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[Vigilant Gambit]

Sorry, I'm tired. I misread that as Call of Duty 2.




CIV 5 isn't really playable on a couch, because of the incredibly small text size. Controller or not.

Also, vastly improved how?

Krejlooc posted an explanation pic a week or so ago that I can't find at the moment, but this article pretty much explains it. Just keep in mind that the fundamental input method of a mouse and a touchpad are the same.

As far as Civ V, I don't have it installed right now to show you, but here's a picture I took of Age of Empires 2 HD running on my TV.

 

[Snapshot King]

Krejlooc posted an explanation pic a week or so ago that I can't find at the moment, but this article pretty much explains it. Just keep in mind that the fundamental input method of a mouse and a touchpad are the same.

As far as Civ V, I don't have it installed right now to show you, but here's a picture I took of Age of Empires 2 HD running on my TV.

I have a large TV that's about 8 feet away. CIV5s text at 1080p is hopelessly small and impossible to read.

EDIT: I'm also familiar with aim acceleration and all that, but I'm confused as to how this controller is any better than a laptop touchpad. A touchpads no mouse. With the one first person game I did play with it, the sensitivity was terrible, either far too high or too low, either making it so that a single touch would spin me 180 degrees, or that I'd have to drag and drop my thumb multiple times just to turn a corner.

 

[Nabs]

Woodsie is still doing videos btw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg3fjbiQCSY

this time how to configure it for FPS. He even did a short stream for Doom3: http://www.twitch.tv/thedarkally/v/21200326

His videos have been great. I loved his Doom 3 footage.

 

[Blizzard]

I have a large TV that's about 8 feet away. CIV5s text at 1080p is hopelessly small and impossible to read.

I just tested this myself and made sure it workedl: The first google result for "civ v font size" turns up: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/938528-sid-meiers-civilization-v/56502483

Did you already do that and it was still too small to read? I sat way back from my screen and it still seemed readable to me.

 

[Snapshot King]

I just tested this myself and made sure it workedl: The first google result for "civ v font size" turns up: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/938528-sid-meiers-civilization-v/56502483

Did you already do that and it was still too small to read? I sat way back from my screen and it still seemed readable to me.

I had not seen that, but I certainly don't care enough about CIV5 to spend time routing around in files and loading the game up and down for several hours to find settings I like. I appreciate your effort though.

 

[Maztorre]

I guess that could work, though I don't think I've ever tried using analog triggers for attacks. If you get enough feedback from barely tapping them it could be OK. But enough people have said the trackpad clicks take too much force that I don't think they'd feel great to use as giant A or B buttons. Without having one to try myself I can't say for sure. The click sound they make in videos doesn't sound very satisfying.

I'll give it a try once I'm playing a 2D platformer and report back. For reference I played NiGHTS with the right pad click assigned as the drill dash button and it felt fine, but obviously it's a slightly different use case than precision jumping.

If anyone wants to try my Dark Souls 2 bindings I've published them as "Covenant of the Two-Stage Triggers" by username SteffK. This one completely removes any use of the button diamond:

Left Trigger: Left Attack, Left Strong Attack on full press
Right Trigger: Right Attack, Right Strong Attack on full press
Left Bumper:Use Item
Right Bumper: Interact
Left Grip: Toggle 2-handed weapon
Right Grip: Backstep/Roll/Dash
Left Pad Click: Jump
Right Pad Click: Lock on

The camera sensitivity has been fine tuned as well, any feedback would be great.

 

[Blizzard]

I had not seen that, but I certainly don't care enough about CIV5 to spend time routing around in files and loading the game up and down for several hours to find settings I like. I appreciate your effort though.

I don't really care enough either, but it took perhaps 5 minutes for me to take the first google result and copy and paste a file about 5 times. It even tells you which directory to look in.

The point is, regardless of whether YOU care about Civ V, SOME people care about Civ V enough to spend 5 minutes doing this. And if they do, they can play on a TV at a distance, which I thought was the point to begin with? (I think it was suggested that font size meant Civ V was unviable for TV viewing)

 

[Snapshot King]

I don't really care enough either, but it took perhaps 5 minutes for me to take the first google result and copy and paste a file about 5 times. It even tells you where they are.

The point is, regardless of whether YOU care about Civ V, SOME people care about Civ V enough to spend 5 minutes doing this. And if they do, they can play on a TV at a distance, which I thought was the point to begin with?

