I guess I'm about a decade late with this, but... why do people dislike the Xbox 360 controller D-pad?

[Griddlelol]

The important part is that in good d-pads, pressing two or tilting the cardinals generates the diagonal easily. There's no problem. It just works

The problem with the xbox d-pad is that pressing the diagonals is easier than pressing the cardinals which results in difficulties in movement. 

[Trip Hazard]

navigating the menus in dark souls with that d-pad...ugh. Two years on, I still wake up in a cold sweat.

[Bjorn]

navigating the menus in dark souls with that d-pad...ugh. Two years on, I still wake up in a cold sweat.

 

For me it's Mass Effect 3 MP that does that.  "Oh, I'm hurt, I'll just pop a med kit...wait, why am I pulling out my rocket launcher?!  Fuck I'm dead."

[cowuponacow]

Thrik and Griddlelol: So you're saying that you frequently find, with the 360's D-pad, that you press the bottom portion of the raised cross, and the game hears something other than "down"? Or you press the right portion of the cross and get something other than "right"? Or you press the bottom-right indented portion, and get something other than "down-right"?

 

(Btw, I really hope no one thinks this is an attempt to troll. I am honestly curious about this situation and I'm enjoying this conversation.)

[Griddlelol]

I'm actually finding this rather amusing, that such a discussion can come from a piece of plastic on a controller.

 

Basically, if you don't press down perfectly in the centre of the 360 pad, it comes out as diagonal-down. Whereas on the vita, or any nintendo controller, down is always down.

[SecretAsianMan]

The pad settles into the diagonal directions easily.  Too easily.  Hitting a cardinal direction and ONLY a cardinal direction requires more precision and it's far too easy to slip into a diagonal direction.  It's something I've been able to overcome with practice, but the fact that I had to practice at all speaks to the design.

 

Here's an old Destructoid rant about the d-pad, including some pictures of the actual parts.  It's not particularly helpful because he does more complaining than explaining, but at least you can see some comparisons to other pads.

[JonCole]

Also, given that most controllers nowadays have both a joystick and d-pad, if you really want more smooth diagonal progression you can just use the joystick. Having a d-pad like the one on the 360 is effectively narrowing the gap between a d-pad and joystick and I don't really see why we need something in between.

[Thrik]

Thrik and Griddlelol: So you're saying that you frequently find, with the 360's D-pad, that you press the bottom portion of the raised cross, and the game hears something other than "down"? Or you press the right portion of the cross and get something other than "right"? Or you press the bottom-right indented portion, and get something other than "down-right"?

(Btw, I really hope no one thinks this is an attempt to troll. I am honestly curious about this situation and I'm enjoying this conversation.)

That's right. I've never had a problem with equivalent actions on the PS3, but with 360 games I have frequently found myself trying to press one direction and somehow ending up accidentally hitting another.

[Lork]

I want this, but with the bumpers back in their proper place and alternate buttons for L3 and R3 where they are now. That would be the perfect 360 controller for me.

syntheticgerbil, Merus, Griddlelol, and Thrik, regarding emphasizing cardinals over diagonals: what about games where diagonals are exactly as important as cardinals? I'm thinking of games like The Binding of Isaac, Jamestown, and 2D Zelda titles.

Try playing the original Zelda on a 360 pad to see the effect of the diagonal problem at its absolute worst. In order to make a game playable on a 360 d-pad the developer needs to de-emphasize the effect of hitting the diagonals as much as possible, so games that straight up ignore diagonal input, like LoZ are hit the hardest.

Edit - See also: Sonic games, where the previously rock solid dependable spin-dash becomes a finicky nightmare to perform.

[Trip Hazard]

Best d-pad in the business. 

Showing off my ignorance of all things modern and "trendy" here (do people still say trendy?), but is this the PS4 pad? My friend has a PS4 but he only has Knack for it, which is Kack

[tegan]

Showing off my ignorance of all things modern and "trendy" here (do people still say trendy?), but is this the PS4 pad? My friend has a PS4 but he only has Knack for it, which is Kack

 

It's the surprisingly great Vita d-pad. Sony sadly switched back to something nearly identical to their old d-pad for the PS4.

[Lork]

It's the surprisingly great Vita d-pad. Sony sadly switched back to something nearly identical to their old d-pad for the PS4.

Making the buttons closer together and fatter looks like it addresses my main complaint about Sony's other d-pads, namely that it's too hard to pull off diagonals on them. It's a shame they always seem to be so conservative with their Dual Shock designs. It must be an overreaction to the outcry that happened when they unveiled the original PS3 boomerang controller.

[Ucantalas]

So there was that silver 360 controller with the D-Pad you could rotate that would raise up the actualy cardinal direction parts from the rest of the D-Pad construct. I remember at the time thinking it sounded like it would help with DPad problems. As far as I know it absolutely did not.

