Why it’s worth (and the best time) to learn DOA with an Arcade Stick?

[Hurricane Rev]

It has been announced that there will be an Arcade Version for Dead Or Alive 6 (alongside the PS4, Xbox One and Steam versions) which will be coming out some point next year in Japan. Personally, I am very happy about this news as I do enjoy watching the matches from Japan and I’m looking forward to seeing how the Japanese scene will be when DOA6 arrives. But this news had me thinking that it would be great to see more players playing with an Arcade Stick.

A short history about myself: I am an Arcade Stick user and I’ve been playing with a stick for quite a long time now. I use it for games like Dragonball Fighterz, Blazblue Cross Tag, Guilty Gear and of course, DOA. I prefer the arcade stick a lot more than the controller and with DOA6 coming out early next year, I believe now would be the best time for anyone to learn to play with an Arcade Stick in DOA5.

I know most of the players in the community plays on controller and everyone has got their own preferences when it comes to playing a certain game which I understand but it would be great to see more players makes that transition from using a controller to using an arcade stick, especially before DOA6 arrives in February.

To me, playing DOA with an Arcade Stick feels really good and I’m very glad that I made that transition. Don’t get me wrong, it did feel very strange when I first started using a stick and I couldn’t even do a simple forward dash on it to begin with but the more I started playing with it, the more I got used to the controls and in the end, became very comfortable with it

The standard arcade button layout for DOA is the following:
P K
F

P = Punch
K = Kick
F = Free

Here are some reasons on why you should pick up an Arcade Stick and drop your controller:

+ I believe that playing with an Arcade Stick is more rewarding than playing with a Controller.

+ Using a controller is very limited and your hands can feel cramped at times.

+ With each generation consoles that comes out, the controller might be different to the previous controller the company had for their previous console (For example, changing from using a Xbox 360 controller to a Xbox One Controller) which some people might prefer it but other people might dislike it and look for another controller that they feel comfortable using. In Xbox’s case, the dpad on the Xbox 360 was decent and it was playable to play with when playing a fighting game but the dpad on Xbox one controller was terrible and felt very clunky to play with. It would take a while for someone to get used to playing with it. Where as with an arcade stick, it will always remain the same for any console that you play on.

+ The button layout will be the same for the console that you choose to play on. You wouldn’t feel like a fish out of the water when playing on a different console.

+ You can even customise/personalise your own stick (Ohh come on, that is another positive to using an arcade stick)

These are just some of the reasons why you should choose an arcade stick over controllers. However, there are some downsides when using a stick, which is the following:

– They can take a while to get used to playing on it.

– Depending on the stick, they can be quite expensive to buy

– It can be difficult to travel around with your arcade stick (unless you have got a big enough bag to put your arcade stick in.)

But despite these drawbacks, I still think it is beneficial for anyone to learn how to play with it.

 

[Macca Beam]

i really, really like how this thread kicked off with "everyone has got their own preferences" and unsurprisingly devolves into classy remarks like "you should pick up an Arcade Stick and drop your controller". how do you expect to coerce anyone into following your religion when you couldn't pretend to respect theirs for longer than one and a half paragraphs

also while the clicky xbone dpad was questionable, i don't think i've heard a single positive thing about the 360's dpad before. and for good reason. even though it received improvements over the years, it's still a miserable piece of misfiring garbo.

there's always that guy who beat people up with a gamepad in his mouth.

 

[Dr PaC]

Im sure its better to play on stick than pad, but man, Im so bad at stick and always have been. I wish I had the time to practice on stick more but man, even with time I just cant see myself switching.

 

[human013]

I've been wanting to play on stick for a year now but the price tag and my lack of knowledge about sticks made me pass on it. The Hori Fighting Commander I got from the BBCF limited edition has been sufficient for every game I play. If TN made a custom high quality DOA6 stick, bundled with the game or not, I will most likely buy it. If not, I'll get a stick later down the road. The only reason I want a stick is to play 2-3 specific characters in other games.

 

[Dr PaC]

I've been wanting to play on stick for a year now but the price tag and my lack of knowledge about sticks made me pass on it. The Hori Fighting Commander I got from the BBCF limited edition has been sufficient for every game I play. If TN made a custom high quality DOA6 stick, bundled with the game or not, I will most likely buy it. If not, I'll get a stick later down the road. The only reason I want a stick is to play 2-3 specific characters in other games.

If anything, Ill just a a pad with the all six buttons setup.

 

[human013]

If anything, Ill just a a pad with the all six buttons setup.

I'll be fine with either. The stick is just something new that I want to try out and having DOA on it is an excuse for me to get it. However, having another Hori Fighting Commander also wouldn't be bad. The controller just needs to be high quality.

 

[Dr PaC]

I'll be fine with either. The stick is just something new that I want to try out and having DOA on it is an excuse for me to get it. However, having another Hori Fighting Commander also wouldn't be bad. The controller just needs to be high quality.

