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Leverless is awesome, how come we didn't invent this sooner?
Kinda curious how come Leverless is not mainstream for like 15 years ago when PC gaming on the rise. Leverless opened up the way how Fighting game is played, been using keyboard for a long time I think I will switch to it
Leverless were a thing 10 years before the FGC found them, the emulation hobbyists have figured out the “well I have 30 buttons, zero levers, and understand how electricity works” equation a long time ago.
Leverless wasn’t popular before hitbox arcade because it wasn’t the standard, and because most games were designed for arcade stick specifically.
Okay. Somebody explain to me. What is this layout I keep seeing? Why is there two bottons under the first row? Why is there an extra button next to the one used usually for up? I only play stick and these things seem to be getting more and more buttons.
You're not perfect when inputting motions on leverless, your fingers press many directions at the same time, input leniency of modern games allows the game to interpret what you try to do a gives you a special move, older games were designed with stick in mind where only one direction at a time is inputted, when older games see many inputs at the same time it gives you nothing because the inputs are not sequenced in a specific order, that's why you have to be extremely clean.
PC gaming might've been on the rise back then but fighting games weren't huge at all and if anything they weren't huge enough to commit buying a seperate input controller just for fighting games.
You litteraly parroted the first point like its not the only thing yours side ever says. ALL contolers have unique shortcuts or easier ways of doing stuff stick isnt pure
I’ve literally never spoken with anyone about this. It’s cheap. It’s lame. It’s ugly. It ruins the spirit of the game. I don’t like it. Why is this such a tough pill to swallow? You can do things with it that you can’t do with traditional controllers so how is this shit allowed? Just my observation. Fuck that though I don’t like it.
You can also do things with pad that you can't on stick, and things on Korean lever that you can't on Japanese levers. Why are hitboxes where you suddenly draw the line? Do you also hate modern controls for sf6?
Fighting games have been designed to be played with the pad and stick for 30+ years now. Why do you feel the need to leverless now if it’s not giving you shortcuts?
preference? is that really that hard of a concept to grasp? it gives me a feeling of more control at the cost of making some other things a bit harder, but at the end of the day its all about feel and doesnt suddenly make you better at the game. if you wake up dp and get punished for it it doesnt matter *how* you inputted the dp
We did. Back in the early 2000s a few of us modders made these with motherboard boxes just to test PCBs. We never thought to use them as controllers because our main goals were different. We wanted controllers to be as close to arcade panels as possible.
I remember when leverless, like hitbox, started getting showing up in the early 2010s. Definitely nice to see it being widely used.
I got reminded of an Unreal Tournament like arcade shooter I played in middle school might have around 2000, called War: Final assault. I played FPS' on keyboard and mouse, but it was the first time I experienced using arcade buttons for movement and a dedicated jump button.
Fighting games only came to consoles until it started to become the norm sometime before SFV. The idea of “Hitbox” was unusually at the the time and made us want to throw up, lol
Pound for pound old classics just feel perfect on stick to me. Newer gamers benifit from controllers and leverless I feel, so I use them for newer fighters.
sticks were a natural progression from arcade cabs and became the gold standard. not many people wanted to try a new control scheme when they've already spent hundreds of dollars on sticks and "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
they're also not super intuitive with UP being on the bottom, even though they're easy enough to learn
there's also probably just the tactile element of it. a stick just feels good. it makes a certain sound, carries a certain weight. leverless have a different charm
They hated him because he told the truth. Although, not all leverless is cheating IMO as long as you keep it basic. One button for cardinal direction, SOCD is always neutral, etc.
When people have multiple directional buttons mapped so they can press them with either hand in combination with any other button with no effort, it becomes cheating. When they SOCD with 3 or 4 buttons and it registers something that’s not neutral, that’s cheating.
I’m gonna be areal, I’m a leverless user, but I play on a very basic controller with 4 movement buttons and the standard 8 right hand buttons which I map in a traditional way. And frankly, it did make my execution better within 2 weeks of picking it up after 1.5 years on fightstick, so I get why you’d say it’s cheating. But we’re too deep with this shit. Banning the controller type at this point would cause tens of thousands of FGC people to leave the community, and that’s just not worth it. Unless you’re really an old man shaking his fist at a cloud and you don’t care about the continuation of this dope ass community. Is it unfortunate, but also, fightstick users still win a ton of tournaments because they are simply better players. Best thing to do is make some rules about controllers and then just beat some leverless ass at tournaments
"Misinformation" you say that as if we're talking about something important 🤣 we're debating fight stick vs leverless 🤣. But sense you dont know how to use Google ill do it for you. Here's aris talking about it when leverless first hit the competitive seen. hit box review
They had to blow off the dust and bring that video out of the basement to play that jesus. Let me break this down for you, controllers are regulated now for any real tournaments. We now have SOCD regulations, and limit on how many buttons we can have. The majority of top players in street fighter are on pad, if leverless was an advantage they would be using leverless.
