Steam Controller Shill - 2017 Edition

Bells and whistles vs performance. Why not actually try and find out?

Just teasing you. Sorry (though several reviews honestly did prefer the very expensive Xbox One Elite).

Enjoy your Steam controller.

Regards.

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RPGFool said:

Bells and whistles vs performance. Why not actually try and find out?

Just teasing you. Enjoy your Steam controller.

Regards.

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Thanks.

Not debating, just pointing out, it's more than bells and whistles for me personally. Having dual trackpads, for example, means you can assign WASD to the left trackpad rather than a stick. The trackpads are touch sensitive (and can also be clicked in 4 directions for extra inputs, but I'm going off-topic), so you can just smoothly move your finger around the trackpad to use WASD, for example. Same with the right trackpad, which I use for the mouse (or camera control, etc..) It feels a lot better to me than jerking sticks around.

The Grip buttons will probably be a staple going forward, too. They are 2 extra buttons behind the controller that are large and easy to push, with a satisfying "click" (as the rest of the controller has as well, including the trackpads). The Grips are good (IMO) for modification buttons, i.e. Left Grip + A = a different function than just pressing A, and so on.

The Steam Controller also gets ridiculously good battery life. Like, 50+ hours, even more at times. It's crazy how they managed to do that.

The dual-stage triggers (with an analog click/pull) basically give you 2 more buttons if you choose, a light pull vs. a full-click pull. I don't use that functionality a ton, but it's there. I do like controlling mouse clicks with just gentle presses of the triggers, not full clicks.

The ability to customize the controller is also extensive to say the least. It can be used for any game, pretty much, with enough effort to customize a control config, and just has a myriad of ways you can configure it, all left up to your own creativity.

Weird that the Xbox controller is $150, though, vs. $50 for the SC. That's...wow. Very odd.

Cheers.

Microsoft does make some great hardware. I use a Trackball and will tell you that Microsoft made the finest trackball I ever used (Microsoft Trackball Explorer). Perfect ergonomics and performance - and they lasted for literally years. Microsoft then then discontinued the product and they now sell for over six hundred dollars and even higher in those rare times when you can find them. And people are willing to pay that (not me). But it is a great product.

It really is possible that the Xbox One Elite is in a class of it's own.

Like I said, I'm happy with a trackball.

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RPGFool said:

Microsoft does make some great hardware. I use a Trackball and will tell you that Microsoft made the finest trackball I ever used (Microsoft Trackball Explorer). Perfect ergonomics and performance - and they lasted for literally years. Microsoft then then discontinued the product and they now sell for over six hundred dollars and even higher in those rare times when you can find them. And people are willing to pay that (not me). But it is a great product.

It really is possible that the Xbox One Elite is in a class of it's own.

Like I said, I'm happy with a trackball.

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Wow! A $600 trackball.

Speaking of which, I use Trackball Mode on the Steam Controller. I didn't get to use trackballs much in real life, but I love how it feels on the SC. It's my favorite mouse mode by far, once you adjust a bit of the friction and rotation.

Seven hundred dollars currently. It's the one with the index and middle finger ball control (not thumb). Wish I'd bought a carton before (or when) they were discontinued. I've seen them go for big bucks on ebay for several years now -- so $700 is actually real (although not for me) -- just can't see paying that much. Still it is a great trackball in a class all it's own.

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RPGFool said:

Seven hundred dollars currently. It's the one with the index and middle finger ball control (not thumb). Wish I'd bought a carton before (or when) they were discontinued. I've seen them go for big bucks on ebay for several years now -- so $700 is actually real (although not for me) -- just can't see paying that much. Still it is a great trackball in a class all it's own.

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Ah, nice. A vintage, discontinued item that is still sought after today.

Somewhat related, but there are drum machines and vintage music gear, 20+ years old that sell for the price of a car. I wish I would have scooped it all up when people were giving them away because new tech was making them "obsolete", lol. And they were giving it away, too. Might be a good thing to keep in mind with certain pieces of technology...

I guess what I'm suggesting is that if you can find the Xbox One Elite discounted and returnable if you don't like it, it might be worth a test drive. It seems to get lots of perfect and near perfect reviews, and could be that it gets discontinued sooner of later, and quadruples in value. I don't use a controller, but people do seem to love this one.

