Astrologian Cards Can't Be a Coin Flip: A petition

[Shalan]

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Oh I'm not disputing that it's more optimized now, I never have been. I'm saying that it's going to get real old and boring fast when you're pulling nothing but the same card over. And over. And over. And over.

If all you ever pull is a Balance, how long is that joyous feeling of "Yeah! I pulled a straight up damage buff!" going to last before it turns into monotony? You like pulling Balance because it's not the other cards, you don't like the other cards as much because they're not Balance. But if everything's Balance, why do you care what you pull?
Is it pulling Seals? Well I've got a very large time window and I only need to pull THREE seals, so I doubt that's going to be much of a concern or fun to manage. Especially with Redraw and Sleeve Draw. And if card/Minor Arcana potencies stay relatively similar to what they are in the demo percentage wise (with Minor Arcana having a higher percentage of DPS boost) I'm just going to wind up Minor Arcanaing all my cards once I've got seals anyways so who cares what I draw?

And where are you getting that I wanted every card to be as strong as balance/equal to one another from? Don't put thoughts on me that I didn't state. Every post I've made on the matter I've stated I liked being able to use cards in situational/niche circumstances. That potential adaptability was enjoyable and is what drew me to this class in the first place in HW.

Myself and many others found fun in the variety of the cards and managing situations at hand in our favor using said cards. Did we sometimes piss and moan if we pulled something we didn't need/want? You bet we did, but that doesn't mean that every single card needs to become the formerly best card. The adaptability of the class was enjoyable. But now we're going from thinking about things and weighing if redrawing a card was worthwhile in each situation to just going through the motions of flipping a coin.

[BlitzAceRush]

They could...but pretty sure the game will lose a lot of appeal.

Also that worked so well for GW2 They had to effectively add in healer and tank specs into the first expiation so not really a point being made there, even in jest.
However I enjoyed the 10 button system, I'd rather have have 10 interesting buttons over 40 boring ones.

A lot of people keep pointing to WoW saying 14 is going down their dark path of over-simplification (ignoring that's hardly the only reason WoW's in trouble these days.) and acting like there was no merit to what they did and 14 is trying to do.
I played during Vanilla when my hotbars were filled with 40+ skills some of which I used so infrequently that I forgot they were even on my bar, while they may have taken it too far, cutting back buttons and making each button worth slotting is a thing worth doing.

As for the AST changes, I always liked AST but hated the cards RNG nature so I like this change, I still have something to do with them but I'm not constantly fishing for the right card, was it nice when I drew Bole right as the Tank was in trouble? Yes, it felt good saving them with it, but you can't really balance like that, because they dev's would always have to ask when dealing with AST, Dev1: "Do we give them this? Or change that?" Dev 2: "Yeah, but if they draw the balance then isn't this making them too strong?" Dev1: "But if they don't draw it they'll be under preforming." RNG is a Balance nightmare because you can't bring someone in line when it could suddenly be stronger or weaker based on a value they can't control.

I just don't see the cards ever working as different buff and being balance unless they were totally not random, but then you'd have the same issue of people just taking the best buff and nothing else. Perhaps the answer is to move the cards away from being direct buffs, perhaps make them do something else or make the effects one time effects.
Here's an off the top example:

Balance - Increase the potency of next action by 50% (25% for AOE)
Bole - Reduce the next source of damage taken by half
Arrow - The next action strikes/heals 3 times (second at 50% third at 25%)
Spear - Next 3 actions are off the globe cool down
Ewer - The next 5 actions restore MP equal to a % of damage/healing done
Spire - The next 5 actions restore HP equal to a % of damage/healing done

Keep the seal system, but perhaps let the Lord give the flat damage % and the Lady a defence %.

Perhaps something like that, it keeps the cards different but rather than crit or raw damage is a more singular effect the could balance and adjust hopefully to a better degree.

[BlitzAceRush]

This I understand. I just feel that they've been cutting, more than they have been adding.

They kind of need to though, unlike WoW they don't want to get up to a massive amount of buttons then have to make massive cuts, they seem to want to constantly cut and add so it never gets out of control.

[Coatl]

I feel the same way about the changes coming. Were the old cards perfect? No, far from it. In the beginning of heavensward, all the cards were so bad save for balance. It was the only one worth trying to work around when fishing for cards. Stormblood remedied this by making even more cards viable, enhancing the gameplay of AST that otherwise was unchanged from HW. So why is it that now they forgo the progress they've made with AST and simply give all the cards the same effect? Yes, the cards are more consistent, but at the cost of any depth or personality they had before. Was there really no middle ground they could come up with?

The changes coming to AST heal-wise look very fun, don't get me wrong. It'll definitely be fun seeing what kind of whacky stunts you can do with the new abilities. But it would have been nice to not lose the engaging aspects of the cards in the process.

[Insertcoins]

I feel the same way about the changes coming. Were the old cards perfect? No, far from it. In the beginning of heavensward, all the cards were so bad save for balance. It was the only one worth trying to work around when fishing for cards. Stormblood remedied this by making even more cards viable, enhancing the gameplay of AST that otherwise was unchanged from HW. So why is it that now they forgo the progress they've made with AST and simply give all the cards the same effect? Yes, the cards are more consistent, but at the cost of any depth or personality they had before. Was there really no middle ground they could come up with?

The changes coming to AST heal-wise look very fun, don't get me wrong. It'll definitely be fun seeing what kind of whacky stunts you can do with the new abilities. But it would have been nice to not lose the engaging aspects of the cards in the process.

From what they have explained with the battle changes.... I don't think there was a middle ground.

[WaterShield]

They kind of need to though, unlike WoW they don't want to get up to a massive amount of buttons then have to make massive cuts, they seem to want to constantly cut and add so it never gets out of control.

Ideally they would cut... the same amount that they add. Leaving things in balance.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Ideally they would cut... the same amount that they add. Leaving things in balance.

They cut a very minor number of skills for the most part. Enough to keep the jobs at or under 3 full keyboard hotbars if I looked right. Which is good imo.

[BlitzAceRush]

Ideally they would cut... the same amount that they add. Leaving things in balance.

The problem with that is people are already complain of button bloat, keeping the same amount doesn't alleviate that, plus that would force them to add or take away more skills that they may want, not all classes are equal some have more or less buttons, simpler or more complex rotations. Going in with the mentality of "We must add as many as we cut" Would sometimes force them to add skills for the sake of it, or cut good skills just to get things to line up.
I think their doing fine as is.

[Mutemutt]

Yeah, I have to say the card change is really disappointing. Making every card basically the same is just... dull.

[WaterShield]

The problem with that is people are already complain of button bloat, keeping the same amount doesn't alleviate that, plus that would force them to add or take away more skills that they may want, not all classes are equal some have more or less buttons, simpler or more complex rotations. Going in with the mentality of "We must add as many as we cut" Would sometimes force them to add skills for the sake of it, or cut good skills just to get things to line up.
I think their doing fine as is.

So in return the people who were previously happy... now get to complain about a lack of buttons. ^.^