Mouse/Keyboard vs. Controller: Your Thoughts

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Originally Posted by Arcell

I tried telling them this but because you have to hit 2 buttons, they're going to say you're wrong. Completely disregarding the fact that you can hold one of those buttons down for as long as you need to, as well as press it simultaneously with the confirm button to hit your macro.

Actually if we're talking about macros, it is the same number of button presses. You have to press some keybind to bring the macro bar up, by default it's Ctrl and Alt. Hitting Ctrl + 1 is the same as me hitting LT + A.

If we're talking about a light shot contest, we can both sit on the same bar and hit the same skill all day for the same delay. Only takes one button press if we're talking about the same skill. Also the recast timer on it does bring up a good point. You can get a good amount done and return to 1 for Light Shot before it's up. Not to mention the fact that other classes don't have this problem because they just auto-attack anyway.

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Yeah I just wanted to attempt to reinforce it some. It doesn't really matter the actual argument is something like, "I'm one of the 'best' players and only play with the 'best', if you don't play the way I think you should(aka the way I play) you can't possibly be good at the game. Therefore you should quit now before your suckiness starts to spread."

The simple fact is that the don't want to accept that another way can be just as good as theirs.

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Originally Posted by fusional

are some of you guys being deliberately obtuse or do you seriously not understand? help me out. i've already explained in great detail why gamepad will always always always always be slower and always always always have a lower net dps ceiling than keyboard/mouse. if you don't understand, reread what i said and think really hard about it. objectively. if you disagree you're allowed to, but you're wrong. period. why are you still arguing about it?

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I'm not your phenomenally sound scientific proof has changed my mind and I've thrown away all my controllers and begun to practice so I can be as good as you...

I prefer keyboard but I know a few people who are on the ball with a controller.

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/GC-ASCII-KEYB...rCdg~~60_3.JPG

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Originally Posted by Asiaine

Also dig around somewhere for Yoshi's post on his targetting setup, it works great!

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I have dug and dug to no avail. Anybody have a link?

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Originally Posted by Zaaku

For healing duty Mouse+Key board only.

You just cannot even BEGIN to compare the two. For a slightly less stressful muti-target roles I find the controller more relaxing for sit back in couch play.

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You can begin to compare them, if you set yourself up right and think ahead you can heal just fine with a controller. It might be a fraction of a second slower than keyboard/mouse but you can still do it quite quickly. People here have stated that they have no issue healing with a gamepad.

I concede that you lose on those fractions of a second but in the grand scheme such things are negligible unless you're going for top 100% super max efficiency.

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Originally Posted by Arcell

You can begin to compare them, if you set yourself up right and think ahead you can heal just fine with a controller. It might be a fraction of a second slower than keyboard/mouse but you can still do it quite quickly. People here have stated that they have no issue healing with a gamepad.

I concede that you lose on those fractions of a second but in the grand scheme such things are negligible unless you're going for top 100% super max efficiency.

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Even if your shooting for the moon it's irrelevant, recast timers people, unless you've all found out how to turn them off so you can use everything freely, please do tell how. You can mash cure w/ a mouse, kbd key, or buttons on a controller. It does not cooldown any faster cause you press 1/1000th of a second faster than the next guy.

Maybe I've been playing wrong though, I know that's some peoples mind set, but I though really really though I had to wait for the recasts, I just can't find in the config where you turn them off, please help me out.

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Originally Posted by Enfarious

Even if your shooting for the moon it's irrelevant, recast timers people, unless you've all found out how to turn them off so you can use everything freely, please do tell how. You can mash cure w/ a mouse, kbd key, or buttons on a controller. It does not cooldown any faster cause you press 1/1000th of a second faster than the next guy.

Maybe I've been playing wrong though, I know that's some peoples mind set, but I though really really though I had to wait for the recasts, I just can't find in the config where you turn them off, please help me out.

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That's the point some pro-controller people are trying to make. Though, in favor of the k/m users, they would have a split second head-start, which does give them a slight advantage in tempo (their abilities will be available that split-second sooner).

I still do stand by my change to the controller. I'm not sure why people are trying to legitimately discount one way of playing over another. It's all about preference. I simply prefer the controller.

Controller is still not up to snuff if you've used the UIs of many of the other MMOs out there.

Remember, "better" doesn't mean "ideal", and controller gameplay is definitely not meeting MMO control standards. Menu navigation, for one, is slower than mouse navigation could and should be, and action bars thrive on keyboard over controllers.

So yes, I do play with a controller, but done right, a mouse and keyboard could be far superior. We'll see come 2.0 how they handle it!

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Originally Posted by Arcell

You can begin to compare them, if you set yourself up right and think ahead you can heal just fine with a controller. It might be a fraction of a second slower than keyboard/mouse but you can still do it quite quickly. People here have stated that they have no issue healing with a gamepad.

