A question for Xpadder users.

Sorry for posting this here, but Xpadder's official forums are kind of terrible.
 
I've got a Logitech F710 gamepad, which supports both Direct Input and XInput.  My problem is, I hate (HATE!) using the triggers for shooting in my games.  You're either shooting or not--you can't shoot softer or shoot harder.  Although maybe somebody should make a game where you can!  Your ammunition could be measured via a pool of rechargeable energy, which drains quickly or slowly depending upon how hard you're shooting (how depressed the trigger is).  Soft shots would be used for when you are able to calmly take aim at vital parts, such as the head or heart--whereas hard shots would serve best in run-and-gun situations wherein there is no time to target specific zones and one must attempt to do greater damage to peripheral areas via hard shooting.   Stupid idea, or first-person shooter revolution?  You decide.
 

@Spoonman671 said:

I want to know whether Xpadder will allow me to swap the triggers with the bumpers on my controller.

I'm pretty sure xpadder would let you could rebind the trigger functionality to an arbitrary axis of a stick if you wanted to. I don't think you'll have any issues changing it to the bumpers.

@Spoonman671:

Xpadder can do this, though it will be more about putting the left and right mouse buttons on the bumpers. Also, before xpadder, check the games and see if you can set the controls in game.

As for the hard shooting, why not, though it would probably work best in a bullet hell shooter than an FPS.

@Spoonman671:

I play shooters with a mouse and keyboard :P

That said, I do like the feel of the triggers on the 360 controller as opposed to a Dualshock 3. But the degrees of input seem more designed for a driving game than shooting and I agree with the sentiment that a binary state for the "shoot" button is preferable.

Your (admittedly novel and interesting) idea for gunplay based on trigger depth doesn't seem like it would be that good in practice. Maybe it's just me but I can't seem to comfortably or accurately hit and hold the middle zone for trigger input. It's all or nothing, baby!

I mostly use xpadder for controlling my PC when I switch it over to my HDTV (bed + mouse and keyboard? No thanks), but yeah, I'm almost certain you can rebind the triggers to any key assignment. I don't know if you can rebind them to other controller buttons though, or swap them around, but then again, I'm using a version of xpadder from years ago because I really haven't seen any need to update. I know you could, in theory, unbind the triggers and bumpers from whatever game you're playing, and rebind shoot to some key (like j or h or something) and then bind the bumpers to j or h and the triggers to the bumpers. Or as mentioned above just rebind the bumpers to left and right mouse buttons, which might save a whole lot of work.

I agree that analog control over shooting isn't really necessary, though it is used in some games (I think GTA4) to allow an intermediate state between not shooting and shooting (frequently referred to as 'aiming').

You can use the triggers with XPadder. At least I haven't had an issue setting them up. You can also bind whatever to whatever you want to as far as I can tell.

Your shooting idea is, indeed, the dumbest idea I've heard in a while. I know you acknowledged yourself that it's stupid, but you can already achieve that same result by pressing the trigger as fast as you want to fire. To further hammer my point, let's take a look at what happened last time a shooter decided to take advantage of the pressure sensitivity of triggers...

You can use the triggers with XPadder. At least I haven't had an issue setting them up.

Your shooting idea is, indeed, the dumbest idea I've heard in a while.

Xpadder can do that. I use a 360 controller on my PC and I set all the buttons, triggers, and D-Pad to numbers and letters.

I think your analog shooting idea makes more sense for futuristic games with laser weapons or something. Soft tapping or hard tapping a gun trigger of a modern gun is the same result, unless you want harder taps to like shake the screen/target cursor to simulate like the shooter being over excited and losing their cool. For a laser, I could see it being used to manipulate the beam strength, width, etc, or something like that.

Off topic, but about analog triggers/buttons...

I learned the PS2 had pressure sensitive face buttons when I got Zone of the Enders. Pushing down.. I think it was X would shoot, and if you pushed it harder it would shoot a faster more focused beam. If you held it very lightly it was a crazy conical spread great for aoe.

Oh, and awesome use of a phoenix down.