Using a joystick?

[Envoy]

hi, I'm kinda new to fighting games, been playing skullgirls with a keyboard and I see people recommending arcade sticks. anyway there isn't a large fighting game community where I live and arcade sticks are rarely sold, only found some very expensive ones. also I'm concerned about not being able to use it for anything else. would a proper joystick - like the thrustmaster t 16000m - be a good choice?
thanks!

 

[skull person]

I think the way helicopter joysticks interact with the computer is more akin to a mouse rather than directional buttons.

Maybe there's a way to set it up like a joystick but I think buying a proper arcade stick and shipping it to you would be a lot better of a choice.
Also most of those helicopter joysticks don't work on PS3, which is the tournament standard system/console.

Also if you don't want to use a stick, you can also check out
http://www.hitboxarcade.com/

This site sells stick-less arcade sticks. It's similar to a keyboard but much better.

Edit: Also a lot of top players and even the best players just use PS3/PS4 controllers.
Those are pretty easy to get your hands on, and they work for PS3 and PC.

 

[Envoy]

thanks! I'll look around a bit more to see if I can find something nice. I love sticks in fact, it's just that I had a big joystick as a kid and it kinda makes me nostalgic I guess, but it'd probably be a bit clunky for fighting games.. though big joysticks ought to be similar in how they output data to a controller knob since both output magnitude as well as direction

 

[skull person]

You can still get some pretty big joysticks tops though even for arcade sticks.

Spoiler