That's crazy I hear you say. What the fuck is wrong with you cindel. I hear you, that's what they all say.
So I got my Steam Controller today and after derping my way through a beginner game of Killing Floor I figured, I have to try this thing on DOTA.
I kept joking that I was going to do it when we ordered the controllers, as a console baby I always feel better with a controller in my hand (we had PC games ~~and dinosaurs~~ when I was a kid, Commodore 64 but they were arrow keys and WASD, not mouse and keyboard at the same time. I'm still not good at it after several years at real PC games).
But here's the thing I didn't expect: It could work.
I chose one of the configs from default. It was really unintuitive (same as the one in Killing Floor, seriously just make your own) I've basically been in a lobby for a couple of hours so far overhauling the whole thing into what feels natural.
My config at the moment (very likely to change within about 10 seconds)
* Right click: Right Trigger
* Q - A
* W - Y
* E - B
* R - Right shoulder (I can't actually use the X button because I can't easily reach it with my tiny girl-hand (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻)
* 1234 are bound to the left D pad directional buttons, now that I'm not using the trackpad I'll probably move them to the right (Y wheel is there currently but you could put it anywhere it works with the gyro)
Because I'm originally LoL-scum I bound space bar to the right shoulder as I have it bound in game, to center the camera on my hero.
**Challenges:**
**Stutter-stepping.**
Using the track pad it's almost impossible to move the cursor back and forth between the creep you're trying to hit, down to the ground to move in a halfway decent direction and back to the creep again.
This is where the gyro comes in. It's far more accurate than I expected and moves fairly easily back and forth.
**Edge-panning.**
I ended up turning it off with the trackpad. You don't need it, you can move the screen quickly and accurately with the joystick and it ends up just pissing you off when you're trying to aim and it yanks the whole screen away off a cliff.
I'm playing with using it with the gyro and I think I like it better on. We'll see.
**Too many config options.**
While this is excellent, it is very time consuming and might turn less patient players off. I spent ages wondering why my cursor wasn't quite going in the direction I was tracking and it turns out by default its rotation is not horizontal, it's *slightly* diagonal.
The way this thing works you could set up different configs for different heroes and quickly switch between them which is pretty fucking cool if you ask me.
**The bots keep unpausing while you're configuring stuff.**
What the fuck. You got somewhere to be Gil Bot? Gotta pick your kids up from Tae Kwon Do?
Depending on how you play, having enough buttons may be a problem? But there are a LOT of buttons on this thing. It just depends on how you've got your dotka set up.
The config stuff is buggy. Sometimes the controller stops working in the config window altogether and you have to close it and open it again.
**Doesn't feel like an Xbox controller.** According to Steam reviews this is a problem kappa (get on my level console scum)
So all in all as our Biggest Daddy n0tail says, everything can work and the Steam Controller is no different.
I don't expect it to catch on, I think born and bred keyboard+mouse users will hate it but it's possible, I'm definitely going to keep practising it and [people seem to like the idea](
http://i.imgur.com/73YNLfl.jpg)
Once I get better at it I'm happy to do a s interested. There's probably loads of in game stuff I haven't thought of.
I am very interested to hear if anyone else has had experiences playing DOTA on the Steam Controller (or any other controller for that matter)
Warning: I just learned that "Turn off my system" in Big Picture means "Shut down my PC immediately"
