Honestly, GW2 is the kind of MMO I'd play on the deck if it was compatible with a controller. It has everything to make a great controller MMO... Except the controlller support.

[–] tomkatt 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Here you go: steam://controllerconfig/413080/2866090215

Paste that steam link in a browser while Steam is open and it will pull up the controller config.

Control mappings have face buttons and R1/R2 as attacks, L1/L2 as button layer modifiers, Joystick mouse and more. F-keys are on the d-pad, and most mouse related functions are active while holding L1. Pressing L2+R2 heals. Back button is your "interact. L1 + R3 switches between "action" camera and regular mouse mode for aiming. Action camera is better for combat, and is the mode I use like 90% of the time. Dodge is on R3. L3 swaps weapons. There's also key combos for all the mounts, special action abilities (N key, on L2+back)... basically, everything you could possibly want to do in-game, there's a controller way to do it. You may need to remap some of the mount buttons, I forget if I did custom mappings for some of those, as I have a lot of mounts (everything except roller beetle and gryffon).

Hope it works for you. I think it's a great config, but my perspective may be skewed since I'm highly accustomed to it from muscle memory and using it for years (with Xpadder even, before steam controller mapping was a thing). I've used this config for every single class in the game and dialed it in so I can play literally any class without issues, including ones that have a number of aiming skills like engineer and elementalist. Actually, elementalist is a blast for this, dpad was perfect for switching elements compared to fumbling with F-keys.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I set up a pretty workable controller config that I played with for like two months, but even with many hours invested in fine tuning it I just felt like I was fighting the game’s UI and I gave up.

What’s really frustrating is that the game is totally playable with a controller. ANet just needs to update the menus and it would be a fantastic experience.

[–] Dremor 3 points 1 month ago

Same. I tried, but gave up pretty quick.

[–] tomkatt 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

steam://controllerconfig/413080/2866090215

Try this config. I posted about it above. It's worked well for me to the point I'm no longer even comfortable playing GW2 on a keyboard, I'm able to react much more quickly to everything with the gamepad setup. Most important thing is always use action camera for combat and general exploration unless you specifically need the mouse for something.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I had a setup that turned on the action camera when I put my thumb on the steam decks left stick, so I was always in normal mode unless I was actively looking around or moving.

It was pretty natural and the best experience I came up with, but I still felt like it was a compromise I was frustrated to have to make.

[–] tomkatt 4 points 1 month ago

I’ve been playing it on a gamepad since 2012. I’ll see if I can get my Steam config link for you later.