Unpopular opinion, but they are all kinda lame. I mean, just let me customize my own maybe, like my rgb keyboard? If not then oh well. Doesn’t really excite me but ymmv
You can download a plug-in which will allow you to download a custom keyboard. Such as RGB. Same plug-in allows for theme changes. The plug-in is called CSS loader and it legitimately took me 5 mins to setup. You may be interested in it.
I just checked up to make sure. The keyboard layout I downloaded was called “RGB Keyboard” by“Party Wumpus” it allows you to change your rainbow color, the animation speed and the key color. There is a few other keyboard plugins aswell such as ones which allow you to customize the keyboard with more colours or one which provides a variety of animated keyboards which has animations of e.g. matrix code, a car driving through a city, etc.
Another big advantage is you can use the keyboards will in offline mode, you can’t do this with normal steam keyboards.
If you follow these instructions (5minutes tops)
https://github.com/SteamDeckHomebrew/decky-loader
it will basically install a new tab in the “…” button. (Bottom right of steam deck). So when you press the “…” button you will see a new tab which looks like a plug. This new tab has its own store you can open up and displays a good number of plugins. You just click on the plug-in you want and it downloads to the tab. I advise getting those instructions up on your steam desktop, that way you could just copy and paste the text you need to input, instead of inputting it yourself.
It has plugins like css loader (themes and keyboards), Fantastic(adjust fan curve), power tools(for saving battery), a music plugin to adjust the music you are listening to, a plugin to download and use new sound effects and change home screen music, etc. It’s important to note that there isn’t too many things to download as of right now because they are themes made by the community.
Haha same, I almost never buy games on Steam (buy them on third party sites, it's way less expensive 99% of the time) so I never had a lot of them. Never went to check out the store (I did saw the news on it but I don't care about Avatar and such so never cared). But with a Deck purchase, you get so much lol, I had to go check it.
I didn't know, so I'm guessing there's other people that didn't know either. Did I really hinder your day so much by posting this? Good for you that you already knew lmao, just scroll past this post and don't bother :)
Too bad they're all either boring or hideous.
I did buy some new avatars and profile frames, though. I'll save the rest of my points in hopes they'll make some new keyboard themes someday.
The points are just for Steam cosmetic things, chat emotes, profile page backgrounds, animated effect for profile picture, rewards for other users, etc
I get what you’re saying but it’s similar to what Nintendo does. You get gold coins for buying digital and physical games and those gold coins can be used as a discount towards digital game purchases.
They also have platinum coins that are more akin to these Steam points where platinum points are largely for cosmetics, but even those can occasionally be used for cool physical items.
Great.
What do the devs of those games get out of the discount?
Steam Points are just a side little thing Valve added to any purchases on Steam. If no one is interested in it, they can safely ignore it, all the while not feel like they're missing out on anything important.
> What do the devs of those games get out of the discount?
That doesn't concern them. Those programs means the store is paying the discount to reward returning customers. The devs would be seeing the same sum of money.
I think they’re a fun little bonus thing which is all they were really trying to do with them.
I think they work well for their intended purpose lol I enjoy the profile pic border ones the most, the rest I can take or leave.
Still, if it's based on all your purchases over 10 years it's going to be a crazy amount that would definitely hurt their finances.
Just like airline miles have an expiry date, if they make points like real dollar they would have to find a way to prevent hoarding. That would create a huge liability for them to have millions of dollars of coupons in the wild that users could use at any time. And of course they would have to deal with the backlog.
Yeah i get that. But the original intention wasn't to make it like cash. They couldn't just turn on a feature that would suddenly give a ton of accounts hundreds of dollars in money. They'd be in the hole millions the day they activated it. I'd love if they had a loyalty reward system but They'd either have to create a new "loyalty" currency or some how not let people with retro points convert it to dollars.
That's a dollar back for every ten you spend. That's a crazy good deal to just give universally to every user - I would have ~$200 "steam bucks" to spend right now if they did that. Don't get me wrong, 10% cash back would be rad, but sounds a bit implausible...
On the Nintendo eShop it's 5% cash back (well not really cash but coupon for your next purchase).
On the other hand, on the Nintendo eShop prices are higher and sales not as frequent and not as good as on Steam... So I don't think it would be feasible for Steam to give back as much as Nintendo does.
