Controller Support/SteamInput Bug & Feedback

[AL2009man]

Note: this was originally posted on Gameplay Feedback section (original thread link), but due to a visibility issue (thanks to another Project 8 Player who reported it for me); this has been reposted over to Bug Report as a workaround until an appropriated category becomes visible.
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I've recently gained access to Project 8 Development Build, and to my surprise; it has Controller support via Steam Input API, something I've lowkey expected after public release-- but not during early development build.

So, I've given it a shot and....I have words to say; all of this is based on 112 minutes of playtime, and I might add more stuff within the following replies. So; here are the key problems that should be a priority when addressing said problem:

Number 1. Menu Navigation is not Controller-friendly.

Right off the bat; everything is not fully navigatable with a Game Controller, everything is heavily reliant on the Mouse Cursor and three game actions and calls it a day...but given how the Main Menu is structured, it looks and feels like it can be fully navigatable with Controller buttons. In addition: Button prompts in the Main menu do not show.

This becomes a hassle when you start to use both the Scoreboard (also how you upgrade your abilities) or "OpenHeroSheet" (actually it's a "Buy" action) as the latter is tied towards the Menu Controls action set, but more on that in Number 2.

Number 2. Default Controller bindings are not good
oh boy, I have something to say.



To start;

1. the Joystick Camera is a Joystick-like Camera action, but in-game; there is no way to adjust the Joystick Camera sensitivity, your best bet is to use either "Joystick Mouse" (Legacy) or "Touchpad Camera".
2. Touchpad Camera inverts Y Output....for some reason. (might explain why it's default to "As Mouse" on Steam Deck.)
3. If you want to upgrade your Hero's Abilities; you are supposed to hold the "Scoreboard" action (assigned to the Menu Button) and then press the Abilities actions (Face Buttons). But doing that will require performing a clawgrip. That's not great when 1. the game asks you to upgrade, and 2. Newcomers or Steam Deck users may inadvertently learn how to do Clawgrip.
4. going and exiting the Buy menu may cause you to unintentionally activate a Hero's abilities, as the Abilities are mapped to the Face Buttons. This wastes an ability usage.
5. certain Hero Abilities are either still Keyboard/Mouse prompts or are Keyboard/Mouse-driven.
6. After you get defeated: you can't press the Buy key shortcut or press the Death Camera. Strangely; there is a Spectator Action set, but it isn't utilized in-game (instead it's Menu action). This is most likely meant for Watch Mode.
7. Important gameplay actions are either improperly binding or don't exist, such as the Reload. on DualSense Controller; it's auto-binded to the Right Touchpad Click, but on Xbox Controller; it doesn't exist. This does not make sense when it's otherwise "fine" on Steam Deck.
8. the Ping action's Radial Wheel does not work, this requires a physical Mouse Input for it.

All of this; will cause users to head over to the Community Config section or "fix it themselves". That will not give future players a great first impression if Project 8 is officially released and none of the feedback gets addressed.

This is the part where I would give a suggestion:

1. Revised the entire Controller Config, completely.
2. It needs an additional Action Set or Layers, especially for the Buy Menu (Action Set), Radial Wheel (Action Layer), Scoreboards (Action Set) and "Player Spectator" (Action Set).
3. Make a [Ability Menu] action and its accompanied [Action Layer], similar to how Warframe does it. This way; you've been able to make rooms to fit important Game Actions onto the Face Buttons while having a Modifier action to perform Character abilities. Of course; you can still let users assign Ability actions outside of the Action Layers- in fact; that's how I did it for the custom config I created by making it a Mode Shift (but I lose out on the Button prompts in the process).
4. Introduce a proper Joystick sensitivity slider.


Number 3. Tutorial dialogues bakes-in keybind prompts

For safety reasons; I'm going to assume that the Tutorial dialogue is a placeholder right now, but I'm pretty sure Xelu/Mental Checkpoint suggests not baking-in Button prompts into the dialogues as it'll further complicate matters, especially when it comes to either Controller or Keyboard/Mouse keybindings.


