Steam Controller Redesign Includes Analog Thumbstick

[laggyteabag]

Having an analogue stick as well as trackpads seems kinda counterproductive considering what they are trying to achieve here. The problem that arises from this is that you will end up with one useless input method. Whether it is the analogue stick that cannot be used for anything, or a trackpad where buttons can be assigned to it, but a set of physical buttons would be superior. Whilst I have not used a Steam controller, I don't really see what they are trying to achieve here. Sure, analogue sticks aren't very good for precision, but trackpads aren't exactly the pinnacle of accuracy either, and in the cases where a trackpad would be superior to a traditional analogue stick (FPS?, mouse controlled UI, etc), the trackpads would still suffer where analogue sticks work well (Driving and brawler games), and even if trackpads worked somewhat well, there is no way in hell that I would want to bring a Steam controller into a competitive environment against someone with a mouse and keyboard. Nonetheless, I would like to try one out for myself, but as it stands, it doesn't really look like something that will catch on.

 

[tzimize]

First thing to keep in mind when trying to innovate: Everything that exists has a reason to exist. If you want to improve it, find that reason first, then think about how to make the thing better. Not the other way around.

Simple but brilliant philosophy. Strange that it seems so hard to follow.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the finest of wisdom the internet has to offer. If only product designers and innovation managers took 10 minutes a day to browse fora and google for such jewels and other old adages. The world would be a better place and we'd be flying space cars and have sex with robots. Dear god, why would anyone spend years slogging it out at uni, and then spend another decade researching unproven technologies to try and find the next best thing, only to fail over and over, while the internet contains everything one could ever hope for.

Please refrain from spouting nonsense; This should have been basic knowledge. Never ask the consumer what they want; Never assume the consumer knows what they want. Consumers are clueless. Never assume technology is only useful in one specific application, field or context (refrigerators, GPS, combustion engines, x-ray machines, ..)

Mankind would still be trying to rub sticks together to make fires if we adapted your dogma. People would just keep improving on their sticks, technique, whatever. Sure, we'd have the best frigging sticks possible, make the fastest and most reliable fire ever. They'd be shiny, polished, symbols of wealth. We could have an entire economy basic on manufacturing and exporting sticks. You could be the kind of sticks, sitting on your throne, being envied by the plebs. God himself would be jealous of your stick mastery. But for fuck's sake; I'd rather use the world's crappiest lighter or matches compared to the greatest pair of sticks mankind has ever known. Because PROGRESS!

Not quite sure what to make of this post. If its sarcastic, honest or what.

Progress is great. But sometimes a limit can be reached. There are limits to what we can do physically as human beings. There are limits to how precise we can be with different tools. Some tools are better than others for certain tasks. Doing something new, does not mean doing something better. I'd rather use a shovel for digging than a fork, even if a fork seems more original.

Same principle applies to controllers. We have an abundance. D-pads, mouse, analogue stick etc. Some things work better for certain tasks than others. Imagine playing street fighter with a mouse. Wouldnt work so well. I applaud Steam for trying something new, but all it seems to be to me (granted I have not actually tried the controller) is an attempt to make the gamepad more like a mouse. And I really dont think it will work as well. In the end it doesnt matter much though. The Steam machines will be PCs at heart. Which means all peripherals are available. So I'll just stick with the one best suited to the game I am currently playing.

I just think that progress means more than doing something new. It means doing something new that is BETTER than what came before.

He(?) is right.
How is one supposed to know how far "too far" is or where the "limits" lie, if everyone just sticks to what they know?
Let's face it: A lot of people seem to hate changes (whether they affect them or not).

So far I've yet to see one solid argument that speaks against the Steam controller. The reason for this is really simple:
Only very few people have one. Funnily enough, those who have own a prototype all seem to agree that the controller is by no means bad, just unfamiliar.
I think companies all over the world should start recruiting the geniuses from the YouTube comment section and similar places, since they seem to posses the magical ability to evaluate a product and accurately predict its future by simply looking at a drawing of the prototype.

I, for one, am really eager to get my hands on a Steam controller. Just so I can form an educated opinion.

