Random Cards Were The Only Reason AST Felt Good/Different

[Ramiee]

They could add a lot of flavor to jobs, but they'd need to make space for it first. For example, healers are inherently reactionary in other MMORPGs. There's actual damage to heal that is not on a fixed timetable (say constant random hits on random partymembers) and you need to react to that. Such a situation can easily have on healer by more easily able to handle this, in return for having a portion of their healing kit.

I mean this is what early XIV was like, i mean the bosses could crit their auto attacks, there was a lot of reactionary healing its part of the reason why SCH was so insane in ARR because lustrate healed a percentage of HP so during cleric stance so there was no healing loss for it, WHM didn't have anything like that. It was pretty much none healers who complained that healing was too scary that led to the removal of all the interesting support options of healing and for everything they did right they did more wrong and overdid it, having a healer with simple damage for new players? good idea, great even. Turning every healer into that? not so much.

[BabyYoda]

there is 2 group of people is the reason that we have simplified healer kit:
1- bad players who get stressed and get anxiety if someone HP go below 90%
2- high end raiders who is actually bad at the game and want to simplify jobs so they can clear content.

people in the middle is most FFXIV players they are not high raiders and not as bad as group 1
they want engaging kit and fun gameplay
people in the middle play casual and high end content and enjoy them both for "fun" gameplay

[Carighan]

I mean this is what early XIV was like

Yeah but keep in mind there's a reason that all MMORPGs, so they live long enough, slowly reduce class identity and expression and increase instanced content balance in turn. This seems a fairly natural progression, so carving out a space for extra identity in it is not trivial. That required healing is a necessity to create such space, but it is in itself a problem because all MMOs have shown that there aren't many ways to handle high end healing.

[Ramiee]

Yeah but keep in mind there's a reason that all MMORPGs, so they live long enough, slowly reduce class identity and expression and increase instanced content balance in turn. This seems a fairly natural progression, so carving out a space for extra identity in it is not trivial. That required healing is a necessity to create such space, but it is in itself a problem because all MMOs have shown that there aren't many ways to handle high end healing.

The biggest problem is normally bloat. In XIV we have job bloat and it's getting worse and worse, we don't need any new jobs to be honest but we will still get them. This along with expansion bloat and midmaxing leads to identity getting removed.
Classic wow having classes good at specific niches? Great back then but then ranked PvP came out and suddenly everyone needed CC and defensives and good single target and aoe attacks.

I will say for supports though XIV dropped off way harder than any other MMO I've seen in just one expansion. Like before Shadowbringers Tanks and healers had identities and some problems but after every expansion has had balancing nightmares and all supports homogenised insanely fast. GW2 and WoW had these problems but they didn't happen as fast and they got fixed far quicker than XIV, we are going to have at the very least 6 years of terrible job design.

[Lorika]

I never liked EW RNG on the card.Astrodyne was crap and the RNG on symbol for getting the maxbonus even more.
But i admit i was skeptical about the AST rework at first.... Now i really like it and i have ton of fun with it.

I can now effectly plan on when to use my cards and on who, it's a blast to think about that instead of draw-redraw-discard-draw... etc...

[Carighan]

I never liked EW RNG on the card.Astrodyne was crap and the RNG on symbol for getting the maxbonus even more.
But i admit i was skeptical about the AST rework at first.... Now i really like it and i have ton of fun with it.

Thinking about this, I would put my thoughts on current Astro cards like this?

* I like the idea behind randomization affecting the cards.
* Every single implementation of it so far has been disappointing, lame, laughable or ridiculous.
* Hence, the current non-random system is by far the best version yet, even if on paper I dislike it. Unlike all the other attempts, this one actually works, so it wins by default.

[Ramiee]

I still think it would of been better to just had two different cards per draw and have them randomised. One for damage one for utility/healing.

[BabyYoda]

I still think it would of been better to just had two different cards per draw and have them randomised. One for damage one for utility/healing.

1 dps buff each 1 min? this will kill card system even more

the job fantasy is to give party buffs and heals

[Ramiee]

1 dps buff each 1 min? this will kill card system even more

the job fantasy is to give party buffs and heals

Nah timer would be shorter to compensate, around 30-40 seconds like before. The job fantasy was not to give party buffs it was to buff in general, it actually lost more party buffs after spreading cards to everyone was taken away.

[Carighan]

I still think it would of been better to just had two different cards per draw and have them randomised. One for damage one for utility/healing.

Wouldn't that feel kinda shit because each time you have a 50% chance to win vs a 50% chance to get a dud?