Hi SE, can we get rid of the current card system in next expansion, pls?

[Kleeya]

Hmm... I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but what about having 2 decks of cards? Much like how AST has 2 Sect stances, why not there being 2 Card Decks? So you have Deck 1 being the old card system from Stormblood, and Deck 2 the current card system now in Shadowbringers.

Perhaps the devs could comply by giving both old and new card system and the player can choose between which card system they want to play with. Then maybe everyone is happy hopefully? So 2 new abilities given that allows the AST to switch their card system decks.

Storm Deck, and Shadow Deck

I can already foresee how this will go:

1 : even before it is live, dataminers will get all the cards values from the patch download ;
2 : with numerous calculations and excel spreadsheets, theorycrafters will answer this very question : what does more dps ? Using only balance with the SB deck ? Or using the ShB deck ?
3 : anything else than the previous more dps answer will be labelled as something bad, and the ASTs daring to use something else bad as well.

One of the problem of this game is that you think you have the choice, but in fact you dont XD

[MOZZYSTAR]

I went to go like the OP.
Apparently I already liked it.
-Pats my past self on the back.-

[HyoMinPark]

Even if it's a poor excuse, It's most likely one of the reasons they changed it in the first place. All I'm saying is expecting a return to form 100% isn't likely due to said changes and SE isn't going to go back and revert all the changes. I'd even go as far as saying that if anything instead of asking for the old system back which I don't think is ever happening. What should be asked is a NEW system. You'd have better chances of that happening then asking for something to return when half of the reason it worked in the old patches was cause the battle system was completely different. One of those being TP. I guess changing the one old TP card to something else, but that doesn't solve anything either.

TP being removed is not a reason they overhauled the card system. I doubt it ever played a factor in their decision making. It’s a common complaint that SE doesn’t understand how to balance or design healers, and I’d say their failure to understand what healer mains actually want is how the healers ended up in the state they’re in now. For AST specifically, it was changed purely because of this notion that Balance fishing was all anyone cared about—but that’s only ever a thing in top speedkills groups, which is hardly the majority of players.

How would asking for an entirely new system help AST? We got a new system in ShB and it is the most controversial aspect of the job. Newer ASTs don’t care as much since they never experienced the old system—but career ASTs that have played the job for 4 years did not receive it well. What makes you think bringing in another new system would fix this backlash? Unless it was catered specifically to what the majority of ASTs want—which there are far too many suggestions flying around, so one has to wonder if a third system would be designed to satisfactorily fulfill what the majority of the suggestions are asking for.

There were tweaks that could have been done to the old system—changing Spire with the removal of TP and adjusting Balance to not be overpowered were two of them. The solution of changing all 8 arcana into mini Balances with no variation aside from “melee card” and “ranged card” was not what should have happened, in my opinion. It removed variety from the job and made it boring and braindead to play (in terms of concept—in execution, it’s an incredibly active job with regards to CPM).

I don’t have issues with the way AST’s healing gameplay is. I actually enjoy the healing style, though I have suggestions for some of the stuff in AST’s kit and am not a fan of how MP strained it still feels. But I hate the card system. When I have more fun ignoring a job’s main gimmick, I’d say it’s a problem.

Honestly like it or not.. but I still say blame the top people for the change as clearly they were the ones who got to talk to SE and give feedback that was listened too. - points to the cards being damage up cards now-

This doesn’t work when there were no big healer representatives at any of the ShB media tours. The people that were there were not ones that ever made a FFXIV career in maining/optimizing healers.

You cited Mr. Happy in your original post—I have nothing against the guy, but he’s not a healer main. The healer he’s been known to play has also been WHM, not AST. I won’t deny that Balance was essential in speedkills, but speedkilling is done by an extremely small percentage of the playerbase. I’d say more people clear the Ultimates than people who competitively speedkill.

[Phileas]

Instead of fishing for balance, people now fish for seals.

As a controller player, AST card system gives me carpal tunnel due to the sheer amount of busyness and underwhelming impact

[Gemina]

Getting rid of the current card system isn't likely to happen, and it is even less likely it will be reverted back to what it was. It will very likely undergo some changes though, and whether those or good or bad is yet to be seen. I'd honestly let go of the days that cards gave out varied buffs.

What I do know is that the card mechanic continues to give AST a very high APM. With healing as is, you would think that this would be favorable, but when a lot of those actions involve choosing different party members it gets real clunky real fast. I use a controller, but I would imagine even for KB+M players it still causes a slight delay between actions, which adds up over time.

