover + what huh why cant mega man point up diagonals

[the angry austerity tank]

what about p for a moves o for i for shield h j g y for smash attacks l for dash wasd for movement?

[MX]

i have it now, i confirm, i was correct. also, taunt is \ |

[MX]

i dont have it yet but, the left side would stay very similar. if up doesnt auto jump, then space will be set to that. and the rightward controls get moved over right by 1 key

[Syilumi lunari]

current situation suck with four cpus cant remove them stuc in one if their playtests without being able to exit if i close the game and reopen it as soon as i go into character selection same situation happens im in dire need of help

[Syilumi lunari]

i keep getting stuck in the character selection menu help

[Shmickle Flaps]

bro I use 6, ', z, and g as my attack buttons. Get on my level.

[Skyfirn]

I use A: Attack, D: Special: S: Jump, W: Strong, Q: Parry, :X Dash and arrows to walk. I played Castle Crashers for some hours before I got to this game and used thos controls lol. Not cursed .

[theholycappuccino]

dude I can't change the inputs so I literally can't even choose a map because it keeps bringing me up :(

[gushcraft]

Defaults but apply shorthop to lshift and enable autorun