True. I wanna use it for all the fighters I play.

 

[SaihateDYNAMO]

Isn't DOA already one of, if not the most pad-friendly 3D fighters out there? If this was a Virtua Fighter or Guilty Gear forum then begging people to hop to stick would make sense but using a pad to play DOA shouldn't be totally frowned upon

With each generation consoles that comes out, the controller might be different to the previous controller the company had for their previous console (For example, changing from using a Xbox 360 controller to a Xbox One Controller)

lol buy a ps4

 

[Sotherius]

But despite these drawbacks, I still think it is beneficial for anyone to learn how to play with it.

Ok, few things to consider.

1 - There is nothing in DOA that a Stick player should be able to do that a pad player isn't able to do, so if a player can play just as well on his default controller, why should he change to a stick?

2 - Arcade Sticks are expensive like you said, it might vary from brand to brand, and country to country, but last time i checked even in the U.S.A. it is not a cheap option, even less in a place like where i live, where it is more expensive than a console.

3 - I believe the arcade machine where DOA 6 will run at will actually allow for USB external pads to be plugged in.

The point is, if i have a pad, and i can do everything that the game demmands me from doing in said pad, why bother to change? It will just be a waste of money, and then time getting used to it, and that might not even happen, i've seen cases of people who got arcade sticks and never got used to it.

I get it, a lot of people learned fighting games on arcade machines, and are just used to that. And that is all the debate between sticks and pads will always be. Preference, unless we throw hitboxes into the conversation, which is not the case.

 

[DestructionBomb]

I think you should only get a stick if you are going to make the attempt to learn one or if you are not comfortable with any of the pads available I believe. Heck, I think a Hitbox is another option that you can aim for. I have a Hitbox and I find it to be more fun than stick imo, it's a weird learning curve and took me a lot longer than stick (still make mistakes on Hitbox and weird as hell to using it on DOA). The thing with arcade sticks is that most of them have a longer life span in general when it comes to any sorts of motion due to how rigid and sturdy they are. When you look at the PS4/PS3 pads their D-pad wears out in a matter of months. It's not the case of taking care of your pads better, it's just that Sony's pads (as well Microsoft) were never meant for fighting games so they tend to just flat out die easier because they are used for an overall usage of the many games that you play.

In the Sony forums a while back, there was a thread on why D-pads die easier with regarding SFV, one of the peeps who worked at the company mentioned in there that majority of the games will have you using the left and right stick so most of the biggest support for the pads is on those. It's how you know that Sony doesn't really care much about the longevity support for fighting games with controllers because they are not interested in investing better d-pads when fighting games to them are just regular games like any other game. I mean in a way, it kinda makes sense to them. Most of the brand sticks are the good ones with a big price tag on it, but their pros for the lifespan and customizing them to your needs like changing the square gate to a octa gate makes it more the worthwhile.

If you already play DOA on pad (and only DOA) and already adjusted it to where you are comfortable, then there's no point getting a stick imo. Maybe a good time to learn a stick is when you are attempting to play a new fighting game for the first time and then start from there with the stick. At this point, you could make your experience comparison like holding big money. If you are given $800,000 and someone says you can't spend it until next year, you'll be tempted to use even at least a dollar from it. So with arcade sticks you have to do the same, when you start a new fighting game you'll have to condition yourself to just use stick only. That stuff could take days, weeks, months, maybe even a year. You just have to sit down for it and I was pretty impatient trying to learn it at the time until I got used to it. Since DOA arcades are having USB support with the P-Ras they implemented, now you don't have to use the cabinet controls.

 

[Lulu]

+ I believe that playing with an Arcade Stick is more rewarding than playing with a Controller.

Really.... How So ?

also while the clicky xbone dpad was questionable, i don't think i've heard a single positive thing about the 360's dpad before. and for good reason. even though it received improvements over the years, it's still a miserable piece of misfiring garbo.

I can confirm firm this... The Xbox 360 Controller is absolute garbage for Fighting Games... and yet even to this day I'm still using it.

Im sure its better to play on stick than pad, but man, Im so bad at stick and always have been. I wish I had the time to practice on stick more but man, even with time I just cant see myself switching.

Maybe you need a Right handed Stick... have you tried playing Crossover Style ?

I tried looking for an image showing someone playing that way but couldn't find one... I do have a friend who plays With his hands criss crossed on Keyboard.

@human013
Since you haven't gotten one yet... you could also look into Hitbox Controllers.

Isn't DOA already one of, if not the most pad-friendly 3D fighters out there? If this was a Virtua Fighter or Guilty Gear forum then begging people to hop to stick would make sense but using a pad to play DOA shouldn't be totally frowned upon

lol buy a ps4

One the few Fighting Games that actually feels good on pad.

