[Request] Fix AST's card execution

Dear Dev team,
After a few months of cooling down from the initial and unexpected shock of the massive card changes to AST, I've come to terms that I really just can't play AST because of how the buttons work. Yes, the seals and the buffs are an issue of their own, but it's the actual gameplay that's preventing me from playing my class in any content. My main issues are as follows:

1. The draw and play button are now separate buttons/commands
2. We now have to target individuals to apply each card to even if they're all the same card/effect

There are other issues I have with it, but those two are the most unplayable for me. They're so clunky and inefficient in comparison to how it was before that it's... very frustrating and discouraging to bother with. It makes me not want to use AST's cards, and that's AST's gimmick. These executions are inefficient button-pressing/navigating wise and time inefficient (especially #2).

My suggestions would be...

1. Make the draw/play button one button/command again
2. Reintegrate Royal Road so we can opt to make a card an AoE (like it was before, like Dancer's AoE buff) if we wanted to, along with enhance the effects or time of an individual card just like before (if we don't want/need an aoe). If enhancements aren't allowed at all anymore, then just the aoe spread would suffice

Please make the gameplay of the cards more user-friendly. Thank you.

I find the least used skill on my hotbar is undraw. That could be replaced with Royal Road.

May not be an acceptable solution for you, but I have my third cross-bar to Play Card with targets 1-8. Then I have a set of 5-8 highlighted gold for Minor since I want to use those on dps most often anyway.(i play ps4 which makes constant navigating terrible)
Does it allow for 100% card-to-role efficiency? Not really. But honestly the cards' damage%+ aren't different enough to really matter.

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Originally Posted by Rasikko

I find the least used skill on my hotbar is undraw. That could be replaced with Royal Road.

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Undraw is litterally useless; if a card has a seal you don't want, you can just Minor Arcana it.

And I think you can even just right click the card icon on your status bar and undraw it without using an animation.

coming from a dyed in the wool AST, ya...these changes have me finishing all the other games on my PS4 to free up space lol

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Originally Posted by Rasikko

I find the least used skill on my hotbar is undraw. That could be replaced with Royal Road.

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not even going to lie, I didn't even know we had undraw lol I just use what I have and HOPE for the best lol

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Originally Posted by Rasikko

I find the least used skill on my hotbar is undraw. That could be replaced with Royal Road.

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Yeah, I used Undraw once when it came out and that was just to see how it worked. Never used it again, didn't even have it on my hotbar. Meanwhile, I used Royal Roads countlessly. Them keeping Undraw over Royal Road... I'll never understand it. I agree with Lodi in that it's a useless skill (and probably why it's so underused--unlike RR).

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Originally Posted by AmurT

It feels like a pretty big oversight on whoever designed this system (or rather AST in general given the state it was in during 5.0 launch). Even back in SB, to me it did not feel good whenever I had to click on someone to apply a card. Unless I needed an AoE card to go out immediately, I would have rather just walked to the middle of everyone to use it instead. Now that everything is single target, inbetween all the clicking I already do on tanks for heals, it's pretty horrible.

Well, keep it up with these complaints. If we received this train wreck as a response to the 10 whine posts about SB AST, maybe we'll get a decent card system next expansion after the SHB AST reception.

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I feel the same way (though, I didn't have problems with SB AST). Sometimes, I would run in the middle to unleash an AoE card, but other times I would select someone who was in the middle if I couldn't get there to use my cards. So, I like the ability of being able to target someone and then using an AoE card, or just double tap one button to use an AoE card.

Right now, for me because of how my hotbar set (I play on controller), this is how it works for me:
Step 1: {DRAW}
Step 2: {TARGET PERSON}
Step 3: {L2/R2 HOLD/TOGGLE}
Step 4: {PLAY}
Step 5: {RELEASE L2/R2}
Step 6: {TARGET NEXT PERSON}
Step 7: {L2/R2}
Step 8: {PLAY}
Step 9: {RELEASE L2/R2}
Step 10-12: {REPEAT}

When before, all I had to do was click Draw... and then Draw again to execute it to get an 8 person team with cards. Ten steps for three people versus two for eight people...? Hrmmm... /bops head about/ Yeah, big over sight.

Granted, I know I could change the layout of my hotbars (Play is in the spot that Royal Road used to be in) so that play and draw are on the same hotbar and eliminate one step, but I like how my hotbar is set up and that's still only one step out of a series and that doesn't change the fact that this system is pretty bad. XD Here's hoping they do something about it.

Yeah I'm gonna take it off my bar.

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Originally Posted by Rasikko

Yeah I'm gonna take it off my bar.

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You had it on your bar O_o i never had it on my hotbars since its implementation because i worked with what i had and didn't want to waste my 30s cd. Regardless of buff each were better than wasting a draw.

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Originally Posted by MOZZYSTAR

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Being a controller user too, I can only encourage small tips and tricks here and there.
Initially, you can't really compare Royal Road and the current system because it does not work the same at all. Sure it was stronger, quicker to set up and more controller friendly. But it's gone :').

