Keyboard VS Arcade stick

[tintinmayo]

Back when I first started playing around with emulators, I had no PC gamepad so I used keyboards exclusively. I map them out to the same position as an arcade stick or gamepad, with the directions at the left (WASD or arrows) and the buttons at the right (usually the numpad keys) namely because a lot of emulators back then had default key settings where the direction would be on the arrow keys while the buttons would be on the letters.

I still find it easier to use the keyboard for fighting games even though I've been using a gamepad now. I can pull off moves with a much better success rate compared to the gamepad.

However, I prefer the gamepad nowadays because the keyboard won't let me press 4 or more keys at the same time, which would be a problem in games that require you to press multiple buttons plus a direction at the same time (it's not limited to fighters, I remember a lot of people complaining about a bug in Zsnes back then, where they get stuck in Chrono Trigger, not knowing that the keyboard is simply not registering all the keypresses during the password part where you have to press L,R, and a couple of other keys)

[turbolegs]

Yeah multiple key presses is an issue for some moves. I'm thinking of wiring one of those fake saturn usb pads to my preferred keyboard layout. Hopefully that will remedy the problem.

[NamelessGoon]

I used to play a lot of emulated games with a keyboard. Eventually I started playing games that used shoulder buttons and the keyboard just wasn't intuitive for that.

Also, I remember having a pretty successful time playing Soul Calibur 1 with the Dreamcast keyboard. This was only after the controller's dpad started giving my thumbs blisters. It worked pretty well though, especially with the 8-way run mapped to 8 different keys.

I guess theoretically you could play most fighters with a keyboard but I feel like not being able to register more than 4 inputs is definitely going to cause some issues once you start trying to do advanced stuff like option selects.

Saturn pads are my second favorite controller for fighters (1st being an Arcade Stick). However, be careful with those cheap-o saturn pads - I hear the buttons on them have response issues. You might want to keep this link handy, just in case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bia5VX6X3Gw

[Raiiban]

I remember playing early versions of Melty Blood with a keyboard because I didn't have a pad or arcade stick that worked on my PC at the time. I thought I had gotten fairly good with it too, used to play with a friend online who also used a keyboard and we had some pretty awesome evenly matched fights.

Then I got a 360 game pad and even with the horrible d-pad on that I was able to smoke him just on difference of control input alone. I guess I never got as good with the keyboard as I thought I did.

Arcade sticks... despite owning two that I've customized, I'm pretty horrible with them still. It's a real learning curve and I just never stick with it long enough to get comfortable with them. I'm still probably better with a stick than I am a keyboard though.

[samsonlonghair]

I remember playing Mortal Kombat 3 in DOS with a keyboard. It wasn't my favorite control method, but the keyboard did make it easier to input cheats and find easter eggs.

I still prefer a good joystick for fighting games. This is probably due to my experience in arcades. If I had discovered fighting games in DOS or in emulators, I might feel differently.

[Balasubbie]

There were actually a couple of keyboard players at EVO 2012, maining SSFIV:AE. One of them appeared on stream, and were put over as dedicated 'board players. Mind, it was sullied by said 'board player getting knocked into loser's brackets immediately, with 2 straight losses; he didn't even get a round in.