Controller Vs. Keyboard, LFG...

I'm trying to picture what I'd do if I used equipsets as a controller player and needed to do something unplanned. It would be awkward for sure, but that's more the unfamiliarity of not using equipsets than finding the spell in the menu fast enough. With enough practice though, I'm sure the advantage keyboard might have would not be the difference between winning or losing a fight.

I mean you keep thinking of stuff that "won't work" so.. you're just gonna keep thinking up random things that controller players "can't" do.

Let's just all play vanilla on ps2 controllers and see how that goes. Yes, I did that for ages. It works if you don't mind 200 macro palettes.

If you really want an answer as to how a vanilla controller player would handle unexpected spells is you have a macro for equipping gear for casting nukes/enfeebles/songs/whatever else but not actually casting anything. You hit the macro, then menu the spell. There you go.

Is it fun? No. That's why gearswap exists.

Leading events, I couldn't imagine playing with a controller while also trying to type to my party. I often throw out information between spells and abilities.

But that's the only serious disadvantage I can see from playing with a controller. If everyone in the party are using headsets it doesn't matter.

FFXI is the only game I play full-time with a keyboard because that's what I started with twenty years ago and got used to it. I don't use gearswap or anything like that, and can use commands via macros, typing it manually, or by doing it straight from the menu. And that's all it boils down to. Adapting and improving on what you use.

I don't think I've ever had a problem with this weird "controller players can't prepare for problems" phenomenon.

Like, this is a very simple page 1 of an older macrobook I was using that I had no issue using in endgame.

If I had to guess I would say that Maletaru has me blocked or something, because I've responded specifically to his edge case at least twice.

Please, for my sanity's sake, could you PLEASE quote literally anyone saying this, in this thread?


I don't have you (or almost anyone) on this site blocked. You responded and then, while I didn't quote you directly, I responded incredulously after your response.

For the 85th time, my point for the last 3 pages has been:

If you're playing without addons and you are thrust into a situation which you did not prepare for, whether that be because the circumstances of the fight changed, someone died, or an unexpected spell or WS was necessary...

It is slightly difficult, but not too challenging for a KB user to still perform that action in the appropriate set and continue on with their life.

The same cannot be said for controller.

I have never once said or implied that controller players get into those situations more often, that they don't plan as well, that they're worse players, or any of the other nonsense that everyone keeps going on about. I've talked about how I would handle this situation and how I do it very frequently. Is it efficient or perfect? Absolutely not. Is it workable? Sure.

The point is: if you're using a controller and you need to (for any reason) equip an equipset that you don't have a macro for, you're ***. You cannot do it without getting a keyboard, or using a keyboard-substitute like some onscreen keyboard or a keyboard on your controller, software that interprets your button presses as keys, or whatever.

If you need to do anything in the game, while playing vanilla, involving an equipset, and you don't have that mapped to a macro, you're ***. If you need to do that on a keyboard, it is laughably easy and takes at most 5 seconds (the first time, and fractions of a second after that).

That's all I'm saying. That's all I've said for the past 6 pages. Whether or not you are the best boy scout in the world who's prepared for everything that could possibly come up and you have the most beautiful macros in the world is totally irrelevant unless we're going to assume that all players in the entire game are the exact same way...because this isn't a discussion about our own personal achievements with your macro page layouts, it's about the capabilities (and lack thereof) of two different input methods.

I'll take it even one step further...the fact that controller REQUIRES YOU TO PREPARE FOR EVERY SCENARIO POSSIBLE already makes it the inferior system. It requires more upfront and also allows less flexibility if (assuming you're not perfect, like some posters here) you didn't prepare perfectly. It requires more of you as a player, which makes it worse.

Replace the word controller with equipset and it would read exactly the same and still be true. Removing the need to have equipsets levels the playing field considerably between controller and keyboard, to the point that the difference is negligible. You can't predict who uses gearswap or who plays vanilla, but you can acknowledge which is superior based on the criteria you set forth.

This was probably the statement that started the whole thing and then the discussion just kinda spiraled out from there. You did not specifically say the thing but the thing is the fuel behind this viewpoint.



This is false for any competent player. As I said earlier, we all typically made generic sets that would cover most/all situations. The key word here is COVER General WS set, General TP set, General Hybrid, General MACC, General Potency, General Nuke, General DEF set. I'm fairly certain us Controller players all had probably 4 to 6 macro blocks permanently locked into basic gearsets at all times that we could quick-action to. Along with whatever high-priority actions we needed for whatever job we were playing.

