Has Gauges helped you a lot?

[DynamoAce]

I'm a Scholar main and......not really. It doesn't feel any different except for the visual indicator is just a lot bigger, yet it functions just the same way.
The one downside is that my Aetherflow stacks are not visible on the party list, and that being up was sometimes a little helpful to other party members depending on their role and depending if they actually do look there.

The Faerie gauge is just the Faerie Gauge, you use it for one move that's pretty good but that's about it.

[Darkobra]

It can be shrunk in the UI settings. Also confused as to why people think this makes it difficult. You SHOULD be looking at more than your cast bar.

Does explain the players I've had in my dungeons lately, though...

[kikix12]

The problem with many of these gauges being useless is that they try to be "cool" and draw attention. Except, you don't want your attention to be drawn to such things during a fight, so they are counterproductive to their purpose which is meant to make effective play easier.

Where there is a large numbered resource, like for Warrior or Red Mage, bars are fine. Where the amount of a resource is small or it works outright as a buff, they should just continue to be treated like that. They want to increase their visibility?! Sure. Make the "gauges" into nice, little frames that can be resized and placed where the player wants them, that will show the buffs the class can actually use and whether they are on or not (along with timers), and the debuffs the player can use. In both cases, where they are targeted, have them show the buffs/debuffs on target. And for crying out loud, make these buffs visible to other party members. Aetherflow and Astrologians cards being the biggest offenders here. I can see whether the tank have a tank stance or not despite them having that gauge. Why can't I see what cards the other Astrologian have, if any?! Whether the other Scholar have their Aetherflow to make up for a possible error or not?!

Being gaudy and cool is nice and all, but it should not come at the expense of functionality. Nor should it be half-assed. Either apply it to all similar mechanics, or none.

[Astral145]

For BRD no.... its just more stuff to look out for. Now if they add in all my procs, song cool down timers and DOT timers for TARGETED mob/boss then yea it would be amazing. But as it is now its just more stuff cluttering up my screen. Some jobs like RDM and BLM its awesome and working as intended but for BRD no its just another thing cluttering up my screen.

[Squigley]

The problem with many of these gauges being useless is that they try to be "cool" and draw attention. Except, you don't want your attention to be drawn to such things during a fight, so they are counterproductive to their purpose which is meant to make effective play easier.

...

Being gaudy and cool is nice and all, but it should not come at the expense of functionality. Nor should it be half-assed. Either apply it to all similar mechanics, or none.

Very much this. Some simple usability heuristics analysis would have shown that the UI is in many cases objectively worse than before. Maybe the devs knew but decided to go with the cool factor anyway? As a BLM I have to keep an eye on one more place now, diverting my attention even more from the things I should be paying attention to (=the fight).

[Cidel]

I don't feel like it's a hindrance or anything. For me it feels the same as it used to be, instead it's larger visuals instead of tiny icons with numbers on most of them.
In some jobs like AST it definitely helps.

I respectfully disagree. While I adapted quickly to the separate card UI on AST, that's largely in part to just training myself to look slightly off to the side of the target's HP bar (where I moved it) as opposed to the top of my screen with the rest of my buffs.

The custom gauge on AST offers nothing new outside of a place to dump the minor arcana card indicator (which could have been done without a custom gauge anyway) and some pretty little border around your held cards. It factually took away visibility of AST's held, spread and Royal Road from others (the same way Aetherflow stacks are now some big secret). It really only comes off as "help" to me if the goal was to let mistakes on card/RR/spread management (if there's even any at all) and unlucky shuffles go unnoticed.

I do recall a (or "the") reason was the devs being more concerned with "buff bloat," but I personally never thought to myself: "Damn, I have too many buffs to know what's going on."

[uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu]

I like the audio trigger when we have enough to do something. Other than that, only RDM and AST gauge is really helpful visually. The rest is just distraction should be put on status bar instead.

edit: I realize those gauges might be useful for people with hearing-impaired, still simplified/toggleable version would be nice.

[Ash_]

My experiences with them depends on which job;
Nin: It's ok, not really necessary since I just rely on the chime sound and can focus on what's in front of me. In this way they got it right.
Dark: I would probably care more if bloodspiller was oGCD.
SCH/SMN: Aside from a visual aetherflow stack for me, the rest is useless. With only 1 skill to summon fairy, and Bahamut lighting up on the crossbar after 2 DWT's, makes the gauges rather useless overly big timers.
RDM: It's been said this class makes the best use of a gauge. But I disagree. I find myself spending most of my time keeping my eye on it, rather than everything else.

Overall I think they detract from everything else too much for some classes, don't do enough on others.

[SpiritMuse]

I actually really like the new gauges. Yes, they took a bit of getting used to, but so did the new skills for level 60-70.

For RDM it's essential and easy to see at a glance which mana is higher without having to peer at the numbers.
For BLM it's also easy to see at a glance what I have going on with buffs and timers, without having to peer at tiny icons and numbers.
I really like the AST one. Again, makes it easy to see what cards you have available without having to squint at tiny icons. And the new undraw buttons are great. So much simpler than having to use multiple seconds and button clicks to navigate my cursor over to my buff bar then selecting which one to "click off".
I haven't played SMN/SCH that much yet but I'm finding the aetherflow indicator very nice. It's much easier to see at a glance (and even from peripheral vision) whether I have one or three lights up than having to peer at a tiny icon trying to determine if there's a I, II, or III on it.

I haven't played all the jobs to 70 yet but for the ones I have I'm giving this a thumbs up. Definitely an improvement in my experience.

[Serilda]

For me it's a mixed bag. I haven't played all of the jobs properly with the new UI yet but:

PLD: Seems sort of pointless, but not especially harmful. I like that my stance still shows up in the buff bar anyway (why don't more jobs do this?!)
AST: Looks great and I could get used to it... except that it actively gets in the way of numerous minor functionalities that were sabotaged to make the new UI seem more important. I'm on PS4 and the button bloat is real. I don't even click cards off all that often, but having to have multiple buttons dedicated to each edge case sucks. I feel less in control than before. Not a fan.
WHM: It's ok in PVE, I just ignore it since the job doesn't really allow for much pre-planning when healing reactively. In PVP it's actively annoying; Benediction is our only instant heal and they doubled down hard on the punishment for someone dying during the animation (which happens with regularity). Losing Benediction's cooldown as well as the target is bad enough when you barely have any abilities, but now you also lose all of your lilies and the ability to cast another spell. The amount of busywork involved in the new WHM just to make it seem like it has a wide spread of abilities is stupid. I don't understand why they made MP management trivial then added two different mechanics to track instead, neither of which feels satisfying or looks good in the interface.
SMN/SCH: I don't like the new Aetherflow display and cannot get used to it. I also didn't like the small changes to how Aetherflow fundamentally functioned as a result of the gauge (especially noticeable with SMN). Sorely needs an option to have the original Aetherflow buff display back and then I'd just hide that part of the new UI.
BLM: I haven't played enough BLM yet for the new UI to be second nature but I do quite like it so far. It could use a few tweaks but I think it's one of the better ones.
SAM/RDM: Both of these are great. The only change I would want is having a subtle indicator of procs on the RDM gauge so that I could rely on it more instead of looking all over the screen.