Ast cards 6.0 rework

[Malmstrom]

Well sure, why play AST when you can doze at your keyboard as a WHM for nearly the same results?

ZzzzZZZzZz

[MitsukiKimura]

Hate to be the bearer of bad news then. Back in 5.05 or maybe it was 5.1, they did address the people who wanted the old system back and the complaints around the new one. Their answer then was essentially "we've heard the complaints, but there are people who like the new system and we don't want to upset them" ( you know, all 12 of them) despite the amount of people who prefer the older system far outweigh the people who prefer the new. Even the people I personally know now who still enjoy AST have all said they prefer the older one, they just play the current one because it has something to do, which the other 2 healers don't.

Makes me guess if they even look through the forums or just step up to the plate with a bat in attempts to just wing everything and see how it goes.

[inhaledcorn]

Y'all who are saying the "old system was better" only takes into account the fact that it was less clunky. The old card system was "Expand Balance or Bust (with Spear being acceptable)". Anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves. There was no meaningful choice of cards, and, on top of this, so many of AST's lower level skills were dedicated to the card system that AST was awful to play below 52. This new system attempts to alleviate this problem by making every card the same, but the problems lie in every target needing manual placing instead of being AoE at base. Sleeve Draw just sucks without the ability to store cards. If they brought that back, or if cards were AoE in their base form, I don't think people would hate the cards so much.

[Lilseph]

The old card system was "Expand Balance or Bust (with Spear being acceptable)".

As much as people like to keep beating a dead horse with this point, it really only affects those playing at the higher tiers. Stuff like speed-running fights. Beyond that, it's a nice bonus to have, but ultimately does not matter in the slightest.

[GrimGale]

As much as people like to keep beating a dead horse with this point, it really only affects those playing at the higher tiers. Stuff like speed-running fights. Beyond that, it's a nice bonus to have, but ultimately does not matter in the slightest.

If by "higher tiers" you mean End Game content, that is essentially what the combat, jobs and systems of this game are made for. The PVE revolves around progression and optimization. Considering the massive boost you'd get to raid dps with the proper draws (10% or 5% extra damage for 30 seconds or 40 if using celestial opposition), and factoring in a lot of the raids would fail due to enrage timers being prevalent in most encounters I'd say AST RNG had a sizeable influence on whether a raid would succeed.


So they increased the potency of the buff (from 5 to 6%) , and halved its durarion. Then tried to paliate the effects of RNG with the seal system. Problem is, there is still RNG and now you fish for seals instead of fishing for Balance. The lows are still somewhat around even if they are less impactful overall (Considering you can still use divination if you have repeated seals, only the potency is lower.) and the highs are rather unimpactful.

Really, the thing its a system that doesn't feel good. You'd get a rush when you Expanded a Balance, or a Spear or even a Bole when big damage was comming.

Now it feels kind of underwhelming.

[HyoMinPark]

Mm, I suppose that's fair. Time gets away from me sometimes when I try and think of how long something has been. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't a fair number of rose tinted glasses being worn.

Speaking personally, I’ve been trying all expansion to enjoy AST as much as I have in the past. I’m even using it in TEA prog right now. I just can’t enjoy it, and it’s definitely not from a lack of trying.

[Lilseph]

If by "higher tiers" you mean End Game content, that is essentially what the combat, jobs and systems of this game are made for. The PVE revolves around progression and optimization. Considering the massive boost you'd get to raid dps with the proper draws (10% or 5% extra damage for 30 seconds or 40 if using celestial opposition), and factoring in a lot of the raids would fail due to enrage timers being prevalent in most encounters I'd say AST RNG had a sizeable influence on whether a raid would succeed.

Not really. If a group was hitting the enrages and needed that Balance to meet the check, either people are severely undergeared or aren't pulling their own weight. Progging is a different story though. We've haven't had an actual gear check since Gordias and look how 'well received' that tier was. Balance has always been the grand prize of the old card system. Fishing for balance only really matters at the highest levels of play aka. Speed running and World Prog race. It's a very nice bonus outside of that and is super satisfying to play. But now all we have is a system that is underwhelming as heck and feels horrible to play.

[Side-Eye]

People can explain away devs' decision to make this new system by saying they didn't want so much "reliance on RNG" all you want, but the fact remains: fishing for (and getting random results) different seal cards is more RNG-reliant than the old card system ever was.

Another valid complaint about the current card system is that it makes the AST more or less effective depending on the makeup of the party. If your group happens to lack melee DPS, your contribution just got sliced. If you only have melee DPS, your contribution just got sliced.

You can't be surprised by fflogs. You can't be surprised that not many people want to play a job that requires a certain party composition to be at peak efficiency. (And also still, not many people want to play a job that requires 20 target switches per minute to operate at peak efficiency.)

[Lastelli]

People can explain away devs' decision to make this new system by saying they didn't want so much "reliance on RNG" all you want, but the fact remains: fishing for (and getting random results) different seal cards is more RNG-reliant than the old card system ever was.

That's a misrepresentation of what the actual problem was. The problem in previous expansion was that an AST could contibute a lot if it had good luck with draws, or very little if it had back luck. Now it contibutes a lot regardless of luck, just a tiny bit less if it's unlucky. In other words, the problem was the variability of rdps contribution depending on rng.

Another valid complaint about the current card system is that it makes the AST more or less effective depending on the makeup of the party. If your group happens to lack melee DPS, your contribution just got sliced. If you only have melee DPS, your contribution just got sliced.

It wasn't different in previous expansions though. Especially in HW when we had terrible balance and a high utility comp blew no utility comps out of the water. Actually, this is a problem for any job with high dps utility.

You can't be surprised by fflogs. You can't be surprised that not many people want to play a job that requires a certain party composition to be at peak efficiency. (And also still, not many people want to play a job that requires 20 target switches per minute to operate at peak efficiency.)

This here is the real problem. AST is just too busy and just marginally better than WHM in a full utility comp

[Side-Eye]

That's a misrepresentation of what the actual problem was. The problem in previous expansion was that an AST could contibute a lot if it had good luck with draws, or very little if it had back luck. Now it contibutes a lot regardless of luck, just a tiny bit less if it's unlucky. In other words, the problem was the variability of rdps contribution depending on rng.

That's anexaggeration, because AST, when well-played, would hold (and also enhance when possible) whichever card was going to help the party most for certain fights given its makeup, gear level, etc. There were so many times while doing roulettes when a bole was more useful than a balance would've been -- because if tank died, dps or healer was prob next and then what good was that little dmg+ buff? And if that dmg+ buff was the best card for the party, you'd likely have ample opportunity to stash one for when it was needed.

See, when you bemoan the old system's RNG reliance, you're neglecting to factor the tools we had to manipulate those cards and mitigate the randomness.

I also maintain that flexibility/adaptability was more potent than a set of cards which all do the same thing. And seriously: if the cards all do the same thing, lift the class restriction so anyone in the party can benefit ... it would at least get rid of one random aspect impacting the job's effectiveness.