Astrologian 5.0 Discussion

[Punslinger]

...while the other three are all just variations of what they ultimately do; Increase DMG. Yet, AST got to keep what was desired most. If I was a dev, I would feel like I just bought my daughter who loves ponies six of them, and then she got mad at me for it. Color me confused as eff.

Taking that logic to its extreme, why have ten DPS jobs when they all do basically the same thing: kill monsters until they die from it? Just make everybody a BLM. And why does BLM need eleventy dozen spells that all do damage? "Rotation?" There's one mathematically optimal rotation every BLM follows, therefore the job only offers the "illusion of choice," therefore the devs should just roll all BLM damage into a single I WIN button that they press on every GCD.

That's basically what's been done to AST's card system.

Execution matters. Executing a rotation on a training dummy is easy. Executing a rotation while dodging mechanics is hard, and what makes any MMO interesting. Knowing that Balance is the goal is easy. Making split-second decisions about how to use the cards you get, while dodging mechanics, DPSing the boss, and healing the raid? That's hard.

Nu-AST takes those decisions away. You can just randomly target any party member and throw any card at them and buff the party's damage. You can ignore seals completely, because the "penalty" is Divination being a tiny bit less awesome, once every three minutes. You can Netflix and chill while playing Nu-AST and still keep everyone buffed and alive.

[Gemina]

Taking that logic to its extreme, why have ten DPS jobs when they all do basically the same thing: kill monsters until they die from it? Just make everybody a BLM. And why does BLM need eleventy dozen spells that all do damage? "Rotation?" There's one mathematically optimal rotation every BLM follows, therefore the job only offers the "illusion of choice," therefore the devs should just roll all BLM damage into a single I WIN button that they press on every GCD.

That's basically what's been done to AST's card system.

That indeed is taking the logic to the extreme. Jobs are not cards though. We can't just have BLMs as DPS role options because not everyone enjoys playing BLM. Cards differ because everyone wants only one of the possible six an AST can draw. I take no pleasure in swinging the reality hammer, I'm only echoing the status quo. If this comes as a revelation, it is indeed due to the illusion of choice. I can't say with any kind of confidence that non-AST players know what all six cards do, but I'd put a lot of money I don't have on they all know what the Balance does.

I understand why many are upset by the changes. Even though what your party ultimately wants from you doesn't necessarily take away the fun of how you got there. I'm not arguing that the job's card mechanic hasn't been simplified, or that it is devoid of issues. However one of those issues is not the loss of five effects because nobody cared about them anyway. I also wouldn't worry about Divination as I am confident that those return numbers will be adjusted in the near future. Probably not by 5.0's launch, but I would expect it to happen around 5.1 or 5.2 after they see how things play out initially.