PS3 with a mouse!Follow

I just had to check to see if a mouse would work on the PS3 and was ecstatic to see that it does.

With a keyboard, mouse and controller all available for inputting commands, activities such as battle, item management, equipping armor are easier than I have ever seen before.

Drag-and-Drop: Thank you! The drag-and-drop UI options for equipping items is an incredible improvement. You can even use drag-and-drop from the Ability menu to assign abilities to your controller hotbar. Great to see the Mouse and Controller actually working together.

The ability to just press X on the controller to interact with items on the ground is a big plus. (Remember when you had to go into the menu to open a chest? Bah, glad that's over.) The auto-targeting of things directly in front of you seems pretty intuitive so far.

And as for targeting, d-pad is UP/DOWN for party members and LEFT/RIGHT for mobs. Woohoo! They really did listen and implement the feedback.

I do hope that the ability to re-map controller functions will be included at some point in the future (Looking at you, R3 = first-person camera. I DON'T want to accidentally 1st person during combat, thank you.)

One problem I did have with all three components hooked up: When I went into the menu via controller, all was good. But when I opened the menu via the keyboard shortcut, I could not figure out what keys moved the cursor around the menu. Left/right/up/down/strafe-right/strafe-left would all move my character, not the menu cursor. Anyone know the answer to this?

Anyway, I had some friends that were not aware that the PS3 would support a mouse, so I wanted to make sure to recommend it to all of those playing on PS3!

So you are saying that if I connect both a Mouse and Keyboard that the layout is the same as the PC? and I have Action bars..etc?

I have not seen the PC version UI. Not sure what the hotbars look like there.

I think what you are asking is if the hotbars for the controller are still present on the PS3 version if you connect both mouse and keyboard, and the answer is yes.

The L2 and R2 hot bars are still there. You can open the Ability menu and drag-and-drop abilities onto the hotbars, or you can use the controller itself to map the keys (using the mouse to drag-and-drop abilities is loads easier!)

I'm not sure if adding a controller to the PC version is quite the same as adding a mouse to the PS3 version. I am guessing that the PC version does NOT have the same L2 and R2 button mapping UI functions as the PS3 version does. Perhaps a PC user could clarify this. Or maybe we can use the screenshots thread to compare.

Since you're talking about the layout for the ps3. I'm curious if the L and R buttons are being used as modifiers and if you can customize the button layout. L1 + x o Triangle Square, and etc are different hotkeys, with the main buttons being something completely separate.

EDIT: something else came to mind. What if you can alter the way you want the layout to be, and you choose to have two or more modifiers, L1 and R1 for example, modify the other buttons. Then if you hold L1 and R1 together you get a third and so on. I hope they allow multi modifications, just have to remember the layout.

Edited, Jun 18th 2013 9:57am by SkilledZero

I think I may get myself a little cheapo mouse for crafting and setting up UI components...

When you change classes it actually gives you a whole new set of 7 blank sets. The only thing that remains the same is set 8 which has emotes and stuff, and the set 1 L2 button side which has sprint, return, teleport, and.....something else I can't remember on it.

When you change back to your original class, all your sets are right how you set them up :)

Target with dpad, hit "X" to lock on, start DPS rotation, mob dies, swap target, lock, rotation, etc... When I swapped over to Lancer I was XP chaining 5 or 6 mobs in a row before I ran out of stuff in my immediate vicinity to kill, and that was level 7 or so. Combat is quick. Lightning fast compared to FFXI.

Starting up the game on PC with a wired 360 controller hooked up, it asked for my preference. Choosing the controller gave me that cross hotbar layout the PS3 uses.

Edited, Jun 18th 2013 11:18am by TwistedOwl

Oh, Wow! So 144 available hot buttons per Class.

I found that the R2/L2 + buttons are far easier to use during combat than the R2/L2+ d-pad hot buttons. This is because your thumb is on the movement stick, and you have to move it for the d-pad hot buttons.

Because of this, I put my Healing, Attacks and Sprint on the R2/L2+button side. I put more menu related or buff related stuff under the R2/L2+Dpad side. Stuff I can stop for a second to trigger, or generally trigger while standing still anyway.

Having used a controller to D-pad thru abilities on the hotbars in 1.0, I'm finding the new Trigger+Button combo hotkeys to be vastly superior. The most basic stuff is all in one place. So with the R2 trigger held you have 4 abilities that are one-button press (while moving). That is more than enough for most basic encounters (for now.) Probably will need some advanced setups for partying and healing roles.

With all that said, if you could map your own controller buttons I would switch the functions of L1 and L2, and R1 and R2, so that the triggers cycled the sets. Just something about the way the tiny little PS3 controller fits in my hands makes the buttons easier than the triggers for general use, especially when holding it down.

That's pretty much exactly how I'm setting mine up too :)

And I agree, they definitely need to give controller users the same freedom to set keybinds as kb users.

F1 thru F12 are customizable through the Keybind option in the menu. They are separate from the controller completely.

They are preset to be Target Party Member 1, 2 ,3 etc. I changed them to be various menu options myself.

I like to use Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, Insert, Delete key for targeting Party Members 1-6. But I will likely just use D-pad Up/Down using the party list to target players.

There is enough customization, and multiple ways of doing the same thing, that I think most everyone will be able to use the varied tools available to create a custom scheme that works best for each Class and play style.