Astro Card Proposal

[Anhra]

There was no downside to the old system in itself, it may have been a bit poorly designed with the granted effects, but the "RNG" based aspect of it was well but together in a way, that you always had a solution left to do and if you were discarding cards, you clearly did something wrong here.

AST would have had great potential as a "high risk, high reward" type of healing Job (or just someone who plays triple triad midcombat) if Squeenix decided too build up more into the old card system, instead of listening to the majority of people who are casuals to the bone who only know the WHM toolkit for healers and view anything else as alien concept that interrupts their "optimisation".

I can only hope that Squeenix will learn one day that focusing on the individuality of Jobs, rather than on the Roles they fulfill, would only improve things for everyone who plays the game, but i guess being narrow-minded seems to be quite the trend in 2020+1.

Also, having Fun should always come first before any optimisation on any part (having 3 WHM Jobs clearly isnt fun in my book), if you think otherwise, maybe you should reconsider if video games really are a thing for you.

[Teraluna]

There was no downside to the old system in itself, it may have been a bit poorly designed with the granted effects, but the "RNG" based aspect of it was well but together in a way, that you always had a solution left to do and if you were discarding cards, you clearly did something wrong here.

AST would have had great potential as a "high risk, high reward" type of healing Job (or just someone who plays triple triad midcombat) if Squeenix decided too build up more into the old card system, instead of listening to the majority of people who are casuals to the bone who only know the WHM toolkit for healers and view anything else as alien concept that interrupts their "optimisation".

I can only hope that Squeenix will learn one day that focusing on the individuality of Jobs, rather than on the Roles they fulfill, would only improve things for everyone who plays the game, but i guess being narrow-minded seems to be quite the trend in 2020+1.

Also, having Fun should always come first before any optimisation on any part (having 3 WHM Jobs clearly isnt fun in my book), if you think otherwise, maybe you should reconsider if video games really are a thing for you.

Well what do you say to those players who like and enjoy the current card mechanics over the previous one, those players who have fun playing it?
You see, we are down to individual preferences and these can vary widely. There is no right or wrong here, just personal taste. The downside of course comes when an individual's preference isn't the one that actually happens. Then we get into name calling, telling people what to do (as in don't play video games etc).

[Anhra]

Well what do you say to those players who like and enjoy the current card mechanics over the previous one, those players who have fun playing it?

I tell those kind of People usually "stop pretending to like AST and play WHM instead".

The current way the cards work, cant even be considered a proper system, since youre only applying the same buff in 4 different flavours/magnitude.

Having multiple different effects not only would make things more flexible on the way AST interacts with the party or solo in the field, it would also give alot of room for future improvements.

More importantly, this isnt about personal tastes, its about seeing things on a objective level and the amount of threads on this forum about healers being boring as hell in the way they currently are, speaks volumes for itself, and it would be great if people would finally stop being ignorant about it.

[Mikaeus_The_Lunarch]

There was no downside to the old system in itself, it may have been a bit poorly designed with the granted effects, but the "RNG" based aspect of it was well but together in a way, that you always had a solution left to do and if you were discarding cards, you clearly did something wrong here.

Also, having Fun should always come first before any optimisation on any part (having 3 WHM Jobs clearly isnt fun in my book), if you think otherwise, maybe you should reconsider if video games really are a thing for you.

you can't just say there was no downside then immediately list a downside in the same sentence. The old system was clunky during its entirety and to pretend it wasn't is just bad faith. sure the current cards are rather boring, but the consistency is much more preferred. i feel like everyone who thinks they liked the old cards has completely forgotten just how awful it was to have to throw away unwanted cards all for a spread ewer/spire or to even get the spread effect in the first place. i get that the adaptation of working with the system was apart of the fun, but it was much too weighted to RNG to be as enjoyable as i'd liked.

Having fun is entirely subjective and implying optimization isn't/can't be fun is disingenuous at best

[Seoulstar]

you can't just say there was no downside then immediately list a downside in the same sentence. The old system was clunky during its entirety and to pretend it wasn't is just bad faith. sure the current cards are rather boring, but the consistency is much more preferred. i feel like everyone who thinks they liked the old cards has completely forgotten just how awful it was to have to throw away unwanted cards all for a spread ewer/spire or to even get the spread effect in the first place. i get that the adaptation of working with the system was apart of the fun, but it was much too weighted to RNG to be as enjoyable as i'd liked.

