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[Pagusas]

True. A lot of posts on reddit or tweets or YT impressions in the beginning made this clear. People didn't know about features listed on its store page or that you need BPM to configure. They expected this to be a great out of the box experience and didn't go further than that (like WarOwl who had a stream with default settings saying how bad it is and when people pointed out that he can configure it through BPM he was like "I don't read manuals!"). The complaints about the buggy experience or HW stuff so far are legit and Valve could have marketed it better, but people should also inform themselves about the things they want to purchase.

While I agree with you on many points, so far Valve has done a horrible job of making this mainstream friendly. I love to tinker with things and I'm finding my self getting annoyed with the amount of time it takes to make the thing feel even semi as fluid and nice as a 360 controller in supported games (Skyrim, Fallout and Crysis so far are on my annoyance list).

 

[Nzyme32]

While I agree with you on many points, so far Valve has done a horrible job of making this mainstream friendly. I love to tinker with things and I'm finding my self getting annoyed with the amount of time it takes to make the thing feel even semi as fluid and nice as a 360 controller in supported games (Skyrim, Fallout and Crysis so far are on my annoyance list).

But this isn't the actual launch yet, so there is little intention towards the "mainstream". For example, the most used / agreed upon bindings should be the default for anyone starting a game for the first time - yet this isn't the case now since bindings are still accumulation and only the early preorders get the controller now. Similarly there are a bunch of BPM features that are not implemented yet, but will be relatively soon (or so I'm told).

Of course though, Valve have had a pretty shit approach to communicating almost everything about the controller outside of their store page

 

[Pagusas]

But this isn't the actual launch yet, so there is little intention towards the "mainstream". For example, the most used / agreed upon bindings should be the default for anyone starting a game for the first time - yet this isn't the case now since bindings are still accumulation and only the early preorders get the controller now. Similarly there are a bunch of BPM features that are not implemented yet, but will be relatively soon (or so I'm told).

Of course though, Valve have had a pretty shit approach to communicating almost everything about the controller outside of their store page

Companies have to know now that the early adopters are the most vocal of there consumers, if they get frustraited/upset at a product than they will complain loud enough the mainstream will hear and be dissmissive of said product. Xbox One is a great example of this, confuse and upset the early adopters/enthusiast, and it trickles down to the mainstream impression of the device. I worry their lack of communication is going to hurt the steam controllers ability to pick up the mainstream audiance once it does get to making that push.

 

[ashecitism]

I'm still waiting for my non early release date but I'm curious, a lot of people are sold on the gyro aiming but would it be possible to just create a faux aiming button that literally just lowers the sensitivity when pressed?

Perhaps it could be the first stage trigger with the full click as fire.

With mode shifting, probably, but I don't recall if you can use the triggers as modifiers.

While I agree with you on many points, so far Valve has done a horrible job of making this mainstream friendly. I love to tinker with things and I'm finding my self getting annoyed with the amount of time it takes to make the thing feel even semi as fluid and nice as a 360 controller in supported games (Skyrim, Fallout and Crysis so far are on my annoyance list).

Yeah, that's valid.

Companies have to know now that the early adopters are the most vocal of there consumers, if they get frustraited/upset at a product than they will complain loud enough the mainstream will hear and be dissmissive of said product. Xbox One is a great example of this, confuse and upset the early adopters/enthusiast, and it trickles down to the mainstream impression of the device. I worry their lack of communication is going to hurt the steam controllers ability to pick up the mainstream audiance once it does get to making that push.

Agreed. Initial word of mouth is already bad. Some are turning after finding out features and getting more familiar with it, but the inital damage has been done. Though of course we don't know what Valve's expectations are.

 

[Nzyme32]

Companies have to know now that the early adopters are the most vocal of there consumers, if they get frustraited/upset at a product than they will complain loud enough the mainstream will hear and be dissmissive of said product. Xbox One is a great example of this, confuse and upset the early adopters/enthusiast, and it trickles down to the mainstream impression of the device. I worry their lack of communication is going to hurt the steam controllers ability to pick up the mainstream audiance once it does get to making that push.

