Yoshi-P's Interview with Famitsu includes a few comments about AST

[Dyvid]

AST is FFXIV attempt at a gambler job and everyone wants to remove the risk verse rewards or gamble from it now? If you remove the RNG from the cards then you are also asking from them to be nerfed in some form or another. Is that what you really want because I can just see it now. You can draw all 6 cards at once and place them any way you see fit but your cooldown for another draw is 180s.

[Miiu]

I wouldn't have played it to 60 and finished all available content except Savage with AST if I wouldn't like the job. The problem with random in its current iteration is like so many people have talked about before its unreliable. It doesn't make the job "cool" it makes unnecessary "harder". If you look at the corsair from FFXI for example they could choose their buffs but would random roll for the effectiveness of it. While this wouldn't solve the problem it is at least a more calculated randomness.

Additionally there isn't much strategy at the moment. We already figured out which classes get the most benefit out of our cards "Did I get card Y? Okay give it to job X" If it comes down to it we make 1 strategic decision every 1 min. depending if we want to use royal road/spread or not. So its pretty much already a set rotation job to some extend.

Now if you want to keep the randomness or keep the AST from using all of the available cards. There could be a few different ways.

1. Have a currency like aetherflow stacks. 1 stack = 1 card. AST get to play 2-3 cards every X amount of time. (the same card can't be played again until your "stacks" are refilled)
2. Make draw pull up 2 cards and lets us choose 1 of them.

[Arcana]

I laugh at people that says the card system is more strategic than other healers abilities? Is it that hard for you to manage draw, spread and RR? If we are not able to drop the card the party need in any specif moment of the fight we are garbage imo.

For example: During full dps phase we have a very low chance to drop the 2 cards needed for this phase (balance + ewer/spire) or (arrow + ewer/spire). Or when a big hit phase arrives you should be able to get a bole card + ewer/spire.

The RNG is nice but we should be able to manage it more to be useful in raids where the fights are scripted.

[DarkerOrange]

Good to see people still falling for the illusion of strategy in AST lol. There is no strategy at all in the cards, because certain cards will always go to certain people. Strategy usually implies planning and fore-thought, which you simply cannot do in the current card system.
What we have now is a luck system, with buffs that aren't powerful enough offset the RNG, and our only mitigation against this RNG can still leave us with the same useless card that we threw away in the first place.

I know we will end up with a decent healer in the end, but please don't go around telling everyone that AST is ok, and that people who say otherwise 'just don't get it', it just ends up showing that you are the one who doesn't get it.

[Cynfael]

Good to see people still falling for the illusion of strategy in AST lol

This is one of my biggest gripes with some in the "AST is fine, nothing to worry about here!" crowd. I feel like they have yet to recover from the initial glow at low levels, back when it was easy to be wowed by all the buffs you had, and when it was easy to imagine that they made some class-defining difference and that you were making great strategic decisions by timing your cards "just right" on the "right" person.

The reality is that the AST card system is full of insignificant and outright false choices with little room for true strategy and skill due to the mostly weak effects of the cards and the unpredictable timing of when you acquire them. Also, the psychological reward of happening to Draw a card you want to use soon, Spreading it, and whipping it out with desired Royal Road effect at the ideal time is very much not in line with the actual reward that execution provides in gameplay terms....

[Mclyde]

Yea you got it :

that's just adaptability

thinking about the best use of this random item in the given situation

Just a decision depending on

You have to decide if

your decision is only between TP+ and AoE-something

may or may not contribute something useful

It's exactly why this job is so cool ! Every 30 sec (or less thanks to the store skill) you have decision to make that can't be known beforehand. Combine that to different group make-ups and different boss mechanics and you never fall asleep 'cause of knowing classic cycles.

While other classes are adaptive all or most of the time.

[Neophyte]

It's a decision like 'Do I pick heads or tails?" in coinflipping or 'Do I take the door with the car/holiday or the envelope with the secret price.'

And so, no real decision (founded on facts), rather a decision on gut feeling. Which has nothing to do with strategy.

If you draw wrong cards in a row your strategy will always be: I'll hope for a better one. That's no real strategy.

[SuzakuCMX]

*snip*

You seem to misunderstand what strategy means, so here's a quoted dictionary definition for you:

a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim

Which is why AST can't really have a strategy to cards. Say my overall aim is to increase DPS....but I draw Spire/Ewer first and shuffle it into a Spear or vice versa. Spire/Ewer are useless because half or more of the regenerated resource are going to be wasted since people are at full, and Spear is now useless since everyone used their CDs before I placed it. I could Royal Road it and get Extended, or I could Spread it and save it for later when people use CDs...but Spear is really the worst of the 3 "Increase DPS" cards so I might as well not use it at all in case I draw a Balance or Arrow during a phase that doesn't need it, since those are better buffs I would want to save. Instead I choose to RR it since I don't need Spear now or later.

Now next time I draw I have no Shuffle. I draw Spear again. The worst DPS card. Now do I waste my Extended buff on the weakest of the DPS cards or do I just waste the Draw and click off the buff so I can get a Draw faster?

It's an illusion of choice. Except in very specific circumstances, you will want Balance/Arrow/Ewer. Balance goes on top DPS, Arrow goes on self or top caster, Ewer goes on whichever healer has less MP.

These are split second decisions you know before battle; any other card you draw will either be Shuffled, RR'd, or clicked off depending on if it's the card you wanted or not.

And even then, in the overall scheme of the battle, you will have to know your cards did nothing significant in the battle and you were better off going SCH for the ability to directly DPS, have infinite mana, and give a consistent Attack Speed buff to your team.

[Mclyde]

You seem to misunderstand what strategy means, so here's a quoted dictionary definition for you: a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim

http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires...tratégie/74818

Art de coordonner des actions, de manœuvrer habilement pour atteindre un but

literally "Art to coordinate actions, maneuver skillfully to achieve a goal"

I guess you mix up with "organise"

[SuzakuCMX]

........

I'm honestly speechless that you just ignored my entire post to nitpick a definition in a language different than your native one.