AST's cards feel unintuitive (for a new player) and unrewarding

Tbh, I'm not that much of a "new player". I started recently FF14, sure, but healing is nearly the same across all MMOs, so I clearly got the basics, to put it lightly.

I opened a post a few days ago because I genuinly wanted to know if SE could turn back the tide by bringing back the old card system (always interesting to know if the devs of a game are stubborn even if most of their playerbase is unhappy about a change).

Anyway, I made an AST today, I kinda like the underdog classes : making them work makes me feel good for some reason (well, at least until I'm benched in raids, or "EX trials" as you say here). I started the quests, I read the spells, I did a few low level dungeons (speed of light is amazing btw. I read it fast and didn't realize it made my basic heals insta, nice surprise)... and something felt wrong --> the cards.

So you have 6 cards : Balance / Bole / Arrow / Spear / Ewer / Spire. Each has a special symbol, and for a new player, this symbols feel pretty unintuitive, even more when the quests explain the "lore" behind each symbol.

- Balance is red. It feels like a dps buff and it was and still is. I get that high level content was pretty much "fish for balance as much as you can", but... was it the smartest thing to straight up make EVERY card a "balance" ? And come on, fishing sounds like a thing that you do mainly in truly the hardest content where you need top dps, but for the rest I bet the other cards were also useful. They ruined the fun because of the typical "more dps is always welcome in a raid setup" ? Non sense.

- Bole. It's a fucking tree. Green happy symbol. It sounds like "heal/damage reduction". The first quest tells you "it fortifies blabla" whatever. And now it's a range dps boost. Again, unintuitive at first glance.

- Arrow. Ok NOW that sounds like a dps boost ! It was more haste back in the day, and now it's - oh surprise - more dps (one would argue that it's the same end goal). But... I mean... really ? ARROW IS FOR MELEE !? Come On. Are you even trying ? It's a freaking ranged projectile ffs.

- Ewer sounds like a "MP regen" thingy, and it was. Sounds like something useful imo.

In short, right off the bat, the new cards look pretty silly when you know that they all do the same thing. And my next problem is... why 6 cards ? I mean seriously, 3 are for melee, 3 are for range. And they all do the same amount of dps boost... so why even bother with 6 ? I mean it's basic math boys : 3/6 = 1/2. Is it 6 cards to try to mess with people's minds ? "Hahaha I bet our players will have a hard time and mess up their buff by giving it to the wrong person ^^" BUT, 2 things : First, it's no rocket science. 1 dungeon and you know by heart the 6 cards ; and Two... SE, it's only 3 and 6 %. 3% of difference if I mess up. 3 f**king percent ! IT'S NOTHING !! Come on, I'm not even scared about messing my stuff.

You know what ? People are lazy af. If you give them a system with only 3% of difference if you mess things up (6% is low in the first place tbf), they will throw it at the first dps of the group without giving a shit, because it will make no difference in the end. It feels like an illusory choice.

So if the card system is not going to change, at least make the fucking buffs worth something... and make Arrow (come on, ARROW, even a KID would put it in the "range dps" box) a range buff, thank you very much.

Aside from that, I will continue playing AST. I just like the theme, and by the time I'm max level (because I'm taking my sweet time), it will probably change. I hope.

TL;DR : Cards are unintuitive for a new player (a tree giving a dps buff... urg). Cards buffs need a "buff", because only 3% of difference between a good and a bad use is not enough to make people invested in "to which of my dps party member should I give it to". Imo ofc. I know I'm low level with my AST, but every feedback is good to take I guess.

Pretty much. The individual card doesn't even matter anymore. The only things that matters is the color behind the card and the seal it gives for divination preparation.

10/10 design if you can remove "balance/bole/arrow/spear/ewer/spire" from the faces of the cards and nothing would change at all.

It kinda reminds me of a certain MMO (which must not be named *kof*wow*kof*), where the dev team said "hey, let's ruin some classes this xpac, and make them as dull, boring and simple as possible, I want my dog to be able to play it". Was it too fun to have different card effects ? Because seriously, after only 8 levels today through dungeons (yeah, queues were long for some reason), I don't care anymore about the cards. And divination preparation will probably not make it that more fun in the future.

At least, a lot of people are still clueless about the card changes. Today, a MCH thanked me for giving him buffs for the whole dungeon. Little he knew that I gave him only 3% melee buffs (bad luck) because he was the closest life bar from my mouse. *chukle* "3% single target".

Seriously, I don't understand the changes : the class was loved as it was (I myself liked the concept of the old cards, it even drew me into the game), no one asked for this, and healer balance was not even an issue for AST (WHM being the black sheep of the three healers back then). So they just changed it "because" ?

It deserves to be meme'd :

No one :

Absolutly no one :

SE : "Let's follow WoW BFA's excellent design path and ruin a class by changing its main appeal into something dull and boring, people will like it for sure, that's why they left BFA... oh wait."

Maybe I will keep posting about AST as I level up, to give the fresh view of a "new player" (they sure made some classes way more simple to play in hope that new players are not too scared...). I see mostly veteran players posting here, so maybe a newb's view will make SE realize that making a loved system more dull is NOT the way to go. I also read about SCH, and yeah... same stuff : removing dps options is booooooooooring. Do you want your game to be boring or what ? I came here because I heard good stuff about class design, so please don't follow the same path than WoW...