How Easy to Put an Octagon Gate in a Qanba Crystal
So I think it's time to finally get a fightstick. I've been doing some Amazon shopping trying to find one that's not too expensive and just about every fightstick I've seen suggests I should buy an octagonal restrictor plate.
Restrictor Plate
So the sticks I'm looking at all come with a square plate and the reviews say I should just mod the stick to fit the new octagonal one. My question is: why? Why should I mod the new stick? What's the difference between the square and the octagonal plates? If I play Tekken and Street Fighter, is an octagonal plate necessary?
It is MUCH better with the Restrictor Plate. Super Easy to change. It just pops out. I highly suggest changing it out.
The octagonal plate allows for more free range of movement. Considering you'll be doing a lot of quarter circles and half circles and especially DP's, you want to transition to each direction smoothly. I think it makes the most difference when you're first learning your fightstick, as it lets you easily tell where each directional and diagonal is, so you can more quickly practice cleaner inputs.
It's not necessary in any way but you may or may not find it helpful. The difference is in the shape, which you probably figured out already. What this means is that with a square gate, the stick only ever securely locks in one of the diagonal directions. With an octagonal gate, there are 8 corners meaning it locks-in securely in all 8 directions. Plenty of players use square gates and have no problems hitting down, up, left and right with accuracy. It's the traditional Japanese arcade style after all. Depending on how frantic you are with your stick movements, however, an octo-gate might be better. It might be worth trying out a square gate first and seeing how it feels to you. Also octo-gates are cheap and the swap is easy in most sticks nowadays so you could even buy one and go back and forth figuring out what feels right to you.
Or buy a hitbox.
@starvinggamer: Yeah, for $7 I was going to buy it along with the stick to get free shipping. I just didn't know why I would need it. And I was nervous about the modding itself. I'd hate to ruin a new purchase by being stupid.
@tekzero: Depending on the stick you're getting, breaking it should be *pretty* hard since they're mostly made to be opened. But yeah, you don't *need* it. Anyone can learn to use anything. But you may find one or the other easier to start with so it's worth experimenting with imo.
Or buy a hitbox.
I'm not sure where you are seeing all those octagonal gate suggestions. Nearly all fightsticks on the market come with a square gate.
If this is your first fightstick I suggest just buying a good one in your budget range and not worrying about gates or spring tension or whatever.
Since the demise of Mad Catz the main fightstick manufacturers are Qanba, Hori and Razer (although you're still able to buy MCZ sticks while stock lasts). Hori is the cheapest of the bunch but a lot of people are not fans of the buttons so they often replace them with sanwa buttons instead. The Qanba Obsidian is $200 but has a Sanwa lever and buttons and the Razer Panthera has them as well but is more expensive and easier to open up.
Which stick are you looking at?
Same situation here. I ended up ordering the octagonal thing because many of the comments along with every stick said to get it. But I thought it was really weird that none of the sticks come with the octagonal thing pre-installed. Why doesn't somebody notice that everybody seems to want the octagonal one and meet customer demand? For other products you usually get a check box to select your preferred option (square or oct in this case). Stick manufacturers are all like "No man, you get square. You want oct, do it yourself!"
Octo-gate vs Square-gate is just pure preference. One is not inherently better than the other.
I play with square gate and never felt the need to switch over.
Octo-gate vs Square-gate is just pure preference. One is not inherently better than the other.
I play with square gate and never felt the need to switch over.
This is actually what I was trying to figure out. If it's a preference thing, then I can get used to anything considering that I don't have a ton of experience on actual arcade machines. I grew up playing fighting games on consoles. I can see now why a stick is superior and I want to up my game a little.
This is the stick I was looking at. It's not the cheapest, but it's also not the most expensive out there. I have been saving up some gift cards, so this is right in my price range.
Hori stick
@tekzero: If you're comfortable using a pad, you probably shouldn't buy a stick. Sure they're cool, but you're not going to up your game at all and you'll probably be significantly worse for awhile. Most people have sticks because they grew up learning to play fighting games in arcades and because they see the pros using sticks. The up and coming generation of pros has a bunch of players doing extremely well playing with a pad. Nuckledu won Capcom Cup last year using a pad, Punk is arguably the best player in the world right now and uses pad, Wolfkrone, Street Fighter's most popular player, also uses pad.
