Has Gauges helped you a lot?

Even with the new gauge set to largest size in UI, I still forget to turn on Shield Oath sometimes after a job change.

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Originally Posted by Enla

I do wish it was smaller though. That thing takes up a LOT of screen space.

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You can resize and move every gauge. Personally, I make each gauge smaller, and move them to where I have the buff bar. that way, I'm still looking in only one place for any pertinent information.

I've moved mine to different spots. Currently they sit next to the mini-map, beneath the target bar info.

As for their usefulness, it varies wildly job per job. Mind you, I haven't played every job at high levels.

I've been leveling WAR, and the gauge is pretty much perfect. It's clean, easy to red, and the audio and visual feedback feels very natural so far. SCH/SMN feel similar. The Aetherflow gauges are large and simple, and both the Bahamut Timer and Faerie Gauge and just as easy read. I feel the same with Red Mage.

But then there are other jobs I find the gauges painful to use.

Astrologians have to keep up a ton of information on the side from their cards, but the look of the Arcana gauge is just bad. The Royal Road buff text is super tiny, the main cards on hand are unlabled and different sizes. I can't just glance and know like I can WAR/SCH, and I've pretty much hit the point I've got it memorized verses using the gauge.

Then there's BLM, which is just a mess. There is entirely too much info loaded into that thing, and it's BLM flavoring makes the already over encumbered gauge even harder to read. I find myself staring at it more than my character becuase the ticking timers verses my casting just feels off compared to the shrinking gauge on SMN/SCH. I just can't get used to it.

Commenting.

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Originally Posted by Serilda

That's removing them from the forefront and putting them somewhere else.

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Bringing them to the forefront visually actually has nothing to do with where you are accustomed to looking.

Having them there doesn't separate them from other buffs and such that appear on the buff bar.

Giving them their own unique appearance separates them from other buffs and draws attention to them, which is the intent behind the change - that is what I mean by bringing what they consider to be a core element of the job to the forefront visually.

I haven't read all the messages in this thread, but I read quite a few of them, as well as others in similar threads. The common consensus (which I also agree with) is that the job gauges are useful on some jobs, useless or even a detraction on others. (Not everyone agrees on which jobs fall in which of those categories, though.)

So I really wish they were individually configurable. It would be better if we could turn on the new gauges for the jobs whose gauges we like, and turn them off and get the information back in the status bar like before for jobs where we liked that pattern better than the gauge.

NIN Compared to HW I feel that it's been easier to notice when Huton is going down. Ninki is ok, but I only really look at the number. I feel there's not as much contrast between it and the rest of the bar. I don't have nothing else to keep track of on my status bar, so NIN job gauges help a bit, but they're ugly.

DRG I put the gauge right above my status bar, so it doesn't feel too different from looking at the status bar in HW. I just wish the dragon eyes were more straight forward tho having clear 1-2-3-4 like SCH aetherflow or MNK chakra. Sometimes I have to think "is this 2 eyes or 3?"

MCH I have to look at my status bar anyway for hot shot and if I can put up my turret again, I feel like there's too much to look at with MCH. I hope at least ammo can be moved back to the status bar so it's one less place to look at. What I really want, however, is an easier way to see if my Hypercharge is expiring. It doesn't show how many secs are left on it on the party list

I saw the "Simple Mode" gauge for BLM in the Live Letter and I can't wait to get my hands on it. Compared to QoL changes that took forever, it now seems like these guages were deliberately half-assed to solicit feedback, so they can do it properly and have time for the work.

Looking forward to seeing other job's simple mode gauges.

For my astro it didn't really. For BLM it did, although I wish the AF/UI duration would be like the fester one instead of a simple digit.

I switched to simple mode gauges and it is so much better! Thank you for that SE!:)