In recent years I’ve started to gravitate towards preferring to play with a controller instead of keyboard and mouse, because I find the overall posture of playing that way more relaxed. But with my xbox360 controllers I get joint pain in my right thumb after a while, because the right stick click requires a lot of force to activate and it seems my thumb can’t handle that for long. I’ve googled for solutions or even aftermarket replacement parts, but so far I haven’t found a solution. Apparently more people complain about the sticks of first gen xbone controllers not having enough tension than the other way around. I’ve found mods to increase the tension on those, but none to lower it. And after having seen one of the sticks disassembled in a video, it seems that the click button is more or less a separate part sitting at the bottom of the stick assembly. I couldn’t find data on how the click threshold on those old xbone controllers compares to the 360 controller.
Roughly measured with a kitchen scale the movement resistance of an xbox 360 controller is ~ 90g, and the click threshold is around 700g on a used controller and closer to 900 on a rather fresh one. I have 3 xBox 360 controllers, so I wouldn’t mind an attempt at modding one of them myself. I can solder if necessary, and there are plenty of aftermarket replacement parts for thumbsticks, but none of them come with specs how high their tension or click threshold actually is.
What about the steam controller? Could that be worth a try for me? I don’t know a lot about it.
On my xBox360 controllers I’m using extension caps on both sticks. That makes them longer, gives me more leverage and lowers the force required to moving them, while also increasing precision. I like those quite a lot, and they reduce the tension for moving the sticks from ~90g to just below ~60g, but they don’t do anything to make the click threshold be easier.
I’ve tried “wearing the stick buttons out” by holding them down with a clamp over night, but that doesn’t seem to have done much.
I don’t have a torx screwdriver that fits to open one controller up and take a good look, but I’d speculate there should be a way to replace the clicky button part of the sticks with a different generic replacement part from a hobby electronics store. Though I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to just have that kind of interaction (stick click) mapped to a physically new button on the bottom side of the controller. The xbone elite controller seems to have those by default, but holy crap is that one expensive - 150,- Euro including the wireless connector. If I knew for a fact that it solves all my problems and lasts ~10 years like my xbox 360 controllers did, I would begrudgingly pay that kind of money, but I’m not sure of either of those things, so I’d like to look at other options first.
That won’t work. To wear them down you’ll need to repeatedly press it (if it is about clicking buttons) or press it with a palm and rapidly move in circular movement. Then MAYBE it’ll become softer.
What game were you playing? I don’t remember needing to press right analog stick often.
Either way, my advice would be to:
Visit a doctor who can take a look at your thumb. You shouldn’t be getting joint pain.
Look for a repair center that handles gamepads and ask them to replace the right stick (thinking about it you could try to ping Microsoft support regarding the issue, perhaps something will happen because of it).
I’d also recommend to remove extension things from the gamepad, because they’ll make the gamepad much harder to use. Basically with any sort of extension you’ll need to do wider movements and put more force into pressing buttons. So those extensiosn most likely will make you tired faster.
That’s all I can think of. I haven’t experienced this kind of problem, and had opposite issue - repeatedly playing blazblue killed the left analog stick which became sensitive to the point where slightest touch can register as “up”.
Also, how long were you playing the game? See, i’d expect most programmers to have grip of death due to constant typing on keyboard, but if you, say, picked the gamepad for the first time ever yesterday, then you’ll probably need a week or two till your finger muscles get stronger. This is especially relevant to the thumb.
Anyway, that’s how I see it. Joint pain and not muscle pain is worrying, and is something that you shouldn’t be experiencing. It might be a good idea to see a doctor.
It’s not often compared to other buttons but it’s in every game I play at the moment. Dark Souls 2: camera lock on, Deus Ex: melee takedown, MGS5: camera zoom-in while using binoculars, most FPS games: melee or crouch.
From having A/B tested this (and I’ve used both variants for years each), I can not confirm any of this, except for making wider movements, since that is the whole point of using them. It’s not necessarily transferable but I’ve found that in the RSI realm of strain injuries from drawing on Wacom tablets, wider motions cause less problems.
