Why aren’t stick players then subject to the same thing? They chose a device that has the advantages they want, but the disadvantage is that it maps to 2 fierces instead of RH, too bad, why give them an edge to make it even? Noone forces anyone to play on anything, they chose it that way.
I am sorta confused, are you saying that pad players have chose a controller that automatically maps PPP and KKK to a button, so that should be considered an advantage of that controller?
In the end, game designers WANTED PPP or KKK or KK or PP (etc) moves to be multiple button presses when the game was originally designed. Changing that changes the dynamics of a game when it is ported over to console. The fact that it has been included in the CONSOLE version, and evo is a CONSOLE tournament, is the best argument there is that the macros should be allowed (and in fact have already been stated to be allowed). It is, however, like changing a 360 motion to a hcb motion, it just takes away a little bit of the skill needed to play the game as it was originally intended.
Actually, I’m kinda interested to know this: If I take my PS2 controller to a T5 arcade machine with controller ports and play, does it have the macro buttons built in as well?
I haven’t tried it but I doubt it.
Hi I will provide two obvious special case as to why shoulder buttons are not allowed in tekken:
Tekken Tag:
Side step is faster on shoulder buttons.
On a ps dual shock pad with the 360 sticks(if it can be called a stick), one can use the right stick to tag out. Now most people just use the shouler buttons to tag out, but very few people(like me) use that stick to tag out. I would consider it a slight advantage if I have one extra shoulder button than everyone.
It’s just sort of stuck around.
Second off, tekken 5 cabinets have NO macro buttons, just the directional pad or stick, start and the 1,2,3,4 buttons are mapped, the rest are ignored.
Third, it takes time to configure all the buttons, but it is allowed at this point. The default mapping in tekken tag is all macro buttons are ‘change’ or tag out. I dunno about now, but before I would set all but one to off because I would ranomly hit them while mashing buttons.
In tekken 5, no button configurations are allowed, a default mapping is assigned.
Since it is probably easier to use a shoulder button to do various 2 or 3 or 4 button combinations, one might say this makes the people’s games more consistent(less reliable on technical skill), however what about the communities and players who practice at arcades because that is where the skill is? They’ll have little or no experience of using shoulder buttons in game.
And of course the opposite argument has already been applied, what about the communities and players who practice only on console because that is where the skill is? And they mostly tend to use the shoulder buttons.
To make the technical proficiency required as even as possible, so far we have not allowed the use of shoulder buttons. I’ve never seen a serious tournament player complain about not being able to use shoulder buttons. I’ve only seen scrubs at arcades complain about not being able to use shoulder buttons, but they’ll whine anyways even with shoulder buttons. I switched away from pads after finding out how accurate a stick is.
Also the tekken 5 sticks have 8 buttons plus start/select, so they have the capability of having the same macro buttons as pads.
edit:
LOL I forgot, I am against macro buttons, period.
Don’t alot of T5 cabs have a plug for a ps2 pad? I know the one where I live does. Does that map macros to the shoulders when plugged in? I’m not sure if it does or not but if it does then Tekken players who want macros might make an arguement out of it.
From the two posts above yours…
Plus, there’s no need to really make an argument, it was already said that they are planning on allowing macros.
This is amusing, since on a PS2 controller with default mapping for CvS2 it only takes your thumb and forefinger to do a PPP move. (Thumb on square, triangle… forefinger on R1)
Or just a thumb since PPP moves can “cheat” with just 2 buttons.
Really now I think the main concerns over this whole thing involves slightly more “complicated” coordination like that of a RC, where you have the
joystick/d-pad execution ------------------------Jab/Short and a third button
on the left ------------------------ on the right
Of course “drumming” your fingers across the board for RC electricities or slappy hands would be much simpler on a stick, if at all possible on a d-pad (which it is… I’ll get to that)
Allowing pad players to use default macros as described isn’t going to change general concepts like that.
I was an almost exclusive pad player at first, and I wasn’t too comfortably with the transition from pad to arcade because I practiced on a pad, not a stick. So of course I’d loose right?
So I forked over 80 bucks and bought one. I must’ve spend 100 prior to looking for a descent one, most out there are crap.
There are alternatives though, I can’t carry that hulking joystick everywhere I go. There’s that “Udon” pad made last year or so, it’s an awesome pad, and it allows you to “drum” your fingers on it all for the low, low price of … hell I forgot. Less than a good stick though.
