Reminder: Wireless PS3 Stock and Wireless joysticks are banned

Evo Championship Series
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Evolution 2011 is a Bring-Your-Own-Controller event. We provide the consoles, games, monitors and speakers for every game station, but it’s up to the players to bring the controller they plan to play. This year we are restricting the controllers players are allowed to bring to ensure fair play and guarantee the integrity of the results.

How Wireless Controllers Work

All EVO games will be run on the Playstation 3. The Playstation 3 Dual Shock and Sixaxis controllers are both wireless devices. Plugging your controller into a PS3 for the first time pairs your controller to that Playstation. This pairing will be remembered by the Playstation until you sync your controller to another Playstation. We have found no reliable workaround to remove this pairing (1).

The Problem

Since there’s no easy way to unpair a controller from a Playstation 3, any player who had previously played on a game console may accidently interfer with another game in progress. Consider the following scenario

  1. Players A and B sync their controllers to the game station.
  2. After they finish their game, Players A and B turn off their controllers.
  3. Even though their controllers are turned off, the Playstation still remember that they are paired.
  4. Players C and D sync their controllers and begin the next game.
  5. Player A turns on his controller and hits the home button.
  6. Since he hasn’t yet synced his controller to the new station, hitting the home button will interrupt the game played by Players C and D.

There are a million different ways this can happen. For example:

  1. A player eliminated from the tournament puts his controller in his backpack. While he’s walking, some item in his backpack accidently bumps the home button, interrupting a game in progress.
  2. A player finishes his semi-final match and turns off his controller. 15 minutes later he is called for his match in the finals of the winners bracket. While syncing his controller to the new Playstation, he accidently hits the home button while before his USB cord is plugged in, interrupting the semi-finals of the loser’s bracket happening on the console he just left.
  3. A sore loser eliminated from the tournament maliciously presses his home button to interrupt matches.
  4. A player notices that is friend is about to lose a match on a console that he had just played on. He decides to “save” his friend by pressing the home button, forcing a replay of the round.

While some of these may sound far-fetched, each of these scenarios has happened at past EVO events. Some have occurred multiple times. In order to ensure the integrity of future events, we are not allowing players to use controllers which pair themselves with Playstations.

Allowed Controllers

  1. Fight Sticks. To our knowledge, all fightsticks made by Hori and MadCatz use a wired connection and do not pair themselves to the PlayStation. They are all allowed.

  2. MadCatz Fightpads. MadCatz Fightpad use a bluetooth USB dongle to pair the pad to the dongle. Since they do not create a paring between the pad and the Playstation 3, they are allowed.

  3. All PS2 Controllers used with a PS2/PS3 convertor. Dualshock 2 or other PS2 controllers used with a converter box to convert them to PS3 controllers are allowed. For players accustomed to using a PS3 controller, this is your best option.

Specifically Banned Controllers

  1. The Sixaxis and Dualshock 3 controllers designed for use on the Playstation 3 are specifically banned. These controllers have been the source of all of our problems in the past. We realize you can make these controllers “tournament friendly” by opening them and removing the batter, but we have no good way to enforce that rule at the scale EVO must operate on to finish on-time.

Regarding Removing the Battery

The remove battery idea was tried last year and still doesn’t work. Since the DS pad is synced via Bluetooth, the charge cable has no sync capabilities.

Since the controller has no battery, it has to get enough juice to run it, and before it syncs to the new console, it will remember the old one for around 2 seconds. This is enough to ruin a match in progress.

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What if I just take apart the DualShock3/Sixaxis and remove the battery? Wouldn’t this get rid of problems stated above?

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The problem is that it’s not really enforceable. Me as a judge had to send everyone to the main table to have the DS3 taken apart to verify that the battery was removed. The you have people that make a big deal about weight being off. all it takes is something in your pocket touching the PS button or you wrapping your cord around your controller while the next match is played to screw up their match. Then you’d give people the available controllers and they’d switch it out with theirs when I went back to manage brackets.

if you insist on the feel of a DS3 then use a DS2 or DS1 with a converter.

personally i recommend this for this exact reason
Buy Fighting Commander 3 (black) (PS3) - Play-Asia.com

It’s a hori 6 button, it has zero wireless problems because it’s wired only, has like a 6 foot cable, and is extremely accurate at reading inputs. It’s officially licensed by Sony in Japan. The only drawback is that the “5th” and “6th” button are the right triggers instead of the left triggers like on a madcatz fightpad. If you decide to go that route and want your buttons rewired send me a PM. there’s also a couple modders on here that can do it too.

