how good is the controller for this game ?

[Buurt]

I wanted to play this game on the deck and I was wondering how good controller support is ? Terraria I hate with controller but most other games in this genre I find good enough with controller, so anyone tested it with the deck and how was it ?

[Pan'thon]

I play with a controller on my PC (Dualsense Edge for the back paddles) and on the Deck. I think the controls are great with only minor issues that, for me, were resolved with the Deck and controller's back paddles.

To select and use a weapon or item, it is through a hotbar, like Terraria or Minecraft. I dislike bumbling through the hotbar mid-battle to select and use health potions or to switch the weapon I'm using. In the heat of things, that can lead to my death. I ended up mapping one of my back paddles as a Button Chord so that when I hold it and press X, O, triangle, or square, it maps me to the 1, 2, 3, and 4 on keyboard so I can jump to those hotbar spots. This is where my weapons and tools go that I swap between frequently.

Using the same paddle, if I press D-Pad Up, Right, or Left, this swaps my armor loadout so I don't need to go into a multiple clicks menu to do so.

The last config I did was making a quick food and quick health use button. If I hold my back paddle and press L1 or R1, it navigates to the 9th or 10th slot on my hotbar and immediately uses the item, so I always keep a food item and a health item on that bar.

Otherwise, I think the game controls great. I do agree, Terraria can be challenging on a controller at times, especially with the building mechanics, but I think most of that in this game is resolved with it being a top-down view rather than a side-scroller.

[Diarmuhnd]

Been playing with an X-Bone controller since a long time. Works fine. Prefer it over kb&m.

[acwnf]

Originally posted by Pan'thon:

I play with a controller on my PC (Dualsense Edge for the back paddles) and on the Deck. I think the controls are great with only minor issues that, for me, were resolved with the Deck and controller's back paddles….

This comment really made me realize it’s time to upgrade to a controller with back paddles, this would make everything so much easier in PC games with many keyboard shortcuts.

FWIW, on a typical Xbox or PS4 controller - mapping “Trash selected item” to the Left stick button (click twice to confirm) and “Move already existing item to storage” to the Right stick button was a huge improvement for me. Controller Ui navigation could still be better but this really speeds up some of the most tedious tasks.

[Pan'thon]

Originally posted by acwnf:

Originally posted by Pan'thon:

I play with a controller on my PC (Dualsense Edge for the back paddles) and on the Deck. I think the controls are great with only minor issues that, for me, were resolved with the Deck and controller's back paddles….

This comment really made me realize it’s time to upgrade to a controller with back paddles, this would make everything so much easier in PC games with many keyboard shortcuts.

FWIW, on a typical Xbox or PS4 controller - mapping “Trash selected item” to the Left stick button (click twice to confirm) and “Move already existing item to storage” to the Right stick button was a huge improvement for me. Controller Ui navigation could still be better but this really speeds up some of the most tedious tasks.

The Dualsense Edge controller is expensive, but it has two back paddles and gyro, which none of the other options support in a way that feels good in-hand (most are gimmicky attachments that do special gyro emulation through the joystick). I needed a mouse replacement for first person games and being able to map mouse to gyro in Steam input with an activation while holding a back paddle was perfect. I was hoping for a Steam Deck-like controller that had all these features, but alas, still nothing from Valve.

And while a little slow on release, Sony does continue to release Windows updates to their Dualsense drivers. They recently enabled their app to allow setting and saving control profiles for the Edge that you can swap between with a button combo. But I just use Steam Input for most games and the software ReWASD ($30ish USD for the all-features license) for configuring special layouts or mapping mouse to gyro for anything not played through steam.

Some PC games are starting to support the special haptic triggers, too. Notably, Plague Tale: Requiem has a mounted crossbow sequence and the trigger pull actually felt like pulling a gun trigger with a snapping release when the bolt released. It was really cool.