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As all these knowledgeable individuals have said, fighting games were designed to be played on a stick. If you wanted to get the full experience out a racing game you would use a steering wheel; in this same way a stick is better for fighting games.

I was a very skillful pad user (I just switched over a year and a half ago). I believe I am now more skillful on stick because the stick allows me to naturally access all my tools when I need them, i.e. jab, short, etc.

It should be noted that skill in fighting games and any sport for that matter, is a result of hard work and determination (as I said above I was very skillful on pad). However, the stick made me more skillful by allowing me to naturally access my tools.

30

Hi,
I started tekken on pad, but switched over to stick.

  1. I cannot do inputs in tekken with consistency on a playstation pad. I will often get two directional inputs where I just intended one diagonal. It probably has to do with the size of my thumb or something simple.
  2. I have seen many top tekken players consistently do the things I never could on a pad, and I have no idea what’s different for them, but for them pad is best.
  3. Switching sides, 1 player vs 2 player, always changes things just a little bit because of the way the sticks are held, but it was always a lot worse for me on pad than it ever was on a stick. So more consistent.
31

You need practice then.

32

I prefer stick just for the sake of consistency, Saturn Pad, Dreamcast controller, DualShock2/3, 360. I could learn to use each of them for various games/situations, but it’s just easier for me to have the same control scheme for every fighter on any console I play. I actually prefer to use a stick on any game that doesn’t require an analog stick to play.

Arcades don’t have much of an impact, as I’m probably 150 miles from the closest fighting game arcade cab so learning stick just for the arcade isn’t a driving reason for myself.

Wasn’t Vangief using a modded 360 pad and not a DS2/3?

33

I know someone will probably start some shit with me for this. But after years of playing fighting games on a stick, this is my take.

I play on a stick because of peer pressure. Everyone said if you wanted to be good at fighting games, you had to play on a stick. Because of that I practiced with sticks a lot. However, I have come to realize and accept STICKS ARE NOT SUPERIOR TO PADs. I came to this conclusion recently with the growing community of pad players.

Sticks are indeed more popular than pads for understandable reasons: Arcades. Traditionally, the world’s best players was forced to play in arcades to be competitive because of the lack of home console versions and home console competition (games not being online). This of course means they played on sticks by default. Home pad players would never be able to compete on a skill and knowledge base with these players which creates the initial illusion that sticks are better than pads. And following with new generations of players looking to be the best; they followed the examples of the previous generations and picked up sticks.

However, Street Fighter IV has really changed things. It is the first major Capcom fighting game with official online support. This has created a whole new scene. The online competitive community, from home. This means serious pad players are maybe outnumbering serious stick players either now or soon to come. With this growing community of competitive pad players, we are seeing pad players compete with the stick players and even beat them.

Taking this new generation in mind and being open minded to what they are capable of, it is easier to realized that sticks are no better than pads. Inthul shocked everyone at ECT2. He beat Sanford and Arturo with a pad and almost had Flash Metriod too. Vangeif and Shizza both made top 8 at Evo with pads. Those victories are no flukes.

Some people argue that the buttons are sticks are better because you can access them faster. And sticks better than D-pads because you move it faster and less prone to accidentally movements. Neither false nor true. The hands and wrist have POTENTIAL to move and respond faster than the fingers alone. However, this does not mean they are at an inherit advantage over the fingers for fighting games. What you practice with will be what you are good with. You fingers will become faster and more precise just as your hands and wrist will given time. The mistakes you make whether it be a D-pad or stick will decrease with practice. Your response time with the buttons will also decrease with practice, whether it be a pad or stick. No matter how much faster the hands and wrist might be able to move compared to the fingers, it doesn’t matter because the fastest links in the games are 1-frame. And expert pad players can be seen pulling off their 1-frame links with as much consistency as the stick players. Therefore, the demands of speed of the games DOES NOT exceed the capability of pads or pad players.

I also disagree with the argument that the game was intended to be played on a stick, therefore sticks are better (OT: SSF4 was actually originally intended for a home console release only). Being compatible with a stick and “meant be to played” on a stick are not the exactly the same thing. When you break it all down, the game is designed with SIX BUTTONS AND EIGHT DIRECTION. Both sticks and pads have that. They are simply layed out differently. It can be compared to how different stick players prefer different button layouts (vewlix vs astro city). There is nothing a stick provides you with that a pad does not.

