So, I would like to go over my thoughts on the 5.05 patch changes first, but you can skip to the large letters in the next post to get to what I'd like to discuss.
The Sleeve Draw is the big change. I actually enjoyed playing Astrologian more when I was synced below the level of Sleeve Draw because of how horrendous it felt to use. It definitely feels good now without losing the functionality. I also personally like how it doesn't just line up with Divination now so you don't just trivialize the seals every time.
Divination being only 2 minutes also helps a lot with having us actually engage with the seal system instead of literally getting all of our seals in the first 15 seconds (with Sleeve Draw) and then sitting around for 3 minutes turning every card into a Crown, because having to use an extra oGCD for every card draw because the seal system doesn't matter 80% of the time was fun. :|
Reducing the cast time on everything to give us time to draw and play all of the cards during every GCD without losing cast time is very nice as well, even more than I thought it would be before I could try it.
Celestial Opposition was the last ability that, every time I used it, made me wonder why I even bothered using it. I ended up pretty much ignoring it. Actually feels good to use now.
But... Potency and performance were never really that big of a deal for me as a healer if I'm being perfectly honest. As long as I could still do it, I wasn't very worried and even liked the challenge and potency is the easier thing for them to change. As long as Astrologian can preform well enough to function, I'm cool with being an underdog.
The cards are ultimately what drew me to the class and how they function is the make or break for enjoyment. To be clear, from a mechanical standpoint, I actually like the new card system.
The other change to Divination is the epitome of why their new card direction bothers me, and where this divide in Astrologians is coming from:
"Damage increase effect changed from 2%/4%/6% to 4%/5%/6%."
Because Divination is only a 2 minute CD now instead of 3 minutes, it means you have less time to get the seals, especially when Sleeve Draw no longer lines up perfectly with it CD-wise.
I don't think it's too hard to infer with this change, along with why they changed all cards to just give the same damage buff, that they are very afraid of letting the Astrologian have any kind of bad card RNG. If you can't draw bad cards, why even have cards? Why not just have abilities to use for buffs? Heck, if I completely ignore the seals I draw and just spam cards out, I lose at max, 2% damage to the raid during the 15 second buff. Although if you look at the odds you're actually more likely to only lose 1% from spamming cards randomly.
1% for 15 seconds. :( I'm not saying it doesn't add up, but am I really suppose to feel good about spending the energy on getting those seals when that's the reward?
The Great Astrologian Divide
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08-01-2019, 12:53 PMHalikThe Great Astrologian Divide
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08-01-2019, 12:53 PMHalik
At the end of the day, it feels like the cards have become a busy-work chore instead of something I look forward to. It sucks because, from a purely mechanical perspective, the changes to Sleeve Draw definitely make this new card system more engaging and enjoyable than the old AoE buff spam for raids. The cards themselves are now boring though, and I can't find any way to look forward to drawing any of them so no amount of cool mechanical gameplay will let me care about them when compared to the old cards.
At its core, there's a divide between Astrologians that enjoy the RNG nature of the old individual card buffs versus the non-RNG nature of the current homogenized cards. This is the main concern I would like Square to fix in the future.
Personally feel like the easiest "fix" is to simply add utility buffs on top of the current card system from mitigation, movement speed, mana regen, Anti-knockback, or healing increased and such; non-damage stuff. You could even expand this by allowing cards to buff divination in some fashion to give an AoE version of the utility for cool big moments.
This way, it doesn't affect those that like the current system revolved around managing the damage cards while giving the previous folk a reason to care about the flavor/character and RNG nature of the cards.
If they refuse to add something unique to each card, at the very least they should clean up the gauge UI because at the moment the card symbols are legitimately confusing for new Astrologians and would be a lot cleaner like this:
https://i.imgur.com/UgZGbFw.png
No multi-color symbols, or having the least useful icon be the largest in the middle.
I feel like there is a solution that can make both camps happy, but to me, this is where most of the Astrologian controversy comes from.
Any suggestions/thoughts about this? -
08-01-2019, 01:38 PMfinnegandadaeon
Why I don’t like ast right now? It got reworked even if no one asked for this, however, the actual card system gets in conflict with the healing role:
Whm-heals and gains damage by it
Sch-heals, charge its tools and gains time to dps
Ast- nothing, cards right now takes most of your time, especially when u got to redraw while keeping your dps, while keeping and eye on the party
Why?
