My controller sat on the desk in front of the arrow key cluster of my keyboard, so I could run around in first person and cap some fools with KBM, then picked up the controller for driving.
I started playing GTA V with a controller, but was really confused how difficult the boat trailer chasing mission was. After almost 1 hour, I switched to KBM and finished it first try.
I still prefer controllers for most games.
Same. I also play Cyberpunk that way. Driving cars without the ability to control the speed is just a PITA. A binary input doesn’t cut it for me there.
OTOH aiming with anything but a mouse is also a PITA. Stuff like weapon switching also works better with dedicated keys vs a weapon wheel.
Now that I write it… all I would need would be one or two analog sticks/keys and I wouldn’t need the controller at all. It’s mainly the analog triggers that I need.
I’ve been a pc gamer all my life but controller has always easily been the superior choice. For first person shooters and strategy games I’ll go KBM sure, but for every other kind of game I’ll go controller when I can get away with it. It’s significantly more comfortable for me and I’m much more familiar with it.
A controller with two analog sticks and two analog triggers has six analog axes of input. A keyboard and mouse has two. There are definitely games that can benefit from more analog axes – think twin-stick shooters. You can use digital inputs for movement, but it’s also less-precise.
On the other hand, a mouse can provide both rapid and precise movement, more-so than an analog stick. And a keyboard has a lot more keys, which is important for some games. And a keyboard is going to be a lot better for text input.
Controllers have output to players, in the form of rumble motors (and with some controllers on some platforms, more-exotic options). There’s no widespread support for any kind of output from the mouse or keyboard. Use of rumble motors can add immersion.
While I’ve used a mouse as a flight input in Freespace 2, generally-speaking, I think that a controller’s analog sticks are better for flight sims (though if you’re playing an old-timey WW2 flight sim, probably getting a full-size stick with all the extra controls is worthwhile).
On the other hand, it’s very hard for a controller to compete with the keyboard and mouse for first-person shooters. I’ve used one for some games that were designed for consoles and aren’t very demanding in response and often have vehicles that are better-controlled with a controller – I’m playing Starfield with a controller. But one is simply going to do much better with a keyboard and a mouse, if one practices with both. Playing an FPS with a controller feels like driving a truck.
Some games, like a number of strategy games, are going to be much-better played with a mouse. I have a hard time seeing Paradox’s grand strategy games being played with a controller, even with a lot of work on the control scheme.
Ditto for RTSes. I’ve tried a few with controllers, like Supreme Commander, and it definitely benefits from a mouse.
Playing interactive fiction of the classic sort, where one types in commands, really, really needs a keyboard. There are ways you can mitigate a bit of the pain, and some point-and-click adventure games have tried to do this, provide a limited set of preset commands, but it’s just not great.
Playing pretty much any game designed for a D-pad, I’d rather play on a controller. Yeah, you can get okay with a keyboard, but it just doesn’t feel the same, not nearly as fluid.
And there are a few other input options that aren’t seen much any more:
Full-size flightstick, maybe with throttle and pedals. Some had force feedback. I haven’t seen many new releases; in the 1980s and 1990s, though, these were common for PCs.
And there are a few other input options that aren’t seen much any more:
I raise the bar. Using a DIY 5.- EUR head tracker in NMS mapped to a virtual gamepad and my X52 Pro joystick mapped to another virtual gamepad and some keyboard keys just because (Why waste a perfectly fine HOTAS system just because the game is too stupid to support this?) :D
On consoles, I use gamepad, usually with back buttons / paddles. Nothing interesting.
On my Mac Mini, I mostly play emulated games and point and click games.
For emulated games, mostly using gamepad, except for shmups, fighting games, and arcade MAME games, which I use my Hori Mini Fighting Stick
For point and click games, Civ, and OpenRA, I use a cheap Huion drawing tablet
I don’t play much FPS, but the last one I played was TimeWarpers (an idle FPS game), and I managed to use a trackball to play it comfortably
I switched from right hand mouse to left hand trackball (It’s Kensington Expert trackball, not really right or left handed) earlier this year, because my right hand was aching. I thought it was RSI, but now when I think about it, it might have been uric acid.
The mini fighting stick is quite ok, but it doesn’t work directly with my Mac. I have a Mayflash Magic-NS adapter that allows the OS / emulator to detect it.
I’m just using it for nostalgia, reminds me of playing old arcade games.
Steam deck user here. I’ve done with it what I couldn’t achieve with even the Steam controller: preference for trackpads + gyro for pretty much everything (FPS included) except for hotkey heavy action RPG’s (Dragon Age, Witcher 2, etc).
I don’t play RTS anymore. I had a falling out with them around Supreme Commander days.
Ah, that looks neat, thanks, may have to give it a go. Yeah, it looks like it uses the Spring Engine, which was originally intended to be an open-source engine to run TA. I’ve played Zero-K, which is another game running on the Spring Engine that also aims for an TA feel. Wasn’t really aimed for a sequel so much as bringing back TA, though.
I honestly wish we had a steam controller that was more like the deck. I could never really get used to the Steam controller while I love using the deck. Can’t really put my finger on what it is about it though.
As do I. I’d chalk it up to the asymmetry of the Steam controller. Lack of a D-pad, lack of a right analogue stick. The Steam Deck back buttons are also far better, and 4 is twice as good as 2.
I was much more into Gameboy, SNES and later PlayStation than the DOS games that were available to me. However, once I really got into PC gaming, controllers felt extremely limiting to me and nowadays I cannot even use them anymore. I prefer mouse and keyboard even for racing games and platformers
I grew up on consoles, mostly Playstations, so I can use controllers a lot better then some people. I prefer to use them in FPS’, movement and melee feels a lot more natural with a controller then with a keyboard. Aiming is, I dare say, an art-form with a controller and it can get really difficult when the sticks are old and losing their sensitivity (*or it’s just a crap controller).
Not to mention how comfortable it is not having to have your fingers splayed across a flat surface for the whole game.
Same here, I grew up with consoles (Xbox mostly). I’m not used to keyboard so I don’t play that well on keyboard than I do on controller for most games. The only times I do use keyboard is for point and click or strategy games.
I started up a new Terraria play through this last week. I’ve beaten most of the Pre-Hardmode bosses. I’m about to hoik through the door of the Temple to gather trap materials for my house.
It’s been fun. Though I’m having trouble getting an obsidian farm going on the current version.
Last time played was during the first “final” update… 1.2 I think. And there’s a loooot that I haven’t seen yet.
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