Valid point about the knowledge, however it seems you both decide to pit any opinion in the extreme. I'm not saying that we shouldnt try new things, I'm just saying we shouldnt necessarily hail new things as the BEST things just because they are new. Some things actually work well because they have developed to be like that over time. And sometimes something reaches its peak.

To my knowledge the steam pad functions more or less like the touchpad of a laptop. How anyone could manage to use that for anything worthwhile is beyond me. It simply seems to me to be:

1: Not as fast/effective as a dpad for fighting games. (You lack the tactile feedback of finger positioning and button pressing)
2: Not as precise at pin-point control as a mouse. (Compare a touchpad to a mouse, mouse wins easily)
3: Not as good for controlling something in a 3D environment (3rd person game) as an analogue stick. (Granted there is an analogue stick now.

Of course, I reserve the right to be proven wrong on any of these points, but I've been hardcore gaming for 20 odd years on more or less every platform there is, so I've got SOME experience with different peripherals. What it seems like to me, is a gamepad that wants to be a mouse without being a mouse. Which seems silly to me, as if you actually need a mouse you just USE one.

Thats my reasoning. This is the problem with consoles (which really is the market the steam machines are aiming at). They are a jack of all trades but king at none. If I'm gonna play 3rd person games I prefer the xbox360 controller, but I wouldnt DREAM of playing street fighter with it. The Dualshock is my go to choice for fighting games. If I'm gonna play strategy games or shooters I use keyboard+mouse. It seems to me that Valve is trying to make a controller that has the strengths of both and the weaknesses of none. If they manage to do it I'll be very glad as it means less clutter on my desk. But until its tried and tested by someone other than a fanatic I'm skeptical.

 

[AstaresPanda]

Untill any of us gets to use the controler i dnt know why everyone is bitching and doing the "told ya so" and it should just make a ps4 controler ....the fuck is the point in that. They doing somthing new and it looks alot smooth and better to aim then any game pad ive used. Being a pure PC gamer i would love to see how well it would do on an fps for example. Gotta try it out first to see for sure.

 

[matrix3509]

Can anyone give me a reason why the face buttons for all controllers are on the same fucking side of the controller with the least amount of digits available to press them? Its time people laid to rest this stupid fucking notion that modern controllers are somehow teh best evar. Virtually every game without a fixed camera angle runs into this bullshit. You can't press the face buttons and operate the camera at the same time.

Game devs have to implement cludges just to work around this stupid damned layout, and now gamers have gotten used to it and fucking cling to it religiously.

Its broken from a design perspective, its broken from an ergonomic perspective, and now that devs have to design games around this insipid fucking layout, its broken from a game design perspective.

This stupid shit has only been around since the PS2, and its obvious whoever designed it has no fucking clue what human hands look like.

 

[Something Amyss]

Wow, this is disappointing.

The fuck? I thought the trackpads are the replacement for analog sticks. If they are not good enough then DITCH THE FUCKING TRACKPADS.

I'm beginning to think they should ditch the idea.

wow, a d-pad and an analog stick are nowhere near appropiate for most proper PC games out there, they are less than aprropiate for shooters as well, thats why autoaim exists

Given the responses about the trackpads and the addition of an analogue stick, it's looking more like the trackpads are going to be no more "appropriate." Another revision or two, and you really might as well plug in a 360 controller.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Wow, this is disappointing.

The fuck? I thought the trackpads are the replacement for analog sticks. If they are not good enough then DITCH THE FUCKING TRACKPADS.

I'm beginning to think they should ditch the idea.

wow, a d-pad and an analog stick are nowhere near appropiate for most proper PC games out there, they are less than aprropiate for shooters as well, thats why autoaim exists

Given the responses about the trackpads and the addition of an analogue stick, it's looking more like the trackpads are going to be no more "appropriate." Another revision or two, and you really might as well plug in a 360 controller.

from the people who have used the controller, the trackpads havent received more negative feedback than analogs

 

[LTK_70]

Steam Controller Redesign Includes Analog Thumbstick

Oh for fuck's sake, this isn't even a confirmed change! PC Gamer and Ars Technica are the only ones I've seen that are acknowledging that nobody at Valve has actually said this change is going to go through. Literally the only source for this is a picture in the Steam beta files, that could mean anything: a proposed redesign, a redesign under consideration, a hypothetical redesign, or somebody just put it there for another reason.

