It failed because it offered too much customization. Really.
Physical construction was shit tier. I should know, I early adopted November 2015 and in total I went through 17 not counting the 3 DOA. My ear actually became attuned to the specific mini-crunch that signaled the impending demise of a shoulder button.
It also had undeniable layout and design issues. The D-Pad they implemented was a joke. Fanboys wouldn’t shut up about it but truth is, it was completely unacceptable to put a track pad in it’s place and it was more or less unusable. Other buttons and inputs were juuuuust a little cramped or off-kilter and it was common to input mash accidentally.
The configuration software was also a nightmare. Ever try setting up a Mouse Region for a twin stick game? Sweet jeebus. They tripled the efficiency of the configuration screens in recent updates and it’s still a nightmare. It’s 30 inputs just to tweak something like a deadzone, then you have to menu out… then test in game… then drill allllll the way back down to tweak a little more.
But back to my assertion at the top. It made SC gamers literally unfairly better. Gryo aiming, effectively programmable macros, mode shifts, radial wheels, action layers, targeted mouse clicks, button toggles, sliders, regions, I can’t even remember it all from back before it got heavily neutered. It got out of control to the point where you could bypass “cheating” standards and macros in big online games, etc. You could simulate inputs.
Design iterations would have fixed the other issues, but it became a deadly-unfair device for competitive gaming and a lot of companies hated how the Steam Controller hardware and software customization… basically allowed people to “cheat” their systems in a sense. It opened a huge fucking can of worms. Something like it will probably never be seen again for these reasons.
I disagree about the batteries. Give me replaceable AA cells any day over a built-in Li-ion. Rechargeable AAs are readily available and quickly swappable if you keep hot spares. Much better option for long term serviceability.
I think the availability of AA batteries is higher, 18650 is much less standard than AA in most people’s homes. I would rather have options, so saying AA but having a swappable battery tray is how I would go, but I like kludgey stuff anyway.
That said, I just did a battery replacement for a lithium pouch on some TWS headphones and it was a fairly simple process. Making it a port rather than soldered wires would make it much easier and would make battery replacement a quick and routine task. Hopefully more companies will more towards ports for batteries and maybe even a standard port that is the same for a given voltage/amperage combination so swapping out can be done with confidence.
Yeah sure, emdashes and curly quotation marks were designed and put into Unicode specially for AI. Take some book or newspaper and look at what characters it uses
I really want to play it but steam sells the games in my country in USD, not my countrys currency and this makes it expensive and painful to buy. Not only stardew valley, almost any games
Thanks for the replies, folks. Sounds like it’s mostly pretty garbage, but the large amount of postgame bosses might be kind of fun if I turn off attractions. I do kinda want to try DDD for playing Riku, so I went ahead and got the package as the cheapest option that includes that.
If I still feel like playing 3 when I get there, it sounds like drinking my way through the Disney worlds may not be a bad idea.
I couldn’t get one myself. The battery issue is none for me. It’s not rare that battery replacement becomes (nearly) impossible for final users once it reaches its EOL, so I switched to gadgets that use standard size rechargeable batteries if possible.
I honestly wish the Dualsense took AAs. I’ve really grown to appreciate how Xbox controllers have always been two AA. Making a small investment in a bunch of Eneloop batteries and chargers is SO worth it.
Edit: Y'know what I'll properly expand on this. The Steam Controller failed because it tried to replace vital functionality people expect from a controller. The Steam Deck learned from this mistake and just supplemented that functionality.
TBH, the way I see it, the Steam Controller was designed for games I don't want to play on controller, while being bad for games I do want to play on controller.
They’ve made it too niche, basically just fps and rts pad. I loved mine for Rocket league but was really missing the right stick. And the shoulder buttons were super stiff. And you also absolutely had to set up controls because it was so different and the pads were atrocious replacements for dpad or sticks
For me it mostly excels in games that were designed exclusively for mouse and keyboard. Ime it’s pretty bad for fps games though, maybe if you used the gyro, but I haven’t tried that much personally. I love it for Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress, and lots of little indie games that don’t have gamepad support ootb.
That last paragraph is on point. That’s why I have two controllers at my desk, one regular and one Steam Controller! I love playing casual Civilization or XCOM on it and it’s surprisingly great with some FromSoftware games, especially Sekiro (for no reason in particular, it just felt good and the touchpad worked without any issues).
Honestly, IMO the lack of D-pad was less of an issue than the lack of a second analog stick. The lack of a second stick made the controller almost impossible to use in any game that was designed with 2 sticks in mind. For example Nier Automata 9S hacking minigame was a horrible experience with the Steam controller.
One tip that could make twin stick experience better on the touchpads is to bring down the range where the joystick does max output. That makes it much more responsive over default where twin joysticks do not need small granular movement. Ramblecan has video covering it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXC2f_dD0g0
If the Steam Controller was designed the way lot of people wanted it than it wouldn’t have been a Steam Controller and just another Xbox or Playstation controller and added nothing new. Would have been more successful but in the end another generic twin joystick controller. So even if it didn’t succeed it brought new things to the table like touch activated gyro and touch pads that could be considered for other controllers in the future.
