I find gamepads to be more comfortable than mouse and keyboard, and most modern games are designed such that all of their functions can be performed comfortably on controller. I also tend to play a lot of games that benefit from having an analog stick.

All just preference, of course. Kb/m and gamepads are good at different things.

Very fair. Personally, I think most games made today are designed around gamepads (with the exception of some genres, especially shooters), but even then kb/m does work fine for most games.

That’s a good point. I did say “most games” because some genres are definitely better on kb/m, but I didn’t think about how that’s what most Steam users are probably playing.

I think that article’s headline is incorrect. Valve’s article said that 10% of controller sessions are Steam Decks, not 10% of Steam Input sessions. Here’s Valve’s article: https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/4142827237888316812

So weird that only 15% of Steam sessions are using controllers. I thought everyone had a controller. Most games are just better with a gamepad.

59% of controller sessions are using Xbox controllers. Not surprising, but I wonder how many of those Xbox controllers aren’t actually Xbox controllers. I use an 8BitDo Pro 2, which uses X-Input on PC. Though the majority of my gaming is done on Deck now.

I’ve noticed that the games that dominate this list every month are very long games designed to suck players into their gameplay loops for hundreds of hours. Nothing wrong with that, but it makes me wonder if there are short games that are very popular, yet get left off of this list just because they end in 10 hours. I would like to see a top 20 list sorted by number of players rather than playtime.

Low profile circle pads for joysticks aren’t bad at all IMO. Some people dislike them. Depends on the person.

I don’t think I would want a Steam Deck in this form factor. The current Deck honestly feels like the perfect size for me. Not too big to be unruly, not too small to be uncomfortable. I totally understand the appeal of a pocketable device, but I’ve come to realize that I really just don’t have a need for a device that portable and would rather have something bigger. A device this small wouldn’t have the same number of inputs and would greatly compromise on comfort. That’s mostly a me thing, though. Plenty of people want smaller handhelds, so a smaller handheld PC could probably find an audience.

I would love an Android smartphone that’s like this. Not a gaming-centric device like a Retroid Pocket, but something that could be my daily driver smartphone while also offering physical controls for a quality gaming experience. Basically the Xperia Play, but modern. It would be far less cumbersome than carrying around a gaming device in addition to my phone, making it much more practical for me.

Taki Udon went pretty in-depth with thermals in their review. The already great thermals have been drastically improved. The OLED runs cooler in general and does a better job of keeping the heat away from your hands. The fan is quieter than the old model. I linked to the part of the video where they discuss thermals, but the whole video is pretty interesting.

Emulation Station might, since a lot of people use it as a frontend for their emulators. Since ES runs in a separate window while you play, all the time spent playing emulated games would all add to ES’s total.

I feel good for CDPR. They fumbled the launch of Cyberpunk, but people are still playing the crap out of it, so I guess they handled it well in the end. It must be horrible to have worked on a game for years, only for it to blow up the way Cyberpunk did.

Edit: Though I suppose the launch was only “fumbled” on last gen hardware.

Yeah, that’s exactly my problem with a lot of the Deck’s competitors. They’re trying to out-spec the Deck, but there’s a lot more that factors into a fun experience than just power. SteamOS’s Game Mode might be the best UI I’ve ever used. I also love the Steam Deck’s controls to death and could go on a very long rant about them, but I’ll hold that in.

Absolutely. I definitely feel like the Steam Deck is better than the Ally. SteamOS is amazing, and the Deck’s plethora of input options brings the gaming experience to the next level.

I wasn’t sure if you were aware of the Ally, so I brought it up just to make sure you know what options you have. I would still recommend the Deck over the Ally any day of the week, though.

Eh, I disagree. Most AAA games are still releasing on eighth gen hardware. The Steam Deck’s keeping up decently well, depending on how low you’re willing to drop your settings. I wouldn’t want a sequel this early in the Deck’s life. Besides, if you want more power, there are devices like the ROG Ally that can handle AAA with flying colors, even Starfield.

Now that I think about it-- @neku, if you’re willing to pay a bit extra, you could consider a ROG Ally, or that Lenovo Legion go that’s releasing soon. I think the Steam Deck offers a better user experience than the Ally thanks to its controls and software, but it might be worth considering for its more powerful hardware if you’re not happy with how the Deck performs.

Steam Deck seems great for you! Most of the games you mentioned work great on Deck.

Keep in mind that the Steam Deck can struggle with recent AAA releases. You probably won’t be able to hit 60 FPS in Elden Ring, but if you can handle 30 or 40 fps, you would enjoy it on Deck. Do some research on the games you want to play to make sure the Deck can run them well enough for you.

The Steam Deck is a phenomenal device for emulation. I adore playing retro games on this thing, it’s a spectacular experience. Games with a 4:3 aspect ratio look fantastic on the Steam Deck’s 16:10 screen!

The Deck can emulate a lot of systems very well. It’s excellent at emulating GameCube and Wii games. I don’t think it does all Wii games perfectly, but all the games I’ve tried work like a charm, even very intense Brawl mods. 3DS runs swimmingly as well, and while I haven’t tried Wii U emulation, it seems to work pretty well from what I’ve seen. The Deck is a monster for retro Nintendo emulation!