Thrown into a SC you werent prepared for? General WS Set or TP set. Tank went down and you have hate? DT set. Randomly asked to nuke when you weren't expecting to on your mage job? If yours is a mage that can nuke you *SHOULD* have a nuke set prepared? If not, just use MACC set so that it at least doesn't Super-Suck.

These are the things we do, we cannot Min-Max hardly anything without gearswap because Itemsets were NOT a thing back when the game came out. You had a macro with a limit of what? 8 lines? Thats only 8 equipments you could swap at any given time in one action so we got used to working with generalized sets. It was not Optimal, no but it was very Viable and it should be expected that anyone going to an event should apply at least that much effort to their job. A complete set of workable Equipment sets that can cover most situations. Simple as that.

And its never been slower either, not really. Because anyone who has ever played any fighting game can fly through the menu tabs like its nothing.


So here's my thing, we've backed and forthed about this several times now where controller players prepare equipsets. But ALL players require generalized equipsets if they cant have specialized ones so... Are you implying that keyboard players do not need to? Because I would love to see that in action. Just someone/anyone streaming a full action FFXI session where they're performing all actions and spamming the bejesus out of /equip commands slot by slot forever.

It sounds completely exhausting to me that anyone could do that.

I don't see how "unexpected spells/jas/songs" is easier for keyboard player to do than controller player, if both are vanilla.

How is a keyboard player handling the scenario differently?

They either need to have a macro for equipping gear without casting, which is literally the same macro a controller player would use, or they have to remember what equipset they used for the gear they want and quickly type '/equipset XX' in console.

Are you saying a keyboard is faster at typing '/equipset XX' than a macro, assuming they even remember the equipset number?

Isn't the very fact they need an equipset to begin with pre-preparing for that scenario?

Did every XI keyboard player grow up as an expert in Mavis Bacon's Teaches Typing? Is everyone a 100+ words a minute typer here? I mean I could show you my actual wpm, and it's higher than 100 but I still don't like using keyboard.

How about you, Male, give an example of this scenario that actually benefits the keyboard user.

It just sounds like you can't believe anyone else can play with controller effectively because you can't.

As someone who firmly believes keyboard is the superior device and has done some of what Maletaru is advocating, I still find it difficult to support his view.

One outlook is that keyboard is more flexible, but that is not the only outlook. Because the consequences of failing to be prepared are more severe on controller, I would argue that a controller player may take their preparation more seriously. As a result, you may run into situations where a keyboard player is accustomed to typing uncommon spells while the controller player was forced to make a macro for them and has muscle memory to do them rapidly.

I also think that the vanilla argument is a bit of a red herring, because very few people doing serious endgame will refuse gearswap. If you are using gearswap, controller menus with good reflexes are still sufficient to cast any spells in any order with the correct gear. You cannot cast more than one spell per 3-4 seconds, even if you have maximum fast cast and perfect timing. That is adequate time to select your next spell. So, even if you need to cast an unusual spell, you are probably not going to be notably hindered.

I will compliment Maletaru on his ability to clear the highest endgame using vanilla macros, but I don't see it as that meaningful on a larger scale. A controller player who wants to fully optimize is likely to use gearswap, just like a keyboard player would.

Ultimately, in the very isolated situation of a vanilla controller player competing with a vanilla keyboard player that has excellent typing ability, the keyboard player will be better. This is undeniable fact. But, it's not particularly relevant to the topic at large, and I wouldn't be surprised if every single controller user in this topic used gearswap. In practice, a prepared controller user will not measurably underperform in any meaningful aspect.

Most lua that are flexible, organized, and efficient are like 1000 lines max and 3000 for very complicated jobs with lots of spell casting variables if you don't like to collapse your gear to more than 1 per line.

If you are novice to coding or lua it's a lot, but if you've spent even a fraction of the time it took to level one of your jobs manually then it wouldn't be daunting at all. And since you're already organizing equipsets and macro pages, it's really not a far leap to a system that you can organize to your preferences in real time. It also minimizes the need for extra macros by letting you use the same ones but with different preferences for different situations. I assume that's what Kaffy is commenting on is the idea of intentionally doing things manually in a system that is inflexible and requires excessive work to possibly get the same results you could get otherwise.
So if it requires less of you once you learn it, then it would make it better?

