SE Removes Astrologian's Lore From Their Gameplay

This is a crosspost from General Discussion because I'm very passionate about this issue almost entirely for Lore reasons.

I'm crossposting the entire post for clarity, however, I would like to focus on this thread around the lore implications of these changes. To me, it won't feel like I'm playing the same class. It feels like Astro is being removed from their lore so much that they're just a Space-Mage and not a Fortune-Telling Time Mage.

http://chng.it/Tqkk2NSBVd

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...lip-A-petition

Shadowbringers plans to strip all variety from Astrologian cards to the point it won't feel like you're even drawing from a deck anymore, but flipping a coin.


Bole / Ewer / Spire: "Increases damage dealt by a party member or self by 6% if target is ranged DPS or 3% for all other class types"

Balance / Arrow / Spear: "Increases damage dealt by a party member or self by 6% if target is melee DPS or 3% for all other classes



Each set of 2 cards has a color that stacks on a new job gauge. Once you have 3 separate colors you can activate an ability on a 180 second cooldown that increases your group's damage in an aoe around you by 3-6%.

The only time you think about which card to use, is once every 180 seconds, where your reward is to get an AoE Balance. Yes. Your reward for thinking about which cards to play is the same effect as the cards themselves.


No longer will you have to decide to use a Ewer for mana regen or as a dps increase. No longer will you have to decide to use a Bole on the tank to give yourself more room to dps, or to burn it for a royal road effect for your dps classes. Should you use an Arrow to give your black mage cast speed? Or risk rerolling it into a spire for the chance to get a Balance? Doesn't matter.


There's no reason to use spread, because, there's no effects to save. Every card can just be auto-used. I was excited to see redraw getting more power, but what is the point of buffing redraw when there's no longer a reason to use it?




This is not Astrologian. Astrologian is a fate based fortune teller. The cards having varied effects and differing power levels is required for class identity. In the same way that Fate feeds you cards of different strengths, it's up to you as the interpreter to carve your own path through the hand you're dealt with Royal Road and Spread. Shadowbringers would remove the flavor from the class to the point of it being stripped of its key feature and not being Astrologian anymore.

I feel cheated. It's like turning the Scholar fairy into a totem that has literally no spells, but increases healing done by a flat amount when it's active.



Edit to address common concerns in the comments:

A lot of people seem to think I'm complaining because Astro is getting 'nerfed'. Far from it. It could be half of the performance of SCH and WHM and I'd still play it. Yes, everyone fishes for AoE balance because it's the "Ace" of the deck. That doesn't mean we want to only have that card.


Getting rid of the varied cards to be replaced by 6 types of the exact same effect is like removing our ability to see the future at all. There's no fortune to be telling when every card means the same thing. There's no room to be a Fortune Teller when we lose Spread and RR to the point we're unable to influence our Fate at all.


This has nothing to do with class-balance or how Astro interacts with the other classes. A lot of people say it's to give Dancer room to be the buff class. That's fine, I don't care if we lose the utility. If SE wants to give us only DPS buffs, at least give us 6 flavors of different ways to boost DPS. Why do we lose Arrow and Spear if we're going this way?


SE is telling Astrologians: You get what you get. You can't fight fate. There's only one path now, and we're not letting you interact with that path.


http://chng.it/Tqkk2NSBVd

While the AST changes are certainly unfortunate for the feel of the job, it seems to be part of a broader move away from MP regen, TP in general and 'specialised' boosts.

Any lore adjustments will have already been written into the game by now, and it won't even be the first or most dramatic script adjustment the story has had recently.


Also this doesn't come off like you're telling us this because you care about the lore, but just because you want to drum up more outrage about it. "Look at this thing they're doing! Aren't you angry? You should be angry!"

I can't speak for others, but "mild disappointment" is all I can feel over this. It has far more of an impact on gameplay than lore, and they'll make the lore work with it. We're still telling fortunes with cards, but the format might be a little changed.



Edit to add: I also don't think it will affect the basic feel of the gameplay anywhere near as much as you're making out. You're still drawing cards, seeing what you get, remembering in the midst of battle which cards go to which of your party members, and throwing cards to the right (or occasionally wrong) person.

