Logitech f310 Use in CoH

[UltraAlt]

I don't see a post on this, but it might be something that some people might find useful.

 

I use a Logitech f310 to play CoH. I've used one practically since I started playing CoH which was just before the release of Issue 2.

 

The most important thing is the Global profiler settings.

Once you go into this menu option, make sure that you turn on the "apply persistent profile" option.

What this option does is to make the controller appear to be a keyboard to your computer.

You can set up profiles for each game that you play. You want that "profile" to be selected when you are playing that game. I have profiles set up for 3 games at this point. 

 

Also make sure that the three "General Behavior" boxes are unchecked. 

When you first power up the profiler (activate the controller) after starting up your computer, make sure to hover the pointer over the profiler, and then swivel the sticks around their arcs and push the buttons. This sets the neutral points.

If you don't do this, you might find the cursor moving around when you power up your computer. If that happens, unplug the game controller. The neutral points can't be reset on the controller before you get logged in to the computer.

 

Once you have opened the profiler and are playing using the controller; if the controller stops responding, toggle out of the game, click on the profiler, swirl the sticks, click the buttons, and then go back into the game. This should reset the controller so it will function in-game again. 

 

 

 

Edited November 1 by UltraAlt

[UltraAlt]

I'll be going into how I set-up my Logitech F310,

I started using it because it is set-up like a Playstation 2 controller. I like the feel and symmetry of the controller layout.

I love to make characters. Some people may even say it is some kind of disease or maybe a mental illness that wants me to make so many characters.

Well, I'm glad that I have what some might call the "Jack Kirby" disease or altitis etc. City of Heroes fosters it.

For this reason, I have to have a way to make all the power sets basically have the same kinds of powers in the same locations. 

 

Sometimes I have another tray running across the top between the nav menu and tray 9 at the top right.

I closed the Map and chat window on the left to protect the innocent. I have labelled where I usually have them (usually run about 60% opacity).

 

Let's start with my main powers trays. These are set-up 

 

Tray 1

1-4 (circled in red) - quickest charging to slowest charging main attack powers. Generally single target.

At low levels, range characters have brawl in 1 and range attacks starting in 3.

5-6 (circled in orange) - really slow charging attack/heal powers and AOE/cone attacks/heals - or - mastermind; 5 defensive stance and 6 attack stance.

7 - Heal Macro - /macro Heal "inspexec_name respite$$inspexec_name dramatic_improvement$$inspexec_name resurgence"

8 - tray flip to tray 2 macro - /macro try2 next_tray

9-10 (circled in purple) Greater and lesser travel powers

Lesser Travel power - Sprint, Combat jumping, Hover, etc.

Greater Travel power - Super Jump, Fly, flight packs, etc.

 

I put tray 3 in between tray 1 and 2 in order for me because I like it there as a spacer between trays 1 and 2 which I'm setting things up to toggle. 

Using the number 8 button on tray 1 puts tray 2 in tray 1's position (the active tray) and leaves 2 and 3 in their current locations.

 

Tray 2

Until I get too many powers that I have to click a lot in tray 1 slots 1-6, I use Tray 2 for a bit temp storage and slow charge buffs and powers that you have to click a location to activate. Since I have to take a hand off the controller to use the mouse button to do the location targeting quickly, I might as well click on the power with mouse before moving to click on the target location.

As level up and I start getting too many single target attacks/powers (1-4) or aoe/cones/very slow recharge (5-6), I set-up slots 1-6 in the same manner as tray 1. 

Note I keep buttons 7 and 9-10 the same, so if I tray flip to tray 2 I still have quick access to the inspiration based heals and travel powers.

The only difference in tray 2 is button 8.

8 - tray flip to tray 1 macro - /macro try1 prev_tray

 

Tray 3

1-4 I generally always put a follow macro (/macro flw follow) in one of the first 4 slots. It starts in slot one and I move it over if there is some kind of buff or heal that I'm going to have to select a teammate before activating it. So in this screenshot I have the day job related heal (vitalization) in slot 1.

2-7 (circled in orange) secondary storage for toggle powers that I'm going to leave on most of the time. Armors, Leadership, etc.

9-10 Ancillary powers (circled in lime green)

9 - secondary travel power of some sort. possibly one that has a limited use time so I don't use it by accident.