 

[Lightknight]

But... I can already plug Microsoft and Sony controllers into my PC. Why would I want to buy a steam controller? Maybe for RTS games?

 

[ExtraDebit]

In my opinion, they should take out the left touchpad completely and place the joystick there for comfort and place a D-pad on where the joystick is right now.

You have to think about the games first when you design a controller, the joystick is great for movement, that's been tried and tested. The D-pad is great with 2D games and fighting games.

The only issue with the joystick is precision aiming in fps games and that's where the touchpad comes in on the right. But this is all educational guesses, we really have to try out the controller for ourselves before we can make any meaningful input.

 

[Vigormortis]

First thought:
What the fuck are you doing, Valve? This, if real, is the worst redesign idea you've had since announcing this thing. The previous build was dramatically better. Especially if you're still aiming for an ambidextrous design. Adding a superfluous analog stick on one side is counterproductive to this goal.

Here's hoping it's just one among many proposed redesigns.

Second thought:
Oh internet, you never fail to disappoint. Still makes me laugh (and cry, a little) to see so many people saying, "I haven't actually tried the controller yet, but I can just tell it's a dumb idea that won't work. Being different or trying to innovate is stupid. Valve should just make a !"

Yeah. That's exactly what we need. More of the same.

 

[Jacked Assassin]

A thumbstick.... Okay I've lost all interest in the steam controller.

"Hey we're replacing Thumbsticks with Touchpads! Ooh! And now we added a Thumbstick instead of a D-Pad!"

This is what the Steam Machine was held back for? Just utterly pointless. They might as well just have said that they didn't foresee Xbox One dropping $100 from its price. Then declare they were really going to try to get Windows games to work on Steam OS.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

They tried and failed to make something revolutionary because the dual shock design is still the apex of the basic controller design, sure placement and size might be off but lets face it they got more right than wrong so much so no other maker could make something completely new and better in the past decade.

New alone dose not mean better.

Its going to be interesting to see it handle games like Batman AA,AC,AO,ect.


I like this new design it seems useable unlike the old one which would only work on less than half of the games I have.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

They seem to be trying to reinvent the wheel here...It would be sad to see their consoles flop because of the controller

The controllers won't cause the consoles to flop. The lack of a market for the consoles will cause the consoles to flop. Anyone who builds their own PC will continue to do so and just use an HMDI cable with PC 360 controllers to do what the SteamBoxes do.

Anyone who buys gaming PCs from the store will likely find that they can't upgrade certain parts of certain SteamBox makes, effectively making them brick consoles in 2-3 years.

Both those groups will find that the prices are higher than they should be.

The main selling point of the SteamBox was to make PC gaming easier to get into and it seems to be only making a made for TV PC with the same knowledge ceiling as normal PCs.

Valve seems to be thinking this through as they go along rather than having some sort of idea of what they wanted to build before announcing the SteamBox. I think their biggest mistake was not manufacturing it themselves to avoid companies like Alienware from trying to nickel and dime people for upgrade parts.

The fuck? I thought the trackpads are the replacement for analog sticks. If they are not good enough then DITCH THE FUCKING TRACKPADS.

They can't. If Valve ditches the trackpad idea it removes the entire point of making the controller in the first place.

 

[Klaw117]

What I'd prefer is that Valve kept the right trackpad but replaced the left one with an analog stick while keeping the d-pad and action buttons on the bottom. I think the general consensus is that while the trackpad is better for camera movement, the analog stick is better for player movement.

 

[cikame]

It might be good, but my interests lie in traditional games, having touch based pads on the controller wouldn't help me play any game i currently enjoy.

PC controller options are very slim at the moment, the 360 pad is great, but the wired ones still have terrible d-pads, Xbone controllers are expensive and wireless only, PS4 controllers don't have easy PC functionality, most PC specific controllers from other companies have bad reviews and do not cater to my need for a fantastic d-pad.