Cause all of that single buff cards and seals,
4.0 ast was more about trying to spread the buff as possibile, 2 moves max 3 moves and u could keep easily your eye on your party and your dps. Considering that right know ast is basically week in terms of rdps and personal dps, now more than ever you can’t just relax even for a single moment, if u wanna play it at its maximum, but even if u ll do it, even if u coordinate all the buff with your static, even if u put your best to alternate draw/redraw/minor arcana with malefic to not lose dps, your contribution will not even reach the closest of white mage who will simply outclass you with minimum effort. -
08-01-2019, 01:46 PMfinnegandadaeon
Wanna save ast?
-Let draw outmatically work placing the relatively card in your play spot once its timer refresh (the passage from draw and play let u loose a lot of time and dps)
-buff the duration and the percentage of the card buff maybe giving them 3% of speed/crit/direct to differentiate
-let minor arcana be a big buff
-divination must be buffed to 8% -5%-4%, buff also its duration to almost 30 secs
Stances must be revisited, right now are the cause of the continuously imbalance between healing jobs, their design is awful, until they wont get reworked one heal combination will be forced out of the meta -
08-01-2019, 01:50 PMfinnegandadaeon
Let malefic be instant and buff the dot duration to 60 sec so u won’t lose too much time between redraw and dps
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08-01-2019, 05:34 PMSakiKojiro
In my mind when I saw all of these number changes, the devs insulted the players of this job.
The majority of us seem to hate this new system, as seen by polls. Primarily because it lacks flavor and depth, not because it's difficult. The flow itself actually feels fairly good, there's just no flavor to it.
So then they hit us with this change, which in my mind, is entirely "Oh, they hate it because it's too hard now. Let's dumb everything down even more!". I can understand some of the potency buffs because AST was strugging too much with healing, but the way they went about reducing the shielding features and replaced it with raw potency, and then made getting the right draws for arcana matter less is just...a slap in the face. They just reduced the skill ceiling AGAIN.
Last expansion was all about "Increasing the gap between good and great players, and lowering the gap between bad and good players." This expansion seems to be "lol just kidding, let's reduce everyone down to the bad players now." -
08-01-2019, 08:12 PMBrarry
What's so good about ast now? Not the unique time extenders? The unique cards system? The 2 sects? Unique heals? Engaging downtime dps? Collective unconscious? More like the Devs collective unconscious destroyed this class.
Nope none of those just the special effects and boring buff slave and cheap copies of sch whm heals. What Astrologian? There's only 2 healers -
08-01-2019, 08:23 PMLariaKirinBuff Malefic III to 300+ potency and there will still be "two healers". Except, they will be WHM and AST. What would that change? Nothing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brarry
When you learn that the so-called meta is based on pure raw DPS potential in high-end gameplay, you'll notice that SCH has nothing special. The reason SCH has always been meta is because it has never been the bottom DPS of healers.
And finally, when you learn that what makes two healers meta and the third one "garbage" is a difference of 500 DPS, you'll realise that there are actually 3 healers, all of whom can do the job. -
08-01-2019, 08:33 PMAlmostwardI agree. Everything that made Astro unique was taken away. The old card system was in depth and more complex than this simple.....balance bot. Last version had buffs for any situation. We even lost our time Mage spells and got nothing good this expansion to replace them, and all the new moves are meh or underpowered.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brarry
Whm is in a good spot and Sch is probaly going up in the world with their energy drain back -
08-02-2019, 12:30 AMBrightamethystThat's how I feel about it too. I don't hate the new system, but I don't like it either. It's boring and uninteresting. Drawing a card is now something I have to do, rather than something I want to do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Halik
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08-02-2019, 01:33 AMLukaRoselia
They may as well just do that, yes. But the corresponding icon is displayed above the card so it isn't that confusing really.
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08-02-2019, 05:20 AMKolsykolI feel the same, but I mostly feel like that's an issue of numbers rather than the effect of the cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brightamethyst
While I did like the different effects from the old cards, lets be real here AST was mostly just fishing for the dps ones.
Divination feels pretty weak and underwhelming imo.
I think that it should just have a higher base damage increase and the amount of seals should increase the duration instead. -
08-02-2019, 06:02 AMAmurTIt's a bit sad that the only reason they didn't delete the cards entirely was to preserve whatever is left intact of AST lore. The current card system is certainly more active, but I also derive a lot of my fun from lore and story elements, it's why I chose an FF game to play.Quote:
Originally Posted by LukaRoselia
But like, take this excerpt from the official lore book for example, "Celestial Opposition: Considered to be the very essence of astromancy, this technique bjnds the astrologian's aether to the loftiest of heavens. A single tug on this celestial chord alters the patterns of fate, showering allies with fortune, and afflicting foes with sudden adversity."... what adversity? It's just a heal now l u l
I want the life and soul of AST back, I want everything I learned from reading the job quests and job encounters to feel like they actually mattered. -
08-02-2019, 06:13 AMConnor
I don’t dislike the current card system. I don’t think the changes were necessary, but I wouldn’t quit playing Astrologian if they came out and said ‘it’s staying like this’. I do miss Time Dilation and the status buff extension from Celestial Opposition, and it’d be nice if we could at least get Time Dilation back.
