Undoing YEARS of pad. Stick Conversion Thread

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
1

Oh wow. Never thought I would create a “help me” thread here but I’m desperate. Let me start off with this. I have been a faithful fighting game player most of my life. At least 16+ years. Like, all damn day. Fighting games like there wasn’t any other genres out. My time spent in arcades was few and far between. And while there I mostly watched. This was because I had a terrible hindrance. I couldn’t use stick! Any stick, american, japanese, 8 way, square, korean, etc. I always struggled and so I stayed the hell away from arcades except to watch. I was so glad when Tekken 5 DR came out and had pad ports because I could finally showcase some kind of skill without struggling. Ok long story short, that’s 16+ years of playing on pad, getting all the motions down via muscle memory. Second nature.

Ok now, I’ve always wanted to use stick. Always. Just never had one. I wondered which one I would get. I tried out various ones but none felt especially comfortable to me, and why would they? I was a pad warrior. Well, my friend Kodee knew I wanted a stick and suprised the fuck out of me by presenting me one after a recent tournament. T5 mod with sanwa parts. Square gate. Here it is here:

Haha yea. After I got over the initial, umm, “distraction” I started going about learning how to use the stick. Been pretty overwhelming. Getting owned for free and not being able to actually MOVE like I once was able to. People say that since I play a charge character that it shouldnt be such a big deal. Well it is. I can’t even dash outta FAs or standing block from a crouch. Plus, I want to be able to use every type of character like before, this includes the motion ones. No more moves on reaction. Hell, I can’t even motion super/ultra lol. It’s pretty pitiful.

This isn’t a noob rant. It’s more of a vent. Try to feel where I’m coming from. 16+ years of playing on pad. Really playing, in hopes that one day I would be hitting up tourneys and whatnot. And now, that time where I’m able to travel to majors and stuff is here. But I’m just now getting a stick. So that means I have to undo those 16+ years of playing on pad right? Feels like I’ll have to use stick for another 7+ before I’m even effective again. I KNOW stick is so much damn better in the long run. That’s why I always kinda wanted one. But it’s so much going on right now. I am so unable to compete. And stick “training” has left me uncomfortable with pad now. I’m in a fucked up spot guys. I know I gotta long way to go on this stick. And no exercises, holds, repetitions seem to be netting me any progress. Was damn solid in SF4 and rapidly improving, although I knew my limitations on pad, but now it seems I’ve taken 20 steps back by converting to stick. I’m so damn lost. What the fuck do I do?

P.S. Practice is obvious. But I mean, do I miss out on the action right now? So many tourneys I plan on hitting now. Do I just go and get owned for free or stay at home and just hibernate with “Booty Stick”? If so, for how long? Until SF5?

Again, I don’t usually create threads like this but some of you peeps know me and know that I’m damn serious about this. I feel like an athlete with a broken leg. FRUSTRATION. Stop laughing at me…:sad:

2

I just wanted to make one point about sticks in arcades vs sticks you would use at home on console. I’m a life long arcade player, and I attended my first console tournament a year ago. I did fine playing Marvel on P360s, and back in the days I played ST on arcade cabinets as well. When I got to the tournament, everyone was playing Marvel on MAS sticks. IT felt so uncomfortable and foreign to me. Despite the fact I had been playing on American P360 sticks all of my life, I felt like a total noob. In ST the guy brought a cabinet with a supergun and Japanese sticks, which felt equally as uncomfortable.

I know everyone talks about pad warriors moving to sticks. But how about arcade warriors like myself who have to deal with home sticks now that feel way differently then anything you’d play in an actual arcade? I’m finally getting the hang of home sticks, but it’s taken me over a year to do so. And then there are some big issues with the sticks moving around, and finding the right playing posture. Seriously, I’m not a huge fan of pad, but pads always seem like second nature when playing at home. I think console warriors who move from pad to stick have a lot less of an adjustment to make than arcade players having to play on console sticks.

3

I’m also a recent convert to the church of stickdom. It’s taken me a couple weeks to finally start feeling comfortable, now that I’ve put in probably 100 hours of play I’m feeling like I’m back up to where I was with a pad, but my small input errors are now much more apparent, so I see where I have to go now.

