Valve Reveals the Steam Controller

[lacktheknack]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

You've missed a bunch of details in your rage. Things like the trackpads being clickable, the triggers, the three buttons on the bottom front, and a COMPLETE misunderstanding of how the trackpads even work.

Tactile feedback? They've covered it.

Different-than-normal controller components? It worked when Nintendo did it.

D-Pad has been replaced by touchscreen (which automatically overlays on the screen when used).

If you actually examine the bleeding picture you posted of Portal 2's default scheme, you'll note that the "badly placed" front buttons all have secondary use. They're expecting you to access your normal functions via shoulder triggers and rear triggers as well as clicking your trackpad.

So much rage over so much wild guessing and half-read sources. Give them a chance to let us try them, for God's sakes.

You notice that most people didn't actually read or think about what they read before rushing off to post on their favorite websites their oh so important opinion on the controller too huh?

To me when I first looked at the controller I saw a risk, the sort of risk that most large corporations cannot afford to take.

When I first looked at it, I thought "wat".

As I read the announcement, I kept thinking "wat".

And when I reviewed it again, it clicked. This thing could be bloody revolutionary, but no one's patient enough to think about it. ;___;

 

[Church185]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

snip

It looks like he might be afraid of Nintendo losing their throne when it comes to gimmicky control schemes.

OT: The thing looks... interesting. I would have to give it a try before I could declare it awful. I may even be pleasantly surprised. A lot of research and development went into it, so one would think that Valve isn't just throwing away money.

 

[Covarr]

Haptic feedback isn't as good as physical buttons, and far too many already-released games are designed with the 360's button layout in mind. I'm not optimistic that this'll be good, but I haven't lost all hope either; I'll have to try it before I can make a decision.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Atmos Duality]

-Devs barely let you edit your controls and you're telling me they're going to go out of their way to allow for this? Maybe for a while but in the end more will have 360/ps3/logitech controllers and that will likely still be the default.

Agreed with your post in its entirety.

I will only add that you can easily scratch "Logitech" from that list, as mine has been routinely shit on by more games for NOT being an Xbox 360 controller than necessary. (Castle Crashers, Monaco, Dungeon Defenders in recent memory. I can name more.)

It's rather obnoxious having to use a Key-to-Joy or 360 driver-emulator program just to get use out of my Logitech, and it's not even that old (like, maybe 2 years). Worse, if I mix and match controllers, I can't even use the old emulator profiles without mapping all of them piecemeal each time I change the loadout.

I'm not sure if this was some sort of ploy by Microsoft to encourage PC gamers to buy their overpriced 360 controllers or if it's sheer developer laziness, but I never had any issues integrating and remapping gamepad controls in PC games until the 360/PS3 console generation.

(Does anyone have the same issue with PS3 controllers?)

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

This will be the worst controller for fighting games. Just saying.

In fact, it looks and sounds impractical for any game that can fall into the category of games that are on the PC but made for controller.

I.E. Dungeon Siege 3, SpeedRunners, fighting games overall, Castlevania Lords of Shadow, Megabyte Punch.

My point is, I don't think the "haptic feedback" will be responsive enough to support something like PC ports for fighting games, and fighting games are surprisingly popping up on the PC a lot lately.

 

[GAunderrated]

Honestly though, I'm not entirely sure what to think of it at the moment. Looks weird as hell, although I did think the same when I saw the Gamecube controller all those years ago, and that was a fantastic controller.

I'll have to hold it first, before passing any sort of concrete judgement on it, I think.

Thanks for bringing up a great point. The first time I saw a gamecube controller I touted it as being awful because it was too different than any other controller I was used too. It looked hideous and like a complete mess to control. Little did I know it was an amazing controller.

I am much older now and I understand that I cannot pass judgement on the controller until I try it. It may change controllers in the way that the dual joysticks did.

I also can't help but laugh at the gaming community for being wonderful hypocrites. All I hear over the year is the lack of "innovation" and when a company tries to do something new they are bashed and criticized for not following the same patterns as everyone else before they even try it out.

It shows me that the community is the one at fault for all these horrible bloated practices of repeating the same crap because they bash anything that is new or foreign to them.

 

[lacktheknack]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

You've missed a bunch of details in your rage. Things like the trackpads being clickable, the triggers, the three buttons on the bottom front, and a COMPLETE misunderstanding of how the trackpads even work.

Tactile feedback? They've covered it.

