You have to consider the fact that a good majority of the playerbase don't understand the game's systems in the same way that good players do. Heck the poster I replied to before cleared the entire savage tier but clearly didn't know the proper opener. Some people straight up don't understand how to weave, or don't know to target other players during their cast, bad keybinds, not using targetting hotkeys, not using lightspeed etc. All of the above add to the "clunkiness". A lot of people also seem to think for some reason that you had to try so hard for a 6% divination when really 5% is enough and can be accomplished very easily by just chucking out all your cards fast (which isn't that hard, you have can literally do it by single weaving in 3 GCDs).Quote:
Originally Posted by hiz
Call me elitist, but I don't think this was an issue, people just needed to get good, stop complaining, look up resources and practice (you know, like how other non healer jobs need to build their rotation into muscle memory). But nevertheless there still stands issues with technical accessibility -
1. Controller players. I don't think I need to say much more about this.
2. Players with high latency. I used to have bad ping which affected my opener because cards came up with a delay which made it harder to react to, as well as being unable to double weave. This adds more to the "clunkiness" as you're stuck playing solitaire for a longer time if you can't even double weave redraw and play/MA in the same window.
I understand that SE wants to cater to all players (even if PC players will always have an advantage), which is why they probably thought this change was necessary. Do I agree? Probably not; the other changes also overtuned AST to the point of being the both easiest and most overpowered healer right now.
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08-16-2020, 07:23 PMowolett
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08-16-2020, 09:00 PMCrushnightIt depends if you go for full min maxing Dnc or not, if yes then you already started standard step and an early pull misaligns it from technical for rest of the fight if there is no downtime which is a pretty big loss, most people don't wanna take that risk for a pitiful gain, which is the fundamental difference between Dnc and Ast, Ast needs that Divination to line up as its gain is much more substantial than pre standard step is, I was just pointing out to people that Ast forcing a wait isn't the 1st thing to contradict the Aetherflow lock.Quote:
Originally Posted by hiz
I won't be supporting any change for charges as that just brings back what old Sleeve Draw did particularly the opener, the opener is going to have you blow all the charges immediately thus constant target switching returns and as said before I ain't supporting anything that does this until they update their targeting system on controller.
I will support CD reductions as they do not bring that problem back, I'll be happy if Sleeve Draw was 60s but I suspect it'll lose the guarantees a seal you don't have clause if that is the case whereas 90s it would probably keep it.
If Draw had a 5s reset outside combat could alleviate the early pull problem and if organised you get 2 cards out pre pull with the 3 still from current opener. -
08-17-2020, 08:02 PMCeasaria
Bah, AST is still continuing to go away from his Stormblood version.
Sleeve Draw was just so fun and interesting to use.
Imagining having 0 card at all, and in one sec bam 4 cards (spread, royal road, draw and minor arcana).
It was interesting because you had to make the most quick and useful decision to how you manage a full randomize Arcana gauge based on your actual situation on the fight, party composition, own beliefs, etc.
So many different situations and never bored of it.
It was a very nice adding with Minor Arcana for SB because AST HW was quite suffering to not have more cards to play.
And now what ? It gives only one card ?
Geez, one more ability to add to the AST graveyard. -
08-17-2020, 08:08 PMDBriggs304
I rarely used Sleeve draw
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08-18-2020, 02:07 AMAmurT
I've said it before all the way back in 5.0, and I'll say it again, the new card system was doomed from the start.
The Seals simply have no right to even exist and are only there to justify keeping actions like Minor Arcana and Redraw around, inflating the button count to 6(7 if you include Undraw) for a system that lacks both depth and complexity.
It would be more interesting if Seals had uses other than enabling Divination, or if Divination had alternate effects other than varying potencies of damage up, but as they are now, they're unnecessary. Incorporating Sleeve Draw's effect into Seals was just a bad move in general because, again, the additional clause added to Sleeve Draw may as well not exist beyond the opener (which we now have to wait 30 seconds on).
I hope 6.0 either reworks or reverts the cards, OR they add more actions to expand upon this system if they're determined to keep it. It's the only thing we have going for us when we're not spamming Malefic. -
08-18-2020, 11:23 AMGravagar
I'm part of the AST crowd who kinda liked not having quite so many cards to spam- but I really like the breakdown on point #1. I was thinking, "ehh, it sucks that I lost 2 cards, but I'm happier to be able to dispel the RNG curse of Balance - Bole - Balance - Bole..."
