Controller Mapping Ergonomics Feedback

I have been playing Path of Exile on my PS5 for this league and it has been fun. Overall I would say that i actually prefer the controller for most things in the game and have even started using it on the PC. I do, however, have some feedback that I would like to share and suggestions. For the duration of this thread I will refer to the buttons on the XBox Controller. I use an Elite 2 but the standard controller has the same stuff.

1. Traps, Mines, Brands and Totems are impossible with a controller. You are usually not targeting the monster but rather some other part near them. With a trap you have to drop in front of the to give arming time or you want to preload traps. I would suggest that the right stick becomes a floating cursor crosshair that hovers over your target but you can move it in front of the target and activate the skill. Since this will change the cycling through of loot to pick up I would change that to click and hold right stick and use the dpad to cycle through the loot items.

2. Having anything on A other than move only (empty) makes it impossible to pick up loot off the ground, activate chests and so on. I would allow the user to set move only for the A button on the main controls screen. I can only assign this if I go to mouse and keyboard mode, change it then go back to controller mode. In addition to the x to clear the binding allow user to set it to move only or pickup only.

10. For PS5 it would be great to have a speech-to-text function for chat. My phone does this with bixby.
3. There is no way to assign any of the keys when you hold down both right and left trigger that I have been able to discover. If you want to reserve the DPAD for things like expedition that fine but things like activating my auras could be placed on a double trigger hold ABXY key.

4. Holding double trigger then clicking the right stick is the most unintuitive means of weapon swap I can think of. When holding double trigger there is no on screen prompt of any kind that clicking right stick causes weapon swap.

5. When in controller mode a LOT of stats are missing from the stat pages. Total % life regen and so on.

6. On inventory when you select sockets there should be a prompt that you can lock a gem from leveling with Y. I had to find this out searching the internet.

7. Using B to link to chat should take you directly to chat after the link and automatically put you in the mode editing your message.

8. Green and Red gems are impossible to tell apart for colorblind. With mouse and keyboard I can hover over the gem in the vendor but not on controller. Add the socket spikes to the gems if the user has them set for the sockets.

9. It would be great to have a speech to text function for chatting using a controller. My phone does this pretty well.

Thanks for your time. Otherwise brilliant interface totally changed my thinking about the controls of the game.

mouse/keyboard games and controller games are incompatible if game mechanics aren't degraded to the level of the inferior input system.

ggg is half way through to the lower level and i expect poe2 to make the final step to a pure joystick game where the mouse is only used to point to certain directions and all actions are automated (like totem placement, selection of mobs to fight, etc).

there is no solution to this other than to separate the realms, if either system is superior tot the other there are large groups left disappointed cause they hate the other input system cause they aren't any good using it.

there is no way i ever use a controller cause you can't really customise it, there are too few buttons and there is no skill needed when pressing a joystick in the right direction.

when controllers came up they were for games like flight simulators and car races, when they tried to make them optional for first person shooter we laughed cause there is no way a controller player coud compete against a mouse/kb player, but here we are, they just changed the games cause people lake the skill to use a mouse.

it's just convenience games nowadays and poe is also heading into that direction.

And I will disagree with you here. The very soul of a good product is hitting a wide audience and letting them decide the best approach. Improving the controller mapping will have no effect on you and the keyboard using crew so why would you be against improving it. As for controllers being an outmoded control scheme, two multi billion dollar console game companies would disagree. As would companies that make drones, military drone pilots, airline pilots and more.

Other than traps and totems, controller input in this game is super great for the most part. I can play the game FAR smoother than M&K. I have 12 skills that require one or two buttons max to activate. I have the ability to dodge things that would be impossible with the response time of a keyboard. I can identify things with a single keypress. I have the ability to pop flasks and they group together under one button. I can portal out with little two seconds (make sure portal scrolls are in upper left corner then open inventory with center button, hit A to pop portal hit A again and out.) There is a LOT about POE that is superior with a controller.

Level a char (no totems or traps) through acts with a controller then come back and lets talk.

The problem is controller only changes take away from dev time to design, test, and implement. Theyre very busy right now.

"

kraythe_#9593 wrote:

Other than traps and totems, controller input in this game is super great for the most part. I can play the game FAR smoother than M&K. I have 12 skills that require one or two buttons max to activate. I have the ability to dodge things that would be impossible with the response time of a keyboard. I can identify things with a single keypress. I have the ability to pop flasks and they group together under one button. I can portal out with little two seconds (make sure portal scrolls are in upper left corner then open inventory with center button, hit A to pop portal hit A again and out.) There is a LOT about POE that is superior with a controller.

thanks, that's exactly the argument i need to quit the game for good or stop supporting it forever.

if the input method i hate is superior to the input method i like, i'm more or less forced to play with a unwanted joystick cause i hate playing inefficiently.

this game is f..ed for keyboard mouse play, thanks for confirming it.