Why don't more people tilt their buttons?

[subzero23]

Assuming they use something like a Street Fighter layout, why don't more people put it on a more ergonomically comfortable angle, like tilt it 15 degrees or even 10 degrees?

Does this feel ackward or something?

[Apollo]

Some people do some people don't. Personally I don't, no arcade machine I have ever seen does and it just feels right to have the buttons lined up straight. By the way like your user name, sub zero is my fav MK fighter, the only one I play actually.

[subzero23]

Ya I'm a big MK heritage fan
although right now I"m into the Marvel VS Capcom "vs" games etc.. I think my cab will be X-Men themed

Anyway my school has a cabinet with a control panel tilted, on 1player it's tilted the wrong way making it uncomfortable, ont he other player it's tilted the right direction and seems more comfortable

[RayB]

See the problem with basing control opinions on existing Fighter games is that most of these games were "conversion kits" and thus some guy (the operator/owner or his technician) would drill the control panels and install the buttons themselves.

Now, I don't want to insult anyone, but these guys aren't exactly engineers or ergonomics experts. Most of them would just install the buttons in whatever was the faster cheapest way possible. I doubt much thought was given to ergonomics. Or as in the example posted by Subzero, they tried and came up with a stupid solution.

[subzero23]

True
I think SF was mostly all conversions right?

Do you think it would be a good idea to tilt 15 degrees or so or would that be ackward and uncomfortable?

[Hoagie_one]

are you talking about the control panel tilted forward slightly or the buttons tilted at an angle?

[MameJunkie]

I'm planning to tilt my middle button up a little.
About 1/3-1/2" inch higher than the side buttons.

[Hoagie_one]

When you curl your fingers, as if you are typing, all three fingers are even.  unless you dont play like that.

[RacerX]

I slanted mine a little bit.  I pretty much just stood in front of my contol panel and put my "button hand" on it in the most comfortable position for me and marked that.  Then I drilled my button holes at that angle.  It helps keep my wrist from getting sore during marathon game sessions.

[Gunstar Hero]

My "6 button" CP is layed out straight just to stay in line with what almost every fighting game I ever played in the arcade was.

IIRC, it wasn't just operators, but Capcom themselves who started laying out the "6 button layout" that way. In fact, before SF2 was REALLY big, I remember seeing alot of funky button layouts on conversions.

It's also much simpler and more accurate to make a MK control scheme with a "straight" layout.

[subzero23]

Well I guess it depends on how far away your hands are from each other

If the joystick is only like an inch away from the buttons you're probably going to have to tilt your hand more, and to compensate, would have to angle the buttons more (by angling the buttons I mean like this, except without such a steep incline)
      o  o
   o  o
o  o

It's somewhat of an inverse relationship I believe, I mean, for example (not accurate) if the button/joysticks were seperated by 1" you might want to angle it 25degrees, 3" 15 degrees, 4" 10 degrees etc.

[subzero23]

I should also mention that when I'm tilting the buttons, I'm not changing where they are in relation to each other

just imagine a squared rectangle tilted at an angle, like this
    oo
   oo
  oo

not like this
  o
 oo
oo
 o

[Gunstar Hero]

Well, the idea is, set it up how you like it.  

[RayB]

I'd slant it just a little. Less than 15' (something like 10').

It also depends how far from the joystick your buttons are. The closed they are to the joystick, the more your arm will be angled and thus the better an angled button layout will be.

[subzero23]

Ya I came to the same conclusion
and depending on where I put them I may not even angle them at all, or maybe 5-10' (why the heck is there no degree "o" symbol lol)

[vputz]

I'm with RacerX; I just pretended I was playing, put my button hand in the right place, and figured I'd go with the TLAR method (That Looks About Right).

To be fair, I actually did mark some guidelines and used a compass to ensure the buttons were on nice-looking arcs and spaced so that they would fit well... but basically it was TLAR.

-->Stitch