I concede that you lose on those fractions of a second but in the grand scheme such things are negligible unless you're going for top 100% super max efficiency.

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It is less about the time it takes to target a PT member and more along the lines of seeing the trauma victim's health bar on the right and being able to just click it. Even if it is only a tiny bit quicker it is much more accurate IMO and I can be confident that I will always select the target I need.

Going up and down on the thumb pad works too but if someone gets out of range or is otherwise ineligible for targeting it can throw off your count and you may come in over or short on your party list. It is doable but I'd personally just not rather risk it.

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Originally Posted by Alastor

That's the point some pro-controller people are trying to make. Though, in favor of the k/m users, they would have a split second head-start, which does give them a slight advantage in tempo (their abilities will be available that split-second sooner).

I still do stand by my change to the controller. I'm not sure why people are trying to legitimately discount one way of playing over another. It's all about preference. I simply prefer the controller.

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Yep, and none seem to want to be realistic about the difference in DPS/heals/what ever else, even at 1/2 second fast on the first one which isn't realistic anyway your not going to out DPS me by any significant amount.

So for everyone else:
Besides why would I go into battle with my action bar set anywhere other than the first action I plan to use, so for me it's just a matter of hitting "X" once I'm in range, while I run in and shift the camera to an optimal position, unless you mapped the 1~0 keys to secondary slots (like I did on my G-13) that requires stopping or not moving the camera to lift a hand and press the key you want, you can make the argument that the unnatraul stretch to press "key" while also holding "W+A & I+L" isn't a problem, or that having to move your hands around on a kbd is slower than my thumbs pressing things that are far closer together than the 1 and 0 keys so even w/ the "extra" button presses I'm faster, I win lol.

You may get (I'm giving this to those that "need" to feel superior because they choose to use kbd/mouse) 2~3 xtra light shots(only thing this counts for) over a 5 min. fight, at most 200 dmg/300 secs. < 1 DPS fuck at 10 more light shots than me(this will only happen if I drop my controller, 2 will only happen if I start typing mid fight) your getting 2000dmg/300secs < 7DPS
If <10 DPS is making that much of a difference, and again this is a wildly inflated value that would likely NEVER happen, perhaps it's time to rethink your position on elitism and just not talk to those of us that are part of the "inferior" "untrainable" majority of players.

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Originally Posted by fusional

are some of you guys being deliberately obtuse or do you seriously not understand? help me out. i've already explained in great detail why gamepad will always always always always be slower and always always always have a lower net dps ceiling than keyboard/mouse. if you don't understand, reread what i said and think really hard about it. objectively. if you disagree you're allowed to, but you're wrong. period. why are you still arguing about it?

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Fusional, what you fail to understand is, we are not arguing there is no difference in time between some scenarios on gamepad and keyboard.

The fact is, the time difference is not important, because the cooldown timers will offset it.

There is no difference between ctrl+1 and LT+confirm. Add cooldown (and cast time) and switching from ctrl+1 to ctrl+2 is as fast as LT+right+confirm, but a switch from ctrl+1 to ctrl+5 might be faster than LT+right x4+confirm, I give you that.

Yes, you don't have to navigate to the next skill with a keyboard, but the current system coupled with lag gives you enough time to navigate to the next skill before a keyboard user can execute it.

The difference would be a second at most, but this is where smart action placement comes into play. If you only rarely have to travel more than one step in any direction, cooldown+cast timers will offset the disadvantage of having to do so.

Even taking lag away, you still have cooldown and casting/animation time to navigate. All you have to do is look ahead and plan your strategy.

You can pretend that doesn't matter, but then you have no right to tell us we are wrong.

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Originally Posted by Zaaku

It is less about the time it takes to target a PT member and more along the lines of seeing the trauma victim's health bar on the right and being able to just click it. Even if it is only a tiny bit quicker it is much more accurate IMO and I can be confident that I will always select the target I need.

Going up and down on the thumb pad works too but if someone gets out of range or is otherwise ineligible for targeting it can throw off your count and you may come in over or short on your party list. It is doable but I'd personally just not rather risk it.

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That can happen, but with a little time and practice, 2~3 mins tops, 99.9% of the time it won't, your reaction to the marker skipping a member of your party, which is plenty visible, is to not press "X" just like you clicking on a member and getting the "out of range message". It's not like it's an invisible cursor, it's a big yellow block. At most targeting any member takes 4 presses, I can press up/down 4 times pretty f'in fast. Let's be real here, if the .2 second delay from pressing up 4 times over pressing F5 is enough to get someone dead, then they were going to die anyway. Unless you've found a way to speed up casting?

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post672648

Moving a mouse cursor you can still "miss" your intended target no one is perfect. Go head click on the 20 mobs surrounding your tank 5 times see how many different ones you can get w/o moving your mouse at all. Tabkey targeting through them isn't any better than my controller.

