Improving gamepad controls.

I have a cyst in my left wrist that has made playing most other MMOs painful, to the point where I've bought and tried several gaming keyboards/mice to try and alleviate it. Thus far, the only thing that's really helped for me has been using XPadder to simulate keyboard instructions for my gamepad. In doing so, I've basically resigned myself to scrubhood, because mouse cursor functionality for something like that is only passable at best -- barely functional at worst (and it usually leans towards the latter). A vast majority of MMOs are designed with keyboard/mouse in mind, which hampers, or outright destroys, the idea of using a gamepad.

The reason I mention this is because FFXIV 1.0 was one of the few MMOs I could play without my hand hurting. I understand the new controls are meant to make it feel more action-y, and I've grown used to some of its quirks, but it could definitely use a few alterations to make functionality more fluid.

More below:

1) Allow a greater customization of buttons. Holding down, say, L1/L2 while R2 is active, and R1/R2 offering other buttons when L2 is active, would not only allow more buttons per "bar", it would free up the D-Pad to target.

2) Have L1/R1 honor your current target setup. For instance, if I have my targeting style set to "Party", hitting L1/R1 should cycle through my party targets. Failure to allow this makes the Toggle/Mixed options useless for a healer, who requires use of the D-Pad.

3) Allow an option for 1.0 style hotbars. The cross bar is a suitable alternative, but I do find myself missing the ease of use 1.0's system had -- and believe me when I say, I never thought I'd miss ANYTHING from 1.0.

I understand that things like this would take time to implement, SE, but if you could find it in your hearts (and wallets!) to give gamepad users a bit more freedom and intuitive design, we'd thank you for it. <3

I don't know why it can't be "hold L1 or R2 and press RB to target enemies, press LB to target friendlies".

I also wish they would let us keep the keyboard UI on screen, as an option, even if we're using a gamepad. I get that the UI for gamepad looks unique so you can see what is happening, but the keyboard UI has 10 x 2 hotkeys and the gamepad UI has...8. really? 20 vs 8? I know you can cycle through multiple keybinds but it's tedious.

and don't get me started on the maps...

Agreed. I posted a thread with what I feel is a good addition to the current gamepad setup a while back because things can and should be easily enhanced. Only response so far is from a troll, but read it over and see what you all think.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/f...threads/101824

The best solution I found for party targeting was to have a cross-bar setup with macros that would hit those party members. For example:

With Bar 1
I have all my standard abilities on the right side, with all most of my buffs on the left.

With Bar 2
On the left side I would have single target heals for party members 1-4 on the crosspad, with stoneskin 1-4 on the buttons.
On the right side I would have heal, medica, ensuna, and a water/sleep macro on the buttons, with protect, and some utility actions on the crosspad.

With Bar 3
I have a setup similar to Bar 2, but with healing to all 8 members macroed on the left side. On the right side I have most of the common party actions.

On bar 4
I have most of my macros and other large action abilities on the left side; 8 person stoneskin, knock away + sleep nearest target, ect. With everything else I might use on the right side.

On bar 5
I have those things that don't fit anywhere else... Like potions, misc skills you rarely use, limit break, ect.

On bar 6 (combined)
I have most of the marks setup, and some misc macros.

On bar 7 (combined)
Are all the common actions and travel stuff that are not on the normal menu bar.

On bar 8 (combined)
I have the standard menu with some of the overlap from 7 replaced with more useful things.


Using a controller isn't an excuse for being a scrub... You just need to learn hot to use it and customize it making use of macros to make your life easier. When combined with some established marking system within your party, macros can become incredibly powerful. Even a simple grouping of macros based around marking the main tank with O and the secondary tank with X can make the healing of the rest of the party easy to manage.

I'm usually a KB&mouse player, but the gamepad does end up allowing for some things being more intuitive and quicker to accomplish. Have run groups using both just for the sake of limiting the amount of wrist strain I have to deal with. All of it is just about learning and adapting. The old 1.0 system however was just plain clunky and by all accounts worse... Even if it might be familiar, the fact that you would have to scroll through not only targets but also abilities means that it is MUCH slower than any current interface (even clicking on hotbar with mouse).

To Vagrant-0

No one cares about YOUR current setup. And its classy you just called someone handicap a "scrub"

///////Back to topic

I play with a ps3 gamepad so buttons may be different depending on what you use but pay attention to the general idea please.

Besides. The point of this post is a desire to enhance the current gamepad system. I personally play fine as of now with the current layout BUT with an ENHANCMENT of the gamepad sytem to operate by opening(only while the combo is pressed the reverting back to main bar when buttons are released) 8 new blank crossbar action buttons but pressing, L2 then L1 for the left side, then R2+R1for the right as examples. They could do L2+R1, R2+L1, R2+L2, etc... Then you could quickly and efficiently have acess to all your bars, just as fast as the main using these button combos.

switching tabs can be a pain in certain situations. . if only we had more fast switch options but its frustrating sometimes when pc players can literally put every skill imaginable on the screen at once lol we get 16 per set when 32 sounds much better