Those pads (got 2) are nearly perfect response wise. Actually there was an article on here not too long ago comparing them to the infamous stick from the Dreamcast.
Well being on a warship I got some good muscle memory training for my right fingers, knowing when I got back home I’d be fine at the arcade (though all I play on the ship were scrubs and like they say train as you fight, fight as you train)
Guess the point being if they’re serious about winning there are alternatives to complaining.
It’s been a while - I saw inkblots post and saw everything was over and also in macro’s favor. **This is truly good news. **
I just want to address some comments though people have made.
I don’t think so. Pad players are at a disadvantage already, and this works for both pad players and stick players (if the stick can handle it). Once again, it’s no problem if it cant, because you are already at a hardware advantage with a stick.
It doesn’t take skill to hit two buttons plus a shoulder on a pad - unless you count hand contortion as skill, along with a a *significant *chance to miss. So I have to plunk down 60+ (minimum, more like 100+) for a stick to get a 100% success
rate? This sounds like less skill required to me; in fact, it sounds like buying it to a degree. Can you imagine trying to hit 3 face buttons on a pad at once with a 100% success ratio without some sort of odd way of holding the controller? This isn’t as important in SF unless you change your buttons, but it can be. In other games like Tekken, for example, with Bryan, it’s just something you have to do over and over. I favor sticks as much as the next guy, but sticks are simply easier than pads to do virtually all moves on, and the majority of these moves are multi-button presses that are not as easy to do on a pad. This is not even considering 360’s, 720’s, and the so forth.
But they *did *make it that way. They made it that way on consoles. Buying a stick should not be a prerequisite for playing a fighting game; I imagine macro buttons are there mainly so that those moves that are vastly easier to do on a stick are capable of being done on a pad. Afterall, if someone had to have a stick to “play a game probperly” this would limit the audience and be economically inviable for a company. So companies *did *make it that way for a reason.
That’s a cool avatar, btw.
See my reply to Gaijinblaze. In addition, the tools you mention are exterior to the game itself, played on a console. If you have to buy a stick to be good, then in some ways that is a handicap given to you, having been bought flat out with money. Macros are there in part so that you dont have to do this.
Sheer ignorance.
Your argument is the equivalent of one stick player saying to another with a lesser stick that they are using a crappy joystick, so that’s the price they pay. This is inequitable nonsense.
Lots of methods reduce the margin of error. Having a stick, for example, reduces the margin of error. However, any player worth his salt will not miss a 3 button press/2 button press on a stick. That would simply be a lack of skill in most cases. It’s nearly 100%. And, as you alluded to, it’s a struggle on the pad to do the same, and there is still a much larger margin of error being created (*artificially *created if you are of the view that sticks are the original way and true way to play a fighting game.) Your method comment brings out a point I am have been trying to hammer home here - should one have to use several different methods, which are no doubt abnormal (I have seen people litterally tilt their pad on the side, or tilt it on the side mid-match, only to return again, hover their hand over the pad , and so forth.) in order to hit moves on a pad that you can hit damn easily on a stick? I don’t think so; you just solidify a pad players disadvatage by doing so.
Unfortunately I do not play GG so these comments are from the view of Sf Series/Tekken Series player. However I responded because some of your comments were universally applicable.
While I agree with most of your comments, the people as a whole comment is just ensuring a failing status quo. This type of community, the hardcore community, and in my biased opinion - skilled fighting game community - isn’t getting much larger, while games like SC and DOA gain ground all the time. We alienate these players and, in turn, hurt ourselves in doing so in the long run. Running things by arbitrary raising of hands on will lead to problems, as I am sure you agree. And this issue is an arbitrary one - disallowing macros has no real basis I have seen so far except an arbitrary decision based on what people feel about arcade ports and their supposed “true nature.”
Your premise four and 2 are the same thing and do not consitute a reply; rather, it is being stubborn. The very same stubborn reply you give to the pad user who “chooses” to play on a pad can be given to a stick user who “chooses” not to get a new stick with extra buttons for macros. If stick players want to drill more holes to get extra buttons, then by all means, let them. And if they whine otherwise, tell them to get a pad. Now that’s something I doubt they would be willing to do even though that choice is something everyone of us haves if we simply own the system.