No they haven't. Track pads do not offer tactile feedback. My laptop has a track pad, and there's nothing there to tell my fingers how far they've moved. If I need to make small adjustments in movement and aim, I need something which gives me physical feedback with small movements without requiring me to look down at it. Track pads do not do that. They've been tried before, and they are simply an inferior method of inpit.

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamController/

Haptic feedback. Read the article. It works, man.

Different-than-normal controller components? It worked when Nintendo did it.

Because Nintendo didn't forget the basic like having analogue sticks, d-pads, and buttons within easy reach of the thumbs.

You can reach eight different buttons/triggers with your fingers.

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamController/

READ.

D-Pad has been replaced by touchscreen (which automatically overlays on the screen when used).

And which again offers no physical feedback at all. If I hit right on the d-pad in COD to deploy a sentry gun, I know just from the physical feedback in my fingers that I've hit the right button before the sentry gun ever deploys. Touchscreen controls? Fucked if I know. If I accidentally hit up instead without looking, and called in an airstrike I never meant to, there goes my entire killstreak. Down the fucking drain.

which automatically overlays on the screen when used

Implying... you know... confirmation prompts, etc.

You... you don't actually read, do you?

If you actually examine the bleeding picture you posted of Portal 2's default scheme, you'll note that the "badly placed" front buttons all have secondary use. They're expecting you to access your normal functions via shoulder triggers and rear triggers as well as clicking your trackpad.

Except that shoulder buttons have their own damn uses. Shooting, iron-sights, accelaration, lock-on, dodging... whatever the genre, shoulder buttons have their own widely accepted uses. Offsetting regular face button inputs to the shoulder buttons makes a mess of the standard inputs people have come to expect in certain genres. Pressing right bumper to jump? I bloody hope not.

And clickable trackpads? Jesus... so how am I supposed to input quick commands if I were to play Streetfighter II? By clicking on the various areas of the trackpad? What if I need to input a half-circle command at the same time? What the hell happens if I need to play anything with fast, precise input timing?

I dunno... by clicking the eight damn buttons your fingers can reach.

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamController/

How many times do I get to paste this link?

So much rage over so much wild guessing and half-read sources. Give them a chance to let us try them, for God's sakes.

When it comes to standard controller ergonomics, there's a reason why the PS2, Xbox, 360, Gamecube and Wii U controllers all followed the same broad template. Because it makes sense in gameplay terms. There's nothing wrong with experimenting, but so far it looks like Valve have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. That face button placement alone would have got them laughed out of any school of design in the world.

Even the Ouya's controller looks better than this. The fucking Ouya controller.

If you looked at your own button map picture, you'd see the face buttons are secondary.

And it's abundantly clear that the entire layout of everything - EVERYTHING - has changed. This cannot be compared to older controllers, but you can't hate on it just for THAT, because nothing like this has ever been tried.

Just...

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamController/

ACTUALLY process every word on that page before replying, before you ignore even more easy-to-read details that are freaking right there.

 

[Necrofudge]

It doesn't seem very practical, but I can't really make any assumptions.

Who knows, maybe Valve did everything right and completely reinvented controllers forever. Or maybe it'll be awkward and uncomfortable. I'll be optimistic for now.

 

[Frezzato]

Interesting. There appear to be buttons on the underside of the controller. FINALLY! Something for mah pinkies!

 

[klaynexas3]

We waited all week for this. This is all they had to give us. Seriously, this should have been the first announcement, it's like having a major band touring with a garage band, and the major band is headlining. Yeah, it's cool to see them, but they make you think the final guys will be amazing, when they're just meh at best. That was this week, a build up of pretty cool things in such an order that it leaves you feeling meh.

 

[JayRPG]

Also, how are 2d/16-bit style platformers supposed to work without an actual physical d-pad? You're not going to suggest that gamers actually use the touchscreen for four-way movement?

You can program either of the trackpads to be a D-pad and using their new haptic feedback technology it will give the same feedback as a regular D-pad.

I'm not claiming to know exactly how this thing works but you are totally ignoring everything valve is explaining about the controller in favour of comparing it to a laptop trackpad.

Whether it works like they explain or not is another question entirely but while we are all squabbling about how this thing works, how about we at least give valve the benefit of the doubt that it works like they have outlined it does in the article that you clearly haven't read.

 

[Casual Shinji]

This actually looks kind of interesting.

It's refreshing to see a control try something genuinely different instead of just throwing in the latest popular gadget. And from the quotes in the article it sounds like they know what they're talking about and not just spouting a bunch of rhetoric.

Now whether the console is going to be worth something is another matter.

 

[lacktheknack]

Haptic feedback. Read the article. It works, man.