Final Note:

Hopefully, this stuff gets addressed by the time Project 8 officially opens to the public.

 

[workshophatemachine]

Please don't play a shooter game, where headshots are important, with a controller, thank you.

 

[AL2009man]

Please don't play a shooter game, where headshots are important, with a controller, thank you.

You do know Gyro Aiming is enabled by default*, right?

*Compatible controller/PC handhelds only, sorry Xbox.

Telling me, who have played DOOM Eternal and Ultrakill with a Controller but assigned Gyro as a Mouse, to not play a shooter game is quite a gatekeeping mentality to have, especially when Project 8 has Controller Support alongside a Steam Deck-focused config. (Hell, the developers' previous tech demo highlighted Gyroscopic Aiming)

 

[yakkanikki]

There's an alternative steam deck control bindings that I exported that feels the closest to the standard bindings we use in 3rd person games. As for the skills, I used action set layers to bind the skills into the XYAB buttons, activated when holding L1. I also enabled gyro camera for fine aiming. But let me tell you a controller isn't optimal for close melee fights.

 

[matimaster07]

hear me out.... But I think there should be a aim-assisted flavor of matches for steam deck/controller users. I personally love playing with the mouse and grew up playing shooters this way, but I have plenty of friends I'd like to play with that barely know how to aim with a mouse. I have a steam deck and aiming/playing with it is super painful without mouse & keyboard. Just like some cross-platform games that support both mouse & controller, perhaps this could be accommodated.... but also I do resonate with the idea of completely revisiting controller input for this game.

 

[mennenth]

Steam Controller user here, adding some additional feedback;

The Touchpad Camera input behavior for the in game action section needs some work.

Its default setting is so ridiculously low no one would ever want to use it based on first impressions.

It doesnt have a high enough sensitivity cap. 3000% only gets about 190-200 degrees on a full trackpad swipe. As a moderator of the steam controller subreddit, I can say with authority that 180 degrees per full swipe is the average and there are power users - such as myself - that push even higher to 360 degrees on a full swipe. (if you think thats uncontrollably fast just remember; gyro* is doing the heavy lifting for aiming anyway. high sensitivity touchpad camera/mouse is for quickly slinging the camera around ala flickstick, only without sacrificing the y axis)

Suggestion; Its range should go from 0 to just beyond 360 degrees on a full swipe, with the default at something comfortable like 45 degrees per full swipe.

Right now the solution is to just use the legacy "as mouse" input behavior, but it would be better to not mix siapi and legacy behaviors if possible.

* speaking of gyro, I noticed it seems to use the older "as mouse" input behavior in the back end. This should be updated to the newer "To Mouse [Beta]" mode.

 

[Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC]

hear me out.... But I think there should be a aim-assisted flavor of matches for steam deck/controller users. I personally love playing with the mouse and grew up playing shooters this way, but I have plenty of friends I'd like to play with that barely know how to aim with a mouse. I have a steam deck and aiming/playing with it is super painful without mouse & keyboard. Just like some cross-platform games that support both mouse & controller, perhaps this could be accommodated.... but also I do resonate with the idea of completely revisiting controller input for this game.

Personal opinion but I dont think aim-assist on controllers has any place in PVP games. It gives a massively unfair advantage and if someone wants to get better at aiming with a controller they have the option to familiarize themselves with gyro aiming.

 

[matimaster07]

Personal opinion but I dont think aim-assist on controllers has any place in PVP games. It gives a massively unfair advantage and if someone wants to get better at aiming with a controller they have the option to familiarize themselves with gyro aiming.

Hence why I suggest matchmaking based on player’s input. So that mouse/keyboard only players can continue playing at the same playing field. I believe that’s how overwatch does it for their cross platform play. Apart from this game being competitive, I think Valve is also trying to strike a balance with approachability, the learning curve currently is pretty high for a beginner.

