What's up with the angling?

[DaveMMR]

First off, let me preface by saying I'm not picking on anyone's project or plans in particular.

Anyway, I've kind of gotten over the "outer" players on 4-player panels being angled in relation to the front. But I've seen more than a handful of new CPs being built or designed with the inside (or only) sticks angled as well. What set this trend off? Is being too close to player two that humongous of a concern?

I kind of tried it out with my own panel, pretending different points on the stick being "up". And I felt weird, like I was frightened to stand directly in front on the game. My tests were a bit unscientific to be honest - but I can't imagine it working out well (except maybe Q*Bert or Congo Bongo) for any long period of time.

I dunno. I'm just curious. Anyone have any experiences or opinions about the main sticks being laid out that way?

[kahlid74]

When I was working on my latest cab I messed around with this using Lusid's button format.  My primary thoughts were ergonomics and how it felt while playing.  If I angled player 1/2 I could shrink the control panel size by close to a foot making it a smaller cab all together.  In the end I didn't do this because it just felt weird to be honest but it was a fun exercise to better understand it.

[leapinlew]

The reason I don't understand why anyone would do it is because you never saw a layout like that in the arcade. If you are building a arcade game for authenticity, why would you change one of the most critical things?

[Green Giant]

To be honest I think it is just cockyness coupled with lack of experience.

If you were not an arcade expert, you would think, the controls should always point at the screen.  Hence the need for the angling.

The problem is every human alive learned to play arcades on straight button layouts.  It just feels unnatural when the buttons are at an angle.




I guess the best example would be the common QWERTY keyboard.  It is a fact that there is a much more efficient keyboard design, but QWERTY is so ingrained that we don't want to change.  Just an FYI, QWERTY was designed to slow down typing and encourage alternating a letter from each hand to reduce the chance the mechanical typewriter would jam up when the keys hit the paper.




It kind of reminds me of the guys that do the curved button layout because they say when you put your hand down your fingers make a curve.  This is true but when you assume the arcade button smashing position, your fingers are bent forming a fairly straight line where the buttons lay.

[kahlid74]

To be honest I think it is just cockyness coupled with lack of experience.

If you were not an arcade expert, you would think, the controls should always point at the screen.  Hence the need for the angling.

The problem is every human alive learned to play arcades on straight button layouts.  It just feels unnatural when the buttons are at an angle.




I guess the best example would be the common QWERTY keyboard.  It is a fact that there is a much more efficient keyboard design, but QWERTY is so ingrained that we don't want to change.  Just an FYI, QWERTY was designed to slow down typing and encourage alternating a letter from each hand to reduce the chance the mechanical typewriter would jam up when the keys hit the paper.




It kind of reminds me of the guys that do the curved button layout because they say when you put your hand down your fingers make a curve.  This is true but when you assume the arcade button smashing position, your fingers are bent forming a fairly straight line where the buttons lay.

This is a different entity from what the OP's original grip/question was.  If you've never actually angled the buttons you should try it.  You don't really gain a true perspective until you play it on wood with angled buttons.  Angled buttons are super ergonomic and prevent finger fatigue.  Yeah yeah, catch phrase smatch phrase but it really works man.  I noticed a huge difference after two hours of playing.  On my straight line buttons my fingers would cramp but on the angled buttons I can play longer.

[Vigo]

I, for the life of me, could never get myself to use one of those "ergonomic keyboards". You know the kind where it is cut in half, angled on each side, then the middle is nothing but dead space. To me, they feel awkward and unnatural, look stupid, and handicap the rest of the human race that is used to straight keyboards.

There are people out there who function better with, and love those keyboards.

I guess my point is, it is someones personal machine, I am not gonna rail on them for not being authentic, being cocky or even being inexperienced. I may personally not like it, but my brain has only been tuned to using P1/P2 controls only one specific way.

I have been down the angled controls route before for player's 3 and 4, when I was surprised how many times I was seeing them angled. I finally tried it on someone else's cab, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Green eggs and Ham moment for me.

[BadMouth]

This is a different entity from what the OP's original grip/question was.  If you've never actually angled the buttons you should try it.  You don't really gain a true perspective until you play it on wood with angled buttons.  Angled buttons are super ergonomic and prevent finger fatigue.  Yeah yeah, catch phrase smatch phrase but it really works man.  I noticed a huge difference after two hours of playing.  On my straight line buttons my fingers would cramp but on the angled buttons I can play longer.