I don’t use my right thumb at all during typing, drawing and mouse work puts significantly more strain on it. And I’m generally well used to playing with gamepads and do so regularly. I’ve fairly consistently gotten that kind of pain in thumb joints when playing with gamepads more than usual (like when I binged on Dark Souls 2 a while back).
I’m confident I’ve exhausted all reasonable options in the medical field. I seem to have some kind of genetic defect that causes tissue to be unusually stretchy, which leads to all support structures being worse at keeping things in place. I’m doing training and physiotherapy once a week. My physiotherapist says there’s not much one can do against that kind of pain except eliminating the strain factor that causes it (which I’m trying to do as you see). You can hold the thumb with the other hand and pull slightly to relax the joint, but that alone doesn’t cut it.
I have another theory that because I used to play guitar I might have developed certain muscles unusually one-sided in the right hand, which causes the thumb joints to bend slightly different under strain than they do in my left hand. But neither do doctors now about things like that, nor do they know how to fix it. It used to be worse many years ago and I managed to improve it to a degree, but that’s really something no one can help me with.
Considering my genetic disposition to have problems with such things and that I intend to be gaming and using computers till I die, I figured I might as well start now to look for more ergonomic input devices, or mod them if need be.
On a bigger wacom tablet you’ll be moving the whole hand.
On a right analog stick you’ll be only able to use thumb, and it is not exactly moving a lot normally (unless you’re playing piano). That’s why I think that bigger motiosn will get your thumb tired faster.
If it is a supposedly unfixable problem, I’d externalize right trigger. Basically I’d try connect r3 trigger button to an external button and glue that button to some location on a gamepad where it would be easy to press it with a different finger. Possible locations are between the analog sticks, on the back of the gamepad, etc. The gamepad will look a bit frankensteinish, but if your thumb hurts otherwise, that would be the way to go.
I can certainly see where you’re coming from but I don’t think this is a problem for me.
If I can’t find a better solution I might actually do that. For a start I’ve ordered an opening kit with the right torx screwdrivers to open a controller and I’ll see what I can do with it. From another video I’ve seen it seems like there’s a spring inside the stick assembly and spring tension can usually be tweaked by either shortening or bending them. And I’ve found an electronics store that sells micro switches with specs on how much force they need for activation. Maybe I can swap the stock switch for one that is a lot lighter to press. Thanks for your suggestions. I’ll report how it goes.
I’m still interested in comments on other controllers like the steam controller. There must be some people here who have hands on experience with it.
The ergonomics on the Steam controller aren’t terrible, but they aren’t that great either. The biggest problem with it comes when you attempt to use it as a standard gamepad. That is to say, when you don’t use the big trackpads and focus on using the analog sticks instead. The ergonomics for those analog sticks aren’t very good, as the controller focuses on the trackpads as the primary focus.
If you are using the trackpads primarily, then the ergonomics improve considerably. Most notably, the trackpads are relatively easy on your thumbs. While they do require a certain degree of precision, they don’t require any pressure or resistance, which means less actual effort and strain on your joints.
For ergonomic comfort, my first choice is the PS4 controller. One of my all-time favorite controllers for this is actually the GameCube controller. Recently, I’ve been leaning heavily toward using 8bitdo’s line of controllers, though I can’t actually recommend them for modern 3D games. (their analog sticks are their only weakpoint) But they are some of the absolute best options for retro games.
Now I’m curious, you said sticks (plural), but I only see one:
If I wanted to play something like Dark Souls with the trackpads, how would I access dpad functionality? Would the analog stick serve as a pseudo dpad then and does that work well enough to accurately switch items etc.? And what about the “stick click”, can you press the whole trackpad in like a mouse button? And if yes, does that require more or less pressure than an xbox 360 controller? It doesn’t have any buttons on the underside, right?
While I don’t have much practice using trackpads, I have in the past won Quake 3 matches at a LAN party using the trackpad, so I could probably get used to it.
It DOES actually have buttons on the underside. Though it would be more accurate to call them something else. I think of them as interactive panels. But they essentially function as buttons, you just use your other fingers to press/squeeze them. And yes, you can click the trackpads as though they were buttons for an additional interaction. (similar to click a thumbstick) The action on clicking the trackpads is lighter than the traditional thumbstick press, but not so light that you would use it by accident.
