Question for those who didn't pick up AST til 5.0 or after.

[Mortex]

Thing is, they have to change the jobs up with each expansion. Just as many would complain that they haven't added anything new to the jobs as those who complain that things were changed, you're essentially buying a new game, you want something new for your money. And they can't just add new abilities to the existing skill sets or we'd get an unmanageable number of skills to use. So some skills have to be cut to make way for new ones, which means reworking the job.

That sounds like monk for almost all expansions .Hw ogcd mantras that don’t refresh if you don’t press the button and Tornado “ I’m gonna lose my stacks anyway” kick. Stormblood whas the best version of mnk hands down. Double tornado kick, a lot of ogcd uses and a high skill ceiling too bad you didn’t had slashing or piercing debuff. And then they derped it again for shadow bringer first removing ogcd buttons so you fall actually asleep playing monk and then killing anatma opener and making form shift early lvl anatma. And then increasing chakra gain so mnk Mains actually made a trigger that tells you how many of them you lost over a fight when you even spam the button. Also nerfing his dps only to make him a bit bedder in a group that doesn’t play 3 meele and 1 physical range. and too top it all of next theny make a raid tier were there is sorry downtime except e12s phase 2 in one mechanic. Like bravo

[Absurdity]

I believe personally they got rid of time dilation to nerf ast potential compared to the other healers. I don't understand why they got rid of the stun on opposition though, the extend effect i can understand but why the stun.

The old time extention gave AST a very unique gameplay aspect due to the various interactions it had with it's own healing kit, now it's been reduced to "press oGCD when damage". They traded a very interesting mechanic for more boring oGCD healing instead of giving WHM something that can compete with it.

[Heilstos]

Hey Absurdity,

I can not agree with you here. The change to play around the stances was a great idea. The time aspect has to be gone for balance resone. To extend hots,mana reg, cards was in every too strong. So it was rly hard to balance for dev. Team. Remember all changes on the Stances to balance the hole system. There were to much multiplyer to handel with. The AST is the healer with stackable hot and shilds. The new CO is (since 5.1!) great for both stances. I would like the time aspect more for a healer that works in main time with hots. #Timemagehealerpls. The AST feels great and is special because in both stances the skill make the same but Master the Healing (Diu) or Mitigation (Noc).

[E4EO]

Its just ok, the cards are more interesting then the lilies or fae of WHM and SCH but that's not saying much. AST suffers from the same problem as all the healers, too much downtime and not enough to do, even when AST needs to think more about what they're doing with their cards to make sure they line up with burst phases that's still not that much

[IDontPetLalas]

That's pretty much how MMOs are, though. Overall this doesn't even change much, there are some which basically become completely different games through expansions.
Fact is, devs look at numbers and see what most people want in that moment, in theory (I say in theory because some decisions are just weird and seem to be dislike by almost everybody). Which will never be what everybody wants. With changes, there will always be something people like and people dislike. The same thing can be considered an improvement by someone and ruining the game by someone else.
Fact about veterans of a class I imagine is the same way as they regard veterans of the game, aka they have the same interest in retaining veterans as in attracting new people, both to the game and to the specific job. They can't just keep one of the two sides in mind, espcially from a business point of view.

As for BLM, I don't know, I feel instead that it changed a lot over the expansions. It went from a mindless turret to a very complex and more mobile class. Sure, the second part fits more with the current game design needing more mobility, but the first seems more a class design change to me. And I remember a thread here that asked people which class they like better at lower level, and most people answered BLM, and current low level BLM is more similar to the old one so it means a lot of people liked the class much better before.

Interesting points, I would disagree with a few points:
1-Stating that "this is how most MMOs work" - this is how some MMOs work. Unfortunately, this can really turn off their customers because they can result in FOTM jobs and/or extremely poor class/job balance during an expansion, with ensuing poor QOL for some players.
2- Stating that devs look at what players want "in that moment" - OK, maybe a junior dev not a game designer - they don't just listen to whomever screams the loudest, or look at short-term returns. They need to look at the impact of design decisions, and the longer-term impacts, plus many other impacts such as the impact to the community, which you did touch on - such as veteran and new players.

