Please Return Randomness to Astrologian's Card System

[Connor]

Being fixed over randomised aside I hate that almost the entirety of the card system now has been reduced to ‘oops more healing mechanics’.

Like ffs weren’t supposed to be a support buffer? Why draw hell would I want a regen card when I already have 5 abilities that already that do that? Spire is a shield now, oh wow I wish we had another more readily used shield that’s practically available on-demand due to charges (*stares intently at Celestial Intersection*). Neutral Sect? I’m not interested in casual relationships thanks.

HW/SB cards were obviously busted and unbalanced and whatever but my god at least they tried to pretend to be ‘buffing the party’ and not just ‘lol more healing’. The loss of RNG already took some fun out of the job for certain people, and now the job barely does the one thing it was marketed to do; buffing/supporting the party. Apparently now Astrologian’s identity is just ‘increasingly invalidates WHM’ lol

Can’t we go back to like Spear boosts critical rate and Ewer restores MP or whatever and Arrow can increase movement speed. If they’re that worried about ‘card fishing’ just keep the exact same system we have now where you pull a set of 3 at once. I’d accept not having rng if planning and using cards was actually interesting, but it’s literally just ‘throw balance, discard useless cards, Draw, throw Spear, repeat’. But I mean, does it even really make sense to limit job design purely on ‘what if that one guy abuses the system for maximal values???’. Like, is that really justification for having literally nothing but pure healing? With some of the WHMs I see I think that can absolutely be abuse too lol (so…much…overheal…)

[ForsakenRoe]

It'd just be strictly worse than having fixed targets. And the moment you do have fixed targets, it's just an effort in rote button presses with no agency. And of course we know from before that devs don't want randomness on a level where you could end up with 0 +damage cards in a fight versus 50 damage cards in a fight, as that'd swing group DPS and they could "fish for a good draw" by pulling repeatedly, basically.

The only way I could see this work is if some card mechanic had both randomness that changes the ideal target in unpredictable ways and ways these cards "burn a hole in your pocket" if you try to keep them for some burst cycle. Like say if your nukes and heals were all instant to cast (=mobility, important), but only while you didn't hold any cards to use in the future. But then to make up for that these cards would need to be awfully strong and again if random means bringing an Astro just means getting the odd 0%-1% wipes that are down to random chance.

... and now that I think about it, maybe somewhere in there is the solution to our damage cards? What if our damage cards "flattened chance"? After all, we're diviners who try to interpret what the future brings, and as a gameplay mechanic we like chance, but what if it were inverted? We remove chance (for others).

Like on a draw you randomly get one of:

• For the next 60s, target cannot land critical hits. Instead each hit deals more damage based on the critical chance it would have had.
• For the next 60 seconds, target cannot land direct hits. Instead each hit deals more damage based on the direct hit chance it would had had.
• For the next 60 seconds, target executes skills and spells 15% faster but without any cooldown or global cooldown being affected.

One modifier makes this groupwide but drops duration by 75% (15s), one creates a Collective Unconsciousness like bubble at range that causes the effect (and 10% damage reduction) while inside but drops duration to 10s.

These would assume a 60s draw CD.

Of course the actual rDPS contribution would need to be done elsewhere, I'd still want a portion (a significant one ideally, make me an actual buffer!) of my raid damage to be done by others I buff. But I suspect from a balance perspective a flat +damage buff on the raid on a 120s CD like we had before would be easier, and then the cards cause "chance flattening" effects or so, including one working against random network lag induced weaving issues.

So then, make all of the potential cards to draw have damage, and keep them single target. Now the issue of 'what if you draw Bole instead of Balance' is not an issue, because A: Bole also gives damage, and B: AOE Balance doesn't exist, because Royal Road is gone (or it returns but the AOE effect is reworked to something that is also single-target)

I'm not sure you need that much randomness to them. If you have each card be 'best for X role', the randomness of which card you draw, and therefore who to play it on, is enough. Bole to a Tank, Spire to a Caster, etc. You don't need to also have 'Arrow is good for a PhysRanged, but also this other factor means that you should not play it on the PhysRanged this time'. I also don't think you need to have some pressing need to play cards like a punishment of sorts for holding them, beyond the Draw timer itself. The threat of overcapping on cards and losing potential uses, is reason enough to play them. We used to have a 30s Draw timer in the past, so you'd want to play 2 cards in 2min windows, and 2 cards outside of 2min (probably at 1min to sync with minibursts like MNK Riddle of Fire, NIN Trick Attack, DRG Life of the Dragon, etc). You mention 1% wipes, but those have always existed. I assert that you can balance card effects against one another tightly enough, that the Crit Variance on Oracle is more likely to be the cause of your 1% wipe than your luck with drawing certain Cards