One of the really great things about the Steam controller is how much it can be customized. Steam’s interface includes re-mapping for the controller. So you can re-assign any of the controllers interactions any way you want. If you want to move a particular function off of a face button and onto the back panels, you can.
Welp. Modding the xbox 360 controller didn’t work. In fact I think I broke it. Oh well, still have 2 working controllers left. I’ll buy a steam controller in the next sale (probably Helloween I guess).
It’s not really an electronics problem, it’s a mechanical problem with opening and modifying parts that weren’t designed for either. I didn’t even get to the soldering part, I seem to have broken one of the potentiometers with force while trying to get the parts out that have the spring below it. I didn’t even get them out, they are just stuck too tight. I watched a video how someone opens it, it doesn’t work the same way for me. If I had applied more force a plastic part would break. Top few comments under the video said they tried the same and that part broke in two.
I could order a replacement stick and solder that one on, but it’d be a waste of time if I can’t get the replacement stick modified the way I had hoped was possible (doesn’t seem to me it is), or it doesn’t have different tension properties by default (didn’t seem to exist based on my search).
Now I’m hoping for the steam controller to be an improvement.
It may be a regional thing, but typically there are stores that repair electronics. They should know how to open it up, and how to mod it. As long as you’re paying, of course. That’s what I meant, mostly.
…to not require any modifications, because RichardKain said “The action on clicking the trackpads is lighter than the traditional thumbstick press, but not so light that you would use it by accident.” and because it already has additional buttons on the underside that could be mapped to substitute stick presses.
I’m sure electronics repair shops exist here, though I’ve never actually seen one, but those probably specialize in stuff that is expensive enough to be worth repairing. Most regular consumer electronics is just cheaper to replace than to repair around here.
I’m generally reluctant to let other people do technical things that I could do myself, because even if they have more experience than me, they usually don’t give a fuck and I’ve often enough thought I’d have done a better job myself, when I outsourced something like e.g. connecting a washing machine etc.
Maybe it’s because in my school days I did a two week internship at a computer electronics store and saw firsthand how much stuff they fucked up. Like one guy told me to open a notebook, I broke off a tiny functionally irrelevant plastic piece, told him I fucked up, he went and broke off the corresponding piece on the other side and said “there you go, now it’s symmetrical again and no one will notice”. He then proceeded with opening the thing and shortly after he was cursing loudly because he had broken off a part of the mainboard… it was an infrared port if I remember correctly, and he disabled it in windows, hoping the client will never notice. I think he also broke a mouse and a keyboard, but that was out of pure rage because he had formatted a harddrive from another client that still had important data on it. I think the client was an architect and luckily he was able to restore the data. By the way that notebook still was under warranty and shouldn’t have been opened anyway, but somehow he didn’t know.
You’ve got to be gentle/careful with small electronics. I’ve opened and cleaned countless controllers and various other video game devices. I’m a little surprised you had trouble opening a 360 controller. I wouldn’t have thought those would be that difficult. I don’t think I’ve ever opened one of those though. I never bothered to buy one of them used, so there was never a need for me to clean one out.
I’ve opened and maintained numerous Sony peripherals. I’ve cleaned out a huge number of PS1 and PS2 controllers. I’ve cleaned and replaced the batteries in PS3 controllers. I’ve even completely dismantled and reassembled a PSP. Boy, that one was a complicated chore. I’ve swapped out the shells for Game Boy Advances, Game Boy Advance SPs, and even original and Lite model DSs. It’s all manageable, you just have to be careful.
You shouldn’t have any problem with the Steam Controller. Valve designed it to be mod-able and customizable. I don’t think you will need to crack it open, but it shouldn’t be difficult if you ever did feel like it.
Another option, considerably more expensive, would be the Xbox One Elite controller. The thing is very pricey. But it also has all sorts of customization options, including the kind of back-paddles that you described. I still think the Steam controller will do you proper, but the Xbox One Elite is supposed to be quite keen if you ever have the spare money.
