http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/01/st...rst-sight/
http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/07/first-im...ontroller/
Yeah, that doesn't exactly make me want to run out and buy one of these things, that's for sure. I can understand what Valve is trying to do, and trying to outdo the dual-analog controller for FPSes is a great idea because dual analog sticks are a bad way to play shooters, but for anything else... no. Anything that needs buttons on the right side, or a d-pad on the left, is COMPLETELY hopeless with that thing, and that pad as an analog stick looks awful too. Mouse... maybe. Analog stick? No thanks!
Basically the problem is that no one controller can do everything. As a replacement for twinstick shooter controls this may or may not work, that depends on how tolerable those pads are as stick replacements; I have strong doubts as I'm sure I've said before, since in the past stuff like the TurboTouch controllers didn't work well at all, but we'll see. The first opinions on the articles above reinforce the idea that losing that tactile feedback a stick gives you really is a problem, though, and I expected that; I don't like that Valve controller design overall because of that. But on the other hand, there's simply GOT to be a way to get people off of dual-analog-sticks-for-shooters that doesn't involve a mouse and keyboard...
It is exactly as I feared when I first heard of these things. A touch interface fails on one very important metric, and that's tactile feedback. Resolve that, and I'll go with touch interface for EVERYTHING, but until then I prefer buttons on most games (most I say because there are some games that really do work better with touch).
Well, I personally intend on using an XBox One controller once MS releases Windows drivers for it.
Yeah, no tactile feedback is a huge, huge problem, and really the only way to solve it is to have tactile feedback... but the problem is, nobody yet has really come up with a good tactile-feedback control scheme on a gamepad that has the accuracy of a mouse. I don't know if that's even possible, but if it is, it's not out there yet. Things like this are interesting, but fail in a critical way. The press responses there confirm exactly that.
Well, it depends on what you need to control. A mouse is great for aiming, but terrible for direct control of a character. There's a reason "dual mouse" setups never really caught on. Joysticks and analog sticks really do seem to be the ideal way to control a character in a 3D game, without the awkwardness of needing to move a mouse "back to center" to stop moving (which involves a lot of overshooting and correction to get it just so since there is no "feedback" indicating where "center" is). Mouse is best for camera, and a d-pad is still the best way to handle a side scroller. I'm still not sure whether d-pads or an arcade stick work better for fighting games...
Suffice it to say that there's a wide variety of control schemes, each tailored to a specific task. The biggest problem with modern controller design is that too many forget this and try a "one size fits all approach, as Valve has done, and end up with one that only really works in a very narrow range.
I would personally prefer to have different controls to play different kinds of games, but I suppose it's not really feasible.
That said, this controller looks really, really terrible.
Good point, DJ, a mouse is good for a camera, but not for movement. You really need something which will give tactile feedback for where it is in order for movement in a game to work well, yeah. A mouse is great for a camera, but for movement it's awful! Just try a flight game with a mouse sometime, some of them allow it. It's pretty painful. Part of that is that you have to keep picking up the mouse and moving it over, of course... a big part, really... but it's also because it doesn't have the immediate tactile response that a d-pad, buttons, or an analog stick all do to tell you what you are doing at the moment.
Quote: Suffice it to say that there's a wide variety of control schemes, each tailored to a specific task. The biggest problem with modern controller design is that too many forget this and try a "one size fits all approach, as Valve has done, and end up with one that only really works in a very narrow range.
Yeah, everyone wants one controller which can do everything, but that just isn't possible. You need different control systems for different kinds of games.
Weltall Wrote:I would personally prefer to have different controls to play different kinds of games, but I suppose it's not really feasible.
That said, this controller looks really, really terrible.
As I said I like that they're trying to crack the awful dual-analog-sticks- for-shooters monopoly which currently rules console/TV first and third person shooters, since the dual-analog gamepad is really pretty bad for that genre because it's so imprecise (this is why games all have auto-aim, to compensate for the bad controls), but I don't know if this is the solution for that genre or not. That remains to be seen. I also don't know how it'll work for strategy games, which of course are a key genre on the PC. It is pretty clear that it'll be a miserably awful controller for any 2d games, though, that's for sure! Puzzle, platformer, fighting, any of that kind of stuff would be really awful with Valve's controller. But that doesn't mean that it's worthless, as long as people realize that one controller can't do everything... and if it actually functions decently with shooters. Without tactile feedback I remain to be convinced, and so do most other people clearly with how lukewarm that press response was.
Perhaps Valve should have used an analog stick on the left and this new touch thing on the right, since by all accounts the camera controls pretty well with this new thing (maybe not as nice as a mouse though). Frankly though, I've played plenty of FPS on consoles that control well enough to be enjoyable with dual sticks. Good as a mouse? Maybe not, but they work surprisingly well. Not all console FPSs use "auto aim", and I've actually turned it off in a few.
Anyway, as an example of a game that needs a special controller, Pong still works best with the "Pong" controllers. You know, the one with a large "dial" you spin around? Marble Madness had a unique track ball which is unrivaled for controlling Marble Madness. (A few years ago I got a shot at the arcade version, and wow did my game dramatically improve on it.)
Yeah, since getting a 2600, I have definitely learned that there's nothing else quite like a paddle controller. It's too bad that official paddle controllers don't exist for newer systems, it's absolutely perfect for those games and they don't play nearly as well without one. That is true about trackballs for trackball-controlled games as well, sure.
Quote: Perhaps Valve should have used an analog stick on the left and this new touch thing on the right, since by all accounts the camera controls pretty well with this new thing (maybe not as nice as a mouse though). Frankly though, I've played plenty of FPS on consoles that control well enough to be enjoyable with dual sticks.
I, of course, have always greatly disliked dual-analog FPS controls. Sure you can eventually get used to them, but it's nowhere near as good! I like the N64 controller better for FPSes (I like button movement...), but aiming is a lot harder with a stick than it is with a mouse, and there's no solution to that as long as you're still using analog sticks.
I think that Valve did consider other designs for this thing, but yeah, having one stick on it probably would have been a good idea. Even with that it still wouldn't be good for everything, though; no d-pad or buttons means awful things for 2d games.
Quote: Good as a mouse? Maybe not, but they work surprisingly well. Not all console FPSs use "auto aim", and I've actually turned it off in a few.
Most have either auto-aim or aim assist these days, I'm pretty sure...