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It might go up or down, it's a gamble. But I just read this review -

https://www.engadget.com/2015/10/22/xbox-elite-controller-review/

And it sounds like a decent controller, but inferior (IMO) to the SC. I could explain why but it would be a very long post.

I think the problem with the Steam Controller in comparison is that while it blows this controller out of the water with features, customization and the nuts and bolts of what a controller can do, that's also it's biggest problem - it's too daunting and different for most gamers. It's like a shock to the system when you use trackpads instead of analog sticks for the first time, and I don't think people want to really learn it or get deep into programming it to figure it out. There are a bunch of reviews of people using the SC for 30 minutes and giving up, for example.

The Elite controller may be a very nice old-school controller, with a luxury feel and what not, but it can't match the feature set of the SC.

I said it before, but that's pretty much Valve's problem with the SC. It's just too good, too daunting and too different so not as many people give it a real chance (and you need to use it for at least a dozen hours to start to get a good feel for it.) I'm honestly not sure how they overcome that going forward. The community configurations are a start, and companies are starting to add Steam Controller configs with their releases (Beamdog used my profile as a base, for example), but it's a tough one. In most ways the SC is aimed at even less than the mainstream than the Elite controller seems to be, in all but price. It's a shame because the thing is light years ahead of its time.

I think the trackpad is a great feature and really like it when it is well integrated. My issue as I pointed out before has been that its not well integrated in cases I've used it. It is hard to fault Valve for that since I think they do a fair job with the control mapping (just not as advanced as I'd like and the big picture thing). Most companies just are not going to think about it or spend time trying to make a experience around it.

The HTC vive also uses the same trackpad on its sticks and is vital to anything that might need mouse control that cannot be handled via the laser pointer control. I hate using the stick for mouse actions and gives me bad memories of laptops of many years ago.

I agree its ahead of its time and will probably improve with age as new games incorporate hopefully add it to their configs. Valve has been good about releasing sdks for competing engines like Unity and Unreal and that I would expect to improve the situation. Unfortunately that might be optimistic as a lot of games dont support xbox controllers well either and those have been out forever.

figment said:

I think the trackpad is a great feature and really like it when it is well integrated. My issue as I pointed out before has been that its not well integrated in cases I've used it. It is hard to fault Valve for that since I think they do a fair job with the control mapping (just not as advanced as I'd like and the big picture thing). Most companies just are not going to think about it or spend time trying to make a experience around it.

The HTC vive also uses the same trackpad on its sticks and is vital to anything that might need mouse control that cannot be handled via the laser pointer control. I hate using the stick for mouse actions and gives me bad memories of laptops of many years ago.

I agree its ahead of its time and will probably improve with age as new games incorporate hopefully add it to their configs. Valve has been good about releasing sdks for competing engines like Unity and Unreal and that I would expect to improve the situation. Unfortunately that might be optimistic as a lot of games dont support xbox controllers well either and those have been out forever.

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Can you please explain how their configuration software is not as advanced as you'd like to see? I mean, it's really advanced, much more than anything else on the market right now as far as I can tell. You can fine tune some really intricate settings.

Trackpads not well integrated? I'm not sure what you mean. I've integrated it into every game I've played so far, including competitive sports games that require lightning quick reflexes to slow-paced CRPGs without an issue. You may have a defective product or some conflict with a program on your computer if it's not working for you, which is why I suggest contacting Valve.

If you're talking about the default configurations being poor and developers not integrating the trackpads, sure, I'd agree. That's my thing about Valve's biggest problem - people will likely either have to program/tweak the controller themselves (which can be incredibly daunting), or the community configurations have to take off more, either done by professionals and/or those very skilled with the Steam Controller, or be better curated.

The thing is still being figured out, so I think it will improve a lot over time. I've done my small part to try and make a consistent set of controls (as much as possible) from game to game, and I think that's also something Valve/future developers should consider. Controls that try and stay consistent with the SC. So the Map button in a CRPG will usually be the same from game to game, and so on. That's what I do with my profiles, but I also mainly program old-school CRPGs that never had controller support…

Wow.. the butthurt is palpable here.

JDR13 said:

Wow.. the butthurt is palpable here.

