AST Adjustments 6.2

[Eorzean_username]

I don't have much unique commentary to add here, but I'll just repeat my feelings for the sake of shouting into the void and pretending that the SE Job designers in Japan will ever actually hear it, because this brings me psychological comfort compared to admitting that there probably aren't even human staff reading the English forums.

Cards, Seals, Astrodyne

I don't particularly personally care about the Cards / Gamble system, because what always appealed to me about "Astrologian" in FF was shooting stars at people, after first encountering Orlan Durai in FFT.

That said, I also was not particularly hostile to the Cards system back in HW and SB. I had fun with things like fishing for a Spread Balance, and figuring out how to make best use of "dud" cards when I couldn't Shuffle any more.

However, beginning in ShB, the Cards honestly began to feel more like a tumour on the Job's design. They're just so... bland. Carding went from an interesting and fun puzzle to solve and react to, into just a tedious and dull chore that I have to deal with every 30s.

Combine that with the execrable Seal system, which pressures obnoxious click-click-click-click-click double-weaving during burst windows... Ugh. It's just a nuisance that I don't enjoy.

At least in ShB I had some meaningful psychological incentive for lining up Seals properly, so that my Divination didn't fail shamefully.

But now with Astrodyne... ugh... it makes everything feel more like a going-through-the-motions chore than ever before. Do I really care when I line up a "perfect" Astrodyne? No, my personal DPS is still laughable either way, and I don't even get the satisfaction of supporting my team on the most support-oriented Job in the game.

At this point I think that I really wouldn't care if Cards got deleted entirely, because they're such a tacked-on, dull chore. And that's sad, because in HW/SB I felt like they were actually a cool and fun part of the AST design space.

For me, the primary issues with Cards currently are:

• Excessive clicking, burst-window spam, and detargeting. I like Cards in PvP because I can just fire it off without having to lose my enemy target, and I'm not trying to induce wrist RSI every 2 minutes.
• Dull and uninteresting. I like Cards in PvP because they actually have different effects again.
• Seals are just... not a fun mechanic. They feel like a tacked-on chore.
• Astrodyne feels like the gameplay equivalent of doing laundry on the weekend.

Lord/Lady

This was annoying in Stormblood because half the time, it was basically useless/superfluous.

One of the few things I actually enjoyed about ShB Card system was the choice of when to funnel cards into superior Lord/Ladies.

And now we're back to the SB "coin flip" system, but somehow... worse. Reverse progress.

To be honest, Lord/Lady always felt "tacked-on" and unnecessary, and I'd rather have more ways to shoot stars at people than extra Tarot cards with dull and forgettable generic effects.

Nocturnal Sect

What exactly did Nocturnal Sect die for...?

Sage / Scholar feel like they are basically just as effective at healing as "non-Barrier" healers in most situations, and in fact, SGE/SCH seems to be a viable comp in many (all?) situations.

It's not like Nocturnal Sect was particularly powerful or practical, either, except for carrying friends through old unsynced content.

I feel like there was, in retrospect, no reason to amputate this section of Astrologian.

DPS buttons

Well, of course, I'm having some of my usual hypoxic fever-dreaming right now, but as with all FFXIV Healers, I'd enjoy...

• More purely-offensive GCD and OGCD tools for AST
• A more complex offensive rotation than "Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic".

[ty_taurus]

In the long term, the removal of Nocturnal Sect doesn't really make sense if we ever add a 5th healer because there will be an imbalance anyway. That said, one of my biggest complaints about the job was how it was designed to be a substitute WHM or SCH rather than just doing its own thing. I don't mind removing the stances if AST's healing tools became more distinct, which they kind of have actually. I think GCD healing needs to be reworked and reevaluated anyway, especially for WHM who feels like a fossil in everything beyond the lilies, and even the lilies are very tame.

As for DPS buttons, I would rather see AST move in a different direction than having direct DPS, hence the suggestion on the last page about moving the cards to the GCD and having that be your gameplay loop with much lighter direct DPS when you're not engaging with the cards.

