Concern for AST Rework: enigmatic and confusing

Since 4.0's adjustments I have had a good bead on the direction the devs were going with AST, what philosophy they are employing, and what the intentions are. It has been a fun job overall to me for the last 7 years! Frequently controversial, but usually understandable, the job design has been pretty consistent at core levels every couple years. While the micro mechanics of the job constantly change - which, understandably, leaves some people miffed and displeased - the core essence of the job has been stable, and that is what has kept it fun and engaging to a majority of its raiding population:

The upcoming changes, honestly, do not make a lot of sense right now.

AST is a job which has always forced one to receive unknown variables, and had to react to the situation to make the most out of them as possible. However there is another aspect to the job: investing resources early, to get higher value out of them later. It is a very satisfying job to execute when your decisions are efficient, and intelligent. I feel this latter idea is where they are trying to shift cards - which currently represent the former - towards. Unfortunately, there is a chance that this may fall flat in execution and reduce AST away from the type of job people enjoy for those who currently play it, versus the type of job people who do not play AST want it to be.

I am not actually all too upset about the removal of RNG. I do not feel that randomness is somehow intrinsically necessary to the job. I would rather it still exist, yes, since it adds some exhilaration and interest to the job--how no 2 pulls will be necessarily alike. But I am open to the idea of an experiment.

However, I have great concerns about the manner in which they have decided to take this 0 RNG trial route. Making our 4-pack Sleeve Draw possibly give us 1 DPS card per usage, has some grievous consequences on gameplay. It means there will be a frequent occasion our rotation ends up consistently trashing half our cards, which will end up feeling extraordinarily awful knowing that half our deck is going to do nothing. On the flipside, during prog season those mitigative and curative cards are going to feel oppressively strong. Some people have grievances about feeling forced to play AST despite them not liking its current state because of its performance capabilities in the best hands; this has potential to be exacerbated even further when AST can have this much defensive utility in one button. It could be fun and interesting depending on execution, but there's a very real chance it will feel rather boring and uninspired, and the cards will feel like Just Another Button, I Guess.

This direction they have chosen does not make much sense, does not currently line up with the way the job has always played since its inception, and has potential to be a real albatross for Square.

No genuine AST main worth their salt (i.e who's cleared high level content) ever really complained about the RNG for the main cards. The only time they would be an issue is if you queued a dungeon and got 2/2 melee or ranged in your party, which doesn't even matter because casual content can be cleared without hitting your buttons anyway. The third seal for astrodyne was the equivalent of WHM's freecure trait, and fishing for it was a mistake given how the personal DPS buff is only equivalent to half a malefic's potency for the entire buff window. The RNG issue was with Lady/Lord, since bloated healer toolkits meant you would always want Lord in 90% of cases.

The developers saying ''We've heard feedback of people disliking the RNG, even if some people like it. So we are removing RNG'' is crystal clear to me they listened to people who don't even play the job. I bet they also listened to those people who look back at AST in SB with rose-tinted glasses, who want their unique and individual cards back, so they can look at their hotbar and go ''wow, my cards are so interesting!'' as they continually keep pressing for the DPS increase card, because ironically, as conceptually interesting that different/unique cards may be, it is inevitable a damage increase variant will always be supreme with FF14's design. So instead of letting players fish or choose what unique card they want, they'll give you all of them at once per minute to avoid the ''fishing for balance'' issue of SB, forced and fixed on you, so you can see even clearer how useless and unneeded those mitigation and curative cards really are amidst your other abundance of healing and mitigation OGCD's. Oh, did I also forget to tell you AST is getting a third stack of ED and an entirely new (Level 100 I presume) mass AOE healing spell too? I'm sure you'll need those new cards you're getting!

AST mains of present lose what they love about their job, watching it get simplified and stripped down to something which doesn't resemble the core identity of the job to begin with. Pulling cards out of a deck and having RNG/fate guide you as per lore? Gone. A difficult and high APM burst window which took genuine skill and effort? Gone. Yet, even former AST mains from SB who want their old job back aren't getting what they want. Unique and interesting cards which have different effects and you could fish for what you want? No, you'll get your cards chosen for you and forced, where the mit/curative card will probably be nothing as interesting as MP regen or reducing cast times.

It's phenomenal how SE have missed the mark. I thought Shb into EW was bad... but in comparison, it was glorious compared to this shite.