For the most part all the threads i’ve read are about people complaining that the conversion is way too difficult, or their just not willing to put forth the effort. I’d like people to share their own personal experiences with their conversion to the joystick i.e. length of time it took to master, if they initially felt hopeless things of that nature etc etc. I got my joystick wensday and my god did it feel impossible to do moves. I’ve put a lot of effort into it and i can pull off about 90% of my hadokens, 30% of my shoryukens. I’m having a bit of trouble with my srk’s, but listening to the clicks is helping me fix that. When i initially started out i couldn’t pull off any moves so in 2-3 days i’ve had a vast improvement.
just practice… don’t be impatient, some may learn faster than others. How many threads concerning this do we need?
I adapted from the ps2 controller to the 360 controller aswell. Believe it or not im better with the 360 analog stick than i am with the ps2 dpad…
It took me about 2-3 days to convert over to a stick. Then my sanwa parts came in and it felt amazing…
I was used to American style very stiff joysticks, playing thirdstrike for years on those… I transferred over to pad pretty quickly (6 button fightpad style) for casual third strike, but then it took me well over a month (maybe 2) to get used to japanese sanwa joystick for sf4 =(
Muscle memory is the key, and to do that, you need to practice, practice, practice (by yourself in Training, or with someone else). When you reach the point where you can perform moves effortlessly without having to think about the actual motions, then you’ve successfully made the transition over.
I got my arcade stick when Soulcalibur 4 came out so even though at first I had to get used to it for 3D fighting games, when it came to 2D games I had to learn all over again.
For the most part I’d say sticks make charge characters way easier to play. It’s especially great when trying to pull off Guile or Vega’s super/ultras. So my game has improved massively with half the cast.
However, for the other characters I’d say my game got a little bit worse. Surprisingly I have more trouble doing a fireball motion on the stick than I do a SRK motion.
As a result of getting a stick I’ve pretty much abandoned playing characters like the shotos or Cammy and Fei Long. Now I play with Vega, Bison, Balrog, Honda mostly and if I stick with them I’d say the stick has improved my game at least twice over. I win a good 70% of my matches online where as before the stick I’d probably have trouble with simple shoto scrubs.
My EX2 is starting to wear out though I think and now I’m looking to get a HRAP but I can’t find one anywhere!
Alright, my experience is probably on the long side of things because I don’t play enough on a constant basis.
I started playing fighting games when I was 8, and I think my first game was Mortal Kombat.
Shortly afterward, I went on to Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat 3, Samurai Showdown, King of Fighters, Street Fighter Zero 3, and Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure when I was in Japan for 3 years.
After I came back to the States, I tried some Tekken 3, Gundam Battle Assault 1 & 2, Dead or Alive 2, Guilty Gear XX, Soul Calibur 2, Tekken 5, and Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution.
Up until this point, my experience has been a very casual one.
I used pads (except for when I was at arcades getting my ass kicked), just mashing the heck out of it.
The only times I felt like I knew what I was doing was with SFZ3, JJBA, and GGXX.
Then I got my first stick last year, which makes it 12 years since I started playing fighting games.
The first month was nothing but frustration.Even pulling off QCFs was a struggle for me during practice.
There is no magical step into making the transition from pad to a stick (unless you go to the arcades a lot?).
You just simply have to spend tons of time with the stick to know where the clicks are, and practice input accuracy.
It takes time to erase a muscle memory that has been engraved for so long, even if it is an incorrect one.
I’m not sure how other people feel about this, but I think it’s also important to practice inputs from both sides.
Because I played casually for about 12 years, I tended to play on the left side.
This still gives me some problems when I’m on the right and need to do HCF/HCB inputs.
After practicing with my stick for this past year, I feel confident enough to play on a stick more so than a pad.
The accuracy is higher, there is less stress on my left thumb, and I can do piano key style input for supers far easier on the stick.
Recently, I’ve been playing Arcana Heart, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, KOF 98/2K2 remakes, SF3s, and SFIV.
Playing those games with or without a stick makes a huge difference for me now.
For me, this was proof that games designed to play with a stick should be played with one.
tl;dr=less QQ, practice more QCFs.
And here I thought this was about building a custom joystick using a pad’s PCB heh.
Anyway, I always played a lot of arcade games so I’ve always felt comfortable with a joystick. Never used a single pad that I’d prefer over a good joystick…
Well, mine is shorter but yeah, it was not an easy transition. I don’t know just how long I simply stuck to playing Chun Li in Super Turbo. I slowly started practicing with Ryu.