OP is talking about the joystick being angled.  On original arcade games, up on the joystick was always parallel with the sides of the cab, even if the player were standing to the side and the buttons were angled.  Basically the joystick is aligned with your character on the screen, not your body's angle to the arcade machine.  Even though the buttons were angled so the joystick handle and buttons were square with your body, the joystick was not angled.

I think it might just be a matter of younger people being used to playing with controllers, so they want the controls squared with their body.

Notice where UP is on this gauntlet panel.  Noob's would have UP facing toward the center of the panel.

[DaveMMR]

The button angling or curving isn't all that much of a concern (as long as your design is not over-angled, like straight up). Albeit, I believe over-thinking ergonomics is time wasted that could otherwise be spent on other things. Straight across is fine (SFII), slight curve is okay, extreme angles should be tested extensively with two players on many rounds of fighting games (and at that point - just go with one of the standards.)

Just for clarity though, I am referring to Player 1 and 2 joysticks being set up an an angle that's at least 15 degrees off center, but not even 45 degrees.  That is what's baffling me a bit...

I guess my point is, it is someones personal machine, I am not gonna rail on them for not being authentic, being cocky or even being inexperienced. I may personally not like it, but my brain has only been tuned to using P1/P2 controls only one specific way.

You know what I agree but I can't imagine this is comfortable in any way except for the person building it, as he/she is rationalize their decision to install the sticks that way.  So I bring this up not to say "hey stop doing things wrongs!"  But I think it's starting to spread and suddenly people are dropping a couple of bills on wood, artwork, lexan - and not to mention time - because they were getting the idea from someone else's project.  It's one of those things that sounds good on paper, but seems terrible in practice.

I believe in "do whatever you want" with the rest of the cab - but bad controls could potentially make the cab a chore  to play and as a result, almost useless.

I have been down the angled controls route before for player's 3 and 4, when I was surprised how many times I was seeing them angled. I finally tried it on someone else's cab, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Green eggs and Ham moment for me.

Unauthentic to arcade, yes - but it's not horrible when the front of the cab (like half an octagon shape) is parallel to the angle of the sticks (which is typically 45 degrees).  Just again to clarify, what I am seeing is the main (P1 and P2) sticks, angled not at all parallel to the front edge and not even at 0/360 or 45 degrees (like it's almost random). 

(Sorry I can't provide examples, but there are a couple in Proj. Announce.  I do not want to single anyone out.)

[Ond]

I think it's probably down to a stubborn attachment to aesthetics i.e. builders don't care about the practicality of a stick at an odd angle from the plane of the screen they just want the look of their CP to be like that.  You can get used to anything I guess, but practical design is another matter.

[drventure]

Interesting. I've noticed the same thing lately. I don't recall cp's that popped up around here from back even just a few years ago with p1-2 sticks angled, but I've seen several of them in the last few months.

Seems like they've always been nods to the angled front edge of the CP's though, which tends to indicate more of a design decision than and functional one. Ond's right , though, you can get used to anything (see laptop keyboards vs desktop, big L shaped enter key vs single row enter key, etc).

[Le Chuck]

That gauntlet CP is the perfect example of how to handle the issue.  If you want to crowd everybody together that's fine, if you want to put the buttons at various clock positions with respect to the joy and monitor that's fine too but UP should always translate in relation to the monitor because players are watching the screen and not their hands.  Rotating the joystick on axis does nothing to the ergonomics, it will work exactly the same and produce the same fatigues because that rotation doesn't alter the way it fits in your hand so anybody who claims ergonomics for rotating a joystick is barking up the wrong tree... in fact I don't even think it's a tree.

Button position is a whole other issue and I've seen a lot of builds on here start to angle the button layouts to "prevent jostling" which I've found to be malarky personally but doesn't affect gameplay significantly.  If it looks cool and plays fine then knock your socks off.  When the users start moving the relative position of UP away from direct screen orientation that is where the waters get murky for playability because the brain wants the way you move the joystick to correlate directly to the way the little man moves on screen whether or not that joystick movement is in line with the body or laterally like when you're playing as Thor or Questor.

