Was a pad player since 2001(CvS2) till about a month ago. It’s been hell playin on the 360 controller(PS pad so much better for fighters); so i finally picked up a TE Stick. Never going back to pad, i find myself limited and making mistakes often on pad. Doing pretty well so far, aside from FA dashing. >.>
TBH i think the problem is just wrist motion, only practice will improve it, let that muscle memory kick in. I started with Ryu and Chun to get basics and rapid movement, then went on to Cammy for my main. Even got the TK down
Hang in there and try all the normal trials, they helped me out alot.
I just bought my stick 4 days ago. For me personally, the TK CS and more advanced tactics are coming out a lot easier now but the simplest things like a normal Cannon Spike or a Spiral Arrow at the end of a combo is giving me major issues lol
Where is the best place to put the stick? Directly in front of you? On your lap? It tends to slide around a little bit.
What stick did you get? The TE Sticks are nice in that they rarely slide around, thanks to the rubber feet they have. However, in terms of what position to place the stick at, everyone has different preferences. None are more correct than others. I have seen:
Guy on chair, with stick in lap.
Guy on chair with another chair in front of him, stick on second chair.
Guy on floor, sitting cross-legged with stick in front of him.
Guy on floor, with both legs extended, essentially “hugging” the sides of the stick to prevent its movement.
Guy on floor with only ONE leg sticking out, the other folded up.
Guy on floor with stick in lap on top of folded legs.
Guy on floor with stick in lap with extended legs.
And on and on and on. In other words, there is no wrong or right answer, unfortunately. You really just have to experiment until you find one position that works for you. But once you find it, you’re gonna have to stick with that position. I have yet to find a single player who is good at playing in various positions. Everyone seems to have their favorite.
Mine is personally the cross-legged position with the stick in front of me on the floor. This just came from the days of being forced to sit on the floor playing because we didn’t have wireless controllers long ago, so you could only sit so far with the console by the TV. So I’ve just grown accustomed to sitting on the floor.
Plus, you can almost NEVER find a situation where there is no floor to sit on. You might end up somewhere without enough chairs for you to use, but that floor is always there!
^ i got the TE Stick…and i’ve been playing sitting on the floor with the stick in front of me, too I guess I might be jerking the stick around too much lol I was reading one of your other posts where you said that there’s no need to jerk around when you play with a stick; the pros’ movements are very light. So I’ve been trying to be a little more calm. I think once I get used to it and feel more confident with my moves, I won’t be quite as spastic lol
Yeah, what I’ve noticed is that the joystick motions on the TE sticks tend to be more subtle, 'cause you kinda have to use it that way (the square gates make it MUCH harder to use with force). On older MAS Stick controllers, people could be a little more violent on the joysticks.
But the one consistent thing I HAVE noticed is that experts hit the buttons like there is no tomorrow. SMACK!! My coworker was almost stunned when I visited his place and used his joystick. He thought I was gonna break the thing 'cause I was hitting it so hard. Hahaha. And even the way I play is NOTHING compared to guys like Ed Ma and Alex Valle and John Choi. Those guys hit the buttons so hard every time they hit buttons, even when they don’t need to be hitting buttons. I always noticed Choi, for example, when he lands a multi-hitting uppercut, he keeps tapping the button really hard rhythmically even though the follow-up button presses do nothing. I sometimes wonder if that is a secret tactic only known by the top tier players that is used to intimidate opponents. Hahaha.
I noticed from my video’s that i smack my buttons pretty hard to.
Maybe its because in arcade buttons tend to be overused and u need to smack them harder.
Later on it becomes a habit
OK I know training mode is a great way to practice with the stick…but what about practicing against the CPU? That way you get a feel for actual battle, blocking, etc? Or is it just best to stick with only training mode?
take it to training mode until you can do it without thinking too much…like your hands just go through the motions and you can do it over and over without even having to look at the screen.
Then do it on the cpu but don’t do anything other than trying to create openings and do the bnb you were practicing.
Then take it online on a greenbar connection and practice.
Then start using it in matches that you care about…
I’m just really having 2nd thoughts about this stick…i mean i can do just about all her combos with the pad, and TK CS, regular or EX, any time i want… I’m starting to wonder if I wasted 150 bucks on this thing lol I’m just gonna stick with it and hopefully within a month or so I’ll be even better with the stick than I was with the pad but it’s just looking gloomy right about now…
in addition to online/cpu play you can also set the blocking in training mode to random. that way after you’ve gotten the combos down you’ll now be working on your reactions and hit confirming into those combos.
getting used to the stick takes time. some people get it fast others dont. my advice is you made the right choice in getting a stick just realize it’ll take time… if you get frustrated, walk away, go outside. come back to it in an hour or whatever.
Don’t give up. It’s hard. It’s… REALLY hard. The problem is that most pad to stick converts try to use the stick like they use a pad. This was the same problem as most stick to pad converts, back in the days of no good home joysticks.
