Optionally, what would you have wanted to know before you bought one?
Thanks!
Edit: Hey, thank you all very very much for your comments and suggestions, I really appreciate. I will most likely save up more and get the 1TB OLED model rather than the LCD model I was initially planning on. A couple of reasons for that, one, I am not good with electronics and I’d probably screw something up putting a new storage drive in. And two this thing will most likely be a permanent replacement for my old gaming laptop, which at this point is more than 10 years old, and seems to be on its last legs (I installed Linux on it, which was a struggle, but that is probably on me rather than Linux or the computer being at fault).
Anyway, I appreciate everyone’s responses and thanks for helping a gal out!
You may become spoiled by the Steam Deck’s excellent controls, such that no gamepad currently for sale will ever come close.
For me and Rimworld, I became dependent on the four back buttons, and now I can’t stand playing it on desktop with a controller because no controller on the market offers four additional buttons that work like that (as far as I know)
I mean… Yeah. Why would you not use a mouse for Rimworld on desktop?
I do a lot of couch gaming. I do have a wired lapboard for keyboard and mouse but it’s nice relaxing with a gamepad too
I don’t know Rimworld but the GuliKit KK3 MAX has 4 back buttons and works great with the steam deck
From what I’m reading they are not independent buttons though. They can only be copies of other buttons. Utterly useless.
I’m a big fan of using the thumb pads for games like City Skylines and Civ.
Also you can play cozy games in bed.
Or balatro at the bus stop.
Or… or… or… and… and… and…
The 8BitDo Ultimate 2 Wireless has 2 back buttons and two extra shoulders, and it has full Steam Input support (must update the Controller and Dongle firmware and hold the B button when turning on)
No trackpads though…
Eh, I’d say it’s a mixed bag.
The Triggers? Yes, I’d say they are tied for the best option right now.
The sticks? Also yes. They are positioned great, feel great, work great. As someone who likes both the Dualsense and Xbox sticks a lot, the Steam Deck is even better. It’s worth mentioning that even after 2 years I still haven’t found a use for the capacitive touch pads. They’re a neat idea I suppose, but it seems like you need a VERY specific scenario to make it work. Even the one I see most often- gyro - I’d rather just use a button to toggle it than use the capacitive sensor on the right stick.
The face buttons? They’re okay. Not the worst I’ve used, but too rounded for me. They can really wear on your thumbs in games where you mash. I’d prefer the Dualsense, but this is better than the Xbox.
The Shoulder Buttons? Pretty garage actually. They work, but feel really mush and awkward to use. Give me a Dualsense, or most other controllers instead.
Start/Select? Fine, but placed in places that are difficult to reach without actively stretching. Like they often are on controllers anyways, so not a big deal.
D-Pad? Serviceable. It feels similar to the PS Vita of all things. It’s nowhere near the crisp, precise, harsh microswitches of JoyCons. It’s also nowhere near the fluid, smooth motion of the Sony style D-Pad. It’s somewhere in-between. It’s also more precise than traditional Nintendo d-pads. I’d say it’s fine, but I prefer Sony’s. My thumb gets tired easily from D-Pad heavy games on the Deck.
Back buttons are a nice bonus, but they don’t feel super great. They all feel more like toggles than buttons you are expected to constantly be actuating.
The track pass are great at first, but my right track pad wore out VERY quickly and it feels terrible. Clicking on it now is very unpleasant, to the point where in some games I map R2 or R4 to click just so I don’t have to use the track pad for it anymore. Hopefully Valve improves that. I’d absolutely love to see those track pads on standalone controllers.
I’m a huge fan of the Steam Deck, and it’s control scheme, but as far as I’m aware, only the DualSense has adaptive, analog triggers.
SD triggers aren’t even close.
I’m not sure what you mean? The Steam Deck, and a TON of other controllers have analog triggers. Sony has been using them since the PS3. The GameCube used them, though Nintendo has gone back-and-forth on analog vs digital triggers. Every Xbox controller has had analog triggers. Most VR systems have analog triggers. It’s hard to speak for an entire industry, but I think most 3rd party controllers have analog triggers unless they are soecifically intended to replace a Nintendo one that doesn’t have it (like the JoyCons).
For the ADAPTIVE part… Yeah the Dualsense has it and nothing else does. I suppose where you and I disagree is in judging how important that is. To me, that was a fun little gimmick in Astro’s Play Room and Ratchet & Clank, but I can’t even remember any other games supporting it. Even in those games I thought it was a bit tiring on my fingers after prolonged periods of use. If we could knock $10 off the price of the Dualsense by removing it I would totally do that. It’s also worth noting that 3rd parties like 8Bitdo have similar hair-trigger features that physically reduce the travel distance and turn them into digital inputs.
When it comes to all the other aspects- the material, the springs, the radius, the shape, the texture, the ability to customize in software - in my opinion the Deck is better than the Dualsense in all of those areas.
