Is my joystick guy substandard, or an I expecting too much

Tech Talk
1

I got my joystick a week ago, and at one time
I was contemplating that my joystick builder was being malicious

After a night of sleep, I’m less inclined to automatically blame. My brother says it’s me expecting too much.

Which of these things are reasonable throughout the cottage industry if fight stick makers?

  1. Do enough joystick makers feel that going too much out of their comfort zone is a not thank you? Meaning is finding a prototype maker who really is willing to listen to redesign is fairly rare?

  2. I heard a single-PCB hand made joystick costs around $200. Is that true?

  3. Based on that figure is $500 for a replacement cost for a joystick described in sinistersticks.com too high, too low, or just right?

  4. I told Stan I’d rather wait and pay more and make sure it’s done right than skimp and risk me messing up my own work. Assuming that’s true, is him not telling me to put my own glove over the db37 to prevent accidental desoldering via fingering, and telling me to glue gun the loose connectors between the Paradise Cthulhu and the Ethernet cable hard soldered in, considering we had an argument before, am I crazy to think the non-mebtioning of dummyproof features I need to add COULD BE (not necessarily automatically is) malicious?

  5. One of the arguments was about RJ-45, he said he never successfully hooked up a multiconsole PCB. I gave the standard SRK advice (thank you DarkSakul as my major help/ devil’s advocate, as well as others here. DarkSakul was the most vocal one, so he’s singled out )of wire in left to right order and ignore colors. Just check that it’s not a crossover. He insisted on a color, and hooked up 2 multiconsoles, and failed both times in opposite ways. Stan wanted more evidence, so between SRK and independent research by me, I gave Stan evidence that, for the purposes of fight stick making, color doesn’t matter, only position and the fact it’s not a crossover. I even found a tool that’s perfect. It makes simple point to point testing for both signal integrity on all 9 wires and checking for crosssovers in one test. The less than $10 tool makes RJ-45 testing quicker for only the things that stick makers need, and nothing the $100+ testers have and are useless. He thanked me and gave me a free labor credit for time saved by the tester. So I taught him how to hook up an RJ45 multiconsole and why his previous efforts failed.

  6. He wanted didn’t want to be liable for failed design on my part. That’s why it took many years of SRK answering questions, because checking three times certain facts is cheaper than working on it twice. Stan had no faith in the design, and was surprised it worked exactly how I described. He’s always second guessed my choices, and was debating hard about certain points until I convinced him why it can’t be a certain way (it foils one feature I wanted). Maybe should Stan question less about “better suggestions”?

  7. I told him not to skimp on certain things but don’t throw away money either. When I told him UPS has a cubit foot flat rate package, he insisted it’s impossible because one dimension was greater than 12 inches. I said individual dimensions didn’t matter as long a LxWxH is less than 12^3 or 1728 cubic inches. Well it did fit under a cubic foot, and I saved money vs pay by weight, but had to pay for packing labor. Was it wrong to question the shipping?

  8. He wouldn’t help me when I was afraid to open my joystick, fearing doing irreversible damage, and he texted “you figure it out”. If I said I was walking to add days and dollars to make it more user-friendly and dummy proof, is he hurting the situation by not giving a straight answer?

  9. I understand I’m a handful, between multiple needs and inability to easily solder and build boxes well, who makes money over time and acquiring skill will take more time and money vs just hiring someone. But I thought why just solve it for me when I can solve it for multiple people? If Hori or someone else in the mass-produced stick business makes an easy ambi design, and has little compromise of slight ergonomic differences vs what’s gained, isn’t it worth it? I personally think it’s a waste if it were a good ambi design, and I diagnosed Beeshu’s downfall correctly, then there is an ambi market, but gets shouted down as a waste on SRK (I know there’s a difference between devil’s advocate contrary opinion, and serious contrary opinion.

I noticed when I proved something and DarkSakul says nothing, A) it’s part of his reputation to not apologize and B) I did not cower to the crowd for popularity’s sake. He forced me to defend my statements, and if his silence is a sign of “you got me” and maybe secretly likes it, but doesn’t accept difference for difference’s sake alone, then DarkSakul’s silence is the sweetest sound on the thread.

2

So you make a dozen or so threads then abandoned them just as quick.
Also you ignore all advice given.

More than that. $200 is a retail stick price. Customs cost more.

WUT? A good solder job would not fall apart

Hot glue is bad for solder joints, you dont want to apply high heat to bounds made with high heat.

No its because I got bored with your game you play and the crap you make everyone else deal with.
You just don’t listen when you ask for advice.

My silence isn’t defeat, its me disregarding you entirely

Also don’t mention names of people unless you are ether complimenting them or looking for a fight

3

Are we Shoryuken dot com’s fight game specific texting version of Hannity and Colmes? Or are there other big arguers on SRK?

I heard a couple SRKers say you usually post to be a contrarian voice to posters when I ask “is it just me he treats this way, it everyone?”.

Now I do like how you kind of force people who make unpopular statements to either defend it or back off, especially if it has a non-comedic tone. It prevents people trolling.

