Do you use the back paddles on your Xbox Elite controller?

Having purchased one of these Elite controllers, now a year later I'm still coming to grips with using it. After I initially unboxed the thing and held it in my hands it wasn't love at first sight. Several things bothered me right away like how heavy it felt in my hands since I had been using the stock XB1 controller which is extremely lightweight to the point of feeling flimsy. My hands ironically seemed to sweat a lot more when holding the sweat resistant rubber grips in the back and I thought that the sticks were oddly loose. The face buttons felt oddly hard to press and the shoulders buttons seemed to have almost imperceptibly moved somehow. Needless to say it was a pretty terrible first impression and after plunking down a bit of money for a controller that had been universally praised I felt really disappointed that it didn't feel "amazing" right out of the box. I actually would go back and forth between my regular controller and the elite for the first week before I just decided to stick with it.

Now after about a year of using it I'm pretty satisfied. I do still think the sticks tend to be a little loose - for instance in Hollow Knight if you move with the sticks there would be a perceptible "bounce back" effect. If I pushed hard LEFT and then let the stick naturally bounce back to it's neutral state my character would switch direction to face RIGHT as if in the process of snapping back from left-to-center it did it so hard that it actually registered as a tiny flick to the right. There are deadzone adjustments I could fiddle with but this isn't something I ever experienced on the regular pad. Apart from that I got used to everything else. The pad seems to have broken in over time where the face buttons are no longer hard to press, the triggers feel fine and the grips no longer feel weird.

The one thing that I never did get comfortable with are the paddles.

Now this, to me, was one of the biggest selling points of the controller. I imagined games where I just wanted that one extra button to have the perfect setup and this seemed to be the perfect solution. Unfortunately using the paddles has been a hurdle I have not been able to overcome. The biggest issue I have is that the controller just doesn't feel comfortable to hold when I have them on. I like to wrap my fingers around the back to have a steady grip which is impossible when you have the paddles on since they take up the entirety of the back real-estate. In this configuration I feel like instead of "gripping" the controller and having a firm purchase on it, I need to sort of squeeze it from the sides in a flimsy manner as my fingers just dangle in the back. The issues seems to be exasperated due to the increased weight of the unit. It's just not comfortable for me.

Every once in a while I try to pull them out and put them on but just as quickly as they're on I'm taking them off as I can't get a handle on the hand placement and instead of making movement in games easier I tend to start fumbling around and get frustrated instead. The XB1 peripheral application for programming the paddles is not great either - the one for the PC is much better to use. So despite being happy with the controller I do occasionally feel a pang of regret for having spent all this money and then not making use of the primary selling points.

Do YOU use the paddles? If so, how do you hold the controller and is it comfortable?

Elite 1? No, uncomfortable and too sensitive

Elite 2? Yes, not too sensitive and more sensibly positioned. Great for fps as u can jump and aim at the same time

No. I thought about it, but invariably I can't help but want to avoid creating muscle memory for a feature that isn't present on other controllers I use regularly.

And, @humanity, I wouldn't beat yourself up with this idea:

I do occasionally feel a pang of regret for having spent all this money and then not making use of the primary selling points.

Because, frankly, the improved build quality is the key selling point.

Only by accident

Nope! I removed these as soon as I got the thing. I'm sure they're very handy for people who get used to them but I just couldn't see myself ever adapting to them.

@rorie: not to hijack my own thread but I decided to edit a part of the original post on my phone and the edit deleted all the images placed in the post. Might be a weird mobile site version bug.

Hmm, ok, I'll see if I can look into that. I know there's a lot of image stuff going on today.

Elite 1 - No I don't think I could effectively use a controller that way

Not on purpose but *one day* i'll train myself. Tim Rogers has a ridiculous video about how I need to do this so damnit i need to do it.

On PC, I use Rewasd to map the paddle buttons to shortcuts (right now, my four buttons are: alt+f4, take a screenshot, start manual video recording, and save last 5 minutes when Instant Replay is on). I don't actually use the paddles themselves though, I just press the buttons with my fingers. I don't use the paddles themselves for any games, but I like that I could i I wanted to!

Using an Elite Series 2.

And I would agree with what others have said -- I never considered the paddles to be any major part of the reason I wanted an Elite controller. For me it was about the build quality, how it feels in your hands, etc. The adjustable tension sticks on the series 2 are dope, though.

I owned an Elite 1 and God, it's crazy how much nicer the Elite 2 feels. It's honestly ruined other controllers for me. I just feel like I'm holding cheap garbage whenever I hold a controller after using the series 2 anymore lol.

I only got the series 2 about a month or so ago, I mapped the paddles to the face buttons, and I've found it really useful in FPSes. For other stuff like AC:O that I've been playing through, less so.

Being able to slide/jump while having full aiming is really nice, even if I'm still not 100% used to it.

I never used the paddles on the Elite 1 and I don't use them on V2 either. I can see them being useful for some folks but I don't play online multiplayer or fast paced fps so I've never found a need for them.

I use two paddles on the back and remapped the bumpers to them. It has actually hampered my ability to play using other controllers since I have been using an Elite for the past 2 or 3 years at this point. Started with the first Elite and now have a Series 2 Elite controller.

@sgtsphynx: Yeah i've done the same with the bumpers/back paddles but for different reasons. (I assume)

I have this weird issue with the standard Xbox One controller where one of the bumpers just stops working, with my 'day one' controller it was the left bumper, then I bought one of the more modern controllers and had the same problem with the right. Maybe i'm pressing it too hard? I dont know. No problems with the PS4 & Switch controllers.