A solution by its nature revolving around community drive content to govern its functionality is going to cause confusion no mater what you do. You are constantly pushing the notion of "mainstream" adoption or usage. I simply don't think this product is design or purposed for that out of the gate. The only time this would get any "mainstream" interest, is when it has a solution laid out per game already - something that will not occur in the short term.

Valve have consistently talked about not trying to sell hardware for particular numbers of people, but rather just to offer a solution for living room players. It seems far more likely from what they say, that they don't care about "mainstream" adoption, but rather people engaging with the living room and increasing Steam user numbers. They don't care what solution you use; just that more people are enabled to play in the living room.

 

[MaxiLive]

Alt Tab fixes that for me.

I made a config that uses trackball for right stick, but turns trackball off (just regular mouse) & lower sensitivity when left trigger is pulled. Mapped back triggers to bumpers which is nice for shooting while driving. Oh and I have the gyro activated when the right pad is clicked in. My bindings are up in the community if you can find it! I think it works really well.

Awesome thanks! I'm sure I tried that with no such luck but I'll give it another go.

I'll try to find your setup

 

[Ricker]

So after finally getting this thing to work and Steam recognising the controller in BPM mode and all,I turn my PC back on this morning and I am back to BPM not seeing the controller...seriously,this is getting annoying.

 

[Pagusas]

A solution by its nature revolving around community drive content to govern its functionality is going to cause confusion no mater what you do. You are constantly pushing the notion of "mainstream" adoption or usage. I simply don't think this product is design or purposed for that out of the gate. The only time this would get any "mainstream" interest, is when it has a solution laid out per game already - something that will not occur in the short term.

Valve have consistently talked about not trying to sell hardware for particular numbers of people, but rather just to offer a solution for living room players. It seems far more likely from what they say, that they don't care about "mainstream" adoption, but rather people engaging with the living room and increasing Steam user numbers. They don't care what solution you use; just that more people are enabled to play in the living room.

That is a noble effort if thats their goal, and I have no reason to question it being so right now, the worry with any product that fails to enter the mainstream though is how much support life will it have? No matter how generous valve I'm sure there is an equation in there heads that requires X amount of controllers to be sold to maintain good support for it. I'd hate to see such a good idea eventually die because only the tinkerers figured out how to use it properly.

 

[Interfectum]

That is a noble effort if thats their goal, and I have no reason to question it being so right now, the worry with any product that fails to enter the mainstream though is how much support life will it have? No matter how generous valve I'm sure there is an equation in there heads that requires X amount of controllers to be sold to maintain good support for it. I'd hate to see such a good idea eventually die because only the tinkerers figured out how to use it properly.

I'd imagine this year is only phase 1 of their plans. They don't operate like normal businesses in this sector. Remember Steam when it first came out? The controller itself is awesome once you get used to it and the more hardcore Steam users will continue to talk about and evangelize it to the community.

Next year I can see them doing things like a special Left 4 Dead 3 branded SC with every special edition pre-order on Steam or something to generate hype. Even a Half Life branded controller at some point.

 

[Blizzard]

So after finally getting this thing to work and Steam recognising the controller in BPM mode and all,I turn my PC back on this morning and I am back to BPM not seeing the controller...seriously,this is getting annoying.

By any chance, do you have any other gaming controllers, like a Logitech pad or a flight stick? I've heard of some conflicts.


Also after playing hours and hours of Civ V with the controller, I can confirm that it works pretty well for that purpose. I changed the left pad to buttons instead of d-pad, disabled the need to click on the left pad, and lowered the mouse sensitivity on the right pad a little. After playing a few hours, I might have caught myself flicking the trackball and stopping it by reflex rather than having to think about it.