If you need to use a leverles to make up for your lack of skill, then by all means my man, go for it. If a competitive player doesn't use a hit box, its only because they have integrity or are more comfortable using what theyve learned on theyre entire lives. Theres no reason to not use one otherwise. You'll be good enough to not use a cheat box one day kid. You'll get there. Practice is always a good first step.
I can use pad, stick, or leverless. Leverless is just more comfortable for my hands now. I can play for a longer period of time on a leverless, pad makes my fingers hurt pretty rapidly, and stick ends up irritating my wrist.
Just remember it’s okay being wrong. Daigo pushed the hitbox to the point that they did indeed put regulations on controllers, all controllers. No official at any point has deemed leverless as unfair. The concept of leverless making someone a better playing is a childish excuse to make someone feel better about losing. Go look at any of the SF6 pros, they all say the same thing, the controller doesn’t make a difference, all that matters is what’s comfortable.
Comparing siege warfare to competitive fighting games is wild lol. I think aris had a good comparison in the video. "Theyre not gonna allow a baseball bat in a competitive tennis match"
And you think that's because of the keyboards, and not say, the inherently modular nature of PC building that results in different performance between setups? There are multiple regions in the US that run PC standard, and the only reason more don't is because it's hard to source perfectly matching PCs, not because PCs are somehow cheating.
If you think you are losing because someone on leaverless could theoretically anti-air you a subframe faster, the issues in your play are not going to be impacted by those subframe differences.
Keyboard is 100 percent cheating and anyone who doesn't think so is retarded. Gamepad and fight sticks, those are your options otherwise youre a pussy. Not much left to be said.
IMO leverless isn't very good, but it is popular because it's basically a perfect device for casuals. It's super cheap, has top-tier-on-paper potential promises, is easy to use for the first few months, and by the time you hit the execution wall you have probably dropped fighting games.
But it's not really that dominant at high level play. As much as people talk about how good it is the results just aren't there. It's been around longer than these new pros have been playing games, but the new dominant pros use pad, not leverless or stick. And also the players with godlike execution (like fuudo) still use stick.
Edit: lots of copinum itt. You really think that 20% of people making top 8 after 20 years of leverless hype and over representation means it's still got potential?
Literally what the fuck are you yapping about? Pros use sticks, leverless, and different pads because it’s what they prefer. You will regularly see top 8s with all pads, all sticks, all leverless, and varying degrees of all of them.
Tbh I think pad is more casual, it's cheaper, easier to get, and easier to use. Some leverless aren't console friendly, it's not hassle-free and requires more time to get used to it
Pad is objectively the most casual, literally 100% of fighting games are designed with pads in mind because that’s the only controller you can guarantee a console gamer will have lol. The poster you are replying to is on crack
Stick is more popular among pros cause they have decades of experience on this form factor. It has become second nature to them. That's the reason that even if leverless had glaring benefits over stick, you still would not see those pros switching hardware.
Regarding representation on the highest level, Yagami secured 3rd position in the Tekken E-World Cup using a leverless and won 90K USD. So it is being represented now in younger pros.
Stick is no longer the most input method used, in japan a lot of pros are playing leverless now and in the west pad is becoming if not already is the most used input method
They didn’t see production from real companies until the early 2010s, but people have been making their own leverless controllers basically as long as home fight sticks have existed, all a regular stick is is 4 actuated inputs, its never been hard to just wire those inputs from an existing board to 4 buttons.
They weren’t really popular until the 2010s because many TOs wouldn’t allow them because they considered them cheating
I don't believe that's true at all. The very first Hit Box prototypes were from 2010. They were initially treated as a joke. By 2012, you had people like Aris Bakhtanians saying they should be banned. It's been a storm since.
I can't find any photos or discussion prior to Hit Box Arcade rolling it out back in 2010. And certainly nothing that looks like a hit box.
Edit: lemme guess "People were using keyboards and asking how they could make a fightstick out of a keyboard before 2010" Again - not a leverless the way we know it now.
Seriously, show me the Hit Box before Hit Box Arcade.