Now I understand if I didn’t gripe about handedness, i’d have both very little reason to be here, and cause little controversy. Every time I had a right handed joystick (except Simpsons Arcade where there’s too much muscle memory that’s reenforced by good results,) my performance increases. It’s not placebo, but it’s kind of hard to have a lefty stick with a right handed placebo effect.

And you have to admit this is not a passing fancy. Because it’s so hard to find all the right help in the right place. Either Stan does some on-the-job training, or i have to do multiple shipments to get it right.

I know I’m a hard customer. But I know I’m an ignored market, arguably intentionally by arcade owners, and not even passively, but actively boobytrapped, who flipped the stick around in the JAMMA era, and that crept into home game design.

There’s a difference between designing for a pro and designing for a Mass market. I never had insurmountable contour problems except the contours when 180ing a left stick.

Why do right sticks not sell? 35 years of engrained history. Pre crash 5 of the 8 game consoles had default ambi controls, (INTV, Coleco, 5200, Bally, Arcadia). The 2600 was right handed, but third parties solved that. Only Odyssey 2 was right handed and Vectrex was left handed.

Also you have to admit Capcom’s more direct customers were arcade owners. Since arcades are dead, and the owner’s main reason for left stick (shortening credits) becomes moot when you have lines waiting to challenge the champ, and the owner knows a new quarter comes in every 2 out of 3 is decided, why not go back to ambi?

And about Stan: It’s very hard to find a joystick maker willing to do 5 unknown things on one project, so I say thumbs up to Stan for being good enough with added flexibility.

I tried other people, but at most, they want to sell you THEIR version. And I understand. Doing too many other things that are difficult are unprofitable.

And probably $500 is a steal for what I had done so far. I guess I’m saving money by not requiring a rush job. The obvious side effect is Stan doing on the job training. And maybe a couple details to be ignored when being scatterbrained and on the fly.

4

No one cares about your handness thing anymore. Maybe if you didnt came in out of the blue and claimed everyone is doing it wrong as you cant make the high scores and moves everyone else us doing.

No one cares what’s done in the late 70s and early 80s. Its 2020 now, stop bring up Beeshu they are irreverent and deserve to be forgotten.

And nothing about your project is unknown, it’s all documented. You just have a odd custom set up that’s not seen often.

1 Like
5

I agree, at least 95% of my comments are about handedness. I don’t have much to contribute EXCEPT the right hand cause. Bit I have LOTS to say about it. I’ve been living with an artificial handicap that shouldn’t be there if the industry didn’t have a left bias to increase revenue.

Not only I have consistent performance enhancements with right stick, but when my friend was a doubter, he got blanked by 4 common friends who had no opinion before playing rightie, (so that can be considered removing the placebo factor) BLANKED MY FRIEND while rightie and as it turned out, that Blanked person later was a 2 time basic national cable video game player. Kind of like a pre-Twitch Twitch star and high level competitor. Oh what mountains can be summitted.

I’ve had 25 years of experience of being behind the 8 ball. And ironically not because of lack of awareness, but because of arcade owner greed. They WERE aware of the issue and gave a giant middle finger to game players.

We can all philosophize about why leftie were accommodated before the crash, not so after Street Fighter 2, and the arcade owner bias, and the fact that that bias leaked into the home market. But for results. Literally the only place to hot is to get it custom. And if you’re Butterfingers, DIY is hard.

One thing I did not say is EVRYONE MUST use right handed. (That’s what arcade owners do, but with left) The closest I’ve come by is saying if there are some people who are right curious, an ambidextrous model might be a good introductory model to try it right and left handed without wasting money on a custom model, and feel they’ll have a good joystick no matter which hand they prefer.

There is a difference between marketing to pros where the slightest adjustment can make someone up from local top 16 to local champ, and marketing to the general public.

I’m the only who brings up Beeshu. The only reason they went out of business is doubling 6 buttons suddenly made ambi sticks way more expensive.

Tell you what, advertise yourself as a switch pitcher in baseball. Stats say same hand matchups go to the pit her and opposite to the batter. Are you going to pitch with your bad hand just to get the statistical advantage?

No, most people use the hand they are most skilled at. Literally the only people who say yes almost equal with both hands where switching for statistical advantage is higher than any lost performance in “goofy handedness”.

Don’t trick skateboard riders intentionally do enough opposite footed moves that the term “goofy footed” is used to advocate for more points to a trick to impress score judges?

Golf gives you a choice of hands ( and in mini golf enough people switch for one shot against the wall that the “unidexterous models” of golf clubs are nowhere in site, plus it opens the clog at the right hand wait pool in the 70s and 80s)

Hockey gives you a choice of hands.

Baseball gives you a choice of hands.

Literally the only sport that doesn’t have a choice of hands is Horse Polo, to avoid horse head-on crashes and horse scares caused by that. That’s a horse safety issue and a human safety issue. And there were probably naturally right handed polo people playing left handed just to cause chaos and say up yours to your opponent.

But that had a purpose.

