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Are you getting a steam controller tomorrow?

Buying one?


  • Total voters
    320
Bit late to the party as I just got back from vacation. Reserved my controller for when back in stock.

£85, eh but well worth it.
 
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When does the Steam Elite Controller come out that has feature parity with stuff like the Flydigi Apex 5?
I doubt you will get that from Valve within the next 5-7 years. You best bet is that the controller is popular enough that third parties make their own versions. My guess is 8-bit do already have their 3D printers cranking out prototypes (since they are all in with Steam Input anyway) and will be the first out of the gate.
Really, I think that is Valve's game plan for all this (with the exception of the frame). Put out the first round, let 3RD parties take up the manufacturing and just make the money off of licensing.
 
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Been using mine for the past couple of days. Besides the initial firmware update, there was another update yesterday. For any disappointed upon first use, give the software some time to be refined now that the hardware is out in the wild and Valve is getting a ton of user metrics and bug reports.

I'm a PC couch gamer and love the flexibility of steam input and the trackpads, so this was always going to be a fit for me. I'm waiting for them to figure out mouse trackpad use in Windows, as it is a worse experience than the original steam controller out of the box. Quirks like you have to have Steam open and not minimized for it to work (or at least not minimized from big picture). They will get there.

One surprisingly great thing about this controller for me is the d-pad. I usually only play 2-D platformers on my Steam Deck (and before that my Vita) due to the placement and comfort of the d-pad. This is the first controller where I'm not disappointed at the d-pad at all when playing a game like Spelunky. It is weird, I got this $99 controller for the trackpads and premium features, yet I'm drawn to playing games with a d-pad and button inputs.
 
Got mine. Initial impression is that it actually feels kinda small and cramped despite being larger than other controllers. It also somewhat suffers from one of my complaints about the 8bitdo Pro line in that the handles are not angled enough. The Steam Deck could get away with it because it's so wide but the controller could use some wider angles to feel more natural.
 
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So I got my controller a couple hours ago and... a couple issues
  1. I'm having issues with inputs. I tried both Battlefield 6, Halo Infinite, and Marathon and in both games I had issues where inputs either wouldn't register (including the left trigger in the middle of fights) or where the trackpad input would literally turn my character all the way around. I tried 10 or so different layouts in both BF6 and Halo and I tried a couple of them in Marathon but Marathon isn't really a game I can sit and test things out even if I take a free kit in.
  2. I also feel like there's a weird delay when I'm pressing the Steam button.
  3. I will agree with people who think the plastic feel sort of cheap, and I'm not a fan of how I can feel the screw holes even if I don't feel them while playing the game.
  4. Not sure if I'm a fan of the shape yet. It's more comfortable then I thought it would be though.
The puck is roughly 12 inches away from me while I'm playing and plugged into a USB 3.0 port directly into the back of my computer with the cable they included so there shouldn't be an issue there when it comes to the input issue.
 
Mine was just delivered.

it seems to feel nice. Not toooootally sure about the ergonomics, everything is very much "at the top" of the controller too make room for the trackpads. I haven't played with it yet, will do that soon, but that said, seems like a decent controller in terms of quality. Time will tell on the feel of the layout.

Edit: Well I thought this was supposed to work well anywhere that Steam runs. It definitely does not work well on the Mac. :messenger_grinning_sweat: That's ok though. I bought it in prep of a Steam Machine for the most part (though it remains to be seen if I will get one of those).
 
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Playing Islets with mine now - feels totally fine. I go back and forth between Xbox and Dual Sense controllers without any issues. This feels different from both of those, but totally familiar and great.

Out of curiosity I booted up Diablo 4 which I have through Battle.net. As expected, it looked at it as a KBM. I'll keep my Xbox controller around for that.
 
one thing for people playing in front of a TV with BPM, this nearly eliminates the need for having a mouse or mouse pad for emergencies. The steam controller pad acts as a mouse on windows so any popups or issues that come up while sitting can be easily fixed. Massive game changer for me. I love this controller.
 
I got in on the second badge around 6:00 p.m. it seems. I wonder what that means for me getting mine since I probably won't even be in the first few shipments I'm guessing.
 
Playing Islets with mine now - feels totally fine. I go back and forth between Xbox and Dual Sense controllers without any issues. This feels different from both of those, but totally familiar and great.

