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Comment by blibble | Hacker News Reader

in WoW characters have something like 50 abilities

unless they remove 95% of them from WoW I don't see how it could ever be possible to play on a controller

(vs. something like overwatch that has maybe 4 abilities per hero)

There are already mods like ConsolePort which allow you to map abilities and actions to certain button combinations. Certainly not straight forward, but it's allowed for playing WoW on the steam deck, for instance.

https://github.com/seblindfors/ConsolePort

WoW also supports controller directly, now.

In WoW classes have between 21-39 abilities, the average is around 30, in FF14 it is fairly similar (33 is the max). I recommend to look at the FF14 Comprehensive Controller Guide if you want to see how this problem has been solved. And it is viable as some of the FF14 top tier raiders are playing on controller along with a lots of average player.

https://www.akhmorning.com/resources/controller-guide/

edit: typos and punctuation and link updated to the up to date guide

I play on controller for 90% of my interactions.

- with L1, R1 shoulder buttons, I'm able to map ALT (L1), SHIFT (R1), ALT+SHIFT(L1+R1) for directional buttons UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, A, B, X, Y giving me a combined total of 32 buttons.

- With Right Shoulder, I'm able to map CTRL, and gain an additional 32 hotkey buttons by combining it with L/R (Alt/Shift)

- I leave Left Shoulder free for targeting commands (L2+Down for nearest, Up for mob targeting me, L/R for selection, and so on).

- L3 (analog click) and R3 (analog click) buttons do other things, such as activate mouse click under my crosshair, or in combination with CTRL/ALT/SHIFT do more, like mount+dismount.

It's very easy... my main struggle is with targeting which FFXIV has gotten down pat. ConsolePort addon solves this in part, but isn't perfect. Blizzard has to work this out, then it will be fine.

In fact, it is superior to a keyboard/mouse combination because I can have 64 commands on hotkey, plus movement + look separate from that and Left/Right mouse clicks.

How many buttons can you press on the keyboard without lifting your fingers away from WASD or movement keys?

> Blizzard has to work this out

Action targeting is the harbinger of that. On some melee classes you don't have to target anymore if you're using CC's.

Just checked it out -- definitely a step in the right direction.

Plenty of FFXIV players get along just fine with official controller support, and a few WoW players already playing with controllers. (Let's ignore any mages using Kinect gestures for now...)

However, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some friction from existing WoW players, that might not be so patient with some of the new players jumping on with controllers. The atmosphere just isn't the same there.

Ffxiv players get along fine because of the higher global cooldown and streamlined button press sequences, with very few procs that change what you have to press

1 sec GCD + proc fest wouldn't work well with the same control scheme, and the community would have a meltdown if they changed that

I always find it amusing just how conservative gamers are

Controller users benefit from lower cool down, more action sequence. In a basic controller set-up, you have access to 32 hotkeys, in addition to directional and camera movement (L/R analog). With some additional setup, you can get up to 64 hotkeys easily without too many compromises.

How many keyboard users can access that many from one hand?

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