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Has anyone found the Steam Controller useful?

D

desura

Diamond Member
I thought it was a pretty good idea in theory, but in practice it doesn't really work. It seems best for games which don't have controller support built-in, but it is too much work to map it, and at that point you might as well just map a regular xbox controller.
 
desura said:
I thought it was a pretty good idea in theory, but in practice it doesn't really work. It seems best for games which don't have controller support built-in, but it is too much work to map it, and at that point you might as well just map a regular xbox controller.
Click to expand...

If you have an xbox controller.
 
I haven't used mine much. I tried it out with the free copy of Jade Empire that Origin gave away a little while back. It worked fine except for the panning of the camera (normally done by one of the joysticks). You had to pan by swiping your finger across that trackpad, which was ok, but even with the sensitivity jacked way up on it, it still wasn't very smooth and quick. It maybe could've been improved by some tweaking but I didn't have the ambition to do so.
 
I just bought the steam controller and steam link yesterday since gamestop had them for $35 each. I only spent about an hour or so with it, but I ended up liking both the controller and steam link more than I thought I would.

I was playing Portal 2, which I thought would be a good feel for playing an FPS with the controller without being a fast reaction based shooter. The touchpad felt very odd at first, but even after just an hour I felt I was already getting used to it and liked it better than another analog stick. This might also be do to the motion controls that are built into the controller that I turned on. That let me do slower, more precise aiming by tilting the controller slightly and only making the big moves with the touchpad. Not a bad way to go IMO.

It's not the most ergonomic controller by any means. I was trying to find a way to comfortably hold it and I was still fighting with it. If I hold it like I normally would hold a controller, I couldn't really make use of the extra buttons on the bottom of the controller where your ring & pinky fingers rest. If I adjusted to make sure I could use those comfortably, then the face buttons became more of a reach. I feel like it was designed for larger hands than I have.

There were also some software problems with switching control profiles in game. I'm not sure if it was just related to this game, or a larger issue, but every time I tried to change the controller profile it's like the game would no longer recognize the controller. I'd have to shut the game down via the steam menu, then restart the game for the game to work properly. Quite annoying

Still, it's very limited experience. If it wasn't for the controller profile issues I'd be pretty happy, and that's a software issue. Hardware wise I'm more impressed with the touchpad than I thought I would be. The haptic feedback is nice and the pad is large enough to use properly.
 
mizzou said:
using your fingertips on a trackpad for gross movement is an inherently flawed control design.
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I don't see how swiping ones thumb across a surface is any more flawed than using that same thumb to hold a stick down and waiting for the camera to move where you want it. After using it myself I could see the benefits after you get used to it, but it's definitely different than anything I've used before.
 
gorcorps said:
I don't see how swiping ones thumb across a surface is any more flawed than using that same thumb to hold a stick down and waiting for the camera to move where you want it. After using it myself I could see the benefits after you get used to it, but it's definitely different than anything I've used before.
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The thumb to hold a stick down is still a flawed gross movement design, which is why nearly everyone considers mouse & keyboard to be much more efficient as a control scheme overall. But it's not nearly as bad as swiping with your thumb.

The thumb should never be used repetitively in a wide swiping motion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Quervain_syndrome



The reason I like the mouse for movement is because you get to use large muscles like the shoulder, bicep, tricep. Those muscles do not weaken easily and they can handle much more abuse over time. You also get a much much larger plane of movement since you essentially use your entire hand to control the movement controls. Add the fine movements of the wrist/forearm, you can get extremely precise and durable movements.


For fine motor control movements, I would rather use an index finger. The thumb is just a bad choice for track control IMO.
 
mizzou said:
The thumb should never be used repetitively in a wide swiping motion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Quervain_syndrome
Click to expand...

Pro-tip: Hitting the space bar also constitutes a swipe.


Back to the topic, I have effectively put away my 360 controller because of the Steam Controller. The degree of programmability is as complete as possible, but usually there's a profile ready to go. I would rather use it than any other gamepad.

That said, it's no replacement for proper keyboard and mouse for certain game types. It's definitely more suited to casual gameplay (it was great with Life is Strange) and racing. I would never use it for FPS unless I had no choice but to use a gamepad.

TL;DR: There is no other gamepad for me anymore, but it's not a KB/M replacement.
 
mizzou said:
For fine motor control movements, I would rather use an index finger. The thumb is just a bad choice for track control IMO
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It would make an interesting controller design to use the index and ring fingers instead of the thumb for the majority of controls. You would probably have to use a strap to hold the controller to the hand. Or perhaps a controller a lot like the xbox controller with a stick on the bottom for the middle finger?

