Who else is worried about SE and Ast?

[Rai_Takara]

Funny thing - I’m not going to be hopeful for improvements in a new expansion after Shadowbringers. And saying that I should wait another year and a half for a chance at improvements isn’t going to sit well.

Which is enough to tell me that you haven’t played too much of ShB AST. It’s not frequent, but it happens.

It didn’t happen very frequently, but you’re right. High highs bring low lows.

Jobs being tuned for Extreme and above is fine with me. But completely overhauling a class’ main gimmick (in the most thoughtless way, I may add) is not going to sit well with the playerbase who enjoyed it.

Then you’re onboard with the other memes of WAR only fell cleaving. Should RDM and DRG have personal guard rails on arenas with falloff?
ASTs would actually do their best to pair any damage card with Expanded Royal Road, not solo focus balance.
Your argument is only valid for speedkillers, but that is a completely other kind of audience than Ult/Sav/Ex. Have you seen those LB cheese videos? It’s mental.

No, fun is. Balance tethers fun, but should never overtake it.

The new system could be improved with time, but they\\'ve already shown willingness to throw everything out and start from scratch. And the older system could have been improved as well.

WHM had prog, thanks to its mana efficiency and Cure3. AST was only straight up better in alphascape, where it got 1.5s Malefic and most of the fights had damage bursts in 60s intervals, catering to Earthly Star. WHM was also the least popular healer in alpha too.

Didn’t you say that people flock to the best jobs competitively before? That’s true, but only the case when the jobs feel good to play. We’d be seeing a lot more MNKs if that weren’t the case.

AST was better in from the start of SB, but it didn't catch on till people kept seeing WF use it consistently and coming out of WHM prog/AST parse was a common mentality. Same as when the start of HW main healer/off healer was pretty common, even if wrong. Alpha is one tier out of the whole expansion. Look at ultimates as well. The same reason AST is good in alpha was the same reason they were good for pretty much everything. Star/collective/cards/etc.

Nerfing the balance card, changing Spire to Direct hit % increase. There are 6 cards with only 2 being non damage buff cards. Your chances of drawing a crit increase, arrow, balance or direct hit will be much greater now that we have 3 stacks of redraw. People want their class to be fun and engaging, not tuned to only high end tier of gameplay. This would allow them to even re work undraw since it is still worthless to even have on your hot bar to this date. Many people have given their suggestions, you should go read them.

That doesn't fix anything because as soon as you find the most optimal card, you play that and only that. The cards have to be identical or there will be a best. And where there is a best, it's that or bust. That's the main issue with the system. On top of that, nobody wanted arrow, so that always going to be a dead card unless it had some other effect, but that just complicates the mess further without avoiding the balance issue at all.

Slim minority of people such as speed killers that'll never change. As I've stated before, and after reading hundreds of thread comments, feedback from other AST's, the card system as it stands right now, is not fun/rewarding and a pain in the ass to use. If you're willing to attempt to try to get that "best" card out of a 1/6 chance then be my guest. The Goal should be to make each card worth drawing, not reduce every card to some basic 6% damage that nobody outside of a third party parser would care for.

The things "speedkillers" or hardcored raiders do will be set as a standard to the community. It trickles down to the people that engage in extreme+ content. Will it matter for dungeon crawlers? No, but that's not the target demographic anyhow.

Funnily enough this current system does make it so every card is worth drawing, as you put it.

This mentality is what buried Machinist, Monk and Dark Knight for years. Why should people have to wait two years for the devs to expand on a system that is widely disliked? That's essentially acknowledging the concept was half-baked at best but they released it anyway. Look no further than 5.0 Ninja and Monk, which were so disliked both received panic buffs within weeks; Ninja going on to get an entire overhaul.

Put simply, the devs' refusal to address bad ideas or expand far earlier is what led to Dark Knight being the least played tank in Stormblood by a mile. Ironically, all it really needed was less emphasis on Dark Arts spam and Dark Missionary—both which could have been addressed in Stormblood.

This is only true in the speedrun community. The vast majority of players made far more use of those cards because they weren't min/maxing to the fraction of a second. While it did often still revolve around Balance and Spear, it also isn't surprising there is such a vocal outrage now given that majority far outnumbers speedrunners.

