Forever Loving Gamepad Support in WoW Forever

I’m no novice when it comes to using a gamepad in games, but when it comes to MMORPGs, it’s been a frustrating experience.

My first foray into using a gamepad in an MMO began with Final Fantasy 11. The game played less like an MMO and more like an RPG with the selection screen, so it made sense. Selecting the menus, targeting, conversations; it all flowed better with a gamepad. But as MMOs began to evolve and build better UI systems, controllers crept out of my life.

Most recently, the only time I’ve played an MMO with a gamepad has been at a friend’s house. I brought my PS5 to their house because four of us were going to dungeon in FFXIV, and out of all of us, I was the only one who the means to play it with a controller. I booted up the game, and nearly immediately my friends threw us into a dungeon. If I remember correctly, it was Ktisis Hyperboreia from the Endwalker expansion. And I was healing.

We survived, but not without me stumbling through my spells and rotation.

So learning that World of Warcraft Forever was going to have an alpha of their gamepad support, it piqued my interest. My assumptions were correct, too. It would function much like how I remember in FFXIV. The bumper and trigger buttons would allow you to have a multitude of buttons to press.

The First Attempt

While I started my experience in the WoWF beta on keyboard, I told my friends I wanted to try the gamepad to see how I liked it. I will be the first to admit that it was incredibly strange, but the more I used it, the more I loved it.

My Skyborne mage was about level 12 at that point, and I wanted to see how it would feel running around the world. Left stick move, right stick control the camera—simple enough. Bumpers to target allies or enemies, triggers to select which action bar was in use. It was starting to make sense.

Admittedly, combat still scared me, in a sense. For the nearly twenty years I’ve played WoW, I’ve always wanted to feel prepared when going into combat. This was now something that threw a wrench in that mindset. I had to be uncomfortable to get comfortable.

And…wow.

Yes, it's rough at times, but it fundamentally has changed how I view the game and experience it. The movement is very smooth for me, and it took me a while to realize that you can walk if you barely move the controller stick, and the same for moving backwards.

My biggest complaint so far with the movement system is that combat can sometimes feel frustrating during combat. If you pan your camera during it, it turns your character, where I want to circle my camera around the battle to see all angles. Also needing to remember to barely move the stick backwards to walk backwards might make a tank get crit or dazed. So, there's room for improvement on that front. I also completely understand if I've missed something related to this. There was NOT much of a tutorial!

Looking at the above, pressing nothing (first photo) you have the option for the center two bars. Pressing RT, the eight options on the right (second photo). Pressing both LT and RT is the bottom two (third photo). Pressing LT is the left eight buttons. And of course the buttons do change depending on the type of controller. The left ones remain the areas, but the right on Xbox (going clockwise) are Y, B, A, X. On a Playstation controller, it's Triangle, Circle, X, Square.

Sorry, no native support for Switch Pro controllers (someone may have tried successfully, I didn't!).

At a certain point, once you're comfortable, it becomes rote. I remember that RT and Y on my controller is my Holy Strike, and I also remember on my mage that RT and Y is my Arcane Intellect.

And even further, you start remembering all of the shortcuts to get to things like your bag (which has two ways to get to it on controller!), professions, and you start being able to play the game and not have to worry about "which button combo is this again?"

Menus and the Likes

You've got the movements down, so then you want to start remembering what to do to open your Professions, or your Talents. It's a radial system when you press the Start button.

By the time of writing this blog, (so now even two full days), I know Start and then right cardinal with the movement stick is my bag (or, RT & LT and B).

One nice thing I've noticed about all the menus is that the bumper scrolls through a lot of things. In my spellbook, it flips between the different spec spells, Retribution, Protection, Holy. In the professions tab, it moves between all your professions, so on my Paladin it goes: Main Profession Tab, Blacksmithing, Mining, Fishing, Cooking."

Navigating some of the options like listing yourself in a dungeon, for example, 100% takes more than if you were just using your keyboard and mouse. But, it has made the game feel more like an RPG to me, and that has been something that I've lacked in MMOs for a while.

The best way that I can describe this is an actual feeling of nostalgia. Because it's a new way to experience the game, I have a really big sense of nostalgia. Plus, the new lighting system helps a ton to make the world feel different but similar.

Once I worked on my professions and experiencing combat from level 1-12 on my Paladin, I dove right into fishing. And holy crap. Fishing is perfect with controller.

Slap on a fishing pole, and cast away into some water. It's so easy to fish. Cast your line, and then a little display for X above the words "Fishing Bobber" will let you know to press X when you have a fish on the line.

Only issue I've noticed so far is sometimes you lose the display over the fishing bobber. Simple solution is to just recast your line until you see the option above it. But again, this is an alpha of the gamepad support.

Overall Impressions

Honestly, very strong. A solid 8.5/10 for me. There is certainly room for improvement when it comes to cycling through menus, spellbooks, professions. My biggest request for that is for it to cycle through options.

Going back to my above comment about the Professions tab. If I keep pressing RB, it could cycle back to the main Professions tab, and continue on that same cycle of Main Tab, Blacksmithing, Mining, Fishing, Cooking...back to main tab, etc.

I think these are my wants for this system:

1. A better cycling through menus so you don't have to frustratingly cycle backwards just to get back to the beginning.
2. Better menuing for things like Macros, where I couldn't even manage them on controller.
3. Better iteration on combat camera movement.
4. Ability to remap anything (again, I understand it's an alpha).
5. Make it more obvious that for some things (like creating multiple items in professions) you have to press and hold X.

And as a closer, take a look at some of my favorite spots in the WoW Forever beta.