Controller Support Feedback

Character:

Occultist Caustic Arrow Leveling, level ~40, Act 4 Malachai area + all the way to the Slave Pens.



The Good: Feels responsive, easy to use even though I had to use so many buttons:

Caustic Arrow, Spell totem - wither, withering steps, flame dash, self curse.


UI = Nice overall, could use some polish, especially in making things more visible as you check items and interact with NPCs as some overlay windows with item / gem info cover up too much space.

- Liked how much easier it is to loot, ID / sell items and re-enable your auras ( even though it's about times auras were automatically re-enabled ).



The Bad:

- The Mouse Cursor kept popping back up without me moving it, ie it wasn't disable while I was using the Controller. ( xbox controller )

- Some enemies that prolly had ES had their HP almost invisible, ie Shavs, Maligaro etc. Malachai's HP Bar was perfectly visible.


- Obviously you lose quite a lot of character control, as I noticed that when you use a Controller the game will always perform actions at the max possible range; flame dash and spell totems, for example.



TL;DR; Seems like a good tradeoff, especially for chars that rely on 1-2 buttons or when you feel tired and just want to relax taking it easy.


Wouldn't recommended it for serious XP-ing or dangerous fights.

Figure I would tag into this post. Tried out the controller support, and its... interesting.

Some feedback on using it:

Modifying the controller slots is modifying my normal UI slots. These need to be seperate for ease of transition between modes.

I cannot figure out how to change the L+R binding set, and it would be very nice to put all my auras onto these slots. When changing the spell slots, it only allows you to modify the L set, R set or default set. When pressing both, the dual set is not shown.

It does not natively support PS4 controller, which would be very nice. (Last Epoch detects my PS4 controller and changes the UI to match the buttons)

You also lose the ability to bind an ability to movement like you can in M+K.

Another issue is the inability to use tools available on the PC, such as price checking etc.

> You also lose the ability to bind an ability to movement like you can in M+K.

This seems like a critical disadvantage between the two.

A second disadvantage is that there are many things you can't do in the current implementation of controller support. I can't use Awakened PoE trade, or other trade mods. This is a hard deal breaker in terms of efficiency for trade league. I can't easily mass roll maps, and suffer a lot of efficiency for other inventory organization. Switching out to the character selection is unacceptable most of the time.

Moreover using a hotkey based controller support suffers a lot compared to the current attacking & movement, which is way better with native support. And other gameplay based things like looting are way better with native support.

I could of course propose solutions, but instead I'll leave that to the experts. I'd just love to see an acknowledgement of the importance of maintaining play efficiency. Otherwise I'll still recommend playing with a key-binding hotkey based approach for controller users, especially in trade league.

And a huge thank you for pushing on this feature! It's a huge help for wrist-pain-suffers. Looking forward to a fully finished implementation.

This seems to be the most sensible thread, so I'll throw my feedback in here as well.

Done well:
UI (it looks really pretty. Perhaps a little clunky atm, but really solid for a beta)
Movement (thank god it is just left stick. When everything is sorted, this might even be more responsive than mouse movement)
Amount of control mapping (This scheme looks really similar to FFXIV, which is good, because most MMOs/top-down RPGs don't have great support)

Needs improvement:
UI Navigation (keymapping, how to navigate things, navigation speed particularly in inventory and skill trees - it might be better to just navigate with the right stick, then snap to where you are currently hovering when you move the left stick or press a button)
Aiming (I can't emphasize this enough, but we need to be able to aim our character, skills, and distance using the right stick. I'm not sure how to get a good marriage between quick movement and proper aim - a difficult problem to solve)
Loot / Interaction (Could be fixed simply with the above suggestion - some sort of cursor manipulated with the right stick. That said, loot is pretty clunky on M+K too, so maybe the whole system needs to be overhauled [WHERE IS MY PICKUP KEY])


As for a primary takeaway - this is definitely a good start to controller support. A lot of good work has gone into it. Now the bugs just need to get sorted, and then work needs to be done on making controller and M+K as similar in experience as possible. If I ran the current controller support through red maps, I'd die 50/50 to character manipulation and aiming problems.

PLEASE use the right stick. It's there for a reason.

I would not be honest if I said the implementation wasn't a bit disappointing. But as everyone in the thread is reasonably pointing out, its in beta and hopefully can be improved on. The biggest thing was the "all or nothing" nature of the controller mode on PC.

