AST feedback

[ty_taurus]

Here are my issues with it. Keep in mind this is purely from my own head and you might not agree or you might find things fun that I find awful and that's fine:

Square removed the sigil system from divination and applied it to Astrodyne, a really unsatisfying self-buff with worse rng than old div that I know I never asked for, but I won't speak for others. They removed lady/lord of crowns and replaced it with an random chance at a really wimpy feeling hit, or an okay feeling heal, but since it's random you can't strategize or plan around it, you just sort of draw and hope it's a damage dealer for the burst and if it's not, "oh well". They removed the sect system instead of just improving upon it to address people's issues with noct sect. They expanded earthly star's range so much that you don't even have to plan where to place it since it's just the size of the whole damn arena at this point. Its two minute window is full of unsatisfying skill-vomit. Much of the thought and fun are gone. The planning that made me feel like I was divining the future is gone. I miss using sleeve draw to cheat the odds. I miss putting Lord of Crowns on my friends while Div was up and I knew they were bursting. I miss switching to noct sect in bad groups that genuinely needed on demand shielding because they were taking too much unnecessary damage too often and heal over times weren't cutting it. I miss knowing where the boss would be in 10 seconds and putting my earthly star there in advance, and people would be like "why'd you put it there???" and then the boss would move there and they'd understand. I miss just using noct sect in casual content and shielding like crazy because I could; now if I want to play with shields, I have to either rely on neutral sect and its long cd, or play sch/sge which I'm not fond of. I miss feeling like my entire job was centered around using cards to get a good divination; now I just feel like I hold cards for the 2m burst. Old ast was satisfying and no matter how much I try to enjoy new AST, I just can't. I have no faith in the rework, since Square continues to believe that the reason people aren't playing AST is because of button bloat and not because they spent several years stripping all the fun out of it.

I unironically have more fun just playing WHM now.
edit: And before someone misses the point, I'm not talking about AST's viability. It's objectively good and has a solid kit. But playing it optimally, to me at least, feels like shit.

Honestly I don't disagree. As skeletal as WHM is as a job and as a healer, the Misery buff ironically gives WHM one of the most interesting and satisfying healer mechanics in the game: intentionally not using Glare on occasion. It's quite literally the only healer rewarded for prioritizing healing over damage. That's not to say that WHM is great to play or fun to play, mind you. It just speaks to how bad the healing role is designed as a whole.

In regards to AST, though, the star sign/seal system is just terrible and always has been. It's an obnoxiously convoluted system that bends over backwards to accomplish what could very easily be accomplished by a single action. Imagine this:

Bravery - Ability
Cooldown: 30 seconds (2 Charges)
Increases damage dealt by self or target party member by 6%
Duration: 15 seconds

Done. There you go, the entire draw system exists to do what this one example of an action does, taking up several buttons in the process.

[ASkellington]

My issues with AST:

• Astrodyne feels as useless as a seals system mechanic as old Divination if not more so. Frankly I want the seals system gone. It wasn't good in 5.0 and it isn't good now. And I doubt you can make it good, SE, in 7.0.
  
• I want diverse cards back. I don't care if they are 3 different buffs like in PvP mirrored for Melee/Range, but 6 soulless cards that as the poster above me proved could be replaced with a single button is dumb design.
  
• Earthly Star being as big as it is is dumb. Do I want old ES back? Kinda. Do I miss people not being in it? No. Do I miss feeling rewarded for placing it in the right place? Yes.

Anything else I want requires a much bigger overhaul.

[IceBlueNinja]

My issues with AST:

• Astrodyne feels as useless as a seals system mechanic as old Divination if not more so. Frankly I want the seals system gone. It wasn't good in 5.0 and it isn't good now. And I doubt you can make it good, SE, in 7.0.
  
• I want diverse cards back. I don't care if they are 3 different buffs like in PvP mirrored for Melee/Range, but 6 soulless cards that as the poster above me proved could be replaced with a single button is dumb design.
  
• Earthly Star being as big as it is is dumb. Do I want old ES back? Kinda. Do I miss people not being in it? No. Do I miss feeling rewarded for placing it in the right place? Yes.

Anything else I want requires a much bigger overhaul.

Its really funny how they they actually had use all old stormblood ast cards for pvp ewer = mp restore spire=limit break restore, now they replace those two and its bole=10% migi arrow 10%=weapon cd/skill/spell speed cd and slap on even movement speed to boot. They literally used all 6 cards with stormblood effects!!!!!! cept making spire instead give limit break.

So why not give back old stormblood cards then cept let spire give dh buff and balance gives movement speed not damage, this way entitle people dont cry balance balance balance balance balance.

[Pomelo]

I really enjoy playing AST, I just absolutely hate Astrodyne and the seals system.

[Zolvolt]

Its really funny how they they actually had use all old stormblood ast cards for pvp ewer = mp restore spire=limit break restore, now they replace those two and its bole=10% migi arrow 10%=weapon cd/skill/spell speed cd and slap on even movement speed to boot. They literally used all 6 cards with stormblood effects!!!!!! cept making spire instead give limit break.

