Yeah, upon further investigation and a visit to Microsoft webpage it seems that it's impossible - the newer version of pad input on Windows Vista and newer is not DirectX but rather something called XInput. In theory it's less clunky and more cross-platform friendly (think XBox -> PC ports and vice versa). But that also means that some features are disabled for DirectX input, vibrations / FF being one.
Fun fact: the XBox360Controller plugin for CC works well, I was able to use ForceFeedback (quite simple, but still) with that. So InputSystem for all the input stuff, XBox360Controller plugin for vibrating the pad, Python script for fast controller mapping and voila! Works like a charm. :)