From what I see in your Steps, you can just do that easily if you target people while casting / Drawing etc.
Sleeve Draw is your hardest moment (especially in the opener), but the first one is coupled to Lightspeed so you can get more room there. Then you can easily take 1-2 GCD per card for subsequent uses of Sleeve Draw. As long as you keep your GCD rolling, you're fine.

Also I can advise using a "Malefic <tt>" macro, so you keep casting your DPS spell even while targeting party members. It's quite efficient for controller


Because the ONLY good thing about the new card system is that Draw / Play difference. You can use Draw on CD, and it will start resetting while you can pocket the card for a little bit and Play it when you want to, without losing Draws on the course of a fight.

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Originally Posted by Mansion

Because the ONLY good thing about the new card system is that Draw / Play difference. You can use Draw on CD, and it will start resetting while you can pocket the card for a little bit and Play it when you want to, without losing Draws on the course of a fight.

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I wouldn't even call that a good thing, becaude Earthly star does the same thing (cooldown starts ticking as soon as you click it) yet it only needs one button. Draw/Play could definitely be merged into one button.

You can just macro Draw and Play back together again, i do it, and it has vastly improved my QoL

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Originally Posted by Averax

You can just macro Draw and Play back together again, i do it, and it has vastly improved my QoL

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Then you get to deal with macro delays. With all the other problems with AST I'd rather not have to deal with clipping on top of it.

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

Then you get to deal with macro delays. With all the other problems with AST I'd rather not have to deal with clipping on top of it.

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But as a sch main shouldn't you be already use to skill delays? ;P ( I jest of course.) Unfortunately because of the ast changes I had to run a macro that did combine the draw and play button along other things. Needless to say it was unwieldy to use and did nothing to to address the problem with having to maunally target allies to apply buffs.

I think if you must use macros, at least using off globals is less clippy/awful than trying to macro global casts like Malefic, and then, in my experience a macro using P5/P3 will perform less clippy/awful than T/TT. I keep draw and play as separate buttons on my bar, and use macros to play on most allies most of the time. Doesn't work at all in lag, but as long as I'm on the ball hitting my macro in the last .5 second to end of cast, I can usually have the card execute in plenty of time to keep the global rolling. I keep my four main macros on my front chotbar for smoothest weaving. Double weaving generally doesn't work, so I do my best to not mash a macro with another ability outside of the opener or the occasional Combust refresh, but never two card macros in the same global.

It's less than ideal, but still faster for me than trying to target all cards.

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

Then you get to deal with macro delays. With all the other problems with AST I'd rather not have to deal with clipping on top of it.

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There is no delay, it works exactly as it did before.

/ac "play"
/ac "draw" <me>
/macroicon "Draw"

It won't eat your cards if you wait out the cooldown of draw. It will use your drawn card and then you can draw another (Also interacts well with sleeve draw)

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Originally Posted by Averax

There is no delay, it works exactly as it did before.

/ac "play"
/ac "draw" <me>
/macroicon "Draw"

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So I just tried it out, and while the delay isn't as bad as I thought it would be, it was certainly there. Well, moreso, it just wouldn't register on every GCD I would try to use it on, sometimes I would use macro draw-> malefic -> macro play (nothing happens) -> malefic -> macro play (it works this time.) no clipping happened, granted, but I don't think getting the card off later is a better alternative.

Yeah there is that one tick with it. It doesn't queue up well, so you kind of gotta mash it to ensure it goes off.

My overall point is that i would rather use it than not because i'm on a game-pad and button bloat is real. I ain't got space for all of the card abilities. The more i can condense, the less i have to think about what i need to press, and the more optimally i can play.

I can only agree.
Every time Sleeve Draw is back up I just think "oh no, not again".

It has gotten a little bit easier since I put my card abilities on the first cross hotbar (in HW and SB I had it on R2->L2 / WXHB), because I at least have a few less buttons to press. But it's still just a very, very annoying mechanic.

I would have liked it if cards were AoE buffs, or at least give us Royal Road instead of Sleeve Draw.

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Originally Posted by Mansion

Because the ONLY good thing about the new card system is that Draw / Play difference. You can use Draw on CD, and it will start resetting while you can pocket the card for a little bit and Play it when you want to, without losing Draws on the course of a fight.

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I 100% disagree full-heartedly. xD And that's okay, different opinions are healthy. I hear what you're saying, and a couple others suggested "fixes," but honestly, I don't think that should be necessary + macro delay as others mentioned. This execution system seems like an overcomplicated downgrade to me. If anything, I'd throw out a conspiracy theory and say they just made them separate buttons so they didn't have to come up with an extra skill to "balance" AST's the amount of skills AST has vs other classes. (But it's a far fetched conspiracy theory with absolutely nothing to back it up x'D)

the card system just feels unfun and tedious over being something you really want to do. obviously you want get good at the system for buffs but even something simple as cards procing from spells and offering more then just some damage would be an improvement. just a thought