 

[AL2009man]

hear me out.... But I think there should be a aim-assisted flavor of matches for steam deck/controller users. I personally love playing with the mouse and grew up playing shooters this way, but I have plenty of friends I'd like to play with that barely know how to aim with a mouse. I have a steam deck and aiming/playing with it is super painful without mouse & keyboard. Just like some cross-platform games that support both mouse & controller, perhaps this could be accommodated.... but also I do resonate with the idea of completely revisiting controller input for this game.

Valve-developed PvP Multiplayer games historically don't include Aim Assist in their ethnos, and you can see it back in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, even in the original console release (heck, the Steam Deck-centric update for CSGO outright tells you to use one with gyroscopic functionality).

While I could see Valve adding light bullet magnetism for Controller users (even Valve's SteamInput documents suggest adding very light auto aim for Gyro/Trackpad users!), adding Aim Assist into Project 8's Controller Support will not solve legitimate issues that it currently has.

also; given Valve's history, Aim Assist is not going to happen.

 

[leebeelink]

Please don't play a shooter game, where headshots are important, with a controller, thank you.

headshots aren't that important, movement is moreso, which for a lot of people, is better on controller.

 

[supermair]

Has anyone had success getting gyro to work with a dualsense controller? All the buttons work fine out of the box, and gyro is enabled in the steam input settings (have tried everything from gyro controller, gyro to mouse, etc...) and still unable to get gyro working.

Steam games with native gyro support work out of the box just fine.

 

[trackpadchad]

headshots aren't that important, movement is moreso, which for a lot of people, is better on controller.

Normally, you'd be wrong; stick is worse than WASD in almost every regard for shooters. However this game is different because you can airstrafe without the camera when using controller.

Has anyone had success getting gyro to work with a dualsense controller? All the buttons work fine out of the box, and gyro is enabled in the steam input settings (have tried everything from gyro controller, gyro to mouse, etc...) and still unable to get gyro working.

Steam games with native gyro support work out of the box just fine.

Dualsense usually has conflicts with Steam Input, but I'm assuming you've tried this. If you connect your controller when Deadlock is running, it will not recognize your inputs. You have to connect controller prior to launching the game.

 

[trackpadchad]

Here's some comments about Steam Controller layout. It still has some of the issues that others have pointed out in this thread.

Observe the default layout.​

What's not pictured is L-stick click = Parry, and R-pad click = Melee. Overall, it has decent bones and is pretty close to my usual approach for shooters. However, some problems are immediately apparent.

• It's missing a reload button
• While bumper jumper is good practice, Steam Controller's bumpers are notoriously stiff
• Using abilities requires taking your thumb off camera control, which is a real problem with most abilities

Obviously, there's not enough buttons to fit the controls, but there's an easy solution to this:

Behold, the power of a Mode Shift​

By cramming all the abilities on R-pad click, you now have your face buttons to spare for the less frequently used, but still important controls. If you're on Deck, it's better to use action layer instead of mode shift so you can configure click strength. Obviously, your camera will jitter a bit when you click the pad, but it's something you easily get used to. This is almost playable, but you still have no way to bind "Cancel Ability" or "Target Self," which limits your choice of heroes and causes problems if you get cubed by a Viscous.

As I have pointed out in this thread, mixing kb/m with controller inputs causes the game to stutter when it changes glyphs, so you can't fix the missing commands by substituting keyboard binds. Here's two quick band-aid solutions:

• Add an option to make gamepad glyphs persistent somewhere in settings (or via dev console 'cause you really shouldn't play this game on most controllers)
• Address what's causing the stutter (remember, debugging is fun!)

Obviously, not having your button prompts 1:1 with your controls ain't pretty, but most gyro gamers are used to it at this point.

 

[supermair]

Normally, you'd be wrong; stick is worse than WASD in almost every regard for shooters. However this game is different because you can airstrafe without the camera when using controller.