[IceBlueNinja]

I genuinely hope we get cards back but I'm not gonna be surprised if they just delete astro at this point to put it out of its misery

This is what happen when you had too much people qq about how hard and random stormblood ast to manage(which made it very appealing to play) my thing on those who complain on it why not play whm which is easier or sch then which is I guess moderate ast was to be hard mode high risk high reward hence why its personal dps was one of the lowest at one point with a 2.5 cast fic. You almost have no time to even a fic with stance card and combust 1 and 2 mangement. Now this is the punishment we get thanks to them. A now full cheaper mobile whm with crummy boring cards doing the same dry 3% or 6% buffs.

I never got into raiding till sbh of eden. But I do not care how niche some of the cards of sb was and people want only balance. Who give this one enlist player the say that from what i see on old post only fish balance or be kick for it? That is just bias imo cept for spire when tp was gone all cards even niche was still some type of help to me. Ewer my fav for if I was killed using lucid ewer was nice recovery. I wont get into why I found use for the other 4 again. Like you I hope the same but doubt it will happen

[Tlamila]

I just wanna say i'm very scared.
As AST is the only healer I still like, and it being busy is one of the reasons why I liked it, a major overhaul to make it less busy sounds like the worst thing ever.
Look forward to whm 2.0.

[QooEr]

if all we get is a charge on lightspeed to better deal with the business ill be satisfied. i would of course much prefer if they made cards interesting and varied again but i have little hopes for the dev team

[Liam_Harper]

This is what happen when you had too much people qq about how hard and random stormblood ast to manage(which made it very appealing to play)

People mainly complained about how the utility was combined with the dps, so you'd have to sacrifice your group buffs and gimp your parties damage output to enjoy it. All they had to do was make the RNG fun and not a detriment, keep the utility cards but put them separate, polish it up and they'd be in the right direction.

Player feedback didn't ruin AST. Let's not kid ourselves, we don't make the game and the developers rarely listen to healer feedback. The fact that the devs are just bad at healer design and don't really care if they're fun to play is what ruined AST.

[Heilstos]

Yep that s true. Its like Liam said it. We have a lot of great ideas here in the thread! If its like my idea or from taurus + plus the massiv feedback. I am glade thats a lot of people love the idea to combain utility and dps push. There is no "THATS OP!!!elf!!!" And SE listens sometimes to the player feedback. But this is not shown much.

At least I am happy that we have a good time talk about the Job I like/play since 2015. It's true that the astro feels like an endless construction site. But there were good moments and now I see what the devs want. I hope you take your time and get away from the melee and ranged cards

[AoifeAogane]

Here's my pitch:

Astro becomes a new limited job like blue mage.

We remove ALL of the skills.
Add way more cards. You now draw 5 cards at a time.
From now on Astros can only use abilities based on what card they draw.
Cards can only be collect via triple triad matches.

I assume everyone will be on board with this, and I will be taking no questions.

Oh wait! One more change! There is a new "dragon star" gauge that lets you know when dragons are about to attack. Good old Ishgardian astrology.

[SieyaM]

People mainly complained about how the utility was combined with the dps, so you'd have to sacrifice your group buffs and gimp your parties damage output to enjoy it. All they had to do was make the RNG fun and not a detriment, keep the utility cards but put them separate, polish it up and they'd be in the right direction.

Player feedback didn't ruin AST. Let's not kid ourselves, we don't make the game and the developers rarely listen to healer feedback. The fact that the devs are just bad at healer design and don't really care if they're fun to play is what ruined AST.

No they listen to DPS feedback and they all said they didn't like AST cards because they weren't getting enough balance cards to pad their logs with. The reason AST fished for balance so often was because it would give the DPS players they were feeding cards to better logs to post, it was never impossible to clear a run without them nor was it significantly easier to clear with a bunch of balance draws.

[QooEr]

No they listen to DPS feedback and they all said they didn't like AST cards because they weren't getting enough balance cards to pad their logs with. The reason AST fished for balance so often was because it would give the DPS players they were feeding cards to better logs to post, it was never impossible to clear a run without them nor was it significantly easier to clear with a bunch of balance draws.

this was, again, not even fixed by square enix. it was fixed by fflogs introducing rdps and thus killing padding almost entirely.

if fflogs had stayed the same we would still have asts padding players by giving them crappy 6% balances all run long.