I'm hearing conflicting stories so I gotta ask the one place where peeps might know what's up without actually exposing myself to those Melee people; is Melee's blanket ban on non GC controllers, and subsequently the smashbox, justified? I keep hearing the box gives ease of access to tech but statements on both sides of these sound pretty charged
Plus the reason I read about the ban, that it was because "playing on a GameCube Controller is “intrinsic to what we consider “playing Melee” and the skills involved in doing so" sounds just so silly
I do not believe it's justified. They allow for modding the Gamecube controller in ways like notching and spring removal, but this was not the intended design of the controller as Nintendo made it. And people with notches have an edge over people who do not, and it's expensive to get the job done right so it's not necessarily accessible to everyone either. The B0XX supposedly giving players an advantage is treated as an issue while notches are not, which I think is dissonance. They should not ban the B0XX because it would have more longevity than the GC controller and value over time, as well as being easier on the hands. No other fighting game community than the Melee community treats certain controllers as the sacred end all be all.
As for the B0XX's properties, it makes inputs digital as opposed to analog, and I believe it has a modifier button in order to simulate some degree of... degrees. It makes dashing easier because you're getting the full value everytime you press the button unlike a GC controller where you might mess up moving the thumbstick all the way. You can also program the angle directional inputs go at, so instead of being fully 180 degrees for a backward movement, you can make it like 181 degrees or something, which is just below the center of the thumbstick, and that can give you a longer wavedash than normal people can do because of concerns about air dodging horizontally.
There's some other stuff the B0XX can do but it comes down to a matter of its programming. Concerns about cheating, like turbo buttons, are the most legitimate while also being the least realistic. I doubt the Project M community would be as vehemently against the controller, and I hope Hax makes it available for Project M players. I'd buy it.
