Please let Astrologians Pick the First Cards outside combat within Raiding Instances

[ShaneDawn]

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PLEASE READ THE POST IN ITS ENTIRETY AND MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT IS BEING DISCUSSED BEFORE POSTING.

This thread is written from a speedkill perspective of raiding. Similar priorities and "needs" may apply for performance-centered groups.

Hello.

I think everyone reading this is probably familiar with the change made to cooldown timers within Raid and Trial instances that allows us to always start out with a fresh set of cooldowns upon wiping. While that was a great, stellar change, there is now a new issue wasting extended periods of potential raid time.

Due to the changes made to class balance, Astrologian has become a very frequent pick for raiding compositions. While I'm happy to see our Astrologian friends welcome in the raids again, there is one thing that is absolutely awful: having to wait for the right cards so you can pull with same buffs present consistently. Having waited 13 minutes today to see a single Balance drawn, I decided to take the time and write this post.

With the recent popularity of Astrologians on raid compositions, I feel like the changes made to cooldown timers has been largely irrelevant at times. Our group among others has spent even more time standing around pre-pull than ever before without the cooldown reset due to bad luck with drawing cards. Frankly, I feel like some Quality of Life changes would be appreciated here to lessen the down-time in raiding.

I propose a system, that would allow the Astrologian to pick his first cards when outside of combat. Obviously we could restrict this within raiding or trial instances if we're worried about such a change shifting dungeon balance too much into Astrologian's favor. If implemented well, such a system could reduce the unnecessary down-time between pulls and actually result in more time spent on actual raiding. Which as a whole would improve the raiding experience for any team taking Astrologians with them.

I expect some people to tell me and similar groups to just deal with the current system, but having dealt with wait times like these for around 5 months (current raid tier), I think it is healthy to discuss about possible QoL changes to be made for the system. The current system is extremely cumbersome from a speed kill oriented viewpoint of raiding, where we would actually want to raid instances we already have on farm for the majority of our raid time rather than sitting on our hands, waiting for an Astrologian picking the wrong cards for an extended period of time. From my perspective, if this matter is not taken under further inspection, it kinda devalues the earlier effort made to fix similar issues in the form of cooldown resets.

Feel free to comment, suggest better alternatives or criticise the idea. Free hugs and peer support available also for the poor ASTs feeling bad about drawing the "wrong" cards for ages. Looking back on the last 5 months of raiding just made me really want to write about this, as I haven't seen anyone else really bring this concern up here, despite it being a pretty known thing within the raiding community.

Obviously appreciating everything you're doing for the game SE. I just hope that this kind of thing can be taken into consideration from a raiding perspective for both current and future design.



Interesting suggestions by other people:

> Redraw's cooldown reduced to 1 second outside of combat (this would be easier to do than adding a card selection system).

Comment: this wouldn't break the "class aesthetic" while still allowing to roll for the desired cards within an acceptable timeframe. Just limit it to raiding instances so dungeon meta doesn't get screwed by this.

While I am neither on the dev team nor someone who would actually want this to happen, a sadistic solution to this player-created problem could be to only let ASTs draw cards after combat has commenced, or something equally frustrating. Be careful what you wish for.

Comment: this has actually been proposed elsewhere and I would be fine with it as a solution. It could also bring AST more in line in with WHM, if even just a little bit. Balance Spread + an Extra Balance on pull is crazy strong.




EDIT. PLEASE NOTICE THAT

AST in terms of class-balance is a whole another can of worms entirely.

I'm not here to discuss AST in terms of class-balance, but the (in my opinion) problematic nature of draw pre-pull. I'm not gonna respond to any further "but AST is already broken" strawman arguments, when balancing them is a different matter entirely.

EDITEDIT. Obviously this is coming from a speedkilling and/or optimized perspective of raiding. Clearly specific cards are not """"necessary"""" for clearing any content, but are absolutely necessary for any serious group attempting to do more than the bare minimum of getting their weekly kills and be done with it.

To specify even further, this comment is spot-on...

I think some people are genuinely not reading the OP's intention correctly and should mayhaps take some reading classes again. OP is not talking about regular groups, he's talking about speedkilling groups. You might say it's a minority, but an AST-change like that will mean a lot to them and change absolutely nothing for everyone else as they just pull anyway, so all in all, a plus gain.

OP is asking for the ability to choose your card OUT OF Combat (ONLY IN RAIDS), and as such, a change like that will do nothing in terms of healer balance MIDfights, it just eliminates downtime, waiting on Balance and a lot of hassle for groups that want to pull with the AOE Balance. It's the same deal with Stoneskin 2 being exclusive to WHM. It being WHM exclusive is not an advantage for WHM, it being made available for all healer classes would not change ANYTHING about healer balance and the only thing the WHM-exclusivity does is being an annoyance and waste of time for AST+SCH groups that have to manually stoneskin eight times pre-pull. There is no valid reason for Stoneskin II to be WHM exclusive, yet it is anyway.

