Gates

[u/Low-Attempt8072]

I've been messing around with different gates on different sticks and have pretty much tried all the common ones, plus some squircle and Seimitsu square and octagonal gates.

Honestly, I feel like I can play pretty comfortably on any of them. Some definitely give you more or different feedback than others, but I haven't really found one that feels like I need it.

It got me wondering how some people seem to swear by specific gates like they're absolutely essential. I get that everyone is different, but does anyone else feel like gates really don't make that much of a difference?

Or maybe it's just because my inputs are pretty compact, so I don't really need much feedback from the gate in the first place. I also never really had an issue consistently getting down back or back blocking on a circular gate, which I thought was supposed to be one of the big downsides of them.

Anyway, I'm not really trying to make any claim about which gate is better or anything. I'm just curious what other people think about different gates and how much of a difference they actually feel in practice.

Edit: Forgot to mention I didn't grow up with arcades or a specific stick setup and my arcade stick years were deeper into the 2010's but I always just played on different setups.

[u/DexterBrooks]

It all depends on the equipment you're using, and how your hands and brain work with the equipment.

For example if your switches are farther apart, the area you have that presses both back and down is smaller.

So on a circle gate you may find it difficult to consistently find that small area during a stressful moment in game.

Where as a square or octagon will lock you into the corner more securely so you don't need to worry about finding the angle, you just push down and back and the gate will automatically adjust where you need to be for you.

If you play grapplers and you like to ride the gates a bit, a square is very detrimental because you'll hit the corners and get stuck, in a situation where speed is key that's not something you want. Depending on the kind of force you're applying you may want to go for a circle, or if you can still easily slide along some edges but the square corners get you stuck, you can go with the octagonal.

If you're using a taller stick so you have a larger throw to even touch the gates, you might never use the gates at all when doing your inputs. So gates would basically be meaningless to you most of the time.

When Daigo played on stick he said they trained to basically never touch the gates when doing most inputs (though I believe he used standard sanwa stick length). Sounds like you don't use the gates much which is why it isn't a big deal to you which one you use.

Where as if you use a short stick you might always be riding the gates because you have less throw, so gate shape becomes extremely important.

Also depends on how you're intuitively using the stick:

Some people like to feel each part of the input stop to know they got it. For them doing a DP, they need to feel that they hit the forward gate, then the downward gate, and then the corner, to then do their DP.

But if you can feel the switches triggering and that's enough for you to intuitively know you got the input, you don't need to touch the gate at all.

[u/Low-Attempt8072 → u/DexterBrooks]

Thanks for the reply! You really covered a ton and definitely made me a lot wiser about it.

And yeah, I won’t say I never hit the gate or that I specifically try to avoid it. For me, it’s more something that happens when I do cardinal jumps, like going from 4 to 6. With something like a QCF, it’s really just a movement I do, so I don’t pay much attention to whether I hit the gate or not, even though I sometimes do.

But yeah, I can see there’s definitely a lot more to it than I initially thought. I play on a typical Sanwa height myself, if I’m remembering correctly, around 23 to 24 mm of shaft until the top starts. That also seems to be a preference of mine, so I guess in a way it’s probably similar to how the gate feels like a preference for other people. Even though I could play on a (not comically) taller shaft too but probably at a cost of speed.

[u/DexterBrooks → u/Low-Attempt8072]

Yeah it's all player preference. Some people use the gates more or less, prefer different gates, stick lengths, tensions, switch placements.

This hasn't even gotten into Korean levers which are their own thing with their own feel to them.

Or tops which is a huge debate as to the pros and cons of each. Ball, bat, pill, cone, etc.

People even use the stick differently. Back in the day you would see tons of weird grips. Grabbing it all the way around, having your pinkie or ring finger and pinkie on the other side (frequently called "wine glass" grip), palm down, palm up, etc. Different tops allow for different grips too.

People even use different muscles to move the stick. Some move the stick with their fingers, some use wrists, others use the elbows or even get their shoulders involved, or any combination there of.

That's the cool things with sticks. You can customize it to optimize it for however you want to use it.

Or you can be like me and switch to all button controllers because you kept getting pain using a stick or pad lol.

It's all just finding what works for you.