Thing is... Astro was balanced in Stormblood. The issue was White Mage have zero raid utility, thus making it the inferior choice. Samurai and Black Mage suffered a similar problem hence the sheer dominance of Dragoon, Ninja, Bard and Summoner. That all being said, perhaps the biggest change that helped fix this didn't even come from SE but how logs are now ranked, making it so selfish jobs are more accepted into groups now.

Either way, if a job is perfectly balanced yet no one plays it. What's even the point? When I look at TEA and see both White Mage and Scholar with over ten times the clear rate of Astro. That isn't a good sign. Ironically, I know several people who claim Astro is actually really good in TEA. But once again... no one wants to play it.

They admitted NIN needed fixing as soon as it was released and it still took them time to rework them. AST system, even though people complain, is fine and that's the dev's position thus far. That's why you don't hear anything about changes coming in.

DRK also had people who liked the SB iteration more than the HW iteration, same as BRD.

Yet the vast majority don't do ultimates but development time is still spent on it. Because SE knows that small community matters. Hell they fixed LB cheesing that plagued speedrunners and speedrunners only. It was something that rarely affected non speedrunners but was a huge problem for speedrunners. Even in ShB people found out a way and SE quickly squashed it.

I don't disagree with AST being balanced and WHM being not good. My point there still stands. Even when it wasn't good and not as smooth as AST to play (with their 1.5 cast in sigma), people still played WHM more than AST. I also suspect the only reason there are slightly more AST parses in Alpha was because it was speed running/parse tier at the end of expansion.

I can tell you why people don't play AST in TEA, because WHM is easier and as competitive. Ultimate being a harder fight, people would rather play the easier healer, always. Funnily enough when my group cleared my WHM wanted to try AST but wasn't allowed to because we didn't want to change healing for reclears.

[MitsukiKimura]

That doesn't fix anything because as soon as you find the most optimal card, you play that and only that. The cards have to be identical or there will be a best. And where there is a best, it's that or bust. That's the main issue with the system. On top of that, nobody wanted arrow, so that always going to be a dead card unless it had some other effect, but that just complicates the mess further without avoiding the balance issue at all.



The things "speedkillers" or hardcored raiders do will be set as a standard to the community. It trickles down to the people that engage in extreme+ content. Will it matter for dungeon crawlers? No, but that's not the target demographic anyhow.

Funnily enough this current system does make it so every card is worth drawing, as you put it..

Now see that's where you're wrong. You think you know what the community is going to do but yet you do not. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I can assure you the vast majority of the AST community did not fish for balance all the time. Every card you draw right now is lame, uninteresting and boring as hell. Giving an arrow to a black mage was a god send but I don't think you knew about that.

[ForteNightshade]

They admitted NIN needed fixing as soon as it was released and it still took them time to rework them. AST system, even though people complain, is fine and that's the dev's position thus far. That's why you don't hear anything about changes coming in.

DRK also had people who liked the SB iteration more than the HW iteration, same as BRD.

Yet the vast majority don't do ultimates but development time is still spent on it. Because SE knows that small community matters. Hell they fixed LB cheesing that plagued speedrunners and speedrunners only. It was something that rarely affected non speedrunners but was a huge problem for speedrunners. Even in ShB people found out a way and SE quickly squashed it.

I don't disagree with AST being balanced and WHM being not good. My point there still stands. Even when it wasn't good and not as smooth as AST to play (with their 1.5 cast in sigma), people still played WHM more than AST. I also suspect the only reason there are slightly more AST parses in Alpha was because it was speed running/parse tier at the end of expansion.

I can tell you why people don't play AST in TEA, because WHM is easier and as competitive. Ultimate being a harder fight, people would rather play the easier healer, always. Funnily enough when my group cleared my WHM wanted to try AST but wasn't allowed to because we didn't want to change healing for reclears.

That's my point though. They addressed Ninja quickly unlike in Stormblood where jobs were left in the dust for the entire expansion. It may their position that Astro is fine despite the very vocal complaints but that was also their stance regarding Red Mage in Stormblood. They were forced to renege when, as the community kept telling them, Red Mage's damage was far too low. Why does Astro need to wait a year or more—or any job for that matter? Even if they can't do a complete overhaul, there is no excuse for the disaster that is current Sleeve Draw and Astro's abysmal MP economy.

Those people were very few and far in between. Let's be honest here. The only reason they (SE) clung to Dark Knight's design was, like Monk, they were stubborn.