I'd love for a Steam Controller to be able to fill the gap, to be THE controller for Steam, it's a shame it isn't aiming to be that.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

The image to the right, which was fished out of the Steam database by the folks over at SteamDB

I guess I'm one of 2 people who read this line? This doesn't seem like a final design, its probably just a "what if"

Valid point about the knowledge, however it seems you both decide to pit any opinion in the extreme. I'm not saying that we shouldnt try new things, I'm just saying we shouldnt necessarily hail new things as the BEST things just because they are new. Some things actually work well because they have developed to be like that over time. And sometimes something reaches its peak.

To my knowledge the steam pad functions more or less like the touchpad of a laptop. How anyone could manage to use that for anything worthwhile is beyond me.

Laptop trackpads are for use with your index and middle finger. That's like saying analog sticks would suck based on your experience with the analog nubs built into old laptops. I would compare it more to playing an emulated gamepad on a smart phone. I found the touch works really well to emulate a d-pad in some instances. Consoles are the only devices with good controller support in my opinion. You just can't use a pc without keyboard and mouse. So the idea of emulating the keyboard and mouse with trackpads and using touch for WASD (which is complete garbage when bound to a stick) makes me excited for this thing. That, and good Linux support. Just because I'm interested in it doesn't mean I'm without reservations (it apparently didn't work very well at some tech conference a while ago). Its possible to care about something without thinking its the best thing ever

 

[Steve the Pocket]

The biggest hurdle they have to work around with this thing is the huge back catalog of existing games that expect either a mouse and keyboard or a traditional Xbox pad. So they can't redesign very many things because the prompts will be wrong. They've already proven that they don't have the clout to get developers to patch their games to even run on current systems at all, let alone update the prompts and controller support. I'm guessing the left touchpad would serve as the D-pad for most games that use one if they go with this design?

Can anyone give me a reason why the face buttons for all controllers are on the same fucking side of the controller with the least amount of digits available to press them? Its time people laid to rest this stupid fucking notion that modern controllers are somehow teh best evar. Virtually every game without a fixed camera angle runs into this bullshit. You can't press the face buttons and operate the camera at the same time.

Game devs have to implement cludges just to work around this stupid damned layout, and now gamers have gotten used to it and fucking cling to it religiously.

Its broken from a design perspective, its broken from an ergonomic perspective, and now that devs have to design games around this insipid fucking layout, its broken from a game design perspective.

This stupid shit has only been around since the PS2, and its obvious whoever designed it has no fucking clue what human hands look like.

I'm curious what you think the ideal layout for a two-handed, non-mounted game controller would be. More shoulder buttons?

 

[Something Amyss]

from the people who have used the controller, the trackpads havent received more negative feedback than analogs

Even assuming that's correct at best, you've argued they're no worse, which isn't close to justifying them as acceptable for "most proper PC games," as you were claiming.

 

[man-man]

two pads that don't offer tactile feedback

Would need to handle one before we'll know how effective it is, but if memory serves one of the more exciting intended features was to use haptic feedback to fill that gap. Some voodoo thing with electrical stimulation that can trick the pads of your fingers into perceiving tactile sensations without needing there to be anything actually physically there.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

from the people who have used the controller, the trackpads havent received more negative feedback than analogs

Even assuming that's correct at best, you've argued they're no worse, which isn't close to justifying them as acceptable for "most proper PC games," as you were claiming.

there could be some true in that, still they SEEM much more appropiate for most proper PC gamer, atleast in the demostration Valve showed a while back, they showed civ 5, papers please and CS:GO being played with that controller, and the trackpads seemed good enough to handle those games, and certainly BETTER than analogs

i dont like this redesign because it defeats the purpose of the trackpads, plus, the previous redesign was symmetrical and had 8 different buttons on the front, divided in 2 sets of 4 bottons arranged into rhombuses

you could use em as a D-pad, you could use em as action buttons for console ports, you could use em as hotkeys for PC games, to me it looked perfect, i cant see why they made this change, that analog takes away so much possible customization