If I look at Last Epoch as an example of a game with native controller support, they do not force you into a completely different UI. The game allow you to use the same UI with navigation done via controller. Its nearly seamless. When I want to use the M+K its there for me to use, and I am not stranded in Controller mode until logging out. It also hides the mouse when you begin to move, which could be another easy fix done here.

The reasoning why this iteration of the controller support forces you into an entirely different UI can be understandable, this should not predicate that it be mandatory. It is a bit jarring to be fully converted to console mode.

I would have much preferred if I was given the option to remain using the standard UI. Have the left joystick act as the left click (allowing the same functionality M+K enjoy with auto-casting a skill). Then adding another binding column into the hotkey page for controller inputs. And everyone knows the M+K people want a binding to pick up nearby loot. Just give it to us already.

To expand further on the issue that just pasting in the console version into the PC is trading. The big bad endgame boss of POE. In the pc realm, we have nearly mandatory tools to assist us in navigating the unwieldy process of trading. But once you go console mode, you are left wondering what are you supposed to do about this issue? Most good tools have some way of guiding you to the item in your stash, which is likely filled to the brim with items. Now I have the worst of both worlds, no console interface for making the trade easier on me, and I cannot use my PC tools to help in this regard.

Similarly, the map device is extremely difficult to use. This is the meat and potatoes of my endgame loop. Using a controller alone to perform this task of setting up my map is by far the worst part of using the controller UI. I am just better off doing all the setup on many maps at once using M+K then switching over to controller to run them. Controller mode just feels like a burden when dealing with the map device.

Controller support wishlist:

1. Remapping skills on controller should not affect PC Keybinds. Sometimes I'd like to be able to switch to controller for less dangerous activities and save some wear on my wrist. I don't want to have to rebind all my keys each time I swtich.

2. Would be nice to be able to use the kb/m to do things like roll maps, dump items into stash, and trade with players.

3. Let us bind a movement skill to right stick and let us bind a skill + character movement to left stick like we can bind a skill to left mouse button.

4. Thanks for working on this. I'm excited to use this feature more once item 1 is adressed.

I am using a PS5 controller, pretty relaxing though some glaring issues.

A being pickup is basically exclusive to this, if you bind a skill to the same button you can sometimes gets caught in using that skill instead of picking up an item. If you also want to quickly loot something whilst engaging mobs and then keep going it feels clunky.

Flasks bound to D-pad. The trigger flasks are perfect feel really well. However the d-pad flasks can be a little clunky to move a finger to without moving your thumb from the stick. We all knowing stop moving in poe = dead.

The solution to the flask problem is to be able to move with the right stick as well as the left. Or being able to bind joystick directions to use flasks(if it is possible to do so).

I'm not having a good time with the fact that choosing Controller input blocks you out of Mouse and Keyboard, and vice-versa.

Some things are easier managed with one thing or the other. If the issue is the UI, why wouldn't make it be like Destiny 2, in which the UI is automatically changed as soon as the game recognizes that one or the other input is being used?

Here's a few more things I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere:

Automatic gem leveling is nice, but will also cause issues in certain situations like CWDT setups for example. Please allow this to be configurable, or implement a method for preventing certain gems from automatically leveling up.

In the Controller UI the inventory opens on the left and other windows such as vendors open on the right, which is the opposite arrangement from the traditional UI. I would suggest picking one style and sticking with it for both UIs. Many of us will undoubtedly switch back and forth periodically between the two UIs so some consistency would be nice.

While browsing the Stash, the shoulder buttons move tabs around rather than change tab selection, and the left and right triggers are used for tab navigation instead. This goes against traditional shoulder button navigation in many other applications, and is even inconsistent with other parts of the Controller UI. I would suggest sticking with shoulder buttons for tab navigation for all parts of the UI.

"

Diznario wrote:

While browsing the Stash, the shoulder buttons move tabs around rather than change tab selection, and the left and right triggers are used for tab navigation instead.

I couldn't agree more, its super confusing. Trying to navigate the stash and moving everything around then having to go back, then being somehow put into edit mode for the tab, and pressing buttons like B for back instead changes options...

There are so many inconsistencies with the control scheme.

B is not always back

L R isn't always left right tab

A isn't always confirm

its just plain confusing to use.