Question bout controller

[Gemina]

There are a couple fundamental things I would like to point out with using a controller.

The first is utilizing displayed hotbars in order to monitor the cooldown timers on your abilities. The crossbar is insufficient for this since it can only display one set at a time.

The second is mapping out your skills in a way that 'makes sense'. Accessing your sets involves using L or R; L followed by R; R followed by L, and double pressing of L or R. The skills you use the most like those on the GCD should be given priority of access. Furthermore, you will need to assign skills to both the face keys and the directional buttons. Again, priority should be given to the face keys due to ease of access. You will need to use your left thumb for both movement as well as accessing the directional buttons. This means movement is sacrificed for the skills you assign the the directional buttons. Assign them wisely. It will take trial and error to get things the way you want, and striking dummies and boss FATEs are awesome for this.

[Alpheus]

Just make sure they enable expanded crossbars (which they can configure even further as far as assigning which "half page" of a crossbar you pull up with the selected input combinations). They can also have traditional horizontal or vertical hotbars in conjunction with a crossbar should they want a "persistent" bar with common traveling actions or to keep key timers in view at all times.

Dpad lets ya cycle through party list fast if healing. Can tab target with L2/R2/equivalent + L1/R1, and as with kb/m you can specify further tab target behavior in the character config tab.

[Vahlnir]

I play FF XIV solely with a controller despite having access to a keyboard and mouse. It's a lot easier on my hands since I have my own set of issues, and it is very responsive and feels "right" to me.

[AurisNix]

I started as a PS4 player and i can say that the customization for controllers is fairly impressive even more so than Keyboard and Mouse but it takes a while to tune it up so just be curious and try every setting you find, it can be confusing and tedious but you can pretty much do anything and more than a keyboard, i actually prefer the targeting on a controller than Keyboard (being a healer main in those days) and the movement is also better but is subjective. Downsides not many but i needed to add an extra hotbar just to see my cooldowns, did savage and extremes on controller too with no issue and 2 in my current static plays with a controller

[Suiseki]

It's very confortable to play with controller I started playing on ps4 and then moved to pc but still using the controller, the only issue I saw before endwalker wiht a ps4 controller (playing on pc) some times my character move by itselft this was a little annoying because some fights you need to stay in one place and with that problem some wipes happneded... xD
But after endwalker the issue seems to be resolved then I bought a ps5 controller and it was good for a couple of months and then the joystick started to have drif... bought a new one and the same in a few months but this is sony issue and not the game.
Then I bought a Xbox controller and I'm so happy with it no problems encounter, I have been used for 6 months in a row.

[Vyrerus]

The first is utilizing displayed hotbars in order to monitor the cooldown timers on your abilities. The crossbar is insufficient for this since it can only display one set at a time.

You can do that, but if you don't like screen clutter, you can also put cooldowns of similar length on separate cross bars. When the one you can see comes off cooldown, you'll know that the other is also off cooldown.

[Renalt]

I've played strictly with controller and the game has spoiled me to the point that any MMOs going forward should have a controller mode if people want to use it.

I put single target attacks on R2 and AoEs on L2. Important but less used abilities on the directional keys for both R2/L2. Then I do buffs on when I hold both R2/L2 at the same time. For most classes that's all I need. I put things like sprint, mounts, and LB on the 2nd Crossbar. I can switch between cross bars pretty quickly.

I basically treat each ability like a special move on a Fighting game. R2 + Triangle for this move, L2 + Left for this move. L2 + R2 and X for this move.

It gets to a point that I can have all my abilities hidden and can still fully function with a very minimum HUD.

[CaedemSanguis]

Week 1 P8s and P4s, quad legend (top phase 6 enrage), im playing with controller

I even know some friends that did world prog with a controller (top 10-15)
so yeah, definitely not an issue

[ZeroSF]

Controller actually works pretty well, it can be weird at first trying to figure out how to get around the menu's, but it is actually pretty intuitive when you do. Now, there's many setting you will need to change or enable to make using a controller actually good, there's tons of videos about this so I recommend looking them up.

For casual content, and some light high end content I'd say a controller is actually superior to M&K. With a controller you have access to 32(max 48) ability slots that can be easily accessed using just your triggers and left/right dpads, this is a massive QOL improvement over stretching your hand around a keyboard. I actually originally used to play FF14 and other MMO's with M&K, but FF14 with it's constant and plentiful ability rotations starting to cause my joints to hurt and my carpal bone to burn, so I had no choice but to make the switch.

Other benefits is that it can make keeping track of combo's easier IMO, I find keeping track of Ninja's mudra' super easy on controller, much more so than on PC.

Now controller isn't perfect, there's still many issues, I'll go over many I've come across.

The big one is targeting, precise targeting with the controller is basically impossible, which can make healing with multi alliances or non party members extremely frustrating, though this is less of a problem for healers in standard 4 to 8 player activities. The problems with targeting can also affect you if you are required to quickly switch to a precise target in a group of hostiles, this is mostly a problem for me in PVP, where sniping low health players is important. Now one thing I will say, I find simple tab targeting easier on controller, it's just precise targeting that is bad.
Customizing your Hud and assigning abilities to your Hotbars is super annoying with a controller. seriously, if you have a mouse just use it for these, it's so much easier just to drag and drop.
Another big, and annoying issue I've come across is when pressing left Dpad up or down abilities whilst switching between your stacked Hotbars can cause you to target yourself. For example, if you press R2/L2 twice to access your secondary cross hotbar and press left Dpad down and quickly let go of the trigger you will use the ability on your original target but then end up targeting yourself, which is annoying asf and will happen to you constantly in higher level content.
Another issue with controller is that you are kind of limited to the slots assignable to buttons, yes you can activate the cursor mode with a controller, but in combat that isn't really an option. Whereas with M&K you can assign emotes, raid symbols, macros, etc to slots that you can just easily press with your mouse.

All in all, it's very viable for most content, but in more demanding situations and high level playing a M&K is kind of required.

[Wanzzo]

I din't read any answer from others, so sorry if I'm double typing anything.

Personaly, I like to play using a controller for some reasons:

- to target party members you just need to press "down" the D-pad. This is awesome when you play as healer.

- you can configure the HUD in a way you can see all skills/spells on screen (WXYB or whatever it's the name in the crossbar configs. Just allow them to be always displayed and pick them to show the second crossbar. Then, put all skills/spells between bar 1 and 2). To access the second bar, just click and hold L2 or R2 two times

- it's take a time to master precision of moviments (for jumpings especially), but it's great after you understand it.

- all the other aspects is the same as keyboard in terms of gameplay. Some people like to use controller even using PC (myself included).

- you can combine the use of mouse/keyboard and controller as well as more tabs from the keyboard configuration allowing you the use of more bars than regular keyboard only users.
- there are some videos for tips about using controller to play FFXIV in a really competitive and functional way for high end content. Look for them on youtube