There's no way this'd take five minutes. You'd have to consistently check it and re-check it for errors such as text breaking out of their boxes or screwing up visibility. The idea that they'd have proper support for font changing but hide it from the end user is baffling. Plus during your constant switching back and forth for these files, Civ 5 has that weirdly gigantic front ended load.

Regardless of all that though, does the controller work decently for non action, mouse based games? I imagine it'd feel like a chore dragging the touchpad cursor around (it certainly feels dreadful on desktop and in Pillars of Eternity when I tried it) but I can't imagine it not being a pale shadow of mouse and keyboard, to the point where you'd just break one out.

EDIT: Holy christ, I just tried Killing Floor with the high precision gamepad template. This is HORRIBLE. How in the world are you supposed to land headshots when the slightest touch spends your view spiralling in a direction?

 

[Won]

There's no way this'd take five minutes. You'd have to consistently check it and re-check it for errors such as text breaking out of their boxes or screwing up visibility. The idea that they'd have proper support for font changing but hide it from the end user is baffling. Plus during your constant switching back and forth for these files, Civ 5 has that weirdly gigantic front ended load.

Regardless of all that though, does the controller work decently for non action, mouse based games? I imagine it'd feel like a chore dragging the touchpad cursor around (it certainly feels dreadful on desktop and in Pillars of Eternity when I tried it) but I can't imagine it not being a pale shadow of mouse and keyboard, to the point where you'd just break one out.

From the sound of your posts it seems you still haven't found the option to customize the controller. You should give that a shot first.

 

[Maztorre]

There's no way this'd take five minutes. You'd have to consistently check it and re-check it for errors such as text breaking out of their boxes or screwing up visibility. The idea that they'd have proper support for font changing but hide it from the end user is baffling. Plus during your constant switching back and forth for these files, Civ 5 has that weirdly gigantic front ended load.

Regardless of all that though, does the controller work decently for non action, mouse based games? I imagine it'd feel like a chore dragging the touchpad cursor around (it certainly feels dreadful on desktop and in Pillars of Eternity when I tried it) but I can't imagine it not being a pale shadow of mouse and keyboard, to the point where you'd just break one out.

It literally says in the link 8 lines in:

Civ V has adjustable windows for pretty much everything and I haven't seen any issue no matter the size I choose. (Aside from the trademark thingy after the intro)

You have probably spent more time arguing back and forth about this issue than it would have taken to read and fix it.

 

[Vigilant Gambit]

There's no way this'd take five minutes. You'd have to consistently check it and re-check it for errors such as text breaking out of their boxes or screwing up visibility. The idea that they'd have proper support for font changing but hide it from the end user is baffling. Plus during your constant switching back and forth for these files, Civ 5 has that weirdly gigantic front ended load.

Regardless of all that though, does the controller work decently for non action, mouse based games? I imagine it'd feel like a chore dragging the touchpad cursor around (it certainly feels dreadful on desktop and in Pillars of Eternity when I tried it) but I can't imagine it not being a pale shadow of mouse and keyboard, to the point where you'd just break one out.

EDIT: Holy christ, I just tried Killing Floor with the high precision gamepad template. This is HORRIBLE. How in the world are you supposed to land headshots when the slightest touch spends your view spiralling in a direction?

I dunno if I'd recommend the Steam Controller to someone who seems unwilling to even change sensitivity sliders. :/

As for games that have shitty UI scaling, an easy fix is to lower the resolution. Worked just fine for me in AoE II. You won't notice any issues with the lower resolution if you sit so far from your TV that things are unreadably small.

 

[Snapshot King]

From the sound of your posts it seems you still haven't found the option to customize the controller. You should give that a shot first.

I've found it, but that's not the point. The point is that all of the things default controls control like absolute junk. I don't have the time nor inclination to spend hours configuring controls for every game I play. There's a reason I don't have xpadder.

 

[Blizzard]

The last time I turned the controller off, either through timeout or the Steam overlay or holding the button down (I'm not sure which), it got stuck. I was unable to power it on by pressing the button or holding the button. Plugging in a USB cable did nothing. Restarting Steam did nothing.

The thing that fixed it was popping a battery out and back in. I'm trying to avoid taking batteries out at all costs because of how the battery lock mechanism feels. Has anyone found a different way out of this situation, if your controller got stuck turned off?

 

[dsk1210]

I've found it, but that's not the point. The point is that all of the things default controls control like absolute junk. I don't have the time nor inclination to spend hours configuring controls for every game I play. There's a reason I don't have xpadder.

Just sell your controllers man, it seems you are not willing to invest any time to find your prefect control schemes.