Something else that would be beyond most stick users, myself included, is that you could always give up a button to get a macro. No more medium punch, for example, instead, now I have MP+MK. Of course, it’s their choice not to do so…
As you can probably gather this choice argument is really fallacious. Your version has the assumption the non-macro stick player is correct from the get go, but it can just as easily be turned back around on your positon, especially since macros can be used by anyone - stick or pad.
Mapping KKK to one button is nothing like making a 360 an hcb motion. No game that I know of does that except MvC1 in the arcade on easy mode. Which is built in and knowingly has it’s incredible share of disadvantages. No one is suggesting that route. I even doubt that one day that would ever be a built in macro function as they would just change the move sequence then; why make a macro to override something you built in in the first place? They won’t make a macro for a spinning pile driver before changing the move’s command’s itself to simply be easier to perform - it doesn’t make sense to do otherwise. In any case, no macros that I am considering here are command macros. Those are elements of programmable pads/sticks.
While I cant speak on TTT, this is just factually incorrect - check your options screen. They are there, alright.
Arcade versions almost always precede the console version; everyone can learn along with the console version. And when it doesn’t then everyone still can because everyone who has a system has a pad. We aren’t talkin about arcade machines either or recreating the “arcade experience;” we are talking about a console tournament.
The counter argument… to your experience based… argument… is within your own words.
Thanks for the comments all, especially FMJaguar and others (I am glad to see we are on the same page!) and I am happy to see that Evo will allow macros this year. (My reply comments here are 10 pages double spaced in Word. :()
Now just to update the site to make it official…
your an idoit… ignorance? You realize I play GG on pad and I dont cheat and I do just fine.
This is what you said in your post:
I already addressed this problem in my post, which you dismissed because you didn’t like what I said. You say "The very same stubborn reply you give to the pad user who “chooses” to play on a pad can be given to a stick user who “chooses” not to get a new stick with extra buttons for macros. " And you are correct. Except I don’t know of any stick users who are going to be upset if they aren’t allowed to drill extra buttons for macros, but I know a ton of pad users who are upset if they aren’t allowed extra help in the form of a macro.
You see that phrase? Extra help. Thats what a macro is, extra help.
You said it yourself, by mapping PPP to a button, you eliminate the error of messing up double button presses. In that, you make it 100% sure of coming out. Even if stick users only have a 99.999999% chance of it coming out, you are still giving yourself an ADVANTAGE, not an EQUALIZER, in this case.
It’s EXACTLY the same thing, only to a different degree. Turning a move that originally takes three buttons to be pressed at the same time into a one button press, and turning a move that takes a full rotation of the joystick into one that only takes a half rotation. What’s the difference?
And I call BS on you saying it’s easier to do motions on a stick than a pad. When was the last time somebody had a hard time finding the diagonals on a pad?
Clayton is right about GG though. If people can play eddie on pad without mapping a macro then you can play that entire game without macros. The only character that I honestly don’t see anyone play in GG on pad is I-no. Overall in GG most people just use their thumb over X square and triangle to RC/FRC. No need to macro anything in GG imho.
Just something to think about I guess.
Sure, macros are extra help to a degree. But so is having a stick in the first place. However, it is most certainly an equalizer because BOTH parties can do it. I think you keep skipping over this. Surely you would agree that an even an 80% rate of success on a pad and 99% rate on a stick is an unfair advantage to the stick. That’s a 1/5 screw-up ratio. This equalizes what is clearly a hardware advantage of the stick. This is not to say the stick doesnt take skill to use, but the pad has physical limitations due to design.
Also… on a stick you can have certain types of gates that allow you to easily find the diagonals. Maybe they could choose to upgrade their stick? :wgrin: Really though, do you really think performing moves on a stick is harder than performing moves on a pad? Recall I said better in *almost *everyway, too, I might add. If you really think performing moves on a pad is the same as a stick then we are simply starting from different assumptions. I don’t think many would agree with that position though.
But the hcb comment really is fallacious: have you seen a game that allows this yet? To my knowledge, I haven’t even seen it without severe handicaps in return. They may be equivalent on extremely abstract levels, but in practice, they are extremely different. The primary difference though is that we are dealing with specifically macro buttons (multiple button presses) and not macro commands or what is usually called *programmable *commands. Macro buttons and programmable commands are different and the slipperly slope argument doesn’t work if you just distinguish between the two, which everyone here is capable of doing, because they really are conceptually different (and in some 3d games, because of analog control schemes, physically different as well).