Having fun is entirely subjective and implying optimization isn't/can't be fun is disingenuous at best

Absolutely nothing is wrong with optimization...but when that completely strips away another fun aspect of something. Maybe we need to find a middle ground with it. As it is very clear that many people are not happy with the card system that replaced the old. Something else could have been done instead of making it which color of balance do you want.

[ty_taurus]

Absolutely nothing is wrong with optimization...but when that completely strips away another fun aspect of something. Maybe we need to find a middle ground with it. As it is very clear that many people are not happy with the card system that replaced the old. Something else could have been done instead of making it which color of balance do you want.

This is something some players on both sides of the argument need to understand. There was a lot about the old cards that had charm and was fun to work with, but could also get frustrating when you're trying to prog and you're getting RNG screwed. The ShB cards tackled that problem by tossing the weight to the opposite end of the seesaw, taking away everything that has individuality and charm. What we got was something cold and lifeless, but undeniably functional and consistent. Now, progging is clean and straightforward, but there's no personality to the cards and no nuance to finding a time and place to use the cards you get. We need to redo it again and this time try and strike a balance.

[EaMett]

Placing offensive and non-offensive resources on the same cooldown will always result in offensive resources being favoured. This is an immutable consequence of this game's combat system.

Mitigation tools that cannot be relied upon are worthless. A decent healer will have planned how to complete a fight in advance, making extra RNG mitigation unnecessary. Unless the extra mitigation can save a healing GCD it confers no benefit, and even with a beefy -20% mitigation this is unlikely to happen outside of intense healing checks like J Waves or Terminal Relativity. This stems from how damage in this game tends towards infrequent spikes that must be mitigated to survive. If the game treated HP as a resource that is consistently drained and must be replenished using finite healing resources (like in most other games featuring healers) then RNG mitigation gains value in that it conserves resources. Utility, such as MP regeneration, falls into the same trap unless it can be converted into damage.

Unless you want to make a portion of cards entirely worthless there is no way to implement them as anything more than an offensive tool without either overhauling the entire combat system or splitting AST's cards into offensive and defensive decks that are accessed using two separate resources.

The thing to keep in mind, especially when dealing with game design, is that you don't need to use something often to enjoy having it. Having options allows players to express themselves. And player expression directly correlates to player fun.
One (barely ever used) skill that gets you out of a bad situation once and reflects on how well you know your class will be a thousand times more fun and meaningful to you than a skill you spam all day long. Defensive cards had the potential to, and even sometimes filled, that role.

"RNG was not it, RNG could stab you in the back"

There was an entire post in between those two comments lol. Context is key.
And just to be clear. SE very quickly acknowledged the negative feedback surrounding the new cards. Given how little they acknowledge anything healer, and how much people can be seen complaining about the system here, in-game, Reddit, etc. I think it's safe to say that it was a significant amount of feedback they received. They did state that they weren't going to "change it back" because that would be harmful to the players that did enjoy it so I also assume they at least estimate that a fair amount also enjoys it. But the cards have gotten the most changes this expansion out of all healer skills so they're clearly still trying to fix something.

Given how "hot potato" healers seem to be to the team (feels like they just don't know what to do with the role). I'd assume the current system is here to stay. Besides, they're probably already changing a ton of stuff on AST next expac. It would be shocking if the cards were added on top.

[GrumbleBeard]

Obsession about class balance will kill any fun aspect of any class.

[Payadopa]

I... don't even care anymore...
Cards, sects, why not my weapon while you're at it, SE?

[S-C-R-Y-E]

All they need to do is give all played cards a flat damage increase across the board but give back the an added effect for each card similar to how the old system was. To keep it from being overpowered they just need to tone down the added effect to a fraction of what it used to be in the past. A modest 5% reduction in MP cost, a mere 3% increase in attack speed, a 5% movement speed boost, etc. nothing that really affects game play but it would add some extra flavor to the current card system. To keep people from fishing for specific cards just make it so any three cards played gives you the full divination effect without having to match certain cards anymore.