I use keyboard to play fightings for like more than 10 years, last 6 of them online. Owning alot of people on it ^^. Dont believe if someone says gamepad is better, etc; once you learn to fight on keyboard it can become crucial because 1)Faster input due to more fingers used at same time - lesser time to waste on finger movement, 2)Fingers tire less, 3)Crucial for characters who need inputs without diagonals. The so-called “problem” of keyboard is unability to press too big number of buttons at same time, but that depends on which keyboard you use, and most keyboard users will use button shortcuts anyway (2 or 3 attack buttons press at once assigned to 1 key of keyboard)
Btw when owning people on online services accessible from PC (such as GGPO and 2DF), many have excuse that their “gamepad broke” and they use keyboard, and I say “Hows the hell its an excuse if I just owned you on keyboard?” and everyone is “Whoa, Shroud plays on keyboard?”. So funny to hear it again and again but really, I can do 720 on keyboard if needed, without much problem
JohnGrimm, never give up hope! I had this made for me to get into the Colorado tournament scene in Street Fighter IV on consoles. Like you, I only play on keyboard and I only play one character, so I had to figure out a way to play on keyboard on consoles or else I’d never be able to play for real. Before I got this, I had to play by crisscrossing my hands and putting the pad on the ground. It’s interesting that keyboard users are able to do that. Has anyone else tried that?
The directional buttons are based on the arrow keys on the keyboard. Are you like that? You can play on consoles just as well if you have a stick like mine made; the keyboard might be a little cheaper, though, but I think I like the “stick” better after all.
RIGHT-HANDED CONTROLS! I would rather use an actual keyboard rather than arcade buttons just for the feel, but really, I don’t think using a stick over a controller would yield that different of results, so I’m going to go with something that would work AND is cheap. I would hate to get a stick, botch the mod job, and waste money.
Most X360 controllers (pads or sticks) work automatically on the PC since Microsoft makes both Xbox and Windows. The new X360 Madcatz fightsticks and pads plug straight into a PC and autodetect the driver.
So you don’t have to play your MAME and GGPO games with the keyboard. I was surprised how consequently I could pull off hcf, qcf and dragonpunch motions on my keyboard when testing some old MAME fighters. But wouldn’t rely on it in matches.
On GGPO I encounter tons of people that do. The only time I do it is when I’m at school, since I can’t bring a stick. Except I am so not use to it, and my execution is horrible so I’ve stopped. Insanely difficult for me actually.
I am using keyboard to play GGXX #R online, which is pretty much the only fighting game I play.
There are fery few things which can’t be pulled off by keyboard.
Maybe I will try out the one line arrangement, cause now I play with an fps arrangement, and moves with TK shoryuken move are very hard to pull off this way.
I am a keyboard player as well. It can be pretty difficult to find a decent keyboard that doesn’t have issues. $100 logitech “gaming” keyboards, $80 M$ keyboards, most of them still have issues with keys locking/blocking/ghosting. I typically try out every keyboard I can to see which ones will work for a fighter, and the vast majority of ones available today, expensive or not, have issues.
Cheap-o logitech console keyboards can be surprising. I have a Playstation 2 USB keyboard from them that allows 6 buttons to be pressed at once. I also have a 17 year old IBM PS/2 keyboard that allows 7 buttons at once. And the Razer Tarantula, although pretty spungy, allows 10 at once (but costs way too much money).
As far as building you’re own, I’ve seen at least one “keybox” in the wild. A wooden box about the size of a standard 1 player arcade stick (but a little less deep) with Cherry keyswitches and caps mounted to the surface wired to a PSX pad. If you can figure out a good way to mount the keys to the box, its pretty much the best way to play on a pseudo-keyboard at a tournament since you would actually be using a keyboard. And if you can figure out a good way to do it that you’d be willing to produce for others, I, for one, would buy one immediately :lol:
I’ve messed around with a keyboard where all the buttons are attached to one giant PCB (as opposed to the sheets of plastic most modern keyboards use). I wired it up to a PSX pad and it worked decently, but something about the way I did seems to fry PCBs. But thats an issue with my work I believe. If you can find an old keyboard like that its a pretty solid way to make something to take to tournies.
For those asking about 360s and 720s, it just takes practice. 360s are really not that bad. 720s can be a pain depending on your setup. A few folks have mentioned different layouts of the directions. On emu its real easy to set up WASDF where W and F are both up. In that case to do a 360 you tilt your hand a little so when you press down with your wrist your fingers hit the buttons in sequence. Its easier than pad. But even if you keep it with WASD, with a little practice the 360s will be very easy to do.
I use a rather cheap keyboard, but for the most part I don’t see too many issues. But you were mentioning keyboards that allow X amount of inputs, that is a half fallacy, because the matrices on a keyboard can have quite a decent amount of inputs at one time, the problem is which keys you are trying to use at once.
If I do ever get my Konsole Keyboard together, I was always thinking right from the start that I wouldn’t mind assembling them for people, and I would do it for free if they sent me the parts. I was always originally planning on using VERY old keyboards for the response and the feel of the keys for optimal usage.
Now on to the circle rotations. All I can really say is just practice it. Try as much as you can to smooth out your motions. I suppose that the best way you should think of this as a keyboard user would be not as a 360 motion, but rather something along the lines of a :hcf: :uf: :ub:.
The secret with 360s that I find is that you only need to have the system register the input of all four points (Left, Down, Right, Up) done smoothly. It doesn’t need to be an actual full circle motion. Think of it as a 270 instead…
I want to build a custom pad in a future that is basically Q/W/E/A/S/D/up/left/down/right. I think keyboard is the way to go, they sound great and feel great. The only drawback for keyboard for me is that I can’t do 720s and it’s pretty difficult to do 360. Everything else, I play best on keyboard.
That’s a good point. The layout I use is WASD for directions and UIOJKL + spacebar for the buttons (spacebar is run in UMK3 for me). And the vast majority of keyboards I try don’t allow me to hold :down: + :left: and press 2 attack buttons at the same time. The cheap-o Logitech I like allows any 6 buttons except arrow keys which are more limited. The old IBM I like allows any 7 on the whole thing. And the Razer allows any 10 on the whole thing. The Logitech gaming keyboards I tried had a realistic limit of 3 or 4 keys at once. Same with any of the nicer microsoft ones. Any HP/Compaq, Dell and Apple pack-in keyboards I’ve used in the past couple of years have been unacceptable for fighting games unless you move the buttons farther apart (WASD for directions plus home, insert, page down, etc for attacks). But the mileage does vary depending on your layout.