But reading point #1 makes me wish that they had done a better fix that dispels that curse without damaging the job's integrity. AST is already the last refuge for healers who want their job effectiveness to increased based on their skill-
https://i.imgur.com/rJdvrML.png...which is a mechanic in Final Fantasy XIV, developed by Square Enix for the PC and PS4...
I know this is just a sidenote from an old Live Letter, but it's- it's just such an obvious thing that it shouldn't have to be said, yet it's something we have to shout, isn't it?!
I just don't know why there's only one card. Why is there only one card? There's one single card that comes in 3 different colors. And why melee / ranged split? One card covers 4 jobs (plus tanks) and the other covers, like, 6 (plus healers) ? I rarely see balanced 2:2 comps. Hell, I often see 1:4 in 24 mans, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by AmurT
Guess they ran out of time and resources after iterating multiple times over BLM (to please Yoshi P) and didn't have any leftover time or resources to polish AST more than a single iteration, if that. -
08-18-2020, 01:11 PMhizI wasn't intending to post further, but since you've put this in a particular way I felt compelled to share my views on this matter... 4.x cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gravagar
In your post you suggest that the old 4.x iteration of AST rewarded player skill more, but this statement is simply untrue. In fact many players in JP (and NA/EU as far as I can observe) that play this game at the highest level voice a very strong preference towards the 5.x card kit because its optimization factors are magnitudes deeper than the 4.x iteration of the kit.
Put simple:
4.x optimum: Spam AoE on trick. Very heavily luck dependent.
5.x optimum: Spread every party member's potency timeline and choose the maximum. Far smaller luck factors.
A more detailed explanation:
The 4.x optimum was spam AoE on trick, which meant you want two cards/60s, RR and the balance. Because draw and play shared cooldowns, there was nothing a player can do aside from hit draw every 30s and immediately get rid of it praying its the one you wanted. You could almost never draw balance + RR per 60s for the entire fight, so you'd find yourself doing a million compromises during pull; playing Spear, Arrow, non AoE cards, skipping a buff window for the next... the best possible option was blatantly obvious, yet you were only praying you could play that way. And MA was just even more RNG disaster.
On the other hand, I will quote the original post for the 5.x version:
Do you see that the number of options and the level of control we have toward achieving optimum are magnitudes higher than the previous iteration? We can pick the optimum target and oGCD window for every card in the fight. There are still luck factors (melee/ranged and Seals), but we can account for this and play pretty much optimally every pull.Quote:
Originally Posted by hiz
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That said, I am in total agreement that RNG curse of looping between two cards feels terrible. I'll point to a post of my own regarding this, as an alternative solution to reverting to 4.x cards. I hope this post overall clarifies a few things for you. -
08-18-2020, 01:29 PMhiz
While I'm a it...
True, and I know you probably agree with this but to spell it out for others technical accessibility (especially latency) are issues that ideally should be resolved independently from your job toolkit. I've played myself on 300 ping once for a few years and boy that felt... not good, but I would rather them fix their networking than rework every job to cater for pings like that because it would ruin the game experience for everyone else.Quote:
Originally Posted by owolett
I apologize for not being concrete enough. Why would anyone care to optimize in PF...? By PF context I was pointing to environments where your tanks immediately start pulls without countdowns and no one cares about buffs. I can't speak for Western DC's but this isn't uncommon in JP. When both jobs are forced to not wait, DNC can still fight, AST can't. That said, I understand that in optimization context the issue was already there and agree with your point that it contradicted the Aetherflow lock.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crushnight
As for controller players, my personal take is that it's their fault for choosing to play on controller. I also understand the view that if SQEX is going to support controller, they should do it well... but in my opinion this should not come at a cost for the rest of the population, especially when device for most players is just a matter of choice. I'm not asking for agreement, but I will just put it out. -
08-18-2020, 02:39 PMGravagarI meant in relation to the other healers- the skill ceiling has totally collapsed on WHM and SCH, and there're just not many other mechanics to make up for it. Lilies and fairy gauge are fairly passive mechanics, more of a feeling like... "it's there when you need it and useless when you don't." Hell, someone at SE greenlit removing Energy Drain, so it's clear there's a general disdain for what healers consider skilled play.Quote:
Originally Posted by hiz
Sorry for the misleading wording. And, I mean, putting it like that- I do understand a lot more about your dissatisfaction. Thank you for elaborating further. I've been wondering why my logs as AST haven't been as good as I think they should be, and you have given me some insights into that. I have some ideas to take into tomorrow night's reclears... I'm a bit conflicted now, since I view both systems as having the exact same intrinsic flaw (RNG- drawing only melee cards when you don't have multiple melee VS drawing only utility cards when you don't need utility... and drawing only single-target RR cards when you want an aoe VS that one seal you need not showing up for the rest of the fight), with the same % chances of screwing you up, but different extrinsic consequences (tossing bad cards into minor arcana VS less damage, I guess.)