I don’t mean to come across as hating on the Dualsense. It’s a great controller and my 2nd favorite behind the Deck for most games. I actually bought a Dualsense for PC use more than a year before I bought my PS5. For triggers specifically,
For me personally, I would compare adaptive triggers to other gimmicks like analog face buttons, the light bar on the Dualshock 4 (which was ironically way better on PC than PlayStation), the built in speaker and microphone on the Dualshock 4 and Dualsense, the WiiU, the 3 prongs of the N64 controller, the VMU of the Dreamcast, the IR camera on the Right JoyCon, NFC readers, etc.
Somewhat related was that I did not mention haptics in my original comment. I’d say the Dualsense has the best haptics, but the Steam Deck is a close second. This is another feature where it’s cool when the Dualsense uses it like in Astro’s Playroom, but it’s so rare for games to actually use it in interesting ways that it doesn’t matter much. With the Deck, it’s quintessential to how the track pads work, and the operating system itself makes great use of it. It can’t do all of the spectacular haptic details, but the Deck has a nice subtle approach that makes the whole thing just feel more substantial. The Dualsense uses haptics for immersion while the Deck uses it more for feedback and feel.
Ok…Just saying, you said that they have the best triggers out of any controller and it’s just not true.
I gave my opinion and you have not changed it: I would still say that the Deck’s triggers are better than the Dualsense’s.
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I’ve used the right trackpad as a mouse. I haven’t tried it for an FPS, but it works well for menus, inventory management, or for lower stress mouse games like city builders.
In Valhiem, at least, I’ve configured the left track pad as an 8 position radial menu to quickly activate to any hotbar slot.
I like the gyro for fps games. It’s the only way it’s manageable on a controller imo
Your touchpad issue may be a fluke, both the steam decks in my house (one original, one OLED) still work great with both trackpada
I use the touchpads constantly, mostly for Rimworld, but also desktop usage and other games, and I find them to be outstanding
My right one worked great to start, and my left knee still does. Over the past year I could feel it slowly get worse. It feels like normal wear and tear to me, just that I used it hard with a few mouse-centric games.
I did look on iFixit but they don’t have replacements. I’m not too surprised, and I’m not really upset with Valve, because it’s a pretty new thing and they are still way better than their competition. I just hope that eventually they release an improved version.
The Back Buttons on their own are not great.
IF you are going to do some customization - I highly recommend swapping them out.
I only did the back plate and I keep it in a case so I barely notice the clear purple back but I Do notice the new, and much larger, back triggers. They feel so much better.
https://jsaux.com/products/transparent-back-plate-for-steam-deck-pc0106
I may catch some flack for this, but I was and still am a big fan of the original steam controller, so much so that I still use it on my aging gaming laptop. How do the steam deck controls and buttons compare to the steam controller?
I have an original Steam Controller as well. The Steam Deck is a lot better in my opinion because I can choose between thumbstick or thumbpad on each side, whereas with the old controller you have to live with the touchpads and the single stick on the right.
The build quality feels a bit better too, and the haptics a bit more refined.
Really, the Deck offers everything the Controller did aside from form factor. And maybe if some folks vastly prefer the bigger touchpads, that might possibly be a downside, but I doubt that’d be the case for most
It’s possible to use your steam deck as a controller on your pc. You can use steam link, but if your WiFi isn’t very good there will be problems, or virtualhere. I haven’t tried virtualhere but I have heard that it is good, unfortunately, the only good guide I found for it is on reddit :(
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/v22ddf/guide_how_to_use_your_deck_as_a_steam_input/
Playing rimworld on the deck seems tricky. Feels like a game where I want the precision of a mouse. What actions have you set your back buttons to?
I haven’t played Rimworld on it, but I have played other mouse-dependent games, and it’s amazing how quickly you can adapt to the thumbpads. They actually work very well for fine mouse control.
L4/R4: slow down or speedup time R5: move screen faster, also hold down to select multiple L5: something to do with the touchscreen but I don’t use it
It works so good I even use it as a portable Linux machine. Just for internet etc.
Yeah! I use mine as a media device sometimes. With the first party dock. And with KDE Connect on my phone already since I use KDE on both my work and personal machines, adding the Steam Deck to that works so incredibly well for remote input
i really wanna get into rimworld on steamdeck so much. i played it on pc but never took the plunge back in on deck. What config are you using? Id love to get everything right so i can get hooked as fast as possible :3
Totally stock controls, dozens of hours. Works really really well!
Don’t the expensive (over $100) controllers that PlayStation and Xbox offer have paddle controls on the back? I think they are Elite and Edge controllers.
Only two and they don’t function as additional buttons sadly
Ah I see. Interesting! I always assumed the steam deck was just providing what high end console controllers were standardizing back there.
Nope! Both the Xbox Elite and Dualsense Edge controllers don’t add new buttons, they just add buttons that can only be copies of the regular Xbox/Playstation buttons.
Steam Deck does it better since the four back buttons can be used as completely independent buttons.
I’ve heard that the 8BitDo Ultimate 2 controller also can use its extra buttons as net new buttons, and I’ve been tempted to get one for that reason (and because I really liked the Ultimate “1” I had before my dog chewed it up!)
I have an aftermarket controller with back paddles (8bitdo pro) but they can only be bound to other existing controls or macros which I don’t find useful at all 😔
The Pro 2 can have those mapped to any control in D-input mode. It’s fully Steam Input compatible.