 

[laxu]

Working in a new setup for the witcher 3. Think my last one tried to do too much - think I've now got a setup where you don't have to move your thumb off the right pad in combat. Feels much better than before.

I do wish you could run a joystick without turning the mouse look into a stutters mess. Regardless. I'll give this new control scheme a test and, if I can get through a full night of play, I'll post it.

Tell me more! So far mine is mapped pretty much just like the regular gamepad scheme but I added holding right grip + joystick to cast spells (works great btw) and fast attack on pad click for emergencies. While the game doesn't need much controlling the view it'd be nice to map it so that I don't have to take my thumb off the right pad.

 

[Roussow]

How are the back paddles?
and what have people been mapping to them/using them for?

 

[Jay Shadow]

How are the back paddles?
and what have people been mapping to them/using them for?

Default joystick layout maps them to A and X since they're the most commonly pressed buttons in most games. So usually either that or they're used as a shift to use a second set of functions on the other inputs.

 

[PeterVenkman]

Tell me more! So far mine is mapped pretty much just like the regular gamepad scheme but I added holding right grip + joystick to cast spells (works great btw) and fast attack on pad click for emergencies. While the game doesn't need much controlling the view it'd be nice to map it so that I don't have to take my thumb off the right pad.

Right now the main binds are: left trigger soft (e), full (strong attack), right trigger soft (right mouse parry), full (left mouse quick attack), left bumper (quick menu - LB on controller), right bumper (bombs, right bumper on controller), left grip (alt for dodging AND mode shift), right grip (roll and run), click the right pad (cast), left pad (all 4 items).

i still get to keep left grip for mode shift, turning the right pad into a scroll wheel and the left pad / face buttons into hotkeys.

I also recommend removing haptic on the right trigger with this, otherwise you really feel a twinge while your thumb is on the right pad, resulting in accidental movements. I'll post my ful setup again once I've run it through a stress test.

 

[fwpx]

Emailed them about my Mac issues...no response

 

[Nzyme32]

Emailed them about my Mac issues...no response

I've had several responses within 2 days, which really surprised me. First time using support for about 2 / 3 years

 

[robotrock]

My Steam controller works with the Steam Link, but it's not working at all on Windows 10. I press the steam button and it doesn't even light up or anything.

 

[SixStringPsycho]

My Steam controller works with the Steam Link, but it's not working at all on Windows 10. I press the steam button and it doesn't even light up or anything.

Open steam in big picture mode. Update os on controller.
Make sure its connected with the usb cable.

 

[Foxyone]

The use of the gyro with CS:GO comes up in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKuO9M0WuMg&feature=youtu.be&t=445

I'm sure with a bit of practice it could work even better.

 

[robotrock]

Open steam in big picture mode. Update os on controller.
Make sure its connected with the usb cable.

It doesn't give me a prompt for updating my controller OS. I'm looking under the controller tab right now.

 

[Parallax]

For those of you that got your controllers, how long did it take after the verifcation of your address for the controller to ship?

 

[Nzyme32]

The use of the gyro with CS:GO comes up in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKuO9M0WuMg&feature=youtu.be&t=445

I'm sure with a bit of practice it could work even better.

Yeah with some tweaks and some practice it should be a great solution to use. Not quite keyboard and mouse levels, but competitive and accurate enough to have fun for sure

 

[Red]

True. A lot of posts on reddit or tweets or YT impressions in the beginning made this clear. People didn't know about features listed on its store page or that you need BPM to configure. They expected this to be a great out of the box experience and didn't go further than that (like WarOwl who had a stream with default settings saying how bad it is and when people pointed out that he can configure it through BPM he was like "I don't read manuals!"). The complaints about the buggy experience or HW stuff so far are legit and Valve could have marketed it better, but people should also inform themselves about the things they want to purchase.

While I agree with you on many points, so far Valve has done a horrible job of making this mainstream friendly. I love to tinker with things and I'm finding my self getting annoyed with the amount of time it takes to make the thing feel even semi as fluid and nice as a 360 controller in supported games (Skyrim, Fallout and Crysis so far are on my annoyance list).

