Astrologian changes feedback

[ArtemisSeraphin]

made the class overly complicated for people who are just playing the class for the aesthetic

Why do people who played the class because they liked the complications have to accept a lower overall quality of life in playing the job because other people wanted an aesthetic? Why should the wants of people who prefer aesthetics take place over the wants of people who want a challenging class to play?

And good golly, it wasn't that hard/complicated if you were just playing casually. The number of times I rolled into an alliance/raid roulette and the other AST in the player never used a single card... and we still cleared with no issues.... If I had a nickle for every time, I genuinely would be rich.

In order for MMOs to live and survive long term, they DO need some jobs with a high skill ceiling for players who LIKE the hecticness and intricacies. In FFXIV, the issue is that it just also happens the that intricate and hectic high skill ceiling job is ALSO the one that's "Pretty." And apparently the devs have decided that catering to the people who prioritize aesthetics is more valuable than having a robust job system that gives players of every skill level a chance to be challeneged.

[AnotherPerson]

The highs and lows of the new card system is quite substantial. The good thing is that we have diverse card effects and some stability to what we draw. The bad is that we have no RNG or ways to manipulate it if we don't need those card effects at the time (the problem here is not having options, like how healing actions that we don't use in 60s becomes a wasted action that contributes nothing to the healer gameplay decision-making -- the most present complaint about healers currently), or at least have not seen any ways to manipulate the card system in the Job Action Trailer.

I think a portion of the problem also stems from not knowing what the card buffs even do. We have a preconceived notion that it's just a damage buff, a defensive buff, and a form of heal. With ShB and Endwalker iterations of the card system, the card buffs were just the same thing, just renamed slightly differently. How different are each of the card effects in Dawntrail, and how big of an impact do they have in gameplay from one another? Do we have any form of control on what cards we specifically choose or is there a predetermined order on how they must be played?

From what I tell based on just the job trailer, AST's Draw 4 cards mechanic draws 1 damage card, 1 defensive card, and 1 curative card in that order. This system can be really good if they added a bit more depth into it and encouraged its usage every 60s by adding ways to manipulate the cards you want to play rather than holding it for a burst window in 120s for 2 Draws due to how heavy the emphasis for DPS is. I like the concept... However, I dislike how the card system feels neglected in the toolkit, or rather the job actions seem to only work in a vacuum. For a level 50 skill, drawing 3 or 4 cards and picking what works best in that situation works well because you aren't full of healing skills to fall back on, so every card can get its use and reach its full potential. At lv 90 and lv 100, AST has so many healing actions that they generally don't need more healing actions on cards unless those healing actions provide very substantially different utility in regards to encounters. From what I can tell currently, the cards themselves don't have any synergy to the rest of the toolkit or isn't executed in a way that promotes synergy in a fluid manner.

It would be good to have the ability to manipulate the card system or have skills that interact with it to make AST's card gauge the focus of the gameplay rather than just a small addition, so the player can adapt around it based on the circumstances at hand.
Examples:
1. An additional action to redraw a card and combine the previous card effect to the newly drawn card effect.
2. An additional action to return a card and merge the effects into Minor Arcana - turning the card effects into AoE, but you will no longer draw this card on your next [Draw 4] action.
3. An additional action to return a card and double the next dawn card effect, but you will no longer draw this card on your next [Draw 4] action.
4. Horoscope - additional effect: Draw one additional card with random effects (If 3 cards are already drawn, become old ShB sleeve draw effect and automatically load in the next card as your last card)
5. Be able to choose what card to play at any given moment (cycling the choice of cards you want to modify).

That way, there's the initial level of guarantee with what your base cards do, but the card system evolves in a way where the player can aim for other effects if the cards isn't suitable at this point in time. I'd have to wait for the media tour to conclude before giving further feedback to the card system since I'm not sure what the new card effects specifically do. I'm also equally worried the amount of incoming damage being too low and the frequency of the damage isn't enough to warrant the need for the support aspect of cards (damage frequency failed to meet healing expectations for the last 2 expansions to encourage healing gameplay over DPSing). If the damage isn't consistently frequent enough to need all those healing abilities, my feedback would be to remove some of Astrologian's healing actions and emphasize the card system more. I don't think AST needs Essential Dignity with a third charge when there's plenty of other single target healing skills and GCD actions like Aspected Helios is getting buffed further. Let GCD heals be impactful so those hotbar slots dedicated to them don't feel like they aren't doing anything.

[Rithy255]

I'm not even a "healer main" I'd consider astro the healer i play/enjoy the most by a mile.

The simple fact that cards aren't random and you likely get one buff card while the other two are "mitigation & healing"... ok maybe mitigation is fine... But do we really need another healing ability on Astro???? This rework feels like it sets out to destroy the things I liked about astro generally. I mean I'm not surprised after some changes in EW I was even memeing that cards would becoming healing lilly effects, but I guess my meme became true. (somewhat lol)

Personally I liked this "idea" of keeping draw for damage cards (so as it is without astrodyne), while having a second set of utility cards... almost like lords and ladys could become that if expanded. Thing is people say "rng is bad" whenever i complained about the astro changes, which I think is a very flat way of thinking about things.