 

[Snapshot King]

I dunno if I'd recommend the Steam Controller to someone who seems unwilling to even change sensitivity sliders. :/

As for games that have shitty UI scaling, an easy fix is to lower the resolution. Worked just fine for me in AoE II. You won't notice any issues with the lower resolution if you sit so far from your TV that things are unreadably small.

To be fair, playing killing floor, it felt both too sensitive in game, and not sometimes, and in the menus it was slow as hell. Im not sure how changing the sensitivity to improve one issue would do anything but make the other worse, and double besides, the damn thing should work without hours of setup.

Just sell your controllers man, it seems you are not willing to invest any time to find your prefect control schemes.

Absolutely not. I bought the damn things and at worst I'll keep them around as a curiosity. But they should have been more up front that out of the box, the thing would function like junk with nearly anything, and would require extensive user modification in order to achieve even basic competency.

 

[Rodney McKay]

I tried Commander Keen just now and the controller configuration doesn't seem to work, maybe because it's a DOS Box game or something.

Anyone have a fix for Commander Keen or another DOS Box game?

If not, is there a way to send in a bug report to Valve for the controller? I haven't found it yet if there is.

 

[thepotatoman]

So shooters then. Anything other than shooters this controller is actually worth using for?



I actually tried Pillars of Eternity. It controlled like absolute junk. Wasteland 2s controller support is full orders of magnitude better. That being said, the speed of the camera change isn't the problem. The problem is that it's a touch pad emulating an analog sticks movement, which feels bizarre and doesn't have the natural feel of an analog stick or a mouse.

As for keeping it, of course I'm going to keep it. Hell I bought 2, just in case one broke. I'm just going to keep shitting on it on twitter and all the social media I can find until hopefully they improve this piece of junk or come out with a revision that doesn't feel like it's made out of 12 dollar plastic.

That being said, I ask again. What, non shooter games, actually benefit from this? The gamepad emulation technically works but feels totally pointless when you could just hook up a PS4 or Xbox One bad, both of which are vastly superior. Any mouse driven games that actually work in a comfortable way that won't just have me reaching for mouse and keyboard within 15 seconds?

Well, it is a step back for it to emulate a joystick instead of actually using a joystick. If you're playing a game with joysticks, just use a controller with joysticks. But that's not the point of the controller. The point is for it to emulate a trackball. And it emulates a trackball extremely well. You do need to have the haptic feedback enabled for that to work as well as it should, because it becomes a lot more imprecise without that feedback.

Shooters are benefited from the speed and precision a trackball has, but it also benefits any game where you're primarily playing with a mouse cursor, like strategy games, puzzle games, and point and click adventures.

The trackball style is also way better than joysticks at camera controls, and you still have a joystick for 3D movement. Thanks to that, it could even be the best controller for 3D platformers there is since the camera isn't limited by the joysticks of a traditional controller and the movement isn't bound to the 8 cardinal directions like keyboard and mouse setups. The only reason i wouldn't call it that is that the joystick and buttons just don't feel very good, but the concept is still there.

I guess the other advantages are games that need a ton of buttons like MMOs and the community profiles through steam to give it compatability to every single last steam game ever made no matter how old.

 

[Snapshot King]

Well, it is a step back for it to emulate a joystick instead of actually using a joystick. If you're playing a game with joysticks, just use a controller with joysticks. But that's not the point of the controller. The point is for it to emulate a trackball. And it emulates a trackball extremely well. You do need to have the haptic feedback enabled for that to work as well as it should, because it becomes a lot more imprecise without that feedback.

Shooters are benefited from the speed and precision a trackball has, but it also benefits any game where you're primarily playing with a mouse cursor, like strategy games, puzzle games, and point and click adventures.

The trackball style is also way better than joysticks at camera controls, and you still have a joystick for 3D movement. Thanks to that, it could even be the best controller for 3D platformers there is since the camera isn't limited by the joysticks of a traditional controller and the movement isn't bound to the 8 cardinal directions like keyboard and mouse setups. The only reason i wouldn't call it that is that the joystick and buttons just don't feel very good, but the concept is still there.

I guess the other advantages are games that need a ton of buttons like MMOs and the community profiles through steam to give it compatability to every single last steam game ever made no matter how old.

Tell me more about this trackball stuff. It doesn't feel like a trackball. Im not sure how I'd describe it, but it certainly doesn't control like one with the time I've used it. Also, why does haptic feedback matter for it at all? No matter if I am using the haptic or not, I find my finger sliding off the bottom of the pad.

