Steam Deck - Theorycrafting with ON TOUCH joysticks

[cybin]

HOTBAR INPUT / TOUCH MENU with RIGHT JOYSTICK

I am pretty interested in how the "Hotbar" input will work with the Steam Deck. It seems to me that this input was designed specifically for the Deck, because it seems suited for a joystick but most of the time I am already using the joystick when playing with a SC. I wonder if, for example, joystick touch can be used to open the Hotbar menu.

Or, using the touch menu input on the joystick, can you activate the selected binding on release of touch? In other words, when I release my finger will the binding activate prior to the stick returning to the center? If so, this would make for some pretty easy ways of binding several quickslots.

JOYSTICK DIRECTIONAL SWIPE
With a joystick that doesn't have ON TOUCH, if you try to use it in scrollwheel mode, the joystick returning to it's center will scroll back in the opposite direction, making that type of input style useless. Perhaps if the swipe is only active while the stick is sensing touch, this will no longer be a problem?

KEYBOARD OVERLAY
If this became an input style for use inside of a game, instead of how it currently is, then I could touch a joystick to bring up a faster, more responsive keyboard (more responsive than switching to BP configuration action sets)

For example, I could touch the left joystick to bring up the left have of a new in-game keyboard overlay, touch the right stick to bring up the right side of it. Using Mennenth's idea of "cellphone like" keyboard typing style (where you release press of the input to type), it could be, perhaps, useful. See his video here : https://youtu.be/HxeoovIhOlQ
However, instead of needing a separate binding to shut off the keyboard, it would only be active while you were touching the stick (or pad, I suppose)

[ugafan]

Hotbar - Currently we can't choose the button to open the hotbar, the button to select once in hotbar, or the button to exit hotbar. Valve would have to add some options for a joystick touch to work.

Touch Menu - Surprisingly not an input option for joystick. It should be, but when you look at style of input, you'll see it's not listed. Maybe this will change for Steam Deck? I think this could be a good addition.

Radial Menu bindings can activate on touch release / modeshift end, but would this be much different? I mean it could activate a split second earlier with joystick touch release vs waiting for the joystick to return to center. Or you could release and hold the stick in place with your thumb on the edge without the sensor, but that seems awkward?

Directional Swipe - Works well with touchpads, but not joystick. I don't ever use this input method on the joystick. But I do like it for PS5 DualSense touchpad.


Keyboard - Needs a complete overhaul to make it more similar to typing on a phone.
1. The keys are different sizes. Open the keyboard and take a look. "Q" is much larger than "E". Having differently sized keys can reduce typing speed and accuracy, especially when the letters you would type more frequently are smaller than the ones you rarely use.

2. The number of keys differ by rows. Some rows have 5 keys per hand and others have 6 per hand. Which means the finger travel distance is going to vary by which row you're on.

3. No way to change the sensitivity or acceleration. My "mouse in a box" idea would solve this, but that involves creating an entirely new input option.

To address some of these concerns I found an android tv keyboard layout online that I thought would work well and did some photoshop. What do you guys think?

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1698405590899190587/25EF46FDDA09AB788F59F771863DE1F1947AC5BF/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

[cybin]

Heya Ugafan, thanks for your reply.

You're right about the hotbar, I must have been thinking of the modeshifted-hotbar, which will open when you hold a key, and dismiss when released. Unfortunately you cannot use "on touch" activators currently to cause a modeshift, but if you could that might be a nice option.
Also, right about the touch menus - I thought it was added to the joystick but it was put on the Button pad - It operates on the buttonpad in a unique way where you can move the selector in a direction using XYBA - problem is you need another button to activate the binding. If it were on a joystick, you could perhaps have the menu open and activate bindings with the touch sensor, or with a click to activate the binding. The difference from a radial menu is orientation (NW/NE/SW/SE for 4 button) or that there are bindings in the "inner part" of the menu, which isn't a thing for the radial.

The directional swipes as well as a vertical or horizontal scroll wheel would I think be useful in some cases, but they don't work correctly because they take the input of you returning the stick to center, rather than only when moving away from center.

Also, your keyboard graphic looks nice, GJ

[FatStupidAmericant]

I'll likely use the joystick for either a secondary dpad/flickstick. Touch will be pretty great bc if a game has a weapon wheel or you 'bring your own' you can touch to activate it and then swap to a weapon on release.

probably be amusing in a shooter to use the joystick for normal looking around with one gun, and on touching the trackpad, would swap to a sniper rifle and automatically zoom in, and swap to your other weapon on release

the grip buttons are a pretty huge deal too. For Can put sprint, jump, duck and melee/special ability else all there right on the bottom.