[Tsumdere]

Wait seriously? It only rotates through 2 sets of 3 cards every other minute? That’s bad that’s really bad…

I was hoping for it to randomly choose 1 of 2 cards for 3 sets of Damage, Defense, and Healing. Then in those sets you’d have unique effects such as Physical Damage Up and Magic Damage Up // Defense Up and MP Regen Up // Regen over Time and Heal Received Up.

Then, another idea I liked was a general Draw ability on a 20s cooldown that would draw any random card from any set, to keep a sense of RNG. So you’d have Triple Draw every 60s and Single Draw every 20s.

For some RNG mitigation you can have an ability that combines Royal Road and Redraw along with an ability like Time Dilation. So first, you’d press Royal Redraw, then your 3 Play buttons turn to Flip buttons. You choose which card you want to change to the other card on the same set, but its duration is halved. If you really want to keep its full duration, then you’d use Time Dilation (it should be a 2-charge 60s oGCD so you can have one for raid buffs) to extend its duration normally.

That’s how I imagined the new cards. But if all RNG is removed there’s really no point to AST. The live letter slides said actions are subject to change, I’m really hoping that’s true this time.

This is what I took away from the presentation as well, but everyone else is saying the opposite with completely 0 RNG.

If it is one of two options that can be random, I would say this is a great step forward. If it's 100% static then it's just so disappointing.

I'm hoping the "no RNG" comment does not mean completely void of RNG and more of a "there is no RNG knowing if you'll get a damage card or utility".

[Kissune]

This is what I took away from the presentation as well, but everyone else is saying the opposite with completely 0 RNG.

If it is one of two options that can be random, I would say this is a great step forward. If it's 100% static then it's just so disappointing.

I'm hoping the "no RNG" comment does not mean completely void of RNG and more of a "there is no RNG knowing if you'll get a damage card or utility".

They stated that you would draw a set of four cards. I don't remember which ones were in it so lets just say set 1 draws cards 1,2,3 and 4. The first time you press draw, you draw set one. You get 1234 in your bank. The next time you press draw, you get 5678. Repeat. The cards in each set are the same every time, every pull, every fight.

[Ioletia]

Okay, well, I'm not going to argue with you people, but the reality is that FFXIV isn't a "sweaty" game. There is one small subsect of content that requires concerted effort to overcome, but the vast VAST majority of players are showing off their glam or pretending to be dead in Limosa between roulette duties (or at some private party in some FC's house). And, guess what, they're the people buying new glam from the store, spending money on reskinned mounts, and are actually supporting the game. The people who want a hyper tuned, high skill ceiling class are slim- and the fact that not many people play Astro speaks to this. So, yeah, that's not content that's going to be made. Sorry that you're frustrated by that.

The weird thing is that the people who are playing at that hyper tuned high skill ceiling weird paradox cast rotation for BLM level... Want consistency. Fishing for balance was inconsistent- fishing for seals to get the extra 1%/2% damage increase for Divination was inconsistent- fishing for seals to get the 5% damage increase off astrodyne was inconsistent. When inconsistency can cause a wipe to an enrage timer, people aren't going to want it at that high level of play.

So, I'm going to re-iterate this. Making the Astro less "sweaty" will make the class more inclusive to everyone- and if that comes at the small expense of a few gamers getting their emotions in a knot... Don't think Square cares. The game is meant for everyone, not a select few people who want to swing their high APM trophies around- and this comes from someone who can swing.

So, back on topic. What I'd like to see on the cards...

Defensively, I'd like to see something akin to Arm's Reach on a card. Because it is criminal how many tanks don't use that to slow enemy attacks- and slowing would fit in with the Time Mage aesthetic. Or make it a full Stop ability. Anything to make it more flavorful than 10% damage mitigation.

Offensively? It would be nice if the cards activated off Divination. You get two offensive cards every two minutes, which would line up with the meta, and when placed on a target they just sit there giving maybe a 1-2% damage increase until Divination is cast where they give the target the full 6% damage increase for the normal 15 seconds. It would reduce the crazy burst window the Astro has, but still give about the same damage increase potential.

[Zaytex]

I'm going to be frank: I'm tired of games becoming ''inclusive'' to the point of everything being simplified and accessible. If you wanted to play healer, but didn't want to learn or improve your gameplay then you had WHM, or the shielders to pick up. Saying ''this game is for everyone, not a select few people'' but then telling a specific group of people to just deal with the only difficult healer being gutted to nothingness is laughably hypocritical. If you're the type of player who just sits in Lominsa or does roulettes and no high end content, why do you even care if you can't play AST at an optimal level? It's not needed, and you can still enjoy the aesthetic and cards to the level you can manage them. Instead of actually getting good at the game, picking up a different healer, or dedicating effort to learning AST you really just kicked and screamed for it to be made easier for you.

There's a reason why queues are often just waiting on healers in roulettes or even in most PF's I see these days, because the role has become so fucking boring and stripped of all complexity and difficulty that nobody wants to play it. The last thing of difficulty within the healer role was AST. Where do you think those veteran or skilled healers are going to go when AST has been made not challenging at all? They're just going to stop playing healer and go somewhere else, which is what I will be doing. You probably don't care since you have the ''well I get what I want, so screw everyone else'' mentality, which ironically is what has created a lot of problems for this game.