10 - rest

 

Tray 4

1-5 (circled in blue) 

General - toggle powers that I'm going to leave on most of the time.

Mastermind - slot 1 empower minions power; 2-5 call minion powers

7-10 (circled in purple because I forgot I circled part of tray 1 with purple) - rarely used click powers

7 - Auction house (/macro Auction AH)

8 - day job resurrect power from having the Hospital and University related day jobs. [Yes. Every character can rez teammates. All you have to do is log off for the day jobs and spend more time logged off to get charges on the power]

9 - Buff pet

10 - generally Mystic fortune, etc.

 

Those are my main power trays.

Tray 7 (if it is open other fun stuff that I will mouse click)

Tray 8

1-4 other macros

5 - Recall friend (if the character has it)

6 - Team mission telport

7 - Assemble team 

8 - Wentworths Teleporter - this is a day job power you get from logging off at a Wentworths

9 - Oroborus portal - [Hint :: go to Flashback Galaxy City, take the train to Oroboros. Go to top of the spire for the badge and get the portal. You can do this at level 1] 

10 - Base teleport - Torchbearer macro example -  macro WARP "enterbasefrompasscode WARPZONE-4141"

Tray 9

1-8 Costume changes

9 - starting Pick-up Group (aka PUG) macro - /macro PUG "lfg $level mission team lfm. Send tell for invite."

displays your level in message to looking for group channel

10 - LFG macro - /macro LFG "lfg $level $archetype looking for team"

displays your level and archetype in message to looking for group channel

 

Now that you can see how I have the trays set-up. It might make sense why I set-up my controller the way that I do.

[UltraAlt]

Refer to the post above for tray positions and set-up.

The active tray is the tray that labeled as 1 in the position and has the red circle around slots 1-4 and orange circle around slots 5-6

As indicated above, I have a macro in slot 8 of the active tray that I use to toggle the active tray between tray 1 and tray 2.

 

Right face buttons

Green button (bottom) - active tray slot 1

Red button (right middle) - active tray slot 2

Blue button (left middle) - active tray slot 3

Yellow/gold button (top) - active tray slot 4

 

Shoulder buttons (on back).

Upper left - active tray slot 5.

Lower left - jump.  

upper right - active tray slot 6.

lower right - target nearest.

 

Left d-pad

North (up) - active tray slot 8 - tray flip macro

South (down) - active tray slot 7 - inspiration heal macro - /macro Heal "inspexec_name respite$$inspexec_name dramatic_improvement$$inspexec_name resurgence"

West (left) - target next

East (right) - target nearest

NE/NW/SE/SW (cornors) - not assigned.

 

The Logitech F310 has two sticks. 

Left stick x-axis - strafe left/right

Left stick y-axis - forwards/backwards

Left stick click/button -  greater travel power (active tray slot 10)

Right stick x-axis - turn left/right

Right stick y-axis - move the camera up/down

Right stick click/button - lesser travel power (active tray slot 9).

 

[UltraAlt]

Oh, I did forget to post two buttons on the controller in the last post.

There are three buttons above the sticks.

Upper left - left mouse

Lower left - (use not recommended) switches the sticks and d-pad

Upper right - auto-run (since forward/back is on the left stick your right thumb is free to hit the auto-run button) [might as well check the auction house while you are auto-run flying across THE CITY)

 

A trick with doors is to always try to park the mouse button on your character's back. That way you can just get the character in front of a door so that the hand appears and then click on the button for the left mouse on the controller.

 

With his setup, I'm 80-90%+ hands on the controller with most characters.

I use the mouse when I have to select a teammate before activating a power, when I have to click on a target location after selecting a power, or when I have to click on a door quickly.

Of course, I use the keyboard for chatting (and who doesn't chat in THE CITY). I mainly try to chat out-of-combat. I sometime will hit F instead of using my follow macro. I don't use the F-keys all that often.

 

Well that's on the basics of my setup and use of a Logitech F310.

 

Next : the Buggy bits

 

 

[UltraAlt]

The Buggy bits

 

I love using a controller, but, on rare occasions, there are issues.

 

Logitech has done a great job of improving the construction and durability of the Logitech F310 over the years.

My last Logitech F310 started going south after about 3-4 years. It was getting short in the wire leading out of the main body and not more than 3 inches out.

Generally, they have ended up having a button or two wear out in about that amount of time as well. Every time that I have had one wear out during the Logitech warranty period they have replaced it (I prior years, I have had this happen several times).

