Gamepad Thread

[Mikko]

Just in case someone was planning on getting a gamepad for playing TMW, I wanted to share my experiences with the various devices that I have.

Logitech F310

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A cheap 25$~ gamepad, wired without vibration.
Good enough I suppose, this is what I usually tend to use when playing games, the build quality is passable with the front buttons being a bit finicky, getting the right inputs from the d-pad can be a challenge sometimes.

Logitech F710

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An expensive 50$ gamepad, wireless with vibration.
The big brother of the F310 with much better build quality with all the buttons feeling very solid, slightly heavier due to the bump on the back for housing the two AAA batteries needed for powering this thing.
It's sadly crippled by the wireless range which is hilariously short and tends to disconnect often. Save your money and get another controller instead.

Logitech Rumblepad 2

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Discontinued, wired with vibration.
An older controller with no triggers and square shaped holes for analog sticks, d-pad is more solid compared to the F310. Pretty good overall if you can actually find the damn thing for sale somewhere, watch out for this if you're visiting your local flea market. Mine is borked.

[Mikko]

Wired Xbox 360 Controller for PC

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An expensive 50$ gamepad, wired with vibration.
The build quality and form factor are pretty good, it has a long wired cable and the left analog stick and the d-pad have been switched to accommodate games that use the analog stick for movement. The d-pad on this controller is infamous for its inaccuracy, which makes it terrible for games that rely on it for precise inputs and movement, in other words if you're going to play classic retro games or TMW then avoid this controller.

Dualshock 4

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An expensive 60$ gamepad, wired and wireless with vibration.
A very good controller with great form factor, thankfully has separate d-pad buttons compared to the other controllers although the front facing buttons are much shorter which can be an issue sometimes when trying to feel for the buttons.
Has a rechargeable battery with a low capacity, so you'll be recharging this thing often if you use it heavily in wireless mode. Software support is a bit iffy on linux, I might need to test this one more.

If you have any questions regarding these devices then feel free to ask.

[soseki]

How does it feel when you are moving and attacking with the xbox game pad?

[Reid]

I can't get the 8 directional movement working on the PS4 controller, did you success?

[Mikko]

How does it feel when you are moving and attacking with the xbox game pad?

Currently on the analog stick you only get 4-way movement, so you're going to be using the d-pad. The thing with the d-pad is that it's sort of like a third analog stick that you have to push down to operate, the controller has a tendency to "disagree" with you if you're not applying enough force on the d-pad at the right angle, compared to the other controllers this requires more effort to use.

For comparison the d-pads from the logitech controllers look similar on the outside, but the design is completely different. You can feel that you're pressing down the d-pad in different directions, because it tends to stick on the sides due to the shape of the plastic and the spring inside. The Dualshock 4 has separate buttons for the d-pad, so it's much easier to get the right inputs out of it.

Attacking depends on your manaplus settings, just like on keyboard. The main difference between gamepads and keyboards is movement.

I can't get the 8 directional movement working on the PS4 controller, did you success?

I get 8-way on the d-pad and 4-way on analog with the latest manaplus on debian unstable, this is from wired without the wireless ds4drv bluetooth driver. The inputs from the front facing buttons are different though so you need to rebind those buttons.

I tried fixing up the F310 by opening it up and tightening up the screw for the spring that's used for the d-pad, but it didn't really work.
The Xbox 360 controller looks like it's going to be superseded by the Xbox One controller, so it's possible to get it cheaper than what I paid for it. I decided to switch out the F310 for the DS4, because it seems to work properly on linux compared to when I last tried it, so that's what I'm going to be using for now(proper d-pad <3).

[Livio]

I use an old PS3 controller from a broken console.
Usually Sony makes quality game controllers but I've found something I don't like on this one:

• Non easily replaceable proprietary size Li-Ion battery. I will try to replace it with some 3xAAA 1.2V NiMH batteries if keeps to drive me mad.
• Way too sensible L2 and R2 button. If you put the controller down manaplus can trigger by the minimum pressure on those.
• Disconnects easily on defective cables. You better pair with bluetooth and keep it in charge with cable.

Some notable features:

• Good old sturdy USB mini B female connector. I've repaired a lot of those micro C connector on PS4 controllers but any repair I've done on PS3 controllers was about abused sticks and depleted battery.
• XFCE4 battery panel plugin reports it's charge status with 25% accuracy.
• sysfs customizable LED (Don't know if PS4 one can)

Here's how I use it on TMW:

[ThinkSome]

pokes thread

Greetings, gamepad users. Ewew ukek (Kylin / Sistine) has been reworking the gamepad logic in ManaVerse and I would appreciate some additional testing:

https://git.themanaworld.org/mana/plus/ ... note_12899

There are windows and GNU+Linux builds as well. For self-compilers, clone -b improved_controller https://git.themanaworld.org/ewewukek/ManaVerse.git or git remote add ewew https://git.themanaworld.org/ewewukek/ManaVerse.git && git fetch ewew && git checkout ewew/improved_controller

Comments can be made in the gitlab MR thread OR to ewew or myself in-game OR in here OR in chat rooms