Remember that both jstest-gtk and evdev-joystick are important in tuning the the joystick behavior:
$ apt install jstest-gtk
and
sudo evdev-joystick --evdev /dev/input/by-id/{controller name} --d 0 # zero's out the dead zone that the hid "event" system inserts into that abstraction layer
see:
* https://jstest-gtk.gitlab.io/
* https://forum.scssoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=273373
* (optionally) https://forum.scssoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=28972