My older brother and I went to the Nissan factory in Mississippi today and tooled around in his little Sentra Spec-V. The purpose was to teach me how to drive a manual transmission, because I don't know how to drive stick (ironic overtones). Just letting the clutch out to first gear proved frustratingly difficult for me to do, because I couldn't control my feet in tandem well enough to keep the torque up. Using the manual transmission made something I've been doing for close to a decade difficult for me, but I understood that if I were to ever drive any of the sports cars I've been reading about I their intended manner, I need to know how to drive stick, do it like the big boys do.
Switching from the pad to a stick is going to drop your game, possibly big time. Swinging the stick around proves to be such a foriegn practice to most people. Be prepared to whiff hadokens and let's just forget about supers for a little while.
So what do you get? The same thing I got when I switched, the very reason in fact. When you visit an arcade, you will be in your element. The practice at home (which looks to be the main venue with dwindling arcades in the face of online play) will translate directly to arcade and tournement play, should you go for that. I know several people who are outstanding at Soul Calibur and Tekken and even some SF if a Dual Shock is in their hands, but I watch them fumble and lose and hurt their wrist in the arcade.
Also consider the original format of these fighting games that you and I respect so much. They were origianlly based in the arcades, each using a button layout unique to their series. You said you were playing SF with a Dual Shock? How did you map those six buttons? Did it make sense to play a six button fighter with a four button face? Street Fighter, more than any other fighting game, demands an arcade stick, almost solely for the six button face. You can hit more buttons faster and in more complex strings using your whole hand.
Yes, I sincerly believe that learning to play stick is essential for any fighting fan. Yes, you are going to go through a learning period. You say you've some X-Arcade experience under your belt, all the better. Yes it will be worth it. Nobody makes it to Evo using a pad, and even if they somehow did, they'd be shit-out-of-luck, cuz last I checked it was all sticks.
I'm not certain what you mean by "new" MAS sticks, if they went through an upgrade I was unaware, but I would put those on about the same level as those on SRK, and below the very best on SRK. Those guys really know what they are doing, and they are whom I learned from, if only passively, when I decided to get serious.
Consider that the only real advantage MAS has over them is establishment, as it feels better to pay to a business rather than paypal. MAS does have more console options, but considering that nearly everybody that wants a stick wants DC, PS2, or XBOX, MAS offering N64 hardly matters.
Lots of us have MAS sticks now, and I certainly love mine, but if you told me you had a stick from Armad1llo, maybe with a top mounted Sanwa in it, that would really be unique. Don't flood him with requests now, last I heard his backlog was already too big.
I almost ordered from some of those guys myself, and I certainly inquired, but I decided to get one really good Street Fighter stick from MAS and then build or at least mod every one after myself.
Say you modded you X-Arcade, eh? Good for you; ain't hard but I'm still proud of you. Don't count the X out BTW, and don't be petrified by input lag either. Sure its presence is a fundamental failure, but I doubt you'll notcie it with most 3D fighters. I still insist that the X-Arcade solo is the best off the shelf stick for emulation play, besting the Slikstik with simplicity and price.
Hope that was worth reading.
