Controller based gameplay, a suggestion

[Ahlen]

Uh, better organization and muscle memory works well.

I can use 32 hotkeys without looking by memory pretty well (Not that I have that many skills to use) The game definitely plays better with a 360 controller than a PS3 controller (Better analog stick setup for movement, more ergonomical, better triggers)

[Sajittarius]

two things that helped me:

You can set the hotbars to only scroll through say 1-3 when weapon out, and other with weapon sheathed. Its in the character config->gamepad menu

Also for arcanist based jobs, you can disable the petbar and put any pet skills you want to use on a normal bar.

These fixed pretty much any issues i had with accidentally using skills, and with switching quickly between bars. It also takes some time to get used to gamepad, its a new way of thinking and if you werent in beta or didnt use this before give it time.

[Qualaz]

What your talking about with the hold both triggers idea I already do. If you are gaming on a PC with the controller you can get a program called xpadder. Use this to set one trigger as shift the other as control and assign all your buttons some value not used in the game or make space by unbinding keys not necessary. Then create a hotbar with the appropriate key bindings. I added 12 new slots this way especially since when you hold both triggers it no longer registers anything but the joy sticks so there is no in game interference.

[Iskander]

For Tanks, I can't speak how things work with a controller. For DPS, However, you can put what you need for a given battle in 16 slots. There are 8 hotbars (7 is you don't include the one with all the red buttons) at your fingertips. For one of those, you can have your main rotation skills, and on the others you can put what you need on a per-battle basis.

As a BLM, I have my Thunder 3 for procs, fire for procs, fire 3, blizzard 3, transpose, swiftcast, rage strikes, flare, conversion, limitbreak, freeze....that takes care of any rotation I need right now. And I haven't needed to go into another hotbar yet.

[Kio]

The problem with switching between two sets of bars, is that i suddenly completely lose access to something that is on bar 1 if I need something on bar 2. I cannot use them both at the same time unless I had the hindsight to duplicate abilities across bar sets. This makes gameplay sort of difficult. I'm all for any solution that allows me to have more abilities on the same bar. Also, until you really remember where your abilities were stored on the extra bars you do not usually look at, it causes a delay in your reaction time while you try to figure out what combo of buttons grants access to it. I know there is floating text but honestly, most of the time I'm so hurried I overlook it.

Off topic addition but I need some help from gamepad users: Is there a way to disable the X button from selecting summoner and chocobo pets completely? In previous test phases it was the best way to quickly target enemies and relevant npc's/objects, but now it's completely useless as it always focuses on my pet, and pressing it again opens up a submenu for the pet. I couldn't find the appropriate filter, and it's been rather detrimental to my gameplay

[Phantasmid]

Off topic addition but I need some help from gamepad users:

I don't think the filter works properly for it. I could swear I saw a rep make a post somewhere acknowledging it as a known bug...

Unrelated, but my general setup is two or three bars depending on the class, with macros on down and up on both sets cycling forward and back through hotbars, and depending on class, another macro in the same RT+face button position on each bar that moves one-way like tapping RB would, which incidentally feels much faster to me than actually using RB does, as if cycling with RB has some sort of extra animation to it... I set my filters to disable RB entirely as I found myself hitting it while still holding triggers and changing targets unexpectedly. I keep up and down on the first and last sets, respectively, free for skills I want to be able to activate extremely quickly with no thought, like second wind or swiftcast. Depending on the class I might dedicate a particular button combination to having a certain skill available on every single bar, like Shield Bash always being LT+B.

[Itchyness]

2 completely full cross bars for a CNJ is all i need for me. Yes i have to press RB (xbox controller on pc), but i have already memorized all that i need to do and switch back n forth quite quickly. Example, i need to recast protect in the middle of the fight cuz i forgot to refresh it before a boss fight, but i need to cast cure 2 asap soon after. protect is on my bar2, while all heals are on bar1. i begin casting protect/stoneskin/esuna/watever and while im casting it, i am already switching to my bar1 and targeting the tank as a prep to cast my heals asap as soon as i am done casting my first skill. its really not that hard. hell, playing .hack// on the playstation is almost as close to this as it can get without crossbars. the 2.5 global CD helps with this alot, i have noticed.

[Balashark]

I do something similar to what Itchyness does in his post (sorry tried to quote it but the old stupid character limit restrictions). I also have a set up for running dungeons and another set up for questing. As a White Mage a lot of abilities you don't need when questing, the only heal I have on that bar is cure 2 it's all you need. On the "running dungeons bar" I don't have any attack spells, you don't need them accept for Repose to stun if need be to get away. So some of the abilities you can scale down to streamline it a bit without gimping yourself.

[Lethaltyrant]

My setup is to use the cross bar with a controller i have all my main attacks setup there (I am a pld) and then i have 2 macro bars mainly with buffs other class actions like raise for example my chocobo summoning and calling out for battle and returning him. All my attacks for my controller are on Right trigger while all my potions, ether, cure, and food stuff are under left trigger seems to work well for me my only issue is targeting i have to hit tab so im holding the controller near the keyboard. If someone can tell me a way to macro targeting the way the tab key does that would be awesome.