Re: PC: Game constantly asks to setup additional controllers (I don't want to use)

@SteveJackson , I'm sorry I can't follow any of your arguments at all, and I'm not sure if you understood the issue and the impact for your customers.

1. First of all, I know a lot of games where you can specify which controllers you want to use and which ones not. It's not a problem to do so, and to claim it would be a problem is simple not correct (see also further below)
2. I don't want to use any "unsupported controllers". It is F1 23 that forces me to configure them although they are irrelevant for the game (and not even officially supported). F1 23 should give me the option to just say "they are not relevant for the game", as I can do in many other games. F1 23 is the only game ever that tries to force the user into configuring an "unsupported controller" that is not required for the game. Does not make sense at all
3. Unplugging USB or even worse, using Device Manager, is a no-go. I use these controllers for other games I play regularly and I am not doing a constant unplug/replug party with controllers just because one game, F1 23, cannot sort them out correctly. Does not make sense at all. Again, all other games that I have do not have any issues with those controllers. They just use the ones I tell them to and ignore the rest. And it works perfectly fine for all the games. Except F1 23
4. Your slightly sarcastic comment that unplugging would be much easier than my solution is a joke, sorry. My solution is a one-time execution that resolves the issue permanently. No constant unplugging mess for every game I want to play, like you suggest. My approach is much better and easier. Once done, problem gone. Not sure why you would seriously prefer to constantly unplug controllers forever instead of doing a one-time config work-around that takes you less than 5 minutes.
5. I don't understand your speech about "no patch for unsupported controllers" or "remove support entirely for non-allowlist controllers". Has absolutely nothing to do with the described issue. My T248-PS is on the officially supported list for F1 23 so it has to work and the game should be able to handle it (and it does work in general). And, in addition, the game should not get confused by any other controllers connected to the PC that it does not need (this is the part that does not work in F1 23). Like every other game on this planet. It is a very simple user interface configuration that should take EA just a few lines of code to implement
6. Again, my T248 works fine in general. It is just F1 23 that forced me, at each start, to do an initial setup of additional controllers that are not necessary. And it didn't stop asking on start-up until I did my easy one-time work-around. The posting was not about controllers not working, it was about F1 23 forcing users to repeatedly configure controllers that the game does not need 

So to summarize: I have a race wheel T248 that is officially supported by F1 23. I do not have any "controller issues" on my PC. All controllers work perfectly fine in every of the many games I have. F1 23 is the only game that in the config cannot handle properly multiple controllers attached to a PC. So I do not have a "controller issue", but F1 23 has a controller issue. I suggested to implement in the settings an option where I can tell F1 23 which controllers are relevant for the game and which ones not (like other games do). Because F1 23 absolutely can differentiate all the different controllers on my PC. In the mentioned dialogue box at start-up, F1 23 lists correctly all 3 unused (and unnecessary) controllers I have in addition to the T248, with correct identification name. At this point, all I need is a dialogue to click a checkbox next to each of the 3 controllers to tell F1 23 "hey just ignore those controllers, they don't have to be configured, you don't need it". As it is possible in so many other games.

It's 2023...games should be asking the user which controller they are using, and ignoring the ones not selected.

Almost every other game handles this issue perfectly fine without needing to unplug anything.

Thank you, yes I fully agree, this is exactly what it is about.

For me it sometimes feels a bit weird when there is such an issue that is clearly a lack of the game's ability to handle things properly, but as a user I am asked to unplug things each time before starting the game, doing BIOS upgrades and whatever (I'm an IT professional for decades, by the way). I very much appreciate all the support and responses I get here and I know it's a very tough job supporting "the mob" in a forum remotely. But what happens here is that the problem and the responsibility for the problem is just pushed over to the user.

Instead, I would expect EA to take responsibility for this issue themselves. They are the only ones who can resolve it for each and every single user, i.e. paying customer, of their software. And the issue I raised is not about "not working due to xyz individual PC config" that might be difficult to reproduce and handle. It is a simple and standard set of code EA would need to implement to avoid this hassle for everyone.