So the trick is separating the discussion and advice of button position from UP orientation because I think that we can pretty much agree that while position is a matter or preference there is only one right answer for UP... unless you're Q-Bert... or marble madness... or nevermind.    

[Green Giant]

I guess the best example would be the common QWERTY keyboard.  It is a fact that there is a much more efficient keyboard design, but QWERTY is so ingrained that we don't want to change.  Just an FYI, QWERTY was designed to slow down typing and encourage alternating a letter from each hand to reduce the chance the mechanical typewriter would jam up when the keys hit the paper.

Don't repeat urban legends.

http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html

Ok, if I remove the statement about more efficient designs, then everything else is true.

Also, that article does nothing to say QWERTY is the best design, it just says DVORAK is not an obvious improvement.  Although I still believe there are more efficient keyboard designs, might not be Dvorak, but I didn't even realize that was the common comparison.  



I guess I should have used the Beta Max VHS analogy.  Once a standard becomes accepted it is difficult to change it.

But if you want to argue about standards and efficiency, there is no argument.  There are many many areas where standard activities are done inefficiently, but the effort to change the process is to much of a pain in the ass to deal with.

Hence why angled arcade controls are a bad plan unless every single person who plays on your machine has plenty of time to break all of their old habits.

[Vigo]

I have been down the angled controls route before for player's 3 and 4, when I was surprised how many times I was seeing them angled. I finally tried it on someone else's cab, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Green eggs and Ham moment for me.

Unauthentic to arcade, yes - but it's not horrible when the front of the cab (like half an octagon shape) is parallel to the angle of the sticks (which is typically 45 degrees).  Just again to clarify, what I am seeing is the main (P1 and P2) sticks, angled not at all parallel to the front edge and not even at 0/360 or 45 degrees (like it's almost random). 

I hear what you are saying, and frankly i do agree. I don't know if I could wrap my mind around a slightly offset joystick. The P3/P4 I have come to terms with were 45 degree joysticks on a half octagon. I don't want to rail on this idea just yet because I used to think there was no way you could angle any controller on a cab and have it work.

Put me in the "skeptical, but not ready to to knock a method I have't tried yet" category.

[Green Giant]

When QWERTY was created it was far from the industry standard.  The jamming problem was solved on type writers very early and it was many years before QWERTY took over, and it was done in the face of a lot of competitors.  Point being, it's the standard because people preferred it and not because some nefarious designer was attempting to slow typists down.


Anyway, now that you know, it's one of those things that'll drive you nuts like "NASA spent millions on a pen, the Soviets used a pencil" and "the creator of Fahrenheit made 100 degrees equal to the hottest day of the year" and other nonsense stories people like to repeat.

Angled control panels mean you don't have to touch the guy standing next to you.  Works for me.

Haha, the nasa one is pretty funny.  Never seen the email talking about Fahrenheit. 



My main complaint with angled though is that new users on your arcade will find it awkward.  They will just find something different without being able to pinpoint it probably.

But if you are putting a trackball in the middle of the CP, I really don't see a need to angle it to separate players.  That seems like overkill.

[ark_ader]

Does it relieve hand cramp?

[Vater]

Forgive me if someone has brought it up, but skimming through I didn't see anyone mention it.  There's at least one original arcade game (series, more accurately) that has angled joysticks, and oddly enough the front of the control panel is not contoured or angled at all, but parallel with the screen.  I own an original Virtua Fighter cabinet, and when I first played around with it I found that it was difficult to move the characters in the direction I wanted them to go, and I couldn't figure out why...until I opened the control panel.


Photo courtesy of Google image search; not my cab

Even on the outside you can tell that the control sets (joy and buttons together) for each player are angled slightly toward center.  But the control panel graphic with all its 90° angles can throw you off.  I'll have to snap a picture of the underside of the CP tonight (it's off the cab as its in the process of a MAME conversion), but the joys are definitely not parallel with the face of the monitor.

Bottom line is, I agree with most everyone here that it doesn't feel right when the joys are angled.  I'd be interested to know if there are any other games around with this setup.  It would be odd if the VF series was the only one.