That flimsy copper/metal thing, through which the grey plastic stick in the middle sticks out, isn’t very flexible so it’s hard to get it back in in a shape that allows it to expand enough again to remain fixed in the right position. And the plastic parts under the metal thing sit so tight I just couldn’t get them out. I did managed to put it back together in a way that looks like it should work fine, but the x axis of that stick does not seem to register anymore. Since the middle part of the pot is spinning with movement like the others do, I assume I must have somehow broke the pot itself (still not quite sure how).
Desoldering the whole part would have been much easier, but also possibly pointless to do. You can open the metal casing of the whole component, but that requires bending open quite a few things and I would have estimated chances of me fucking that up a lot higher.
If you have any advice I’ll gladly take it for the next time it’s applicable.
Edit: is it possible that the replacement part for PS2 controllers and xbox360 controllers is interchangable? Same pin placement and same resistance in the pots? If so, that could mean the mechanical properties are different. Does anyone know how the click resistance and stick tension of a PS2 controler compares to the xbox 360? I’m not quite sure where my PS2 controller is to be honest. I only bought a PS2 used and barely used it.
So I’ve bought the steam controller and I my first impression is that it’s 1 step forward, 2 steps back. The new button panels on the bottom side and the extensive configuration options allow me to get rid of a need to do thumb clicks on high-resistance sticks, but the bumper buttons LB and RB feel terrible. They are much harder to press than on the 360 controller and I don’t like the sound they make. At the pressure I’m used to use the bumpers with, they don’t even register a click. That alone might be enough to make me not want to use the steam controller. It’s something one has to try themselves to see if it’s a dealbreaker. Also the ABXY buttons are tiny and their position isn’t comfortable for me to reach. It is true that the trackpads as stick replacements are easy on the thumb joints (interestingly a friend claimed the opposite but he seems to cramp up while using it, which doesn’t happen to me), but I find them frustrating and imprecise to use because of the inherent flaws of trackpad/touch tech. Interestingly even as a pure desktop mouse replacement my xbox 360 controller with the help of the tool “controller companion” (available on steam) seems to be much easier to use for me than the steam controllers trackpad - both faster and more precise. I think a lot of that is to blame on the software, which in spite of its truly impressive customization options doesn’t seem to allow for that specific combination of low cursor speed and high but slowly added mouse acceleration that controller companion allows. The software is not all bad though. You can use the steam controller software to do rebinding tasks that so far I have not been able to reproduce with controller companion. E.g. for a soulslike game you can configure a soft-press of LT to be a mode-shift button that remaps X to LS click and B to RS click, and only triggers LT to the game when it’s fully pressed. LT is something I rather rarely use in soulslike games and never accidentally would use with X and B, so this kind of rebinding seems to work pretty well. I likely wouldn’t ever have found that option without buying the steam controller, so it was good for something I guess.
Another thing that I just saw, is that controller companion has an embedded download link for something called “xbox 360 controller emulator”. So maybe the lack of options to do direct controller to controller remapping is something that can be solved with installing that tool as well (steam’s controller settings support generic controllers too btw). I need to check it out once I have a bit more time to spare. Theoretically this also opens up purchase decisions towards all kinds of 3rd party controllers, but honestly except for the stick issues I’m so happy with the xbox 360 controller I’ll probably just stick with it. Maybe if I’ll ever buy a PS4 I’ll see if I like that controller more. Steam seems to support PS4 controller remapping too.
Steam supports the PS4 controller, but game support is per-title and most I’ve played don’t seem to have it.
It might be worth trying to various different versions of Xbox One controllers. I’ve got an old one and a new one, slightly different models, and while they’re the same shape some of the buttons feel a bit different. I don’t think it’s an age thing. If you’re sensitive to that kind of stuff it could be worth checking out.
There’s also the “elite” controller, and a variety of supposedly compatible 3rd-party variants with alternative buttons. For example, I briefly tried one the other day that had paddles under the hand grips for ABXY, so that you could use them without taking your finger off the right thumb stick.
I believe you have to see a doctor for that thumb strain. In my case, I have soft cartilages that contributed to my dislocated shoulder. When you feel some kind of strain that a normal person would not experience otherwise, ask for medical help. You may need to change controllers or buy premium ones to be sure but you have to really test it as the stiffness of controls may be per batch and does not equate to all manufactured ones.
