JAMMA controls are common ground, so it’s not at all difficult to make a controller that will allow SOCD. I was thinking about testing SSF2T for SOCD-safety, but wasn’t really motivated enough to do that (or the half-dozen other tests I should have made) before the client picked up the superguns.
What would be easiest way to disable SOCD from the pcb/button perspective by either having it always prefer one side or disable both inputs?
Sorry to bring this back up. But with EVO coming up, I believe we need to make a list of which PCBs are SOCD safe, so that we can allay fears stated in this thread.
I think the better option is not to allow stickles arcade sticks, fight boards, hit boxes or what ever you want to call them.
There already concerns over “cheating”, lets eliminating the “issue” in question.
Even if someone has a SOCD board, how would the tourney officials check every fricking keyboard style, fight board, finger board and hit box to see if you can or can not hit right and left at the same time. Evo does not have the man power nor the training for each official to make this a option.
Except that won’t fix the problem. What you’re describing would leave the only ‘approved’ controllers sticks and pads, both of which can exploit an SOCD. Getting the stick to do so would take some jiggery-pokery, but its completely doable. The pad doesn’t even require hackery. So the problem still exists. Sure, that’d be only a very small set of players, but only a very small set of players NOW can do it, since the PS3 and PS360 models of hitboxes can’t exploit SOCDs.
That’s not a good solution for several reasons.
First off, SOCD capability is not exclusive to any particular type of controller. By that standard, all controllers should be banned or all controllers need to be checked.
Another issue is that, as far as I am aware, the type of controller most likely to be capable of sending SOCDs on a PS3 is actually a pad of some kind with analog sticks. The way that the PS3 typically handles digital direction input makes SOCDs from stick less controllers unlikely.
Furthermore, the community self-polices pretty effectively. There’s no technical barrier to putting any number of cheat devices into a conventional arcade stick without altering it’s external appearance in any way, but people don’t - as far as I am aware - do that stuff. (Having a cheating competition could be entertaining in its own right, but would probably be hard on the equipment.)
For what it’s worth, Evo doesn’t allow the use of turbo, but does allow turbo capable sticks. (though it did ban them in the past.), and the lower prevalence of SOCD capability on PS3 should mostly make this a non-issue.
Preferring one side is the easiest by a small margin over having the first direction lock out the second, or having both directions be neutral. Having the last input take priority is a little more complex.
Both Ponder and MrWizard have already spoken on this issue. And it looks like they mirror the same attitude I have. It’s unfortunate, but an SOCD ban is impossible to enforce, so any/all controllers that don’t break the already-established rules for EVO are fine.
For those not wanting to follow the URL provided:
In Jojo’s this shit is banned due to the fact it can cause the game to crash.
I didn’t think it could be like that.
That might be the way to go, ideally. I just wondering in the heat of completion will everyone keep their cool.
I said it in the other thread as well.
In this day and age it’s up to the developer to make a game that isn’t exploitable, or to patch these problems when they arise. This would take 10 minutes to fix in every game. By doing nothing, I take it as Capcom saying, “We’re ok with this.”
Although, I should be clear that I don’t use a SAS-Hitbox-Keytar to exploit SOCDs, I use it to make my inputs more precise.
In case anyone was wondering (tested using keyboard):
Console: PS2
Game: Melty Blood: Actress Again
Summary: Opposite directional inputs cancel each other out, resulting in a null input. Releasing the opposing input results in a new input. Probably because it was originally designed for PC.
* P1 Side: Hold forward, press back, unmolested; Stand
* P1 Side: Hold back, press forward, unmolested; Stand
* P2 Side: Hold forward, press back, unmolested; Stand
* P2 Side: Hold back, press forward, unmolested; Stand
* P1 Side: Hold forward, press back, reaction to being attacked; Stand ,Attack Hits
* P1 Side: Hold back, press forward, reaction to being attacked; Stand ,Attack Hits
* P2 Side: Hold forward, press back, reaction to being attacked; Stand ,Attack Hits
* P2 Side: Hold back, press forward, reaction to being attacked; Stand ,Attack Hits
* Hold Down, Press Up; Stand from crouching
* Hold Up, Press Down; Stop jumping
* Attempt to perform a charge move without "releasing" charge direction; N/A (no charge moves)Could someone post a diagram of the simplest way of using gates to get a common ground PCB to act like a Hit Box? IE Left + Right = Neutral and Up + Down = Up.