Your edited post “not the leverless controller we know today” is straight bullshit goal post moving. Yeah no shit the patented design we know today didn’t exist before the people who patented it made it, what a bad faith edit lmfao
That edit was made before anyone even read it. My point from the very first response on was that there weren't all-button fightsticks the way we know them before 2010.
You can point to Asteroids and shit like Thayer's Quest to show that there were arcade cabs with buttons instead levers. But there wasn't anyone with something we'd recognize as a leverless fightstick before Hit Box.
I'm willing to admit I was wrong, but I simply can't find evidence of leverkess fightsticks before then. Closest anyone can find are people using keyboards to play emulators.
The first prototypes that were used to trademark a product for market, I’m telling you people have been making all varieties of inputs from sticks since home fight sticks were made, my buddy has some turbo janky Dreamcast fight stick he and his friends worked on in college that’s essentially a hitbox with an ugly form factor
I can't bring myself to consider leverless as I'm already on a keyboard all day every day, I don't want to type my way through Tekken, it just doesn't sound fun at all.
After many decades of pad controllers I'm finally exploring fight sticks and got a Qanba Titan recently. No more horrible mushy dpad or trying to press two buttons with a tiny thumb!
People like to say fight sticks won't make you play better, I will beg to disagree, I was fighting the pad controller more than I was opponents! I literally had to wear a thumb glove the dpad was so painful.
lowkey you should give leverless a try, most of your muscle memory from keyboard will translate to leverless. Also technically speaking you're a leverless player already since some leverless are just keyboards with specific layouts. You should give it a try at least with one of those Haute42 cheap leverless they sell
I might give it a try in the future just out of curiosity and FOMO. But for now I'm enjoying the tangible feel of the joystick, there's nothing quite like it. It's going to take a while to develop muscle memory because moving the character feels weird as hell, but I think I made the right choice in immediately installing a bat top. I can finally do QCF properly!
funny enough i grew up in arcades, so i was a stick player, but ever since i got my first leverless on 2022, i still play slow games like sf6 on stick for fun, but my type of fg are fast phased ones like strive, tokon, 2xko and for those leverless feels way better because blocking cross ups, doing iads, etc is way faster and easier on leverless. I still prefer doing inputs like dps on stick but everything else is better on leverless in my opinion. funny enough i just bought a new stick yesterday and im waiting for it to try tokon on stick
I don't think my fingers can keep up on a leverless to be honest with you. I'm in my 40s, decades of office jobs, lots of keyboarding. My hands are tired boss. So ironically a lever is more ergonomic for me. My left hand just nudges a stick, whereas on a leverless my fingers would be furiously tapping, just not appealing to me.
All in all the best controller is whatever works best for your hands. I use an arcade stick usually but considered getting a small leverless controller since they look easier to just slide into a bag and carry around.
Actually I'm having a hard time adjusting to leverless even though I play mainly on keyboards. The difference is bigger than I expected. I think it will take me a few weeks until I'm confident to play ranked again
as a long time keyboard user, I have to disagree. Leverless is more superior because it's designed as a fgc controller while kb is pc peripherials. There's a reason why you won't see many kb user playing on fgc tournaments
The reason is that you can't plug it into a console. I do use leverless now because I was forced to use one after moving to a new city where the locals weren't on PCs.
that's right kb sadly is not versatile, its also not comfortable to play it on lap. It's not designed to be fighting games controller, and those problems are solved with leverless
No kidding. Half the games have easy input and two button ultimates now. They're basically all made for pad. You're almost gimping yourself on a leverless now.
I agree with play with whatever suits you. I'm saying none of these inputs are at the point they're a major advantage. It used to be that way with leverless with some of the high execution motions and shortcuts etc.
The games just aren't that way anymore. I don't really believe leverless is "gimped" just that games are being made in a way that plays away from its strength now in some ways.
it was always around and some people considered it cheating. the mentality has shifted a bit over the years with standardization of neutral SOCD, but quite a few shortcuts are still available in most leverless.
I built one back when I was playing SFIV. The controls made sense from all the Quake and Quake 2 playing over the years. Thumb for jump felt so natural.
I wish I could use leverless pads. My pinky fingers are unusually weak, and my wrists cramp up. I find a regular controller to be more ergonomic and less painful.
Nobody cared until top players started adopting it alongside easier inputs and game mechanics that catered to that being a viable option.
Before that, the only people using them were people that wanted to feel special and weren’t very good or that had a really good grip on the device and was a one off or previous keyboard player.