Dualsense usually has conflicts with Steam Input, but I'm assuming you've tried this. If you connect your controller when Deadlock is running, it will not recognize your inputs. You have to connect controller prior to launching the game.

I got it working, the only option under gyro that seems to work is choosing mode to be "As Mouse".

Without any sort of aim assist though I was finding it way too challenging even with the gyro to be competitive, so might have to give up on the game until it has better controller support.

I also did not like any of the controller layouts available. Given the amount of interactions there are in the game I would probably say the only long term feasible option is to reuse the face buttons to be actions (jump, reload, parry, melee) if pressed alone and abilities if done with R1 + face button. However none of the current layouts seem to do this (one got close but put abilities in the R1/L1 triggers).

Hopefully we see more effort in this area to make it more friendly for steam deck and other portable players.

 

[sithian8]

Has anyone had success getting gyro to work with a dualsense controller? All the buttons work fine out of the box, and gyro is enabled in the steam input settings (have tried everything from gyro controller, gyro to mouse, etc...) and still unable to get gyro working.

Steam games with native gyro support work out of the box just fine.

How have you gotten an external controller to work at all? Whenever I try to it bugs out with multiple button presses

 

[supermair]

How have you gotten an external controller to work at all? Whenever I try to it bugs out with multiple button presses

Have you installed steam-devices (https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-devices)? It should be packaged for most major distros.

An alternative is to try the steam flatpak, which comes with it preinstalled.

I also connect to the laptop through USB (not bluetooth), in case that makes a difference.

 

[flickstickvideos]

I really hope they fix this soon!

 

[trackpadchad]

I got it working, the only option under gyro that seems to work is choosing mode to be "As Mouse".

Without any sort of aim assist though I was finding it way too challenging even with the gyro to be competitive, so might have to give up on the game until it has better controller support.

I also did not like any of the controller layouts available. Given the amount of interactions there are in the game I would probably say the only long term feasible option is to reuse the face buttons to be actions (jump, reload, parry, melee) if pressed alone and abilities if done with R1 + face button. However none of the current layouts seem to do this (one got close but put abilities in the R1/L1 triggers).

Hopefully we see more effort in this area to make it more friendly for steam deck and other portable players.

You can make your own layout if you have the patience. Hit the dropdown for the face buttons > create modeshift > hit the gear on the modeshift to select the bind. Action layers also work, but it's better to use modeshifts when you can for technical reasons.

From extensive personal experience, I've found that gyro is better for tracking and projectiles, but worse than mouse for flicks. Basically, no friction is both a pro and a con. On paper, gyro would shine in Deadlock, but the game was not designed with controllers in mind. Mode shifts and layers like with your R1+ Face Button can work, but it's still inherently worse as it bottlenecks your options.
Aim assist is a can of worms that is not worth opening. There is no sweet spot where aim assist will elevate controllers to being competitive with kb/m, while also maintaining competitive integrity. A game should not make compromises in order to fit onto a controller; the onus is on controllers to adapt.

Tl;dr: I wouldn't recommend playing Deadlock on a controller that isn't as versatile as the Steam Controller/Deck, or at least one with gyro and back buttons. Also, gyro doesn't need aim assist; give yourself some time and practice to find what works for you.

 

[shiningwing]

You can make your own layout if you have the patience. Hit the dropdown for the face buttons > create modeshift > hit the gear on the modeshift to select the bind. Action layers also work, but it's better to use modeshifts when you can for technical reasons.

From extensive personal experience, I've found that gyro is better for tracking and projectiles, but worse than mouse for flicks. Basically, no friction is both a pro and a con. On paper, gyro would shine in Deadlock, but the game was not designed with controllers in mind. Mode shifts and layers like with your R1+ Face Button can work, but it's still inherently worse as it bottlenecks your options.
Aim assist is a can of worms that is not worth opening. There is no sweet spot where aim assist will elevate controllers to being competitive with kb/m, while also maintaining competitive integrity. A game should not make compromises in order to fit onto a controller; the onus is on controllers to adapt.

