While using the Elemental Nova skill with the The Ashen Crown helmet the nova stays on the original aiming position and does not move with your left joystick (on Xbox controller at least).
Can this be changed so that channelling skills their direction will also be influenced by moving the left joystyick? This way I can try playing with controller to limit hurting my right hand, which tends to hurt after hours of playing with mouse and keyboard.
Hello. I’ve played up to the endgame in LE right now (that is, I finished the Lagon fight), and I can confirm just about everything that Xanaki said was true. To point out examples:
Mainly the biggest issue for me is the fact that the right stick moves the mouse pointer and you need the mouse pointer for many activities such as applying skills, collecting loot, accessing inventory items etc.
You can’t pick stuff up, you can’t interact with items, you can’t even change zones, unless you pick up the mouse and use the pointer. Path of Exile on console’s able to rebind everything to the controller; they have a specialized cursor for using stash and inventory, it moves square by square but it works well. They also auto-target items, interactibles and enemies for you when using controller.
For me, as of the current patch (or rather, the last one I played, I noticed there was an update recently and I forgot to keep track of version numbers, last I played was 4/3/21), the “best” way to get auto targeting to work is to play the game in windowed mode and move the cursor outside said window. It doesn’t always work, but I’ve had more success actually targeting what I want my character to attack, instead of the direction of the cursor, or in some cases…Just whiffing my attacks entirely and not hitting anything period. To compare, I used to put my cursor on top of my character to mitigate random targeting, and sometimes my Lightning Blast (my main skill) would…Not go anywhere. No bolt, it just fizzles out. And having to reposition the cursor midfight is rather annoying.
Is it possible to have a controller mode where we could use the right stick for attacking towards the direction where you push the stick to.
PoE on Xbone/PS4 does this to an extent, you don’t need to use it all the time but if you need to highlight a specific thing to pick up, you can nudge the cursor over an item, or point at specific enemy to target. The auto targeting and loot pickup for PoE works marvelously though. You should really look at this bit:
Also a key/button bind for ‘Loot nearest object’ so this could be either bound to a keyboard or to a controller button → This way you wouldn’t have to move the mouse pointer to the loot if you are using controller. This could be a selectable action for the A-keybind (left mouse button). E.g. an action which would do in this order: Loot → Attack to the facing direction of the player. Looting should of course obey the loot filter rules set by the player behind the curtains, so loot only visible loot in the order of loot nearest first.
…And have a non-overlapping button bind for picking stuff up/interacting/etc. Again, console!PoE does this with the A button on Xbone (Cross/X on PS4) and allows you to pick up items with said button regardless of if the button has a skill/action on it or not.
With keyboard/mouse you can select a skill and action type for every quick slot easily by clicking on them and selecting a skill/action from a given popup. How do you do this without a mouse using the controller only?
Console!PoE solves this by letting you click the right stick to enter binding mode. Then you point the right stick at the skill you wanna change, press A (or Cross), and it brings up a list of skills you can assign. It takes some getting used to, but it works.
Another thing to consider when it comes to UI: console!PoE, when you open the equipment screen, allows you to page through the various menus by pressing the triggers, kinda like how you can scroll through menus in JRPGs and other games. They had to do this because trying to menu while moving your character would be difficult to do with a controller. So maybe consider a “controller mode” that triggers when you press a button on the controller, which does the following:
Can this be changed so that channelling skills their direction will also be influenced by moving the left joystyick?
Also, this. As it stands, when you channel a skill, you cannot reposition your character, period with the controller alone. You cannot rotate your character using the left stick, which you’d think would be the first control you’d think of (again, having played PoE for console and used aimable channeling skills), but no, it’s still stick to the mouse cursor and the right stick. I can’t use Disintegrate now because of this issue, and that skill looks really good for bossing and big single targets. Please fix this.
Hopefully we can keep this thread going, and visible. We got about 7 months until LE releases, which I hope is enough time to do all the coding necessary for controller UX support, because it’d really be awkward if we released, and the controller support only works half the time. ^_^; Thanks for reading!
