Diablo 3 pc controller/steamdeck support

Diablo is a time tested and loved game that has existed on consoles since the xbox 360/ps3. Now we have controller support on the nintendo switch platform as well but PC still over all these years has not been granted access to these features.

I have a steam deck and want nothing more than to be able to run diablo 3 on it woth native controller support. Its honestly shocking this doesnt exist allready considering the console ports and qol allready exist.

Please, please add controller support to diablo 3 for pc

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Itā€™s been a long time since there was a thread about thisā€¦

Doesnt that just make it so much more ridiculous that such a simple and basic feature as input controls hasnt been given?

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Certain builds work quite well with custom Steam Controls.

I have a Lenovo Legion go, I found decent success playing AoV pony and Akkhanā€™s ā€” but you have to spend time configuring the controller profile. If you plan to use multiple builds, you may want to remap a few buttons, ie stutter step setup vs channeling. It is worth diving into the particulars if you plan to stay in D3 for more than a week.

For me, the worst part of using a controller is picking up on the move, and salvaging loot.

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How do you get the game to recognize your Legion Go controller?

I just bought and downloaded D3 and I am disappointed to see that the controller isnā€™t recognized.

You need to install Steam if you donā€™t already have it installed, then follow these steps.

Step 1.

Within Steam, add Battle Net as a Non-Steam game, you are choosing the Battle.net.exe executable, not Diablo III.exe (!! very important !!),

Step 2.
You need to update the ā€˜Targetā€™ shortcut in Steam as follows:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Battle.net\Battle.net.exe" --exec="launch D3"

Assumes Battle Net is installed in the default folder during installation.

Take note of the --exec="Launch D3" appendage, this instructs Battle.Net to open D3, but it seems I still have to open it manually click Play from the Bnet launcher.

Rename the game to Diablo 3 and change out the icon/background artwork afterwards.

Step 3.

Setup your Controller profile, found in Properties ā†’ Controller tab. There are some pre-made settings out there you can import, but youā€™ll want to spend about 1-2 hours refining your profile to make common tasks less painful, ie. looting and salvaging, opening the map, etc. Try to mimic Diablo 4ā€™s arrangement for continuity.

If youā€™re going full gamepad mode, I highly recommend setting the Left Joystick behavior to Mouse Region.

The time investment in configuring the controller will make playing the D3 PC version tolerable on a gamepad. Iā€™d probably quit trying if I stuck with one of the publicly available profiles.

Step 4. (Optional)
Other game settings that are unrelated to controller support, but important to discuss:

Integer Scaling: youā€™ll want to enable it in AMD Software Adrenalin on this title (Diablo III.exe). Set your Windows Desktop to 2560x1600, in Diablo 3 Option set the video mode to Fullscreen Windows (1280x800).

Legion Performance Profile: Cap the framerate at 60fps and set the CPU profile to 10-11W, OS Power Mode is set to Efficiency. On my device, this seems to be a sweet spot for long, uncompromised play sessions.

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Iā€™m looking forward to the D3 remastered with controller support, so I can play the best version of my favourite game. Tried playing a little with mouse again and my arm says no.

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and offline play.
You can try the console version of D3

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I recommend it. D3 on console is a very nice experience. Plays very smooth and the UI was well done. As much as I dislike Blizzard for a lot of very shady things theyā€™ve done/still do, bad decisions theyā€™ve made, I still give credit where itā€™s due.

Iā€™m already playing on Switch, but it is like a poor mans D3, no chat, wtf. Canā€™t even say ā€œi play supportā€, gems must be converted one by one, and when people invite you to a party, you accept by pressing A-button, the button used for everything and that you spam a lot.

GR 150 can take 30 minutes in full team because of lags, even when beating the timer. Itā€™s a joke, I tell you.

Itā€™s okay for solo play though.

One by one gems is a pain but itā€™s not too bad. Yes, console canā€™t chat but I sometimes prefer it. The chat there is sometimes worse than the things people on here or on other D3 chats say.

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Yeah, there are advantages to console. Itā€™s just a pain with grouping. Console players are much better solo players, die less without zbarb because they never play with one. And itā€™s nice to just play what build you want, no complaints.

I just joined a game on PC and the wizards were dying like flies and complaining because no zbarb.

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Absolutely. I wrote a draft post for the D3 Remastered wish list. Controller Support on PC was one of the things I mentioned. Some others include:

Cross-Platform / Cross-Region Play
Itā€™d be great to group with friends in other regions, on pc + console devices. Itā€™ll make multiplayer feel much bigger, a larger pool of pub games.

Introduce a New Class
Itā€™d be really cool to drop couple of other classes onto the land of Diablo 3. A Battle Mage in plate armor or Dark Knight are excellent strength class contenders. A Bard or melee focused Druid/Soldier archetype, like the cliche Ranger, would be appealing to play as well.

