Steam Deck

It sounds like they have to wait for support to move from the Steam Client Beta to mainline. That happens on Valve Time, so they genuinely do not know.

The issue is that the back paddles weren’t unique buttons. You could configure them to press existing buttons, (like telling it to press A when you hit the right paddle,) but they weren’t listed as individual inputs. Now they are, so you can actually map unique actions to L4, R4, etc… This is particularly important for games that have a lot of unique inputs. Plenty of games are optimized for controller, but lots still rely on having more buttons (on a keyboard) than what a traditional controller has.

My Ultimate 2 wireless lets me bind the extra buttons to any command as well as detect and configure the gyro controls. This is with Steam Input; so you can bind those buttons to keyboard and mouse inputs.

Came here to say exactly this ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The back buttons didn't work with Steam Input (and still don't with the v1's).

So if this update brings full Steam Input support that would be awesome

It does!

I have a Pro 2 too and switched from Xinput to Dinput at the back of the controller and my Steam Deck now identifies the back buttons like L4/R4 (but with the name PL/PR) and I can map it to anything I want

We call this marketing bullshit.

You can update via Android or iOS I believe

It sounds like back paddles will be treated as separate inputs, I found where some people got to try out beta firmware for some of the 8bitdo controllers some months back, and that was specifically mentioned as some of the new functionality.

If you don't care about what the physical button shows, steam has an option the swap the layout of the face buttons from Nintendo to xbox in the input settings.

I wish so many games didn't default to the Xbox layout with no option to change it. Having grown up with the SNES layout, the prompts fuck me up every time.

You can! They have replacement buttons for whichever layout you want for fairly cheap. I'm using the original ultimate Bluetooth with an Xbox layout.

Ultimate 2. It’s got a gyroscope and back paddles.

On the deck I use them all the time. For FPS games I frequently bind them to be ABXY, lets you jump/reload/etc without having to take your thumb off of the joystick. Absolutely mandatory for games like Doom Eternal and Deep Rock in my opinion.

In games with heavy dpad use for cycling abilities/items (like Elden Ring) I usually use them for that. Being able to cycle spells or potions while running is very necessary sometimes. You can also use them in combination with mode shift settings, things like while I hold R4 down it will temporarily turn my ABXY into a second DPAD.

You can use them for steamOS features, stuff like opening keyboard or toggling zoom for games with small text.

A lot of people dislike clicking thumbsticks, so it's common for people to use them for that. L4 to toggle sprint instead of L3 is very popular for example. Also nice for when L3/R3 do something you don't want to trigger accidentally during combat (Ys 8 and 9 toggle a minimap overlay with L3, which is very distracting during combat. So I've disabled L3 on the thumbstick and instead have L4 open the minimap overlay).

In any PC game with more inputs it can be great for common button presses that didn't make the cut onto the standard controller. Things like map/journal shortcuts, quick save, etc. Setting left trackpad to a touch menu is also great for this.

Overall they're pretty great, I don't use them in every game, but there are a lot of games I refuse to play on a standard controller without them.

On my steam controller when the shoulders crapped out, I bound the back paddles as shoulder buttons.

I immediately changed them to L3 and R3, and never looked back.

Upside, usually the controllers are extremely easy to fix. I'm not sure if they give free replacement pads still, but they used to if you asked support.

I've had other problems than shoulders on my pros, and never with the ultimate one I got, those seem to have a pretty solid build.