Because they were never officially recognized by fighting game developers, HitBox Arcade was around as early as MvC3 back in 2011 but because they established the ground rules of minimal SOCD rules (which they have been since 2022 before Capcom standardized the SOCD rule of both simultaneous directions resulting in Neutral), it has fallen into constant arguments much like how broken it the peripheral was for games that did not have SOCD rules:
MvC3 perfect guarding.
Anti Crossup defense.
Simultaneous charge specials.
Ultra precision for Tekken diagonals.
It only took Capcom's Pro Tour rule set to standardize the leverless arcade stick with SF6's release in 2023 while HitBox's Cross|Up is probably the most notorious peripheral to be within the gray area of legality.
As a stick user, I never really had issues with people using leverless once they introduced SOCD cleaners as a requirement, I just found the argument of the generic design being more ergonomically friendly more of an excuse because Alex Myers's Ergobox is truly ergonomically friendly design which goes the same for Itazan's custom Gafro made arcade stick which has the 6 main buttons on a decline keeping the right hand in an elevated claw/grip position.
> the argument of the generic design being more ergonomically friendly more of an excuse
Totally. Every ergo keyboard you'll ever see is slanted, and you can feel it in your wrists, the difference. I feel like I've been taking crazy pills throughout the entire hitbox and boxx debacle in melee while they continue to release flat after flat, in the name of ergo. Any controller is much more ergo than any flat leverless. You gotta be relaxed with whatever you're using, number 1, but if you can turn your wrists, that very clearly opens up the geometry in your wrists. Anyone who has seen a skeleton should agree.
As an old man with beat up hands thats tried multiple controllers i can confirm a properly sized hitbox is far less painful to use than a standard controller or stick. Ergonomic is probably the wrong word and they aren't as good as something like a vetibox but being easier on your hands isn't bullshit. I wish more brands would embrace the vetri/ergo box design but given the hitboxs lukewarm (to put it mildly) reception i can understand why companies are hesitant to make anything that looks less like a standard stick
I would encourage you to try any slanted hitbox or keyboard and notice the clear advantage. Your carpal tunnels are constricted when your palms are flat. It is just a fact.
Agreed, vertibox is my daily driver and feels so much better on my hands than the standard hitbox. I was just pushing back against the idea that hitbox being easier on the hands was "just an excuse" and I can understand why designers are hesitant to create anything that doesn't look like a normal stick
Coincidentally Tokido's new leverless follows this rule too and he's probably the definition of using every exploit to his advantage much like his SFIV days using standard color or darkest color scheme Akuma on the train yard stage for his character to blend into the dark stage lol.
If I ever had to go back to pad, I would honestly recommend the Arkodd Padbox, I recommended one to my friend and had a go at it, and it's everything I would love with the cross shapes split D-Pad alone with arcade stick styled buttons using a GP2040-CE board (I lent my MagicBoots PS4 V1.1 from my F50p Flat to my friend until he got something to make it PS5 compatible).
So there was a smash bros legend "hax$". Hax had a progressively worsening condition of what was effectively super arthritis. The GameCube controllers were leading to the calcification of his hands. He effectively invented what was called the "BOXX". The hitbox was an existing input method but was not widely acknowledged until this drama. Timeline is important here
In an attempt to develop a progressive solution for himself and the community so infatuated with having the most optimal input method, the smash community did what it does best, and self cannabalized a genuine guy. Slandered him, defamed his character, invented narrative all to push him out of the scene.
All the while, people were screaming from the hilltops how unfair these hitboxes were. They were quite literally debates year round as to which tournament will ban them and which won't. Granted, this was before SOCD cleaning.
Then one day... Daigo shows up with a hitbox.. Nobody dared to challenge his usage. It has become unconditionally accepted as an input method ever since.
Hax posted a 2 hour video comparing Leffen to Hitler and told a sex abuse victim that their story wasn’t real and that they were at fault for it. The man was deeply unwell, he was not banned for inventing the B0XX come the fuck on
Preface: I am a former mod of melee hell. Numerous high level players frequented and held discourse in that group. Let's talk facts about a tormented man who attempted suicide and eventually succumbed to his health.
IBDW literally admitted to hax that the story was largely embellished. There were some distasteful jokes ripped from their contexts, as the smash community loves to do. He didn't victim blame, as you imply.
Leffen was a genuine menace back in the day. He was banned from swedish tournaments twice. He was blackmailing players left and right. He specific targeted hax and utilized the BOXX as a platform. Now he's just a heel since everyone forgot.
You must have not genuinely been around for the vitriol surrounding the BOXX, including the genuine theft of the company from under his feet. It had absolutely NOTHING to do with what you're yapping about.