'Flattening chance' is interesting in theory, but the example effects you gave seem like they'd be far harder to balance against one another/one will be far clearly 'the best option' compared to more simple damage increases. As an example, take the Direct Hit and the Crit rate effects. If you balance the two against one another in a vacuum, then the Crit rate effect will be stronger with a SCH or DRG present in the party, but the DH effect will be better with a BRD in the party. But with all 3, Crit would still win out, because there's 2 Crit Rate buffs vs 1 DH buff. Meanwhile, the Speed buff would throw people's GCD alignment out of wack, certain Jobs want specific GCD speeds, so that their rotation lines up and they go into their burst window on a specific GCD. It also increases resource consumption, not so bad now that TP no longer exists, but it could wreak havoc on Caster/Healer MP economies. This was the issue the old Arrow had, making it great for a BLM and not-great for other Jobs

Of the two AOE modifiers, the former is the better option than the latter (by far), because it is 15s and the second is 10s. With alternative wording, 'effect A is 50% longer duration than effect B'

Personally I think that the moment you think about making Cards have AOE potential again, balance (not the card) is likely going straight out the window. Divination in its current form can remain as the guaranteed 'buff the whole team at the 2min mark' button it currently is, that's fine. Though on the subject of 'flattening the output' of things to reduce damage variance, I'd also rework Oracle so that instead of a big hit of, what, 860p? It hits each target 12 times (haha it's like the Twelve, like the animation implies) for 75p per hit (total 900p), and since there's 12 individual hits, that's 12 seperate DH/Crit rolls, making the damage output of the skill 'flattened', as you put it. I'd also have it recoloured depending on your chosen Patron Deity (eg I'd have the current one cos I chose Althyk, someone who chose Oschon has a green one, someone with Azeyma has a reddish one, someone who has Halone has a light blue one, etc)

oh, oops. I'm assuming as the ideal card to maximize damage, without the ability to turn it into an AoE?

I'd guess it's either Balance/Spear or Ewer. I did consider Bole but 4 hits of Dosis (~40k each, going by values from an M9S run) is quite a bit more than two hits of 20% of a BiS WAR (~65k each). Meanwhile autos only do like 6k and 9~12 extras of those from Arrow don't come even close. I think MCH has the strongest burst in this group (or in the game?) so Spear should be interchangeable with Balance since they buff the same amount for it. I can't tell just how much it gains from that to compare it to Ewer though.

Yes, in this hypothetical, you would not be able to make the Cards AOE. As per my stance that 'AOE Balance was the problem' with SB Card balance, I think keeping Cards single target ala SHB onwards makes it far easier to balance them against one another. If Royal Road were to return, I'd look into making a different effect to replace Expand, that is also single target in nature like Extend/Enhance. My idea for that was 'Echo', making the played Card leave an 'Echo of Fate: <card name>' on the player after expiration. Upon playing the next Major Arcana, the Echo of Fate would trigger, and re-apply the effect it has stored (at 50% effectiveness). So you'd want to set up an Echo as the last card played before the 2min window (lets say, a Bole on the Tank), then as you play 2 Cards inside the 2min window (say, Spear on MCH, Ewer on SGE), the Echo would also trigger and give a half-Bole (either 1 stack instead of 2, or 10% instead of 20% per stack, SE's choice) to the Tank again, letting you get an extra 0.5 Cards into the burst window

Your reasoning for your answer is pretty solid. I had previously worked on those numbers back before DT even came out, and had a halfhearted attempt at re-doing them in 7.2. As such, the buffs to certain jobs since then will have skewed things a lot, I expect. Ewer in particular also factored in some reworks to other Healers I had done (which included dropping Dosis to 310p), and so I expect the 'current' answer is indeed Ewer.

