urgent Steam controller or xbox one controller?

[soupacritz]

i got a few racing and sports games, but i dont have a controller. So i wanna buy a controller. i have seen reviews saying steam controller is shit, and i personally think that the layout is weird. But there are also posts praising the steam controller. I am used to xbox controllers, so i want to ask which one should i buy? also, the store selling steam controllers is closer to the store selling xbox controllers. i live in hong kong, and the store selling xbox controllers is on the other side of the habour. 

[MaxBunny]

11 minutes ago, soupacritz said:

i got a few racing and sports games, but i dont have a controller. So i wanna buy a controller. i have seen reviews saying steam controller is shit, and i personally think that the layout is weird. But there are also posts praising the steam controller. I am used to xbox controllers, so i want to ask which one should i buy?

Xbox for serious gaming, Steam for when you have extra cash to experiment.

[RadiatingLight]

I have a steam controller, and it's awesome in a way, because you can bind any button to any key, and you can really customize your experience. it's also more comfortable to hold in the hand than the Xbox One controller. however, the input methods really suck. when I play rocket league with the steam controllers, I don't use the two big pads AT ALL! (literally they are bound to nothing) because they are not accurate enough and they get in the way. if you want a very solid gaming experience on racing games that are meant for gamepads (like what you described) get the Xbox one controller. if you want to play games that don't have gamepad controls, the steam controller is the winner. I tried playing some Witcher 3 on my steam controller, and it's awesomely relaxing to do some gaming while leaning back. I also tried some Cities: skylines, like they show in the trailer, and it is clunky, but still playable. I personally didn't like cities: skylines on the steam controller because I kept being sucked out of the experience by not knowing how to control certain things. Keep in mind that the steam controller comes with an dongle, so it is wireless. unless you have windows 10 AND buy a dongle for the Xbox One controller, then you will need to connect your Xbox controller to your PC with a Micro-USB cable.

[RadiatingLight]

1 minute ago, RadiatingLight said:

I have a steam controller, and it's awesome in a way, because you can bind any button to any key, and you can really customize your experience. it's also more comfortable to hold in the hand than the Xbox One controller. however, the input methods really suck. when I play rocket league with the steam controllers, I don't use the two big pads AT ALL! (literally they are bound to nothing) because they are not accurate enough and they get in the way. if you want a very solid gaming experience on racing games that are meant for gamepads (like what you described) get the Xbox one controller. if you want to play games that don't have gamepad controls, the steam controller is the winner. I tried playing some Witcher 3 on my steam controller, and it's awesomely relaxing to do some gaming while leaning back. I also tried some Cities: skylines, like they show in the trailer, and it is clunky, but still playable. I personally didn't like cities: skylines on the steam controller because I kept being sucked out of the experience by not knowing how to control certain things. Keep in mind that the steam controller comes with an dongle, so it is wireless. unless you have windows 10 AND buy a dongle for the Xbox One controller, then you will need to connect your Xbox controller to your PC with a Micro-USB cable.

To be clear: The steam controller is by no means bad for racing games, but it's clear that it was built to turn PC only games into ones that work with a controller. I play rocket league with the steam controller almost every day, and I am very satisfied with the controller, but the buttons are a little bit of a stretch for most people (I have huge hands so it's fine) and even with 200+ Hours of playing rocket league with the steam controller, i still sometimes miss the B or A buttons, because they are so small. Overall, it's a good first effort for valve with a controller, but it's not good enough for racing games and such to become the ultimate gaming controller

[MilkJugg24]

XB1 controller. More compatibility and less bs custom controls.

[lieder1987]

the new version of the XBONE controller is now bluetooth so you don't need the adapter any more.

[Dash Lambda]

5 hours ago, RadiatingLight said:

-snip-

The pads aren't useless in Rocket League because they're not precise enough or anything like that, they're useless in Rocket League because that game only has a few controls. Personally, I have jump and drift bound to the paddles, so I don't have to move my hands at all the vast majority of the time, something that's just not possible with an Xbox One controller (unless you fork out $150).

 

@soupacritz, my personal suggestion is the Steam Controller, though if you don't want to take the time to get used to it or deal with setting it up then I guess the Xbox controller will serve just fine.

Most of the reviews saying it's bad are from people who picked it up, thought it was awkward, put it down, and wrote an article like they knew what they were talking about. That's not every bad review, since there are definitely people who have legitimate complaints about it, but it's a lot of them.

 

EDIT:

1 hour ago, MilkJugg24 said:

XB1 controller. More compatibility and less bs custom controls.

Could you explain this? I don't understand how the Xbox controller has more compatibility than the Steam Controller, and I don't understand how configurability is a bad thing.

[MilkJugg24]

6 hours ago, Dash Lambda said:

Could you explain this? I don't understand how the Xbox controller has more compatibility than the Steam Controller, and I don't understand how configurability is a bad thing.

Realistically speaking, devs don't develop games for controllers with the Steam Controller in mind... They obviously use the XB1 and PS4 layouts and features.

 

A TON of game natively on PC support 360 and XB1 controllers out of the box (PS4 is rarely seen now). There's no need to change the controls because they've already been optimized for you.

 

With a Steam Controller, you can play a lot of games sure, but every game has its own custom control scheme, and there's not really a standard. (Although it's necessarily bad...), it makes using it just and overall pain, and for the way the controller feels and plays a majority of games, is NOT worth it.

 

For 9/10 games I could use my Steam Controller on, I find myself just switching back to KB+M because of how much less frustrating it is. 

 

This is just the opinion I have strongly came to after attempting to use it so much.

[Dash Lambda]

2 hours ago, MilkJugg24 said:

-snip-

I don't think fiddling with the SC is much more involved then any of the other fiddling you do (graphics, normal keybindings, sensitivity, etc.). It starts out confusing, but so do a lot of things~

 

My real point, though, is that you really can't knock it for compatibility. If a game supports Xbox controllers, that means it supports Xinput, which the SC can use. If a game supports KB/M, the SC can use that. "Support" for the SC isn't a thing, because the SC uses whatever it wants. I'd make very definite distinctions between compatibility and ease of use.

 

I don't really get the ease of use argument either, and I've personally always hated controllers because of the lack of configurability and the imprecision of the interface, and the Steam Controller completely reversed those two things. I don't understand how people can tolerate using Xbox controllers for anything except a couple game genres... But that's a subjective thing.

 

EDIT: I just realized I'm not entirely clear here-

I'm not saying your opinion on the ease of use is wrong, I'm just saying that I don't get it. I've encountered a few people thus far who thought it was a pain in the ass and tried explaining it to me, and I can never see the big deal. Doesn't mean it's not there, just means I don't recognize it as a problem.