Like, I get that it's strictly a promotion to have every card be the best card of the 4.x deck (but drastically weaker), and that it makes things more consistent, but at that point, why keep the old flaw if all the rest of the old stuff is gone? Why inherit the worst, most frustrating part of the job? I'll at least appreciate that the new sleeve draw mitigates that part, until whatever upheaval in 6.0 happens. Hopefully the job design team is +1 by then, with someone on it who isn't a barren creative wasteland when it comes to tanks+healers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hiz
Unfortunately, I think many of the ping issues might be here to stay. I'm guessing that SE office politics / overlords won't allow Yoshida to take any offer for data storage except the lowest bidder, despite FF14 basically keeping them afloat singlehandedly. The wording he used sticks in my head- he went as far as saying (around the... SB1 data center migration? unless it was HW, but I think it was SB1...) that NA pings will most likely worsen, but it's a sacrifice that players have to be willing to make. I do wish FF14 servers could be moved basically anywhere other than what might be the network congestion center of North America, since that would greatly improve my experience and the experience of many others... -
08-18-2020, 03:26 PMhizYou're welcome. Allow me to add a few remarks here. It is true that there are still RNG factors in the current card kit, but as I've implied in my prior post the factors, or "% chances of you screwing up" as you put it, are magnitudes smaller. I can run the numbers for you, but I want you to have a think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gravagar
Re Melee/Ranged RNG, this isn't really RNG as there are usually optimum options for both cards. This is an optimized sample E8S P2 opener cardplay (for my static) I posted previously in this thread. What I want you to notice is that the chances I hit Redraw once is already very small because pretty much every card can be played optimally in this context. Of course there are a few routes slightly better than others, but overall damage difference caused by this particular RNG is marginally small. The same goes with pretty much any card for any pull.
Re Seal RNG, sure this is purely RNG. However, what are the chances of not having three Seals with 5~8 cards (on old SD) + 3 Redraw stacks? Compared with the chances of not drawing RR or Balance on one draw+ redraw, repeat 14~20 times? This is again why many of us that optimize prefer this iteration.
That said, we have both agreed that looping between two cards feel terrible. Like I have mentioned already, I think what this kit needs is a Redraw rework (AND REVERT SLEEVE. Please.) more than anything else.
Or they could just recode network protocol so you don't clip regardless of ping, for example. Easier said than done, sure, but I doubt SQEX has zero alternatives on software stuff that can be done re clipping.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gravagar
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08-21-2020, 05:57 PMSabrenn
Hello, thanks for translating the thread.
As someone who used to love the job on release when everyone hated it, I will say this: they have not stopped to remove optimization elements from day 1.
We had weaker potency but we had cross-class systems that let us use Cure: that is what I used to do and brought the healing potency up to the other healers.
We had 3 dots, aero, combust, combust 2: but they removed cross-class so we lost a dot. Now we have only got 1 dot.
We had meaningful cards for different scenarios, and the old Lord/Lady was really good as it meant EVERY card was good because it was a potential free ogcd heal/dps.
We had heavy (stella), and stun aoe (celestial opposition) which whm still gets to keep for some reason.
I don't appreciate the card throwing single target as being optimization if you do it subconsciously. The single card throw is the biggest mistake SE ever did with the job.