At the time, the answer was quite nuanced, being 'Balance/Spear if you have a lot of crits on your 2min burst window (and ideally on a SAM or VPR rather than the MNK/NIN example I gave here). But if not, it's Spire on a BLM (the crit rate thing also applies here). But if you don't have those classes/it's not the 2min burst window, it's Bole if your Tank is a WAR and they have Thrill active. But if they don't/aren't, it's Ewer on a SCH. But if you don't have a SCH, it's Arrow on the Physranged. The difference between the 'best' and 'worst' card effect would have been low enough, that getting the 'worst' card even 16 times in a row, ie across a whole 8min fight (vs getting the 'best' card 16 times in a row) would be the same 'difference in damge' as the difference between one, maybe two, Oracles DHCritting vs not.

Spear on a MCH (instead of the Melee) is not something I had really considered too much, but it does make sense: If the Balance/Spear are 'the best, but only if you have a good crit rate', MCH having 3/6 of their GCDs be guaranteed Crit/DH (2 Reassembles, Full Metal Field) would help stabilize the potential output of the Card. Similar logic probably applies to a SAM in comparison to a VPR, since Midare is guaranteed to Crit. But that assumes you have a MCH, and/or a SAM, and it assumes equal gear and skill levels on all of the party members. If the NIN in the example comp above got the augmented tome weapon, and nobody else has anything, suddenly Balance is the best on them in the 2min window. But only the Balance, because some of their damage is Magical (Raiton, Suiton, Tenri Jindo, etc).

The point of the system I gave as an example is not wholly to have 'every card is balanced perfectly against one another', but moreso 'every card is balanced against one another well enough, and there's so many factors that go into 'which is the best', that it's just not worth the effort to work out which one is actually the best at any given time compared to just playing the game'. Either way, I believe the idea that 'the RNG of cards means massive damage differences' is horribly overblown compared to actual RNG issues (Oracle being so swingy because it's such a big potency).

Thanks for playing!

[ForsakenRoe]

Being fixed over randomised aside I hate that almost the entirety of the card system now has been reduced to ‘oops more healing mechanics’.

Like ffs weren’t supposed to be a support buffer? Why draw hell would I want a regen card when I already have 5 abilities that already that do that? Spire is a shield now, oh wow I wish we had another more readily used shield that’s practically available on-demand due to charges (*stares intently at Celestial Intersection*). Neutral Sect? I’m not interested in casual relationships thanks.

HW/SB cards were obviously busted and unbalanced and whatever but my god at least they tried to pretend to be ‘buffing the party’ and not just ‘lol more healing’. The loss of RNG already took some fun out of the job for certain people, and now the job barely does the one thing it was marketed to do; buffing/supporting the party. Apparently now Astrologian’s identity is just ‘increasingly invalidates WHM’ lol

Can’t we go back to like Spear boosts critical rate and Ewer restores MP or whatever and Arrow can increase movement speed. If they’re that worried about ‘card fishing’ just keep the exact same system we have now where you pull a set of 3 at once. I’d accept not having rng if planning and using cards was actually interesting, but it’s literally just ‘throw balance, discard useless cards, Draw, throw Spear, repeat’. But I mean, does it even really make sense to limit job design purely on ‘what if that one guy abuses the system for maximal values???’. Like, is that really justification for having literally nothing but pure healing? With some of the WHMs I see I think that can absolutely be abuse too lol (so…much…overheal…)

I hate the pretzel they bent the Lore into, personally. Spire is the leading Card of the Crowns suit, akin to an Ace in our playing cards. Spire is a Barrier effect, Lord of Crowns is AOE damage, Lady of Crowns is an AOE heal, and we don't get to use Knave of Crowns, any of the <number> of Crowns (2-7), nor any of the other FIVE suits (Cups, Rings, Irons, Staves, Knives) for anything. Explain yourself SE, why Crowns in particular

Yes I agree that we 'can go back' to having tertiary effects like Bole having Mit, Ewer having MP refresh, etc. But those effects need to either be the only effects Cards have (with Balance Spear Arrow being given new effects instead of their damage contribution), or they need to all have some form of damage contribution, with those effects being a neat bonus on top, else you run into the old issue of 'Card X is good and Card Y is bad, because X gives damage and Y does not'. Personally, I'd do the latter. Ewer would have MP refres, for example, but playing it on a Healer would let that Healer do bonus damage. Bole would have Mit, but it'd also reflect damage based on Max HP (so playing it on a Tank, who's going to make best use of the Mit anyway) is the ideal play. Etc.