I don't even think DoA was designed specifically for Pads so much as it was simply designed sensibly in generally. To give you an example of what I mean I use to play DoA on analogue stick for quite a long time... it obviously wasn't optimal but theres literally no other Fighting where I can say its possible to play using the analogue stick.

... unless we throw hitboxes into the conversation.

Screw it... I say we throw Hitboxes into the Conversation.

Now this is all theory but as far I can tell from all the googling I've done... HITBOX IS THE BEST CONTROLLER FOR almost ALL FIGHTING GAMES !!!

Simply put it combines the Button advantage from Arcade sticks and Directional advantage from using Keyboards into one thing. Together it just makes for cleaner and more consistent inputs. From the few Hitbox users I've spoken to (its basically only 3) they all noticed an immediate difference (a good kind of difference) using the Hitbox...

This is not to say you can seamlessly go from Pad/Stick directly to Hitbox without any issues but Theres a couple things that are objectively better on Hitbox that doesn't even require any practice... like Directional Blocking and Dashing... its the little things where the Hitbox Shines and we've all been in a situation where we've dropped a combo not at the part that requires a ribbon motion but at the part where you simply have to go from up to up back or simply from down to up.

still though... ultimately it will always come dowm to what your hands are more capable with.

That being said... HITBOX !!!
HooochyHooooo !!!

 

[GarryJaune]

DOA2345,Yes ,stick's better but pad's still fine.

DOA6,whatever,even a wheel could be fine lol

well normally,players can not play that deeply that his input device matters

 

[Hurricane Rev]

i really, really like how this thread kicked off with "everyone has got their own preferences" and unsurprisingly devolves into classy remarks like "you should pick up an Arcade Stick and drop your controller". how do you expect to coerce anyone into following your religion when you couldn't pretend to respect theirs for longer than one and a half paragraphs

also while the clicky xbone dpad was questionable, i don't think i've heard a single positive thing about the 360's dpad before. and for good reason. even though it received improvements over the years, it's still a miserable piece of misfiring garbo.

there's always that guy who beat people up with a gamepad in his mouth.

lool I was trying to be funny when I said "you should pick up an arcade stick and drop your controller". This is article is just my opinion on why I think it would be good to see more players use a stick but if you prefer to carry on using a controller for DOA, then that is fine. Everyone have their own way to play something.

Xbox 360 controller wasn't perfect. It did have it's own problems but the Xbox one controller is worst than the 360 controller IMO. The Dpad on it is really bad and it really isn't an option to play fighting games on it. Yeah, It's that bad.

Ok, few things to consider.

1 - There is nothing in DOA that a Stick player should be able to do that a pad player isn't able to do, so if a player can play just as well on his default controller, why should he change to a stick?

2 - Arcade Sticks are expensive like you said, it might vary from brand to brand, and country to country, but last time i checked even in the U.S.A. it is not a cheap option, even less in a place like where i live, where it is more expensive than a console.

3 - I believe the arcade machine where DOA 6 will run at will actually allow for USB external pads to be plugged in.

The point is, if i have a pad, and i can do everything that the game demmands me from doing in said pad, why bother to change? It will just be a waste of money, and then time getting used to it, and that might not even happen, i've seen cases of people who got arcade sticks and never got used to it.

I get it, a lot of people learned fighting games on arcade machines, and are just used to that. And that is all the debate between sticks and pads will always be. Preference, unless we throw hitboxes into the conversation, which is not the case.

1) Like I said before, everyone has got their own preferences when it comes to playing a certain game which I understand. Also, this article isn't suppose to force a player to use an Arcade Stick. It's just my opinion on why I think it would be good to see more players learn to use an Arcade Stick. So if you want to carry on using a controller, than that's fine. And sure, anything you can do on a stick you can also do on a controller as well (otherwise that wouldn't be fair) but It could possibly make things easier for them to input attacks on a stick than on pad.

2) There are some PS4 arcade stick which are quite cheap to buy:

https://www.amazon.com/Mayflash-F300-Arcade-Joystick-SWITCH/dp/B019MFPLC0/ref=mp_s_a_1_cc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541929557&sr=1-1-catcorr&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Arcade+stick

https://www.amazon.com/Mayflash-Arcade-Fight-Android-Switch-NEOGEO/dp/B00QM7JUMY/ref=mp_s_a_1_cc_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1541929918&sr=1-6-catcorr&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Arcade+stick

I would say these are a good starter arcade sticks to get if anyone is considering on learning one.

3) Everyone is different. Some players prefer to use a pad and others prefer to use an Arcade Stick. I get it and I do respect people's choices. But if someone is fully committed into buying/learning one, then it wouldn't be a waste money to them. A friend of mine recently made a switch from a pad to a stick and he told me that he prefers playing with a stick soo much more. Yes, it does come down to what someone prefer to use and my article isn't suppose to force someone to pick an Arcade Stick but there are some players who likes playing with an Arcade Stick more than with a pad.