I don't know. After thinking about it for a bit I think that the reason we don't have a controller like this is because any design for a controller that would use the fingers instead of the thumb is impractical.

Perhaps the tech being designed for VR will lead to gross movement controllers where we can control the action with hand gestures and eye movements something like in Minority Report.
 
When nearly every game is built around and for the Xbox controller, and since the Xbox One controller is super comfortable I don't see the point of anything else. If you're gonna use a touch pad, just use a mouse.
 
cmdrdredd said:
When nearly every game is built around and for the Xbox controller, and since the Xbox One controller is super comfortable I don't see the point of anything else. If you're gonna use a touch pad, just use a mouse.
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after this gen with 2X more PS it will be the ps4 controller they are all based on, so what then! 🙂 just joking, but saying you wouldn't use it because it was designed badly for just one controller seems narrow minded (designing games for one specific control and having all other types of control an after thought is bad design, you know "ports") Good design is letting you use what you like, ask the many people who would like a lefty game pad, or handicapped people.

the 360 game pad is an excellent gamepad in almost every way, no argument, is it worth looking at other ones, absolutely, innovation is seldom embraced quickly. if the 360 works the best, use it, but dont think its the best in every case even if a game is designed for it.

Im old (way old) when the 2600 and Intelvison was out I couldn't grasp the DISC, how and why would anybody use that when JOYSTICKS are the defacto, all games are made for them. But with some use that disc was awesome (to bad the side buttons sucked balls) and you could play way longer with comfortably then any joystick.
 
For many aiming situations I find the deadzone on the 360 stick to be too big, and the response once you get past it to ramp up too quickly. The steam controller tends to be a good solution if it's a game that I would prefer to use a controller on, but could use a bit more precision than I am able to achieve with the stick.

There are multiple input modes that govern response, and plenty of settings to tune them. If you can't get something to work well, try a few of the configs that have been uploaded. You can always modify them if they're close but not perfect.

It doesn't replace KB&M for certain games, and it doesn't replace a traditional controller for certain games, but it's a pretty good hybrid.
 
Dranoche said:
For many aiming situations I find the deadzone on the 360 stick to be too big, and the response once you get past it to ramp up too quickly. The steam controller tends to be a good solution if it's a game that I would prefer to use a controller on, but could use a bit more precision than I am able to achieve with the stick.

There are multiple input modes that govern response, and plenty of settings to tune them. If you can't get something to work well, try a few of the configs that have been uploaded. You can always modify them if they're close but not perfect.

It doesn't replace KB&M for certain games, and it doesn't replace a traditional controller for certain games, but it's a pretty good hybrid.
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This where my Xbox Elite Controller comes into it. You can adjust the stick sensitivity individually and the deadzones etc. The triggers can also be adjusted.

I've tried the steam controller (I don't own it) and found it to be pretty bad in almost every way compared to using a mouse or my Xbox One controller. It's fine if people like it, but my own experience says I'm not going to spend hours and hours trying to find some magic settings for my games to handle camera movement and aiming properly when I can connect my Xbox One controller and be up and running in 10 seconds. Some games like Fallout 4 just don't work because they don't allow simultaneous mouse+KB and Gamepad settings so you can't really set it up like other games may allow. Yet in Fallout 4 I can use my Xbox controller natively without delay and no fiddling around. That's makes all the difference to me.
 
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cmdrdredd said:
This where my Xbox Elite Controller comes into it. You can adjust the stick sensitivity individually and the deadzones etc. The triggers can also be adjusted.

I've tried the steam controller (I don't own it) and found it to be pretty bad in almost every way compared to using a mouse or my Xbox One controller. It's fine if people like it, but my own experience says I'm not going to spend hours and hours trying to find some magic settings for my games to handle camera movement and aiming properly when I can connect my Xbox One controller and be up and running in 10 seconds. Some games like Fallout 4 just don't work because they don't allow simultaneous mouse+KB and Gamepad settings so you can't really set it up like other games may allow. Yet in Fallout 4 I can use my Xbox controller natively without delay and no fiddling around. That's makes all the difference to me.
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Okay... but I can buy several steam controllers for the price of the xbox elite controller. Not saying it's not worth it, but it's just not a fair comparison.
 
Dranoche said:
For many aiming situations I find the deadzone on the 360 stick to be too big, and the response once you get past it to ramp up too quickly. The steam controller tends to be a good solution if it's a game that I would prefer to use a controller on, but could use a bit more precision than I am able to achieve with the stick.