New AST Draws feels like if they reworked SCH, so that pressing Aetherflow gave you 'Lustrate Ready', 'Excogitation Ready', 'Protraction Ready' and 'Energy Drain Ready'.

I wholeheartedly agree with the lamentation that AST feels less like what it was advertized to be (raid buffer). The fact they had to increase Combust's potency by FIFTEEN for DT's launch, plus add Oracle as an action, to make up for the loss of 2 damage cards per 2min, is comical and tragic in equal measure

[Connor]

I
Yes I agree that we 'can go back' to having tertiary effects like Bole having Mit, Ewer having MP refresh, etc. But those effects need to either be the only effects Cards have (with Balance Spear Arrow being given new effects instead of their damage contribution), or they need to all have some form of damage contribution, with those effects being a neat bonus on top, else you run into the old issue of 'Card X is good and Card Y is bad, because X gives damage and Y does not'. Personally, I'd do the latter. Ewer would have MP refres, for example, but playing it on a Healer would let that Healer do bonus damage. Bole would have Mit, but it'd also reflect damage based on Max HP (so playing it on a Tank, who's going to make best use of the Mit anyway) is the ideal play. Etc.

Honestly I wouldn’t mind either compromise. I mean, even if they did remove all ‘damage increasing’ components I wouldn’t mind if we had spells/abilities that could do the same thing in a more fixed/balanced way I.E Divination. Obviously 120s meta removes a lot of the interesting parts of such abilities but that’s a whole other issue lol.

I think the idea of having both sounds like a combination of the HW unique card effects and I think Shadowbringers or maybe Endwalker when they were all damage but role based or whatever other ‘conditional’, which could be a good compromise. It could maybe add another layer to using the cards as well, because you’d potentially be weighing up whether to use it for the utility or for the damage increase. And while I’m aware the current battle design mostly invalidates any ‘utility vs damage’ argument, that’s another separate issue (that I personally think should be addressed to at least some extent).

[ForsakenRoe]

Honestly I wouldn’t mind either compromise. I mean, even if they did remove all ‘damage increasing’ components I wouldn’t mind if we had spells/abilities that could do the same thing in a more fixed/balanced way I.E Divination. Obviously 120s meta removes a lot of the interesting parts of such abilities but that’s a whole other issue lol.

I think the idea of having both sounds like a combination of the HW unique card effects and I think Shadowbringers or maybe Endwalker when they were all damage but role based or whatever other ‘conditional’, which could be a good compromise. It could maybe add another layer to using the cards as well, because you’d potentially be weighing up whether to use it for the utility or for the damage increase. And while I’m aware the current battle design mostly invalidates any ‘utility vs damage’ argument, that’s another separate issue (that I personally think should be addressed to at least some extent).

Yeh, with the example effects I gave previously, I can think of 3 weird interactions off the top of my head, where using the card on someone of 'not the target role for the Card' is a consideration:

1: If a Caster has just been raised, using a Ewer on them to stabilize their MP economy might result in more damage for the party overall than simply using the Ewer on the ideal target (Healer).

2: If a Caster has a worrying amount of HP compared to others and the Raid damage is primarily Physical (cough Dog stomps in P8S), throwing a Bole on them for the Mit is less damage loss (compared to throwing it on the Tank) would be less damage lost than having the Shield Healer apply Adlo/E.Diagnosis to keep the Caster alive

3: Thanks to it still generating gauge via Autoattacks, throwing Arrow on a PLD would turbocharge their Oath Gauge generation for a while, giving them two extra Sheltron/Intervention uses. No idea how useful that is overall but it is funny to consider


I think the playerbase has to stop looking at 'best damage' as so.. black and white? Yes, using Bole on a Tank would be best for damage with the example numbers I listed previously. But doing so would be around 120k damage (since Tanks now have around 300k HP), and using it on a Caster would be around 72k damage (since Casters have around 180k. So, a difference of 48k 'actual damage', to give 20% mitigation to a Caster to potentially save them from dying. 48k is peanuts nowadays!

If the problem with using a Card for its tertiary effect looks suboptimal on your logs (ie the log doesn't factor in that your Bole on the Caster was the reason they survived, it only looks at the damage dealt via the Bole's effect), the issue lies with how logs are calculated and perceived by the playerbase, not necessarily with the Card itself, and we should be designing systems around them being fun/thematic/reinforcing Job identity, not around logs