The game is unplayable in SteamVR on non-Oculus/Meta controllers due to insufficient control binding options

[Minecrafter615]

In the screenshots, the sticks are set to be Vector1 (One-axis) actions, which can not be bound to the controller’s stick.

These screenshots are using the PSVR2 controllers as an example, but this issue persists between multiple different kinds of VR controllers on SteamVR. The ones I’m aware of are HP Reverb G2 controllers, Vive Cosmos controllers, and Pico Neo 3 & 4 controllers. All of these controllers have the same layout as Oculus/Meta controllers (Two face buttons + one stick for each controller), and should be able to have the actions correctly mapped to the controllers.

This issue does not persist on Oculus/Meta controllers, whether using SteamVR or using the Quest Link OpenXR runtime. I have tested this on my Quest 1, Quest 2, and Rift S, all of which act as intended on both SteamVR and Oculus’ runtime.

This issue has been present since mid-2023, when the VR backend was changed from OpenVR to OpenXR, potentially changing how Roblox communicated input bindings with SteamVR. This doesn’t seem like a difficult issue to solve, but it needs attention as it has been a constant problem barring many VR users from Roblox for nearly two years. Personally, I have to downgrade to the Rift S any time I want to use VR on Roblox, which isn’t an option for many other users.

Update DevForum post:

VR Updates: OpenXR, Height Scaling and Floor Tracking

Hi Developers, We have some important updates to VR support including: OpenXR support (replaces OpenVR and OculusVR) Height Scaling Floor Tracking Overview We want to make Roblox in VR as immersive as possible so that players feel like they are grounded and positioned properly within every virtual world. Our goal is to align the virtual space as closely as possible with the player’s space in the real world. This includes keeping the floor at the same location in both the virtual and real wo…

Expected behavior

The two actions left_hand_joystick_x and left_hand_joystick_y should be combined into a Vector2 action instead of two Vector1 actions, where they would be able to be bound to sticks. Same for right_hand_joystick_x and right_hand_joystick_y. VR functionality in the HMD is otherwise completely functional.

A private message is associated with this bug report

[Mmm_Wafflez (Sammy)]

This seems like it should be a feature request to add more control binding options for better compatibility across VR devices. From my understanding, the feature requests category hasn’t been accepting new members for some time, but forum staff are actively looking for a better way to let users get involved with it.

[Minecrafter615]

I’m not requesting any sort of feature, the issue I’m describing is broken functionality with generic VR controllers in SteamVR. Rephrased, all of the actions Roblox expects from VR controllers are accounted for in the SteamVR binding menu, but the stick inputs are incorrectly set as Vector1 inputs for each action, which can’t be bound to the sticks properly. This is a bug that was caused by an update to Roblox’s VR backend.