I am not sure what comments you thought I didn’t address “because I didnt like them” but if you point them out I will address them. It is more likely that you didn’t like my response however, in which case you can still point it out and I’ll try to elaborate.
Dialupsucky… It’s great that you play GG. Good for you. It’s also good to hear that you don’t cheat. Keep up the good work. 
Playing on “stick” is extra help? Its what Street Fighter was meant to be played on, so it makes sense that it works more efficiently for the games. Really now, all this sounds like is a bunch of cheap ass pad players.
On certain pads that only have 4 directions it can be troublesome to hit the diagonals.
Jesus some of you folks just don’t want to let go.
Like it’s a slap in the face to all of you who bothered to do it the hard way, pointing and crying at the kids who supposedly take the easy way out.
I’m a pad player myself and (Fuck, I play GG and I don’t even change the buttons to accomdate for a damn thing, I physically press 3 face buttons) I can play fine on stick, but the way many of you treat this arguement is really deplorable, no matter how many times it’s brought up.
Don’t bring up the Japanese either. This is our tournament, not theirs. We don’t have the luxury of walking down the street and sitting into one of 15 head to head cabinets in a building full of fucking games.
Ah well.
Never really read this thread until now, thanks to Chibi bumping it up. I just have to say that I’m against Macros. They DO make things easier, more than just equalizing things. I’ll give a few examples:
Having Macros to do a Roman Cancel on Guilty Gear makes life MUCH easier to do certain Combos. On a pad with a Roman Cancel Macro, it is much easier to do certain Combos than on a Joystick without Macros. For example, performing Johnny’s Stand Kick (Jump Install) -> Hard Slash into DP + Slash + Follow-up and Roman Cancel into finishing the Air Combo is waaaaaay easier with a Macro. In fact, most Blue Roman cancels, at least for me, are much easier to time when I don’t have to think about hitting 3 buttons at the same time. If a pad player gets that sort of advantage, I want Roman Cancel Macros when I use a joystick, too!
Another example? Kara Throws. I dunno if it is just me, but I can do Kara Throws with a Macro Throw button 90% better when I have the Macro. Chun Li, for example, requires some tricky finger twister games even on a joystick set up. So it’s not as easy to do as some other Kara Throws. But with a Throw Macro button, her Kara Throws become dead easy (yes, experts on a stick rarely miss it anyhow, but with a Macro, it requires even less effort).
And I think the example of Magneto’s Air Dash Infinite is a good one as well. Having a button dedicated to Air Dashing seems as if it would make the combo far easier to perform.
I dunno, it just seems to me that if you allow Macros for Pad players, then Joystick users, if they have extra buttons, should be allowed them too. It’s only fair. But I’m more for neither having it. Actually, I’ll revise that a bit: I’m okay with it so long as it is just PPP or KKK mapped. Those are naturally disadvantaged on a pad, given button layouts. But Throw Macros, Roman Cancel Macros, and PP or KK Macros, I think should not be allowed.
- James
I think everyone is on the same page that it should be for everyone if it’s for pad players. At least that’s what I get from Inkblot’s post. My posts are quite long since my arguments have been quite long, but the short of my view is that is that a ban is arbitrary (at this point), it makes things more equitable for the pad player, and it’s better in many ways for the community ( forwardly speaking) amongst a few other things.
I don’t think macros for MvC2 are a problem considering you ‘lose’ a button if you map it out to something. So, if you map out A1 to equal PP then you lose A1 etc.
PPP is all I really need. From that I do PPP + LK for throw, PPP + MK for Surprise Blow, and thats about it. So I still be pressing 2 buttons, and tagging is still the regular HP+HK.
I disagree with the premise that macros are for pad players or some equalizer, the main issue to me is “why are we messing with the config screen in the first place?”. There are only two stances IMO that make sense:
- Don’t use the config screen at all.
- Don’t touch the config screen at all.
#1 is infeasable, so the only option is to go with #2. Why would you make special rules for the config screen of all things? then turn around and tell players that we don’t believe in changing the game anytime we feel like it. Is the config screen broken like ST Akuma? Or is it a minor inconvience that noone will care about 6 months from now?