I’d say the hardest part of the transition was getting used to the joystick. The first few times I played with it, I just seemed to jump in random directions and couldn’t DP to save my life. Once I actually found where the buttons were they were easy to hit, since I already had the timing mostly down from playing with a pad.

4

Just keep playing.

Again, and again, and again.

Over, and over, and over.

Don’t play that half ass shit where you’ll put the stick down for half your game and plug in pad because you want to win or you’re frustrated.

Keep playing on stick no matter how much you lose, because you’re going to lose alot. A whole fucking lot. Even in matches where you should have urfed the other guy for FREE, you’re going to lose and feel like shit.

If you REALLY want to play on stick that’s the only way it’s going to happen.

Get that as a mindset or don’t even bother.

5

Sorry MC, but I can’t take anything you say seriously now with that ridiculously cute avatar ^_____^

6

Lately, I’ve just been going into training mode of SF4 and constantly doing dps and fbs repeatedly.

On one hand, it’s frustrating to have to spend so much time getting comfortable.

On the other, I know it’s good in the long run, and at least I no longer have to worry about blisters.

7

Yeah it takes time to work it in to muscle memory, took me a good few weeks, but once you do, it’ll be all downhill from there. Your movements will feel more natural and faster than they ever did on a pad, that’s my experience anyways.

8

My cousins forced me to learn stick back when mvc2 came out on DC. It was hell but I’m really thankful for that now.

It’s the best game to practice execution imo. Wavedashing under doom’s finger lasers, sent fly/unfly combos, mag triangle jumping without doing that damn fireball, blocking insanely fast mixups - all techniques that force you to get good at hitting multiple buttons at the same time and experiment with a variety of stick-holding and button-pushing methods to get those combos down pat. It’s also pretty easy to visually mark your progression to help keep yourself motivated.

Practice until you can do combos without thinking about how you need to hold the stick in training mode. Practice against the computer until you can do them on reaction to jump-ins, on punish, on hit-confirms, etc. Then, go into the arcade and suck up some losses in casual matches until you’re not able to blame most of your losses on execution mistakes. You can still enter tournaments, but stick to what you know you’ll be able to pull off. It will definitely take years to get yourself to a point where you can say, “I’m much better on stick now than I was on pad.” But it’s worth it.

9

Brahn,
I take it you’re just used to American sticks(bat-top, oct/8 way). You can have that for your console. Just get a heavier case.

djhbrd
Congrats. But I think when I hit 100 hours I’d just be learning how to super from left side.

M.C.
Lol, excellent post bro. Thanks. I was guilty of the “halfass shit” at first. But even pad felt uncomfy after so much struggling on stick. I was at a fucked up crossroads. Now I just tough it out. Omg dont speak on matches. That “shit feeling” is NOW. Lmfao at the peeps who talk mad shit after beating me while I’m on stick. They think they’ve improved THAT much to where they made my execution and mobility decrease? Idiots. But yea man it’s hella frustrating. Many losses ahead. Yay.

Yourmother
Weeks? Wow, did you play 24/7? Unfortunately I dont have much time at all. I always just utilized whatever time I had with whatever game to learn, apply, expand, level up. I knew how to get better w/o a shitload of filler. This complicates things lol.

10

this may or may not be the best decision, i’ve been a pad warrior too and i’ve moved to stick for sfiv, and i’m going to say that chibi is right.

the reason is that i played for a bit on pad before my stick came in (fucking gamestop) and it was fluid for me because i always played on pad. i mean i learned sfiii on pad and sfiv was like learning to ride a different style of bike. When my stick came in however, I could do everything on command, but it was like with my hands in a different position, the blood flow to my brain was different, so playing on stick i became braindead for a while until i suck it up and just played nonstop on stick, and got my mind flowing the right way again.

Unfortunately i can’t take stick skills with me and go backwards to 3s and do the same thing. My mind isn’t used to registering 3s and stick, but i’m going at it by just playing as much as possible

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Butters
Yea man tried that. Not sensing progress.

Kro
Much appreciated dude. All things considered, I’d be spending a fuckton of time relearning shit I been picked up instead of expanding my game. Meanwhile, everyone is gonna be passing me by. That’s my huge worry…

Epy0nkaru
See you played for a BIT on pad. My whole base of SFIV was on pad. I went hard at it man. Gosh it seems like its gonna take a miracle to redirect all that to stick. Execution, feel, reaction, etc. Wow.