Companies have to know now that the early adopters are the most vocal of there consumers, if they get frustraited/upset at a product than they will complain loud enough the mainstream will hear and be dissmissive of said product. Xbox One is a great example of this, confuse and upset the early adopters/enthusiast, and it trickles down to the mainstream impression of the device. I worry their lack of communication is going to hurt the steam controllers ability to pick up the mainstream audiance once it does get to making that push.

I assumed early adopters would be those in the know. The controller is exactly what I expected. There has been a lot of media coverage on the steam controller over about two years, and I thought anyone who might have preordered would have been following this coverage, which made its strengths and disadvantages clear. There have been videos of people using it with different configurations and in-depth breakdowns of its abilities and configuration requirements. I thought it was poised as a user-driven product, with configuration as its biggest strength. But seeing all these complaints about the need for configuration, I realize many people did not share this same understanding. They thought it would work like a traditional controller out of the box. But looking back even now I can only ask, how?

 

[laxu]

So many things to like about this controller. I find the dual stage triggers are a great idea.

The thing is that there are so many ways to configure it there's bound to be something that works for you, just have to figure it out. Many seem to like gyro control and it is indeed cool, I need to try it in a proper shooter.

 

[Kamakazie!]

The use of the gyro with CS:GO comes up in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKuO9M0WuMg&feature=youtu.be&t=445

I'm sure with a bit of practice it could work even better.

Looks great.
I'm off to try his profile.

 

[gafneo]

I have had some time with the controller on both Mac and PC. Right way I was pleased and would recommend it, but know that it is very Beta right now.

First I tried it by plugging a dongle into a pc to sync the controller. I was able to navigate the desktop screen and click on folders like an ordinary mouse. The Touch resistant pad felt like it was massaging my finger from the rumble coming from it. I played some demos of games not on steam as a way to see how reliable it really was. I must say, playing shooters is very responsive. I was able to make perfect circles while aiming. Sometimes I would play by holding the controller, other times I played with my middle finger after reconfiguring the bindings so I can rest it on my lap.

After having fun with demos and windows 10 apps and mac do dads, I logged into steam. Off the bat it had a firmware update, while playing Duke 3d I had a message saying controller wasn't responding correctly. I thought this is weird because everything was fine. It recommended that I plugged the dongle in a tray infront of my TV. I ignored it until it showed up like 3 or 4 times.

After I made the switch, I was getting controller lag, and was not able to make perfect circles. It also lost the massaging rumble that now feels like soft pinches. Steam Big Picture mode is all screwed up, so I need to use the left stick to select games. I went back to putting the dongle straight into PC, and Mac. It works correctly at random times and goes weak when using Steam. I say, when this gets more updates to work correctly, the Steam controller will be the solution to PC gaming on the couch. It works great with games the xbox controller doesn't support, but falters after awhile. I end up using the Steam controller just for the analog stick while aiming and shooting with the mouse. I hate the Keyboard for gaming so that would never be an option.

 

[gafneo]

How are the back paddles?
and what have people been mapping to them/using them for?

I love them so much. I mapped the gas and breaks to them in GTA. I like them for anything really. Its fun mapping them to punch buttons also.

 

[ashecitism]

For those of you that got your controllers, how long did it take after the verifcation of your address for the controller to ship?

People who got it last week had till Sept 25 to confirm their address. For those who get it next month it was till Oct 20. I take it you're in the latter group?

 

[Exuro]

The use of the gyro with CS:GO comes up in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKuO9M0WuMg&feature=youtu.be&t=445

I'm sure with a bit of practice it could work even better.

Is his config in the community? Can't see it.

 

[KingV]

With the learning curve on the controller you are going to see a lot of divisive impressions. Some wont bother to get over the learning curve as they don't feel its worth it.

I have a feeling over time more and more people will see the light.