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Rough night? :lol:

Fluent said:

Rough night? :lol:

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Not at all.

So I went back to Tales of Berseria and reviewed my custom configuration and will concede that you are right that it is more flexible than I gave it credit for. The features I thought were missing are really just buried so we can caulk this up to a training problem.

figment said:

So I went back to Tales of Berseria and reviewed my custom configuration and will concede that you are right that it is more flexible than I gave it credit for. The features I thought were missing are really just buried so we can caulk this up to a training problem.

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Thank God. I thought Fluent was going to have an aneurysm.

JDR13 said:

Thank God. I thought Fluent was going to have an aneurysm.

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Nah, I'm good.

figment said:

So I went back to Tales of Berseria and reviewed my custom configuration and will concede that you are right that it is more flexible than I gave it credit for. The features I thought were missing are really just buried so we can caulk this up to a training problem.

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Yeah, there are things buried in those menus. Lots of complex features and fine tuning can be done.

Anybody got the steam controller to work with numenera?

It works in mouse mode, then you have to go to options and set the input to "steam controller". It then asks to press A which doesn't work (after opening the steam controller config and applying the official numenera ). It just doesn't register.

If I don't apply the official numenera config the controller stays in mouse mode. Pressing A equals a keyboard press and the game keeps the keyboard as input.

I also tried my Xbox controller which has the same problem. I'm using the steam link which might be the problem, although all other games work great. I guess I can just play in mouse mode with the steam controller.

As an aside, i did the introduction, fell to my dead (terminal velocity achievement...) And the game froze on going back to the main menu. Hope this is not an indication of the general buggyness.

ilm said:

Anybody got the steam controller to work with numenera?

It works in mouse mode, then you have to go to options and set the input to "steam controller". It then asks to press A which doesn't work (after opening the steam controller config and applying the official numenera ). It just doesn't register.

If I don't apply the official numenera config the controller stays in mouse mode. Pressing A equals a keyboard press and the game keeps the keyboard as input.

I also tried my Xbox controller which has the same problem. I'm using the steam link which might be the problem, although all other games work great. I guess I can just play in mouse mode with the steam controller.

As an aside, i did the introduction, fell to my dead (terminal velocity achievement…) And the game froze on going back to the main menu. Hope this is not an indication of the general buggyness.

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Found this on the GOG forums:

Ok, a quick, but not complete, fix.

1. Open Steam, and go to your library. Scroll to the bottom and select 'Add A Game,' then 'Add a Non-Steam Game.'

2. Navigate to Tides and Add it as a game.

3. Activate the game through Steam.

Steam will automatically make some assumptions about how the game plays, and most of it's ok - The stick controls the camera, the top bumpers zoom in and out, the touchpad controls the mouse pointer, and the bottom bumpers control left and right mouse click. From that point, you can customize the Steam controller layout in Steam, rather than in Torment. You may need to go to Steam Big Screen though (It's kind of weird sometimes).

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I'd suggest using Steam in Big Picture Mode to begin with when you use the Steam Controller. Also, it's probably better to configure the controller via Valve's software and keep the bindings in Numenera default. I generally do that for all my games as it's easier but it also lets you save the configuration and use it as a template or for other games if you want to.

Also, adding games as Non-Steam Games generally makes them work, whether it's a GOG version or something else. I had to do that with NWN and it works with the controller now.

Hope that helps.

Yes, I found that too but I don't think it applies to my case (and I think it refers to mouse mode). I cashed in my key on steam and I'm using the steam link so it is in big picture mode.

Thought to try out the official way to use the steam controller assuming it would be superior. If I can't get it to work I'll just use the community profile.

The thing is my Xbox controller also doesnt work so it is likely a compatibility problem with the steam link rather than with the steam controller.

Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

ilm said:

Yes, I found that too but I don't think it applies to my case (and I think it refers to mouse mode). I cashed in my key on steam and I'm using the steam link so it is in big picture mode.

Thought to try out the official way to use the steam controller assuming it would be superior. If I can't get it to work I'll just use the community profile.

The thing is my Xbox controller also doesnt work so it is likely a compatibility problem with the steam link rather than with the steam controller.

Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

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Or just an issue on InXile's end. I wouldn't think the Steam Link would make a difference here, but I don't know a lot about the Steam Link yet.