Now, after 4-5 months on and off play I feel pretty good, my SRKs tend to give me problems still (and mostly on the left side no less :wtf: ) and in tight situations I tend to botch the super.
But I have been gradually improving, building the muscle memory takes time, the older the longer. But I’m now more confident with a stick than I ever was with a pad. Thanks to GGPO I’m now also a better player than I ever was and I’ve hit 30 now.
So don’t fret, just keep using that thing and over time it will become something you don’t wanna miss anymore. 
i’m 24 and i’ve pretty much concluded if i’ve been playing SF by myself since i was 8 then i’ll be playing when im 50. i was the only kid that liked sf everyone moved on when the fad was over but i bought all tha alphas and whatever sf i could get. i never got into tekken or mortol kombat they were not my taste, snk fighters i thought were great but not sf great. but the main reason is we have as huge arcade in host onso i want to perfect my skills and go own dudes in person…more satisfying than beating some random person online
I basically used to be an arcade rat back in the day, but that stopped when I was about 13. So, six years of SF on controller, now I’m back to stick. It took me a while, but now I’m pulling off moves and combos I couldn’t do on pad.
I’ll be at honest, the first day I had my SE Fightstick I was really frustrated that I couldn’t do my moves on command and it was just extremely difficult to play at first. It definitely takes some practice to get used to, and even now I won’t say I completely used to it. I feel like a lot of the learning curve has to do with getting adjusted to the square gate versus an octagonal or circular gate. Like I said, even now I’m not 100% adjusted to it but there has definitely been an increase in my ability to play and I am now able to do my moves more on command.
I got good enough on a pad that I could do all the SF EX Plus Alpha expert mode combos with a pad. I had absolutely no experience with sticks (except for a couple games at the arcade very rarely) until I got one at the beginning of the year. It took me 2-4 weeks before I could do everything on a stick I could do on a pad.
I feel having a stick is more precise than a pad, and it’s more comfortable. Charge characters and 360 characters don’t hurt my thumb too much. I’m not sure if I can do anything on a stick that I couldn’t do on a pad, but it’s more pleasant and getting easier access to all the buttons is a huge plus.
I just got my first stick last week and I never imagined the learning curve would be so steep. The worst part about it is that different games tend to vary in what they will accept for a certain motion (like SF4 you can wiggle the stick from down, to down left/right and it will srk, but this is not possible in KOF XI, etc).
Anyway, I’ve been putting away hours into training modes (3S, SF4, KOF XI). My BP was down to 34 at one point. However, I am getting better. I’d like to get to a point where I can pull of moves atleast 95% of the time. Right now I’m struggling with things like akuma’s air FBs and SRKs on the right side. Double QCF is also a problem but mainly in juggles/combos (can do it most of the time by itself).
The worst part though… my PS3 drive just stopped working today. So I’m gonna have to send this thing in for repairs… which ofcourse means no more SF4 for a while.
I converted to a stick very easily. I use to play on pads all the time and I sucked donkey balls. THe first time I played on my friends custom sanwa stick I fell in love. Fuck a d-pad
I used a ps3 game pad (controller) for about a week, and when I got my fight stick it only took about an hour for it to feel completely natural. I am sure everyone differs.
I started playing with a stick due to VF5 on the 360. I’ve been a pad player for years. But, I’m not a total rookie when it comes to sticks, I do go to CF every other weekend. But, I never put amounts of hours to a stick until I got a 360 for VF5. My forearm was hurting the first week, and I couldn’t do circular motions sometimes, it was ticking me of, until I found out about swapping the square gate for a octagon one. Once I did that, and with muscle memory improving, it was pure gold. It took me like a Month to be fully adjusted, and now, I can’t even play with a pad anymore. I don’t how I did it playing with a pad for so long…But, for some odd reason I can’t play KOF or GGXX:AC with a stick, lol.
i’m so much better on the controller than on the stick, but it’s not because i can’t do moves on the stick. on the contrary: i can do my moves better on stick.
however, i’m not as experienced with stick, where for my concentration it’s 50-50 between excecution and strategy. on the pad, which i’m 100% used to, i’m 10-90 and it shows with how aggressive i am on my ps2 pad when playing sfiv than my madcatz stick in sfiv
so i can use stick, but for now i still prefer controllers. gimme more time and i’ll reach my old level of skill with stick, and then it’s nowhere else but up