[DaveMMR]

Vater, can't really tell by the picture, I don't see the bolt heads to determine.  But disregard the buttons - is the joystick mounting plate itself parallel to the straight lines where the up position is directly towards the screen (i.e. 12 O'Clock)?  

You know, if you opened that up and told me they mounted those sticks at an angle, I would be genuinely shocked (or it's a really bad conversion job by an op.)  

EDIT: I looked up the manual (only found VF2 - but I assume it's the same).  It looks indeed to be angled.  Hmmm.... don't get why they'd do it that way?  But I'm not much of a VF player.

Here's the manual - see page 35 (copy and paste - can't use hyperlink markup due to brackets in address):

Code: [Select]

http://pdf.textfiles.com/manuals/ARCADE/S-Z/Virtua%20Fighter%202%20[Service]%20[English].pdf
EDIT #2: Yes VF1 and VF2 are the same - here's the manual for VF1: http://www.crazykong.com/manuals/VirtuaFighter.man.pdf

[bkenobi]

The link didn't work for me, but it is on the site...

[DaveMMR]

Fixed it.  I'm bad at this.   

[drventure]

There's at least one original arcade game (series, more accurately) that has angled joysticks

Awesome. I sense a disturbance in the force....   

[BadMouth]

There's at least one original arcade game (series, more accurately) that has angled joysticks

Awesome. I sense a disturbance in the force....  

This bothers me.....really bothers me.

We must re-orient all the joysticks in VF2 cabs, burn the manuals, and never speak of this again.  

(Good find though)

[Vater]

I find it funny that no one was aware of this (including myself before I bought one).  I was never a Virtua Fighter player either (I remember playing a couple times when it was first released because it was all new and 3-dimensiony and stuff), but--as I'm sure most of you would expect--it genuinely feels natural to play assuming the sticks are oriented at 90°, which messes up your movements.

The greater problem with the VF panel in particular is, there is absolutely nothing that would indicate at what angle the joysticks are positioned.  It's not even consistent on each side.  If you look at the picture (even more evident in the manual DaveMMR linked to), button 1 (Defense) is positioned in a different spot in relation to each joystick.

[DaveMMR]

I'll save everyone the trouble of flipping through the manual; I attached the diagram.



Vater, good spotting.  I'm genuinely in shock and now I'm beginning to wonder. I haven't looked under many panels: are they all crooked and I'm just assuming otherwise because translates it "correctly" somehow?

Come to think of it, I did seem to "jump back" a lot the few times I played Virtua Fighter. I though I just sucked at it.  

I don't know - doesn't seem to make logical sense but, admittedly, what I know about arcade machines is relatively minuscule. I think I'm doing some more research on this.  

 

[yotsuya]

Maybe their market research showed them that most arcade players would rather not be standing right next to one another while playing fighters? 

[Le Chuck]

Maybe their market research showed them that most arcade players would rather not be standing right next to one another while playing fighters? 

But how were they [we] supposed to figure it out?  Arrows or something would've helped.  I'm not up on my VF history but wasn't it supposed to be somewhat ground-breaking?  Maybe the devs were trying to shake up the way players play - deciding that right and left should be relative to a player's feet when standing at the cab or some such wackiness. 

[Vater]

That's exactly what I suspect, Le Chuck; because of the groundbreaking nature of the game, and possibly because there were fewer buttons than on typical fighters, the devs may have wanted a more laid back approach to player orientation or something.  Unfortunately it seems like the dude that designed the layout of the controls and the graphic designer of the panel itself weren't on speaking terms.

Edit: Took a quick pic of the underside of the CP.

[Xiaou2]

Ive been under the hood of Tons of machines.  In the arcade I managed, there were 42 games at any one point in time. Titles rotated every now and then as well.

 I didnt initially recall VF having angled sticks.  It made like a dollar a week, so I rarely had to touch it. However, none of the other games Id seen had angled sticks.  VF hardly matters... not only because the game is so crappy.. but also because jumping is something you Dont want to do in that game.  10min of slow motion flight... ugg.  Pit Fighter has better gameplay than VF  heh. (I now have a feeling Sega was trying to sabbotage the player, so that it would make the player spend a bit more money to cover the losses of its craptastic creation)

 Some Idiot did however install angled sticks on a Tekken Pedestal unit... and I couldnt play it for crap as a result.  A lot of games came as Kits... and it was up to the Op's / Managers to install them.