 

[RealityCheque]

I tried Commander Keen just now and the controller configuration doesn't seem to work, maybe because it's a DOS Box game or something.

Anyone have a fix for Commander Keen or another DOS Box game?

If not, is there a way to send in a bug report to Valve for the controller? I haven't found it yet if there is.

It's a known bug. AFAIK they are working on it.

 

[ashecitism]

I tried Commander Keen just now and the controller configuration doesn't seem to work, maybe because it's a DOS Box game or something.

Anyone have a fix for Commander Keen or another DOS Box game?

If not, is there a way to send in a bug report to Valve for the controller? I haven't found it yet if there is.

Krejlooc said DOSBox games don't work currently with it. There are also some other games, which don't. People listed some of them in here. As for contacting Valve:

 

[hepburn3d]

Just been playing some Battlefront 2 with this.

I love the back paddles for reload. Love this game.

Now I don't want the new battlefront this game has everything I want so many games to go through and try

 

[Snapshot King]

So I went and installed CIV 5 and did that font trick. It kind of works, though it does break some menus.

It does also have an official controller template available. That being said...the touchpad feels so...terrible as a mouse. It's both too slow and too fast. Am I missing something here? Small motions move nowhere at all if I'm ginger with it, but anything past that and my mouse flies off the screen.

 

[Vigilant Gambit]

I've found it, but that's not the point. The point is that all of the things default controls control like absolute junk. I don't have the time nor inclination to spend hours configuring controls for every game I play. There's a reason I don't have xpadder.

I'm afraid you're in the minority here, but one of the features of the Steam Controller is that people who have spent time fine-tuning their configs can upload them for other people to use. You hit a button before you start a game, and you can scroll through a list of other people's configs.

The part that sucks is that right now, there is no voting/recommendation/quality control system at all, so you end up seeing a list of unfinished configs, or people doing dumb things like binding both next and previous weapon selection.

But these are all things we signed up for as early adopters. The controller technically won't be out until the 10th, and a lot of these problems will likely be ironed out by then.

I don't think the controller is for you, though.

The last time I turned the controller off, either through timeout or the Steam overlay or holding the button down (I'm not sure which), it got stuck. I was unable to power it on by pressing the button or holding the button. Plugging in a USB cable did nothing. Restarting Steam did nothing.

The thing that fixed it was popping a battery out and back in. I'm trying to avoid taking batteries out at all costs because of how the battery lock mechanism feels. Has anyone found a different way out of this situation, if your controller got stuck turned off?

You should email Valve about somehow sticking a failsafe restart button combo into the controller's firmware. I have the same issue as you.

To be fair, playing killing floor, it felt both too sensitive in game, and not sometimes, and in the menus it was slow as hell. Im not sure how changing the sensitivity to improve one issue would do anything but make the other worse, and double besides, the damn thing should work without hours of setup.



Absolutely not. I bought the damn things and at worst I'll keep them around as a curiosity. But they should have been more up front that out of the box, the thing would function like junk with nearly anything, and would require extensive user modification in order to achieve even basic competency.

I noticed this problem myself, in Alpha Protocol.

The thing is, you have two sliders - the one in the controller, and the one in the game. The one in the game probably only uses that slider to change aiming sensitivity, because you're (supposed to be) using a mouse and you already defined your cursor sensitivity in your OS settings. The one in the controller applies both to aiming and to the cursor in menus, so if your game relies on the mouse for menu navigation, then you kinda have to get good at using a finicky mouse with a touchpad, or completely ignore the BPM UI's advice about cranking up controller sensitivity and lowering game sensitivity to increase the precision of the data the game gets.

Also, these issues you're having don't take hours of setup, and I don't know why you keep saying that. If there are no community configs yet, take a few minutes to make your own, then play the game. If there are no immediate issues... you're done. Once you find an issue, pause the game, go into the overlay, and fix it. Takes maybe 20 seconds start to finish. You can even make a change, hit the Steam button, test it in-game, and hit the Steam button again, tweak, etc. without having to button in and out of config menus and submenus. It's all very well done, but you have to be willing to actually do it.

Krejlooc said DOSBox games don't work currently with it. There are also some other games, which don't. People listed some of them in here. As for contacting Valve:

I used some random community config for commander keen and it worked fine. The only issue is that the overlay wouldn't come up.