Great write up! Pretty much agree with everything said. Hopefully the devs try to implement as much of this as possible.
Hello @Moxjet200 , great examples of controller use will be Diablo 3 (PC & Console) and Path of Exile - POE (Consoles).
Some examples, just hovering equipment will compare the item with with items you have currently equipped on that gear slot.
With Inventory, the DPad servers are more precise than the analog sticks.
When in conversations, the X button will advance the conversations, I think the DPad can be used during the conversations to navigate between the choices, and O to back out.
The Auto-aim to the nearest pack within the direction you are facing when you use an attack / debuff skill is a god send as it allows you to strafe and dodge in one direction. Right now with the analog stick, it’s not precise enough to target your skill, so any auto-aim will be a great enhancement.
Right-click on an item in your inventory can allow you to move an item to and from your stash. For vendors, Right-click an item will allow you to vendor it.
Good write up. After over 20 years of playing ARPGs with a keyboard and mouse, I find controllers to feel more fun, and visceral for games like this.
In addition to all the great feedback in this thread I would like to add one more feature that I’m not sure has been mentioned yet: Autocasting
If this game will allow autocasting (which seems to be required for quite a few builds), then it needs to be built into the UI in some way and useable with controllers. As it stands, even if I do the NUMLOCK trick then pick up the controller, the controller does not function correctly at all.
Here’s hoping you guys can get this implemented at a later date. Thanks!
Hey everyone, thanks for the continued great suggestions. One piece of functionality I’m very excited to share with you all in 0.8.2 is the ability to pick up items without moving the virtual cursor over them. This is being changed to smart area detection and you’ll be able to cycle through items on the ground by pressing up or down on the d-pad. We’ve put plenty of testing and love in to this functionality which helps moment to moment gameplay quite a bit. I’ll continue to poke around for feedback on this after it’s released in the late May (082) patch.
This should be a huge improvement to the overall gameplay experience with a controller. I’m looking forward to testing it. Keep up the great work. 
This is exactly what just recently happened to me. After decades of playing with K/M, I found myself getting bored of ARPGs and the gameplay mechanics.
Then, I just installed Warhammer Inquisitor Martyr and I give it a try to the controller support, and I had a blast with it, the gameplay was more active and required more of my attention, instead of beign an autopilot thing that how felt ARPGs these days. Immediately bought the classic; Titan Quest Legendary Edition for my Ipad and I’m having a blast! And that’s exactly why I came here, I played this game a little bit a long time ago, but I will totally give it a try again with my controller.
What I’ve realized tho, is that there’s no yet a standard button mapping for ARPGs games and gamepads. Inquisitor Martyr (my favorite button mapping yet) is very different from the Titan Quest one, and probably different from Diablo 3 or Grim Dawn.
Anyway, thank you to the devs for the controller support!
Nice. been playing with the ps4 controller. i like the sound of this patch late may. sounds great to pick stuff up easer without curser. thanks for improvments
So, I’ve tried the controller support for the game, and sadly to this moment, it doesn’t seem to be really playable.
I’ve tried Grim Dawn controller support and it’s really impressive. Even better than Titan Quest and Warhammer Inquisitor. I’m sure you’re all aware of this, but GD would be a nice template for the controller support.
Anyway, I would try the game again when 0.8.2 arrives!
It is playable, just not optimal
I only play this game on a controller and its mostly pretty good, theres no content you cannot do. Theres a few builds that are far better on a mouse but other builds like Warpath imo are much better on a controller but yes you have to manually pick up every item by using the mouse - which makes me have an extremely strict loot filter almost mandatory. I played without loot filters in this game when it didnt have auto targetting and still ‘worked’
edit: ive played LE for 996 hours for context, have about 14-16 characters of various types and I think two highest characters are lv 95/96, so definitely possible to do anything in the game currently
Nice, thank you for the answer!
If it’s not too much trouble, could you post your button configuration please?
