I setup BG3 on my desktop, thinking of sometimes play there as mouse can be faster for dealing with some things, for example I get frustrated trying to highlight the chest so I can open it because I have to first select a bunch of candles then a book, then a bottle rack, then a empty bottle, etc before I finally select the thing I want to search. Sadly, my framework running Linux is not working so well, maybe I need to get graphics drivers working better or something, not sure… But after it crashing an hour in before I saved, I gave up.
However, I noticed they’re are a bunch of things in desktop that just aren’t there in the steam deck. Tactical mode, what is that? Easily make the entire party sneak instead of having to select each one as primary and then go to the sneak menu and repeat? Grouping and in grouping the party and of course picking inventory… So much easier and better than on the deck.
Any word if the gold status for deck will be improved with some of these quality of life things, or is this just how console play is?
Edit: Ah apparently there is a bug with the seamless UI switching. To play it with mouse and keyboard UI on steamdeck, you have to go full mouse and keyboard. Map all your buttons to the keyboard keys that would perform the same action. There are community button configs for that though. The good news is that it is likely a bug, seamless switching is supposed to work, and hopefully will at some point.
Original less-informed message: Steam deck can also use the mouse and keyboard UI. And PC can use the gamepad UI. That seems to be the difference you are talking about. It auto switches interface based on what you touched last, so you just need to setup mouse controls on your steam deck, lots of options for how you want to do that. Touchscreen, trackpad, a key combination to activate mouse mode on one track pad and another combination or the same one to turn it back off, plugging a physical mouse in… I’m sure there is more, but either way, one of those should get you the mouse and keyboard UI on steam deck.
Good to know seamless switch is supposed to work. Most games just pick one at startup and you need to close and reopen to change. That’s also the case for BG3 but hopefully you’re right and it should be fixed.