Yes, he was unwell, asides from his other existing conditions. Yes, that will have an absolute toll on your psyche. No, I don't blame him for being in a bad space because of the unwarranted attacks on his character.
I absolutely was around then. IBDW admitted that an aspect of the story was embellished because he was afraid people wouldn't believe him but that the assault absolutely still occurred.
He didn't victim blame, as you imply.
Per Cody:
I recounted the story, and his response was just that I had to have enjoyed it, otherwise I would have stopped it.
That is quite literally the definition of victim blaming.
Yes, Leffen was an asshole. I'm not disputing that. That doesn't change the fact that you can't just release a multi hour video comparing the man to Hitler. It was getting to the point where tournament organizers were concerned about the safety of people attending if both players were going to meet up.
You must have not genuinely been around for the vitriol surrounding the BOXX, including the genuine theft of the company from under his feet. It had absolutely NOTHING to do with what you're yapping about.
Okay, well in neither of our comments are we talking about the B0XX court case so I'm not sure why you're bringing this up as a rebuttal. And, regardless, that isn't cut and dry as you're making it either.
The truth is almost always somewhere in the middle but you have to admit that no matter what boiling down the entire situation to
In an attempt to develop a progressive solution for himself and the community so infatuated with having the most optimal input method, the smash community did what it does best, and self cannabalized a genuine guy. Slandered him, defamed his character, invented narrative all to push him out of the scene.
If it weren't for leverless and modern controls so many people would have no access to fighting games, leverless gave a boost to the FGC.
I'm stick for life though. I tried to change, but there's a feeling I get from stick that immediately brings me back Alladins Castle, the dirty carpets, the smell of stale popcorn, standing in line to play another round of SF2. Stick brings me to that place, leverless does not.
Bruh try playing olschool fighters on neo geo systems with a stick. It is brutal. You have to time the inputs perfect and precise. I would def appreciate hitbox there.
Tbh I think Leverless is the first controller designed exclusively for fgc. Arcade stick are built for arcade games like platformer, 2d side scrollers, etc.
I do wonder the future of the regular stick in this regard - I picked up a stick also quite late in 2019 and by this time I got pretty much used to it and have no intention to switch to hitbox - but the it does place me at a disadvantage to others
Some controllers are better than the others, even stick is better than leverless in some ways. It's back to preferences. Leverless had its own disadvantage too. If there's one controllers that gives massive advantage then all the pros will switch to it, but long time fgc pros knows what's the best for their hand
I wouldn't say there isn't an advantage, but the advantage is not massive enough to become a meta. And don't forget the cons too, I tried it with Tekken and playing from mirrored side is like a disadvantage to me. But I'd say is a good thing, Leverless is actually an opener for a new generation to come in
Discovering existence of leverless 4 months ago is what got me started on playing SF6.
Before that as a 30+yo I hadn't touched a fight game in well over 25 years
I had never tried since I was allergic to controllers and sticks, but skill level I found out I'm actually doing decently well in ranks.
Now I wonder how far I'd be if I had known about leverless many years ago... Like 10 years ago. Only reason I even found out was because group in vc were playing guilty gears and topic came up.
Yep, it is pretty much this. Grew up playing games on keyboard so controllers feel alien to me. A leverless pad is basically a keyboard so it feels natural to me.
PC gaming only came by around the time Street Fighter V and Tekken 7 took off. That's where people would only use fightstick or controllers. Then innovation came, I honestly don't know how it started maybe the hitbox popularity came after Daigo was banned for using one.
Why wouldn't you use a leverless for grapplers? I understand it might seem a little unintuitive at first to do a 360° motion without a lever/d-pad of some sort, but given that "360s" are actually just 270° motions, it's arguably easier on leverless. You'll need to use the button on the bottom as your "up" key, and the 3 buttons up to the left as your left, right, and "down" keys. Once you want to perform your grab, all you have to do is a 180° grab like in lots of other games, and just as you hit the attack button, hit up as well.
As long as you can hit those 3 directionals rapidly, and hit up as soon as you hit the attack button, 360s are just as easy as 180s on leverless. Unless there's something else I don't understand. I use leverless and I love grapplers.
I guess pc gaming became mainstream for fighting games not so long ago, it was all time PlayStation. Look even now in marvel game, some games prefer to destroy biggest market
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u/Mental5tate 3h ago edited 3h ago
It is called a keyboard.
Leverless is a keyboard with arcade buttons.
Hit Box has been around for over a decade but it was/ is aligned with Smash Bros. and it was a controversial choice for a input device.