I like to use pads as a substitute for a mouse. Games like peggle, zuma, and mini metro are great with the pads. I also like to use the pads with gyro to aim in first person games. Portal is a good game to ease into that.
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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Steam Deck
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I only really use them with the keyboard, desktop mode or any game that uses mouse emulation.
Age of empires II, I've cleared a few campaigns with it! Left pad as mouse region on bottom left icons, right pad as mouse.
Can you respond well with the pad and no keyboard?
To give context I was never a good competitive player, so I'm talking about casual play. I think I'm slightly less responsive than mouse+kb, but playing on the train is just a blast!
I also had to bind other buttons to improve response time:
- dpad down to go to last notification
- dpad to cycle between forums
- dpad eight for inactive villagers, left for army
Then Right Joystick is a radial menu to go to 6 groups. A is select all on screen. On top of that, I binded shift to L1 (the bottom left palet) which can be user in combination of most other buttons I binded: e.g. create 5 units, assign to group, select all inactive villagers etc..
I went through the William Wallace campaign to tune my conf, but I find it pretty good now!
right pad for mouse, left pad for hotkeys, all the way. Great for games that use the entire left half of the keyboard.
I pretty much do precisely this
Anything that's an FPS, like Deep Rock Galactic or Borderlands, or any game that requires a mouse, like Little Inferno or Machinarium. Usually it's a combo of left stick and R pad + gyro.
I also use a combination of stick and L pad for Helldivers, with the pad being set up as a Dpad.
Interesting. Had not thought of it for FPS
It becomes your mouse. Making quick turns or precise aims is a lot easier with the pad and gyro.
I bought a Steam Controller years ago for that same purpose, and it makes a world of difference.
Will give it a shot next time I do halo or l4d2
It has a little learning curve, so don't give up if it feels a little wonky at first. I also recommend adjusting the vertical friction (I turn mine all the way up) to make turning around a lot easier.
I do imagine it would be super wonky to start. I'm so engrained with a controller
The right one as mouse, in RPGs, mostly isometric ones without gamepad support. Currently Pillars of Eternity 2. Works surprisingly well.
Also the left one I started using for virtual menus in games where I need to use lots of quickslots and/or abilities. The customisability is awesome, you can even add little icons to show what each menu item represents.
Turn based strategy games. Especially 4X games like Civilization or the Master of Magic remake.
Came here to say. Dominions is pretty cool on deck.
I did the original Deus Ex on mostly pads, worked pretty well!
MineCraft and Dune spice wars
There’s a community profile for Monster Hunter rise that maps the quick access wheel to the right touch pad really well. I wish I could do whatever that guy did but for world as well. It’s really useful.
Epic Game Launcher ... OwO
Factorio - but I tend to flip between both pads and sticks
Factorio
star trek: starfleet academy
it's an old game but setting up the pads to be an action menu. makes that game fun to play in handheld mode. I would say I'm faster with the trackpads than with a keyboard
I like using the left pad in 3ds emulation, to quickly save, fast forward, freeze, etc.
the right one is reserved for mouse input and click
Guild Wars 2 and Civ V are my go to games for trackpads.
Civ VI and Inscryption required me to use the pads. Basically everything else is sticks.
I use the right pad instead of the right stick for any game that could use it for pointing/aiming. Really, the only ones I wouldn’t use it for are games that use the right stick for other stuff, like Skater XL or Session maybe
Ixion seems to require them. It's playable on Steam Deck, but probably much easier on PC with a mouse.
I'm curious how people use the 4 buttons on the back. My ring and pinkie fingers can just barely press them.
My fingers naturally rest on the back buttons, and I find them really easy to use. I usually have them set to mirror the face buttons for shooters (so I don't have to take my finger off of the right stick to jump/reload/etc). In some other games I have them set as dpad buttons (Elden ring for example) to swap gear and use items.
Finally I don't like button mashing, so in games where you have to mash a button I will often set the back buttons to be turbo buttons, where I can hold to spam a key.
the back buttons got a lot easier for me when I realized you're supposed to push the flat part of the buttons on the back of the deck instead of where they curve around the grips. like, if the deck was sitting flat on a table you'd be pressing straight up instead of to the right or left.
bind the top two to the thumbstick clicks and finally be free of those terrible inputs
Only as mouse or shooter games
world of warcraft and Terraria come to mind for me.
Mom's for mouse movement (right) and function buttons via radial menu (left). Works surprisingly well on GW2 and TurtleWoW
Right pad is frequently a mouse, often worth using a trackpad mouse for menu/inventory management.
The trackpads are huge for PC games with a lot of inputs, but can also be used for communication. There's a lethal company control scheme that uses the trackpads to 1-click type the console commands to navigate to moons/view players on monitor/etc. I have a Deep Rock Galactic profile that uses the left trackpad as a mini keyboard to type "r", "gg", "wait", and a few other frequently used communications.
In any games that support quicksaving I usually have some quicksave/quickload options in a menu on the left trackpad.
My thumbs.
Everything I can, except for twin stick shooters.
Using them currently for Against the Storm. Way easier than moving the cursor around with the joystick.