On a downer note, PS2 emulation on Deck is not perfect. A decent amount of PS2 games work fine. Some PS2 games require tinkering on your part to get them working well. Some PS2 games might simply be out of the question depending on how much slowdown you’re willing to tolerate. If you want to do PS2, you might want to look into Powertools, which can let you disable “SMT” to improve performance. I can go into detail on Powertools if you want. (Actually, I’ve heard that Valve is gonna make an update for the Deck that makes this unnecessary, so you might not have to worry about that.) You might want to research the PS2 games you want to play to make sure they work on Deck.

Say what you will about Bethesda and Skyrim, but they must have done something right because people still can’t put it down over a decade later. I do want to play it at some point, but I don’t know when I’ll have that kind of time.

Try Performance Mode in HoT’s settings. My first time I made it to 30 minutes, my game crashed. I turned on Performance Mode, and it’s been running just fine ever since. With the retro PC game vibe they’re going for, Performance Mode arguably adds to the experience!

That said, your game crashes when you’re five minutes into a run? I did hear that the game can have crashing issues on Steam Deck, but that’s a little extreme. Not sure if Performance Mode will fix that.

Sometimes I can use Gold Points to get a game on the Switch eShop for dirt cheap. That’s the only time I’ll buy a cross-platform game on Switch. Otherwise I only use it for console exclusives now.

Sorry for the late reply. I don’t check Lemmy all that often.

I would never want to use a clip on case myself. I would worry that it would make the buttons uncomfortable to use. It would also affect how it sits in a docking station. The Steam Deck has a nice shape that will make it harder to drop. I wouldn’t recommend a case, but some people do like cases, so that’s your call.

USB hub sounds good, and would also work better than a dock if you do get a case.

The ABXY buttons are very comfortable to use! I’ve found the Deck to be a very comfortable device. My hands are a bit bigger so I’m not sure how big of a role that hand size plays, but I think you’ll be fine.

People love accessories, but the Steam Deck is fantastic right out of the box, and very little is a requirement. For you, I would say these are the only requirements:

• A way to connect the Deck to a screen. A simple USB-C to HDMI connector will work, but if you plan on plugging in a mouse and keyboard, you may want a dock or USB hub, something that has all the USB ports you need.
• A mouse and keyboard for working on a desktop, of course.
• Storage. Your 128gb micro SD card should be fine.

You might want to get a bigger micro SD card. It can absolutely handle one game at a time-- It can handle many games at a time! Stray is only ten gigs. You’re also using it as a work PC, though. I don’t know how much storage your job needs, but it’s possible that managing your storage could get annoying. The PC gaming elitist in me doesn’t want to recommend anything less than a 512gb card, but I don’t think that’s a strict requirement so I’ll leave that up to you. If you do upgrade, I would recommend a bigger SD card over a new SSD since SD cards are way easier and less risky.

When you say you want a case, do you mean something that you clip on to the Deck? I would recommend avoiding that. It’ll mess with the ergonomics of the device. I don’t know if it’ll affect temperature or not so I won’t comment on that. If you’re talking about something like a carrying case, though, that could be a decent investment. The carrying case that the Deck comes with is excellent, but it’s not big enough to store all of your accessories if that’s what you’re going for.

Agreed, there’s so much I prefer about HoT over VS.

But in a quick defense of VS, I don’t think the player is really supposed to beat Death at first. He’s supposed to be the end of your run. You can defeat him, but I think you have to grind out a bunch of upgrades to be able to do it. The end-of-run Lords in HoT are meant to be normal bosses that you defeat. That part is less of a balance issue and more of a different design philosophy. Death is supposed to be insanely hard, the Lords in HoT are meant to be fair.

The difference is that the first time I made it to the 30 minute mark in HoT (which took comparatively much less time…maybe because I’m just more familiar with the style of game?)

I’ve never made it to the end of a run in VS, but I got there decently quickly in HoT. If there’s one complaint I can make about the game, it’s that it’s a smidge too easy.

I went camping a bit ago and loaded my Steam Deck with a bunch of games. The only game I ended up playing was Mega Man: The Sequel Wars. It’s a Genesis/Mega Drive remake of my favorite NES game Mega Man 4, with many more features. It was crazy fun, and my Steam Deck lasted the whole trip on one charge. If you don’t want a hard game, you can set it to Easy difficulty, turn on Infinite Lives, or activate any of the other cheats it provides.

Now that my Sequel Wars shill is out of the way, here are bunch of other battery efficient games:

• Emulating retro consoles, but it seems like you have that covered.
• Any Shantae game. Light-hearted, casual, well designed 2D platformers.
• Halls of Torment. Similar to Vampire Survivors, and I personally like it more. Worth it for the classic-PC-game art style alone.
• Boneraiser Minions: Also like Vampire Survivors, but instead of trying to see how many projectiles you can fire per second, you’re raising a small undead army to fight for you while you focus on dodging. Very fun.
• Ace Attorney. The first trilogy is entirely 2D and is basically a visual novel with puzzle elements. What some people do for visual novels on Steam Deck is limit the framerate to something miniscule like 15 fps. The battery lasts for an eternity.
• I know you said you don’t want to play Hollow Knight, but I’m physically incapable of doing a Steam Deck recommendations list without saying Hollow Knight.