I am at work and will probably forget later however I have a few youtube videos recorded at various times I can link which shows my button setups
edit:
first video recorded August 2019 - Last Epoch - Controller play - YouTube
these videos recorded a few months ago with zero changes - Last Epoch Vale Blasting Spriggan - YouTube
Last Epoch Hybrid Spriggan/Werebear Form - YouTube
You can see the buttons changes when im using the mouse instead of the controller but generally its -
Potion on LB, Teleport/Dash skill on RB, usually some buff on Y, damage skills on A/X. I think I have ‘move’ on Dpad down which clicks Left mouse. I think Dpad up is the Map button. When playing Minions I use ‘A’ on move/attack for companions. theres more im probably missing
but yes all menu-ing is done on a mouse but all combat on a controller
Hey. thank you very much! Those videos helped me a lot!
While mostly liking the new controller support, there is an issue with cycling through the items on the ground and the overlay map.
As soon as the overlay map is up you start moving that instead of cycling through the items, while it is quick and easy to disable the overlay map it does feel a bit awkward when you’re used to playing with it constantly up.
Other than that, the cursor now hiding on move is great, but because you can’t tell where it is, it can end up being on top of UI elements/buttons, when it’s there it can make it impossible to actually use your skills. It took me a while to figure out this was causing issues and I can see it cause quite a bit of confusion.
I checked and this is the case for all skill buttons, the menu, chat, town portal, map, minimise quest and both minimap resize buttons. It does not matter which skill you attempt to use.
(In case it matters I’m using an xbox 360 controller and have not changed any controller settings)
Edit: Related to the latter issue, this is made worse by your cursor being left about where the skills are when you fast travel, because that’s where the button is on the map, at 1440p in case scaling makes a difference here. So if you teleport in you have a high chance of being unable to directly use your skills without moving the cursor.
Controller is something I’m thankful for. I return now and then to see if the controller support makes the game really enjoyable for me.
It has improved, but there is a lot of work to do here. Let me highlight some of the things it needs right now:
Map: it really needs some improvement here: allow to move around the map with one thumbstick and put a small crosshair to control with the other and select things to see additional popup info. Zoom-in or zoom-out can be done with L1/R1 buttons.
Inventory: for starters, move around the items in the inventory screen by using the cross in the controller. Pressing “A” should toggle a number of options. You can check how games such as Grim Dawn or Diablo 3 (console version) work to have an idea.
Interaction with NPCs: allow to scroll through the options/answers in the dialogue with the cross in the controller.
These three QoL improvements will make the game a lot more enjoyable with a controller. I’ll keep an eye on this game to see controller improvements and try them out as they are released on new patches. I don’t really want to enjoy the full Last Epoch experience until the controller support has been refined and improved.
One last comment: same as with other games such as Path of Exile, this game truly needs a character creator and while I see this hardly ever coming as classes are character-locked, I would still love to see that happening.
I want to play as a male necromancer, but game is gender locked and that has proven to never be a good idea.
Diablo 3, Path of Exile, Black Desert… you get the idea. Gender-locking or character-locking a class is never good for any RPG game. Most players want to create their own characters.
Just started playing and love this game. Feedback is from the view of someone who plays exclusively on controller because of wrist pain and has played lots of games with a controller. TLDR, it’s pretty good, combat is good (almost great), interfaces are an opportunity.
Eagerly awaiting the targeting improvements. The strictly front-facing autotargeting cone, combined with the inability to turn without moving, severely hinders the playability of many builds. Arcane Ascendance and charging enemies are particularly egregious.
I’d love the ability to switch targeting to friendlies somehow. I’ve been playing Necro with Skeleton Archers and Rip Blood. When I specced into Marrow Drinker, it became very difficult to trigger Rip Blood on the minions.
I’ve had issues with using a dualshock 4 and DS4Windows. Don’t have an xbox controller so can’t comment on ability to be reproduced with an xinput controller.
LE loses the input assignments that I have made upon shut down.