Now, I am not against change, but I am not for change just for change's sake. If the dev team gets good feedback from the community, and the job continues to fit the game design - why change it?

However, if it gets bad feedback, or if the game paradigm changes, those could be good reasons to make changes. Not because as Seraphor is saying - someone sees "new expansion- must change the job". Not unless it has issues. Otherwise I get my money's worth by new story content or other expansion features.

So I do not want every job to be overhauled at each expansion. Jobs may end up with some changes second or third expansion and that's fine by me. In the interim, in minor patches the dev team may however need to put in minor tweaks to a specific job to adjust it.

[Tlamila]

Now, I am not against change, but I am not for change just for change's sake. If the dev team gets good feedback from the community, and the job continues to fit the game design - why change it?

However, if it gets bad feedback, or if the game paradigm changes, those could be good reasons to make changes. Not because as Seraphor is saying - someone sees "new expansion- must change the job". Not unless it has issues. Otherwise I get my money's worth by new story content or other expansion features.

In AST case it did get negative feedback though. True, some AST mains were enjoying it, but on the other end of the spectrum people were also always complaining on how too complicated and rng cards are, at least, if not at more.

[ForteNightshade]

In AST case it did get negative feedback though. True, some AST mains were enjoying it, but on the other end of the spectrum people were also always complaining on how too complicated and rng cards are, at least, if not at more.

Uh... no they weren't. At least not on here or reddit. The occasional mention of Balance being too good came up but this forum was completely dominated with complaints over how awful WHM was. There was hardly any mention of Astro except it being OP.

[LeonKeyh]

I leveled AST and WHM at the same time right after the change to sleeve draw (from 3 cards to 1). I felt like early on I enjoyed AST more since the card system gave me stuff to do and was really fun. Around 60 or so, they were about the same for me, and once I hit ShB I liked WHM a little bit more.

I enjoyed AST though, didn't really see many problems with it.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Do you enjoy it? That's the question. Do you have fun playing AST? Speaking as someone who didn't get a chance to play AST til Shadowbringers released (and we were well into 5.1 anyway) I do have a lot of fun playing AST. I feel like I always have something to do when I'm playing the class and I like the new abilities it got in 5.0.

I just want to express some positivity for the job given all the dislike for its 5.0 incarnation that gets thrown around.

this is... a hard question to answer. I first started playing Astrologian in 5.x, but I found it still a little boring, albeit a lot more interesting than the other two... I was disappointed in Astrologian, to put it simply. The cards were boring and dull, despite all of the things being said in cutscenes, while I was looking forward to Lv50 since Lv30, as Nocturnal Sect seemed to like where the fun starts, as the only appeal that I found in Astrologian, with its cards being boring and dull, was this sect thing and the ability to switch between Regen and barriers.
...then I learned about old Astrologian, my disappointment deepened, and I got a feeling of "the grass must have been greener on the other side..."
...then the EndWalker reveal happened, and the only appeal to Astrologian for me, its sects and the ability to switch between Regen and Barrier, is being removed... now I plan to ditch Astrologian, while I still have no attachment to it, since I see none of what I would refer to as improvement coming, and only a change that I do not like.
I may or may not go back, if 6.0 Astrologian looks of interest, but other than that.. I am going to walk away before it hurts to walk away, for now.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Thing is, they have to change the jobs up with each expansion. Just as many would complain that they haven't added anything new to the jobs as those who complain that things were changed, you're essentially buying a new game, you want something new for your money. And they can't just add new abilities to the existing skill sets or we'd get an unmanageable number of skills to use. So some skills have to be cut to make way for new ones, which means reworking the job.

Just this alone feels to me like, and I often refer to it as, one of the most serious problems with FFIXV... A far better thing to do with a large amount of actions, too many for a player to work with all of the actions, is to create in-class diversity. I find it mind-blowing stupid that FFXIV never did this, and has always done this delete actions BS, instead.