Edit: it’s also cheaper than DS3, so it doesnt hurt as bad if it breaks/gets stolen/gets lost w/e

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Honestly I am just speaking on behalf of some of the pad players in MN. I personally am a stick player and a modder myself. I have some request from some the guys to do a “hard wire” mod and the battery removes but that’s another topic from another thread.

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I wonder if we cut a hole with a dremel in the back of the DS3 pad to verify that there isn’t a battery inside? Would you be willing to amend the rule under those conditions?

Not that I really care personally because I play stick, but as a modder I see that as a viable solution. Just wanting to put that out there.

One of the things that people may not be aware of is that some people swear there is a difference in pad and button stiffness in a DS2 and DS3/Sixaxis.

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While this would work during your match, there’s nothing from stopping you putting the battery back afterwards in case you want to interfere with a match. [/conspiracy]

You’re right about the DS2 vs DS3 feel; one of our best players plays 90% worse on DS2 than DS3.

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eh, wont a better solution be to have a spare ps3 on the side just for syncing after fights?
For example, after pad player finishes his fight, he is required to go to this ‘sync station’ to sync his pad to this non-playable ps3.
This means if they accidentally hit the home button, itll only affect the sync station not the tournament one.
Ez enough to implement, just have a spare ps3, and perhaps 1 guy to escort/enforce pad players to go there.

DS3 feels lots different than DS2, I feel sorry for pad players.

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people would forget to go to the synch station, bet it.

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It’s been tried at other tourneys and yeah people just forget to do that even.

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I think the only solution that would work would be for each system to have 2 controllers attached to them at all times which would never be disconnected. But that’s a lot of logistics and crap.

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What’s the ruling on hitboxes with games that don’t handle SOCD inputs well?

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that’s too bad. a lot of top players are using the dual shock 3 and i would like to see more people showing you can be competitive on a pad.

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MrWizard’s ruling is great news for all us judges. PS3 dual shock is a nightmare, just buy a fightpad guys.

PS the person who won HDR at evo last year used a fightpad.

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i had an idea but… nope wont work. I saw this requirement back when i went to NCR in Nov 09 and i thought it included fightpads and DS3’s. That’s why i went out and bought the hori. I found out later that tournaments were lax on that but i wasnt going to waste my $30 6 button. I made sure I had this at evo last year because we were supposed to be strict about enforcing these, so they arent new rules.

I’ll say that as a judge i dont mind lookin at the back of a controller to make sure the battery is removed if someone is willing to drill a hole in it. we have to look at each controller anyway to make sure it’s not a DS3. taking an extra few seconds to verify a controller isnt a problem with me but I don’t think Wiz is gonna fly with that tho, and i think it’s an unrealistic expectation to have everyone maul their $50 controllers so they’re elligible.

yeah trying to find the controllers that were "evo friendly"was a pain because each station only had 2 controllers, so lots of times you had to had to hold things up while you went out trying to find a DS3 that the staff provided. There’s a LOT of DS3 users. but if you’re willing to pay to go to evo you should be willing to invest $30-40 into a fightpad or Hori FC3

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The remove battery idea was tried last year and still doesnt work. Since the DS pad is synced via bluetooth, the charge cable has no sync capabilities.

Since the controller has no battery, it has to get enough juice to run it, and before it syncs to the new console, it will remember the old one for around 2 seconds. This is enough to ruin a match in progress.

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yeah i wasnt aware of that. I think it’s the right call. Now if we can just keep people from walking behind the stations we can prevent unnessessary trippings of the cords… I had to put obsticles in the way to cut it out last year. (sorry for off topicness.)

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So what do PS3 DS pad users officially have to use now? PS2 pads with converters?

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Pretty much…

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Even more reason for EVO to switch to XBOX already.

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i don’t own an xbox, but… this problem doesnt exist for 360 controllers?