Using the paddles instead is also nice since i've always hated using the bumpers and triggers at the same time, it just doesnt feel good. Thats a problem that isnt limited to the Xbox One controller though. The PS2 controller felt fine but obviously that didnt have triggers.

@boozak: I haven't had an issue with the bumping stopping working, I just don't like using them and the triggers at the same time same as you

I use them for just about every game. Ever since I remapped shoot to the right trigger in Devil May Cry 4, the first thing I do in a game is check the controls to see what dumb stuff I can do to theoretically improve my experience. The paddles offer another dimension for me to find some weird control scheme that suits whatever game I'm playing.

I use all four paddles for the face buttons in any game that offers camera control. Sometimes I'll put the Dpad on them if there's regular item switching. I used just one for the lock-in-place stance in Cuphead and... Flinthook, I think? And I put shoot on one while playing through the Mega Man games for the first time. More power to ya if you can jump and shoot with just your thumb, but I didn't and won't stand for it.

I love the paddles. I don't know how much they actually improve any given game, but they sure as hell feel good. There is sometimes a moment of confusion switching from one game to another, while I try and remember what silly things I did to the default scheme.

Oh yeah, that bounce back is real. I'm on the Elite 1 and I remember it salting my game in Mega Man and Hollow Knight or maybe Slain. It wasn't so bad that I started using the Dpad for movement, but I came close a few times.

No. I tried so hard to find a comfortable grip with them I really did. It's just impossible to grip the controller and NOT press them in at the same time. I have no idea who thought it worked during the design phase, but they were dead wrong.

@legendarysquid: I’m so glad someone else experienced the bounce back issue because it was giving me a lot of grief in Hollow Knight and I always wondered if my controller was defective or is it the game?

I too also didn’t go back to the d pad.

So since you’re such a heavy user how do you hold the controller so it’s comfortable? Do you just kinda cradle it? Wrapping my fingers around the back is very comfortable compared to holding it sort of by the sides and the way the right stick is lower means that my right hand has barely any solid purchase at all.

i bought a series 2 recently and took them off, but i think i will probably put them back on.

I use all four paddles constantly. I play a lot of Destiny 2 and couldn't imagine playing without them now. LB & RB on the top 2 and reload and jump on the others.

I think most controls only 50% useful until everyone in the industry uses them. I think if Nintendo and Sony adopted paddle that were reach underneath using the same fingers as you would on the Elite 2...they most people would use them. Until then I bet over 50% of people (like, way under) would use them even occasionally.

I think that is why most manufacturers of smartphone follow each other designs so closely for various input methods. Everyone want the same functionality and even the corporations who invent new input methods rely on the rest of the industry to back them up for ergonomic issues like input.

That is the catch-22 of joypads. When you were away from standard even if you have great ideas it really has to be a fantastically great idea to make it worth implementing because unless everyone else make the change you input method will be orphaned. For instance, by the end of the PS2 era, first person shooters on consoles all had pretty much standardized button placement. Moreover, the choice of button placement was down to three or four standard layouts that all games could replicate for right or lefty users. During Pone everyone thought 'THEY' had the best layout so every early fps shooter had its own layout...it sucked. However, the software engineers soon figured out that not finding a "standard" was making everyone's games more frustrating. The one enduring different that is too culturally sticks to change is the PlayStation X or O meaning different things in Japan and everywhere else. Is that an exception the proves the rule?

I just got my Elite series 2 controller a bit over a week ago and I don't see myself ever using the paddles in the back. I use the controller on my PC, so if I'm playing something like a shooter, I use a keyboard and mouse, so needing to aim while pressing the jump button isn't really an issue for me. I mainly bought the controller for the build quality and because the controller I was using previously didn't have a battery. I also got one of those wireless dongles, so now I can play wireless even on my PC and the charging dock that came with the controller is quite nice.

UPDATE:

As a small update I've started forcing myself to use the paddles. Someone online said the best way to get used to it is slap all of them on and just force yourself to get used to it. I'm mainly doing this because in Final Fantasy 15 I feel like all the control schemes are awkward and I wanted to be able to easily lock on to an enemy and be able to also hold down the dodge button without it feeling weird.

I've gotten slightly used to it over time but here are some actual cons.

As mentioned by a few people above - using the paddles for a few days made the controller feel weird and unnatural without them. I tried just going back to the default control scheme without the paddles and my fingers were fumbling to find the top buttons and so forth. This does seem like it could get to be a problem where I won't be able to use the controller without the paddles.

My biggest complaint though is that my hands tend to increasingly slide down the controller. In order to grip it and have access to the paddles I need to sort of squeeze it from the slides which means I don't have a very firm hold on it were I to wrap my fingers around the back without any paddles. This leads to me realizing that halfway through a battle I'm now pressing the lower paddle with the fingers I normally use for the upper ones because my hands have slipped down over the controller.

It's weird. I think ultimately I will probably take them off because bottom-line with so much crap bolted onto the back you can never just comfortably put the thing down. Suddenly it becomes this joke pad where every surface is a button because you've got stuff on the front, on the top and now on the back. I wouldn't mind if they released a set of "mini" paddles or had a version of this controller where instead of paddles they had discreet small buttons set in the back - like flat face buttons that were set away from where your fingers naturally rest.