That’s not to say that I would be against them going back to the original effects. Maybe they could even have the original card effects plus a small flat damage bonus like 3% so that it’s never a ‘bad’ card. Then keep Lord/Lady as the pure damage buff cards, Divination can stay the same and then Astrologian will have a lot of utility variety through base cards, consistent DPS buffs with Minor Arcana when needed and Divination for the ‘big damage buff’ -
08-02-2019, 06:14 AMUbbernaut
The big issue with the current card system is that it does not at any point in time feel 'Impactful'
Old system, even if the numbers may not support it, it always felt impactful. A Bole was clearly felt, an Ewer gave plenty of mana, Arrow gave noticeable speed increase.
Now the flat numbers, which go to as low as 3%... (3% damage buff from a skill, my heavens that just feels pointless), don't have the Feedback of old.
The only time I do feel like I'm leaving an impact is stacking Lord/Lady on the DPS coupled with Divination for what feels like a grandiose damage boost! Moment to moment cards are there to just mostly kill time. -
08-02-2019, 07:24 AMColaSamaAST before ShB release : "Look up at the sky young man, it's the Tree, those under it are blessed with its protective effects". Me : "That's neat, it's the tank card"Quote:
Originally Posted by AmurT
AST after ShB release : "Look up at the sky young man, it's the Tree, those under it are blessed with MOAR DEEPS BAITCH, EVERYTHING BECAME BALANCE AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-". Me : "Oh." -
08-02-2019, 08:09 AMRoseyDevlin
Healing wise ast is doing fine now but the cards are still a mess. I spend my time trying to give card buffs to everyone as much as I can yet it still doesn't seem to be as effective as whm raw damage. Ast dmg itself suffers a lot when you need to heal and get cards right that you barely have time to dps. I really tried to make ast work in eden savage as its my fav class but their dmg buffs seems like it barely does anything, wiped a lot due to dps checks then I switched to sch and all went well and completed it.
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08-02-2019, 08:37 AMKabooaIf you could go tell the Bards to quiet down about Foe's, I'd appreciate it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ubbernaut
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08-02-2019, 08:45 AMKanameYuuki
And just thinking about SE's player base, the cards were perfect before because you were able to self aoe them a lot of the time, now every 30 you gotta target a party member while making sure to target your tank back asap, it is a nightmare on a controller, the single action of casting cards became a chore since you will never feel the payoff, even with Sleeve's "fix" it just doesn't feel good at all.
I like how clean those full seals look, that really is what the new system is, so they should go all the way and make it like that if there is no hope of making AST fun as it was before. -
08-02-2019, 09:36 AMDyvid
To me AST always felt like FFXIV attempt of the classic Final Fantasy Gambler job, about as close as you can get in an MMO. The first key issue with 3.0/4.0 cards was one card, The Balance, outshined everything else and you had the ability to manipulate the card mechanic to try and get that card. Divination fixed that problem. The second key issue was 3 out of 6 cards where good and the other meh. For the RNG to work you need cards that benefit at least one member in the group every draw plus you need one bust card. I have outlined several times in these boards that if you make the card boost main attributes with Tenacity replacing VIT, this would make the RNG nature feel better. Simply draw and use. In fact the only other you would need is a double down to either increase or decrease potency of the card.
As for Divination, it should just be a simple slot machine mechanic with you get what you get. The current form just moved the annoying card fishing game from one form to another. -
08-02-2019, 10:48 AMHalikReally what I would like to get across from this thread. I want to have some kind of anticipation and prospect involved with drawing cards, and the current system delivers none of that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brightamethyst
I just hope that those who are content with the current state from 5.05 changes aren't inadvertently signaling to the devs that Astrologians are happy with the cards. I'd really like something to be done about the cards at some point during this expansion even if it's nothing big.