 
 Angled buttons are one thing.. but sticks should always be parallel to the monitor.  Most people instinctively press north as Up, no matter which way their body is facing, when playing at an arcade control panel.

 Also, theres a difference between a straight set of angled buttons, and buttons that are laid out in a circular or non-linear shape.  When buttons are aligned squared, its easy to know where buttons are.  However, when they are at odd alignments to each other... unless you actually Look at the buttons, you can get lost / confused.  You can end up hitting the wrong button, or hit the buttons hard edges...rather than the center of the buttons.   Maybe thats why some Japanese cabinets switched to convex (raised) buttons.. to help with the poor layout choices in some cabinets.

 The Majority pretty much speaks for itself... and its that way for very good reasons.
 

[amendonz]

I'd def go for north south joysticks but I don't think it's that bigger deal. When playing on console using stick I don't need to perfectly align myself with the tv. 

[Le Chuck]

I'd def go for north south joysticks but I don't think it's that bigger deal. When playing on console using stick I don't need to perfectly align myself with the tv. 

no but you're playing with sticks that have a clearly defined up in relation to the joypad which allows you to play so smoothly off kilter.  If you rotated up to 15 degrees on an analog stick joypad you'd probably have a helluva time for a bit tell you adjusted.

[amendonz]

Yeah but your whole body is angled with the joystick.  If I were to stay aligned head on(on angled) it would feel weird, but i'd imagine you would stand at an angle making up for the angle. Not saying it's a good set up at all, just I think it would be workable.

[kahlid74]

This is really interesting.  I never thought about this.  I'm not super young but my arcade days were mostly 88 and on and I don't really remember this with 4 player games.  Every cab I build has the joystick angled because it's easy for me to take Lusid's layout and angle it on the top of the control panel, tape down and drill.  My first cab from 2003 is still played fairly often at a friends house (we played four player during Super Bowl) and no one had any issues with the angled joysticks.  Now that I think about it, it does take a few moments to get accustomed to the up direction towards the monitor not being 100% up but then you adjust and don't think about it again.

Very interesting.

[Gray_Area]

Angled control panels mean you don't have to touch the guy standing next to you.  Works for me.

I see you're studiously trying to avoid your true nature.


Yeah, I've noticed this, too. Looks aesthetically interesting. Looks functionally problematic. But then, I think I remember some kid back in the day playing on Atari or something with the stick diagonal-facing, and he rocked. Reminds me of them teaching us to write with our papers at an angle and all that in school. I still do that sometimes, before I notice the crook in my damn neck.

[Howard_Casto]

You know I always told people back in the day that VF was garbage and the controls handled like a..... well garbage truck.  Now I have proof. 

Weird angles and designs are always caused by one thing when you look into it... the franken-panel.  People are trying to stuff 20 pounds of crap in a 10 pound sack.  The angled design is their way to try to stuff more uselessness on.  The trend to do two rows of four buttons, simply because consoles do so, is eating up a lot of room... even on modest panels. 

I would also like to point out that on those rare arcade games where the joysticks WERE angled, directional input wasn't curcial to the game.  I know a few 4-player cabinets did it, but they housed isometric beat-em-ups.  The only thing you use the joystick for in those games is to very slowly adjust your walking direction... it isn't like street fighter where a mis-aligned joystick would ruin your game.

[Xiaou2]

You know I always told people back in the day that VF was garbage and the controls handled like a..... well garbage truck.  Now I have proof.  Cheesy

 It wasnt just the angles of the sticks. The game used Happ Ultimates... which didnt work well for very long due to the fast wear of the spacers.  Of course, there were some other 3d fighters and 3d games, which also stunk around that time.  Quite simply put.. .the technology for 3d used in a fighting game, just wasnt ready for prime time.

Weird angles and designs are always caused by one thing when you look into it... the franken-panel.  People are trying to stuff 20 pounds of crap in a 10 pound sack.

 Let the Trolling begin      Thats why, on the spacious CP of Virtua Fighters, the sticks were angled?  Ohh, wait.. Contradiction.   There are plenty of large and multi-controller control panels that have correctly angled sticks, that play and feel just fine.