I am guessing this issue is probably what will be addressed before doing anything different with the card effects, and a rework would involve designing the card system to reduce AST's APM. As a player who uses both SMN and NIN, I can say that the reduction to their APMs has really improved their playability and feel the same approach to AST would yield a similar result. I believe a lot of players would agree that it does make them more playable, but not necessarily more enjoyable, or that it feels slower. This is what I am expecting with 6.0 AST.

[MitsukiKimura]

Getting rid of the current card system isn't likely to happen, and it is even less likely it will be reverted back to what it was. It will very likely undergo some changes though, and whether those or good or bad is yet to be seen. I'd honestly let go of the days that cards gave out varied buffs.

What I do know is that the card mechanic continues to give AST a very high APM. With healing as is, you would think that this would be favorable, but when a lot of those actions involve choosing different party members it gets real clunky real fast. I use a controller, but I would imagine even for KB+M players it still causes a slight delay between actions, which adds up over time.

I am guessing this issue is probably what will be addressed before doing anything different with the card effects, and a rework would involve designing the card system to reduce AST's APM. As a player who uses both SMN and NIN, I can say that the reduction to their APMs has really improved their playability and feel the same approach to AST would yield a similar result. I believe a lot of players would agree that it does make them more playable, but not necessarily more enjoyable, or that it feels slower. This is what I am expecting with 6.0 AST.

I won't stop until they realize it was those days that a majority of the community loved AST so much. BRD players got their utility back in their songs, now it's our turn

[Neela]

Brd got crap utility not reverted utility tho... their utility still sucks. : /

[MitsukiKimura]

Brd got crap utility not reverted utility tho... their utility still sucks. : /

Which is why I hope to dear Hydaelyn herself they don't repeat the same mistake with that.

[monk-dps]

This doesn’t work when there were no big healer representatives at any of the ShB media tours. The people that were there were not ones that ever made a FFXIV career in maining/optimizing healers.

You cited Mr. Happy in your original post—I have nothing against the guy, but he’s not a healer main. The healer he’s been known to play has also been WHM, not AST. I won’t deny that Balance was essential in speedkills, but speedkilling is done by an extremely small percentage of the playerbase. I’d say more people clear the Ultimates than people who competitively speedkill.

I never said TP was the big reason, but I'm willing to bet it was a reason. The big reason I bet was how it was being played at top levels. It doesn't matter if the top was smaller then everyone else. I never said it was bigger. I simply said SE only listened to the top players. The people who wanted nothing but balance, and it's clear thats who they listened too. I never said that part of the player base was bigger at all. I'm just saying it's their fault. Heck look at how they replied to it. Like I think the only one who didn't like it was Sly. Sadly SE isn't going to explain what and why they did any of those changes to Ast. My personal opinion is the cards should be abit better and maybe they will get fixed. I just don't see them reverting those changes cause again like it or not I bet a large amount of those changes are impossible now due to how they changed the battle system. I can't say that's a fact 100% but I'm guessing that's a piece of the puzzle that you can't just rewind. It's not that simple.

[MitsukiKimura]

I never said TP was the big reason, but I'm willing to bet it was a reason. The big reason I bet was how it was being played at top levels. It doesn't matter if the top was smaller then everyone else. I never said it was bigger. I simply said SE only listened to the top players. The people who wanted nothing but balance, and it's clear thats who they listened too. I never said that part of the player base was bigger at all. I'm just saying it's their fault. Heck look at how they replied to it. Like I think the only one who didn't like it was Sly. Sadly SE isn't going to explain what and why they did any of those changes to Ast. My personal opinion is the cards should be abit better and maybe they will get fixed. I just don't see them reverting those changes cause again like it or not I bet a large amount of those changes are impossible now due to how they changed the battle system. I can't say that's a fact 100% but I'm guessing that's a piece of the puzzle that you can't just rewind. It's not that simple.

Shire card which was the "TP" card could of "Easily" been fixed to Direct hit buff, you know this, we all known this. It's actually not impossible to revert changes, it's a more of a matter are they willing to listen to their community or the small majority, high end raider/parsers/speed runners. There's been others classes that have got some of their abilities back such as SCH with energy drain, we need to have Royal Road back with our lore restored. You know why they won't explain? I think we've already come to the conclusion with that answer as mentioned before. Using TP as an excuse doesn't answer as to why other cards such as Arrow,Spear, and our loveable MP card were destroyed.