Controller/Arcade Stick/Hitbox??

D

darkphoenix2012

[08] Mercenary
I wasn't sure where to post this, since it was for me directly related to the character and no other character for the most part. If this does not belong here I apologize. Anyway...

I have played on old school controllers for quite some time now. Growing up for older games, pre-soul calibur, I played on american styled arcade sticks(non clown nose) on the arcade machines local to me.

After some time on SCV with Ivy it is painfully obvious to me that my game can go no further in a positive direction without either getting a better quality d-pad on a controller, or get a stick and re-train myself to use one. If nothing else for CS and ICS. I don't think I'll ever get there using either the OEM xbox controller nor the PS controller. Let me know if there are any of you using either of those and having good results with both moves.

Does anyone have any insight as to what I may or may not consider? I've had no problems with previous SC games on xbox/ps controllers, but as of SCV, I am unable to properly use CS on Ivy. Is there anyone out there using a controller other than OEM and having a good experience with EITHER the analog/d-pad? I've seen the majority of videos submitted being primarily arcade stick users, so that may in fact be what I need to use.

I've heard of hitboxes, arcade sticks, and high quality controllers. I'm mainly looking for feedback on who uses what and what everyone had to say.
 
I would say Hitbox, but people would then call me a cheater. >:[

Lol, in all seriousness and honesty, CS is piss easy on a Hitbox. I will get that out of the way right now. It's easy to the point where when I go to a major, Ivy players will scowl at me, for sure.

Moving past that, I do recommend the Hitbox for SC. I find that stepping is a lot easier when I press a button rather than hold a direction. On a stick, while I performed well, I sometimes found myself over stepping 8 and not stepping enough 2, even when its not appropriate to step 8. I was more inclined with a pulling motion, in short. Not the case with the Hitbox.

One thing about the Hitbox though is that it makes your inputs TOO quick. I actually have to slow down my 214's and 236's for them to come out. A good example would be Pyr Omega DNS -- I have to slow down the first 236 before quickly inputting the 2nd 236. It's trickier than it sounds really.

Let me know if you have any questions about the Hitbox. Glad to try to convert more people. Muahahaha.
 
Its all about personal preference theres no real answer to whats the easiest to play soul calibur.

The hitbox makes directional inputs more precise and faster but thats only half the battle.

I'm a pad and stick player but I am a pad player in 3d games for two reasons, one - 3d fighting games have less buttons, and less strenuous combos with amazing finger dexterity required to hit the buttons and two - It's easier for me to sidestep cancel_8WR and movement is a very very important thing when it comes to 3d games.

The reason 2d players seem to suck in 3d games is because movements like 42424242, 848484, 22, 441441 are unnatural to traditional 2d fighters and if you haven't been slaving away at your joystick in a 3d fighter it feels weird and your movement will suffer.
 
Artilust said:
It's easier for me to sidestep cancel_8WR and movement is a very very important thing when it comes to 3d games.

The reason 2d players seem to suck in 3d games is because movements like 42424242, 848484, 22, 441441 are unnatural to traditional 2d fighters and if you haven't been slaving away at your joystick in a 3d fighter it feels weird and your movement will suffer.
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This is my biggest problem at the moment. Right now, my quickstep seems gimped and slow because pulling/pushing on the stick is a bit more work. If i try to speed it up, my 2s turn into 1s and 3s.
 
Fight stick all the way!!! (I like keeping it old school)
That being said I am having some issues with the one I ordered. The stick feels a little loose and when I let go of it sometimes it will bounce back and activate the opposite input. (makes CS a bitch when I'm doing the 666 and the game registers it as 6466 cuz of a bounce back) Also the buttons are super sensitive and I hit them by accident alot, gonna try switching to Seimatsu buttons and a stiffer spring to see if that works better.
 
I sure do appreciate the input guys. You've got me really wanting to try out a hitbox now. I've only met one person who had one at our recent tourney, and I didn't get to actually use it. So from what you are saying it's "cheating" to some people to use one?? I don't see it that way myself, I think training for a hb would be really really difficult for me at first. So I see it as an accomplishment to use one as easily as a controller or arcade stick.