 

[ashecitism]

Haven't seen the link in the OP, but occasionally it's good to visit the Controller section of the Steam group: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/2/

Valve devs do post there (for ex one of them repsponded how to pair more controllers to the dongle) and stickied threads can have useful info. In this case about endless firmware update loop or linux notes.

 

[Rodney McKay]

It's a known bug. AFAIK they are working on it.

Krejlooc said DOSBox games don't work currently with it. There are also some other games, which don't. People listed some of them in here. As for contacting Valve:

Great, good to know they're working on it already.

I had forgotten about that email with the support address. I'll definitely use that next time I notice an issue.

 

[Snapshot King]

I'm afraid you're in the minority here, but one of the features of the Steam Controller is that people who have spent time fine-tuning their configs can upload them for other people to use. You hit a button before you start a game, and you can scroll through a list of other people's configs.

The part that sucks is that right now, there is no voting/recommendation/quality control system at all, so you end up seeing a list of unfinished configs, or people doing dumb things like binding both next and previous weapon selection.

But these are all things we signed up for as early adopters. The controller technically won't be out until the 10th, and a lot of these problems will likely be ironed out by then.

I don't think the controller is for you, though.



You should email Valve about somehow sticking a failsafe restart button combo into the controller's firmware. I have the same issue as you.



I noticed this problem myself, in Alpha Protocol.

The thing is, you have two sliders - the one in the controller, and the one in the game. The one in the game probably only uses that slider to change aiming sensitivity, because you're (supposed to be) using a mouse and you already defined your cursor sensitivity in your OS settings. The one in the controller applies both to aiming and to the cursor in menus, so if your game relies on the mouse for menu navigation, then you kinda have to get good at using a finicky mouse with a touchpad, or completely ignore the BPM UI's advice about cranking up controller sensitivity and lowering game sensitivity to increase the precision of the data the game gets.

Also, these issues you're having don't take hours of setup, and I don't know why you keep saying that. If there are no community configs yet, take a few minutes to make your own, then play the game. If there are no immediate issues... you're done. Once you find an issue, pause the game, go into the overlay, and fix it. Takes maybe 20 seconds start to finish. You can even make a change, hit the Steam button, test it in-game, and hit the Steam button again, tweak, etc. without having to button in and out of config menus and submenus. It's all very well done, but you have to be willing to actually do it.



I used some random community config for commander keen and it worked fine. The only issue is that the overlay wouldn't come up.

I don't see why people keep saying that this is some kind of early adoption. I ordered them from EBgames and they were shipped. I didn't buy them through steam or some such speciality program.

Also, you mention it doesn't take hours, I'm not sure what you're talking about. I've been spending nearly an hour trying to merely figure out why sometimes my mouse movement on this trackpad is too fast or too slow, and occasionally stops altogether (I assume the edge of the trackpad works more poorly than the center) but hell, where am I even supposed to put my thumb. If it's in the center, I can't hit the buttons. If it's on the edge, I can't move to the bottom left without constantly relifting my thumb.

 

[Blizzard]

I'm guessing it might be possible to make a mode switch binding so that one could change from high sensitivity ingame to low sensitivity for menus, but I haven't tried that.

 

[Tart Toter 9k]

Tell me more about this trackball stuff. It doesn't feel like a trackball. Im not sure how I'd describe it, but it certainly doesn't control like one with the time I've used it. Also, why does haptic feedback matter for it at all? No matter if I am using the haptic or not, I find my finger sliding off the bottom of the pad.

I think this gif from the OP illustrates the trackball like effect.

Notice how the person using it is flicking their thumb over the trackpad.

 

[Snapshot King]

I think this gif from the OP illustrates the trackball like effect.

Notice how the person using it is flicking their thumb over the trackpad.

Does this feeling require a super high sensitivity? Im trying it with Civ 5 and it feels absolutely terrible. Mouse barely goes anywhere. And this is using the official control spec.

 

[Vigilant Gambit]

I don't see why people keep saying that this is some kind of early adoption. I ordered them from EBgames and they were shipped. I didn't buy them through steam or some such speciality program.

Also, you mention it doesn't take hours, I'm not sure what you're talking about. I've been spending nearly an hour trying to merely figure out why sometimes my mouse movement on this trackpad is too fast or too slow, and occasionally stops altogether (I assume the edge of the trackpad works more poorly than the center) but hell, where am I even supposed to put my thumb. If it's in the center, I can't hit the buttons. If it's on the edge, I can't move to the bottom left without constantly relifting my thumb.

The controller won't be on store shelves until Nov. 10th. As far as I know, the only way to have a controller right now is if you preordered it before Friday.