Really.... How So ?

When you first start off playing with a stick, you are definitely outside your comfort zone and you are trying to get used to playing one. But the more you play on it, the more comfortable you will get with it. One thing is that you would fully learn how to play on a stick and it would become second nature for you and perhaps, you can play other fighting games with a stick because of it.

 

[Lulu]

lool I was trying to be funny when I said "you should pick up an arcade stick and drop your controller". This is article is just my opinion on why I think it would be good to see more players use a stick but if you prefer to carry on using a controller for DOA, then that is fine. Everyone have their own way to play something.

Xbox 360 controller wasn't perfect. It did have it's own problems but the Xbox one controller is worst than the 360 controller IMO. The Dpad on it is really bad and it really isn't an option to play fighting games on it. Yeah, It's that bad.



1) Like I said before, everyone has got their own preferences when it comes to playing a certain game which I understand. Also, this article isn't suppose to force a player to use an Arcade Stick. It's just my opinion on why I think it would be good to see more players learn to use an Arcade Stick. So if you want to carry on using a controller, than that's fine. And sure, anything you can do on a stick you can also do on a controller as well (otherwise that wouldn't be fair) but It could possibly make things easier for them to input attacks on a stick than on pad.

2) There are some PS4 arcade stick which are quite cheap to buy:

https://www.amazon.com/Mayflash-F300-Arcade-Joystick-SWITCH/dp/B019MFPLC0/ref=mp_s_a_1_cc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541929557&sr=1-1-catcorr&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Arcade+stick

https://www.amazon.com/Mayflash-Arcade-Fight-Android-Switch-NEOGEO/dp/B00QM7JUMY/ref=mp_s_a_1_cc_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1541929918&sr=1-6-catcorr&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Arcade+stick

I would say these are a good starter arcade sticks to get if anyone is considering on learning one.

3) Everyone is different. Some players prefer to use a pad and others prefer to use an Arcade Stick. I get it and I do respect people's choices. But if someone is fully committed into buying/learning one, then it wouldn't be a waste money to them. A friend of mine recently made a switch from a pad to a stick and he told me that he prefers playing with a stick soo much more. Yes, it does come down to what someone prefer to use and my article isn't suppose to force someone to pick an Arcade Stick but there are some players who likes playing with an Arcade Stick more than with a pad.



When you first start off playing with a stick, you are definitely outside your comfort zone and you are trying to get used to playing one. But the more you play on it, the more comfortable you will get with it. One thing is that you would fully learn how to play on a stick and it would become second nature for you and perhaps, you can play other fighting games with a stick because of it.

Well yeah... that much is clear... but I wouldn't describe that is more "Rewarding" so much as I would describe it as more "Beneficial".

 

[human013]

@Lulu
Hitbox controllers never piqued my interest due to how the movement buttons were laid out. For now I'm just waiting to see if DOA6 will have a custom stick. If it doesn't then I'm buying whatever stick looks good next year. I would have bought the SC stick if DOA6's release wasn't so close.

 

[Lulu]

@Lulu
Hitbox controllers never piqued my interest due to how the movement buttons were laid out.

Yeah it drives some people crazy... personally the thing I don't like about the Hitbox is the move movement buttons being so close to the Attack Buttons...

The reason they made them so close together was they wanted to give people the option of Pressing the Jump button with both Their left and right thumbs.

I my thumb would be too busy on the A/X to worry about that sort of thing.

They should have just made A Right Handed variant.

 

[Macca Beam]

lool I was trying to be funny when I said "you should pick up an arcade stick and drop your controller". This is article is just my opinion on why I think it would be good to see more players use a stick but if you prefer to carry on using a controller for DOA, then that is fine. Everyone have their own way to play something.

i mean i do prefer an arcade stick (especially when DOA never did controller inputs as well as other games), that's why i came here to see what you're doing to convert others over buuuuuut the tone just isn't right

 

[Project Bokuho]

Controllers are trash. Arcade sticks master race.

 

[MegaMegaMike]

I have used stick up to this point in DOA5LR, despite my buddy who got me into the game claiming it's impossible. I hate how the DOA feels on a regular controller. But I just think I really hate the PS4 controller for fighting games in general. Personal thing though, some of the best players in many fighting games all use basic pads. I've now switched for DOA5LR to the Hori Fight Pad, which feels pretty good. It's hard relearning all the muscle memory though.

 

[Lulu]

Personal thing though, some of the best players in many fighting games all use basic pads.

Actually its the opposite... Fighting Games that have low execution barriers are still the exception... not the norm. And so the best players are still using Arcade Sticks...

Also the Higher the execution barrier for a Particular Game... the more likely its top players likely to be Japanese.