We got used to using royal road to buff at level 35. THIRTY FIVE. Then now at lvl 80 we have to go back to lvl 30 gameplay?
If you played this job for a long time you wouldn't even have to look twice at a card to know: "yep, bard card. yep, black mage card. yep, co-heal messed up and went out of mana card."
The current cards are insanely boring to me because of the ridiculous removal of type of card. It feels like playing blackjack but all the cards automatically give you 21 because you cheat.
This problem with multi-press buttons will never be solved until they bring back royal road and give each card an identity again. I don't want to play with a deck of Joker cards. I'm not a cheater.
I understand you're upset about the number of cards but that's just childplay in comparison to what we lost and I would prefer that coming back first. We were able to single card before and I have argued in the past that it was actually a dps increase to do so if you got lucky and had perfect cards for each dps in the party. Nothing stopped us from optimizing that way, though aoe balance was definitely the easier option.
Losing the time/haste elements from all jobs except monk has also massively dumbed down gameplay. AST losing 2 time extenders, DRK losing delirium speed up, SCH losing fey wind.
I'm not the best at putting my thoughts across so I hope this makes sense! I feel like I've complained about this a lot but I'm still not over 5.0 even though I keep trying to pick up AST it just breaks my heart every time. -
08-21-2020, 07:34 PMSemirhageThis particular 5.x AST meme will never stop giving me life. Job satisfaction issues with the role aside, the healers with the strongest healing potencies, highest raid DPS, best mobility, (now) highest mana recovery, most ridiculously powerful off-GCD kit, and utility saturated kit finds time to kvetch that the perennially zero utility no-frills job gets one single stun they don't have, and it'll cause resentment for years to come.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sabrenn
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08-21-2020, 09:24 PMhizYou're welcome, however the only thing I can agree to in your post is your remark on dots (and I'm assuming you're including cleric stance here)... ya they took many things from many jobs away and its saddening. But when you say things like the old iteration of cards was somehow deeper in gameplay context, or that there existed a situation where single target cards in the previous iteration was somehow superior to its AoE cards, I strictly disagree. I will point you to these posts in case you haven't read them already.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sabrenn
In addition I'll make a few remarks:
"meaningful cards for different scenarios" - this is a fallacy. All cards were strictly inferior to AoE Balance, therefore there was no meaning for other cards to exist in optimal gameplay. You played the other cards as a compromise to bad RNG, and you still never played Bole, Spear[*Spire. This was a typo] or Ewer (because, who would ever depend on RNG dependent defense buffs/resources?).
"old Lord and Lady was good because every card was good" - ...really? Old MA was arguably the worst part of the old iteration for several reasons:
1. You NEVER needed Lady, because when you optimize healing you would never rely on an RNG dependent oGCD heal. Since you build your healing without the Lady, drawing the Lady was zero gain. In the rare case where I could hit MA without lowering PTDPS the Lady icon was the last thing I wanted to see.
In my eyes the word "childplay" is a much more fit description for the old iteration.
2. Drawing and throwing Lord was no indication of player skill whatsoever, but you still had to pray for it when you hit MA because it existed. Good riddance of horrid RNG!
3. You had players sub-optimally spam MA to draw a million Lords instead of trying to buff the party.
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08-21-2020, 09:54 PMShurrikhan"Micromanagement can feel a bit too convoluted given poor controller target-selection, an unintuitive design to Redraw, unnecessary animation times, and latency affecting each of said oGCDs in typical twice-ping fashion" =/= "We just plain don't like micromanagement above a level about... yee high."Quote:
Originally Posted by Risvertasashi
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08-22-2020, 12:22 AMSabrennOf course cleric too, that's a given for all healers however.Quote:
Originally Posted by hiz
Bole was good if you were padding a dps because it's 150% potency increase of a balance card. Spear was good as an aoe pre-pull because it meant you could do your re-opener faster. Later on, it became a good alternative to balance if you had AOE and balance didn't appear. Ewer was good when your co-healer messed up (which I wrote above but I guess you didn't understand what I meant by "yep, co-heal messed up and went out of mana card." Also Ewer was always good because it was the -50% pot AOE royal road card.