And I dunno what to tell you about how long it takes. The first day I got my controller, I took it home on my lunch break and tested out 6 different games in under an hour. Of those 6, only one of them had a community config available, and it was almost completely wrong. I was able to configure and play all 6 of those games without issue.

Honestly, the first time you figure out what touchpad settings work well for you will be the last time you will need to. You can save that as a template if you want, and base other game's configs on it. You can also simply remember roughly where the sensitivity sliders should be.

 

[Wrestlemania]

There haptic effect mimics would you'd hear and feel if there was actual trackball that kept spinning after you've taken your thumb off after flicking it.

 

[thepotatoman]

Tell me more about this trackball stuff. It doesn't feel like a trackball. Im not sure how I'd describe it, but it certainly doesn't control like one with the time I've used it. Also, why does haptic feedback matter for it at all? No matter if I am using the haptic or not, I find my finger sliding off the bottom of the pad.

For large movements it uses swiping motions, just like swiping a trackball does, and stops any momentum when you press down on it like a trackball does. You should never fall off the side of the trackpad because most of your larger movements should be swipes, with your thumb staying on the trackpad only for precise movements.

The haptic feedback lets you feel and hear the number of click that motion has, so over time you start to intuitively understand how many clicks you want your swipe to have to complete the motion you want. Without those clicks it's a lot harder to tell how much momentum you put into that swipe.

This is only for when it's set to emulate a mouse, which means basically every single game you use this controller with should be using keyboard and mouse controls, with hopefully the option to bind joystick movement to the joystick.

 

[Snapshot King]

The controller won't be on store shelves until Nov. 10th. As far as I know, the only way to have a controller right now is if you preordered it before Friday.

And I dunno what to tell you about how long it takes. The first day I got my controller, I took it home on my lunch break and tested out 6 different games in under an hour. Of those 6, only one of them had a community config available, and it was almost completely wrong. I was able to configure and play all 6 of those games without issue.

Honestly, the first time you figure out what touchpad settings work well for you will be the last time you will need to. You can save that as a template if you want, and base other game's configs on it. You can also simply remember roughly where the sensitivity sliders should be.

I've been messing with Civ 5s settings for maybe 45 minutes and so far they all feel terrible. Im not sure if this is that I just hate every variant of the trackpads feel, or I'm doing something wrong. Where are you even supposed to put your thumb in this, dead center or along the edges?

EDIT: I'm getting so frustrated with this. Either I have to do multiple massive swipes to get across the screen in Civ 5, or the sensitivity is so high that I can't click on small icons when I want. The statement that this doesn't take hours is totally false. It took days of testing games until finding out that overlay disable breaks the entire thing, and now I've been messing with this thing since 3am and I've made literally no progress.

EDIT2: Am I just holding this thing wrong? I can't find a comfortable way to get my thumb in the middle with my index fingers on the triggers. Are you supposed to use it with your index fingers on the bumpers, higher up? But then how can you even hit the buttons?

 

[Gangxxter]

I've been messing with Civ 5s settings for maybe 45 minutes and so far they all feel terrible. Im not sure if this is that I just hate every variant of the trackpads feel, or I'm doing something wrong. Where are you even supposed to put your thumb in this, dead center or along the edges?

EDIT: I'm getting so frustrated with this. Either I have to do multiple massive swipes to get across the screen in Civ 5, or the sensitivity is so high that I can't click on small icons when I want. The statement that this doesn't take hours is totally false. It took days of testing games until finding out that overlay disable breaks the entire thing, and now I've been messing with this thing since 3am and I've made literally no progress.

EDIT2: Am I just holding this thing wrong? I can't find a comfortable way to get my thumb in the middle with my index fingers on the triggers. Are you supposed to use it with your index fingers on the bumpers, higher up? But then how can you even hit the buttons?

Maybe your Controller is broken? You said you have bought a second one, have you tried it yet?

 

[jrcbandit]

The main thing I dislike about the controller is that it takes way too much effort to click on the left "d-pad", so any game where you need to use the left side as a clickable d-pad is a sub-par experience.

Also, the whole configuration thing isn't very user friendly. I selected a user config for a game (Downwell) but it didn't seem to apply. Is there an easy way to see the entire config? When I tried to edit the config it only let me look at the D-pad side of it.

 

[thepotatoman]

I've been messing with Civ 5s settings for maybe 45 minutes and so far they all feel terrible. Im not sure if this is that I just hate every variant of the trackpads feel, or I'm doing something wrong. Where are you even supposed to put your thumb in this, dead center or along the edges?

