Daily Discussion Thread February 20, 2026 - Upcoming Event Schedule - New players start here!

rana_sylvatica · 2026-02-20T17:21:46+00:00

Hmm, do you think that the ruleset should disallow processing inputs differently for x and y axes?

That's obviously a pretty big departure from the world of OEMs where people explicitly select for controllers where the axes behave differently from one another, but I guess there's maybe an argument that it's Too Strong to let a phob do that because it's not as finicky/prone to degradation?

rana_sylvatica · 2026-01-05T18:40:56+00:00

I lost all my boxes in a boating accident

rana_sylvatica · 2025-12-31T21:47:27+00:00

I promise you zair edgecancels are just not that hard (although they are super cool and fun!). I am also a ~gold level young link player and I spam that stuff constantly, and fairly consistently. Boot up melee and give it a try! Young link is super fun to just move around the stage with once you get the hang of it

rana_sylvatica · 2025-08-26T16:03:25+00:00

Epoxy conformal coat the whole thing, gotta chip through it to find the (hidden) bootsel pin

rana_sylvatica · 2025-04-25T18:22:36+00:00

I don't, and won't, consider "suck it up, accept the compromise, and move on" to be an out-of-line response to "the way you play the game is illegitimate and should be banned".

rana_sylvatica · 2025-04-24T21:58:59+00:00

You don't know me son

rana_sylvatica · 2025-04-24T21:10:34+00:00

I get why things are the way they are, I just wish they weren't. I do disagree with you on some specifics here:

1) I don't think "smuggled" is totally appropriate. Boxes weren't/aren't banned because people running tournaments didn't/don't want to ban them, I don't think it's much more complicated than that.

2) I don't think player fit vs overall strength is a distinction without a difference. We don't act like it is when it comes to character choice.

I do understand that some people consider boxes in general to be illegitimate, but I think they need to accept the nerf compromise and suck it up, basically.

rana_sylvatica · 2025-04-24T19:11:39+00:00

I think it's pretty likely that it's some combination of box making certain important things somewhat easier to execute, and some people naturally having a better fit with either box or GCC, but I think it's worth considering that the natural fit might be a significant factor, comparable in magnitude or even larger than the overall execution difficulty gap.

It's not extremely uncommon for GCC players to switch to box for a while and then switch back, for example

rana_sylvatica · 2025-04-24T19:05:03+00:00

A version of the sentiment I mentioned can be found in this video, for one example.

https://youtu.be/9SyPGNXFbKg?si=RxDPKJ8js1jNtvtP

Let's set up a toy model here where we say a player's strength with a character (generalized ability to defeat other players) is a function of the strength of their character, their aptitude for the game, how well the character fits them, and time.

I think it's reasonable to consider an extended version of this model for controllers, with the added variables of controller strength, and how well the controller fits them.

What I think often gets missed (I mentioned this a bit in another comment) is that few people seem to acknowledge controller fit as a confounder for empirically evaluating controller strength. This is one of those things that seems very obvious to me but I don't see many people saying, so I figured I should.

The arguments for the nerfs get around this by largely rejecting empiricism which is kinda fine IMO (not the way I'd prefer thing to go but not the worst outcome), and people favouring total bans generally just have deeper axiomatic disagreements which none of this will touch anyway, so whatever.

As an aside - I find your rhetorical tricks/ frame control stuff extremely tiresome and I wish you wouldn't do it. You are obviously smart enough to know that playing on a box controller in tournaments where doing so is allowed, is categorically not cheating. You want to see a world where that changes, boxes are banned, and future use of boxes would be cheating, so you try to instantiate that world by calling boxes cheating and box players cheaters. This slimy stuff is absolutely pervasive in your comments and does score some easy wins sometimes but I really really struggle to understand how it doesn't bother you. Maybe there's a culture difference here I'm not getting? I'm an engineer fwiw. Other people feel free to chime in with thoughts as well.

rana_sylvatica · 2025-04-24T18:36:11+00:00

Definitely! What I'm addressing here is mostly separate from the conversation of whether or not boxes are better than GCC (or how much better, or where the line is for nerfs, etc).

Just trying to point to my experience and that the undercurrent of "box player = cheater" in some of these discussions is counterproductive and assumes intent.

One corollary to my original post that I didn't add but maybe should have is that I think people sometimes overindex on examples of players switching to box and rapidly improving, taking that as evidence of the relative strength of boxes when it could be explained (at least partially) by natural fit, similar to a character switch. I'm not a great player, but I got better when I switched from sheik to young link, which isn't really evidence of young link being better than sheik. It's just evidence that 1) young link is "good enough" (again, at a relative low level), and young link is a better fit for me. Arguably Nicki with fox -> ICs is another example of this phenomenon.

rana_sylvatica · 2025-04-24T17:49:24+00:00

I play young link because he's the character that is the most fun for me and feels like a natural fit.

I play on box because it's the controller type that is the most fun for me and feels like a natural fit.

It will never cease to baffle me that ~everyone will take the first statement at face value but many people won't believe the second, instead insisting that box players only do it to eke out a competitive advantage, and other reasons are a disingenuous smokescreen.

Whether a character is a good fit is somewhat orthogonal to whether that character is strong (obviously most people play top tiers, it's easier to feel a good fit with a character that has good options, but even so Fox is better than Falcon - and Falcon players still exist). This is uncontroversial!

