AST cards have changed quite a bit since their initial conception in HW, both mechanically and visually. There's something about present card design in the job gauge that is visually unintuitive to me and I feel could be improved. Granted this detail might not affect everyone, but I thought it would be a visual design fix that could possibly make card-to-role assignments more intuitive based on the context of existing in-game mechanics.

The detail I am addressing here, is the color of the outlines of drawn cards. As one might notice, melee cards are currently assigned a blue outline, while ranged cards are assigned a purple outline. I am suggesting switching the color assignments (purple>melee, blue>ranged).

But wait how would that make it more intuitive? Wouldn't this change cause more confusion?! I'VE NEVER NOTICED THIS DETAIL BEFORE SO WHY SHOULD I CARE? (well now you've noticed it, since I told you, so you do care jk). I'm coming at this from the standpoint that design has a purpose, and we should know that this is true in FFXIV how mechanics are resolved and strategies are developed around arena design in raid encounters. It probably would initially cause some confusion.

First, let's compare color associations that we know in the game to this suggestion. Think of everyone's favorite chimera boss in-out mechanic, that we must have all faced at some point in story (unless you know you skipped everything *shrug*). When chimera's eyes turn violet we move into its hit box, and when they turn blue we move far away from it. In this instance violet>melee, blue>ranged.

[Note, there is a counter argument to this by the way where the violet is a ranged attack from chimera, and blue is a melee attack, so the current associations work.]

Another justification for this suggestion to color switch lies in generic visual coding of distance to the boss. Or even general associations to the concept of danger and color, red = hot/close/bad, blue = cold/far/"safe". An engaged target's hitbox is typically red - (we can associate this to purple), melee jobs are typically within the bosses hitbox > associate them with red/purple. Roles that are far/further from the engaged target > blue.

I hope these explanations suffice. This detail has been bugging me since it was brought to my attention several months ago. Would love to hear what other people think, does it matter/who gives two brown korpokkurs about this dumb thing/ what other visual improvements or redundancies do you think exist on this job gauge?