I’ll try Doom though. I saw a couple of Doom 1-inspired games this year. I can try those.

Gyro works great with Doom. I played through Doom Eternal on nightmare difficulty without aim assist. Gyro is the closest to mouse like precision on a controller if you aren’t using aim assist.

Lot of life long controller users aren’t good at aiming using only joysticks either with increasingly stronger aim assist over the years doing the bulk of the carrying which has led to some players saying a games controls are bad if the aim assist is weaker than ones they do well in.

Then add in how different the dead zone and acceleration curves are for joysticks from game to game and it makes carrying over muscle memory difficult even if you master joystick in one game. It’s like how acceleration can throw off mouse users.

But, gyro helps a lot if native gyro is mouse like or you opt to bind mouse to gyro, since the sensitivity is something that can be replicated from game to game like people do with regular mice. This video might be a good starting point. One quirk of gyro is that some games you can just bind mouse to gyro and start playing, but other games may not support simultaneous gamepad + mouse so having to opt for mouse and keyboard binds on the controls. Some people bind joystick to gyro but that introduces unwanted negative acceleration.

I recommend Portal for starting out and getting used to gyro. Then once you are used to aiming with gyro something like Left 4 Dead 2 which has good Steam Input support.

It is stable.

Steam Input for use with my steam controller and playstation controller for gyro controls. Particularly love the dual touchpads for movement and camera controls and extra click inputs over a single joystick click. I can’t deal with default control schemes anymore when it comes to controllers after becoming reliant on the amount of customization Steam Input provides, since it goes beyond a simple remapping with layers, modeshifts, chords, touch menus, action sets, etc.

Linux support that reduces need to fiddle around with settings and mess with lutris type tools and more devs putting in the time to try to be Steam Deck certified. Even when it doesn’t run well on the Deck for more demanding titles there is still benefit for more powerful systems and future Steam Deck follow up.

Existence of Steam forums and guides has come in useful for help and has popped up on search results that I wasn’t able to find on pcgamingwiki, so reddit isn’t the main place I need to rely on. Been a way to also try to reach devs without having to use reddit or twitter.

Steam workshop. I do use nexusmods, moddb, etc. But, sometimes just having it integrated into Steam makes it convenient.

Other launchers are more like comparing a dumbphone versus a smartphone where if all someone wants to do is make calls and text that is fine, but for those that have become accustomed to Steam launcher features beyond launching games there needs to be more done by competitors. Having to use stuff like GLOSSI to try and utilize Steam Input when using third party launchers, or have to fall back to syncthing to try and sync saves from other launchers when using Steam Deck just makes the lack of Linux and custom controller support apparent.

Square because trackpads have always been that way my dude and can be set to a ratio similar to common screen sizes.

I use the Steam Controller and play with dual pads and I have to say I much prefer the circular pads, since the way I set it up is so that a full swipe of the touchpad results in a 180 degree turn in every game I use with mouse input. And circle has been better at providing a more consistent 180 output on swipes over a square where the it can result in varying lengths of travel depending on the angle you enter in at. Square leads to more room for error for the consistent predictable output I want from touchpad use. I don’t use stuff like acceleration, so consistency is really what I value.

And I also prefer circle for movement too. I’m not trying to replicate a square display experience when I’m using the touchpads. I really prefer circle for movement and for twin stick shooters over a square surface to rotate around when at the edge.

The square trackpads that have always been that way have been for people using it for slow desktop navigation as opposed to games.

Me neither. I’d get the new one right away. And it’s a PC so I can retire my Steam Deck to use to do for other things by then. It’s a really great machine.

I think setting up gyro in that case would work better than the touch screen. That’s how I played through Maro Galaxy back in the day using the Steam Controller and having gyro only activate when I touched the right pad so it wasn’t always going crazy.

I’ve been playing Diablo IV too. First non Steam game I tried on the Deck, and how well it works blows my mind. Used decky to put in custom artwork too so it fits right in with the rest of my games.

I’ve been playing around with a set up where I use the right touchpad to enter mouse mode and click to attack for times I need to aim. But, rest of the inputs are gamepad. What I’d like to do is have it so when I touch the right pad it modeshifts the right trigger into a left mouse click too. Could do same with action layers, but I’m hoping for a more straight forward and less problematic modeshift option.

I’ve used the Steam Controllers for many years and use dual touchpads for movement and camera. Here’s me playing Doom Eternal, Anger Foot, and a video on why I prefer touchpads to joysticks.

But, despite that I’m not a big of a fan of the ones on the Steam Deck. The placement is not that comfortable. There are 3D printed grips though that I would like to try out that would let me hold the Deck so it is more like holding the Steam Controller with the touchpads. Until then a majority of my gameplay is done with the joysticks in contrast to on the desktop where it is with touchpads.

I am really glad the touchpads are present so that it’s not an input Valve has abandoned, but the placement and ergonomics is really disappointing me. I’d be playing lot of FPS games on the Deck if the touchpad experience were more on par with the Steam Controller.