Should they swap the effects of bole and arrow

[RyuDragnier]

The thinking around the time before they changed it was that bole, spire and ewer were the useless ones and the other 3 contributed to damage so they were useful. Since the community already grouped them this way it made sense to keep them divided this way. All the old useless cards went to the casters and the damage cards went to the melee. This does jack for new players though. All kind of a moot point as the card system will likely be completely reworked again in 7.0

Sad part is the old card system was more fun. Being able to throw away cards to buff the effects of the next one, having a card for every occasion, every single card being unique...it was way better than what we had now. Then again, I'm somebody who has been playing MMOs since the 90s and was always the healing support. Heals, buffs, CC from time to time...you know, a true support that we don't see much anymore these days in MMOs.

[Renathras]

The thinking around the time before they changed it was that bole, spire and ewer were the useless ones and the other 3 contributed to damage so they were useful. Since the community already grouped them this way it made sense to keep them divided this way. All the old useless cards went to the casters and the damage cards went to the melee. This does jack for new players though. All kind of a moot point as the card system will likely be completely reworked again in 7.0

It's one thing that gets me. All changes to things ultimately stem from player beliefs and behaviors. People then complain about them, of course, but people often WEREN'T using the "interesting" other Cards. Part of that was the RNG nature of it (did you get a Bole when a Tankbuster was coming up or not?), but the two things that always come to mind to me in discussions like this are "Players will optimize the fun out of anything" and "Players are great at finding problems, but often very poor at proposing actually good solutions."

If people had consistently used the non-damage Cards, we'd probably still have them. But PLAYERS, not the Devs, decided damage >>> all (something players still hold to), leading to the nerfs. The Devs prize utility far higher than the players do, even now in the fewer cases it still exists. The only recent example of players actually flipping that script is MCH getting Dismantle back.

[ForsakenRoe]

It's one thing that gets me. All changes to things ultimately stem from player beliefs and behaviors. People then complain about them, of course, but people often WEREN'T using the "interesting" other Cards. Part of that was the RNG nature of it (did you get a Bole when a Tankbuster was coming up or not?), but the two things that always come to mind to me in discussions like this are "Players will optimize the fun out of anything" and "Players are great at finding problems, but often very poor at proposing actually good solutions."

If people had consistently used the non-damage Cards, we'd probably still have them. But PLAYERS, not the Devs, decided damage >>> all (something players still hold to), leading to the nerfs. The Devs prize utility far higher than the players do, even now in the fewer cases it still exists. The only recent example of players actually flipping that script is MCH getting Dismantle back.

Should be noted, the only reason MCH got Dismantle back was because it couldn't justify having both 'less defensive utility than it's counterparts' AND 'less offensive utility than it's counterparts'. Since the devs want to keep it as the 'selfish dps option' of the physranged, it couldn't get back, eg, the old version of Hypercharge (with a new name) that gave a vuln up debuff on enemies. So, defensive it is. Whether we see MCH get more attention in the 6.4 savage is going to be interesting to see, but it definitely saw some more attention in TOP both due to it's lack of raidbuff (party less reliant on 2min windows), and it's lack of raidbuff (less chance of 'miss'ing your raidbuff due to buff cap)

As for 'use the bad cards', I think that's less a case of whether it happened or not, and more a case of perception. The 'top players' would reset runs if they didn't get the Balances they wanted, which gave the impression to the lower skill levels of players that 'Balance is the only useful card'. Was Spire useful? Not really, but it also wasn't as 'dead' as people make it out to be. It was 50% of the combo that made Balance the powerhouse it was, with Ewer also doing the same. If anything, Bole was the 'dead' card, but that doesn't mean that it had to be removed. It could have been retooled to have a damage reflect component, or be 'if something strikes the player with Bole on them, they get a debuff that makes them take more damage', or any number of things. Changing every card to be the same flat 'X% more damage' is the laziest solution imaginable. What part of 'manipulating fate' has every divining card have the same meaning? What card game has every card have the same value? Very fun playing Poker when every card is a King, I'm sure. Every round, a draw because everyone got a 5 of a kind. But at least nobody 'lost' and felt bad, right?