What’s the purpose of forcing left handedness in the arcade? I believe it arcade owner greed and collusion between owners. And that’s because it shortens credits.

Since SF2 broke sales records for automatically ending one person’s credit after losing 2 out of 3, and head to head play makes every credit one where someone is guaranteed to lose, meaning more money.

So hasn’t lines to challenge the champ made shortening the credits artificially by forcing goofy handedness, a little old fashioned and very moot?

Beeshu was making a living on ambi sticks. Authorized on NES, TG16, and Genesis. So why did they go OOB? My theory is ambi sticks with mirrored buttons makes the price gap larger when more buttons are used.

Of course my design of 180ing the stick could have saved them.

And I thought of that during the Dreamcast Era by actually 180ing an Interact DC Alloy Stick. Unfortunately the ability to cheat would make that stick illegal, even if footage shows it was honest and not utilized except as a 180 program.

I also bring up secondary issues that come with this change Not even Beeshu addressed choosing between index to index mapping and left to left mapping. So Side Arms being backwards on a Beeshu never gets addressed. Yet everyone hates the Sega Master System Joystick, but no one nails why it failed (middle finger pumping manual rapid fire, plus a lack of a left to left hand on SMS.)

With 8 buttons, it’s impossible to predict any assignment, so they allow EVERY assignment. (except a true Sega/Street Fighter layout on post Dreamcast consoles, even with fight sticks, even with Xbox OD button remapping.)

I’ve made argument why fight games could benefit from my design. When you’re a toddler people see if your left or fight handed.

If you actually DO prefer the left stick, and you had to choose between a peemium stick with whatever of combination of parts YOU define as premium, but the caveat is it must be played right stick, be and a “house stick”, (or if you hate pads) a default pad. , But got the handedness your used to, which would you choose?

I had a KY Enterprises stick. (If you ask who, … My point exactly. Btw it was a handicap stick maker Sega recommended, the forerunner to AbleGamers.). The thing was passable. The button layout wasn’t flush,nor contoured with my left button hand, it had large gaps between buttons, and in terms of durability, it lasted literally for 2 weeks before I had customer service problems if non working stick. And their idea if customer service was “solder it yourself”. Yet I and 4 others perfectly summited a national basic cable video game champ 10 years before he won big on TV.

It seems most people look at me like I a am an alien because I prefer stick right. Back then I didn’t know stick makers names. Nor button makers names, let alone preferred one over the other, nor did I have a layout preference. All I knew was right handed stick and that’s all I needed to know.

I think I might be a threat to the talk about different joystick parts and button parts the way I get yelled at. Most of you come hear because you want to improve execution, or discuss strategy, or matchup. Perfectly fine things.

But I believe left or right is a more fundemental question to answer than stick brand or button brand. Those choices are left to opinion and game play style. But usually you have to be good enough to want to inch out victories if that’s your concern, and a good concern to have.

My y point is you do not ask a 5 year old a brand of miniature golf ball to use. (S)he’ll probably pick their favorite color quicker than a brand of ball. The first thing you figure is size… Then left of right handed (Luckily most are ambis. Be free to try both)

If you never played a pre-crash game, did you even realize that a fundamental choice was taken by arcade operators and you just coped?

I had that choice, and I was aware it was slowly being taken away. It was in the back of my mind as a “what’cha gonna do?” attitude …

except then the choice wasn’t predetermined.

If I’m playing for fun, like visiting my friends, I don"t complain if they don’t have a right stick. I usually bring my own if I want to flex my muscles. But when performance matters, except for Simpsons Arcade where my strategy made me naturally better initially. and then developing muscle memory, if I had a choice, I would use a right stick. Otherwise I cope and hope everyone else is co-coping.

What advantage does forcing left sticks gave, both in arcades (assuming they’re there) and at the home market?

If you have a serious problem, like the Horse Polo rule solves, then state it. Otherwise it seems you want to use “the law” to limit competition. That sounds like a monopolist.

Now games are designed around the left hand assumption. Shooters used to be about rapid firing (or selective firing which requires a foreign concept called AIMING l, and you have to balance aiming and dodging) as well as dodging. Now the typical shooter is a “bullet hell” with 95% or skills needed is dodging ability and the “shooting skill” being 5% or less

Likewise, fighters used to be about execution percentage, and improvising if you misfire with the joystick. Now it’s about the button dancing in over engineered combos that are 50%+.

Just like politics, most people love the idea of a dictator, as long as it’s YOUR DICTATOR. The idea of pushing people around to your will sounds fun, (not to me). until you get pushed back. Both the left and right want to dictate. They alternate federal supremecy and states rights based on the the particular lay of the land, for abortion, conservative cry against big fed ruling for the whole nation, but love big fed when sanctuary City laws about the non-legal citizen issue comes up. And zero tolerance is the cry of the dictator. Reasonableness requires judgement. If that’s the case why did Mad Catz sticks all have rapid fire when rapid fire is illegal in most cases? No one was ejected for a Mad Catz stick because it COULD be used with rapid fire.