How big is the difference exactly? If you can take a picture of both side by side, that’d be nice.
I’m strongly starting to suspect that the reason why I’ve been struggling so long with learning stick is that the shaft is way too short for the way I hold it.
[If someone can tell me whether this hold is from the top or from the side, that would help too]
-except way more from the side, no fingers on the shaft, and I only use my middle finger for motions going left. Problem is the ball’s too low to get my index finger on properly unless I curl my wrist in and then I end up mashing the bottom of my hand against the base when I do left-going motions, plus my range of motion is restricted. If I put my thumb on top of the ball, it helps quite a bit, but then I can’t dash/parry left properly, and I can’t do moves as quickly because I’m using the ball like a d-pad.
I guess what I’m asking is whether the shaft height difference is big enough that you’d actually have to change the way you hold the stick.
Just put an LS-33 in. It’s much easier to do and you will mount it at the correct height (right below the control panel). You can replace the spring with an LS-56 one if you want a stiffer one.
You can do that it in a Hori EX2 without any major modding or re-soldering? I know the buttons are attached to the PCB, so you can’t replace those without carving some shit out.
your going to have to solder and at least drill holes in the mounting plate but it is still much easier than trying to get a JLF to fit correctly in the case.
I find that that hold is the most common I’ve seen in people with balltops. People always say it’s wineglass, but Sugi, RX, Wong, Spellmaster, etc. they all use that hold.
The only wineglassers I’ve seen among the known 3S players are MOV, J, Roshi and Daigo. People think Daigo holds it from the side with his thumb on top, but if you watch closely, he’s actually using a modified wineglass with the ball between his ring and pinky, his hand on an angle, and his thumb is sort of on the right. It’s easier to tell when he’s on the left side because he arches his hand.
Only reason why I know any of this is because I was struggling like mad when I first bought my stick, so I kept browsing shit to see how people used it.
Almost no one holds it with their thumb on top of the ball, which worries me a little because that’s the hold I naturally gravitated to. I tried to wean myself off it by keeping my thumb on the right side, but it’s never felt quite right, and I find my thumb moves itself back up to the top when I start doing moves leftward. Probably because I’ve been using thumbsticks for so many years. I used to put my thumb on top of bat tops as well when I was a kid.
The actual difference between the shafts above the main plate is only 1 or 2mms between the stock hori shaft and how a Sanwa JLF should be mounted on an arcade control panel/HRAP. I don’t have a proper ruler on me at the moment, but I’ll have the measurements and pics to support this soon hopefully.
So it’s just me using a weird hold and not the stick then right? That’s a little reassuring if it’s true (sort of), but I took a look at those Sanwa/Seimitsu videos, and the shaft looks noticeably longer than mine. Plus, I’ve noticed people putting their ring and pinky under the ball, and I can only fit one finger under there comfortably without crushing my hand even though I have tiny girl hands.
If you use the JLF shaft in the hori mini sticks, way too much shaft is above the metal plate. JLF sticks are meant to be mounted with a space between the control panel itself and the main body of the JLF, so it’ll be around 5mm too tall, not to mention the bottom of the shaft will scrape against the bottom metal plate of the shell (meaning even if you carve out some metal off the bottom so the original JLF shaft will fit, you will still have too tall of a stick).
If you want to see how odd it feels to play with the extra tall shaft, without having to grind out any metal on the bottom, you can switch out the shaft of the JLF (or even the stock hori) with a tekken 5 shaft and see how that feels. Since it’s extra long, the pinky side of your left hand doesn’t rest on the control panel and is left “floating” on top of the balltop, so it kind of fatigues your arm/wrist quicker as you don’t have that leverage that resting your hand on the panel gives you.
Well, the problem right now is that it’s not just resting on the panel, it’s being pressed into it. If I switch my hold to middle/ring finger, it’s a lot more comfortable, but I can’t execute as well like that. I had a wrist injury that limits the movement of my last two fingers as well, so that doesn’t help.
I have no experience soldering or sanding anything anyway. If I did decide to switch, I’d either have to go out and buy a lot of equipment and learn how or just buy a new stick.
1 - nab a bat top and install it on the stick.
2 - grab some #10 washers and put 2 of them underneath the ball top to add a little bit of breathing room. This is probably the cheapest option.
3 - if you know someone that has spare a spare US tekken 5 shaft, get that and replace the shorter stock shaft of the DOA4/Fighting Stick EX2. You don’t need to change around parts either, just literally exchange the shafts and that’s it.
All of the above don’t require any soldering or uncommon tools. Just need a phillips screwdriver (cross) to get the 6 screws off the bottom plate to open the stick up, and then use a flathead screwdriver to hold the shaft in place in order to screw off/screw on the ball top or bat top.
I bought a bat top a long time ago along with an adapter, but I ended up going back to the ball.
Option 2 sounds promising though. Where can I get those?
Any hardware store. I forgot to mention, that #10 is the right size, but you have to screw them onto the shaft, so use pliers and some rubber or something (so the pliers don’t scratch up the washer) to hold the washer in place while turning the shaft with the flathead screwdriver.