Basic tests on 3SOE@X360 make me hypothesize that SOCD’s cancel to neutral. More extensive testing will come later, as I am in the first day of active classes for this semester.
While this is good for us in that clearly this means someone is dealing with SOCD’s, when I was playing 3S on the FBA/GGPO emulator, SOCD’s didn’t cause bad behavior. I don’t know whether to feel good about this (since someone out there is listening), or bad (since they promised “arcade perfect” but now I have evidence to the contrary).
I’m pretty sure by arcade perfect they meant perfect to all reasonable elements. For example, leaving Akuma’s f-mp invulnerable to throws in is a good idea. Leaving Ken’s machinegun grab glitch against Makoto in though is just a bad idea as it is detrimental to the stability of the game. I’d say good for them to take SOCD away from 3S.
Some of us may remember that the hitbox allowed you to block both left and right at the same time in MVC3, which completely ruins the game, and was still not banned in EVO. (Lucky for them, the top players decided to stick with the stick (lol) and no one tried to abuse it so this issue was avoided for the time being.)
Now Aris uploaded a vid that explains what benefits this gives you in Tekken, allowing you to do certain moves in a speed that isn’t humanly possible on both a stick and a pad.
Remember when macros (several buttons inputs in one button press) were an issue in tournaments and were sometimes banned? This is actually way worse.
[media=youtube]0VClLTCxB7s[/media]
To make things clearer here’s the comment I posted on that vid:
Now you may don’t care, but when someone masters the benefits it gives you and wins, for example, UMVC3@EVO2012 then you’ll start caring- When it’s too late.
This has nothing against the makers of the hitbox, but the fact is that as of now, the games are not designed to consider it. While we are powerless to change the design of the games to consider some extremely niche controller, we can at least enforce a case by case standard and maybe enforce a ban for specific games depending on the benefits it gives.
Edit: Same thing for a keyboard+eagle eye adapter.
Imagine being allowed to hook up a spinner to mash out.
It’s like you can see the future.
A-Are you a wizard?
I just raised the potential problems it could cause, for the sake of discussion.
If you don’t think it’s a problem and there’s nothing to discuss about then fine. Considering it has zero presence in my local scene I won’t be the one who will have to deal with it if it ever does become one anyway.
I really want a HitBox and I really want it to be legal in tournaments. I remember the HitBox devs saying they fixed the left+right deal, forcing it to return ‘neutral’ instead of both, so I assume that problem is fixed.
As for the ‘inhuman input’ problem, I’m not too familiar with Tekken but I could understand how it’s an issue. You could argue that the transition from pad to stick is the same deal, giving stick players some advantages that pad players can not utilize, but the HitBox goes beyond what the game was designed for in some cases.
I guess games should just be designed not to break when players have ‘full’ or ‘perfect’ input potential. If a character has a game breaking tactic that can only be done by a superhuman, is character still broken on that principle? It’s not really a realistic expectation for developers to test the game to that level, but the alternative would be to just ban HitBoxes in any game that it becomes a problem in, which could very well be all of them. And it doesn’t solve the real problem with the problem characters in question.
I just don’t want them banned because I’m all for using whatever controller gives you better control of your character. More control should be preferred over less control. It’s just unfortunate that games aren’t designed for control of this level.
Even though it does seem better than stick, what’s the harm in it? Everyone is forced to buy one if they want to compete at the highest levels, but it just seems like a more severe version of stick vs. pad.
Although in stick vs. pad it’s been shown in almost every game that pad can at least hang with stick, but the stuff Aris was talking about seems, in Aris’ words, kinda cheap…
But still, I’ll play devil’s advocate: What’s the worst that can happen if the HitBox isn’t banned?