Why do we need to rely on having an AOE Balance prepull? Exactly because we are speedkilling and playing the game for the purpose of getting a good killtime. Doing a pull without an aoe balance+singletarget balance prepull during a speedkill run is an act of futility since 3.4 Balance buffs. It's a necessity for speedkilling groups nowadays, but the wait for the rng gods is sometimes just atrocious.
Having waited 35 minutes without actually playing once in our A9S Speedkills, just for getting our first Balance prepull, I'd greatly appreciate it, and what would the harm be of allowing that? It makes speedkill groups not waste half an hour waiting for a balance, and for everyone else, it changes not much else anyway. Having done competitive speedkilling in Midas Savage and Alex savage, I really preferred speedkilling in Midas Savage, this whole deal about waiting for balance pre-pull in order to even dream about getting competitive times that skyrocketed in Alex Savage thanks to the balance buff should just die away.

Eitherway, a change like that would be really appreciated in Stormsblood OR a straight out hardnerf to Balance in general in order to put it in line with other cards. I'd rather have fun playing the game competitively instead of waiting half an hour not playing the game until we got the balance.
I get that not everyone is speedkilling, but you shouldnt exclude other kind of playstyles as this game supports a widerange of player differences. Just because you don't wait for balance, it doesnt mean that everyone does the same as you. And if you dont care about Balance prepull, what would a change like the OP suggested change for you specifically? Nothing, you dont care about getting prepull balance anyway, while others who do wait for balance prepull for speedkilling purposes will benefit from it.
And what about WHM Balance? Anyone who started to play AST over WHM solely for the Balance Buff in 3.4 is most likely always waiting for prepull balance eitherway, otherwise there's no sense & reason to their change of class. And as such, they will benefit from getting a QOL too. Anyone who mains WHM, the Balance change would change nothing for you. AST Performance in comparison to WHM would stay the same, they just have to wait less between pulls.

[Kitfox]

While this could be a nice change, it literally affects less than 1% of the player population (the raid speed runners). For everything else it really doesn't matter what cards the AST pulls with because other healers don't have the access to cards so no fight can rely on them from a design point of view.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

I agree, while it would be beneficial, if it were simply a matter of Spreading a Balance with an aoe Royal Road at the ready (just as an example), this would become almost mandatory, and that's something SE is trying to avoid. The "must have" scenarios. I just made the switch to AST and it seems to help my group, but card management is honestly better left as is.

I would however love to keep a Spread/Roaded card I've prepared before queueing, as that's effectively preparation on my own part. But I imagine it still falls under the same situation I mentioned above.

[Miste]

While I'm happy to see our Astrologian friends welcome in the raids again, there is one thing that is absolutely awful: having to wait for the right cards so you can pull with same buffs present consistently. Having waited 13 minutes today to see a single Balance drawn, I decided to take the time and write this post.

Are you a speed run group?

If you aren't then...why are you waiting so much extra time just for AoE Balance?

I am the AST in my raid group and honestly no fight in this game demands you have an AoE balance at start to complete it...the only groups who would make sure they always had it were people trying to break speed records.

I mean sure the AoE balance at start is beneficial so it is good to have over not having it, but you definitely do not require it.

[ShaneDawn]

Are you a speed run group?

Yes, we have tried our hand at speedrunning lately. As a speedrun group, not only do you want to wait for a Balance Spread, but also for a Single Balance during your Warrior infuriate window. Which in turn escalates this RNG madness even further.

Obviously I agree that a Spread Balance, among many other things like Healer DPS, are not strictly necessary to clear any relevant instance as of now. Groups that only care for progression or weekly clears don't have to care about card draws on pull at all. If we're talking about what is actually desired, it's another matter entirely. Any group interested in either speed killing or simply having competent people that want decent parses should never want to pull without a Spread Balance. Not only is an un-Balanced pull a hindrance to the raid DPS, but your pulls might be very inconsistent in terms of what is and is not going to be skipped. Having an AST pull whatever is not really an option in any half-serious raiding environment.

While I agree that this problem is only a big hindrance to a specific, small subset of players it does not warrant downplaying suggestions of small QoL changes. It sounds really wrong to my ear, that any speed killing/serious group should be willing to dedicate around 1/3rd of their entire scheduled raid time just to watch a specific player roll RNG elements to be able to have a decent pull. From a broader perspective, I think having RNG-tied pre-pull modifiers is bad design as a whole. It takes away from an actual process of doing things and shifts time into not doing anything, or perhaps sharing funny memes within your raid team.

