I see now. Thanks
I was gonna get one for curiosity’s sake, but an additional $7.99 shipping and tax… Not that curious.
I haven’t gotten more than about 400 hours of what I would consider rather typical use out of a Steam Controller, and that number is probably charitable. I lost the use of the left shoulder button on one, and the A button on the other. While I did generally like using the things up until they broke, I’m not exactly awash in confidence that buying more would really be a worthwhile investment.
So can you actually play a Paradox title like Crusader Kings 2 or EUIV on the couch with this controller?
Yes, I have. It’s not as fast or easy as with a mouse but it works. I didn’t do it much since the main issue with Paradox games from something like the couch is being able to read all the text. :)
Did they ever solve the problem of needing to spend an hour configuring the controller for each game?
Yeah, you can download premade controller configs from the Steam community.
Ah yes, I remember those. That means I spent 30minutes going through community configs, only to then spend 30 minutes making my own ;)
There were so many premades that were slightly different that I still spent an hour trying to find one that felt right to me. That was worse for a new game because I can’t know how well a specific controller config would work before I tried playing the game, so I’d have to do the intro several times to get something that feels right.
I loved the concept of the steam controller but I wanted to play games, not prepare for an hour before hand to get the controller to get out of the way.
You may have to do that in some cases, but given the fact that the community upvotes the best profiles, probably not very often. Some developers have made official Steam Controller profiles, and they’re usually quite good.
It’s a shame it never took off, as it was a truly innovative effort that would have addressed a very real need.
Yeah, I would have liked to have seen future iterations on it. I still have a need for this sort of thing. I have a wireless mouse and keyboard I can use from the couch but the ergonomics leave a lot to be desired.
Their insistence to include a second touchpad instead of the dpad that every other controller on the market has was a huge mistake. It made the learning curve steeper for no reason and ended up being more of a pain in the ass than anything since you’d have to map it as a dpad for most games anyway.
Any game that expects a dpad really expects you to use an Xbone or PS4 gamepad. The promise of the steam controller wasn’t that it would beat or even compare to a traditional gamepad on games designed for them, that was never a realistic possibility. Its promise was that you could play traditional M+K PC games from the couch.
This is a preview of stusser’s future in the Stadia thread.
I’m not sure what need Stadia addresses, other than the need to not pay for console hardware. Or maybe the need to play videogames in hotels.
Well that was quick. I got mine in the mail today.
Mine also arrived today. Looking forward to messing around with it when I get home from work tonight.
Don’t have mine yet, but it was only after I bought one that I realized this will be the first wireless controller I have in the house… which means I can actually make use of Moonlight/Parsec/Steam Streaming to play things upstairs on a laptop or whatever should I so choose. I’m very much an oldschool sit-at-the-desktop player, so this would be a whole new world for me.
My advice to all new SC owners is: don’t be afraid to experiment. You can change controls on the fly with the steam overlay, so don’t be afraid to do so and try out ideas. Unfortunately the quality of ready-made configurations isn’t consistent. This thing is awesome though, so give it a chance.