I was reading a thread on hand placement just now, and someone pointed out that it might be easier for the majority of people to use the joystick with their right hand and buttons with their left, since we’re almost all right-handed. But right-handed sticks are even less common than left-handed guitars.
To right-handed players: do you think the current dominant stick layout is best for you, or do you think an inverted style would be better?
To left-handed players: is your stick hand stronger than your button hand? Which style would you prefer if given a choice?
I’m right-handed, and personally I can barely imagine using my right hand on the stick just because I’ve been doing it this way for so long. But I’d give it a shot because I think dominance is important to consider.
Personally, I wouldn’t really feel a need to try a different style from what I’m already comfortable with, because that is what I’m most likely optimal with.
I’m a lefty writer, but I throw with my right, etc. Now that I think about it, that might be what makes my left on stick, right on buttons so optimal.
experience matters more than handedness I think. like if you are left handed, try using the mouse with your left hand. feels weird. your body is good at adjusting to things.
In actuality, since the genre developed with the buttons primarily controlled by the right hand (where most people’s handedness is) it is better to have dominant hand on the buttons. As you get deeper into the genre, you’re actualyl doing more execution intensive things with the right hand.
you could try it for yourself “Mexican crosshanded style”
sigh I miss playing like that, i’m always thinking about building a left handed stick just to play crosshanded but I always get discouraged because is a stupid a idea.
Playing guitar had actually improved my ability to use my left hand. Still though, somehow I could see the stick being placed on right side being better for some folks. Somehow the stick being where it is makes it harder for me
to perform moves when facing right. I have no idea why. Maybe I just need to experiment with placement on a table or my lap or something.
I’ll have some issues driving a Japanese or British car but I guess I’ll get used to it.
I place the stick on a table (or rather tablecloth) without any standings, so I dont use any force or it will move.
I’ve never played fighters in consoles or arcades that seriously to understand their requirements.
Only few years ago was I baffled how much they had progressed.
I dont have many issues with using right hand in fighters, except a few:
doing Leona’s V-Slasher (KOF98 vanilla) facing left. that move is very difficult using right hand, while fairly doable with left.
Strangely though in Darkstalkers I can do a Tenraiha combo much easier with left fingers pressing the buttons, while a DI combo is easier with the right fingers.
I have no issues at all using the left hand with other arcade games (shmups, sports, platformers, beat-em-ups etc). Just fighters.
it seems originally the developers had no idea that fighters would get so complex in order to change the layout.
I’m left handed and ever since I started playing on a stick I’ve been thinking about this question as well. The reason I sticked with conventional stick is because I mostly play Street Fighter, which is a slower, more footsie based game. So I feel more comfortable using my dominant hand for movement.
In a game such as Marvel I can see that there will be an advantage to have your dominant hand on the buttons for those long combos. But I’m so used to it, that I won’t be able to make a switch anymore. And besides, piano players play with both hands, thus it can’t be that difficult to teach your weak hand button combinations/timings.
I used to play quite a few arcade games like that - the buttons to the left of the stick, being unused, were always in much better condition than the ones to the right…
Handedness isn’t that much of a thing. Like anything, some people will have more or less trouble, but you can teach yourself to do anything with either hand.
Since you brought up guitar, my guitar teacher in middle school was left handed but played right handed guitars because he was more comfortable letting his dominant hand work the fretboard, which generally needs strength and accuracy. That always made more sense in my head and made me question if I should get a “left handed” guitar. That is until I came to learn that I prefer fingerstyle playing where my string plucking hand needed to be fast and accurate and all I needed from my left hand was chord forms.
Anecdotes aside, anyone can learn to play on anything. A stick on the right side with buttons on the left probably aren’t going to make a huge difference to you, even if you are left handed. Even that said, I think it would be a cool option to have for stick makers simply to give people the choice. The reason most companies don’t bother is MOSTLY because there isn’t a high demand for it, but also because it’s easier and cheaper to just make the one top plate and ship out x hundred number of units. Still though, for someone just learning, maybe they want a stick on the right side, maybe that’ll be super comfortable for them, that’d be fine. It’s like when you talk to keyboard players about what layout they use, some use WASD some use arrow keys some people do QEF space bar, there’s tons of shit out there. That’s probably the major upside to playing on keyboard, you can use whatever layout you want and the keyboard accommodates it.
It’s the same story when using a pick. I’ve been playing for about 15 years now, and once I got into advanced techniques like sweep picking and fast alternate picking, the picking hand became the limiting factor. Having 4 points of contact to work with per note requires vastly less speed and precision than 1, especially considering the size of a fingertip that you’re merely pressing down with compared with the tiny tip of a pick you have to swing in a very particular way so as not to hit the other strings.