Single target cards were better IF YOU GOT LUCKY. 4 100% potency correct cards on the correct 4 dps IS a dps increase over general -50% potency dps buff on ALL. It was very risky strat that's why I said "if you got lucky and had perfect cards for each dps in the party"
Of course lady is not the best out of lord/lady but there had to be a risk/reward and getting lady just meant one less gcd on someone.
If you are actually going to tell me that you didn't gcd heal back then, then I don't believe you even played AST when it came out and have nothing else to add to this thread because you don't understand where I'm coming from and never had this experience.
I'm not sure if you remember old AST opener or if it was different on JP, but we used to fish for aoe balance + lord pre-opener. In Zurvan pre-spear change from cd reduction to crit I remember using AOE spear in the opener for a faster re-opener.
About 1: You never needed Lady no, but it saved a gcd. That's a gain.
About 2: Drawing Lord was not skill no, it was a bonus. As it should be. If you want to play Fate without having to deal with the randomness I'm not sure what you expected from a tarot-based job to be honest. I enjoyed the thrill of getting the perfect run with perfect cards. Like gambling, when you win big you feel great and when you lose you don't feel so good.That's what AST felt like to me. And it's gone. You enjoy non-RNG and because of people like you, people like me lost their RNG job. You're allowed to not want RNG as much as I'm allowed to want it back. So if you complain about current AST losing cards, to me it feels a bit hypocritical because you already got your RNG removal and are complaining that other people are getting what they wanted, when people like me are still longing for the original job we fell in love with.
Do you see my point of view here?
About 3: I thought we were talking about optimized scenarios. You could say that about any job being played wrong. That doesn't mean anything. -
08-22-2020, 04:06 AMhizI wasn't going to go this far, but if you're going to talk like this you leave me no choice. Of course I played the job back then (at 300 ping, so I know all about clipping too), and I am absolutely sure I know far better than you about how 4.x worked. That's R2 personal & speed and R1 speed at 300 ping, and Beere that played the same way with better ping was R1 for pretty much every fight. No, in most fights you DIDN'T GCD heal or if you did it was absolutely minimal. If you did, and felt Lady had any kind of utility whatsoever that's because your static or yourself was bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sabrenn
First off I apologize for mistyping Spear when I meant Spire. I did play the Spear as a compromise weak-balance when it was a crit buff. With that said... Nonsense. If you thought 150% or whatever single target card was with any kind of RNG even possibly superior to AoE, you need to work on your math (or your static must have been terrible). Alternative? Sure, a strictly inferior one that you won't ever play in optimal situations. Spear(3.x) AoE prepull? Did you ever play in a static that aligns buffs? Or a DPS job with decency ever? As for Ewer, it was good to draw for RR, true, but you never played it (which is what I said for other cards as well) in optimal situations and that's what you care about I am assuming. Same goes with padding... who cares if you could pad DPS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sabrenn
Of course I remember, and I despised every aspect of it. For fights like O9 where you couldn't insta-wipe, I was put into O8 on my own where I jumped off the floor to fish cards prepull before we entered the zone. I never want to do that again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sabrenn
The only thing I can relate to is your point on you liking RNG. Liking or disliking RNG is subjective opinion, and I have no right to deny you on this. However, as an AST player I genuinely question your competence. -
08-22-2020, 03:16 PMSabrennQuote:
Originally Posted by hiz
Quote:
Originally Posted by hiz
Not only do you try to link me with commission tracker url links to make money off me to prove me wrong and profit off me, but you also call me and the people I play/played with a bad player.Quote:
Originally Posted by hiz
Enjoy your one-sided monologue. Nothing to talk about with you on this topic. You already made your opinion are are not looking for conversation. -
08-22-2020, 03:36 PMhizIf you think I am somehow associated with FFLogs and by posting its link I make money, you are delusional. I apologize if truth hurts you*, and you are exactly right, no I am not looking for conversation with unintelligible people that not only have no idea what they're talking about, but also tries to argue me nonsense employing failed roleplay attempts of high level players and think that I don't know enough to fall for it. I have no obligation to be nice to people that treat me with disrespect. You just got what you deserved for treating me like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sabrenn
*I could give you a Youtube video or Google Spreadsheets or whatever media that you find fit to provide proof for my words, but you know what, I'm not obliged to go out of my way so much to spoon feed you with answers. If you find FFLogs unfit for studying this game, that is a good description of where you stand, and frankly I have no interest in making any further statements for you. Good luck with improving your roleplay. -