Actually, it's part of something that upsets me but I get why they did it: the removal of job quests in 5.0, to be replaced by role quests. On the one hand, I love the job quests because they bring so much lore to our jobs and the world (WHM and the elementals, BLM and Mhach/the Void, SCH and Nym, MNK and Ala Mhigo...), but I can recognize that a lot of the quests introduced a job skill which may be removed (Leeches) or be entirely different going forward (Cards), so they're protecting themselves from leaving gaping plot-holes in the job quests.

On the topic of AST changes, I think it's little about changing the Lore and more it leaves me a "Ugh, well, whatever, gonna have to relearn my cards"

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Originally Posted by ZoeZephyri

I'm crossposting the entire post for clarity, however, I would like to focus on this thread around the lore implications of these changes. To me, it won't feel like I'm playing the same class. It feels like Astro is being removed from their lore so much that they're just a Space-Mage and not a Fortune-Telling Time Mage.

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Two of their new skills are: Horoscope and Divination.

If you are going to try to drum up outrage at least get your facts straight.

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Originally Posted by WhiteArchmage

Actually, it's part of something that upsets me but I get why they did it: the removal of job quests in 5.0, to be replaced by role quests. On the one hand, I love the job quests because they bring so much lore to our jobs and the world (WHM and the elementals, BLM and Mhach/the Void, SCH and Nym, MNK and Ala Mhigo...), but I can recognize that a lot of the quests introduced a job skill which may be removed (Leeches) or be entirely different going forward (Cards), so they're protecting themselves from leaving gaping plot-holes in the job quests.

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While "less job quests" sounds like a bad thing, I think one substantial quest at the end will actually be better for story pacing.

Having just gone through Stormblood with an alt, it feels like there's no good time to run job quests. You have to step away from the continuous main plot to possibly go halfway across the continent for a fragment of a different story - or you can put it all off until Lv70 (at which point you must detour into this other story right as MSQ is reaching its climax, so you'll have your Lv70 skill and armour for the finale) and go through them all in one shot. This feels like about the right pace for the amount of story in the quest chain, but then you're overpowered for early battles and the story is broken up by the would-be gaps between leveling. "Thanks X, we'll let you know if anything comes up. ... Oh hello X, good to see you again. Let me fill you in on what's happened since I last saw you."

One continuous quest designed to be taken after completing the MSQ sounds like a wonderful idea.

Additionally, it sounds like the role quests will be MSQ-linked and help drive the story, rather than pulling you away from it.

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Originally Posted by ZoeZephyri

It feels like Astro is being removed from their lore so much that they're just a Space-Mage and not a Fortune-Telling Time Mage.

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Picking up on this sentence because Razard highlighted it - "time mage" has never been part of astrologian's focus, either lore-wise or as their "core gameplay identity", which is (and continues to be) stars and cards, with time manipulation as a secondary ability used in only a few spells.

Lore-wise it's remarkable that Sevestre is such a skilled astrologian that it's claimed he has the power to stop time. This is not a key element of the art, it's a rumour that gets passed around regarding one of its most formidable practitioners.

Another thing with Job Quests is that, as they keep adding Jobs, the thinner the amount of focus they can put on each job's questline gets. I honestly feel Job Quests were already suffering even in Stormblood. Role Quests are fewer but if they're higher quality because of it I can accept that, as much as I'll miss seeing my job friends.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

While "less job quests" sounds like a bad thing, I think one substantial quest at the end will actually be better for story pacing.

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I know the main reason we don’t have job quests this time around. Mainly being that we are traveling to the First, and there’s literally no way to tie in, say Oboro/Curious Gorge into the new ShB areas. Reason being that only us WoL can travel there, while job NPCs can’t do that.

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Originally Posted by Naraku_Diabolos

I know the main reason we don’t have job quests this time around. Mainly being that we are traveling to the First, and there’s literally no way to tie in, say Oboro/Curious Gorge into the new ShB areas. Reason being that only us WoL can travel there, while job NPCs can’t do that.

