I use Steam Input to set up mouse input on my controller to utilize gyro aiming, which lets me play against mouse players without utilizing aim assist.
And I also set up keyboard inputs on my controller to be able to utilize keyboard short cuts over relying on things like the weapon/item wheel.
Makes it so I get a controller experience that is more mouse and keyboard like that I couldn’t get relying on default controller schemes.
I like the ease of use and services Steam provides. The easy installs/reinstalls, cloud saves, the custom Notes are very useful for me, the library organization, some steam workshop stuff, the community hubs for games are fun shared content, the guides, the discussions, the reviews. All of it makes a nice experience. In general it’s also cheaper than console. Then they made Steam Deck which is possibly my fav console ever.
90's kid myself so I probably don't fit into the old gamer category, but my grievance with launchers is the same with most UI systems: I must figure out how the author expected it to be used, and if there's something that bothers me, finding ways to circumvent or solve it is a quest.
At least with terminal-based tools, or very basic lanunchers, I can find far more easily ways to make launching games ideal, even by bridging to a program or the system's UI.
We don't, really. I certainly grew up without them. It did both good and bad things. It did centralize and simplify some things, but that came at a cost of freedom for more power users. It was great for sorting out dependencies at a time games were still often bad at doing that cleanly on their own for less-technical people. I think it did good things for community, though, particularly for those of us who did not use any modern consoles that had various party/SNS-like features baked in.
I hated being forced to use Steam when it launched, after they shut down WON that was used for CS. I want as little applications running in the background 24/7 as possible.
Steam got better overall, making the 24/7 background application actually useful to keep running (controller support to control desktop, chats, notifications of sales, etc). Nobody else does that tho, and I definitely don’t want to use a different launcher for every fucking game/store.
I don’t. Launching things is my desktop environment’s job.
Since the rise of game publishers’ launchers, I have to use my (desktop) launcher to launch a (storefront’s) launcher to launch a (publisher’s) launcher to launch the game. It’s probably the best example of the yo dawg meme I have ever seen. In other words, ridiculously annoying, not to mention wasteful of my time and system resources.
Having one launcher isn’t a problem for me. Steam’s OS’s launcher even allows me to launch GOG games through Heroic without even really launching Heroic.
Where it starts being a problem is when individual games need their own launcher…
I see the launcher as the system menu in a console…
I’m not a fan of Steam or any launcher really but they have some useful features like friends lists and multiplayer updates. I don’t miss the times of downloading individual patches and having to insert a disc but nowadays has its own problems like “online” requirements for singleplayer and being forced to update. Thankfully GOG exists and some devs still offer DRM free versions and that’s my priority now.
Persona 3 Reload, it’s absolutely sucked me in! Had tried to play the Portable version on Vita a few years back but never got into it. Helps that it runs smooth as butter on Steam deck, super easy to pick up and play with the sleep mode - dangerously so.
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