(any vitriolic tone directed at SE's laziness on the topic, not any player)

[Renathras]

As for 'use the bad cards', I think that's less a case of whether it happened or not, and more a case of perception. The 'top players' would reset runs if they didn't get the Balances they wanted, which gave the impression to the lower skill levels of players that 'Balance is the only useful card'. Was Spire useful? Not really, but it also wasn't as 'dead' as people make it out to be. It was 50% of the combo that made Balance the powerhouse it was, with Ewer also doing the same. If anything, Bole was the 'dead' card, but that doesn't mean that it had to be removed. It could have been retooled to have a damage reflect component, or be 'if something strikes the player with Bole on them, they get a debuff that makes them take more damage', or any number of things. Changing every card to be the same flat 'X% more damage' is the laziest solution imaginable. What part of 'manipulating fate' has every divining card have the same meaning? What card game has every card have the same value? Very fun playing Poker when every card is a King, I'm sure. Every round, a draw because everyone got a 5 of a kind. But at least nobody 'lost' and felt bad, right?

Yeah, fair.

Though I think we could argue MOST changes are based on that same type of thing. Perception of the top players/the meta probably isn't always true of reality, yet it IS a pretty concrete driver of change - for better or, often, for worse.

[ForsakenRoe]

yeh, my point isnt that the top players were wrong, because in some ways they weren't wrong, it DID feel kinda bad to have a card that wasn't 'useful', as was the case with Bole a lot of times. It would come up at times you just, didnt need it. And for those top players, doing speedruns of the raid, those 'times we don't need Bole' were '100% of the time, because we're in BIS'. The point is that SE should have looked for ways to make the 'less desirable' cards like Spire or Bole, 'more desirable' rather than just saying 'oh the most desirable card is Balance, so lets make them ALL Balance, job done'

[IceBlueNinja]

I stop ast in ew release and barely lvl it to 90 last sunday which was miserable and was all giddy to just focus my sage till 7.0 Half the time i forget to draw or if i do i just sling it on whatever person cause this new astrodyne system is a total garbage fest since you can now use divi without having to build seals. Making redraw now only one use and you draw a card that is either same seal or not base for that job is just finger aching experience lol and not worth it period. Please see dancer bard dragoon or monk or sm for better buffs lol

[IceBlueNinja]

Sad part is the old card system was more fun. Being able to throw away cards to buff the effects of the next one, having a card for every occasion, every single card being unique...it was way better than what we had now. Then again, I'm somebody who has been playing MMOs since the 90s and was always the healing support. Heals, buffs, CC from time to time...you know, a true support that we don't see much anymore these days in MMOs.

Yep stormblood ast was the best but entitled raiders with the belief of oh ast only should play balance could be the major reason why cards has been garbage since sbh and ew.

[RyuDragnier]

Yep stormblood ast was the best but entitled raiders with the belief of oh ast only should play balance could be the major reason why cards has been garbage since sbh and ew.

Man I remember throwing the Spire on DPS who just rezzed to get their TP back, keeping an Ewer on hold for myself or the other healer, throwing an Arrow around at some random player to speed them up if I felt like causing CHAOS (usually the tanks though, it was nice sometimes on tanks), etc. The cards felt more like proper planning for situations instead of just being Oprah with damage buffs. "YOU GET A DAMAGE BUFF, AND YOU GET A DAMAGE BUFF! YOU ALL GET DAMAGE BUFFS!"

[Semirhage]

Is it the players who prize damage above all else, or FFXIV's combat system/encounter design that renders all but damage (nearly) irrelevant? The fixation on damage, much like the job meta, is a path of least resistance the players discover, not one they invent.

Did they delete Fluid Aura because players weren't spamming this deeply interesting and useful ability on Ruby Weapon EX? Darn those sinister players, removing utility with their fixation on using useful abilities.

[RyuDragnier]

Is it the players who prize damage above all else, or FFXIV's combat system/encounter design that renders all but damage (nearly) irrelevant? The fixation on damage, much like the job meta, is a path of least resistance the players discover, not one they invent.

Did they delete Fluid Aura because players weren't spamming this deeply interesting and useful ability on Ruby Weapon EX? Darn those sinister players, removing utility with their fixation on using useful abilities.

Gonna be honest, it's mostly the players fault. The original Pharos Sirius? Nerfed because people refused to run it because it was "too hard". Steps of Faith? Nerfed because people refused to use the mechanics. People even tried to get Nidhogg and Shinryu nerfed. They cried whenever anything wasn't useful for damage or was annoying because they'd spam something for damage (like Fluid Aura) that wasn't originally meant for it. So yeah, it IS the players fault.