I recently started trying to use my friends madcats SCV te stick and I honestly can't stand the gate on it. The gate felt very squared on the diagonals which made 214 236 and etc more difficult for me. The buttons were fantastic for response but I think after some light reading I would rather have semitsu buttons instead of the sanwa buttons due to the slight difference in sensitivity. I like to rest my fingers on the buttons rather than above them.

Having neither owned nor played with one I think adjusting to it would be really difficult for me, at least at first anyway. I will definitely have to give it a shot now. I'm going to try and borrow one for a while now. I'll let all of you know what I end up deciding to use and thanks again so much for the ideas!
 
darkphoenix2012 said:
I sure do appreciate the input guys. You've got me really wanting to try out a hitbox now. I've only met one person who had one at our recent tourney, and I didn't get to actually use it. So from what you are saying it's "cheating" to some people to use one?? I don't see it that way myself, I think training for a hb would be really really difficult for me at first. So I see it as an accomplishment to use one as easily as a controller or arcade stick.

I recently started trying to use my friends madcats SCV te stick and I honestly can't stand the gate on it. The gate felt very squared on the diagonals which made 214 236 and etc more difficult for me. The buttons were fantastic for response but I think after some light reading I would rather have semitsu buttons instead of the sanwa buttons due to the slight difference in sensitivity. I like to rest my fingers on the buttons rather than above them.

Having neither owned nor played with one I think adjusting to it would be really difficult for me, at least at first anyway. I will definitely have to give it a shot now. I'm going to try and borrow one for a while now. I'll let all of you know what I end up deciding to use and thanks again so much for the ideas!
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Lol, I'm half-joking -- alluding to the fact that an annoying minority condemns the Hitbox for being, well, essentially not a joystick. It's an argument I personally find that's full of holes.

It is difficult to train for a Hitbox. I go into more depth of my review of it on SRK, but essentially treating the directions as buttons rather than directions is really what throws off first HB users. It took me a month to stop confusing up and down. :p

In the end, its all worth it though. It trains me to be 100% accurate (note, I said trains, not gives. The HB is mercilessly accurate sure, but that applies as much to its demands to my own dexterity as well) and just is well, cool to play on. :)
 
i understand that they have to cater to pad players to sell more copies, but i couldn't use it. grew up with joysticks and i'll die with one in my hand one day. if you're going to play ivy on a stick, you're probably better off using an octagonal or round gate over the square. octo would be best if you're having trouble with the 2828s since it has a notch for each of the 8 directions. round is a little harder to hit the directions on if you're not used to it, but it's great for quarter circle motions. optical joystick was fantastic for hiding the noise of CS buffer until they switched it to a gate-slamming motion (I play on one and Link uses one in the stick I built him too). i prefer seimitsu buttons as well. and i dislike hitboxes although i understand their perceived benefits. i'm also biased because i've been building customs for over a decade.
 
Sora said:
I would say Hitbox, but people would then call me a cheater. >:[

Lol, in all seriousness and honesty, CS is piss easy on a Hitbox. I will get that out of the way right now. It's easy to the point where when I go to a major, Ivy players will scowl at me, for sure.

Moving past that, I do recommend the Hitbox for SC. I find that stepping is a lot easier when I press a button rather than hold a direction. On a stick, while I performed well, I sometimes found myself over stepping 8 and not stepping enough 2, even when its not appropriate to step 8. I was more inclined with a pulling motion, in short. Not the case with the Hitbox.

One thing about the Hitbox though is that it makes your inputs TOO quick. I actually have to slow down my 214's and 236's for them to come out. A good example would be Pyr Omega DNS -- I have to slow down the first 236 before quickly inputting the 2nd 236. It's trickier than it sounds really.

Let me know if you have any questions about the Hitbox. Glad to try to convert more people. Muahahaha.
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Ok I have decided I do in fact want a hit-box. It will take me some time to learn how to completely
adapt, but I wrote the button layout on paper and have trained my fingers for CS. I have several questions about HB in general. I looked around and saw only one place to order it from. I do not like sanwa buttons personally though, so I may be better off building my own???? Are you using the OEM hitbox from hitboxarcade?
 
I can only use an xbox controller. Works great for CS and sometimes iCS. Speaking of, where is a reliable place to get an xbox to ps3 controller adapter?
 