12

“stick” with it

13

Up until around 1995-96, I was used to arcade sticks, but it was around that time that I stopped hitting up arcades. Since then, I became a pad warrior. It wasn’t until I got my SF TE about a month or two ago that I started playing on an arcade stick again, and I honestly feel your pain.

Interestingly, it’s not the joystick that I’m having a hard time getting used to, but rather, pressing the buttons with my right hand. I think it’s because I’m left-handed. The first day that I got my arcade stick, I was throwing out dragon punches, quarter-circle motions, double quarter-circle motions, 360s/720s, and so on without any difficulty at all. Unfortunately, pressing the buttons with my right hand was an entirely different story. All of the link combos that I had mastered on the pad are now incredibly more difficult for me to pull off consistently.

But in the end, it has definitely been worth it. I was finally able to finish all of the command trials in SF IV (the only one I was stuck on was Gen’s hard trial #5, which I could not do on the pad for the life of me). I still am not as good as I was on the pad, but hopefully in time I’ll improve.

14

The SF TE stick is a VERY good stick for anyone starting out on a stick, and it’s very consistent for top players as well. It’s overall design takes care of a lot of issues new stick users have. For one, it’s pretty wide, but not too heavy. So it goes well on your lap or on the floor, whichever feel comfortable to you. The actual joystick feels very good, and it’s intuitive. The problem I usually have with Japanese sticks is that they are way way too loose. So I find myself pressing forward when I meant to press up. On the TE stick I have no such problems. I’ve never accidently got my inputs messed up on the TE stick. Also you can kind of hold the stick anyway your prefer and your moves will be consistent for the most part. It’s an incredibly good stick.

I find when playing with other Japanese sticks I have a lot of issues trying to hit certain angels. Generally I need about 2 or 3 games on the average Japanese stick to really get comfortable with what I’m doing. With TE I can just kinda jump right into playing without taking time to feel out the stick.

I believe any pad warrior should definitely save up and get a TE stick if they can find them. I find other Japanese sticks require far too much of a learning curve for many long time pad warriors.

15

nooooooooooooooooo, not another stick thread. oh my god!

16

I’ve been playing pad until about a month and a half ago. When I got my stick, I revisited the normal trials on stick with every character in the game. I also stuck with player matches for a while until I could play more comfortably. DPs are nothing in SF4 but in HDR, it’s fucking hell trying to get it out consistently so I stuck in training mode for hours until I can get it done right on both sides. I’m still working on FADCs and EXDCs because those still fuck me up. I still fuck up my super/ultra motion (since I play a charge character) a lot but after some dedication, stick will become second nature. Believe me, you’ll be happy that you stuck with it.

Also, that is the most pimp stick EVER.

17

I think some games are more stick friendly than others. Like I used HDRemix to get used to stick for SF games and translated that over to SF4 back when I played. KOF was a different story, because I was just having such a hard time doing anything on the stick, then after playing KOFXII on the first time on stick, everything just sort of clicked with me and arcade sticks. im not omg amazing on it but i feel like ive steadily been improving my use of the stick as i play more and more. Take that what you will, just my personal story. Hopefully once i get on a proper stick instead of this Hori Caca i’ll do even better

18

Im definitely in the same boat as you. I am trying to make the transition and so far im improving on it. The only major problem for me seems to be movement, but as soon as that is fixed, I probably won’t play with the pad anymore. I am probably gonna save up for the TE stick as Branh has recommended.

I know its tough and frustrating(trust me), but keep at it and let the booty motivate you.

BTW, I recommend you use your pad when you go to tournaments at the moment(so you will be at 100%) and when you are ready, switch up.

19

I dunno think ill stick with pad for now myself same situation but I dont want to miss out on tourneys and stuff

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Its gonna take some time but you will start to see the progress soon. Im at the same point myself, its not easy. That feeling when you know you could of done"this or that" and it just wouldnt come out is very frustrating. I keep jumping back and forth between pad and stick (Hrap2 btw), its time i go cold turkey. Just keep playing, we should hit some matches on psn sometime. Getting combos in training is one thing but in battle is betta.