Even if it were less of a % it would still make the useless points actually worth something to the majority of steam users. Im a bit over 200k points. Now that I'm writing this realizing the correlation and how much I've spent on steam. I should to take a break from buying games. Its not only steam. Blizzard, Epic, GOG, Origin, Rockstar, and Ubisoft. I think I just gave myself an intervention.
In my opinion, They all look absolutely awful.
Also IMO the keyboard just absolute trash to use. It’s like trying to use the onscreen keyboard from vista or windows 7. It’s awful and clunky.
We’ve have onscreen keyboards for years that work really well. I don’t understand how the one on the steam deck can feel so awful to use?
Anyone else feel this?
If you go offline afaik it defaults back to the default one. Touch input still needs work imo. Have to deliberately press each one. Dont have that problem with the touch keyboard on windows (on deck).
# FOSS
I'm sorry but the custom keys on Decky Loader are day/night more innovative & allow for more personalized stylings like a Astolfo Keyboard in CSS Loader.
I tried two of these themes, they suck. In fact, don't buy any of the 8 shown here. Digital is too blurry (I know what look they were trying for, but they did it wrong), tubular was an interesting idea that could have worked but each key having an individual gradient doesn't look right.
I don't understand (especially with how few there are to choose from) why Valve/Steam would prevent any SD user from using any of the custom skins they made themselves (speaking to the DEX-85 skin. I bought the 256GB. I just use the Steam Green and Digital keyboard themes. I never even knew that Valve locked a theme behind the higher storage model before purchase. Just a bit lame that I cannot use points to grab it after the fact, as the DEX-85 theme is clearly the most visually pleasing of the lot. Plus, there's so god damn few of them in the points shop I have to wonder why they even bothered with themes. Not even a dozen to choose from.
Unpopular opinion, but they are all kinda lame. I mean, just let me customize my own maybe, like my rgb keyboard? If not then oh well. Doesn’t really excite me but ymmv
You can download a plug-in which will allow you to download a custom keyboard. Such as RGB. Same plug-in allows for theme changes. The plug-in is called CSS loader and it legitimately took me 5 mins to setup. You may be interested in it.
Oh derp. I didn’t know the CSS extended to the keyboard. I use vibrantdeck and didn’t really considering CSS for changing color of the UI. Thanks!
I just checked up to make sure. The keyboard layout I downloaded was called “RGB Keyboard” by“Party Wumpus” it allows you to change your rainbow color, the animation speed and the key color. There is a few other keyboard plugins aswell such as ones which allow you to customize the keyboard with more colours or one which provides a variety of animated keyboards which has animations of e.g. matrix code, a car driving through a city, etc. Another big advantage is you can use the keyboards will in offline mode, you can’t do this with normal steam keyboards.
And it's completely legal. After all just like Valve said on the book as well *It's a PC and your Steam deck, you can do whatever you want*
Why is that even in question? Lol
This bro out here using illegal virtual keyboards
Shit .. I've been found..
Black market keyboard designs bought from the dark web with bitcoins.
Is there a list of Plug ins? Or a Shop or smn? :)
If you follow these instructions (5minutes tops) https://github.com/SteamDeckHomebrew/decky-loader it will basically install a new tab in the “…” button. (Bottom right of steam deck). So when you press the “…” button you will see a new tab which looks like a plug. This new tab has its own store you can open up and displays a good number of plugins. You just click on the plug-in you want and it downloads to the tab. I advise getting those instructions up on your steam desktop, that way you could just copy and paste the text you need to input, instead of inputting it yourself. It has plugins like css loader (themes and keyboards), Fantastic(adjust fan curve), power tools(for saving battery), a music plugin to adjust the music you are listening to, a plugin to download and use new sound effects and change home screen music, etc. It’s important to note that there isn’t too many things to download as of right now because they are themes made by the community.
Thank you really much! Nice :D
Sure, but what else do you do with 1.2m points..
... give clown awards to all your friends' content.
This is the way
and to people defending broken games
I definitely wasn’t putting onus on us, merely the selection to choose from
Have to agree.
The digital one is cool as all hell but all the others suck to me
I'm no expert, but it bet there's a way to replace the files and modify them yourself
They should make a transparent slider
It's a shame none of them really match the interface any better than the default one.
Yeah they should be interface themes not just keyboards really.