EDIT: I'm getting so frustrated with this. Either I have to do multiple massive swipes to get across the screen in Civ 5, or the sensitivity is so high that I can't click on small icons when I want. The statement that this doesn't take hours is totally false. It took days of testing games until finding out that overlay disable breaks the entire thing, and now I've been messing with this thing since 3am and I've made literally no progress.

EDIT2: Am I just holding this thing wrong? I can't find a comfortable way to get my thumb in the middle with my index fingers on the triggers. Are you supposed to use it with your index fingers on the bumpers, higher up? But then how can you even hit the buttons?

Maybe you're just overthinking it and being too aware that you're using a different controller. I might suggest turning the controls to the defaults, and just doing your best to get a feel for it. Don't be discouraged if you do things like miss hitting a button or overshoot a swipe. Just keep playing and focus on the game instead of the controller. It'll become second nature over time.

I'd also again suggest using the haptic feedback at least to help you get a feel for it. You can turn it back off after you get a feel for it.

 

[Snapshot King]

Maybe your Controller is broken? You said you have bought a second one, have you tried it yet?

Controllers fine mechanically, and I'm not going to unseal the other one until this thing is near dead and gone. No use wasting that new controller feel on nothing. The thing WORKS, it just feels terrible. It's no mouse replacement that's for sure. Is mouse acceleration good or bad? What about sensitivity? Why hasn't anyone answered me about thumb placement? The comfier option leads my finger constantly falling off the pad, and the more precise one feels uncomfortable as hell and doesnt let me even touch the proper buttons without moving my hand.

Maybe you're just overthinking it and being too aware that you're using a different controller. I might suggest turning the controls to the defaults, and just doing your best to get a feel for it. Don't be discouraged if you do things like miss hitting a button or overshoot a swipe. Just keep playing and focus on the game instead of the controller. It'll become second nature over time.

I'd also again suggest using the haptic feedback at least to help you get a feel for it. You can turn it back off after you get a feel for it.

But the only reason I'm playing CIV5 in the first place is because it was recommended with this controller. I don't actually want to play it, I just want to get the controls working properly. The only games i'm playing right now all use proper gamepads, which this thing is absolute junk for, so that's not going to be much help.

EDIT: I'm curious. Why do you say use haptic so that I get a feel for it? I put it on high as a result of your suggestiion, and the only difference is it makes more noise. I'm still sliding off the sides constantly when trying to drag it long distances.

 

[B-B-Bomba!]

I've been messing with Civ 5s settings for maybe 45 minutes and so far they all feel terrible. Im not sure if this is that I just hate every variant of the trackpads feel, or I'm doing something wrong. Where are you even supposed to put your thumb in this, dead center or along the edges?

EDIT: I'm getting so frustrated with this. Either I have to do multiple massive swipes to get across the screen in Civ 5, or the sensitivity is so high that I can't click on small icons when I want. The statement that this doesn't take hours is totally false. It took days of testing games until finding out that overlay disable breaks the entire thing, and now I've been messing with this thing since 3am and I've made literally no progress.

EDIT2: Am I just holding this thing wrong? I can't find a comfortable way to get my thumb in the middle with my index fingers on the triggers. Are you supposed to use it with your index fingers on the bumpers, higher up? But then how can you even hit the buttons?

It sounds like your frustration is genuine, however it sounds like you don't know what you bought. The value of the controller isn't that it magically 'just works' for everything, rather that you have the option to configure it down to the finest details, and that, over time, really excellent community-generated bindings will rise to the fore.

For the time being, the main appeal will be for people who enjoy mucking about with this stuff, and can appreciate it's potential.

Edit, meant to add, it's early days and there seem to be occasional issues with both hardware & software, perhaps more than we might hope but perhaps acceptable given the potential of the product. Is it possible yours is a dud? Sounds like you have more than one; do they operate exactly the same? Are you feeling any feedback from the haptics?

 

[Snapshot King]

It sounds like your frustration is genuine, however it sounds like you don't know what you bought. The value of the controller isn't that it magically 'just works' for everything, rather that you have the option to configure it down to the finest details, and that, over time, really excellent community-generated bindings will rise to the fore.

For the time being, the main appeal will be for people who enjoy mucking about with this stuff, and can appreciate it's potential. Full disclosure, i don't have mine yet.