Hardware aside, there are some software issues that I have run into.

 

The controller losing focus

This is when the controller stops registering clicks.

Fastest resolution for this in most cases is to toggle out of the game. Swirl the sticks.  Click the buttons. Go back into the game. And it is generally immediately fine.

 

Sudden weird button press changes

This is one that really is weird/bizzare controller behavior; example - my target nearest button suddenly starts targeting target farthest ... when I don't even have a keybind set for target farthest. Too weird, correct?

When this happens, I have generally been running youtube with Chrome in the background. I close out all my Chrome windows. Open up a fresh window. Clear all the cookies, close Chrome, and this seems to resolve the problem 90-95% of the time.

The times that this doesn't resolve the issue either by running (my virus checker) Webroot's Optimizer (which cleans some of the registry) and/or restarting my computer. It is rare that I have to do this, but it is the final solution.

 

Prevent Terror on Window start up

Avoid the issue.  Make sure the settings in global profiler options for General behavior are turned off.

If you have it set to "Start profiler on system start up", it does this before you even try to log into to Windows or other operating system.

Sometimes a controller will lose focus when a computer is first turned on or reset.

The computer sometimes can't figure out where the neutral position on the sticks are located automatically, and it will immediately think that you are entering information in the keyboard - as you have set the global profiler so that your computer thinks it is a keyboard and the sticks are telling it you are entering information as they are not in neutral position.

This can be very disconcerting.

You can try swirling the mouse buttons and that may help the system figure out where neutral is on the sticks. Worse case - unplug the controller.

Avoid the issue in the first place.  Make sure the settings in global profiler options for General behavior are turned off.

 

[UltraAlt]

I decided to do a little user interface changing mainly due to masterminds and needing to add another tray because of them. I didn't have my pet window open on this screen shot, but it is placed between the main active trays and Tray 4.

One of the secrets of my alt-jumping ways is to keep everything set-up in the same format for all characters, so I save the revised interface loaded it up onto all my characters and moved slotting around on all my characters to fit the new paradigm.

---

Tray 1 - Main tray powers
1-4 main attack powers 1 fastest recharge -> 4 slowest recharge; Tank 1 taunt
5-6 AoE, cones, snipes; mastermind 5 Follow Me, 6 attack my target; tank 5 /macro follow; or ? 
7 Heal
8 Tray flip to tray 2
9 Fast travel
0 Slow travel

 

Tray 2 - Secondary/Support tray powers
1-4 support/alternate powers 1 fastest recharge -> 4 slowest recharge
5-6 AoE, cones, snipes; mastermind 5 Follow, 6 attack target; tank 5 /macro follow; or ?
7 Heal
8 Tray flip to tray 1
9 Fast travel
0 Slow travel

 

Tray 3 quick access click powers
1-* powers that I apply to teammates
* if not, tank use /macro follow as a divider
*-7 other powers I want quick access to that have long recharge times or are used sparingly
8-9 spare flight powers that I don't need to access immediately
0 Rest

 

Tray 4
1-* pet summons and other powers clicked seldomly - maybe /macro team Gratz and 
* /macro AH as a divider
*-0 Vanity pets, Buff pets, other power pets (warwolf whistle, Snowbeast, etc) Fortune telling/mutation/

 

Tray 5
Powers that are constantly on once activated - leadership, armors, defenses,etc.

 

Tray 7 quick access storage misc very rarely used powers or macros

 

Tray 8
1-* Base Macros
* Fast Travel
*-0 Powers that I am contemplating moving out of my active slots completely, but might need to use for some reason until then

Tray 9
1-* Costume changes
*-0 various macros

 

Edited December 14, 2020 by UltraAlt

[UltraAlt]

Current UI layout

Usually, I have my heal macro in tray 2 slot 7.

 

However, if my character has some primary or secondary power that is a heal, I'll put it in tray 2 slot 7 and move the 2nd heal macro down to tray 3 slot 7.

Sometimes this gets me into trouble because of my standardization methods (thinking I trigger slot 7 in my active tray multiple times to fire of the heal macro versus a power that needs time to recharge). If this happens too much when I'm playing, I swap the heal power with the heal macro or move move the heal power over to the autofire position - so it goes off whenever it recharges).