The idea of ad hoc situations doesn't make sense when you write your own luas and do your own controller setup. You write everything out that you wanted to specify or else you don't expect to be able to do that without using your keyboard AND your controller. If you're approaching end game by your own merits, it's not hard to conceptualize situations where you'd want niche gear if you really know your job or talk with other people that you're planning to do the content with.

I've had an occult acumen set for RDM since before dynamis D came out. I thought it would be fun to use again (it is) because I used to play RDM/DRK in abyssea for sanguine blade + stun for solos and oneiros rope was honestly pretty cool /DRK. I've mostly used it in ilvl era to drop impact on things at pull to get quick TP for MP or against invincible/perfect dodge targets with high tier nukes. When I looked up how to fight Aminon, I had very little adjusting to do because that was a thing I'd used in the past and wanted to be able to use since it was viable but not popular. I even didn't have to do much to get my current aminon idle set because it was similar to the idle set I used when I would duo Lilith VD because she doesn't like to drop her pants (because she's a lady).

And when I started playing SCH for sortie, I asked people that already knew what they were doing and they told me I'd want to be able to use helix 1's to close SCs and do very low damage to avoid walling, so I just made sure that when I have immanence out that I'm using a terrible set and then I made a toggle that allowed me to override that so I could make SCs with high tier nukes in a set that maximizes burst+SC damage if that was ever required for any content. So far, it has not.

I don't think anyone that plays with a controller thinks they aren't allowed to touch a keyboard, but it does seem like people that don't use a controller think that maybe they do. Don't be Saevel and get Vanadiel confused with the real world where things happen at random and people need voice chat to hear his voice to know what to do *winky face*. I know you're way better than him for sure. If you didn't see him because you have him blocked, well he said dumb stuff.

Edit: I have no problem supporting keyboard as better equipped to deal with the unknown. Easily. Even more so with addons.
But we don't get new gear or specifically new stats on gear, so the responses to 'unknown' situations that you could have crafted ahead of time won't have changed.

Good players are good because they know how to apply their experience and knowledge, not because they prefer any particular input device.

I dont think "the 2007 player used a controller" is a strong argument in this case.

When I first started in 2009 I had no idea what a macro was. I was using an Xbox360, and my only experience playing a game on PC was mine sweeper and solitare (both still solid games)

I did the Maat fight sans macros. Using a controller. Walking uphill, both ways, in the snow. Be a man.

I eventually bought the chat-pad attachment for the box controller and quickly learned the value of a kb.

That said, I now play on PC, using a controller strictly for comfort and familiarity reasons, and I have a keyboard with a built-in mousepad because using the virtual KB sucks (for me).

fwiw: COntroller is more comfortable to play with while sitting in my recliner, but there's no earthly way I'd play FFXI or FFXIV without a physical keyboard. That's just silly, or antisocial, maybe even misanthropic.

I will grant that if you have a separate macro book for all your jobs that includes all the relevant equipsets and then page up to it in case of a problem, it would solve the problem I've been putting forward. I still think it's a bit extreme to assume that, especially considering jobs like RDM where I have 30+ equipsets, but I'm sure there are...some of them? that don't need to be used in *weird* scenarios so this could probably work, but I still think it's a bit presumptuous that the player (kb, controller, or otherwise) has already prepared for every set they could need to use. Someone, maybe you, in this thread already said they're not often surprised but they still are sometimes. What happens then? You reach for a KB. How often do KB users reach for a controller?



It's not so much that the KB player does equip everything they ever need by slot, but that they have the flexibility to do so if something comes up they don't have macro'd, or they prefer not to macro (to save space in their macro bar, or reduce mental load/mistakes from going up/down macro pages). My examples would be the ones I said earlier: Casting Banish 2 on WHM, Reraise II, Raise II, etc. I don't make macros for all 7 banish spells on WHM. If I need to cast the ones I don't have macros for, I /equipset 45, cast the spell (usually from menu), then /equipset 41.

Others have mentioned "oh, you have 200 equipsets memorized then?" well, no...I don't need to memorize all of them because most of the time I'm not using all of them. On the other hand yes, I do have probably 20% of them memorized? The ones that I commonly use for ad-hoc actions like these. FC for BLU, SCH, WHM, BRD, RDM, enspell for RDM, Phalanx for PLD, RUN, etc. Even if something comes up for a set I don't have memorized, I can look it up in the menus and then equip it. I do this sometimes for REALLY oddball stuff. Here's another example: casting spells under Chainspell. I pretty much always do this by pre-emptively /equipset the set for the spell I'm casting.


