The back buttons are mandatory, and there’s a specific config someone made that I altered slightly for personal use, but I can’t remember the creator’s name. It was the highest used one at the time I downloaded it though. There’s definitely a small learning curve, but the reward is portable access to a great MMO!
Honestly I absolutely love the customizable nature of the Deck for individual programs, especially because I was able to pair 4 different build and equipment tabs to each of the face buttons so I can swap between all 3 elite specs for my engi main. I just wish they had official controller support with their UI like how I’ve seen FFXIV’s hotbar with multiple on-screen “pages” you can flip through easily.
I actually agree with what you’re trying to say about microtransactions cheapening competitive games. It’s why I stopped playing competitive games altogether, but introducing proper casual modes for singleplayer or PvE co-op games for no additional cost to increase accessibility only helps increase the number of potential players. The existance of casual modes does not have any correlation with competitive games or takes away from another player’s time invested into the same game, and it will not cause the “death” of video games. The reason why people are disagreeing with you is because you’re blaming other players as the cause when it’s actually corporate greed with overinflated MTX and excessive season pass shit that’s truely killing the industry.