The learning curve is pretty high. Ive played a few hours of half life 2 on easy mode and am getting destroyed.

 

[Parallax]

People who got it last week had till Sept 25 to confirm their address. For those who get it next month it was till Oct 20. I take it you're in the latter group?

Yeah. Well i guess i dont have to get a suprise drop off

 

[Ricker]

By any chance, do you have any other gaming controllers, like a Logitech pad or a flight stick? I've heard of some conflicts.


Also after playing hours and hours of Civ V with the controller, I can confirm that it works pretty well for that purpose. I changed the left pad to buttons instead of d-pad, disabled the need to click on the left pad, and lowered the mouse sensitivity on the right pad a little. After playing a few hours, I might have caught myself flicking the trackball and stopping it by reflex rather than having to think about it.

Nope,the only other dongle I have is for my keyboard...not sure whats going on...I tried 6 USB ports,nothing...I also see it in device manager but BPM just wont see it...maybe tomorrow it will lol...

 

[robotrock]

Are these the latest firmwares?

 

[Jinkies]

Are these the latest firmwares?

I also have these versions.

With the learning curve on the controller you are going to see a lot of divisive impressions. Some wont bother to get over the learning curve as they don't feel its worth it.

I have a feeling over time more and more people will see the light.

I have seen a lot of ragequit posts. It comes down to two issues, in my eyes:

1. Valve delivering a software experience that is a little less fully-baked than the average person might expect at this stage. In six months from now, I expect a lot more hand-holding and accessibility on the software side, which include improvements to the haptic feedback that make the pads easier to use. That will be the experience that many assumed they were buying into.

2. Not everyone is aware that the early bird shipments are more akin to a public beta. If I did not know this, and I hadn't been following every detail regarding the controller for the last two years, I might be extremely frustrated as well. More than frustrated, in fact.

Valve is taking an open and iterative approach to this hardware, which doesn't pay off for everyone.

 

[chekhonte]

I ended up preordering a set. Does anybody know if these ship on release date or are they back ordered or anything? I order from steam.

EDIT: also, I read that some people were getting free Valve games with their order. Is this true?

 

[Jinkies]

I'm still waiting for my non early release date but I'm curious, a lot of people are sold on the gyro aiming but would it be possible to just create a faux aiming button that literally just lowers the sensitivity when pressed?

Perhaps it could be the first stage trigger with the full click as fire.

This is what the mouse acceleration setting should be doing automatically, and it's similar to what makes right-stick aiming work on conventional gamepads.

Software updates which more intelligently discern between fine movements and broads sweeps should make gyro controls less essential.

 

[Nzyme32]

I ended up preordering a set. Does anybody know if these ship on release date or are they back ordered or anything? I order from steam.

EDIT: also, I read that some people were getting free Valve games with their order. Is this true?

Only the Early preorders that used Mac and have a history of using mac previously. They probably won't do it for anyone else

 

[Jinkies]

Only the Early preorders that used Mac and have a history of using mac previously. They probably won't do it for anyone else

I must have used Steam once on a MacBook 4 years ago, and I received the offer. Maybe it's because I've been sending ample bug reports?

 

[DryvBy]

Heads up that you can pre-order from Amazon now. It's showing a release date of 11/10. What's the release date for those that ordered from Steam? Same?

 

[Vinlaen]

How are you guys finding the controller for 3rd-person (non-shooter) games like Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Rocket League, or even the Witcher 3? I have a Steam Controller but for these types of games it seems like the X-Box 360 (or X-Box One) controller is much better with the dual analog sticks.

I'm still fooling around with 1st/3rd person shooters using the gyro though. It does seem a bit better than traditional analog sticks but very hard to adjust to.

 

[B-B-Bomba!]

Waiting for mine in November, loving the excitement in this thread, in spite of the understandable caveats.