08-22-2020, 04:06 PMGravagarSo I get that you have some high performance marks, and you're proud of it, but... Take care that you don't lose sight of the rest of the mountain when you reach its peak. If your ideas are as self-apparent as you make them out to be, then you wouldn't have needed to make this thread. Using GCD heals and getting some use out of Ladies doesn't necessarily mean you're bad at your job or that your group's at fault for making you use them- could just be that you're in prog still. Prog's an important part of the AST experience too, no?Quote:
Originally Posted by hiz
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08-22-2020, 04:16 PMhizI was always talking about optimization and optimized scenarios, which in my opinion prog does not fall into. This person was trying to act like he had an idea talking about optimization in a disrespectful manner, so I just told him I won't be fooled. Prog is a totally different story, and sure, Lady could have been of value there given the randomness of player performance inherent in prog, or PF, or any other given sub-optimal environment. My opinions remain unchanged on GCD heals and Lady on optimized scenarios; if you were treating Lady with utility in optimal situations, you were not optimizing this job well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gravagar
Edit: It is true that I do have very clear concrete ideas on this job that I have built from my gameplay and my own theorycrafting, which of course are subject to change... but not through failed roleplay attempts. Feel free to prove me wrong with math. The (observable) player skill of a poster is irrelevant to how I react, it is more whether the conversations are respectful or not. As for why I made this thread, I made it to shed light on opinions of a playerbase that are usually silent in places like this, as I (maybe mistakenly) believed there could be some value in doing so. -
08-22-2020, 09:31 PMShurrikhanSabrenn implied Lady was of use even in optimized play. Hiz posted a piece of evidence to the contrary.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gravagar
There's really no need to juice it for all the "elitist!" angle it can be misconstrued for... -
08-23-2020, 01:50 AMGravagarMm, okay, I initially didn't get the impression they were talking about optimized scenarios, but I fact checked myself and saw they explicitly mentioned them- then, yeah, prog wasn't part of that discussion. Nevermind on that part.Quote:
Originally Posted by hiz
Still, some of those attacks felt like they went a bit too far. I do think you made a valuable thread- the only way to properly ensure feedback gets listened to is to coordinate the same message across all communities, or we just get Pagos map design. Main point is, I worry that positive-change ideas could struggle to gain traction if their advocates have a rep for biting.
To be clear, I'm not against "elitism (textbook definition- just someone who wants to get better and prefers company with similar goals)" and do try to advocate against "elitism (connotation in which the speaker is actually communicating 'this person told me I'm not perfect and I don't like that.')" hiz came off sounding pretty strong, and the misconstruing wasn't too deep of a reach, I don't think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
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08-23-2020, 03:01 PMhizGiven that his words clearly contradicted what you would expect when discussing optimization, I understand you... I had to read them three times to be extra sure what I was seeing was a disrespectful roleplay attempt (if this person was not talking about optimization, I would’ve had nothing to say). I also could have been more explicit on my part in that by “bad” I intended “bad optimizer(s)”.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gravagar
I can understand, and I apologize if my unnecessarily heated/loaded remarks towards this person made you or whoever else reading this thread uncomfortable. I won’t take back what I’ve put out already, but I could have worded them differently, and I agree that given the purpose of this thread I should have been more tolerant towards (disrespectful) people like this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gravagar
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08-25-2020, 07:58 AMMOZZYSTAR
I'm probably in the minority by now, but I think 3.x/4.x AST was super fun and really didn't need its overall gameplay changed. I had keyboard/mouse friends and friends who played it on controller just fine. The gameplay worked, it wasn't broken, it shouldn't have been "fixed." I really wish they would just revert the class back to 3.x/4.x. Let the Balance fishers fish for Balance. Let the rest of us have fun with the unpredictable and flexible gameplay style that was Astrologian. People don't like to micromanage? Then they can go play WHM. White mage is meant to be the more straightforward of the three healing classes anyway, so the "micromanagey" classes should have been left ALONE. Another good "fix" would have been to implement a second straight-forward healing class for those who don't like to micromanage so they actually had a choice of which healing class to play. But I guess butchering AST and SCH to be more like WHM was the easier option. (I'm not salty. Okay, I'm a little salty.)