The pad is all about pressing… and pressing hard. It’s about pushing buttons, really. TKCS, for example, is just mushing the pad from down to back, and then tapping, like a button, Up/Forward and hitting Kick. The joystick is nothing like this.
The way to think of using a joystick is that it’s about precision. But with that precision comes the need for extra skill. There’s not as much leeway for you to get away with careless use of the stick, BUT once you get it, you’ll start to discover that your game becomes more precise, that you get exactly what you want all the time, and that changes your game entirely. Pad play promotes sloppier play, I’m afraid to say. You play with this mindset that you start to accept that things just don’t quite come out, or it’s okay to mash DPs, etc. With a joystick, you should always be in control, so that you start to learn that Street Fighter can be played at a level where what you want is EXACTLY what you get.
So in order to pick this up, you have to learn to use the joystick more carefully. Yeah, it’s a joystick. Yes, it’s designed to take some punishment. But it actually turns out that using the joystick is a very careful thing. It requires a light touch. (Dude, this is sounding wrong on so many levels.)
I’ve stated this earlier in this thread, but in case you missed it, learn NOT to use the edges of the stick’s base to help in motions. You really need to think of it more like playing Operation. Keep the joystick inside the circles and move the joystick in your hand to do the motions. Don’t use the edges as a crutch. The beauty of Japanese joysticks (and the square gate) is that the joysticks are really sensitive. You don’t need to move them far off center to register the clicks. Try this out for yourself. Move the joystick VERY slowly downwards until you hear the click. Notice you don’t have to move the joystick far AT ALL. Now, keeping that in mind, think hard about what it actually takes to do a fireball motion, then. You really only need to move the stick a VERY small distance. That you can hit down without moving the stick much at all means that you can move it only very slightly and immediately roll your hand to forward. The overall time it takes to do a Fireball will be half the time it took if you pressed hard on the stick to the edge and rubbed it against the base to forward.
So for things like the TKCS, you find out that you only need to do that very subtle roll with the QCB and then immediately shove the stick to Up/Forward (this is where the endurance of the stick comes into play! ^_^). And because of the square gate, you are NOT going to miss Up/Forward. The stick will naturally come to rest there.
So again, the key to learning how to use a joystick is really all about subtle, light motions. In fact, as an exercise, maybe go into Training Mode and just try doing everything and focus on not hitting the edges of the joysticks base ever. THat’s not practical at all, but it’ll give you an idea of how possible it is to use the stick without being very forceful at all. You’ll find you can do EVERYTHING without ever touching the joystick to the edges.
Anyhow, I’ll stop babbling now until I get some feedback from you, TragicHero. Hope this helps! It’s worth it, it really is. I promise! You did NOT waste 150 bucks.
^ hey thanks a lot for your help… I’ve been spending hours upon hours with the stick trying to develop some muscle memory with Cammy’s b&b and TK CS all the while in the back of my mind thinking “i have all of this down with my pad, why am i wasting this time and energy with the stick??” I view you as a Cammy expert and will thus follow your advice To be honest, and not to sound cliche, I did wake up this morning and when I picked up the stick it seemed 10 x as natural as it did yesterday. Maybe the muscle memory is finally starting to kick in. Either way, I’m keeping up my hope that this was a worthwhile investment.
James is an articulate man. I think I’ll put the square gate back in and work on floating over grinding. Like others have stated here for some reason the P2 side has a higher success rate. To do an ultra I catch myself trying to jump over the opponent to be on the P2 side. Terrible habit.
This, practice your movements towards the buttons aswell also not to mention doing your main’s trial mode (normal and hard)
i just got my TE stick today (90 aswell, couldn’t really get better than that lol)
went to training and i was rather suprised…even tho i can do alot of moves onda pad, it’s like i was better off wid a fightstick in 1st place…so natural that i can do balrog’s headbutt>ultra 95% of the time now :S very strange…
the transition phase takes a while… i adopted the stick mentality when i started doing local ranbats. everyone played on sticks. so i wanted to do the same.
hell i couldnt even throw two hadokens in a row.
i actually sat down one time and tried to do 50 without stopping. and i hit 47 before fuckign it up.
now i love my stick. and cant figure out this pad business. its so frustrating when you cant properlly dash or even fadc haha
It’s been 4 days since i used this fightstick, although i have a long way to go, i’m more comfortable wid it than the pad itself (i didnt really grow up ona pad, i usualy wud go to arcades or play fighting games using the keyboard etc and i’d usually find shortcuts so i can do difficult moves onda pad lol) i can do bnb combos, ultras, dash, move around etc. heck, i’ll even do other characters trials so i can improve on my executions. the only problem i have is the focus dash into ultras (e.g ken’s uppercut>fadc>ultra) but hopefully ina few weeks, that shud be a piece of cake…
TE stick is the manual transmission of fighting games… too bad I constantly stall out. I have never really played a fighting genre game before let alone ever use an arcade stick. Though I do feel way more l337! I guess I just have to keep practicing. This has been a great thread with lots of good tips!
Edit: Forgot to me mention how much I hate loosing now lol
So I’ve just grown accustomed to sitting on the floor.