So why not give back old stormblood cards then cept let spire give dh buff and balance gives movement speed not damage, this way entitle people dont cry balance balance balance balance balance.

the stormblood cards are not equally beneficial in PVE vs. PVP. Skillspeed and Cooldown reduction are either really nice for a job or more often really terrible for a job. It would actually be extremely bad for everyone in PVE right now with the 2m meta.

Bole is a bad card in pve as well because its damage reduction was not impactful enough to adjust how you healed encounters. The result of using it was almost always the same result as not using it.

Crit card was good because it was a damage gain.
Balance card was broken. you can't balance a damage gain against non-damage gains.

The old cards were really bad. It was fun to be able to cycle them and turn some cards into buffs for other cards but ultimately the system was impossible to balance.

That is why we have all damage cards now. The alternative is to have none of the cards be damage cards. The problem with no damage cards is people could not play them and things would be relatively the same. role specific damage cards mean you have to actually play them correctly to do well at least.

edit2:
Cards could be way more interesting however if they were mostly personal. There is a lot of potential in changing cards from buffing party members to effecting the astrologian. You could do anything from augmenting astro spells, to opening up access to certain ast spells, or just buffing the astrologian. Minor Arcana affecting other party members would also have a place in that system. I wonder if they have thrown these ideas around at all to see what kinds of intersting things they could come up with.

[ty_taurus]

the stormblood cards are not equally beneficial in PVE vs. PVP. Skillspeed and Cooldown reduction are either really nice for a job or more often really terrible for a job. It would actually be extremely bad for everyone in PVE right now with the 2m meta.

Bole is a bad card in pve as well because its damage reduction was not impactful enough to adjust how you healed encounters. The result of using it was almost always the same result as not using it.

Crit card was good because it was a damage gain.
Balance card was broken. you can't balance a damage gain against non-damage gains.

The old cards were really bad. It was fun to be able to cycle them and turn some cards into buffs for other cards but ultimately the system was impossible to balance.

That is why we have all damage cards now. The alternative is to have none of the cards be damage cards. The problem with no damage cards is people could not play them and things would be relatively the same. role specific damage cards mean you have to actually play them correctly to do well at least.

edit2:
Cards could be way more interesting however if they were mostly personal. There is a lot of potential in changing cards from buffing party members to effecting the astrologian. You could do anything from augmenting astro spells, to opening up access to certain ast spells, or just buffing the astrologian. Minor Arcana affecting other party members would also have a place in that system. I wonder if they have thrown these ideas around at all to see what kinds of intersting things they could come up with.

One thing I think would help utility cards have use is rather than the effect of the card being immediate, you're instead laying that card on someone for later, then you can activate all cards on all party members at once. Like laying a trap card in Yugioh, fittingly.

That said, offense and support cards can both exist, but need to exist as separate resources. Any time they compete, it creates an unhealthy interaction where offense is superior as the support cards are not and can never be essential for survival.

Ultimately though, I would much prefer something that is unbalanced but fun to play over something that's perfectly balanced but stale and inconsequential to gameplay feel. At the end of the day it's a game that's meant to be enjoyed, and that should be all the time, not only some of the time. I agree that the old card system doesn't work, but I would be willing to sacrifice some amount of consistency if necessary to create something that feels more fun and engaging to play and work with. It still needs to be mostly balanced, but even the old card system didn't throw old AST out of whack. The Balance buff of 3.3 was overkill, but that was eventually retconned, and the main thing against WHM during SB was it constantly feeling like Diet AST rather than offering some type of unique support, utility, or advantage over AST or SCH.

[hastile]

My main frustration as a controller/console player is simply that distributing cards feels so clumsy, especially with full parties. My heart is with astrologian but I have considered shifting to white mage simply because it feels more accessible, and that doesn't seem fair to controller/console players. Hoping the overhaul irons out these wrinkles. I did some level ninety trusts and had such a blast with astrologian regardless of the damage it did [but heals were so potent I was never worried about losing anyone], but I know I would feel more anxious about time if I were doing high-end content with real players, which I hope to progress to eventually.

[Gorondu]

Shouldn't the draw cast be 40 second cooldown to align with other raid buffs?

[Zolvolt]

Shouldn't the draw cast be 40 second cooldown to align with other raid buffs?

longer draw CD's would delay opener further. Its already a PITA to get tanks to do 20sec CD when playing ast.

[IDontPetLalas]

My main frustration as a controller/console player is simply that distributing cards feels so clumsy, especially with full parties. My heart is with astrologian but I have considered shifting to white mage simply because it feels more accessible, and that doesn't seem fair to controller/console players. Hoping the overhaul irons out these wrinkles. I did some level ninety trusts and had such a blast with astrologian regardless of the damage it did [but heals were so potent I was never worried about losing anyone], but I know I would feel more anxious about time if I were doing high-end content with real players, which I hope to progress to eventually.

I would agree that playing with trusts, an AST has plenty of heals so you don't have to worry on that count, however should you want to solo some content on an AST, depending upon what you want to do - even compared to the other healers, its personal damage is so low it can be a fairly miserable experience.