I miss my claaaaassss /cries a river of big, fat, ugly tears/ Why are they being so stubborn about this? It's been over a year and the complaints about healers has hardly waned. It just doesn't make sense. It's pretty much all about pride now, and pride to this extent is no bueno. -
08-25-2020, 08:38 AMAlmostward
I agree. I mained Astro since HW, and even with its flaws then I loved it. Now.....I hate healing, and that's sad cause in every MMO I'm always playing healer. What FF14 has done to healers this expansion has pretty much made ne stop enjoying it. Sure the story is good, and music is top, but when what you love is no longer fun and it lost its identity you lose something also. It's called soul and individuality. Something healers now lack
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08-26-2020, 06:34 PMCorra_
Its so sad what they have done to Sleevedraw this patch and to the healers in general this expansion. I know there have been complaints to Sleevedraw because of controller issues. But pre 5.3 patch Sleevedraw gave AST a lot of depth and optimization which at the current state none of the other healers could deliver. Changing sleevedraw brought us to this weird situation where we have 3 healers and none of them have barely any depth and are incredibly easy to play( pushing the two same buttons 70% of the fight for almost every fight Savage included).
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08-26-2020, 09:51 PMLiam_Harper
Came across a few comments from a sprout on Novice Network regarding AST:
-"uuh I just realised.. all AST guides say stuff about cards giving a damage taken-decrease, MP-cost-decrease, etc... yet all my cards show 3/6% damage buff?"
-"..its just 3/6% damage now?"
-"immediatly sacking this class. wtf"
-"how is 6 cards having the same 2 effects amazing?"
If even the new players think it's boring, who exactly are you making the class for? -
08-27-2020, 04:49 AMKabooa"This small anecdotal sample size represents everyone in a broad general category of new player."Quote:
Originally Posted by Liam_Harper
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08-27-2020, 07:17 AMSide-EyeAll of this.Quote:
Originally Posted by MOZZYSTAR
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08-27-2020, 11:53 AMKleeyaThey are new players, and as such still don't know that more dps is all that matters. With more experience they will come to understand that having defence bole cards was worthless if you could launch a more damage balance instead.Quote:
Originally Posted by Liam_Harper
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08-27-2020, 10:12 PMLiam_HarperFair comment and I don't mean to claim it does. Just thought I'd share, feel free to disagree, it's not my own personal feedback anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabooa
I think the point was more they knew dps matters but didn't find that as fun. Which is, of course a wider problem than just AST and more the dps-centric design of the game and I don't think "revert back to old AST" is the answer there, but it does seem people like having some non-dps utility. Not sure how you'd mix that in though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kleeya
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08-27-2020, 11:09 PMHeulGDarianMan i wasnt an astro main in any sense of the word, but like most people it came the time where i had to level it. had some fun times with the cards some not so fun times with people deliberately overwriting my cards even after w8ing for them to cast theirs for a really long time but from what i played my most favourite card wasnt balance, it was actually Bole. It felt so good giving a free rampart to the tank and yes sure dps is king yada yada but i thought the whole point of astro was to make the best out of what you got , it fit the jobs identity like a glove.Quote:
Originally Posted by Liam_Harper
Add to that the timey wimey spells which boi was it cool to just put a massive regen on the tank and see him be undefeatable, now all it has is gravity and its completely odd for it to exist in there.
At any rate this just my piece on this matter. -
08-28-2020, 02:49 AMMPNZOk, just going to plug one of my ideas again: Return the cards to having unique effects (mostly back to 4.0), but making divination a constant fluctuating DPS buff based on seals & repeated singular card use with a growth/degeneration system that would make balance fishing a short term burst damage at the cost of becoming a debuff if it's overused, with some mitigation abilities for RNG and general QoL. The risk/reward might be more interesting, and if it ends up being like way to powerful again: hopefully they'll just decide to improve the other healers instead of just repeating 5.0 againQuote:
Originally Posted by Liam_Harper
This is only partially true, and it's mostly just fors peed running and the higher difficulty raids and trails outside of progression. But, totally ignores pug content, and progression across the board. Extremely undergeared party members, broken equipment, DPS-only healers, player unfamiliarity with the content, and eating every aoe are still very common in PUGs, which regularlyplaced situational cards above balance. Being hyper focused to just one particular set of content or school thought probably wont sit well for players outside of those circlesQuote:
Originally Posted by Kleeya
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08-28-2020, 03:36 AMGenzThis is totally alien to FFXIV as a whole. Those players are certainly wasting their time on this game.Quote:
For those players, the process of being inventive, optimizing, and discovering how to do things better than the general public are fun factors.