[Kissune]

Okay, well, I'm not going to argue with you people, but the reality is that FFXIV isn't a "sweaty" game. There is one small subsect of content that requires concerted effort to overcome, but the vast VAST majority of players are showing off their glam or pretending to be dead in Limosa between roulette duties (or at some private party in some FC's house). And, guess what, they're the people buying new glam from the store, spending money on reskinned mounts, and are actually supporting the game. The people who want a hyper tuned, high skill ceiling class are slim- and the fact that not many people play Astro speaks to this. So, yeah, that's not content that's going to be made. Sorry that you're frustrated by that.

The weird thing is that the people who are playing at that hyper tuned high skill ceiling weird paradox cast rotation for BLM level... Want consistency. Fishing for balance was inconsistent- fishing for seals to get the extra 1%/2% damage increase for Divination was inconsistent- fishing for seals to get the 5% damage increase off astrodyne was inconsistent. When inconsistency can cause a wipe to an enrage timer, people aren't going to want it at that high level of play.

So, I'm going to re-iterate this. Making the Astro less "sweaty" will make the class more inclusive to everyone- and if that comes at the small expense of a few gamers getting their emotions in a knot... Don't think Square cares. The game is meant for everyone, not a select few people who want to swing their high APM trophies around- and this comes from someone who can swing.

Cool! Well I have some fun facts about you: As it turns out, AST is completely playable in all of its states even without interacting with the card system or not even remotely trying to optimize it. If you're a casual player, playing AST, as I was when I first started... I just fucked around. Played cards. I couldn't remember what any of them did so I just kinda played them when I felt like it. And I was literally never punished for it.

No casual gives a shit about consistency. It's all about aesthetics and gamefeel. And AST wasn't a busy class unless you knew what you were doing. If you drew and played every once in a while and put the card on yourself or a tank, it didn't matter. It made no difference, you were having fun. Casual players aren't even going to notice a difference in playstyle bc they weren't playing AST at its most optimal peak anyways. But for those of us that were? No fucking AST main worth anything who actually played the class for how it played wanted it to just feel like white mage. Whether we wanted stormblood cards or not, we played it to feel like we were playing the hand dealt to us, not the hand assigned every time. AST isn't just 'less sweaty', it's not AST. It's white mage with aetherflow.

Inclusivity and making every job accessible is defeating the point of having any jobs at all. You can have high skill ceilings and low skill floors, and now AST is rock bottom on both. AST was very easy to pick up and play around with. If you wanted to engage with higher end content, I'm sorry but if you were incapable of doing AST's reactive gameplay you probably were incapable of doing savage mechanics. So why does it matter? Why does the class have to become white mage 2 just for the sake of people who weren't even playing it for its gameplay anyways? For the people that liked the optimization style, which doesn't exist on any other class, where do they go? People who didn't like how AST played had three other healers to pick from. People who like how AST played had AST, and now they don't. If the burst window was too much, there were a dozen ways to make it more streamlined than 'completely remove cards as an actual mechanic'.

High skill ceiling can exist with a low skill floor. But having things take effort is just too difficult for the average FF player.

[KanataNanaya]

Fishing for balance was inconsistent- fishing for seals to get the extra 1%/2% damage increase for Divination was inconsistent- fishing for seals to get the 5% damage increase off astrodyne was inconsistent. When inconsistency can cause a wipe to an enrage timer, people aren't going to want it at that high level of play.

If you wipe at 1%, I don't think a single boosted balance or 2 more EW's card gonna help you. That's literately the entire party's skill issue and can be easily overcome if 2-3 people did better in their next attempt.
You are scraping the bottom of the barrel, hell, even if that's the case, your precise answer is switching to white mage.

as for your suggestion, you seriously think they gonna implement some elaborate effect and not just recycling some of the pre-existing effect into the new cards? please.

[Valmaxian]

My thoughts as an AST main since Heavensward:

PROS
1. I’m glad that they’re bringing back different card effects - having a defensive utility card is actually really nice. I remember how powerful the Bole card w used to be in certain situations.

2. Aside from job lore, shuffle was just an excuse to make us push a button when we got unlucky. I don’t really mind that it’s going away. Does the RNG really improve the job? Also, for those salty about wanting a busy job, we still have to weave three cards during our DPS rotation every minute. Seems similar to what we have now minus shuffle RNG and seal fishing (which led to a negligible buff from Astrodyne anyway).

CONS
1. We lose a draw every minute. IF the new damage card carries a substantial enough damage buff, this might be ok. But it’s going to have to be better than some 6-8% nonsense, or last longer.

2. Guaranteed draws mean we can’t give out two damage buffs each minute.

Do I miss Royal Road? Every day. But I feel like the core mechanics of AST are still largely intact, and the job will feel less punishing for the sake of RNG. What would *actually* break our job? Anything happening to Earthly Star or Lightspeed.

I’m also betting they will remove CU and Synastry. Those new buttons had better be as useful as they are shiny.