Agreed on it being a bad replacement for controller games. I got one around the time one of the FROMSOFT games came out (I think it was Sekiro?) and I tried using for that and it was just not usable for something like that. I haven’t really tried it for anything else since then because I don’t really play games away from my PC, so I don’t have a need for a worse but acceptable way to play M+KB games.
It didn’t fail because of a lack of a dpad but because of lack of two joysticks, but I’m glad the controller exists because I came to absolutely love the dual touchpads. And I wouldn’t trade the left touchpad a dpad, since I like using it for movement.
I wouldn’t trade the right touchpad for a joystick either, since I like using it to do quick 180s, quick swap between 5-10 inputs to bypass reloading in games like Doom Eternal by setting a dpad modeshift on a click, and touch activate gyro all on one touchpad.
Will probably be the last controller of its kind but I’m glad at least one did get made, since otherwise I’d still just be using a xbox or playstation controller like I did before getting Steam Controller.
It could but I prefer it over joystick because large touchpad makes it so its easier to not accidentally activate sprint on the outer edge.
But, the biggest part is being able to use the touchpad clicks for added move sets like dash, slide, crouch. Which lot of people wouldn’t even enjoy doing with joystick click.
Exactly, I’d rather lose a D-Pad than a joystick, and the Steam Controller lost both. That’s why my Steam Controller sits on my desk largely unused, while my PS4 controller gets all the love (I prefer XBox controllers, but PS4 has better Linux support).
I’d love to see the Steam Deck controller be made standalone, it’s super comfy and preserves both joysticks and the d-pad while having useful trackpads.
Sad thing is for me I don’t find the touchpads on the Deck useful, since unlike most users of the Deck I want to use them for movement and camera and quick input switching. And I haven’t found the Deck touchpads good for primary use in place of joysticks, so I end up ignoring the touchpads on the Deck for the joysticks despite using my Steam Controller for most games on the desktop.
I’m a controller player so it might be why I warmed up to it when it first came out, since I went from using Xbox controller on the PC to being blown away by touchpads moving as fast as a mouse without joystick speed limitation while being able to aim precisely with gyro without having to use aim assist.
So maybe an outlier as a PC gamer who preferred gamepads to mouse and keyboard, but wanted to find an improved method of using controller without reliance on aim assist.
I also prefer controllers (grew up playing Halo on controller), and gyro aim is sweet, but touchpads never felt good to me. I like physical buttons for d-pad style input (even a joystick is fine), and the right touchpad felt too much like a mouse to the point where I’d rather just use a mouse.
The Steam Deck strikes the right balance for me. The touchpads work when the mouse really is preferable, and they stay out of the way when I use the joysticks.
I like touchpads because I like being able to turn the camera as fast as I can swipe like a mouse while retaining X and Y axis control unlike stuff like the flick stick approach. And I like that I can also click up, down, left, right, center and also hold the left grip to set up chords for an additional 5 inputs for a total of 10 I can quickly change to without having to reach down to the facebuttons.
And that’s where the Deck fell short for me because I didn’t find it good for that type of functionality I want to use the trackpads for compared to users who primarily use the sticks.
Yea the only target audience for the Steam Controller seems to be people who want to play kbm games with a controller if they’re playing on a TV or something. But I reckon most PC gamers who get a controller use it to play on their usual PC setup for games that play better on a controller, they’ll just use kbm for their kbm games.
I agree that not including the D-Pad was a bad move, but if you play games that use the d-pad just for functions like map or switching of equipment, there was the option to use the trackpad like a weapon wheel where you could define i think 8 functions with OSD, and using one of the back buttons made that 16 functions you could define freely - you could replace the hotkeys of a game that used half the keyboard with this thing lol
Other than just feeling a little light/cheap, I liked it. I actually liked that it used standard batteries so I could just use rechargeable AAs. Only reason I don’t use it anymore, is that I mostly game on PS5 now, and mostly only play strategy games on PC. I used to use it while streaming from my PC to my Kodi/Steam Raspberry Pi in my living room.
I love the left trackpad. I love it for movement, since I like setting stuff like dash, crouch, slide to it on a click which doesn’t feel good doing the same with a joystick click. And I like setting a sprint activator on the very edge which is easier to avoid not accidentally triggering, because of the trackpad size.
I’m actually opposite where I wish the left joystick on the Steam Controller was a dpad.
Modern fighting games aren’t really designed for 6 buttons. I guess if you want to play SF6 with only face buttons that could be neat, but you’d still want to map parry and DI to shoulder buttons. The reality is that developers know that most pad players have 4 face + 4 shoulder buttons and most stick and leverless boxes have 8 buttons.
That said, 6 face button pads definitely exist. Most of the ones I’ve seen are from Hori, but there are quite a few brands that offer one.
It still is ahead of its time. I think it was the learning curve that held it back. There wasn’t really a tutorial for how to use it fully. But through the years it grew on me and paired to my steamdeck on tv. It’s my main way to play now.