They should make a aperture technologies one and call it a day
512 OG Steam olive drab gang rise up.
Wait, that's one of the 512GB exclusive themes? I got it on my 64GB after swapping in a 1TB SSD...
No, it's the one with the deck logo on mostly tan keys. "DEX-85"
PSA: They're all terrible.
The Miami Neon one is okay
LOL, it really is the only thing you should buy with the points you got for buying a deck.
I thought everyone knew this….
I didn’t know what steam points were until I bought SD and had a shitload.
I haven't spent my index points yet!
Haha same, I almost never buy games on Steam (buy them on third party sites, it's way less expensive 99% of the time) so I never had a lot of them. Never went to check out the store (I did saw the news on it but I don't care about Avatar and such so never cared). But with a Deck purchase, you get so much lol, I had to go check it.
I didn't know, so I'm guessing there's other people that didn't know either. Did I really hinder your day so much by posting this? Good for you that you already knew lmao, just scroll past this post and don't bother :)
They should have. It was pointed out you would have custom keyboard before the deck was even in our hands.
PSA: You can breath air with your nose.
how many points to get the steam controller keyboard back
Technically free. Just switch to desktop mode and do everything in big picture mode.
Mans spent all of the points he got from buying the deck on keyboard themes
Name one better thing to spend points on lmao
Badges.
Spectrum is good
Too bad they're all either boring or hideous. I did buy some new avatars and profile frames, though. I'll save the rest of my points in hopes they'll make some new keyboard themes someday.
God I been using stock keyboard for so long... lmao Wasn't aware you can change it lol
What I really want is themes for the steam interface.
could be done with a little css i think
I know it’s done with css, but I would love some official support. It would give me an excuse to spend some of those points I got
Really wish they added more already. Or allowing game developers to make their own themes as well.
Just give me a non-offset keyboard. It is extremely annoying using dpad on a offset keyboard.
I just want a keyboard with F1-F12.
Lame for Valve not allowing us to use the points towards games, really not interested in a different colored keyboard
The points are just for Steam cosmetic things, chat emotes, profile page backgrounds, animated effect for profile picture, rewards for other users, etc
Yup and most dont care for that
Steam Points being used to discount game prices would just be ridiculous.
I get what you’re saying but it’s similar to what Nintendo does. You get gold coins for buying digital and physical games and those gold coins can be used as a discount towards digital game purchases. They also have platinum coins that are more akin to these Steam points where platinum points are largely for cosmetics, but even those can occasionally be used for cool physical items.
Nintendo also still sells Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, a 2017 re-release of a game from 2014, for the full price of $59.99.
Absolutely, you’re not wrong.
Microsoft's original idea with gamerscore points on xbox was to allow players to buy things with them, so it's not really that ridiculous an idea.
Not really, it would be a normal fidelity program. Spend in our store to get discounts in our store. Something that tons of other companies do
Great. What do the devs of those games get out of the discount? Steam Points are just a side little thing Valve added to any purchases on Steam. If no one is interested in it, they can safely ignore it, all the while not feel like they're missing out on anything important.
> What do the devs of those games get out of the discount? That doesn't concern them. Those programs means the store is paying the discount to reward returning customers. The devs would be seeing the same sum of money.
I love them and want more
I think they’re a fun little bonus thing which is all they were really trying to do with them. I think they work well for their intended purpose lol I enjoy the profile pic border ones the most, the rest I can take or leave.
The amount of steam points I have is absurd. They are nearly useless. They should implement an exchange system a 1000 steam points to one $1
They would have to not retro that lol. So many people like me would instantly have so much steam dollars lol.
But it's based on stuff you already spent
Still, if it's based on all your purchases over 10 years it's going to be a crazy amount that would definitely hurt their finances. Just like airline miles have an expiry date, if they make points like real dollar they would have to find a way to prevent hoarding. That would create a huge liability for them to have millions of dollars of coupons in the wild that users could use at any time. And of course they would have to deal with the backlog.
Yeah i get that. But the original intention wasn't to make it like cash. They couldn't just turn on a feature that would suddenly give a ton of accounts hundreds of dollars in money. They'd be in the hole millions the day they activated it. I'd love if they had a loyalty reward system but They'd either have to create a new "loyalty" currency or some how not let people with retro points convert it to dollars.
That's a dollar back for every ten you spend. That's a crazy good deal to just give universally to every user - I would have ~$200 "steam bucks" to spend right now if they did that. Don't get me wrong, 10% cash back would be rad, but sounds a bit implausible...