I love how the people debating with me are happy to mention that it takes 3-4 seconds per spell, so controller is fast enough, but then turn around and act like typing /equipset 26 takes WAY TOO LONG and you have to be a court stenographer with a specialized keyboard to type 2 words in under 4 seconds. Google says the average adult typing speed is 55 words per minute. That would mean that an average adult (not a gamer) could type /equipset 26 in...about 2 seconds? Maybe 2.5 if you want to count the number as another half-word. I think this exceptionally slow, especially considering it's a word you'd be typing every day, but..."you're not going to be notably hindered"


None of anything I said applies to controller users with lua, because they can just do anything they want from any menu or macro without needing to concern themselves with any of the equip swaps, so...yeah no ***the differences get much smaller when you have a program playing the game for you.


I think ultimately I agree with what Thorny said: it's kinda of a moot point in this day & age because with addons, luas, plugins, etc. you can play this game optimally with any device you want. I only brought these scenarios up because someone said "taking addons out of the picture"

I'd also point out that if you have /equipset 26 and /equipset 28 as separate macros that you use for regular actions, like Nynja suggested a few pages ago, not only is it worse because you have to press more buttons but it's also worse because you have to personally time your actions to make sure they're exactly 1 second apart, or your gear won't swap on. So while you can attempt to separate the actions, like /equipset 26 macro, then go into menu, cast Mage's Ballad III (with /equipset 28 in it?), then /equipset 33 macro...you can easily *** up any/all of these steps by pressing any of it too fast. Macros with all the /equipsets in them are superior by a longshot which is relevant because if you have all the /equipsets in the macro, you don't have the /equipsets separate to be pressed when you need that equipset to play on the fly.

You can, as stated above, have a separate page for them and use them as needed, but again that assumes you know which ones you will need in advance and also requires the mental load of paging up to where you need to be then paging back down when you're done. Maybe it's just me, but I've definitely made LOTS of mistakes on jobs where I have multiple pages of macros by being on the wrong page and not realizing it.


...Seems there's a lot of agreement that, in quite uncommon modern scenarios, KB has advantages. Where are the controller folks talking about all the advantages that controller has? I seem to have missed those comments. The only thing I've ever heard in 20+ years of playing with controller players is about how you can wave the camera around while you auto-attack. Is that all you got?!

How about targeting where you want to switch between a lot of targets quickly and cannot rely on F8 to choose the right one. Does FFXI have a tab backwards combination? I honestly don't know. With controller I'm confident I can hit d-pad left or right and correct myself quickly if I overshoot in either direction. Genuinely curious about this one.

Tab for the right, Shift tab for the left. Switch target only targets enemies.

I suppose that's a draw then, no advantage either way.

Yeah, sure, on paper and in theory, a keyboard might seem to have the edge over a controller when it comes to mechanical skills. But let me tell ya, comfort? That’s a whole different ball game—and it matters. Sometimes, it’s the deciding factor.

Let me break it down with some solid examples.

Take fighting games like Street Fighter 6, King of Fighters XV, or Mortal Kombat, even the old Dragon Ball FighterZ. Now, technically, the Hit-Box controller offers the most mechanical advantage. Second to that? Joysticks with optical levers and a 1ms delay. But guess what?

Punk won EVO USA this year using a PS4 controller.
MenaRD? Took the EVO Japan title with the same setup—a regular controller.
Xiaohai? Dominated EVO USA (KOF XV) using an optical lever joystick.
SonicFox? That guy even took the win in Dragon Ball FighterZ using a controller

Not a single one of these champions used the so-called "most optimal" device, the Hit-Box.

Now, let’s talk FPS games: Call of Duty, Apex Legends, Halo Infinite, Gears 5, Fortnite you name it. The best players? The pros? Almost all of 'em use controllers. Even with repeated nerfs to aim-assist, controllers still reign supreme over keyboard and mouse setups.

Sure, I’ll concede that in games like World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, and League of Legends, keyboards can hold the advantage. But here's the thing—back in my FFXIV days, I raided ARR and HS on controller, just like Taint did. Even now, when I drop into 24-man raids, I’m landing in the top 3 parse with my Reaper or Warrior. Controller doesn’t slow me down.

