The design of the controllers and the issues we're facing

1. There's no natural state of "no input" or place of rest for the thumb

Putting your thumb on the pad will show a menu around the touchpad.



Swiping will move the radial dial to point in the direction of your current touch input.



Releasing it will choose the tool it was pointing at.

2. It's nearly impossible to pull the trigger, without pressing the pad

3. The grip-buttons are confusing to new players

4. Accidental input is expected at all times for fast-paced interaction

5. There's no dedicated utility button

6. The controllers aren't very ergonomic

Hey!I'm sure these are experiences many have faced, but I thought I'd share some of the issues we're facing, with regard to the controllers. Feel free to share yours!Currently, I hope the design of the controller is subject to change. Perhaps not the inputs provided, but rather how they are placed, and how the controller is shaped in general.Most people tend to hold the controller with the thumb directly on the touchpad.I didn't think this was an issue until we started playtesting, and it turns out to be an issue for a nearly all testers.Our initial use-case for the touchpad, was a tool-switching system, similar to the radial analogue-stick weapon selection systems you see in many games today.The design was pretty straightforward.This worked very well for us developers, since we didn't rest our thumbs on the pad. It was straightforward, you could quickly choose the tool you wanted, and so on.However, since testers kept the thumb on the pad at all times, the menu was always showing. And any accidental release with the thumb will switch the current tool they were holding. This led to many, many scenarios where people would be using a tool, and then suddenly it switched to another one, because they were unknowingly lifting their thumb.Of course, this is only an issue if you have the thumb on the pad, but, again, this seems to be the most natural state for most users.This led to the problem of simply not being able to use the touchpad press and the trigger exclusively for two different use-cases.The buttons on the grip, while very useful, are hard to explain.Everyone is used to single buttons that map to their own actions, but in this case, you have two buttons mapped to the same input.When testers are told that you need to squeeze the grip buttons, or the side buttons, they often react "Which buttons?" or "Which one? " or "Do I have to press both of them?".In addition, many users find them uncomfortable to press. I've yet to ask/look at why that is though, could be based on hand size or the default pose they have when holding it.In games where you use the controller for quick, reactionary actions, people tend to press inputs by accident. This does not only apply to the touchpad, it applies to *all* buttons.The hand is resting on pretty much all buttons at the same time, with the possible exception of either one of the tiny buttons on the front depending on the position of your thumb, or the touchpad, if you rest your thumb on the side of it.In our game, you often throw objects with the controller. In this instance, you can quite literally press all but one button by mistake. We're currently working around this by only accepting input when the controller isn't moving quickly, but it's a bit of a hack that isn't very reliable either.When all buttons are under the hand, there's no natural place to have a button like the PS button on the PlayStation controller, the Xbox button on the Xbox controller, or the Steam button on the Steam controller. The current de-facto "Steam button" is frequently pressed by mistake. (This is compounded by the issue that Unity seems to go nuts when you press it, possibly because it sets Time.timeScale to 0, which breaks a ton of things, but that's another topic). A button that would be out of reach by default, and out of reach during fast-movement/reactionary use would be very useful.It's understandable from a technical and economical perspective that the two controllers are identical, but it may be worth it, from my likely naïve standpoint, to shape them for the left and right hand, respectively.Both to make them fit hands better, and to encourage a default position of no input, to prevent the trackpad issues. It would also allow for better button placement, rather than being forced to put them symmetrically on every controller.Those are the thoughts from our end so far at least!