Out of curiosity I booted up Diablo 4 which I have through Battle.net. As expected, it looked at it as a KBM. I'll keep my Xbox controller around for that.
You can add diablo 4 to steam as a non steam game and gain controller functionality.
 
one thing for people playing in front of a TV with BPM, this nearly eliminates the need for having a mouse or mouse pad for emergencies. The steam controller pad acts as a mouse on windows so any popups or issues that come up while sitting can be easily fixed. Massive game changer for me. I love this controller.
Yes, one of my pc's is hooked up to my lg oled and this controller eliminates having to bust out my keyboard and mouse.
 
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Didn't like it? Was anything in particular the issue or did it just not appeal?
I mentioned it in a previous post but I've had a lot of issues with inputs.
  • In Marathon I couldn't for the life of me get the controller to work properly if I mapped gyro at all and sometimes the L2 wouldn't register at all if I was using the trackpads. Like I would touch the right trackpad and I couldn't use L2. My preferred way to set up gyro was to have it set to both L2+finger on there right stick (but not one at a time) and gyro would activate but letting go of L2 wouldn't register so I would be stuck aiming until I hit another input. I tried probably 10 different layouts and editing at least half of them myself as well.
  • In Battlefield 6 it worked better but I still had issues. Same as Marathon I tried roughly 10 and tried modifying my own. Most of them had really jittery gyro aiming or trackpad aiming whether it was set to joystick or mouse. I found one meant for Steam deck that worked quite well but then I would have a problem where my aim would just go randomly vertical or 180 degrees behind me whenever I used the trackpads. This issue also happened with some other layouts too.
  • Half Life 2 and Portal 2 worked great but that's unsurprising considering they are Valve 1st party games.
  • I was going to try Forza but both FH4 and FH5 won't let me sign in anymore so I just gave up.
I tried some other games as well. My thing is if the trackpads and gyro aren't going to work great then I'd rather just use my normal Xbox Series and DualSense controller especially for $100.
 
Now that I've spent a few days with it I think this is by far the best controller option for PC as long as you use Steam primarily.

- Rock solid connection with no BT or BT dongle bullshit;
- Trackpad is convenient when you need to click on a launcher or get yanked back to desktop. For some reason they are smaller than the OG Steam controller's;
- Back buttons do the job, better than their S2 Pro Controller equivalents. Not as good as Elite back triggers;
- Gyro works great and is easy to map as right stick for games without gyro support. That said, modern games have so much aim snap that it doesn't feel necessary;
- Excellent sticks that feel like they have minimum deadzones.

Now if you use any other launcher, the lack of support outside of Steam is really annoying. It's not as simple as adding other executables as non-Steam games as it won't make the controller detectable anyway. You can map it as a keyboard replacement (so it's fine for e.g. emulators) but it won't support any functionality other than keyboard buttons and mouse movement. I'm sure there'll be a workaround tool eventually but right now the device really locks you in the Steam ecosystem.
 
Now that I've spent a few days with it I think this is by far the best controller option for PC as long as you use Steam primarily.

- Rock solid connection with no BT or BT dongle bullshit;
- Trackpad is convenient when you need to click on a launcher or get yanked back to desktop. For some reason they are smaller than the OG Steam controller's;
- Back buttons do the job, better than their S2 Pro Controller equivalents. Not as good as Elite back triggers;
- Gyro works great and is easy to map as right stick for games without gyro support. That said, modern games have so much aim snap that it doesn't feel necessary;
- Excellent sticks that feel like they have minimum deadzones.

Now if you use any other launcher, the lack of support outside of Steam is really annoying. It's not as simple as adding other executables as non-Steam games as it won't make the controller detectable anyway. You can map it as a keyboard replacement (so it's fine for e.g. emulators) but it won't support any functionality other than keyboard buttons and mouse movement. I'm sure there'll be a workaround tool eventually but right now the device really locks you in the Steam ecosystem.
Sometimes I feel like the only person who vastly prefers the type of paddles that are on the SW2 Pro or like the 8bitdo controllers.

It's part of the reason why I don't like paddles in general because I have to adjust my grip and I know it throws off my aim. I ended up selling both my Elite and Edge.
 
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