Yea I give up and just going to go get a Xbox controller. It works in POL and every other game but once FFXI loads up only can get the Dpad and sticks to work. It has to be something with windows 11.
POL and XI have different configurations/settings, if it is working in XI config and not in game then 99% chance you are using the wrong config file for the version that is being launched. There's a US config and EU, and I think still a generic one (checks, yup). The simplest thing would be to configure all 3.
As for that article: it doesn't appear to be related as you aren't experiencing those symptoms, however worse case scenario you could manually uninstall your driver and manually install the 360 controller for windows driver. That being said: by default the PS4 controller is a directinput controller, not a x-input device, unless the driver you are using for it is redirecting it, so the above may be moot depending on what exactly it is you're doing. However I reemphasize that if it's working in tools then it should be working in game. For instance: I configure mine with ToolsUS, as well I run the US version of the game.