Having a stick is cool but it won't make you better at fighting games.
@hunkulese: I bought a stick some years back having practically no experience with arcades and I never regretted it. It took a lot of practice to get used to it, but in the long run I found it more comfortable. Pads gave me minor hand cramps and muscle stress that I never get with a stick and overall execution just feels more consistent.
You can certainly be good with a pad if you practice, but there's no harm in experimenting with a fight stick if you're not satisfied with a standard controller.
This may be a case of gift cards burning a hole in my wallet actually. I don't have much experience with fight sticks, but I do have problems with execution in fighting games. There are some moves that I simply can't do on a pad. Maybe that's me, maybe that's the game pad. I don't know for sure.
Either way, I'm not in a rush to get it. I'll think about it a little more.
@tekzero I almost got that same Hori, but I decided I did not like where they put the touch pad. I have a game I want to play that uses the touch pad. Then I almost went for the Qanba Crystal because it is on good sale and has touch pad in better spot. Take a look at that one if you haven't and your budget is tight. I ended up finding one that had all the features I wanted and ordered that even though it costed a bit more, the Razer Panthera. I justified it by it being my birthday in a couple of weeks.
For me it is that my thumb is mostly destroyed. I can't keep using gamepads for everything. Need to mix it up.
@tekzero: If you're comfortable using a pad, you probably shouldn't buy a stick. Sure they're cool, but you're not going to up your game at all and you'll probably be significantly worse for awhile. Most people have sticks because they grew up learning to play fighting games in arcades and because they see the pros using sticks. The up and coming generation of pros has a bunch of players doing extremely well playing with a pad. Nuckledu won Capcom Cup last year using a pad, Punk is arguably the best player in the world right now and uses pad, Wolfkrone, Street Fighter's most popular player, also uses pad.
Having a stick is cool but it won't make you better at fighting games.
BAHAHAHA
Ahem, but no you're right about the stick vs. pad thing. It's really just about what people feel comfortable with. I'm old. I grew up playing FG's in arcades so it was a natural thing to own a stick for home use. I suck on pad, always have, probably always will for that reason. I wouldn't suggest dropping $150 unless you're confident you can make the switch, because it's not going to make you instantly better. I learned that the hard way with a hitbox.
@tekzero: ...Wolfkrone, Street Fighter's most popular hated player, also uses pad.
Having a stick is cool but it won't make you better at fighting games.
Went ahead and fixed that.
Yea fight sticks may not make you better but they sure are fun. Some things will be easier and others harder. As far as gates go I read some about them before I got my stick and many people suggest that octagonal and circular gates encourage you to "ride the gate" so to speak which, supposedly, is a bad habit to get into. Square gates can be better for charge characters and make you stay closer to the neutral zone of the stick meaning more efficient stick movements.
All that being said I'm never going to be a pro player so I just use what I enjoy which is a stick with an octagonal gate and I ride it all day because it's just more fun to me. So try different things out. Gates and buttons are pretty cheap so you can experiment and find what you like if you're already committing to the stick.
It's all about finding what you like, in the end. I personally use an Octo gate on my Qanba Drone. Modding fight sticks is actually incredibly simple as usually the most you have to worry about is putting wires back in the right spot and not breaking buttons taking them out. If you get pretty into modding, you can dig into spring tensions, button throws, silencing, and more.
If you do get a stick, I'd say grab one anyways and see which you like. I immediately tossed my square gate after using the Octo, but you might feel otherwise.
@tekzero: Square gates are absolutely fine and in many cases preferred. I'd say that they might feel a little unnatural at first but I see no reason you shouldn't be able to get used to them, especially if you're pretty new to sticks. Personally I like knowing that the vertices of the stick are all in four pretty important directions: both potential directions for a crouching block and then jumps forward and back. Square gates make it harder to gauge where the cardinal directions are, which might result in some input errors for a while, but you get used to it. People tend to say you shouldn't "ride the gates," anyway, but I absolutely ride the gates. In any case, it's a cheap fix if you absolutely hate the square gate.
That Hori stick is pretty good.
Source: https://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/fight-stick-questions-1809903/
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