I am currently trying to create a hotkey, that executes a sequence of inputs, to switch my equipment efficiently.
What I need is a way to disable all other inputs, while it is executed. As well as a way to only have it executed once per button press. Independent from how long it’s being held.
Steam Input is designed in a way that does not support executing sequences of inputs. That is by intention, because many people would use this to cheat. Lot of games do not allow this kind of automation, which would lead to ban them without realization they were not allowed to do. Then Valve would get blame to support cheating from users and developers.
I learned about it when trying to do it too (but for building a menu to play offline RetroArch game emulation, not to cheat). My suggestion is to use a different software to automate this kind of input sequences.
Setting a toggled hold to repeat auto button is about as close as I feel I get to cheating on Steam input configurations.
I think there’s a way around that, I know there’s a Lethal Company input scheme that will type whole computer commands for you. I need to dig that control scheme up and see how he does it.
I would like to see that too, you know, for science. Well there are methods I guess, because I could automate two keys (not sure if I did more). I was very careful with my wording before to not exclude this entirely, just saying its hard to do and Steam Input does not make it easily possible.
But thinking of that, maybe they create the configuration file with a different third party tool. The Steam Input configuration is just a regular (formatted) text file that can be edited easily. If I have to guess, then they probably used some sort of config generator instead using the Steam Input GUI.
Found it, see this reddit post here.
Here’s a link straight to the controller config: steam://controllerconfig/1966720/3142322044 You can easily open this by sending this link in a steam message, and then clicking on the link from inside game mode.
Thank you for finding it. I did something similar, but only 2 keys or something like that. I know for a fact that this is not impossible to do, that’s why my initial wording was very careful chosen. Its just impractical for most users to do lot of key presses with it, as it requires lot of timing and setup to do the most basic stuff. I always wondered if this pattern can be copy pasted in the file with little changes, to create long sequences in a quick way.
I found something too that is relevant (Counter Strike 2): https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/730/view/6500469346429600836
This is not about Steam Input specifically, but that shows what I meant before. Companies have a tolerance level to a degree of automation and that tolerance level is different from company to company, genre to genre and game to game. If Valve made is super easy to automate lot of key presses and make it sharable and searachable, built into the Steam client, then this could be problematic for many games.
I was able to create an input sequence using multiple actions and manually setting the activation delay on them. Tho my problem with it not ignoring other inputs, while executing the actions, still remains.
Edit: oops, replied to the wrong comment.
As long as everyone has access to the key bindings, I don’t see how that’s cheating. Both my keyboard and mouse came with software that’ll let me program macros, and I believe some Xbox controllers do this as well. I don’t see why having Deck players at a disadvantage against normal desktop players would be fair.
I suspect it’s less about cheating, and more about this kind of input programming being rather annoying (what if you release a key before the sequence ends? What if you press two keys that hold down the same key?) if you want to program it without introducing weird errors.
Your information is incorrect as I have been using Steam Input for input sequences in games such as Path of Exile for many months now. It just isn’t as easy as writing in AHK, but you can do it.
What part do you refer as incorrect? My information is not incorrect. Steam does not support easy creation of input sequences, so they cannot be held responsible. It does not mean its not possible. Or do you refer to the part about some games banning for automating long input sequences? That’s not false information too, because some games detect this kind of behavior as cheating, not all games, some.
English isn´t my first language but if I read it doesn’t support it, I conclude it isn’t able to do it or it isn’t designed to do it.
English isn’t my first language too (its third in fact). Doesn’t support COULD mean several things, depending on the context. In example games never designed for Linux work through Proton. Developers may not support it, but game might work perfectly fine. In context to the Input system, not supporting here means that Valve does not help and doesn’t make creating sequences of inputs easy. This at least puts Valve in a position where they can say this wasn’t designed as a cheat program.
Oh, I understand what you mean now. Thank you explaining, I took your message as “No, you can’t do it and it is considered cheating”.
I don’t blame anyone for it. I should have framed my statement differently.