This thread has brought up my interesting conundrum. I own a Hori stick and when I play with it I lose 90% of the time. But with the stick I can whip out a CS like no other. That goes for SCIV and V. The interesting part is when I play on pad my winning % is great but I cannot pull a CS off to save my life. Moral of the story is I think that the stick is the end all be all but you cannot expect to just jump into it and be ready. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of losses. Fortunately I'm an older gamer so I grew up in the arcades where u didn't have a choice but to learn stick...
 
darkphoenix2012 said:
Ok I have decided I do in fact want a hit-box. It will take me some time to learn how to completely
adapt, but I wrote the button layout on paper and have trained my fingers for CS. I have several questions about HB in general. I looked around and saw only one place to order it from. I do not like sanwa buttons personally though, so I may be better off building my own???? Are you using the OEM hitbox from hitboxarcade?
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Not sure what OEM means, but I am using Hitboxarcade's stuff, yes.
 
Sora, I have some questions about the Hitbox. I am seriously considering getting one but you are the only person I can find that has used one for SC which is the main game I will be using it for. Do you use the thumb on your left hand for the up button since traditionally you would use your right thumb for block in SC? I noticed that the people that use the hitbox for SF4 and other 2d fighters use their right thumb for the up button. When you say that you actually had to slow down inputs for certain moves, how much slower are we talking? The reason i ask is that i've noticed that with certain moves, i have to slow down inputs with my TE SF4 stick as it is. One example is Mitsu's 6B2. At my normal speed it comes out as a JF every time which messes up a certain combo he has so I have to physically slow myself down to get the normal version of the move. My main is Natsu and my secondary is Ivy, but i've been trying other characters.
 
caly555 said:
Sora, I have some questions about the Hitbox. I am seriously considering getting one but you are the only person I can find that has used one for SC which is the main game I will be using it for. Do you use the thumb on your left hand for the up button since traditionally you would use your right thumb for block in SC? I noticed that the people that use the hitbox for SF4 and other 2d fighters use their right thumb for the up button. When you say that you actually had to slow down inputs for certain moves, how much slower are we talking? The reason i ask is that i've noticed that with certain moves, i have to slow down inputs with my TE SF4 stick as it is. One example is Mitsu's 6B2. At my normal speed it comes out as a JF every time which messes up a certain combo he has so I have to physically slow myself down to get the normal version of the move. My main is Natsu and my secondary is Ivy, but i've been trying other characters.
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95% of the time, I use my left thumb for pressing the up button. The other 5% is for CS buffering, in which I find it easier to use my right thumb. Sometimes, I use my left thumb for CS as well -- only happens when I'm trying to buffer CS out of G.

As far as input speed goes, I'll use 6B8K as an example. Sometimes, I press 8 too fast that the game recognizes it as 8B or even sometimes, 8K. I consciously wait for 6B's initial animation to come out first before pressing 8, almost making the command 6B~8K. It's tough to describe on paper, but I hope that makes sense.
 
You can rest your fingers on Sanwa buttons. They don't literally detect inputs when you breathe on them.
 
Sora said:
95% of the time, I use my left thumb for pressing the up button. The other 5% is for CS buffering, in which I find it easier to use my right thumb. Sometimes, I use my left thumb for CS as well -- only happens when I'm trying to buffer CS out of G.

As far as input speed goes, I'll use 6B8K as an example. Sometimes, I press 8 too fast that the game recognizes it as 8B or even sometimes, 8K. I consciously wait for 6B's initial animation to come out first before pressing 8, almost making the command 6B~8K. It's tough to describe on paper, but I hope that makes sense.
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Thanks. I am definitely getting one as soon as I get the money.
 
This whole Hitbox thing has me intrigued as well now. No issues with 11_77 or 99_33 moves?
 
Mandy said:
This whole Hitbox thing has me intrigued as well now. No issues with 11_77 or 99_33 moves?
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That would probably take the most adjusting, yes. But, I can honestly say that I feel more comfortable doing these motions, in particular 99 and 77 on a Hitbox rather than on a stick.

The trick to using it is to really think of down and up as buttons, not as directions. This is especially true if you're used to the WASD style, as that is not the case for the HB. Once you get used to that, performing any move you can think of is fairly easy.
 
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