That's a contradiction. They knew small communities matter yet they completely change Astro's gimmick... which pissed off the vast majority? So they cared more about making speed runners happy than everyone else? Call me crazy but sounds like the exact opposite thing SE would do. Regardless, we already know why they changed Astro. There were some complaints about "useless" cards. And it looks far more likely they overreacted to what was otherwise a small complaint.

Astro took the lead over White Mage in Alphascape because it was objectively better at nearly everything, especially with how movement heavy that tier was. There simply wasn't a reason to play White Mage beyond it being easy mode. Ironically, that's part of the issue now. Astro has to jump through several hoops just to achieve the same results White Mage and Scholar do within a couple buttons. The easier job shouldn't also be better at almost everything yet White Mage is better. And Astro's popularity hasn't been this low since its initial release. Even in Savage it's lagged three to six times below either of its counterparts. So it isn't simply Ultimate where these results are so one-sided.

Ultimately, if they want to keep the Seal system. Fine. But certain aspects need to be addressed now not pushed over until the next expansion. That same mistake is why Monk is once again dying, and what buried Machinist for years.

[Rai_Takara]

That's my point though. They addressed Ninja quickly unlike in Stormblood where jobs were left in the dust for the entire expansion. It may their position that Astro is fine despite the very vocal complaints but that was also their stance regarding Red Mage in Stormblood. They were forced to renege when, as the community kept telling them, Red Mage's damage was far too low. Why does Astro need to wait a year or more—or any job for that matter? Even if they can't do a complete overhaul, there is no excuse for the disaster that is current Sleeve Draw and Astro's abysmal MP economy.

Those people were very few and far in between. Let's be honest here. The only reason they (SE) clung to Dark Knight's design was, like Monk, they were stubborn.

That's a contradiction. They knew small communities matter yet they completely change Astro's gimmick... which pissed off the vast majority? So they cared more about making speed runners happy than everyone else? Call me crazy but sounds like the exact opposite thing SE would do. Regardless, we already know why they changed Astro. There were some complaints about "useless" cards. And it looks far more likely they overreacted to what was otherwise a small complaint.

Astro took the lead over White Mage in Alphascape because it was objectively better at nearly everything, especially with how movement heavy that tier was. There simply wasn't a reason to play White Mage beyond it being easy mode. Ironically, that's part of the issue now. Astro has to jump through several hoops just to achieve the same results White Mage and Scholar do within a couple buttons. The easier job shouldn't also be better at almost everything yet White Mage is better. And Astro's popularity hasn't been this low since its initial release. Even in Savage it's lagged three to six times below either of its counterparts. So it isn't simply Ultimate where these results are so one-sided.

Ultimately, if they want to keep the Seal system. Fine. But certain aspects need to be addressed now not pushed over until the next expansion. That same mistake is why Monk is once again dying, and what buried Machinist for years.

RDM damage is a balance thing. AST changes are a playstyle change. One is objective, the other is subjective.

Personally, the seal system for AST is good. It should be expanded upon, but I doubt they'd do so this expansion. It's not a rework but adding onto the system which comes with expansions. Heck NIN only got rework so quickly once they saw how well the DNC step mechanic worked well and copied it over for mudras.

Difficulty and efficieny shouldn't matter as much as its presumed to. Also, this doesn't come close to how AST was in HW release. People didn't play AST then. Extreme PFs locked AST out. No static wanted one. This is nothing compared to then.

One thing to note though is AST was underpowered this expac release. So all the decent players ended up with WHM. 5.1 fixed AST, but too early to swap things. I can forsee the switch slowly being made come future tiers though. Same as in SB, when people realized AST was very competitive.

[tikiwiki]

I can tell you why people don't play AST in TEA, because WHM is easier and as competitive. Ultimate being a harder fight, people would rather play the easier healer, always. Funnily enough when my group cleared my WHM wanted to try AST but wasn't allowed to because we didn't want to change healing for reclears.

A lot of people pick their classes and start progging the fight without knowing whats in it though and whm has better mp economy and the fight could have been unfriendly to card buffs so many people go with the safe sch/whm pick for those fights

RDM damage is a balance thing. AST changes are a playstyle change. One is objective, the other is subjective.

FEELINGS about play style are subjective

[YusiKha]

NIN and SMN changes were playstyle changes too.