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Comment by jackmaney | Hacker News Reader

A while ago, I foolishly decided to spend $40 to get Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition on Steam. The controls were so atrocious--both in the default choice of key bindings and in the control execution that made me feel as though my character was wading through Vaseline--that I found it completely unplayable.

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Ah, yes... the PC version should come with a giant red warning that says "DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PLAY THIS WITHOUT A CONTROLLER".

There's still a learning curve even with a controller, but once past that the controls have a beautiful simplicity and responsiveness that I've seen in very few other games.

What's the point of playing a PC game with a controller? If I wanted to play a game with inferior controls, I would just use a console.

In the case of Dark Souls, kb/m is by far the inferior control scheme.

Yes, that's why the game is horribly, horribly broken.

I see. I have a lot of PC games that I feel control much better with a gamepad. It's a third person action game with analog character movement. In this case an analog stick is far superior than WASD movement/modifier keys.

I don't agree that mouse input is inherently superior. The main advantage is boundless motion, e.g. aiming a gun or controlling a camera. If that is not a major part of the control scheme in a game, controllers are often better.

Some games are built to be played with controllers. I've got a Steambox hooked up in my living room with a wireless XBox controller dongle, so I can fire it up in big picture mode and play controller-oriented games from the comfort of my couch, then go into my office and play an FPS on the same Steam account with kb+m. I also have a wired Xbox controller in my office if I don't feel like moving to the big screen. Both work equally well.

The "everything on one account" approach is really, really nice. All my save information is transparently synced across devices, and I can buy something from my computer (or even from my phone) and play it in my living room without any hassle.

That kind of preconceived notion isn't doing you any favors. I'll agree with you most of the time (DS was actually the first, and so far only game I played with a controller), but just like keyboard + mouse is inherently a better control scheme for FPS or RTS games, a controller is simply a better option for a game like Dark Souls.

That is the beauty of combat in Dark Souls: it's not mindless button mashing, and it's not about precision aiming. It's about timing, reading your opponent, thinking ahead, and getting the right rhythm - it's more like dancing than combat, really. On top of that each weapon feels different to the point where you choose to use the weapon that feels right for you, rather than based on stats. It's a bit difficult to explain why, but that connection is a lot harder to achieve on keyboard+mouse.

First person shooter games work better with the precision of kb/mouse. First person melee games work better with the movement and directional actions of a controller.

This is a really ignorant comment. First, it's downright silly to assume that KB+M is necessarily better for every game; even if the developers had invested time in improving the KB+M controls, the game would still operate far better with a gamepad. Second, it's also downright silly to think that there's no reason to ever use a gamepad with a PC. If you already have a gaming PC and you don't have a console, that's a pretty big reason to play it on PC. If you have a high resolution monitor that you want to take advantage of, that's a pretty big reason to play it on PC. If you're interested in modding, that's a pretty big reason to play it on PC.

> the PC version should come with a giant red warning that says "DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PLAY THIS WITHOUT A CONTROLLER".

But... It does come with a giant red warning... From the Steam page itself:

Notice: Microsoft Xbox 360® Controller for Windows® (or equivalent) is strongly recommended.

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