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That too, and I almost mentioned it in my last post - but it's not as much of a hindrance because plenty of previous jobs have had their entire questline remain in ARR areas, with maybe a token visit to somewhere new.

Expecting us to detour back from another dimension every three levels would be the bigger story-issue for me.

(I'll be interested to see whether the plot has us permanently on the First throughout the game, with returning to Eorzea being merely a gameplay convenience, or if we'll be traveling back and forth canonically.)

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Originally Posted by Naraku_Diabolos

I know the main reason we don’t have job quests this time around. Mainly being that we are traveling to the First, and there’s literally no way to tie in, say Oboro/Curious Gorge into the new ShB areas. Reason being that only us WoL can travel there, while job NPCs can’t do that.

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Actually I think it's more to save time.

In HW, they gave us quests at 50/52/54/56/58/60 right? In SB they cut it down to 60/63/65/58/70. And now they're consolidating quests apparantly so that we'll have tank/healer/physical dps/magical dps stories instead except for the level 80. I don't think it's because of the source but rather just to cut down on the number of job story quests to make as they introduce more jobs with every expansion. I won't be surprised if we see this pattern again in 6.0 with the new job(s) there having full questlines up to level 80 but then some sort of consolidated role stories again.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

Actually I think it's more to save time.

In HW, they gave us quests at 50/52/54/56/58/60 right? In SB they cut it down to 60/63/65/58/70. And now they're consolidating quests apparantly so that we'll have tank/healer/physical dps/magical dps stories instead except for the level 80. I don't think it's because of the source but rather just to cut down on the number of job story quests to make as they introduce more jobs with every expansion. I won't be surprised if we see this pattern again in 6.0 with the new job(s) there having full questlines up to level 80 but then some sort of consolidated role stories again.

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If we get two new jobs again in 6.0, there'll be a full 30 classes in the game. Assuming quests would still be at 80/83/85/88/90 for 6.0, the old model would mean 150 quests of work. The bloat is very, very real.

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Originally Posted by RenewalXVII

If we get two new jobs again in 6.0, there'll be a full 30 classes in the game. Assuming quests would still be at 80/83/85/88/90 for 6.0, the old model would mean 150 quests of work. The bloat is very, very real.

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Yeah. I'm really not surprised they're cutting back. Though given that they're ALSO cutting back by consolidating crafting/gathering quests into subcategoriers maybe I'm wrong, but I'll be surprised if 6.0 gives us full length job stories again.

I even worry about artifact sets every expansion, but at least that's one form of overhead that's just once per expansion. But every new job does mean new artifact sets, new weapon models, new quests, new abilities, more balancing etc every expansion, so I won't be shocked if 6.0 gives just one new job either.

Divination and the new Sleeve Draw actually brings AST gameplay closer to their lore. Astral Divinations are readings made of 3 Major Arcanas as said by the Encyclopdia. And that's exactly what you'll be doing to buff your party in Shadowbringers.

Plus, more real life Astrology named skill! Yay.

The more XIV progresses over time and more jobs are added the more we gonna lose quality for quantity.
More jobs mean more quests and more workload to implement them.
Apparently we hit the limit of the XIV dev team.
There that much they can do.
If we keep adding jobs and still want the amount of job quests ARR had then we gonna end up with job quests being more than the MSQ ones.
It's obvious this can't continue.

There's also an interview from Yoshida from the media tour about how the lvl 80 job quests are mostly going to be in tone.

The idea is that the WoL has been gone from the Source for all of the 5.0 MSQ and now that they are back on the Source, they are going to their job trainers and catching up with the trainers about what they have been doing while the WoL has been absent. Which... fixes a lot of the pacing issues many of the job quests have with them when you are playing them alongside the MSQ.

I'm gonna miss my Job trainer freinds.

The biggest downside to this Card system gutting, is the lack of agency we now have.

Sure, fishing for Balance might be irritating, but you did have options in Spear and Arrow, and the option to decide where these cards would be most effective.
Who’s doing the most damage? Who benefits more from Crit? Who benefits more from speed?
Now, you get a half-Balance to use on the player the game has selected for you to use it on… which basically makes the melee/ranged distinction pointless, you will use it on whichever gives the full effect.

