Autofire controls override joypad.set

[SuuperW]

Summary

Autofire inputs override buttons being unheld by Lua's joypad.set.

Repro

1. Open a ROM
2. In Config -> Controllers... -> Autofire Controls, bind a button to a keyboard key. For example, bind the "A" button to the "D" key.
3. Open the Lua Console
4. Ensure the game is paused
5. In the Lua Console's input box, set the button to false with joypad.set. For example, joypad.set({A = false})
6. Select the main form
7. Ensure input display is turned on (View -> Display Input)
8. Press the key configured for autofire. ("D" in this example)

Output

Observe that the autofire button is held.

Host env.

Bizhawk 2.11.1 and master branch, Windows 11

[Morilli]

I assume this is because joypad.set only overrides the normal user controller, but the autofire one is separate and gets ord together with normal user input.

However the question here is: Is that even incorrect behavior? Should joypad.set be able to unset a button that is being activated by autofire? And should that apply to user-controller autofire, automatic autofire, or both?

[SuuperW]

Autofire that is activated by a user input the same way regular buttons are activated by user input I think should definitely not be able to override joypad.set. In both cases the user is holding a physical button to perform some input, and I see no reason to handle them differently.

But what is automatic autofire?

[Morilli]

But what is automatic autofire?

Everything that is sticky that isn't from user input, aka what TAStudio uses, the virtual pad, or (currently) joypad.setanalog.

In general I'm just wondering what the expected priority of different input systems is and how they should interact with each other.

[SuuperW]

For TAStudio's autofire, I think that should be the same as user holding a autofire button. But I hardly ever use it. And I never use virtual pad. Without knowing how they are actually used I would expect joypad.set to override both. A Lua script seems much more flexible than anything else, and someone who doesn't want buttons overridden would probably not specify their state in joypad.set.