I'm using a controller when playing casually, and using a mix of both when doing the more challenging content.

With the recent adjustments from last few patches, keyboard users definitely have an advantage over controller users.

I still think Keyboard only is best if you like to chat... I can't chat on a controller... and what's the point of being here if I can't chat? O.o!

Also, I have ALT 1-8 and CTRL 1-8 mapped to heals so I can instantly hit ALT-5 to heal the 5th member of my party the moment they get hurt! I even have my ALT key pressed down and finger hovering over the '5' ready to PRESS it.

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Originally Posted by Asiaine

I still think Keyboard only is best if you like to chat... I can't chat on a controller... and what's the point of being here if I can't chat? O.o!

Also, I have ALT 1-8 and CTRL 1-8 mapped to heals so I can instantly hit ALT-5 to heal the 5th member of my party the moment they get hurt! I even have my ALT key pressed down and finger hovering over the '5' ready to PRESS it.

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You can anticipate it, which means a gamepad user could do the same thing. They could hit the skill, select their subtarget and wait to confirm the heal, none of that takes more than a second. If you anticipate the actions of battle, which isn't that hard to do, you can be ready for anything no matter what control scheme you're using.

I can't play WoW or other mmos....I need a controller

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Originally Posted by Arcell

You can anticipate it, which means a gamepad user could do the same thing. They could hit the skill, select their subtarget and wait to confirm the heal, none of that takes more than a second. If you anticipate the actions of battle, which isn't that hard to do, you can be ready for anything no matter what control scheme you're using.

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Fair point, but let's take this scenario:
I wish to switch from Cure (ALT-5) to Cura (CTRL-5) when I see my little tank has gotten hit very badly unexpectedly.
For me, I just right away release ALT and press CTRL and then 5. This is a very fast action. Is it possible to do that fast on controller?

Note: Not saying one is better than the other, and I'm sure its very situational and how used to each you are. I could never use a controller as I am not used to it ^.^;

Although I think we ALL have to agree that if you want to chat ALL the time, then keyboard is the best? (Hard to imagine putting down controller and typing out sentences then picking up controller).

Actually putting down the controller to type is hardly an issue. I can always find a spot to put it down quickly and start typing, I actually don't even think about doing it anymore, it just happens.

Going from ALT to CTRL on a controller is, depending on your setup, going from hitting LT to hitting RT. Very simple.

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Originally Posted by Arcell

Actually putting down the controller to type is hardly an issue. I can always find a spot to put it down quickly and start typing, I actually don't even think about doing it anymore, it just happens.

Going from ALT to CTRL on a controller is, depending on your setup, going from hitting LT to hitting RT. Very simple.

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Ooh, interesting! Sounds like using a controller with the right configuration can be very versatile/powerful. Perhaps just a matter of spending time on it like one would spend time tweaking their keyboard settings.

Therefore.... I shall now expect all controller users to be on par with keyboard users! No excuses!

Thank you for the info ^.^b

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Originally Posted by Asiaine

Fair point, but let's take this scenario:
I wish to switch from Cure (ALT-5) to Cura (CTRL-5) when I see my little tank has gotten hit very badly unexpectedly.
For me, I just right away release ALT and press CTRL and then 5. This is a very fast action. Is it possible to do that fast on controller?

Note: Not saying one is better than the other, and I'm sure its very situational and how used to each you are. I could never use a controller as I am not used to it ^.^;

Although I think we ALL have to agree that if you want to chat ALL the time, then keyboard is the best? (Hard to imagine putting down controller and typing out sentences then picking up controller).

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I own a TS server, and have the means to also run Mumble and Vent servers, if I want to talk to people that bad I'm not doing it in type anyway since you still have to stop acting even if your a pure kbd player, once you start typing you can't do anything else, I can still press buttons on my controller mid sentence. If I'm standing in town then it doesn't matter, if I'm in heated battle content none of us are that worried about chat beyond 1~3 words that I can just as easily type with one hand, but again it doesn't matter I have to stop to chat, but so do you.

And this:

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Originally Posted by Arcell

Actually putting down the controller to type is hardly an issue. I can always find a spot to put it down quickly and start typing, I actually don't even think about doing it anymore, it just happens.

Going from ALT to CTRL on a controller is, depending on your setup, going from hitting LT to hitting RT. Very simple.

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My gaming rig is in my living room, I can't see why I'd play on a 26" screen when I can play on 50 while watching a movie if things are slow moving(crafting/gathering/lfp), dropping a controller in my lap and wailing on the kbd that's already in my lap isn't really a very long stretch.

