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.

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.

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.

Coming from a weirdo who didn’t like Vampire Survivors but couldn’t get enough of Halls of Torment:

You can aim and fire manually, with toggles for auto aim and fire if you wish. Every character starts with a unique weapon that fires in the direction they aim. When you level up, you select from one of four randomly chosen stat buffs. There’s some RNG involved here, but it’s much more restrained than in VS. No matter what you get, you’re always getting a good build. You can get new weapons and equipment by defeating bosses, and these are extremely helpful (without feeling like your build depends on getting the right abilities.) I didn’t like Vampire Survivors because it felt too uninteractive and luck-dependant, which I know is not the case and I’m just bad at the game, but it just wasn’t fun for me. In Halls of Torment, every character is good, most builds are good, and no matter what RNG I get I feel like I’m on a good run. I feel like I’m immediately rewarded for my skill, whereas VS makes me feel like my skill is far less important than my upgrades and RNG. (Again, I know VS takes skill, it’s just how it made me feel personally. I’m not saying VS is bad, it just didn’t mesh with me.)

+1 for Halls of Torment. You won’t be able to think about anything else.

On a side note, how is Tales on Deck? Does it work well with the controller?

Pro 2 is my second favorite controller, right below the Steam Deck’s built-in controller. It’s plugged into my PC at all times. I’m hoping for a model with 2.4g connection at some point. Basically I want the Ultimate’s features in the Pro 2’s shell.

8bitdo is an amazing company. Can’t recommend their controllers enough. Browse their website, they have a lot of options at varying prices: https://www.8bitdo.com/

SteamOS’s UI is incredible. It’s not always easy for a UI to be feature rich while also being intuitive and easy to use, but Valve did a wonderful job. I love pulling up the Quick Menu to check the battery and time or tweak a setting without needing to pause the game or go back to the Home Menu.