There are multiple input modes that govern response, and plenty of settings to tune them. If you can't get something to work well, try a few of the configs that have been uploaded. You can always modify them if they're close but not perfect.

It doesn't replace KB&M for certain games, and it doesn't replace a traditional controller for certain games, but it's a pretty good hybrid.
Click to expand...

You can adjust deadzones on 360 controllers with this:
https://github.com/KrossX/Durazno
 
cmdrdredd said:
This where my Xbox Elite Controller comes into it. You can adjust the stick sensitivity individually and the deadzones etc. The triggers can also be adjusted.

I've tried the steam controller (I don't own it) and found it to be pretty bad in almost every way compared to using a mouse or my Xbox One controller. It's fine if people like it, but my own experience says I'm not going to spend hours and hours trying to find some magic settings for my games to handle camera movement and aiming properly when I can connect my Xbox One controller and be up and running in 10 seconds. Some games like Fallout 4 just don't work because they don't allow simultaneous mouse+KB and Gamepad settings so you can't really set it up like other games may allow. Yet in Fallout 4 I can use my Xbox controller natively without delay and no fiddling around. That's makes all the difference to me.
Click to expand...

There's a mode in the steam controller now to get mouse control in games that don't support simultaneous KBM and controller.

I would like to give the Elite controller a try but I don't want to spend that much right now for a controller. If it was 2/3 the price might consider it. How is it to tweak? The steam controller can be a real pain in the ass to set up completely from scratch if the initial settings just aren't working and there aren't any good configs already uploaded. Would be nice to have the form factor of the Xbox controller. The shift in the placement of the face buttons on the steam controller, combined with muscle memory from the 360 controller, make it a poor choice for fast action games that regularly use all of the face buttons.
 
cmdrdredd said:
This where my Xbox Elite Controller comes into it. You can adjust the stick sensitivity individually and the deadzones etc. The triggers can also be adjusted.

I've tried the steam controller (I don't own it) and found it to be pretty bad in almost every way compared to using a mouse or my Xbox One controller. It's fine if people like it, but my own experience says I'm not going to spend hours and hours trying to find some magic settings for my games to handle camera movement and aiming properly when I can connect my Xbox One controller and be up and running in 10 seconds. Some games like Fallout 4 just don't work because they don't allow simultaneous mouse+KB and Gamepad settings so you can't really set it up like other games may allow. Yet in Fallout 4 I can use my Xbox controller natively without delay and no fiddling around. That's makes all the difference to me.
Click to expand...

I don't remember having this problem with the Steam controller
 
Dranoche said:
There's a mode in the steam controller now to get mouse control in games that don't support simultaneous KBM and controller.



I would like to give the Elite controller a try but I don't want to spend that much right now for a controller. If it was 2/3 the price might consider it. How is it to tweak? The steam controller can be a real pain in the ass to set up completely from scratch if the initial settings just aren't working and there aren't any good configs already uploaded. Would be nice to have the form factor of the Xbox controller. The shift in the placement of the face buttons on the steam controller, combined with muscle memory from the 360 controller, make it a poor choice for fast action games that regularly use all of the face buttons.
Click to expand...



It's a simple app that is pretty intuitive for the elite controller. Mine came with my elite console so I can understand the price argument.
 
KMFJD said:
I don't remember having this problem with the Steam controller
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It only seemed to be like that in fallout 4. When I was messing with it I tried to search online to see if I did something incorrect and many people were mentioning the same trouble. Other games seemed to allow more options to get it set right.
 
The short answer is not so far. There was a while when I was using it to play fallout 4 because fallout didn't include a left handed gamepad configuration. Then I got an xbox elite controller and simply swapped the control sticks in xbox accessories and the steam controller was rendered obsolete for that. I was getting pretty good at aiming with the steam controllers touchpad such that I actually think I was somewhat better with it than a regular control stick. The problem is that I had to use the other touchpad as a D-pad because the steam controller analog stick is on the wrong side to use it as the movement input in FPS games in a left handed configuration. That made my movement horrible compared to a regular gamepad. The original design with an analog stick on both sides would have been infinitely better for me and all other left handed gamers I would assume.

I played a little Deserts of Kharak with it, and it seemed like I could eventually get the hang of that too, but other games intervened and I haven't tried any more RTS gaming with it yet. I honestly think that for a right handed gamer, the steam controller is better than a gamepad, or at least it can be once you've dialed in your sensitivity and had enough practice. For a left handed gamer, it's next to useless for most games because of the positioning of the analog stick. I see some possible utility for either handed gamers in RTS games though.
 
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