Hi all, I’m a casual fighting game fan who’s been playing for a while (I play Soul Calibur and MK) but never really taken it very seriously. I’ve recently started trying to get better and with more play time my fingers, wrists and hands hurt from using the DS4. I’ve recently ordered a Nacon Revolution Pro 2 to use but was wondering if switching to a fight stick might be a better option.
-Any opinions form more experienced players?
I am 40, and I get all sorts of issues or have had all sorts of issues
From my expirence there are certain types of pads that will give you problems for example the SNES pad always gave me problems the genesis default pad always gave me problems as did some psone pads what I tended to find was that those type of pads I tended to push a lot harder than say a pad I knew was good like say the Saturn pad or the Genesis 6 button or the dual shock2 or 3
However there’s certain types of characters no matter how good the dpad is will give your thumb grief charge characters being the main ones he’ll ive even see people say knuckle du plays guile on analog stick and I would bet it’s do to the stress it puts on your thumb play charge characters on dpad
But by the sounds of it you ain’t using no charge characters so I guess would be your king fu grip is to tight or your pressing the buttons harder than u need to
You could try a stick but again that’s not a magic solution, I see lots of people complain about say Korean back dash giving them wrist problems ect
I found that my button pressing hand would develop a nasty case of carpel tunnel if I played day after day or say I played longer than a couple of hours, I never developed any stick hand problems, but I found wearing a brace on my wrist really really helped with the pain in my button hand
But actually thinking about it now the carpel tunnel was not a stick exclusive problem I got it on pad to because I tended to rest the pad on my lap and press the button like I would on a stick
So in summary, if it’s your left thumb check u ain’t pressing the dpad to hard
If it’s ur wrists in ur left hand check how ur holding the pad maybe try changing position
If it’s pain in ur right wrist that goes into the back of ur hand, are u resting the right side of ur pad on ur lap and say simulating ur button presses to like u would a stick?
If yes I’d say buy a brace and wear it while playing it helped me a lot
If no your pressing ur buttons with ur thumb I’d say maybe try a stick or again loosen ur grip
Can’t speak for SC. I loved playing Injustice 1 and 2 and played a lot of MKXL. Plenty of modern NRS experience. All on DS4. I switched to Nacon Rev in Injustice 2 and MK and my man, it didn’t change anything. In terms of form, the Rev was much better, but only due to the placement of the left stick at the top left. I know a lot of DS4 players use d-pads and that’s what was causing hand pain, so you might wanna switch to the joystick. If nothing happens, consistently use the Nacon and test it out. Life’s about the risks. So have fun.
I know that some people would really recommend medication for that sort of stuff or braces, and because I can’t account for you, depending on the intensity and cause of the pain you may want to look into that. The world needs more people like you, so stay strong and healthy.
As for fightsticks, this one’s a bit of a thing. You’re smart enough to guess that they’re a preference thing. If you really want to get a stick, do your research. Go to arcades. Test things out. And stay safe. It’s a learning curve that’s going to be your biggest obstacle. After that, you’ll be fine in terms of gameplay, but I can’t account for your safety, which is why I recommend physical research.