Now, in FFXI, yeah, maybe for support jobs like BRD or RDM, a keyboard could be better. But for damage-dealing jobs? Nah. I’m averaging 13-15 million damage per Dynamis run with my MNK, and that’s without a GEO backing me just a BRD and COR.

Look, this isn’t the early 2000s anymore when KB > Gamepad was a given. We’re about to hit 2025, and the game’s changed. You can excel on either device these days. Sure, KB might still have a slight edge, but it doesn’t mean you’re gonna dominate gamepad players like you could 20 years ago. Times are different. Players adapt.

I will say the hitbox is more ergonomic than a standard keyboard, and the controller even moreso. As for those players though, they are professionals and literally the best at what they do. Execution is kind of a given for fighting games at that level. It is other skills that win the tournaments. Cool to see another FGC fan, though!

Controllers win against other controllers. No controller player in the history of FPS has ever been competitive compared to KBM players when playing against each other. This is completely ***-backwards.

Why is it "repeated nerfs" and not "removal"??

I can't imagine controller ever beating mouse for aiming, that one is no contest.

Controller systems have bot aim-assist

Legal cheating, in that context. So they do beat manually mouse aiming.

I tend to prefer using a controller for most games but I always stuck with m&kb for XI, even with the janky UI. Just used to it at this point I guess. Plus with all the alt tabbing I do swapping back and forth would be annoying.

Yeah, I get it might be hard to believe, especially if you’re thinkin’ about those old-school shooters like Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, the classic Halo on Xbox, or even the early Call of Duty games back in the 2000s and early 2010s. Back then, keyboards absolutely dominated controllers. The reason?

There wasn’t any aim assist or if it existed, it was so weak it might as well not have been there.

But if you take a look at Apex Legends, Halo Infinite, Fortnite, Gears 5, or CoD Warzone from 2019 to now, controllers? They're running the show because of aim-assist.

Take Apex Legends for instance. Controller players have a movement strafe advantage and crush it with short to mid-range weapons. It’s so bad that a lot of us PC players using KB/mouse—yeah, me included started asking for gamepads to be banned on PC servers or to separate us from console players entirely. On PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, that aim-assist is cranked up even higher than the default PC value.

Guys like Dr Disrespect and Shroud, they love their KB/mouse, but when it came to esports events? They had to learn controllers because their teams demanded it. The only player I’ve never seen switch to a gamepad is Dafran, but that’s ‘cause he’s mostly into Overwatch, and aim-assist in that game is pretty weak by comparison

You, Male, have ignored pages of examples of benefits controller players have.

You, Male, also seem to be the direct descendant of Mavis Bacon and can type 12 '/equip <......>' commands faster than the human eye can see, while controller player is happily using the menu to do the same thing faster.

Just admit using a controller is beyond you. It's okay. This is a safe space.

XI is not an FPS, if it wasn't obvious.

Why are their hands so far apart, how do they hold their controllers like this?



I just googled "Fortnite tournament" and this came up as the most recent event.

I don't consider "leaning back" to be an advantage in a video game. What are the other ones I missed?


You can't use any menu in FFXI to equip a set. I think you might've missed my point by a half a country mile or so.

It's doing the same thing as a macro that has all it's equipsets in it. You prefer to have multiple pages or books with different aftercasts for the same macros, I prefer to designate my idle and engaged depending on what's going on at the time.

I agree that people who build automation into their luas aren't playing the game anymore. If you are doing things and you are hitting no buttons, then program is playing. But if you're using toggles and cycle modes to define your equipment preferences based on parameters you've set, then you're playing the game the same as everyone else whose equipment swaps when you hit a button. It's just better organized because you took the time to organize it ahead of time.

The only big advantage controller has is your reaction speed to getting to your bound spells and abilities while doing something else entirely. If I'm WSing and I need to Cure directly after then I click my right shoulder button to get me Cure IV and then I dpad to whoever needs it. If it's single party then I'm faster at curing on a controller, if it's alliance then keyboard should stomp me mercilessly. If I need to dispel that target directly after that then I hold my right shoulder button instead of just press it. Cure IV having the higher priority and usage so it gets the faster activation even though they use the same button. While I'm doing either of these things I can still be moving my macro pages to get to whatever my next macro before the next global cooldown would be available.