Would love to hear more about using it with certain types of game that I haven't seen mentioned much so far:

PES (or other sports)
SFIV (or other arcade stick focused games)
Elite: Dangerous (or other flight sims)


I know a large part of its purpose is to mitigate the loss of kb/m whilst on the couch, and these games aren't all under that category. This is more from the point of view of the thing being ultra-customisable and possibly offering something new.

Anyway, enjoy enjoy - here's to new things that (eventually!) work

 

[TheRed]

Everyone talking about gyro aiming was annoying because I wasn't good at it. But now today after changing settings to what was in that CS:GO I was doing much better with it in Spec Ops, still not perfect and I get drift sometimes but I can see what people are talking about now and hopefully I get better and better with practice.

 

[robotrock]

Any games you guys tried with this thing yet that made you go "I completely understand the magic you have made here, Valve"

 

[wilflare]

Now I'll have every Valve game ever until the end of time. AND I can play Civ 5 on the couch. Best $50 spent.

woah how did that happen?

 

[TheRed]

Any games you guys tried with this thing yet that made you go "I completely the magic you have made here, Valve"

Trials Evolution XD I know it's just a 2 button game but setting the right to repeating fast low haptics with soft pull in addition to the regular full trigger pull is really cool I felt like I was really driving a dirt bike, ended up playing for hours. Been having lots of fun with Spec Ops, Gunslinger and Rocket league too, absolutely love the controller and don't want to go back to my 360 one.

 

[Deadstar]

Trials Evolution XD I know it's just a 2 button game but setting the right to repeating fast low haptics with soft pull in addition to the regular full trigger pull is really cool I felt like I was really driving a dirt bike, ended up playing for hours. Been having lots of fun with Spec Ops, Gunslinger and Rocket league too, absolutely love the controller and don't want to go back to my 360 one.

What about the bumpers? For me the only things that bug me about the controller is feeling the paddles on the back and the height of the bumpers. It feels weird to click them, like it takes more strength than it should. I'm still getting used to the controller so it could just be me. Also are most people keeping one finger up top or resting both the index and middle finger on the bumper and trigger at the same time?

 

[gafneo]

I think the gyro works great with F.E.A.R

 

[Unai]

What about the bumpers? For me the only things that bug me about the controller is feeling the paddles on the back and the height of the bumpers. It feels weird to click them, like it takes more strength than it should. I'm still getting used to the controller so it could just be me. Also are most people keeping one finger up top or resting both the index and middle finger on the bumper and trigger at the same time?

Some people in this thread have said that specifically using the Steam Controller they prefer to have both index and middle finger on the controller.

 

[Trouble]

Heh, the only game that the Valve Complete pack added to my account was Half Life 2: Episode One (played it on Xbox 360 Orange Box).

Also, they desperately need to add a way to do community templates for non-steam games.

Also also, don't know if it's been mentioned, but I figured out how to launch Origin games with Overlay/Controller support. It's a bit convoluted and requires digging into the origin store page source for each game you want to add. You set the shortcut to launch origin.exe with a launch URL for the game you want.
Details on crafting the launch url here: http://gaming.stackexchange.com/a/179419

Edit: Turn off origin overlay and set origin to auto-quit after game exits as well.

Any games you guys tried with this thing yet that made you go "I completely understand the magic you have made here, Valve"

Games that support gamepad and mouse/keyboard at the same time are wonderful. Unfortunately a lot of games bug out when you try to use both input methods at the same time.

 

[TheRed]

What about the bumpers? For me the only things that bug me about the controller is feeling the paddles on the back and the height of the bumpers. It feels weird to click them, like it takes more strength than it should. I'm still getting used to the controller so it could just be me. Also are most people keeping one finger up top or resting both the index and middle finger on the bumper and trigger at the same time?

Ehh the bumpers don't bother me personally, and I usually don't use them too much anyway. The paddles feel like a natural addition to me , took a little getting used to at first because I tend to squeeze my controller when things are tense, but using them for dodging and sprinting in games is fun to me. I never used to keep both my fingers up on bumpers and trigger but on the steam controller I do for some reason.