 

 

Edited June 11 by UltraAlt
reworded for clarification

[Saiyajinzoningen]

dude I have this controller and I've tried really hard to set it up to play

but its just so frustrating and I just don't have time to spare.

so glad that someone out there got this working

[UltraAlt]

On 9/16/2023 at 7:34 PM, Saiyajinzoningen said:

dude I have this controller and I've tried really hard to set it up to play

but its just so frustrating and I just don't have time to spare.

so glad that someone out there got this working

 

 

Okay, I wasn't sure if I could share the profiler settings that I'm using in a way that it was safe to transfer the file in a legit way that would be safe.

You have motivated me to I figured out how to safely post/transfer the .xml file.

I imported it and it seems to work fine if you follow these instructions.

 

In the next post, I'll put in the text of the file.

Copy that text.

Paste it into notepad.

Save it as a .xml

Then open the logitech profiler, click on Profiler, click on import, find the file, and import it.

It is going to ask you to target the the game .exe

Target the launcher.

This will make the profiler have a selection under select a game that will read "Play City of Heroes". When you click on that, it will open the launcher.

 

Make sure to go into the Options>Global Profiler. Select the persistent profile "City of Heroes" and click on "apply persistent profile". Make sure all the behavior boxes are not checked.

If you don't make sure all those behavior boxes are unchecked, it can cause weird things to happen because it can cause the controller to be active when you boot up your computer. The setting make the sticks behave like the mouse and arrow keys.  The neutral points on the controller won't necessarily show a dead spot to the computer and the pointer might start moving around on its own. If you run into that, just unplug the controller.

Unchecking all the behavior boxes in the Options>Global Profiler Settings makes the computer ignore the controller until you start the profiler, so you want to make sure to do that.

 

 

So when you start up the profiler, just make sure to hover the pointer over the controller and swirl around the sticks and let them fall back into neutral position a couple of times so it can register itself.

 

 

 

If the controller stops working for some reason while you are playing, toggle out of the game. click on the profiler, swirl the sticks, click the buttons, and then toggle back into the game and you should be good to go.

 