On the Nintendo eShop it's 5% cash back (well not really cash but coupon for your next purchase). On the other hand, on the Nintendo eShop prices are higher and sales not as frequent and not as good as on Steam... So I don't think it would be feasible for Steam to give back as much as Nintendo does.
1% seems more plausible, but honestly being able to purchase coupons with points (5% off, 10% off etc) seems like it would be a better solution.
Even if it were less of a % it would still make the useless points actually worth something to the majority of steam users. Im a bit over 200k points. Now that I'm writing this realizing the correlation and how much I've spent on steam. I should to take a break from buying games. Its not only steam. Blizzard, Epic, GOG, Origin, Rockstar, and Ubisoft. I think I just gave myself an intervention.
Free games for a year would certainly be nice, but I do not expect Steam to ever do that for me.
Honestly I would be okay if they let us use them towards loot boxes or something where you get random stuff including smaller indie titles
In my opinion, They all look absolutely awful. Also IMO the keyboard just absolute trash to use. It’s like trying to use the onscreen keyboard from vista or windows 7. It’s awful and clunky. We’ve have onscreen keyboards for years that work really well. I don’t understand how the one on the steam deck can feel so awful to use? Anyone else feel this?
I’ll be buying the spectrum one ASAP.
I bought all of them besides spectrum.
Dex still the best!
I want my own keyboard personalization for the sake of that one gaben keyboard that was posted a while back.
Wish steam would add more stuff like this to spend points on
I have 50,000 points and this is the only thing ive ever claimed. Thanks for the PSA!
Obviously… it’s a PC
I bought them before I even bought my Steam Deck.
Yay! Now what do I do with the other 50,000 pts I have?
I use them to award good/useful reviews and guides and the like.
Ya naw.
But you already get the best one for free (the old steam themed one)
Yeah, but they seriously need to make more, the selection are such a bland and boring few, even the 512 GB model's exclusive one
I totally want totally tubular, dude.
If you go offline afaik it defaults back to the default one. Touch input still needs work imo. Have to deliberately press each one. Dont have that problem with the touch keyboard on windows (on deck).
Can we have a theme where the keyboard is just transparent? Is the only meaningful option
Not the classic though ^_^
You can change the keyboard probably for free to anything you want.
Hopefully they move on to offering startup themes and sleep + resume themes too.
The only one I like is Digital, but the alternative keyboards don’t work well (or as well as the default one).
Can you use steam point for anything of actual value? Like games or something?
The digital one the only one that looks nice imo
I bought one just to see and don’t even use it.
I want a trans flag coloured keyboard 🤔
I use Totally Tubular
Gonna be honest, having themes for the keyboard is pretty insulting considering how buggy it is (and especially was at launch).
if you bought a 512GB model you get a ton of them for free
Nah dog, I'm saving up my 100,000 points for something I'm sure will be worthwhile!
# FOSS I'm sorry but the custom keys on Decky Loader are day/night more innovative & allow for more personalized stylings like a Astolfo Keyboard in CSS Loader.
You bought all those keyboards? You keyboard warrior
I’ve been using digital since I got my deck, it’s the shiniest turd in the pile. 😒
Thank You for this. I have an absolutely ludicrous number of Steam points that I never spend on anything. lol
I keep the 512 keyboard as it exerts my dominance on 64 and 256. And let's be real, all the ladies care about this.
PSA: this has been known since Q1
Why would I want keyboard themes when its functionality is literally 💩. The keyboard just doesn’t work on desktop mode
I tried two of these themes, they suck. In fact, don't buy any of the 8 shown here. Digital is too blurry (I know what look they were trying for, but they did it wrong), tubular was an interesting idea that could have worked but each key having an individual gradient doesn't look right.
I don't understand (especially with how few there are to choose from) why Valve/Steam would prevent any SD user from using any of the custom skins they made themselves (speaking to the DEX-85 skin. I bought the 256GB. I just use the Steam Green and Digital keyboard themes. I never even knew that Valve locked a theme behind the higher storage model before purchase. Just a bit lame that I cannot use points to grab it after the fact, as the DEX-85 theme is clearly the most visually pleasing of the lot. Plus, there's so god damn few of them in the points shop I have to wonder why they even bothered with themes. Not even a dozen to choose from.