TL;DR - Can you play 98% of your games just using a good Laptop Touchpad? Even MMOs decently? What makes for a good Touchpad?
I’ve been a long time user of Lenovo laptops because their Trackpoints (little red dot in the middle of the keyboard) are amazing mouse replacements. I can play an MMO with my hands well poised to hit any key and even PvP with 85pct effectiveness vs a mouse (no jump turns though). But unfortunately the new Lenovos are falling too far behind to on the GPU front and it looks like I’m going to have to move to a new laptop with just a Touchpad.
So I’m wondering if anyone has found that they can play most games adequately with a Touchpad.
Does it just take time to get used to? Or does the positioning just make it generally worthless for anything except turn-based games?
Any suggestions for what has made a touchpad worthwhile (brand, size, independent mouse buttons, etc.)?
I’m right there with you today - but there are a lot of Mac users that use their Touchpads very extensively so I’m wondering if it’s just an experiential bias I have against them and I’m wondering if someone has gotten over the initial hump and found Touchpads to be adequate over time.
Mac trackpads tend to be far superior. PC trackpads are catching up (the latest “Precision” branded generation are pretty good) but aren’t quite there yet.
Even so, the best trackpad in the world still sucks for twitch gaming.
I haven’t used a trackpad other then macbooks that aren’t the most terrible thing I’ve ever touched. On my macbook, I regularly use the trackpad for turn-based strategy games, mouse-driven roguelikes, and slower games like EU IV or the Anno series. I’ve never tried using it for heavily time-dependant games (like MOBAs… I don’t play MMOs but I imagine the mouse requirements are similar). My girlfriend is amazing playing fast casual games like Bejeweled Blitz on her macbook trackpad, much better then I ever got with a mouse. Those games are very twitch oriented and require a lot of precision mousing as well so I imagine with practice like her you could develop skills using a trackpad in place of a mouse.
If you end up finding out about a non-mac laptop with a decent trackpad, please report back! I’m in the market for a new laptop and am planning on getting a mac in large part due to a nice trackpad (and other quality of life stuff like battery life).
I say yes. I only use touch pads for just about all my games. Action, Strategy, Sim. The few games that I require a mouse are those that do not provide an alternative to the middle mouse button or that stupid mouse wheel thing. Right now I have one game I play in that category - Wargame Airland battle.
Keyboards give you tactile feedback on your hand position, which is my big problem with touch screen. Without any reference point for your brain to process, your hands will inevitably move off target no matter how much you try to stay in position. This becomes especially problematic with complex multiple keybinds, like you find in MMOs.
Trying to play reflex/timing based games on a touchpad, is one of the circles of hell in my opinion, YMMV.
I am mixed. I play a ton of games on my Surface Pro. A lot of those games play well simply using the stylus, such as Unity of Command. For a game like that I could see a touchpad being not a huge difference. A bit clunkier, sure, but playable. Granted I hate touchpads in general, so usually when playing something like EU4 I’ll bust out the wireless mouse.
So it can work, and I can name half a dozen games that should work well for it, but I wouldn’t do more than needed. Turn based strategy is probably the most comfortable fit.
I play ALL my games just using a touchpad. I don’t even own a mouse! :)
The reason for this is that a mouse gives me RSI (repetitive strain injury) and so to save my wrists I switched to touchpad about 7 years ago. It’ll definitely take you a while to get the hang of it and you may need to tweak your touchpad drivers a little as some settings cause issues with certain games.
I even play FPS games with the touchpad. Battlefield, Fear etc.
Like pretty much with everything in life, practice makes perfect :)
I just use a trackball with my laptop so I don’t need to have a mousepad or flat area, etc. Works really well once you get used to it. Can’t imagine using a touchpad!
I can play 80 or 90 percent of my games with my (Mac) touchpad… but I skew really strongly towards turn based strategy and RPG type games. I wouldn’t even bother trying the various Starcrafts and Diablos that tend to fill the remainder of my library.
I did play some MMOs quite effectively with a touchpad long ago, but something like Guild Wars seems like it’d be a lot harder to get away with that than for something like Everquest.
Even for those having no trouble, it would be even easier without the touchpad. If you can’t use a mouse, use a thumb trackball. I have arthritis and it worked great
Across 2 gaming laptops, I used an external mouse with a lap desk (since you don’t really want a hot laptop on your legs anyway). I found that anything other than point & click won’t work to my satisfaction. Especially anything with mouselook.
