Your thoughts on Hitbox

I play both pad and arcade stick, they both have their pros and cons so I have yet to find the perfect controller. The d-pad has a more accurate directional input than stick IMO but with the button layout for the arcade, I don't have to assign much attacks to more buttons.

So that's when Hitbox maybe the solution for me. Hitbox has been announced for quite some time but I never thought about it until then...

Any1 with experience want to share their thoughts about Hitbox? How well does it fair with Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown including other 3D fighting games?

 

I haven't played on one, even though a buddy of mine picked it up for VF, but a couple other guys played on it and were surprised how it felt. They were able to do things they had trouble with before, but it's not anything game breaking, since there's an answer for everything.


So yeah if you want, go for it, but just rememeber it will help with certain techniques and make them easier but there are still answers for it so you still have to be careful.

Other games it's been banned because they focus more on execution instead of options.

 

Me, Zass, and R_Panda used the Hitbox for VF at Evo...panda made it top 16 so some success is possible with it

 

I have never heard of the Hitbox being banned at any tournament Femto. Which tournament was this?

I'll be starting a VF blog of sorts soon that will include some articles on why I love the hitbox and what it can do for you, among other things.

 

I liked panda's combos of 3pp with Jeff.

Hitbox = GL with stagger recovery

 

;P

I stagger just fine thank you. I'll go over common misconceptions as well.

 

R_Panda, my biggest question about the hitbox is how has it been on your hands in terms of strain. Do you find you can practice for longer without feeling pain in your arms with the hitbox, or does your hand start getting crampy?

If the hitbox ends up being more ergonomic than a normal joystick I will think about making a switch. Also can you mod a standard TE to be a tournament legal hitbox?

 

I heard a commentator on the stream while you were playing say, it's banned for certain games cause you can mod it to be able to block both ways at the same time.

He said they come with some thing in it to prevent that, but can easily be modded to do so.

 

They are usually modded so that + = neutral.

Personally I dont like all button controllers, cause certain stuff that should be hard to input is really easy with ABC:s.

 

I was curious about that and found this thread which explains it all. Doesn't seem too hard.

http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?threads/mod-te-stick-into-hitbox.137199/

 

yeah I've tried a hitbox and honestly I would like to see them banned, maybe for a silly reason though. The hitbox just far more efficient than a joystick, to the point that a joystick is basically obsolete and we should either ban hitboxes or we should ALL buy hitboxes.

It's a genius design and idea and I really don't wanna hate on a independent business or nothing, I just think balance gets thrown off when games designed around joysticks are no longer played with joysticks. Pads share similar shortcomings so I am fine with them.... hitboxes are just too good.

So I realize I am kinda just being a old man stuck in my ways here, but hitbox really is so effective that it would be stupid as a competitive player not to use one, and that to me is terrible as I am a arcade nerd with piles of joysticks and a arcade cabinet in my house.

 

I just researched this and saw it for the first time. It looks really innovative. Trying to learn it would be super difficult I would think, but something I would try some day.

I cant quite grasp how its better than a stick. Then again I am not on that competitive level. It would be interesting to see these take the norm throughout arcades and tournaments.

 

i don't see how it makes joysticks obsolete.

but i do dislike how it's so easy to abuse it to block bothways in games where 4 and 6 does not equal neutral.

but for people wanting one, it's EXTREMELY easy and cheap to just make a simple one yourself.

 

It's easy to make one, but the ergonomics are really key here. You don't want the layout to be such that your fingers are cramping. I still haven't heard how it feels to play on a hitbox for extended periods of time. My main reason for ever switching over would be for ergonomic purposes.

 

Yeah the 4 and 6 thing really hurts crossups in 2D games. There's probably a bit of blurry line between accessibility and exploiting the input system for an advantage but it's hard to see how it'd hurt in VF. Are there any examples?

 

i think it differs per person. what you find comfortable might not be the same for everyone. I figure your best bet would be to just give it a shot if stick simply isn't working for you anymore.

i found this template http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/platinum_boards/hitboxtemplate.jpg

 

in VF I am honestly unsure how much it would help beyond stager recovery, I don't imagine it needing to be banned in VF of all games. But in a 2d fighter it does indeed make some inhuman execution possible, you can throw a hadoken in 2 frames, you would be amazed how much time even the fastest joystick inputs add.

I played a super scrubby guy in SFIV and he was using a hitbox, it was amazing the rate he could throw tiger shots, it looked like the game was hacked as the split second it takes to do the joystick motion for fireballs was almost completely removed. He was a terrible player but he could do ridiculous shit on reaction.... weirdest set of matches I've ever played, I dominated him but only because I exploited his bad habits, if I played a true high level player who was able to react, reversal and execute with the same silly speeds, it would be stupid.

I didn't imagine it would be as effective as it is but yes, the tiny bit of time it takes for a actuator to travel to a switch or go neutral is absolutely significant. it's like removing start up frames from moves, if you have a joystick it's pretty much impossible to do a fireball motion in 2 frames consistently.

 

no hitbox needed to throw tiger shots at the quickest rate possible. you can actually buffer it pretty slow and the inherent recovery on the fireball animation still allows you to chuck them at the fastest rate.

 

you can theoretically buffer a fire ball throw perfectly with the dissipation of another fireball already on screen? yes, do even the best players do so at a rate that even approaches the consistancy a hitbox can do it? hell no, and even if it were common, the issue still exists on the first fireball thrown which is not buffered at all.

regardless of the context, fighting games are frame intensive games and joystick motions take significantly longer to activate a input than a pushbutton with no throw what so ever.

It can't imagine this being debated, to deny it is to deny any positive reason to own one. To say it's not demonstrably more efficient than a joystick is to deny it's whole purpose and the whole reason I am torn.

I admit to a small bias as I love joysticks and I want fighting games to remain a arcade based thing. I admit that being superior to joystick doesn't mean it's cheating, I just think the joystick's throw time was a consideration in the design of most games and the ability to eliminate most of it is a game changer....for better or worse.