Here's a short version of the issue.
It is said that both official XBOX and Playstation 4 controllers are natively supported, but only the XBOX's gamepads get their button prompts in the game. Dualshock 4 owners when they use it on the PC version, all of their buttons are named JOY 1, JOY 2, JOY 12, and so on! The worst thing is - nobody tells you what JOY 1 corresponds to what button on your DS 4. This doesn't seem like a fair treatment.
Look, there have probably been several suggestions like these, I get it. All I can do is hope that the devs will pay attention to the number of similar suggestions and maybe consider moving up this little suggestion up the priority list for implementation. The art is there, you have the PS 4 version of the game with the correct button icons, so the assets are there.
More context to the issue
You guys have no idea how confusing this can be for some new player who decides to try ED, but only because the game officially lets you choose a more comfortable control scheme.
You have this guy who downloads this game, gets comfy in his bed thinking that he's about to dive deep into the game's world, and take his sweet time to learn the controls and game systems. So, he plugs his DS 4, starts the game, selects the DS 4 control scheme, and boots up the tutorial. He manages to leave the station and fly through the checkpoints without looking at the controls, he even manages to scan an object, but then comes the point when he has to jump to a distant objective to continue the tutorial. Nothing he presses on his gamepad activates the jump drives.
This guy remembers that this game lets you look around the cockpit and interact with the ship's HUD, so he thinks maybe that's how you activate the jump drives. He attempts to activate the Head Look but to no avail. He goes to settings to check out the controls and what does he see? "Press JOY 12 to switch to Head Look". What the hell is a JOY 12?
This guy doesn't want to give up on the game, right? He goes online and finds the official PS4™ controller setup for Elite Dangerous. There it says that the Head Look is set to R3. Well, that's easy! Our guy goes back to the game, presses R3, and nothing. He attempts to combo input, as there may be some control modifiers, but no. The guy tries every known combination of buttons and nothing works.
And you'd think that by pressing all the buttons on the gamepad, one after another he would eventually find the right one, but at that point, he was so disappointed to realize that his gamepad didn't get the right button prompts, but the XBOX gamepad owners did, he just files for a refund.
And you can judge him all you want, but it's not cool to claim that your game supports the gamepad and then provide completely confusing button names.
It is said that both official XBOX and Playstation 4 controllers are natively supported, but only the XBOX's gamepads get their button prompts in the game. Dualshock 4 owners when they use it on the PC version, all of their buttons are named JOY 1, JOY 2, JOY 12, and so on! The worst thing is - nobody tells you what JOY 1 corresponds to what button on your DS 4. This doesn't seem like a fair treatment.
Look, there have probably been several suggestions like these, I get it. All I can do is hope that the devs will pay attention to the number of similar suggestions and maybe consider moving up this little suggestion up the priority list for implementation. The art is there, you have the PS 4 version of the game with the correct button icons, so the assets are there.
More context to the issue
You guys have no idea how confusing this can be for some new player who decides to try ED, but only because the game officially lets you choose a more comfortable control scheme.
You have this guy who downloads this game, gets comfy in his bed thinking that he's about to dive deep into the game's world, and take his sweet time to learn the controls and game systems. So, he plugs his DS 4, starts the game, selects the DS 4 control scheme, and boots up the tutorial. He manages to leave the station and fly through the checkpoints without looking at the controls, he even manages to scan an object, but then comes the point when he has to jump to a distant objective to continue the tutorial. Nothing he presses on his gamepad activates the jump drives.
This guy remembers that this game lets you look around the cockpit and interact with the ship's HUD, so he thinks maybe that's how you activate the jump drives. He attempts to activate the Head Look but to no avail. He goes to settings to check out the controls and what does he see? "Press JOY 12 to switch to Head Look". What the hell is a JOY 12?
This guy doesn't want to give up on the game, right? He goes online and finds the official PS4™ controller setup for Elite Dangerous. There it says that the Head Look is set to R3. Well, that's easy! Our guy goes back to the game, presses R3, and nothing. He attempts to combo input, as there may be some control modifiers, but no. The guy tries every known combination of buttons and nothing works.
And you'd think that by pressing all the buttons on the gamepad, one after another he would eventually find the right one, but at that point, he was so disappointed to realize that his gamepad didn't get the right button prompts, but the XBOX gamepad owners did, he just files for a refund.
And you can judge him all you want, but it's not cool to claim that your game supports the gamepad and then provide completely confusing button names.
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