Tl;dr: I wouldn't recommend playing Deadlock on a controller that isn't as versatile as the Steam Controller/Deck, or at least one with gyro and back buttons. Also, gyro doesn't need aim assist; give yourself some time and practice to find what works for you.

I think it's possible to make it work on a controller that isn't the Deck, though you'll probably need a PlayStation controller for the trackpad just to have a few more buttons

I've been mainly playing on my DualSense (I use an Edge, but I've been trying to avoid using its extra buttons to test the practicality of a regular one) and I have just about everything mapped, I do use a mode shift on L1 + face buttons for abilities though, I don't think it's really a huge downside in practice for most heroes, though I think it'll take some getting used to for Lash

Here's my current workarounds in my layout for quirks of the game:

• Scoreboard is on Start's regular press, Menu is on long press (saves a button, you're not opening the menu very often anyway)
• Gyro is disabled either through Right Stick Deflect or Right Pad Touch (can't spare a button)
• In the Menus action set, I changed the Back action on the Circle button to be a release press, so that you're not activating anything else when you close a menu
• Push-to-Talk is on Right Pad Click because I really can't find anywhere else to put it, luckily I haven't actually used voice chat yet so it hasn't mattered lol
• Holding Select ("Share" by Sony terms) opens the Buy menu, and is *supposed* to be closed when I release it but seemingly thanks to a bug that doesn't always work, hence the fix for the Back action

As far as I can tell, "Extra Info" doesn't seem very necessary in an actual match so I can save that button

I'd like to have a better solution for Crouch though, currently it's on L3 which is very uncomfortable to hold down for sliding, maybe I could swap it out with Dash/Roll but not sure

 

[Chesterlots]

I think it's possible to make it work on a controller that isn't the Deck, though you'll probably need a PlayStation controller for the trackpad just to have a few more buttons

I've been mainly playing on my DualSense (I use an Edge, but I've been trying to avoid using its extra buttons to test the practicality of a regular one) and I have just about everything mapped, I do use a mode shift on L1 + face buttons for abilities though, I don't think it's really a huge downside in practice for most heroes, though I think it'll take some getting used to for Lash

Here's my current workarounds in my layout for quirks of the game:

• Scoreboard is on Start's regular press, Menu is on long press (saves a button, you're not opening the menu very often anyway)
• Gyro is disabled either through Right Stick Deflect or Right Pad Touch (can't spare a button)
• In the Menus action set, I changed the Back action on the Circle button to be a release press, so that you're not activating anything else when you close a menu
• Push-to-Talk is on Right Pad Click because I really can't find anywhere else to put it, luckily I haven't actually used voice chat yet so it hasn't mattered lol
• Holding Select ("Share" by Sony terms) opens the Buy menu, and is *supposed* to be closed when I release it but seemingly thanks to a bug that doesn't always work, hence the fix for the Back action

As far as I can tell, "Extra Info" doesn't seem very necessary in an actual match so I can save that button

I'd like to have a better solution for Crouch though, currently it's on L3 which is very uncomfortable to hold down for sliding, maybe I could swap it out with Dash/Roll but not sure

On the L1 + face buttons, I think it'd be great if steam input could take queues from keyboard firmware like qmk and add support for one shot layers, where tapping L1 will modify the face buttons for just one input and then proceed to turn off thereafter. Holding still works with one shot layers, you just are also afforded the ability to tap instead. The advantage I see with it is that it requires a lot less muscle memory training since you don't need to keep holding till you hit the button. I enjoy it on ctrl and shift all the time for everyday use, and some (though not all) games, it really lets you work at high speeds more comfortably, same should apply for this situation as well.

You can technically do it now with layer addition and removal for single input follow up by binding additional actions, but I don't think it'd support holding at the same time. I'll have to try it out later.