How I would do it:

Minor Arcana and Seals stay as they are. Lord/Lady giving 8/4% to melee/ranged, and Divination giving AoE 6/3% based on Seals.

Balance: 8/4% Direct Hit to Melee/Ranged, grants a Solar Seal
Spear: 8/4% Critical Hit to Melee/Ranged, grants a Lunar Seal
Arrow: 8/4% Speed to Melee/Ranged, grants a Celestial Seal

Bole: 8/4% Direct Hit to Ranged/Melee, grants a Solar Seal
Ewer: 8/4% Critical Hit to Ranged/Melee, grants a Lunar Seal
Spire: 8/4% Speed to Ranged/Melee, grants a Celestial Seal

This way, you have the same ranged/melee system, but maintain some agency as to which method of DPS increase you employ and where.
Each option isn’t a full on Balance, so there’s nuance to your choice, and potencies increased to 8/4% to account for that, but each one upgrades to a Balance via Minor Arcana or Divination.

Draw a Bole, that’s as generic as you get, use it on a ranged DPS and get a solar seal.
Draw a Spear, do you have a Monk? Great! Use it. Do you have a Bard and Samurai? Oh... maybe it’s more useful on the Bard even at half potency… get a Lunar seal.
Draw a Ewer, you already have a Lunar Seal, Minor Arcana it into a Lady for a flat damage boost for ranged.
Draw an Arrow, you have a BLM and a NIN? Then it’s actually better to use on the BLM even though it’s down to 4%. Get your Celestial Seal.
Use Divination for your 6% AoE Balance.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

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Don't forget this also means now they may dedicate the story to be a bit longer as well since they don't have to scatter resources for multiple Job's stories.

Also this can mean the Job/Class NPCs from the same Job roles storylines can now be in a storyline where they all interact with each other rather than exclusively within their own Job/Class.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

Yeah. I'm really not surprised they're cutting back. Though given that they're ALSO cutting back by consolidating crafting/gathering quests into subcategoriers maybe I'm wrong, but I'll be surprised if 6.0 gives us full length job stories again.

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To be honest, I'm not that disappointed to hear that the Crafting/Gathering quests were being condensed in this way. The Gathering quests were already not particularly riveting, and nearly half of the last batch of crafting quests boiled down to the same moral: Always remember to take the customer's needs into consideration. (Seriously, SO many crafts had a bumbling NPC crafting something they wanted to craft, while you would show them the light by crafting something the customer actually wants/needs.) Yeah, there were a few gems; I loved the last batch of Weaver crafts, and Alchemist was a lore goldmine. Even so, I'm content to allow the writers to focus on several classes at a time.

I"m definitely a little more leery about the same thing being applied to the DoM and DoW jobs, however. We don't really need more reminders about how similar these jobs are to one another, and giving them wildly different backstories was a way to accomplish that. Still, I'm willing to wait and see. It might be fine.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

To be honest, I'm not that disappointed to hear that the Crafting/Gathering quests were being condensed in this way. The Gathering quests were already not particularly riveting, and nearly half of the last batch of crafting quests boiled down to the same moral: Always remember to take the customer's needs into consideration. (Seriously, SO many crafts had a bumbling NPC crafting something they wanted to craft, while you would show them the light by crafting something the customer actually wants/needs.) Yeah, there were a few gems; I loved the last batch of Weaver crafts, and Alchemist was a lore goldmine. Even so, I'm content to allow the writers to focus on several classes at a time.

I"m definitely a little more leery about the same thing being applied to the DoM and DoW jobs, however. We don't really need more reminders about how similar these jobs are to one another, and giving them wildly different backstories was a way to accomplish that. Still, I'm willing to wait and see. It might be fine.

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I get it to an extent, ARR jobs have had three different storylines now, four if you count the base class storylines. Maybe it gets harder to come up with ideas for them, on top of dealing with new jobs adding to the workload. But I was really hoping for a good palaidn story for once. HW was a convoluted mess and SB was more a gladiator sequel than a paladin story. So I'm a bit sad that we're only getting level 80 quests for jobs which probably won't be super involved.