Of course I knew what I bought, and I was fully aware of the mass customization available. However just because you can customize it is no excuse for basic functionality being terrible. Being able to customize it to your hearts content is great. The thing barely working whatsoever without hours of setup per game is absurd. There's a wide chasm between "it should just work in every situation" and "it should work at all when you plug it in"

The fact that I've had it for several days and had nothing but frustrating experiences with broken controls and bad controls is just awful. It should have been a cool little learning experience, instead of having me up till 6 in the morning so frustrated I could throw the thing across the room.

 

[MNC]

I just played a match of Grey Goo (Easy AI) with the controller, my own bindings. It's... Functional. But the match took far too long.

 

[Snapshot King]

Yeah, I'm feeling tons of feedback from the haptics, particularly if I set it to high. Makes no difference other than the controller gets even louder. What's the point of them anyway? To annoy you? They certainly don't cause me to not slide off the side. So far every time I have to make a large mouse movement, I end up dragging my thumb right off the side and having to replace it in the middle. It's like using a rumbling laptop touch pad. Sensitivity options don't help whatsoevr and Im still baffled as to what you folks are implying the haptics are actually supposed to do.

 

[hepburn3d]

Now playing Civ 5 on the couch with my legs up. Guys I can't tell you how amazing this feels. I love this game. So glad I can play while kicked back on the sofa now. Made my own setup for all my common buttons.

So happy

 

[Snapshot King]

Now playing Civ 5 on the couch with my legs up. Guys I can't tell you how amazing this feels. I love this game. So glad I can play while kicked back on the sofa now. Made my own setup for all my common buttons.

So happy

What are your mouse settings? Maybe using your configs I can finally figure out some decent controls.

 

[EdwardTeach]

What do you guys think about the default decision to reverse left and right mouse buttons? Sometimes I have changed it back and sometimes I leave it. I am not sure about it, it seems like a crazy thing to mess with.
So far I have played grey goo and Victoria 2. Both control fine and I especially liked using it in Victoria. With grey goo it works, but a real mouse would definitely be superior for doing things like drawing a box to select units. Can imagine that it will feel better with more practice.
I was really chuffed to receive the controller on Friday. I was the victim of credit card fraud on the exact day that game tried to take payment, so the payment didn't go through and my order was cancelled. When I contacted game I was initially told that as I miss the initial batch they were posting out to preordering, I would instead have to wait until November! I kicked up a big fuss and obviously they got it sorted.

 

[Wrestlemania]

Yeah, I'm feeling tons of feedback from the haptics, particularly if I set it to high. Makes no difference other than the controller gets even louder. What's the point of them anyway? To annoy you? They certainly don't cause me to not slide off the side. So far every time I have to make a large mouse movement, I end up dragging my thumb right off the side and having to replace it in the middle. It's like using a rumbling laptop touch pad. Sensitivity options don't help whatsoevr and Im still baffled as to what you folks are implying the haptics are actually supposed to do.

Why would you expect the haptics to stop your thumb coming off the pad? It's to let it feel more like a trackball. You flick your thumb, the cursor keeps moving, you either let it stop or put your thumb back on to stop it. The haptics give you feedback about the vitual motion of the ball. Have you used a trackball or are you able to imagine how one would work? It sounds like you're just trying to use it like a laptop touchpad.

 

[deadfolk]

Did any Mac users who didn't buy directly from valve get the free games?

 

[Nzyme32]

I have a large TV that's about 8 feet away. CIV5s text at 1080p is hopelessly small and impossible to read.

EDIT: I'm also familiar with aim acceleration and all that, but I'm confused as to how this controller is any better than a laptop touchpad. A touchpads no mouse. With the one first person game I did play with it, the sensitivity was terrible, either far too high or too low, either making it so that a single touch would spin me 180 degrees, or that I'd have to drag and drop my thumb multiple times just to turn a corner.

There is going to be a magnifier tool as part of BPM apparently. Valve just haven't completed it yet, along a bunch of other stuff they claim is on the way

 

[Nzyme32]

Does this feeling require a super high sensitivity? Im trying it with Civ 5 and it feels absolutely terrible. Mouse barely goes anywhere. And this is using the official control spec.

With mine on default one relatively gentle flick moves the mouse all the way across the screen. It controls incredibly well. Make sure you use more of the tip of your thumb, rather than holding it flat like an analogue stick

 

[sirap]

Anyone know of any stores that would ship this thing to Asia? Dying to get one since they opened up for preorders, but I can't buy it from Malaysia :/

 

[codhand]

You can also simply remember roughly where the sensitivity sliders should be.

at default.