Wacom Pen Tablet and FFXIV

[Floppyjo]

Does anyone play FFXIV using a pen and tablet, instead of a mouse, that can talk about the functionality, how it plays, concerns etc ...

I was thinking of getting the Wacom Intuos Pro for other applications on windows 10 anyway, but am interested in how it might do in FFXIV.

Thanks.

[Minsue]

i'll get my wife to try it she doesn't have a wacom but something very similar should be a fun little exercise

[Kolsykol]

That uh, sounds very strange.
Is there a particular reason why you want to do this?
I can understand playing card games with it I've done it before, but FFXIV?

[Floppyjo]

Well I need the tablet for editing visually on a screen in a more precise and highly faster way than mouse movement provides. Essentially the pen pointer replaces the mouse cursor or "takes over" the mouse cursor functionality and tablets and pens are designed to be more precise due to the nature of drawing(especially fine work). On top of that I am finding my wrist starts to ache at times from long hours of mouse use. One example of the type of accuracy and control - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9GGMLtmv8Y

[Dustytome]

I would probably look into different mice, wrist pads as well as elevation that you're using the mouse to make it more comfortable if you're using it for long hours. I've not used one myself, but one of the drawbacks whenever I look at drawing tablets again is the pen devices require nibs that have to be replaced and I imagine if you were gaming with it, that would get expensive rather quickly.

[Lianjie]

So this is a really late response but I'm going to reply anyway since your thread is the first one to show on Google regarding Wacom tablets and FFXIV.

I've been playing the game for a year now on an Intuos Pro S and it works great. I have tendinitis and nerve damage in my hands so using a mouse is out of the question. I tried a gamepad and hated every moment of it compared to pen and keyboard.

FFXIV is an interesting beast in that it's the only game I've tried with a free camera that doesn't spin wildly out of control in pen mode. Yes Wacom users, you read that right. It appears to support pen mode natively and that's incredible. If you've ever tried having to play a MMO in mouse mode then you'll understand why this is awesome. For those that haven't it means you don't have to keep clicking and dragging your cursor around. The cursor just goes where you point and the camera behaves.

The scroll wheel on my tablet works just fine for scroll/zoom and to do that you'll need to go to Character Config > Mouse > Mouse Wheel Settings and set Scroll Up and Scroll Down to Zoom Camera In/Out respectively.

All content feels fine with it. I have not done Savage raiding but I did do Nightmare raiding in SWTOR with my tablet in mouse mode. Pen mode feels infinitely better in FFXIV.

You will occasionally need to come up with whatever setting solution works for you when you run up against some quirk. The most annoying ones I ran into were the shoot some moving object quests that stick you in first person mode (one of the SHB Pixie quests does this). Left clicking is less accurate for me because I tend to drag my pen tip a wee bit when I tap it. I tried changing tip feel and sensitivity but this doesn't seem to do much for me. Instead I have one of my Express Keys set to toggle Precision Mode on and off for those rare quests.

The other major quirk is having to click to select something like a door in a dungeon. I've gotten around this by assigning Q as my Confirm button in Keybinds. Need to target a non player thing? Q. Want to skip through dialogue as fast as possible in a non-skippable custscene? Q. Cruise Chaser killed you because you couldn't target the orb to get off the platform? Q. It's important to note that this works largely because I set my target settings to Cone.
Character Config > Control Settings > Target > Target Type: Target Closest Enemies > Type 2: Cone
In other words, you'll need to face your character towards the thing you are trying to select. This does help ensure you don't select random objects around you anyway. I also have targeting of minions turned off for when I'm in town and trying to access the retainer bell surrounded by 50+ players and their pets hanging out.

[Lianjie]

Ran out of characters. Continuing here.

I should stress that I am in no way implying this is superior to a MMO mouse. If your hands and arms are perfectly healthy then I believe the MMO mouse would be superior. I used to use one to hard mode raid in WoW back in BC, WOTLK, and Pandaland and the extra side keys really helped out. To get extra buttons for a tablet you would need to buy an optional stylus and it only nets you one more anyway. I legitimately bought the Pro Pen 3D just to get the one extra button on it but it's bloody expensive and I don't recommend it for sane people lol. If you're able to use a gamepad just fine then that might well be the better and cheaper solution for you.

Dustytome mentioned the nib wear and that's a legit concern. I have a boatload of extra nibs but you can 3D print them if you have a printer and I've heard of someone selling titanium nib replacements though I've never used them myself. The Intuos Pro line seems to wear through nibs significantly faster than my old Intuos 4 but I have so many extra nibs since I upgraded to the Pro and bought an extra pen that I don't care. I've replaced the nibs on this pen three times since 2019 but users who prefer to have a little more room may want to look into the other options I mentioned. I also use my tablet for all computer related things (I work in IT so this is everyday) and you may find your pen use to be lighter than mine.