141–150 of 370 posts
I have to say, the biggest letdown for the next-gen consoles was the complete lack of haptic feedback. It's 2013, and while I welcome better graphics, they won't be enough to give immersion (still not even close to real life-like). Haptic feedback can be, in my opinion, a huge factor both in immersion and gameplay mechanics.
I'm skeptical that the trackpads will provide the same precision feel that a good analog stick can do, even with the haptics. But I'm not going to count it out. I'll reserve all judgement until I get to try it. And that's the only real sticking point for me on this announcement; everything else about this controller I love.
Keep in mind you can always just plug in a 360 controller, so if you have one of each, you can switch between the Steam and 360 controller depending on the game and your preference. I'm glad they went a different route, it opens up more options for gamers and developers.
I've played some FPS games with a trackpad for lack of having a mouse available, and on a larger, higher precision one (e.g., Macbook size) it was not a bad experience at all. You can move a finger a lot faster than a whole arm. Reflex high-res motion at the pro Counter-Strike level isn't likely, but for the casual gamer, trackpad FPS control absolutely seemed plausible. So I believe this kind of input will work for…
> You can move a finger a lot faster than a whole arm. If you're moving your arm to move your mouse, there is probably something wrong with your mouse.
IIRC I've always been old that I should move my whole arm with the mouse. The idea being that it's a small movement for your elbow/shoulder but a much larger movement for you wrist so you can avoid wrist injuries by moving your whole arm.
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I think the challenge is Valve is trying to create one-size-fits-all inputs with those trackpads. They have to work as joysticks and pointing devices, since Valve sells both console games and PC games on their platform. As a PC gamer, I'm super-excited for this gamepad because it will beat the ever-loving-crap out of a joystick for games that depend on a pointing-device (strategy, RTS, no-aim-assist-FPS games). It mi…
The nice thing is that a high-DPI trackpad can act as both a relative-input joystick (movement based on how far from center you are) and an absolute-input pointing device (movement based on absolute position in the device's input field). Joysticks can do this, too, but their DPI is frequently nowhere even close to acceptable for this kind of work - they tend to be somewhere in the 200-400 DPI range, when your average…
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I want someone to design a mouse for the couch. Mouse provides superior aiming for any shooter games. Mouse isn't critical for movement however, I can move just fine with an analog stick. I'm not sure a trackpad would make movement any easier. First problem: wires. Solution: wireless. Easy. Second and largest problem: you need a surface. If you're on the couch you don't have a mouse surface. You could use your pants…
It sounds like that's basically what valve's going for here. It's a mouse for the couch, except that instead of a left-hand keyboard we've got a trackpad. That's ambitious in that they think a trackpad can be used in place of a joystick/WSAD, but Valve's bread-and-butter is FPS games so I don't think they'd go for that if they didn't think it'd work.
I remember this actually not being too bad. I didn't use it over the D-pad for any precise movement, but part of that was the awkwardness of having to stretch the thumb over the the touch screen. There also was a little thumb pad on the DS strap you had to wear to get it to work smoothly, and that was a little clumsy to use. It was also hard to get a sense of where the neutral zone was, etc., since the only indication was a diagram under your thumb.
It looks like this controller takes that same idea and improves on it. You won't have to stretch your thumb or wear a thumb pad, and the circular trackpad maps better to a joystick than an arbitrary circle somewhere on a touch screen. It also looks like there's ridges on the pad, which could help with getting a sense of where you are.
If it was sort-of viable as a side feature in a nine-year-old game, I'm optimistic about Valve's ability to make it work. As you said, it's not like Valve is unfamiliar with the area.
I think it's great that Valve is innovating on controllers. Personally, I won't buy one -- I don't intend on getting a steam machine so I'd only be using it with my computer anyway, and I don't think this will ever beat a keyboard/mouse in terms of practicality and ease of use. But that aside, I'm glad they are at least trying to make a next-generation controller -- gives me hope there might one day be a controller I…
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It sounds like that's basically what valve's going for here. It's a mouse for the couch, except that instead of a left-hand keyboard we've got a trackpad. That's ambitious in that they think a trackpad can be used in place of a joystick/WSAD, but Valve's bread-and-butter is FPS games so I don't think they'd go for that if they didn't think it'd work.
Super Mario 64 DS had an interesting feature where you could put your left thumb on the touch screen and use it like a joystick. The neutral zone would be wherever you put your thumb down, and a little diagram would appear on the touch screen showing where the edges, neutral zone, etc., were. I remember this actually not being too bad. I didn't use it over the D-pad for any precise movement, but part of that was the…
That and the bolted-on character switching mechanic combine to make my memories of M64DS less than kind. A shame, I loved it on N64.
But still, I trust Valve to do a better job than that, since they're betting the whole platform on this kind of interface.
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The nice thing is that a high-DPI trackpad can act as both a relative-input joystick (movement based on how far from center you are) and an absolute-input pointing device (movement based on absolute position in the device's input field). Joysticks can do this, too, but their DPI is frequently nowhere even close to acceptable for this kind of work - they tend to be somewhere in the 200-400 DPI range, when your average…
and yet most competitive fps players play at 400 dpi