Steam is a company that should be feared by the big players.
Steam Controller
331–340 of 370 posts
Re: Steam Controller
#332It looks like it could work. I think I'd accidentally press the buttons on the back, though. Does anyone remember the SpaceOrb 360 [1]? I had one for a little while but returned it because it just didn't work as well for me as did a keyb/mouse combo. If microsoft won't match console gamers against PC gamers [2], how will steam pull it off?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceOrb_360 [2] http://www.rahulsood.com/2010/07/console-gamers-get-killed-a...
Re: Steam Controller
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a typical keyboard+mouse FPS game, for example, you get 2D analog "look" controls with the mouse, but much more limited 2D "move" controls with the keyboard. With two analog sticks/trackpads/mice/etc. you can get the same range of control over both. That's what the two "planes" give you.
To expand on this: In most FPSes your move commands are binary, "W" or nothing. You can alter them a bit with combinations, Shift-W to sprint or perhaps Ctrl-W to crawl but you're still limited to a handful of preset speeds. I could easily imagine being able to use a continuous axis to encapsulate walk/jog/sprint being quite a bit more intuitive and precise.
What about circle strafing a moving target while jumping/ducking and shooting? For me, that takes 3 simultaneous inputs on my left hand and 3 on my right hand. On each hand, some of those inputs vary or alternate. I can't speak for "most FPS" but competitive FPS require this coordinated action.
Re: Steam Controller
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple's trackpads aren't low precision and high latency.
Heh, have you tried playing an FPS on a mac, with its awful mouse acceleration?
Maybe this can help for games that don't bother to adjust/disable acceleration:
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scaling -1
Re: Steam Controller
#335I got to hold one of these a few months ago. It's solid. The ergonomics are there. The same designer[1] was previously at {one of the other three very large gaming console manufacturers} and knows a thing or two about controllers. My understanding is it will be significantly more accurate than traditional joysticks and competitive with a mouse (with a mouse you have a single 'large' plane of motion, with this, you ha…
Regarding your comment about DOTA2, i see how they have a stake in making this good for rts, but i am not sure how it will work. Me and a cousin hacked an old XBOX (not 360) controller and made it into a usb controller and i tried playing League Of Legends with it... hellishly tough man. I figured it would be more suited to a controller than other rts games because it involves a lot of button action, instead of just the point-and-click of rts games. so while the controller was pretty cool for casting spells, but mouse movement is a pain. because u have to click all over the screen pretty rapidly (MOBA games get pretty intense) and such rapid precision is very VERY hard to obtain from a controller.
Maybe its just all of us aren't used to doing those tasks with a controller as we are used to it by a mouse (btw long time halo veteran so am more comfortable on controllers for FPS games) but i think a learning curve would prevent high level players from switching to controllers becuase it would (albeit temporarily) really shunt their skills
Re: Steam Controller
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how my right thumb could be as precise as moving the mouse, which I do with all 5 of my fingers (for tiny movements) or from my shoulder (for larger movements). If thumb touchpads were good for FPS games, how come nobody is playing them with their thumb on their laptop's touchpad? Maybe I'm just old, but I don't see myself ever being able to use this.
>I don't see how my right thumb could be as precise as moving the mouse It's a controller, it will never be as precise as a mouse. Trust me when this thing comes out people will be complaining about how they're suddenly losing every game of TF2.
Yeah i tired playing LoL with a mouse. Not a good experience. EPICLY HARD. You just can't get that level of rapid precision with a mouse. for FPS games, this controller looks like a BEAST!!! but for games like Dota, this is gonna be a huge pain. I can already see people complaining after every death that they are playing form a controller
Re: Steam Controller
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you make bold statements you generally have to back it up with some evidence. I find it really hard to believe that anyone has the level off accuracy and speed that you get from a good keyboard/mouse combo. It is a reason that console games come with built in auto aim on all FPS shooters...
I'm looking for the original study I saw. I haven't found it yet, but here's one that found that trackballs were superior to thumbsticks, even for users familiar with gamepads and not trackballs (hardly a revelation, certainly, but you'd be surprised how many people contest it): http://www.yorku.ca/mack/FuturePlay1.html But come now, my original statement was hardly all that bold. Obviously the reason that gamepad ai…
There is a large difference between CoD and CS. That's what you would have to convince me with... that or SC.
Re: Steam Controller
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
Again, why not find a solution which incorporates mouse+kb instead of avoiding it? Would console-ers really be too put off by an elegant solution? And the problem here is not negligible. CoD series games will be miserable to play with a gamepad versus mouse+kb'ers, and those games would likely be quite popular on SteamBox.
There are certain games that work better with controllers—the best example I can think of is Mirror's Edge. I would be upset if I couldn't use a controller, because sometimes you need joysticks.
Is that even a good example? Mirror's Edge without the speed and precision of the mouse sounds awful for speed runs, and nothing is lost with the lack of an analog stick for movement (since you're always running).
If you haven't tried before, I highly recommend doing time trials with KB+M. It's a completely different game.
Re: Steam Controller
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
>> I think the challenge is Valve is trying to create one-size-fits-all inputs with those trackpads. The problem is that you can't. There are just too many different type of gamers having different requirements. Given Valve's lineage, their core audience are the FPS/PC type gaming crowd who are used to keyboards and mice. And this controller makes sense for that audience. While I'm interested in the Steam Machines, I…
This will only work for casual SP FPS - at best. It certainly won't work for hard-core stuff like CS.
Re: Steam Controller
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds to me like you would be able to use the trackpad regions as either "joysticks" or "trackpads" which means for an RTS game you would be no worse off than using a trackpad over a mouse. Other games might be better using them as joysticks where the input re-centers if you lift up from the control surface. Seems like a pretty big improvement over traditional controllers without any significant downsides.
Hotkeys are pretty important for RTSes too (at least SC2). I will definitely try this out for ergonomics reasons but I don't know if they'll have enough hotkeys to make it playable at a reasonable level. But maybe if buttons are context sensitive or something it could work out.
That's why you've got the touchscreen.