Are arcade sticks REALLY worth it?

[applejuice]

I play fighting games with mouse and keyboard, which makes my friend really mad for whatever reason. My logic is, I play on PC... and what do you use when you're on a PC? Oh, that's right, a mouse and keyboard.

One time he was over my house and then saw that I was playing Street Fighter on mouse and keyboard, and then pushed me to the ground and started tickling me. He was like "I'm gonna get ya! I'm gonna get ya!" while tickling me all over JUST making fun of me because I was playing M+KB.

I still play M+KB to this day, but I'm just wondering how much of an improvement fight/arcade sticks are since SF6 is out now. I'm more on the novice end of things. Thanks.

[Call Sign: Raven]

The controller you choose to play on will only improve your experience by how much you become comfortable with it.

That being said, if you have NEVER played a fight stick, it may feel incredibly foreign. You have to re-learn a lot of habits, have to learn the correct way to form your hand around the stick, etc.

This vid is long, but well worth it if you are trying to educate yourself on the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi0QMmYnaKM&ab_channel=JoyStickNY

[Jimmy James]

Edit: Oops. I didn't think with that second paragraph this was a real thread.

[TopHatCat]

Play whatever makes you feel comfortable. Luffy won EVO with a PS1 controller, Initial T plays Guilty Gear with a steering wheel.

[HoneyDrake]

Originally posted by TopHatCat:

Play whatever makes you feel comfortable. Luffy won EVO with a PS1 controller, Initial T plays Guilty Gear with a steering wheel.

Enough professionals are playing on controllers on the highest level.

It's just whatever you are most comfortable with. And if we assume that classic gets replaced by modern controls for certain characters... you will see more people switch to controller.

[KingOmnis AKA TurboGrandpaRacing]

keyboard is fine, its basically a hitbox controller and people played the much more difficult sf4 on it and had success. Idk about the mouse part though, I would just be solely keyboard but yeah. A controller is just buttons like a keyboard so its all good.

[keikei]

Part nostalgia. Part mechanics. Mostly, fun to play using a fightstick.

[Monsterpede]

Depends, I personally like the arcade stick for 6 button fighters like street fighter. I didn't like holding the pad in a claw grip to hit the triggers and bumper buttons. I played in the arcades a fair bit so the stick for movement wasn't a problem.
I bought a cheaper stick called an "8bitdo" it's been great for me and the price is good (about $80 USD from memory)
I've had it maybe three or so years and use it regularly so I can recommend that one as a good entry level stick.
If your confident on the keyboard and feel comfortable with it you might even prefer to use something like a "hitbox" which is an arcade stick consisting only of buttons these types of devices can also be bought on budget too if you shop around. A lot of pro players have been switching to these in recent times.

[Thorley23]

Originally posted by applejuice:

I play fighting games with mouse and keyboard, which makes my friend really mad for whatever reason. My logic is, I play on PC... and what do you use when you're on a PC? Oh, that's right, a mouse and keyboard.

One time he was over my house and then saw that I was playing Street Fighter on mouse and keyboard, and then pushed me to the ground and started tickling me. He was like "I'm gonna get ya! I'm gonna get ya!" while tickling me all over JUST making fun of me because I was playing M+KB.

I still play M+KB to this day, but I'm just wondering how much of an improvement fight/arcade sticks are since SF6 is out now. I'm more on the novice end of things. Thanks.

I do not think so. To be honest mouse and keyboard is typically the most precise way to play games which is why they oftentimes have difficulties with cross-platform play as the control scheme gives a huge advantage. Fighting games tend to be an exception in this area though and personally I'd get a PC controller or PC-compatible console controller.

Fight sticks are kind of a joke as while some people like them, they are actually a disadvantage by design. With practice you can get good with anything (and familiarity trumps all) but one of the reasons why arcades used those was not just tradition but because they wanted the machines to gobble quarters and it made it harder to control precise movements, and thus increased the chance someone would pay for a continue due to nearly having done something. There have been entire articles about he design of arcade games. While some people love the whole feel for the nostalgia, in this case remember your literally emulating something designed to scam money out of you.... so if your going to learn an alternate control scheme, go controller for this, as you can easily tell what kind of motion your doing by design and gradually feel what's going wrong to adjust, with an arcade stick that's harder, as can be the calibration to begin with.

[Ersatz]

All controllers are completely viable - personally, I wouldn't recommend anyone go stick unless they had the burning desire to do it, and even if they did I'd probably steer them in the direction of a Hitbox these days.

We're kind of past the point where people are regularly hanging out at arcades and want transferable muscle memory between there and their home.

[Doc Holiday]

To give you my perspective:

I play on Arcade Stick since 2016.
However, until then I've been playing fighting games on Sega pad since the mid 90's.

Can you believe I'm still better on Pad than on Stick.

So there goes your answer. Arcade Sticks are just a different way to play. It won't improve your play. And in some cases (mine) the player will never be as good with it compared to what he was familiar with.

I've been insisting on Stick since 2016, so 7 years. Anyone who faces me online can't imagine I'm actually handicapping myself.
Didn't stop me from getting Gold Rank in SFV with only 200 matches etc