Comment on Deadlock: How to select or level skill on controller?
tal@lemmy.today 2 months ago
I haven’t played it, but it sounds like the situation may be in flux:
oneesports.gg/…/does-deadlock-have-controller-sup…
At the time of writing, the action game is in closed beta, and it doesn’t offer native controller support. However, it does have an option that players can use to play the game with a controller.
With that in mind, the game is likely to feature controller support when it releases on PC, as it is expected to be Steam Deck compatible.
However, you must keep in mind that since the game is still in early development, it doesn’t offer any key binding or customization feature.
Additionally, even with a controller on default settings, some key actions in the game may not be mapped, so you might encounter limitations during gameplay.
In the near term, if a keyboard can do what you want, if you can dig up macro software for your platform that can look for specific gamepad combinations and send keystrokes as a result, I imagine that you could make it work that way.
hand@lemmy.studio 2 months ago
I hope so.
It baffled me that Valve released a game that isn’t really compatible with controllers not long after releasing the Deck. I was kinda hoping Deadlock would be very controller friendly. When/if this happens I’ll give it a second look.
tal@lemmy.today 2 months ago
I mean, it’s not released.
store.steampowered.com/app/1422450/Deadlock/
It’s not even Early Access.
hand@lemmy.studio 2 months ago
My apologies, when I said released I meant released for public testing / playing (ie, it’s current state).
I’ve played a little with keyboard and mouse as well as a controller (using community settings) and currently it very much feels like it would be difficult to play with a controller (I’d like to stress I’m hoping and happy to be proven wrong about that further down the line).
My surprise was that Valve have brought about a game like Deadlock which currently (to me) feels very much like a keyboard and mouse only game. Again, looking forward to that potentially changing.
tal@lemmy.today 2 months ago
I mean, it’s not publicly-available either; it’s just available to a select group of testers.
I haven’t been following the game’s development. But my guess is that the devs are going to prioritize targeting the machines that they’re using to do development of the thing. They won’t be using a Deck to develop the thing. This probably won’t be the only tradeoff made, either – I’d guess that performance optimizations aimed at the Deck or other lower-end machines might be something that would be further down on the list. I’d guess that any kind of tutorial or whatever probably won’t go in until late in the development – not that that’s not important to bring new users up to speed, but it’s just not something that the devs need to work on it. Probably not an issue for this game, which looks like it’s multiplayer, but I’d guess that breaking save or progress compatibility is something that they’d be fine with. That’s frustrating for a player, but it can make development a lot easier.
Doesn’t mean that those don’t matter, just that they won’t be top of the priority list to get working. What they’re gonna prioritize is stuff that unblocks other things that they need.
I worked on a product in the past that had a more “customer-friendly” interface and a command line interface. When a feature gets implemented, the first thing that a dev puts in is the CLI support – it’s low-effort, and it’s all that the dev needs to get the internal feature into a testable state for the internal people. The more-customer-friendly stuff, documentation, etc all happens later in the development cycle. Doesn’t mean that we didn’t care about getting that out, just that we didn’t need it to unblock other parts of the the development process. Sometimes we’d give access to development builds to customers who specifically urgently needed a feature early-on and were willing to accept the drawbacks of using stuff that just isn’t done, but they’re inevitably gonna be getting something that’s only half-baked.
I mean, if it bugs you, I’d just wait. Like, they aren’t gonna be trying to provide an ideal customer experience at this point in the development cycle. They’re just gonna want to be using it as a testbed to see what works. It’s gonna inevitably be a subpar experience in various ways for users. The folks who are using the thing at this point are volunteering to do unpaid testing work in exchange for getting to play the thing very early and maybe doing so at a point where they can still alter the gameplay substantially. There are some people who really enjoy that, but depends on the person. It’s not really my cup of tea. I dunno about you, but I’ve got a Steam games backlog that goes on forever; it’s not like I’ve got a lack of finished games to get through.
Zoot@reddthat.com 2 months ago
Maybe try actually playing it on the deck then? How are you even gonna complain about something you haven’t tried, for a game no where near done.
I have played on my deck. All the keys are mapped and you can easily play the game with all of the controls.