Any improvements to ease-of-access of skills?

[Forerunner]

Could you please expand on that? I would think that a game pad with the limited amount of inputs from the buttons available would make things even more restricted? How is the action bar handled via a gamepad? Do you have to cycle left/right through them to use or something as you fight?

Movement is handled with the left analogue stick, and moving through menus with the direction pad. The faster you press, the quicker your cursor moves. If you've played video games for 20 years with a controller like I have, it gets quite intuitive.

[Xanthes]

Movement is handled with the left analogue stick, and moving through menus with the direction pad. The faster you press, the quicker your cursor moves. If you've played video games for 20 years with a controller like I have, it gets quite intuitive.

Oh I've been a gamer all my life, just never tried playing an MMO with something other than a keyboard/mouse so it seems a little odd to even consider it. Something akin to thinking of playing a fighting game with a keyboard. Anywho, I will look more into this potential avenue of controlling my character. Thanks.

Will pretty much any PC gamepad with the basic PS or Xbox layout work?

[Forerunner]

Oh I've been a gamer all my life, just never tried playing an MMO with something other than a keyboard/mouse so it seems a little odd to even consider it. Something akin to thinking of playing a fighting game with a keyboard. Anywho, I will look more into this potential avenue of controlling my character. Thanks.

Will pretty much any PC gamepad with the basic PS or Xbox layout work?

Yeah, the FFXIV config has a decent interface for assigning buttons. I use a xbox 360 for windows pad, works great.

I played FFXI for 5 years on xbox, couldn't think of any other way to play.