Tips transitioning from controller to arcade stick

[anthony001]

Hi Guys,

Need some tips on how you position your hand on an arcade stick controller/buttons. Im using HRAP v3 Sanwa edition and have a hard time doing Sol's K->Down+D->BR combo. also consistently doing VV is really hard but on the bright side i can do 8 hit GV very easily now

K S H

P - D

[Silmerion]

I put my thumb on P, index on K, middle on S, ring on H, and pinky on D. Although my hand tends to kind of float a little bit over the buttons.

[anthony001]

@silmerion

Thanks for the tip. my fingers are long so i might have some trouble placing it all of my fingers on the button. Do you have all your fingers rest on the button? how bout FRC whats the best button to press? K+S+H?

[anthony001]

Any tips guys?

[TeeJay]

idk.....I have a TE stick. But I play a with 3 buttons on the top (k, S, HS) and two on the bottom left (P, Dust). I generally keep my fingers on the man four buttons and move my thumb over when I need to dust. I generally just 3 button for frc. If I wanna frc HS, I press P, K, S. If I wanna frc S, I FRC P, K, HS.

K S HS

P D --

[Chojin]

Do what you find the most comfortable. I think that most people like using one finger per button, but whether to hover over the buttons or rest your fingers on them is personal preference. Same goes for FRC buttons; personally, I prefer PKS. But again, just do whatever feels most comfortable.

[TheRealBobMan]

Play with inputs turned on in training mode so you can see what sort of issues you're having. Do you mess up the directional inputs more, or the button presses on FRCs? How do you hold the stick itself?

After enough time to adjust to stick (so much that I'd rather play stick than pad, but not enough time to really be 100% comfortable with it), I have no problems with the buttons, but I have issues handling the actual stick. From my perspective:

1. Practice doing those motions as cleanly as possible at first - speed will come with the muscle memory.

2. Always practice doing stuff from the left and the right.

3. The buttons you use to FRC will wind up being dependent on what you're trying to do. For basic stuff like Gunflame > FRC > dash in, doing K+S+H is good since it's ergonomic (tip: for this particular movement, hit 6 > KSH > 6, and you'll dash immediately out of the FRC). If you ever need something like Millia's haircar > FRC > j.K, you'd probably want to do P+S+H into immediate K. I don't remember Sol's inputs off of the top of my head since I don't play him, but I think this might come into play when you do stuff like air bandit revolver > FRC > j.D > air bandit revolver.

4. If you don't really feel right in the way that you're holding the stick (just can't get those IADs or can't do DPs), there are videos on youtube about different grips. I actually started with those basic "how to hold your controller" tutorials.

5. Find what's comfortable and efficient! I don't really take Persona Fighter seriously, but I play Shadow Labrys and hold my thumb where TeeJay's "D" button is, with my hand rotated accordingly - middle for A (his K), index for B (P), ring for C (S). It's comfortable since I have to hold D all ****ing day long to play her, and it's easier on my wrist than propping my hand up to hit the buttons the conventional way. Map your buttons however the **** you want, although the arcade setup will be the way you have it, and I suggest you get used to having the buttons there, now matter how you decide to interface yourself with them.

[bizarro]

Does anybody own a Hitbox? Or tried using one?

Link for those who never heard of a Hitbox

(it's basically an arcade stick that replaces the stick with 4 buttons, kind of like a keyboard layout)

I just heard of this controller type today and to be honest I'm pretty intrigued. I would imagine inputs would be a lot easier to do with this kind of setup.

[Kikirin]

I have a HitBox and quite like it overall. I haven't used it with Guilty Gear specifically though, so its appropriateness for it may be up for debate.

Overall, it's somewhere between an arcade stick and pad, and the placement of the 8 button takes some getting used to, as it is "lower than"/"below" the 2 button. Even after about 4 months, I still have some problem processing a midair 8d, haha. And processing particular motions that use 7/8/9, like Soul Calibur's Ivy's old Calamity Symphony input (376231), can also be pretty awkward at first. It also feels like I have to piano 4~8 or 6~8 a bit to get 7 and 9 jumps to come out.

The HitBox feels great for getting very clean and fast dashes, IADs, 236s (x2), 214s (x2), and 623s. TK'd specials are a bit different in that they are easier when ended on 8 (e.g. 2368). Charge motions also feel great, although [2]8 can feel somewhat awkward at first. It may be personal execution problems, but I have some trouble with half-circles (getting 4136 when going too fast) and 360s/720s, probably due to the fact that P4A and Tsubaki rarely use those, if ever.

The buttons feel relatively small (smaller than typical arcade stick size) and relatively sensitive to touch (can trigger when slightly brushed by the side of the hand), and the layout feels a bit tight. So it can be a bit uncomfortable and cramped for those with bigger hands. Luckily mine are small. =P

I'm not sure if it's the perfect controller, but it certainly has its advantages. Keyboard users would feel right at home on this.

[Solid Gold Wall]

I'd love to try out one of those. Sadly I've got really long fingers, and I can totally see that being cramped. I've been learning how to use a Qanba and even that feels a bit cramped.

[bizarro]

Yeah looking at the design of the Hitbox I'm confused as to why they put the left-hand buttons so close to the right-hand buttons.

I guess one way to test if this kind of setup would work is to test it out on a keyboard, WASD, except instead of using W for up, replace with Spacebar.

[Kikirin]

Perhaps the close placement between movement and attack buttons might be ergonomics-related? Similar to how the stick and buttons are still compacted to a small-ish center area for longer-length arcade controllers.

The closeness also allows for reaching over and hitting some directions with the right hand, e.g. hitting 8 and an attack simultaneously with RH for TK'd specials. The guy in the 'How to HitBox' videos seems to favor right thumb rather than left for 8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmTRLoa0_dg&list=PLB913C5D5DDAECA63&index=3