Remember, the game is essentially six buttons and eight directions. Both pad and sticks have these. Which ever you practice with will be what you are good with.

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@Kazujiro - oh yeah I think you’re right. I think Seth mentioned that.

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Hey! Just wanted to link to the article now that it’s been vetted.

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i use sticks because i dont want to be the guy who whoops his friends ass at home on a controller but cant do jack in an arcade

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Fighting games were designed to be played on arcade sticks. That’s what is kept in mind with the motions and moves, the combinations you have to do. The level of execution just fights the design of an arcade stick and on a controller it is essentially watering that down. It’s just like how MMOs and RTS games flourish on the PC, because that genre is tailor-made to use the keyboard and the button layout there. It’s the same thing with fighting games and sticks, that’s how they are designed primarily, with the arcade stick in mind.

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certain movements I can see are easier on a stick than a pad. I am a pad player, but there are certain movements that are incredibly hard.

i.e. jumping and immidiately performing an ex tatsu (remembering one of kens trials in sf4 vanilla) you juggle then have to ex tatsu in the air (its not impossible on the pad, but far easier on a stick because a slight motion up jumps and you can hit the ex tatsu almost instantly because you hardly have to move the stick at all, I would always end up executing the tatsu too late on the pad) I have a stick, I just dont use it often, way too acclimated to the pad, and I dont compete in tourneys or anything so it doesnt really matter to me if there are somethings that are just too hard on the pad.

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Don’t you guys get tired of the same threads and questions?

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I bought my first stick because I wanted to experience the real deal for shmups and fighters. I never played in arcades much because we didn’t have many nearby when I was a kid and they’re practically extinct here now. I love my share of arcade games nowadays of course. Reason 2: they just look oh-so-awesome. I’m not a very competitive player.

Following many arguments here, yes using a stick doesn’t mean you’re better than a pad player.
However, learning to play on a stick was a whole lot easier from what I’ve experienced. I started playing fighters on pad, over the years my executions got fairly consistent but there were still erronous inputs here and there. Especially if I didn’t play on it for say 2 weeks it got even worse.
Everyone who picks up a stick for the first time feels awkward coming from a pad, but it took me much less time to be accurate with a stick than with a pad (and that’s from a guy who came off a pad in the first place). Right now I still play on a pad sometimes when i’m at a friend or something, but inputting 2 QCBs and hitting a left shoulder button is still awkward as hell for me.

Concluding my story: years of casuals on a pad and still being inaccurate versus not even a year of playing stick and being completely accurate. The winner is stick for me, if you don’t play competitively already on a pad I think a good stick is a great investment.

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i used to play pad exlusive all the time but once you actually tried / learned to play on a stick there is no way back :smokin:

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That only happens when I use the stick…

I only find sticks better than pads for very little things, like charge ultras or SPDs i like using QCF characters and i am still having a difficult time doing a hadoken or FADCing… yet i pull that off in my sleep on a pad…

I personally only like the stick because you can makle it look pretty, ball tops are kinda cool too. Arcades are scarce here so this is nice to have.

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Only reason I have a stick. I can play on HAPP stuff, cause we had a huge arcade scene in the day. I tried to make my SE stick as American as possible, with a stiff ass LS-56 with octo gate, and only the last 6 straight across button which are Seimitsu (feel more American than Sanwa) and still, only SSFIV gets me 100%. Try to play a real game like Marvel or ST, it’s still not a HAPP, which I can play any game 100% on.

But I don’t care. Nothing says “I’ve never had sex” like a huge honkin arcade stick.

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If anyone is still interested here I found the finished article Round 3,485: Arcade Sticks Versus Controllers for Fighting Games.

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lets not forget DMG inthul

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This is an interesting topic… since im quite new to srk forums.

Sticks I find are weird for me… I used one a long time ago… then I quit… then i’m back on it… to say the least, it has been a headache getting every move and such down to the way I want it but, one thing is for sure, I feel like I have more control with a stick than I will ever have with a pad. For pads it kind of feels rushed and mashed… where as for sticks… it’s do or die. feels half and half.

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Bit simplistic but…It feels more fun on stick.
…Gonna use that line when I meet a hot lesbian.

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for the arcade experience.