Anyone have any experience with that thing? Was it just as bad as the regular 360 controllers?

[Lork]

So there was that silver 360 controller with the D-Pad you could rotate that would raise up the actualy cardinal direction parts from the rest of the D-Pad construct. I remember at the time thinking it sounded like it would help with DPad problems. As far as I know it absolutely did not.

Anyone have any experience with that thing? Was it just as bad as the regular 360 controllers?

Someone mentioned it earlier in the thread. I have one as well and while it's a definitive improvement over the original design, it's still not great.

[JonCole]

It's an improvement in that you can more deliberately push in the cardinal directions but it still has a propensity to hit diagonals more than one would like. In other words I don't think it fixes any real problems, just makes things slightly less bad.

[tegan]

I wish that now that Nintendo's patent on their d-pad has expired, Sony would just swallow their pride and abandon the stupid four-buttons-but-not-really thing. Look at how nice the one on the Xbone looks!

 

 

Disclaimer: I have not used the Xbone d-pad

[cowuponacow]

Here's an old Destructoid rant about the d-pad, including some pictures of the actual parts.  It's not particularly helpful because he does more complaining than explaining, but at least you can see some comparisons to other pads.

Aye, I've seen that article. The expletives did little to convince me, but the pictures of the innards are interesting. I guess the main mechanical difference between the 360 D-pad and others is that the extra distance between the plastic you touch and the actual metal contacts — which is presumably what contributes to it feeling vaguely like a joystick.

 

Also, given that most controllers nowadays have both a joystick and d-pad, if you really want more smooth diagonal progression you can just use the joystick. Having a d-pad like the one on the 360 is effectively narrowing the gap between a d-pad and joystick and I don't really see why we need something in between.

Regardless of the quality or nonquality of the 360 D-pad, having to use a thumbstick for non-analog input is a fate I reserve for only my very worst enemies. (I know what you're all going to say to that: "Then why would you use the 360 D-pad, which is so much like a thumbstick?" My answer is that the crucial difference is whether there is a clear tactile difference between pressing it and not pressing it, which there isn't with a thumbstick.)

 

Try playing the original Zelda on a 360 pad to see the effect of the diagonal problem at its absolute worst. In order to make a game playable on a 360 d-pad the developer needs to de-emphasize the effect of hitting the diagonals as much as possible, so games that straight up ignore diagonal input, like LoZ are hit the hardest.

Edit - See also: Sonic games, where the previously rock solid dependable spin-dash becomes a finicky nightmare to perform.

I have! I've beaten the original Zelda with a 360 pad. The controller never bothered me. The Wizzrobes did, though. NES Zelda with a strategy guide and savestates is still harder than Twilight Princess with neither.

 

That's right. I've never had a problem with equivalent actions on the PS3, but with 360 games I have frequently found myself trying to press one direction and somehow ending up accidentally hitting another.

This is all fascinating to me. For a while now, I've assumed that my comfort with the 360 D-pad was probably just due to having used it so much. But this thread is making me think there's something about my brain or my hands that just prefers a different from what most people prefer. I can even remember when I first picked up an original Xbox controller S and tried that D-pad and thought, "Oh, they've invented a better D-pad! I hope everyone uses this now." (Luckily for you lot, I don't think any console designers were listening.)

 

...as I think about it, though, I don't think it's the internal design of the controller that affects me. The main thing I like is having a whole circular disc with a raised cross on top, rather than just the cross, or just four separate buttons. Having four separate buttons especially irks me. It makes me feel like I'm not allowed to move diagonally.

[syntheticgerbil]

syntheticgerbil, Merus, Griddlelol, and Thrik, regarding emphasizing cardinals over diagonals: what about games where diagonals are exactly as important as cardinals? I'm thinking of games like The Binding of Isaac, Jamestown, and 2D Zelda titles.

I can only speak to the 2D Zeldas because that is the only thing on that list I have played, but all Nintendo controllers where you play 2D Zeldas have only allowed you to use cardinals and I don't recall diagonals being hard to perform. Although maybe Link Between Worlds plays differently with the 3DS analog, but I haven't played that yet.

 

But I still feel like even in a top down game where you move freely, if it has tiles you need to interact with you have to orient yourself around you probably need a defined cardinal. I mostly don't like the 360 d-pad when it comes to platformers. Like if I need to duck it's important I can easily press down. It's also horrid to play Castle Crashers on in terms of lining up enemies even though Castle Crashers was developed for 360 originally.

[SilentBtAmazing]

I am somewhat sympathetic to TC and have never noticed any issues. That said I have large hands and am generally pretty bad at games so I figure I am either an outlier or just too bad to notice and assume I am just messing up when controls go sideways.