Yep it is just a matter of LT or RT for CTRL and ALT, so yes I can just as quickly switch from 1 macro page to the other, what's more is, if cure is on 1 and cura is on 2 on the action bar that extra press isn't gonna take so long that the person would die, unless they were gonna die no matter what.

The which one is better thing can be broken down as many ways as we all want, the facts remain:
Thumb presses in a quarter sized area take less time than multi finger presses over 15x the area
Recasts will always slow both sides down, you just can't get around them
Input lag hurts us all, w/o it controllers will be faster too
If the job gets done and done well who gives a shit what your using to play

Chances are if you've been in a number of parties you've spent some time with people from both sides and chances are you couldn't tell one from the other unless you asked, or already knew their preference. I've been asked about my keybinds because of the efficiency that I move/WS when I say "Umm... I use a PS3 controller." people tend to ask how, they don't say, "Oh forget it your not on par with us kbd players, now that I'm looking more closely, yeah you did terrible in that fight, hang on I'll show you the number of times you missed(cause my controller makes that happen), yeah you had awesome DPS(or noone died w/ you healing) but it was all so slow and inefficient."

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Originally Posted by Asiaine

Fair point, but let's take this scenario:
I wish to switch from Cure (ALT-5) to Cura (CTRL-5) when I see my little tank has gotten hit very badly unexpectedly.
For me, I just right away release ALT and press CTRL and then 5. This is a very fast action. Is it possible to do that fast on controller?

Note: Not saying one is better than the other, and I'm sure its very situational and how used to each you are. I could never use a controller as I am not used to it ^.^;

Although I think we ALL have to agree that if you want to chat ALL the time, then keyboard is the best? (Hard to imagine putting down controller and typing out sentences then picking up controller).

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if you already have your target targeted (which your scenario implies) then yes *cancel* *move* *confirm x2* most healers will have cure and cura next to each other so its 4 very fast pressed actions I have gotten very fast with a controller myself. I also very rarely use cure I tend to wait until the tank needs a cura, it gives more time in between cures to regen MP. the exception is if the tank needs a heal while cura is on cooldown which isn't very often. I also set my hotbars up for controller use so that I'm not having to move to many spaces for my most used abilities, I utilize left right and up and down and if an ability is on the 1 slot and the next ability I need to use is on the 10 spot i move left instead of right to get to it quickly.

Man this thread remind of me people from the FGC(Fighting Game Community) Telling people @ one point your holding your self back using a controller then they proceeded to loose to the person who plays on pad =/

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Originally Posted by Firon

Man this thread remind of me people from the FGC(Fighting Game Community) Telling people @ one point your holding your self back using a controller then they proceeded to loose to the person who plays on pad =/

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Wait a moment... playing a fighting game on a keyboard? Am I getting this right?

Of all the games a keyboard/mouse enhances, I would never even consider playing a "fighting game" with a keyboard/mouse.

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Originally Posted by Firon

Man this thread remind of me people from the FGC(Fighting Game Community) Telling people @ one point your holding your self back using a controller then they proceeded to loose to the person who plays on pad =/

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Those were good times

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Originally Posted by Dragon

Wait a moment... playing a fighting game on a keyboard? Am I getting this right?

Of all the games a keyboard/mouse enhances, I would never even consider playing a "fighting game" with a keyboard/mouse.

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I believe the arguments then were joystick vs. gamepad
Edit: I know that's what they were, I mean I believe that's what Firon was driving at.

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Originally Posted by Enfarious

Those were good times


I believe the arguments then were joystick vs. gamepad
Edit: I know that's what they were, I mean I believe that's what Firon was driving at.

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Yeah that's what i meant.

Off Topic a bit, but the only reason to use a joystick in a fighting game is authenticity. It's possible to be awesome at either one. I think the same can be said for kb/mouse vs controller. I know of some awesome players in each camp.

http://www.logitech.com/keyboards/keyboard/devices/5123


and

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/gaming...os/devices/724


=

Happy MMO gamer.... ( i use them in all mmos i play and I have a blast) (Thumbstick for movement while freeing all other fingers for keybinds? Priceless!). Even though you can't keybind everything in FFXIV, you can using the G13 software. Whatever default key the game uses for an ability, action or menu, I can bind that key to the gamepad.....

ew! Logitech. >.<

I use these:

Steelseries Merc Stealth

Razer Death Adder

I use keyboard/mouse when doing anything where my timing has to be precise. When gathering, crafting, and traveling I use my ps3 controller via the motionjoy drivers and a cheap bluetooth adapter.

I play all keyboard all the time. wireless on my lap , no mouse that just annoys me.

for all you kb/mouse users, try this if you have a mouse with side buttons that can be reprogrammed:

1. reprogram your middle mouse button as your up arrow key (or down arrow if you prefer)
2. reprogram one of the side buttons to be the enter key

With that setup, you can do most things with only the mouse. It's been speedy as hell for me.