The angled design is their way to try to stuff more uselessness on.

 

Ahh, Uselessness?  I never realized that having a game control the way it was intended... was Useless.  Tempest with joystick?  It will play like BUTT... butt hey, we dont want the control panel to look cluttered or too 'ugly', so that we upset someone... right?!   

The trend to do two rows of four buttons, simply because consoles do so, is eating up a lot of room... even on modest panels.

 Hmm, maybe The[Y], use 8 buttons, to play emulated console games, which use more than 6 buttons?  Maybe they utilize the buttons in different ways, to be more authentic to the original layouts... such as NeoGeo's 4-in-a-row.. yet still able to use the SF style layout as well?   Whats it matter to you that they burn an extra 4" of CP space to make THEMSELVES HAPPY, playing THEIR CONTROL PANELS?

 Stop being so black and white.

 Theres a big difference between not knowing something, and making a well informed and decided choice, based on finances, space, and personal preferences.

 The usual decision to angle sticks is simply because many builders have never seen the underside of real arcade machines.  And or they think they can improve upon things... but just dont have the experience.

 
 To the others... Yes, you could train yourself to operate a stick at an angle (but others who are not trained will not be happy).  However, it almost never fails... that you end up making at least one mistake every now and then, due to the stresses in quick action games.   You may also say that your fine with a gamepad at an angle.. so why not a joystick?  The thing is... is that your grip on the controller is very tactile.  You can feel where things are... and thus know instantly which direction is which based on that feel.  With a joystick in a large CP however, theres nothing tactile to feel.  The CP edge isnt really enough.  You Might be able to semi-solve this with some vertical linear bumps.  But even that may not be quite enough.  Its far better to just keep the sticks parallel to the monitor.

[amendonz]

er no, not gamepad I was talking about playing with a arcade stick on console.

[DaveMMR]

er no, not gamepad I was talking about playing with a arcade stick on console.

The thing with that (whether it's gamepad or arcade stick), those are something you hold in relation to your body.  They are not screwed down to anything.  But the fact of the matter is that an arcade machine's controls are not like a console's where you can move it around, bring it closer or change the angle to accommodate your position.

I think a lot of newer, younger builders are thinking "consoles" when planning their arcade machines instead of "arcade". That's why, as Howard said, you're seeing many 8 BPP (buttons per player) setups on extra-wide panels with gratuitous angling. You don't sit in close proximity to your friend playing a console - so you can't be too close to anyone at the cabinet. You look down and see your arcade stick eschew while you're playing - you translate that to the control panel.

Builders who think "arcade" when building arcade machines tend to emulate the most versatile real-world arcade layout depending on their needs. This would typically be your standard 6-button Street Fighter layout, the Neo-Geo layout or a simple two or three button row. The spacing between players is minimal: enough so players have the room needed but can still see the screen straight-on. And, VF notwithstanding, the sticks are installed straight (up at 12 o'clock) because the designers have no idea where the player will be standing - having the reference point a stationary object (monitor) means joystick motions are intuitive no matter where you stand.

I think the best piece advice for people designing control panels for arcade cabinets is remembering that you're making this - not this. Otherwise, there might be some frustration down the road.

As for the Virtua Fighter layout - I'm guessing it may be due to the fact that this was around the time Sega was clearing starting to lose it's mind. 

[Vater]

While I definitely think straight alignment with the monitor is best (and will be doing so when I build my CP), I don't see anything inherently wrong with angling the sticks and buttons...except when there's no indication they're angled, as in the case of VF.  I find it astounding that there's nothing angled on the CP art--even the button labels are parallel with the screen!

If someone wants angled controls on their CP, I couldn't care less; I'm never gonna play their cab.  Seems that some arcade purists can get pretty bent out of shape over silly stuff.

[CheffoJeffo]

My only contribution here is a solid  to vater for being the first person that I have ever seen to find a concrete example of angled sticks on a factory cabinet.

[Vater]

Heh, thanks, although had I not bought a VF cab and happened upon this thread the other day, the profound affect of the angled sticks on my VF CP wouldn't have even entered my mind. Good timing, I guess.

[CheffoJeffo]

Well, to be fair, the sticks are Happ Ultimates ... it's not like anybody would actually notice the angling!