My name is Thelo, and I approve of this post.
You don’t have to replace the whole stick. You can just fit the stock stick with a bat top and octo gate if you like. But honestly, I (as well as most others, I’d imagine) would recommend just replacing the stick with a Sanwa.
How much does a stick generally run?
Lol shari, I think its hilarious that he did that, anyone know where that thread is? I need to brighten my day up. 
~About $25.
Only premium members have access to those threads. But you’re not missing much; it’s pretty sad.
:arazz: I’m not invited! :lol:
Coth_X…i just checked to see if the restrictor plate will be an even swap and the answer is kinda…
there are 4 plastic clips that hold the plate to the stick and on the madcatz one, these clips are slightly fatter. the hole where these clips insert is ever so slighly larger to accomodate this in the madcatz one as well. but!.. it would be very easy to take a nail file and thin down the clips so that the sanwa plate will click in. it was a real bitch to the get the plate off the madcatz, but not the sanwa one. so…they could use the thinning down anyway.
heres what they look like right next to each other…
what the clips look like after youve taken off the restrictor…this picture is of the sanwa stick. you can tell they are thinner than the clips in the next post, which is of the mad catz with a file on it…
and where exactly it needs to be filed. i went through the prcess just to be sure it works and it definitly does. oddly enough the madcatz plate WILL NOT fit onto the sanwa stick cause of one very small differnce. but it doesnt matter the other way around. just so you know…even after doing this, the original plate goes back on just fine, so if you change your mind about the gate…you can just as easily go back to the original one without any worries.
Would it be easier to just replace the stick then? Filing. . . I don’t trust myself doing something like that.
Hey mikeidge, long time no play. Just FYI, you can upload photos to imageshack without registering or anything, and it’ll let you resize them and give you a url to each one so that you can display them easily like my shots of my TE stick a few posts back . Just copy the URL it gives you each time and paste them all into your post with the image tool from SRK. Give it a try, it’s the easiest way i found to put multiple photos in a single post. The ones i posted below are each resized to 320x240.
I just lubed my sticks. They are silky smooth now.
I am soooo turned on.
Try it sometime, it’s amazing:
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=199308
P.S. Mack. Our sticks are identical. Only difference is I’m rockin’ the good ol’ square on the inside.
Coth_x…it is ridiculously easy to file it down. id say get the SE stick, the sanwa octo gate, and try my method before you drop the $ on a new stick. obviously i think the sanwa is better than the stock one, but the stock is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
Damn you and your logic!
Since I’m joystick stupid, could you put arrows to where I’m filing down?
I took a few when I was putting in my octagonal gate:
It’s been working out great; my execution has really been a lot better. My only problem is that the battop keeps unscrewing. I think it’s just not getting all the way on tightly enough because the shaft itself will spin when I screw it on. Any pointers?
Just saw this now, sorry for the late response, but if it’s still doing this you need to open up the top of your stick and use the flat head screw in the bottom of the shaft (on the underside of the joystick mountings, right in the centre of this picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joe_koch/4051637102/in/set-72157622678483026/) to hold it steady while you screw on the bat top. Hold one steady while the other turns, so you can get enough purchase to tighten it up properly. You’ll be forever trying to get the bat top to stay on if you hand tighten it without opening up your casing and preventing the shaft from spinning, it will never get enough bite to secure itself permanently.
If you need a hand holding the bat top firmly or need it tighter than hand tight you can use a pair of soft jaws if you have one, or a vice grips or large pliers with a towel wrapped round them(to protect the bat top’s plastic) if you don’t, but really, ordinary hand pressure should be enough to do it once you’re using a screwdriver to stop the shaft from spinning.
I tried to lean a stick a while ago. Decided to start out with an EX2. Didn’t go well.
My general game was Ok but slower. While DP’s were just as easy as before (probably easier), for some reason I struggled with fireballs. I had considered buying a higher quality stick and giving it a second chance with an octo gate, but I don’t want to get used to an octo gate, simply because square seems to be the defacto standard. In other words, I didn’t want to invest time learning a certain type of stick, where arcades and such use a different type. If I lean, it has to be on the most popular type.
I did find it more enjoyable using stick, but I don’t have much faith in it (or myself?). As crap as the 360 controller/D-pad is, I’m not convinced that I will be able to execute faster on a stick. Certainly more consistently as I do sometimes screw up motions with how unresponsive the D-pad is, but I just can’t see it from a speed perspective.
Well ST a joystick is required, but HDR I would say no because it was designed for players that use a controller in mind while ST is an arcade game created strictly around the use of an arcade stick.
Combo requirements arent that high either, the combos that do tons of damage generally take a couple of times in practice mode. When and where to use these combos is the most important part of the game.
Quoted from voltech in the Good games thread:
Then mod it. It really isn’t that big a deal to buy the octo gate & parts just try it out. You can usually switch back really quickly and easily. I bought a TE and instantly felt the square gate was wrong for me, purely because the horizontal and verticals felt wierd with no “snap” and i was jumping when i didn’t want to and getting killed because of it. I also blanked off the 3p and 3k easy mode buttons and changed the ball top to a bat top (there are pictures of the mod page or 2 back in this thread). It feels sweet now, and i still use it sometimes, but i ultimately decided i was a pad warrior in any case. Just for the tiny payoff i would get in extra advanced techniques like pianoing reversals etc for having to completely re-learn 18 years of pad skills from scratch, it wasn’t worth the loss in execution i was going to have to put up with for probably a year or more, at a time when my fave game (HDR) has a bustling online community. I figured i would just spend that year enjoying the game and improving all round while still trying my hardest to improve at the areas that were naturally weak in my pad game.
I know what you mean about frustration, and it’s particularly difficult if you’ve gotten good with a pad, rather than just being a basic level player without too much to lose if you bring your game back top the start. I couldn’t handle going back to beginner level after 18 years and getting trampled by guys i knew i could easily beat on a pad, and falling for stuff i could see coming a mile away but hadn’t got the execution on a stick to counter effectively enough. It was soul destroying, and i was going to end up not enjoying the game because of it. I just decided that for what i was giving up execution wise from switching, there just wasn’t enough payoff in having to re-learn the stick.
I can fight well with a stick, but honestly i’m still nowhere near as dangerous as i am with a pad, and that’s after nearly a year of practicing with one. It really is personal preference though. Don’t buy the eletist bullshit “stick only” attitude and frustrate the hell out of yourself to try to learn if a stick keeps just feeling “wrong” to you. Although the game WAS designed for stick, not everybody who uses a stick is on the level of daigo, and conversely, not everybody who uses a pad is a beginner.
Use whatever feels best for your game, and balance off what you feel you could gain by learning a stick versus what you could lose in enjoyment and frustration over the time you feel it could take you to get there.
The funny thing is that I’m a stick player and I grew up playing on Happ sticks. I converted over to the Korean sticks because they use the same actuator design but in a smaller form factor. I wanted to cross over to the Japanese sticks because they are the standard and I felt outdated playing my custom sticks. But I am a stick builder so I can use any stick I want. I may end up building a custom actuator for the Japanese sticks with the help of one of our own plexi guys but thought I’d give the old square gate a good run. I honestly don’t know how anyone can play on those things. I mean the mix up game is so confusing I’ll have to start taking advantage of that more often lol On my custom sticks I have no trouble blocking high and low very quickly but with the square gate blocking high was very difficult and I seemed to jump away or into an attack more often than blocking it. I’m going to keep at it for a while until I get the JLF actuator perfected then I’ll sell em and make my millions 
lol I wish 