Besides; what are the actual down-sides into implementing a proposed system, or at least taking the downsides of RNG elements into consideration when designing content? The proposed change would result in serious groups actually having more time to play the game rather than twiddling their thumbs needlessly, waiting for that dream pull to happen. It would also shift actual performance into a more important role when judging parses, since even more casual groups could do effective pulls without wasting their precious time on progression. On an overall viewpoint, while most people are largely indifferent about the change, I'm quite certain most ASTs would also be happy to receive such a QoL feature for themselves. It's not like the system is either very resource-heavy to implement: it is a small QoL update, that would make performance-centered raiding a bit less cumbersome. I'm not asking SE to take away from resources you guys might enjoy, but rather to take this kind of thing into consideration when designing further content. What are the actual down-sides for the proposition? Would it make Astrologians feel constrained about their gameplay, not being (desired to be) able to do Enhanced Spears on pull anymore?

I would however love to keep a Spread/Roaded card I've prepared before queueing, as that's effectively preparation on my own part. But I imagine it still falls under the same situation I mentioned above.

Just to clarify, I'm pretty sure this is already a thing. I see our AST consistently entering raids with both Balance and Spread available. Unless we're talking about content that gets synced.

[Underdog2204]

Snip

Cannot complain about RNG being a thing in a class that has RNG...

Balance is not dictated by speed run groups and AST having guarenteed balance would without a doubt put them way above the other two in terms or desirability.

This is not a QoL update, this changes the entire healing dynamic.

[ShaneDawn]

AST having guarenteed balance would without a doubt put them way above the other two in terms or desirability.

AST in terms of class-balance is a whole another can of worms entirely. I should also stress that I'm not only talking about AST, but also about

From a broader perspective, I think having RNG-tied pre-pull modifiers is bad design as a whole. It takes away from an actual process of doing things and shifts time into not doing anything, or perhaps sharing funny memes within your raid team.

I am not exaggerating, when I'm saying spending a 1/3rd of your raid time twiddling your thumbs between pulls can be a thing. And it may be even worse, if design like this keeps being a trend in Stormblood.

I agree this what others have said in that while this wouldn't be a bad change, it seems kinda unnecessary. I think a better way of addressing this would be to bring the utility of other cards up so they're equal to balance; if every first card was equally useful then there would be less pressure to draw Balance.
Though, if every card is as useful as Balance then Astrologian would be extremely powerful, so it's tough to know what direction the devs will go in.

I agree, that balancing the class as a whole somehow is also an option. Although I do feel like that is somewhat harder to implement than the proposed changes, I would be happy to see this happen.

[Underdog2204]

AST in terms of class-balance is a whole another can of worms entirely. I should also stress that I'm not only talking about AST, but also about

What other class has this in FF14 though?

It's ofc a broad statement but doesn't change the fact it only affects one job in this game.

I am not exaggerating, when I'm saying spending a 1/3rd of your raid time twiddling your thumbs between pulls can be a thing. And it may be even worse, if design like this keeps being a trend in Stormblood.

I know how long it can take I've done Zurvan multiple times :P

Now that doesn't change the fact you only "want" it, you do not need it at all. Sure you wanna speed run but again you cannot change the dynamic for that reason alone. this change would affect every group for all content, not just speed runners and not for the better.

[Naunet]

Having an AST pull whatever is not really an option in any half-serious raiding environment.

It's not nearly as required as you're making it out to be. I'm fairly sure a more-than-half-serious raiding environment is perfectly fine without having an AoE Balance right at the start. I can guarantee you would be making more progress and faster if you stopped "twiddling your thumbs needlessly, waiting for that dream pull."

[ShaneDawn]

It's not nearly as required as you're making it out to be. I'm fairly sure a more-than-half-serious raiding environment is perfectly fine without having an AoE Balance right at the start. I can guarantee you would be making more progress and faster if you stopped "twiddling your thumbs needlessly, waiting for that dream pull."

What progression when you already have had the current fights under farm status for months? As I've stated before, progression and simple weekly kills are an entirely different beast, where cards don't really play a big role. I am talking from the view point of going for optimized, fast and repeated runs of the same content, the attempts of which are artifically slowed down by having to wait for said cards. A cumbersome process, that was supposed to get better with cooldown resets but really didn't, since AST stepped into the meta.

But alas, maybe I'll take your advice and just go with those Enhanced Spears instead.

I will probably stop replying, as half the comments here either misunderstand the issue or don't bother reading the opening post in its entirety.

Thanks for all the comments everyone. Some decent thoughts and insight, even among all the utter confusion caused by this thread.