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08-30-2020, 01:44 PMAyesafailePlenty of 4.x speedkill ASTs made incorrect card decisions, but their mistakes were typically obfuscated by the randomness of the system. I assume that's what you mean when you talk about "rewarding player skill".Quote:
Originally Posted by hiz
As someone who has been involved in speedkills in the past (mostly Alexander Creator, a bit in Sigmascape), optimization of the current card system just seems tedious. You're not innovating, you're dissecting FFLogs for the correct answer. I can see how that's interesting to certain individuals, but it just seems like busywork to me. I also find it amusing that this "depth" lies clearly in an area that Square Enix don't want to draw focus to (ACT/parsing).
Don't get me wrong, I didn't like the randomness of 4.x AST when doing speedkills either. It was often frustrating to have times beaten due to another team having better AoE Balance luck, even though they made no strategical breakthroughs. -
09-01-2020, 12:25 AMAurelius2625
Sleeve draw is nearly fine, as it is currently. The only thing that needs changing is moving its cooldown to 2 minutes to synch it up with Divination. If the devs wanted to be REALLY nice, they'd give it two charges. This would alleviate the loss in Rdps, while guaranteeing a perfect divination every time, regardless of pull, timers, countdowns, and so forth... for the opener.
You'd draw a card normally, then you'd get your two remaining seals from the two charges of sleeve draw. You don't HAVE to make that change to it, but it'd mitigate the loss of cards overall throughout the fight and balance it between what we have right now, and what we had pre 5.3
Alternatively, you could keep it as is, and reduce the CD to 60s if you really wanted to, to match the amount of cards you'd get from it (60s, 1 card, vs the old 3 mins for 3 cards).
Any of these options would be fine, but let me stress that it's not necessary, except for moving the CD to 2 min to synch it with divination. Everything else is purely optional. -
09-03-2020, 04:44 AMhizTo clarify, by "rewarding player skill" I intended that while in the 4.x iteration you were only praying that you could play the blatantly obvious optimum (hit draw and immediately play on cooldown praying it becomes AoE Balance on Trick), the 5.x iteration allows you to pre-plan every card to its optimal oGCD/target for every fight, thus it rewards people that spend time to think a lot more than the previous iteration.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ayesafaile
I fully agree with you that in 4.x incorrect card decisions were obfuscated by the randomness of the system, but that can be said for the 5.x iteration as well with Crit DH variance influencing your card strength... and the same can be said for pretty much every other job in the game, so while this randomness is a frustrating part of the game (as you have mentioned) I don't think this is 4.x AST unique.
Part of me understands this, while another part of me asks when was optimizing jobs not dissecting FFLogs/Google Spreadsheets/Excel for the correct answer? Coming up with 5-head strats is one thing, but my understanding is that you always needed to preplan how you would play your job optimally with that 5-head strat, and that typically was spreadsheet work. While I see that this is cumbersome to do, doing this busywork almost always had its rewards for most jobs in the game (although SQEX devs historically has gone great lengths to minimize this reward with pretty much every expansion post HW).Quote:
Originally Posted by Ayesafaile
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09-10-2020, 06:34 PMLaughingBanana
I am currently raising my Astro and it's a really fun job! But its still 62 so I don't have sleeve draw yet, can someone explain to what it does and maybe also what it did before it becomes what it is today? The tooltips isn't really clear about this.
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09-10-2020, 09:29 PMYusiKhaIt used to give 3 random cards, now it gives 1 card with a seal you don’t have already (a random card if you have all 3 seals).Quote:
Originally Posted by LaughingBanana
Some people don’t like the change because it’s 2 fewer cards. Other people like the change because it’s 2 fewer cards.