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by UltraAlt
punctuation

[UltraAlt]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <GameProfile xmlns="http://www.logitech.com/schemas/2009/gaming/game_profile"><Profile GUID="{AA767889-C060-4E44-8BEA-76A578D9762E}" Publisher="Custom User Profile" Author="UltraAlt" Revision="1063:18/09/2023" Installed="false"><Name>City of Heroes</Name><Signature Key="" Value="" Shortcut="" /><Target IconIndex="-1"><Name>Tequila.exe</Name></Target><Macros><Command Id="1" Name="Mouse Left Button"><Event Type="Mouse" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="0" Mask="1" /></Command><Command Id="2" Name="Mouse Middle Button"><Event Type="Mouse" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="0" Mask="4" /></Command><Command Id="3" Name="Mouse Right Button"><Event Type="Mouse" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="0" Mask="2" /></Command><Command Id="4" Name="strafe left"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="A" Up="false" KeynameUndo="A" /></Command><Command Id="5" Name="Strafe right"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="D" Up="false" KeynameUndo="D" /></Command><Command Id="6" Name="Forward"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="W" Up="false" KeynameUndo="W" /></Command><Command Id="7" Name="Backwards"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="S" Up="false" KeynameUndo="S" /></Command><Command Id="8" Name="turn left"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="LEFT" Up="false" KeynameUndo="LEFT" /></Command><Command Id="9" Name="turn right"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="RIGHT" Up="false" KeynameUndo="RIGHT" /></Command><Command Id="10" Name="Jump"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="SPACEBAR" Up="false" KeynameUndo="SPACEBAR" /></Command><Command Id="11" Name="Land"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="X" Up="false" KeynameUndo="X" /></Command><Command Id="12" Name="AutoRun"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="R" Up="false" KeynameUndo="R" /></Command><Command Id="13" Name="Target"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="TAB" Up="false" KeynameUndo="TAB" /></Command><Command Id="14" Name="Lesser Travel 0"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="0" Up="false" KeynameUndo="0" /></Command><Command Id="15" Name="Greater Travel 9"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="9" Up="false" KeynameUndo="9" /></Command><Command Id="16" Name="Target next"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="TAB" Up="false" KeynameUndo="TAB" /></Command><Command Id="17" Name="Power 1"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="1" Up="false" KeynameUndo="1" /></Command><Command Id="18" Name="Power 2"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="2" Up="false" KeynameUndo="2" /></Command><Command Id="19" Name="Power 3"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="3" Up="false" KeynameUndo="3" /></Command><Command Id="20" Name="power 4"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="4" Up="false" KeynameUndo="4" /></Command><Command Id="21" Name="Power 5"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="5" Up="false" KeynameUndo="5" /></Command><Command Id="22" Name="Power 6"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="6" Up="false" KeynameUndo="6" /></Command><Command Id="23" Name="Respite 7"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="7" Up="false" KeynameUndo="7" /></Command><Command Id="24" Name="Cycle tray 8"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="8" Up="false" KeynameUndo="8" /></Command><Command Id="25" Name="Target nearest"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="LCTRL" Up="false" /><Event Type="Key" Keyname="TAB" Up="false" /><Event Type="Key" Keyname="TAB" Up="true" /><Event Type="Key" Keyname="LCTRL" Up="true" /></Command><Command Id="26" Name="Lookup"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="INSERT" Up="false" KeynameUndo="INSERT" /></Command><Command Id="27" Name="Lookdown"><Event Type="Key" Keyname="DELETE" Up="false" KeynameUndo="DELETE" /></Command><AxisCommand Id="28" Name="strafing" RefIdMin="4" RefIdMax="5" /><AxisCommand Id="29" Name="forward back" RefIdMin="6" RefIdMax="7" /><AxisCommand Id="30" Name="turning" RefIdMin="8" RefIdMax="9" /><AxisCommand Id="31" Name="View Up/down" RefIdMin="26" RefIdMax="27" /><AxisCommand Id="32" Name="New Axis" RefIdMin="8" RefIdMax="9" /><HatCommand Id="33" Name="8toggle tray/respite" HatType="8-way" RefIdN="24" RefIdS="23" RefIdW="16" RefIdE="25" RefIdNE="-1" RefIdNW="-1" RefIdSE="-1" RefIdSW="-1" /></Macros><Assignments DeviceModel="44"><AxisDynamics><AxisDef Axis="Y" Sign="1" Acceleration="86" Speed="100" Deadzone="0" DeadzoneSign="0" /><AxisDef Axis="R" Sign="1" Acceleration="41" Speed="100" Deadzone="31" DeadzoneSign="0" /><AxisDef Axis="Z" Sign="1" Acceleration="100" Speed="100" Deadzone="0" DeadzoneSign="0" /><AxisDef Axis="X" Sign="1" Acceleration="88" Speed="100" Deadzone="0" DeadzoneSign="0" /></AxisDynamics><Command RefId="14"><Control Type="Button" ID="11" /></Command><Command RefId="15"><Control Type="Button" ID="10" /></Command><Command RefId="12"><Control Type="Button" ID="9" /></Command><Command RefId="1"><Control Type="Button" ID="8" /></Command><Command RefId="21"><Control Type="Button" ID="4" /></Command><Command RefId="19"><Control Type="Button" ID="0" /></Command><Command RefId="18"><Control Type="Button" ID="2" /></Command><Command RefId="17"><Control Type="Button" ID="1" /></Command><Command RefId="20"><Control Type="Button" ID="3" /></Command><Command RefId="22"><Control Type="Button" ID="5" /></Command><Command RefId="25"><Control Type="Button" ID="7" /></Command><Command RefId="10"><Control Type="Button" ID="6" /></Command><Axis RefId="28"><Control Type="Axis" ID="0" /></Axis><Axis RefId="29"><Control Type="Axis" ID="1" /></Axis><Axis RefId="31"><Control Type="Axis" ID="3" /></Axis><Axis RefId="30"><Control Type="Axis" ID="2" /></Axis><Hat RefId="33"><Control Type="POV" ID="0" /></Hat><Mapping><Source Type="Axis" ID="0" /><Destination Type="Axis" ID="1" /></Mapping><Mapping><Source Type="Axis" ID="1" /><Destination Type="Axis" ID="2" /></Mapping><Mapping><Source Type="Axis" ID="2" /><Destination Type="Axis" ID="4" /></Mapping><Mapping><Source Type="Axis" ID="3" /><Destination Type="Axis" ID="8" /></Mapping></Assignments></Profile></GameProfile>

[UltraAlt]

Let me know if there are any issues, but I think that should work.