Haptic feedback is not a get-out-of-jail card, nor is it an adequate replacement for analogue control.

If it works right, then it totally IS.

Different-than-normal controller components? It worked when Nintendo did it.

Because Nintendo didn't forget the basic like having analogue sticks, d-pads, and buttons within easy reach of the thumbs.

You can reach eight different buttons/triggers with your fingers.

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamController/

READ.

And guess what? I don't have eight fingers to press those buttons with. Standard controller design means that I can have four fingers resting on the triggers/bumpers, have my right thumb near the face buttons, and any of those commands are not only readily accessible, they can be used in combination with any other button. Four fingers, a thumb, Over eight methods of input covered.

...?



...???

...?!?!?!!?!?!?

Thought exercise: how would a fighting game work on this controller? Would my fingers have to be tap-dancing over the different triggers in order to pull of Hadoukens? How would I pull off a Stinger in Devil May Cry with those trackpads?

side trigger = heavy
rear button = medium
front bumper = heavy

left = punch
right = kick

second bumpers = EX and grapple

secondary front button = taunt

Wasn't hard.

which automatically overlays on the screen when used

Implying... you know... confirmation prompts, etc.

You... you don't actually read, do you?

Overlays on the screen or not, I want to feel a d-pad beneath my fingers. An overlay is useless if my eyes are on the TV. A d-pad, I can keep my eyes on the action and feel where up, down, left and right are.

Also, how are 2d/16-bit style platformers supposed to work without an actual physical d-pad? You're not going to suggest that gamers actually use the touchscreen for four-way movement?

...They use the clickable trackpads. I'm referring to the d-pad and touchscreen crossover for inventory management.

I dunno... by clicking the eight damn buttons your fingers can reach.

All at once? How many fingers do you have? How am I supposed to hold the controller steady if all my fingers are placed on various triggers and bumpers?

wat

Um

Two bumpers for index fingers, middle finger stabilizing (can be moved to rear buttons), index/pinkie on trigger, remaining finger for permanent stablization.

How many fingers do YOU have? Four?

I want you to actually lay out for me how a game like Devil May Cry, Street Fighter or Metal Gear Rising is supposed to play with this thing. Because all I see is a clusterfuck waiting to happen.

See above.

 

[Church185]

Overlays on the screen or not, I want to feel a d-pad beneath my fingers. An overlay is useless if my eyes are on the TV. A d-pad, I can keep my eyes on the action and feel where up, down, left and right are.

If you had looked at the page you would have found this picture [http://cdn4.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livingroom/rljKewyz3M/prototypes.jpg] of the prototype. It appears that the touch screen will have four clickable buttons that I assume will be programmable. You would feel for the corner of the screen you wanted to press instead of a D-pad. It would be a simple thing to get used to.

You're a Nintendo fan, so I figured you would be super excited by new control schemes. I guess it's only ok when they do it.

 

[JayRPG]

Also, how are 2d/16-bit style platformers supposed to work without an actual physical d-pad? You're not going to suggest that gamers actually use the touchscreen for four-way movement?

You can program either of the trackpads to be a D-pad and using their new haptic feedback technology it will give the same feedback as a regular D-pad.

I'm not claiming to know exactly how this thing works but you are totally ignoring everything valve is explaining about the controller in favour of comparing it to a laptop trackpad.

Sorry, but viration is not the same feedback. When I press left or right on the d-pad, I can feel the exact shape and layout of the button under my fingers, I can gauge its sponginess, how far inwards it is pressed. No amount of 'haptic feedback' will offer that same kind of response.

"They are capable of delivering a wide range of force and vibration, allowing precise control over frequency, amplitude, and direction of movement."

Straight from the article, delivering Force implies that it will be able to emulate an actual button, the shape and feel you love so much, this haptic feedback technology is, like they have said in the damn article, not just some "vibration".

I have seen live demos of new touchscreen technologies, like tactus, that can actually make physical buttons/shapes rise from the touchscreen in order to give traditional haptic (tactile) feedback.

Both you and I have no idea what the haptic feedback will actually turn out to be;
But like I said earlier, can we at least assume that it works like they have explained in the article.

 

[Darmy647]

I CAN'T FEEL THE MOVEMENTS. AUTOMATIC F. AUTOMATIC DECIDING FACTOR ITS WORST THAN EVERY- good god this is literally all I have read so far? Really? Come the fboop on. The page even said they'd be completely hackable. Even THEN, things may change from feedback, or heck, this may be just a unique controller. But nope. It's the exact thing I've come to hate about what console gaming has done to me over the years and others.