Arcade Stick Vs Pad Debate

So what are your preferences and how did you come to them? Ive been playing on a pad for years, but I keep hearing all about how much your game improves once you learn a stick. That and I would love to go to EVO next year, and you don't see any pad players at all really. Some are there, but everyone mostly plays stick and swears by it. Thoughts?

 

It really depends. Some folks scoff at the idea of using a pad, but I'm quite comfortable with it. That could be because I main Goh and nothing in his repertoire is particularly difficult to input. I think it boils down to what character you're using and what game you're playing. I prefer my pad for VF, but I'm sold on my fight stick for SSF4. I main Vega, and any charge character in that game is a bitch and a half with a pad.

 

I play on stick, I think Denkai (as well as some others) settles the debate into "pad is perfectly fine, obviously stick is fine too."

The new debate, I think, is Hitbox vs. Stick/Pad.

 

For those of you who took high school physics: your arm is capable of greater acceleration than your thumb.
That settles the argument.

 

Yes but on a pad, your thumb has less distance to travel.

And yes, the new debate is Hitbox vs Stick. If you're a pad user, and you are thinking about getting serious (as in spending-money-serious), I'd recommend Hitbox since you'd have less of a learning curve than someone who has trained on a stick for years.

 

I play on a pad. Never had any real problems. Use a stick for most other fighters though. Been meaning to attempt to learn vf on a stick again but every time i try to I get annoyed by how much it cripples me in terms of movent and just general joystick inputs. Feels like I'm playing in a bog.

 

I use stick because that's what I play better on. If you're great with pad and aren't having input issues then stick with pad. Only switch if you want the "arcade" feel. There are plenty of top players who use pad and play VF.

 

There is no debate and should be no scoffing. Use what you want. Controllers don't win fights.

 

use a stick! you can enter arcade tourneys! And i don't even use my thumb!

 

i've been using a pad since i started playing VF games and i plan to get a fight stick soon. i haven't had too many problems with a pad but doing attacks like Lion's + or Akira's are unnecessarily annoying as opposed to doing them on a stick. besides, most tournaments, if not all, won't allow pads.

 

I started playing VF on pad back on VF4. Then I started playing with a stick after VF5 released on 360. It takes a while to get used to, but I think it's worth it. Stagger recovery is easier for sure. But if you love pad, stay with it. Once you start playing with stick, you'll get some losses that you may not have at first. It's like learning the game all over.

 

I used pad for VF4 VF4evo, and Stick for VF5 VF5S

There are some inputs that are more natural and faster on the pad
There are some inputs that are more natural and faster on the stick

Because the stick is bigger its hard to just hold it in your lap, at least for me, I needed to get a table just the right height to set it on. The pad is easier to hold anywhere and you can sit in lots of positions with the pad, the stick, you need a flat
surface, right height at least I did.

To me the stick is more durable. It costs more than the pad, but lasts a lot longer. I burn through the pads so fast because of the rubber on the analog that the stick comes out much cheaper in the long run.

 

Pads banned? I only heard about hitbox banning, for example during EVO only VF players were allowed to use hitbox

I bought my first stick because I was very curious how it will suite me and it was worth every cent in my case because I got to manual same I had during using pad pretty fast (So it means I have really bad manual on pad ) and I'm only improving right now

About hitbox, I'm not fan of them but I have to admit that it will be, even if I like that or not, easier to get used to play on that thing but as I mentioned above, they were banned during EVO for example

 

HitBox seems interesting, but I know it would drive me nuts initially. Reaching down to hit up would throw me off so bad. Other than that it seems well designed. I can see why they're banned at EVO, though.

 

I'd be interested to know how VF controls with a Hitbox stick. Anyone been piloting those for VF?

 

Panda

 

Wireless pads are banned at most fighting game tournaments. The main reason being that they can be synched to a system and interrupt a match.

Hitboxes I think are OK for 3D fighting games.

 

This.

 

It would be just like playing VF2 on the PC with the keyboard, which was very fun. Crouch dashing for instance is extremely easy and 100% accurate. You simply hold the down arrow and double tap left or right.

 

Hitbox is a happy medium for keyboard users, though I used W,A,S,D for Up, Left, Down and Right. The "jump button" they use is very unique, and certainly makes for good movement. I see the controversy regarding holding both left and right, but a true Hitbox makes use of Toodle's SOCD cleaner from godlikecontrols.com. That little board prevents such action from happening at all, and instead makes playing charge characters (SF's Guile) so much easier due to the alternative control behavior; for example, holding down and back for universal charge, then while still holding those buttons, just tap right + punch for sonic boom, and jump + kick for flash kick. You then can keep building your charge without issues.

For joysticks vs pad, it's preference really. I like my joystick to be accurate and give speedy response, but finding a happy medium can be difficult to some players. Most have accustomed to Sanwa JLF as it's been a good stick for fighters. Shmups tend to favor Seimitsu LS-32, where the shortest throw stick I've used was the Suzo STC Universal stick. The latter isn't for everyone, but can be useful during pad to stick transitioning.