New Game Mode | Head-to-Head Greater Rifts for League
Greater Rifts with a spectator mode. Up to 4 identical game instances served at once. Maximum of 16 players (4 groups of 4) can go head-to-head on an identically served map ā€“ kind of like a Challenge Rift, but in real-time. Other players can join, as a spectator and communicate in the spectator chat channel within that game. When a game starts, each player lands in town, everyoneā€™s paragon is equalized to a sane value, maybe 2000, one initiates the GR through an obelisk, everyone agrees to join, the GR is generated, players spawn in the GR, 3ā€¦2ā€¦1ā€¦ the game starts at 0:00 secondsā€¦ and weā€™re off.

Indicators show each playerā€™s progress towards 100% ā€“ so we can see if weā€™re ahead or behind and take risks as needed. Building panels to allow this to work with 4x4 groups (16 players) would be amazing. This type of feature lets the community facilitate elimination tournaments and brings people together without having to resort to Twitch and Discord.

Shrink Damage
These changes could result in a 25 GR tier drop across the board:

  • Set Multipliers: Bring Akkhanā€™s 6pc multiplier to the baseline of 100%, then adjust the rest by dividing every set multiplier by 8. Handle sets with numerous by reducing the largest value, ie. Impale 2pc and 6pc, chop from the top, ie. 120,000/40,000% and test.
  • Weapon Damage & Thorns: Reduce these values similarly to how D4 is handling it in Season 6.
  • Paragon: reduce main awarded by paragon to 2 points per level.

Rune Balancing
Revisit underused skill runes, either improve the numbers or change the benefits of those which are not part of any meta. For instance, we can safely allow Impaleā€™s Grievous Wounds rune to increase Impaleā€™s crit damage multiplier as we hoped (480% ā†’ 810% critical hit damage).

Item Reworks
Rework Blackthorneā€™s, Demonā€™s Hybrid Sets, Broken Promises, and the hundreds of other dull legendary effects into something new and fun to try out. These edits alone will make the game feel fresh and shake up the meta.

Proc Items
Add a second multiplier to all these item effects, (Fulminator, Odynā€™s Son, Rimeheart) like they did in D4 with items like Fleshrender. Ie. this effectā€™s damage is multiplied by 0.01% of your total attribute stats. So if youā€™re carrying 25000 main stat and 5000 vitality, you get a 3x multiplier on the itemā€™s damage output.

Torment Consolidation
Bigger difficulty gaps, fewer torments. Highest Torment is T10, but equivalent to GR110. Keep the rewards the same as T10 today.

zDPS / Support Rework
Let all classes have comparable support builds. Tone down zBarb and zDH, improve the rest to offer benefits comparable to a zMonk/zNec.

Seasons + Altar
1 year of new seasonal concepts, proceeded by the return of the Altar of Rites, but with a different arrangement. Your last seasonal gift is to unlock the Altarā€™s final node, which is the Season mode you choose to play. Think of it as a large pyramid where the base splits into 8 of the strongest seasons. Why do this, why run all seasons at once? Because certain seasons do not favor certain classes.

You canā€™t equip Ethereal items, Soul Shards, Crucible Effects, unless the respective Altar node is enabled ā€“ this equipment will not drop unless the node is enabled. You can adjust the selected option on the base node as required.

One can dream.

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Really nice list, @dmkt.

I felt D3 ended in not the best state, there are things that have become unbalanced with all the added changes. Most of the changes are good though, itā€™s just obvious that it was not implemented from the beginning.

If the game was remastered thouroughly with all the new aspects in mind, it would be epic, the best Diablo game by far. It already is though.

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Itā€™s not possible with current state of a game. zDPSā€™ rely on the skill mechanics which changing require massive coding.

There are differences between the PC and Console game. These difference affect game play and strategies. It was explained to me like over a year ago so, the details are not fresh in mind at the moment. One would most likely have to query the folks in the console forum about them. Iā€™m not a fan of consoles unless Blizz is going to treat the Linux platform like a console. Offline could be fun.

Oh, Iā€™m sure there are several differences. Iā€™m not knocking the PC experience at all because I played Diablo games on PC a long time ago but as an exclusive console gamer for a long time, Iā€™m only stating that the experience on console for D3 was good. And I wasnā€™t a fan of the Diablo to console portā€¦ so I was going into it with some skepticism.

Some of the differences, IMSMW, were in the realm of experience gainā€¦ something to the effect that a mob kill on PC online would X amount of experience, while the same mob in the same circumstances on console would give a fraction of the experience. There were also bugs that Iā€™m not sure got fixed that negatively impacted console players. When the stuff was explained to me, I was like yeah Iā€™m glad to never have played on console despite me being such an advocate for solo self-found back in the day and folks suggesting that I play on console.

Weā€™re talking about a Remaster. What did you think you were reading about?

Then itā€™s hardly a Remaster anymore but some sort of remake.