More that it makes no sense from a UI perspective to make me look at the little icon at the top of the card when you have the entire card to display that. There's no reason to know whether you draw a Bole anymore, just show the seal and range/melee indicators to clean up the colors/symbols. Drawing back to back cards while playing them while watching health bars on top of dpsing is enough clutter. The change would just make the peripheral identification better without memorizing what cards give what seals. It's no longer as intuitive to memorize the cards through their theme because the seals and range/melee have no intuitive connection.Quote:
Originally Posted by LukaRoselia
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08-02-2019, 01:54 PMFaxmonkey
AST was a bad design idea from the start. A healing class with less healing tools than the other two healers, but a big buffing component.
That logically meant that it would be insanely hard to balance the classes. If you need too much healing AST is gone, if AST can heal through people would want its buffs.
Turning all buffs into balance just makes the problem worse and the card system soooo much more boring.
They should have invested some brainpower in the AST redesign and should have put more healing options into the card system or something. 5.xx is just crappy. -
08-02-2019, 02:20 PMTankHunter678Well the consistent approach to the minor arcana would have helped with that. Knowing that converting that bole/ewer/spire into minor arcana would produce a Lady of Crowns oGCD heal guaranteed would have been very nice. Horoscope could have also been a trait that made it so handing out cards gave a minor heal based on if it was Enhanced, Extended, or Expanded... or it could have been an ability that told you what your next 4 cards would be even if you redraw to enhance you ability to plan around the cards. A friend of mine even suggested a second spread slot to increase options.Quote:
Originally Posted by Faxmonkey
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08-02-2019, 05:01 PMSeraphorThis is precisely why the cards were changed this way though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Faxmonkey
It was having a combination of rdps utility, plus core healer tools (Bole/Ewer) tied to an rng mechanic that made it hard to balance.
How do you factor in its MP regen and mitigation skills when they’re tied to rng? How much weight does Bole have, if it's a 1/6 chance of even being available?
How do you balance it’s rdps contribution when its rng is shared with its healer skills? Is Balance OP? Or is it underpowered because you might not ever draw it?
By making all cards essentially have the same effect for the party as a whole, it can be easily balanced against rdps contribution, allowing them to implement a full healer toolkit outside of the cards.
The Diurnal/Nocturnal sect system is still a balancing issue, but the new cards are objectively much easier to balance now. -
08-02-2019, 05:25 PMTankHunter678The problem is that the class identity was built around the old cards, so while reworking all the cards to be the same thing may have been objectively easier to balance the result is that you have an entire awkward system that could be dumped and replaced with 2 buttons. A button with a 30 sec cooldown to place a 15 sec DPS buff on a single target and a button with a 120 sec cooldown to place a 15 sec duration DPS buff on the entire party.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
Which is a big part of why it feels so bad now. We do all this effort for what other classes can do in a single button press. With the old cards it did not feel this way because we could modify the buffs and we had a wide range of buffs to work with. If you wanted to raise consistency then you could have thrown in an extra spread slot, could have given the player foresight so they knew what cards were in their future to plan around, or could have even put in skills that allowed you to force a particular result with a decent cooldown attached to it. -
08-02-2019, 05:29 PMSeraphorI think the problem is that AST has a lot of different identities.Quote:
Originally Posted by TankHunter678
It has it's Diurnal and Nocturnal Sects.
It has its Time Mage roots and Space/Time effects.
And then there's the tarot cards.
The latter never appealed to me as much as the other two. -
08-02-2019, 05:38 PMTankHunter678Yet the class lore was built around the cards and the constellations they represented, while the sects merely represented daytime and nighttime fitting with the theme of astrology. Which makes the whole "neutral sect" odd because it does not fit in with the naming of the class. It probably should of been called Twilight sect as it is supposed to represent the point where day and night merge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
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08-02-2019, 06:06 PMSeraphorI mean, I don't personally see the link between constellations and tarot cards, but that's what they decided to go with.Quote:
Originally Posted by TankHunter678
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08-02-2019, 06:11 PMTankHunter678They went with the Major Arcana themselves being based off of the constellations rather then going with the typical tarot deck of the real world. Probably because it allowed them to not need to make as many cards as would be found in an actual tarot deck, and as a result the cards function as a focus allow you to draw upon the power of the constellation to bestow upon others to alter their fate. Which was the whole point of you seeing the constellation and unlocking full access to it lore wise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
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08-03-2019, 08:19 AMHalikThe fact that reading this and realizing I'd be fine with this change for the current system, makes me kind of sad. :/Quote:
Originally Posted by TankHunter678
This; the quests don't make all that much sense anymore. Minor Arcana are now more powerful than Major Arcana. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by TankHunter678