I know this is gonna sound crazy but switching the triggers so left is zoom and right is fire changed everything for me. If your aiming with your left thumb and also using your left finger to fire it throws off your aim.
I’ve got 2 and my main ones thumbstick is worn down to the plastic under the rubber now.
If they release a new version I will buy it in a heartbeat.
Fits great, but still can sort of degrade into dust slowly. Not sure what conditions precludes making the 8bitdo stick do that. My fingers are smooth af but it still wears sorta quick. Air conditioning around 70f most of the time.
I put some generic switch/ps4/xbox joystick covers on my Steam Controller joystick long ago so I’m still using the one I picked up back like half a decade ago. I put joystick cap covers on all my joystick from my Sony to Xbox to Deck joysticks.
Same for touchpads on my Steam Deck and Steam Controller, since use can make the surface start getting shiny. So joystick cover might be worth doing to protect the physical joystick top.
Pc version of open world exploration game without quicksave key. There’s a lot of wrong with Grounded, but man i feels like Obsidian really losing touch with PC game with this one.
Conversely, Grounded has the best inventory management system of any survival game ever.
To the point that I have a hard time playing others now because they all feel tedious in comparison. It’s hard to imagine someone playing Grounded and then building a survival game that didn’t use hot deposit.
That’s true, a key for depositing item and also control whether the chest is affected or not is really handy for inventory management. Which really bother me that they don’t have quicksave, graphic setting customisation, turning off the character chatter, among other thing.
meanwhile i wish there was a slider that made the characters MORE chatty, the dynamic interactions are really charming to me! but i also specifically love how cliché they’re written, so can see how it’s not for everybody haha
JUST for hot deposit, yeh. the rest of the inventory/hotbar management always makes me wish i was playing something else.
the hotbar not being inventory space is fine, but tools disappearing because they’re in your hand is absurd. they really just added a “looking for the tv remote that i’m already holding” mechanic. the pinning system with filters is handy for food, but feels clunky outside that one usecase.
like they went with a realistic “the forest” style building system, and then the inventory management is the most videogamey shit in the world.
also the scroll wheel swapping hotbars by default is straight up whacky, i’ve heard the whole thing makes more sense on controller lmao
the pinning system with filters is handy for food, but feels clunky outside that one usecase.
The pinning system is an improvement over not having a pinning system that should exist in every game. Food, water, ranged weapons, explosives, healing items, shields, even melee weapons, it makes sense for all of them given that all of them can break.
Oooh, grounded felt like they didn’t play test for solo players. The end game suddenly got very grindy, and I decided not to finish because of it. Loved the game otherwise. I’m hoping they will try to balance it more for the second game
TLDR: I probably wouldn’t suggest playing 3 unless you’re willing to play/watch the side games. The conclusion will not hit hard at all if you didn’t play the side games.
I literally just played through all the games (besides Re:coded, watched it) and I have conflicting feelings about it. Storyline wise, I didn’t love or hate it, as some parts were really nice and heartwarming to see (I really loved the reunion of the other two trios) and certain worlds are nice to meet your fave characters (Toy Box my beloved). But the main plot feels both satisfying and meh. I watched the fandub of union x and got really excited to see the lore be teased more in 3, but because 3 tries to appease everyone (crowd who played all the games vs crowd who only played 1 & 2), they don’t get to dive as deep as I wanted. I am more willing to ignore some of the bs and laugh rather than cringe, but I do understand why many find the plot corny.
The combat… I’ve basically hated the combat in every KH game, BBS is the only one where scrolling through the skill menu didn’t feel like ass, meanwhile DDD executes flowmotion beautifully (while it feels useless in 3), and yet CoM had my favorite system overall (might be my favorite game honestly). 3 controls are far better than KH 1, but the actual difficulty is non-existent and makes blocking feel almost useless. The attraction attacks are there I guess (my mom liked them lol). KH 1 normal mode had me near tears (Even the fucking Traverse Town Armor), CoM was frustrating but satisfying, 2 was boring besides the impossible super bosses, all of 358/2 was just awful overall, BBS was very normal until final boss, and DDD was slightly frustrating but beating the final boss was satisfying. 3 was a snooze fest besides final bosses that just made me go, “oh, I guess I won. I kinda just mashed x.”
IDK, I’ve had a KH shaped hole in my heart over these past two days, wondering what I want to play now that I got through my 2 month marathon. I both miss the games but also acknowledge that they get very repetitive and tiring over time. My mom only played 1,2 & 3 and has basically said KH and Square are dead to her.
CoM, BBS, and DDD are a must to watch/play. 358/2 is only worth it if you like challenge missions (I skipped them, hated the gameplay), Fragmentary Passage is only on the 2.8 disc and is literally 4-5 hrs, and Re:coded is supposedly good gameplay but the plot is just “what if data simulation Riku and Sora went through KH 1 together?” And Union X is gonna be vital to watch for those preparing for KH 4.
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Aktywne