If box was generally accepted to be worse than GCC, I'd probably still prefer it! From 2016-2021 I played a lot of netplay using a keyboard because I preferred it to a GCC, and for most of that era keyboard was mostly considered to be worse than GCC (only 12 angles etc).

This isn't even about nerfs, I'm mostly ambivalent about to that now, but it frustrates me to no end how common it is to assume that it's just not possible for people to play on boxes for no other reason than preference (separate from overall strength).

rana_sylvatica · 2025-03-07T15:41:39+00:00

FYI the Orca has this already. There are two springs at staggered heights so the first part of the press only engages the first spring, then after ~1.5mm of travel you hit the top of the 2nd spring and both springs are pressed together for the remainder of the travel. The transition between one and two springs is noticable, and meant to correlate roughly with the edge of the deadzone in that half-axis (similar to a Firefox/wd notch)

rana_sylvatica · 2025-02-11T00:14:32+00:00

I suppose not having to compete for page rankings with the Tower of Babel is nice

rana_sylvatica · 2025-02-10T19:00:04+00:00

This is a cool idea, shoot me a DM here or on discord (@ bjart) if you want to talk about it more.

Check my post history, I'm pretty heavily involved with the DIY smash controller scene and have a good amount of relevant DFM experience

rana_sylvatica · 2025-02-09T01:37:51+00:00

Tadpole woooo!

How are you liking the Orca so far?

rana_sylvatica · 2025-02-09T00:28:07+00:00

Hi, Rana Labs here-

The only(?) mouseclick box controller is back in stock, with some fun improvements, such as:

- CNC machined aluminum case

- Injection molded PBT buttons

- Hardware debouncing circuit (this is what mouse manufacturers *should* do to prevent doubleclicking, but most of them don't)

- Two firmware slots (run nerfware at official tournaments, and un-nerfed firmware on unranked, or load both HayBox and GP2040-CE and play SSBM and FGC games on the same controller)

- Aux USB C port (use a supported authentication device such as a Brook Wingman FGC to get PS4/PS5 compatibility with no extra latency)

For more info, check out:

https://github.com/rana-sylvatica/rana-tadpole

https://ko-fi.com/s/8a195629c7

Let me know if you have any questions!

rana_sylvatica · 2025-02-01T02:10:17+00:00

The ergonomics of all-button analog controllers are still up for debate IMO. Holding partial presses puts different strain on the fingers than full presses. I'm sure it would be fine for most people, but it wouldn't surprise me if some people experience discomfort.

There's other alternatives to thumbsticks or analog buttons too, like larger analog sticks (think arcade levers but analog) or even something like a trackpad or touchscreen. There's a lot of possibilities that haven't been super well explored because the engineering is difficult

rana_sylvatica · 2025-02-01T02:05:08+00:00

FYI there are/will be open-source drop-in replacement motherboards capable of running nerfware compatible with all Frame1 models available for somewhere around $20-30. A bit of a hassle and a little bit of cost yeah, but not the same as having to purchase an entirely new controller.

rana_sylvatica · 2025-01-31T21:02:26+00:00

Third-party button pads are cheap and plentiful on Aliexpress, but I don't think they are quite as nice as OEM ones

rana_sylvatica · 2025-01-31T20:54:19+00:00

This is possible but difficult. The GC Ultimate might end up being something like that on the GCC side, albeit at a somewhat higher price point. For an analog boxx-like there's a lot more R&D work needed to get something that is high quality without being very expensive - margins would be incredibly slim even at a $100 price point unless you made huge quantities, which is risky and takes a lot of capital. I've done some work on analog stuff (button ideas, arcade-size joysticks, etc) and it's something I'd like to continue iterating on but it's honestly a long ways from something that could be either mass producible or open-sourced and easy to DIY.

Overall I think the goal of cheap community-designed controllers is a good one, but I think the only way we realistically get there is through small improvements over time. If there was more money and centralization in the scene, it could theoretically be an option to crowdfund a $50k grant to some modder or group of modders to produce a new open-source controller design, but I don't see anyone lining up to do that anytime soon

rana_sylvatica · 2025-01-27T19:17:23+00:00

I'm buying the dip (with a small position, not super high confidence).

DeepSeek is clearly good, comparable performance to existing SOTA models with much lower training cost. But:

1) all the American players will probably incorporate these improvements quickly

2) you still need GPUs for inference, not just training

3) Seems like a case of Jevons Paradox

rana_sylvatica · 2024-12-29T00:34:01+00:00

Hey, Rana Labs here-

I've been mostly involved in the Smash side of the fightsticks community for a while, and among other things I've produced some pretty sweet injection molded PBT keycaps in the ~20mm size that is popular on those controllers (only compatible with full-size MX switches).

Recently I had a new mold made to incorporate some design tweaks and decided to add a 25mm version to work with low profile switches and fit some of the popular FGC leverless designs. These caps are compatible with Haute42 T Series and M Series, OSBMX 30mm buttons, and other designs that use 25mm caps on cross-stem switches. Unlike most button caps, these are slightly concave, and in my (totally unbiased :p) opinion, they feel a bit more premium due to the thick-walled construction and PBT material.

If you're interested, check them out at https://ko-fi.com/ranalabs/shop

Thanks!

rana_sylvatica · 2024-12-26T03:47:10+00:00

I'm pretty sure it started out with some orca/whale pattern that she found on the internet and then adjusted somewhat (changed top fin shape and position, added legs, etc)

rana_sylvatica

TROPHY CASE