Thread: Astrologian 5.0 Discussion

Originally Posted by LeoLupinos

At least I gave a suggestion instead of just saying no.
And I suggested changes for the card buffs. This would improve decision making.
And it's just a base idea, complexity comes with a lot of thinking and not with a base idea like what I intended to give.
This thread is a sum of ideas for the devs to make a complete work, and not for us to work for free. We are here to help with inspiration, no dev will take ideas from players as a copy paste.

I agree that there should be some sort of card duration extension, but I don't think it should be mashable.

As for your suggestion about cards working differently on different roles, I think it would improve things in that you would be able to choose between damage mitigation, healing power, and dps, but part of me rankles against it because it would completely do away with the rng component of the class (which has also been removed under the current system). What I loved about AST was working out how to make the best of whatever hand you drew. And yes, that had problems for reliability. Also, your system would still limit your choices more than I'd like, since you wouldn't be able to put some mitigation on the dumb dps who keeps standing in stuff. Or restore some mana to the magical dps that just got rezzed. So, some suggestions of my own (quite possibly which have been written elsewhere by other people but if they have I don't remember who or where):

Keep the current lord/lady system but revert the original cards (in effect if not in potency, and putting something new on spire). Now every card can be a damage buff. No useless cards

Force the fates (cooldown): allows you to forcibly draw a card of your choice (would temporarily change your basic moves into card icons for selection much like the dancer steps). Now you can have reliable mana restoration or damage mitigation as its needed, and if you feel comfortable without that assurance you can burn it for more damage instead.

Bag randomisation (there's a thread for this one): ensures that you won't draw the same card over and over by picking from the cards you haven't already drawn until you've drawn all 6 is sequence. This, along with:

Shuffle (cooldown): resets the bag randomisation, so if you just got all the cards you want in a row you can have a chance at drawing them again without having to draw the ones you didn't want first.

I know some people will say that we should be focusing on how we can fix the new cards because there's no going back, but... to be quite honest I don't think there's any salvaging the new cards. Unless they actually differentiate between the effects of each card. At which point they might as well go back. And I know there are some people who like the new system, but clearly a lot of people don't, and I will continue to push for change because the only two classes in this game I really loved (SCH and AST) are currently in a place I can't bring myself to play them any more.

Originally Posted by Hatstand

I know some people will say that we should be focusing on how we can fix the new cards because there's no going back, but... to be quite honest I don't think there's any salvaging the new cards. Unless they actually differentiate between the effects of each card. At which point they might as well go back. And I know there are some people who like the new system, but clearly a lot of people don't, and I will continue to push for change because the only two classes in this game I really loved (SCH and AST) are currently in a place I can't bring myself to play them any more.

It was just too good and cohesive, and I been thinking "ok sure, they could maybe get the 3 pairs (dmg / crit / skill speed)" a lot of us are begging just to have something, but even SE said that they thought about it (or giving each card some flavor), but then decided the "community" would go full circle and only fish for what ever was the best.

Originally Posted by KanameYuuki

It was just too good and cohesive, and I been thinking "ok sure, they could maybe get the 3 pairs (dmg / crit / skill speed)" a lot of us are begging just to have something, but even SE said that they thought about it (or giving each card some flavor), but then decided the "community" would go full circle and only fish for what ever was the best.

The fact that devs themselves use the "fishing" expression tells me that aside from basic testing, none of them have seriously played astro. Those of us who have, figured out a long time ago that every card had some value and (pre-5.0) had more than one use, so we weren't just treating each draw like fishing for balance out of a barrel. Devs aren't really playing healers and nobody from the media darling tour was representing healers either... which is how SHB managed to get released with healing being so out-of-whack, especially for AST. If I was a dev responsible for 5.0 AST I'd hide in shame.

Originally Posted by Hatstand

I agree that there should be some sort of card duration extension, but I don't think it should be mashable.

As for your suggestion about cards working differently on different roles, I think it would improve things in that you would be able to choose between damage mitigation, healing power, and dps, but part of me rankles against it because it would completely do away with the rng component of the class (which has also been removed under the current system). What I loved about AST was working out how to make the best of whatever hand you drew. And yes, that had problems for reliability. Also, your system would still limit your choices more than I'd like, since you wouldn't be able to put some mitigation on the dumb dps who keeps standing in stuff. Or restore some mana to the magical dps that just got rezzed. So, some suggestions of my own (quite possibly which have been written elsewhere by other people but if they have I don't remember who or where):

Keep the current lord/lady system but revert the original cards (in effect if not in potency, and putting something new on spire). Now every card can be a damage buff. No useless cards

Force the fates (cooldown): allows you to forcibly draw a card of your choice (would temporarily change your basic moves into card icons for selection much like the dancer steps). Now you can have reliable mana restoration or damage mitigation as its needed, and if you feel comfortable without that assurance you can burn it for more damage instead.

Bag randomisation (there's a thread for this one): ensures that you won't draw the same card over and over by picking from the cards you haven't already drawn until you've drawn all 6 is sequence. This, along with:

Shuffle (cooldown): resets the bag randomisation, so if you just got all the cards you want in a row you can have a chance at drawing them again without having to draw the ones you didn't want first.

I know some people will say that we should be focusing on how we can fix the new cards because there's no going back, but... to be quite honest I don't think there's any salvaging the new cards. Unless they actually differentiate between the effects of each card. At which point they might as well go back. And I know there are some people who like the new system, but clearly a lot of people don't, and I will continue to push for change because the only two classes in this game I really loved (SCH and AST) are currently in a place I can't bring myself to play them any more.

This idea honestly seems great.

...that's why it'll never happpen.

Originally Posted by Hatstand

Force the fates (cooldown): allows you to forcibly draw a card of your choice (would temporarily change your basic moves into card icons for selection much like the dancer steps). Now you can have reliable mana restoration or damage mitigation as its needed, and if you feel comfortable without that assurance you can burn it for more damage instead.

10/10 that sounds so amazing, imagine getting that as a level cap defining skill 50 / 60 / 70 / 80, would love it instead of divination. And using the new system used on dancer *chef kiss* shame only NIN deserves to get their multiple choice system looked at.

If they had deleted Nocturnal Sect and ajusted AST so it felt like a Time Mage with regens and buffs instead of deleting the fun part of AST which was managing what you would get with the cards maybe we wouldn't have this issue. What I would do:

- Delete Nocturnal Sect

- Diurnal becomes the default with the regens and stuff

- Bring back the old cards

- Spire becomes a regen card and Balance becomes a Direct Hit card

- Bring back Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition Extended buff duration.

- Put some abilities that interact with regens and allows us to manipulate it such as turn the regen into a shield overtime, compressing regens into a big instant heal. Extending regens... stuff like that.

Yep that.

Originally Posted by Insertcoins

I'd be shocked if SE even choose anything that looks like that. I will say tho you'll have 2 issues, one... Meta WILL make you and others go for balance and if you don't you'll be shamed, hell this happens now with other meta things. And the other thing would be people complaining it's too hard. So those things alone would stop SE from doing something like that. Hell look at what they did to MCH. The other thing is changing the cards again and SE already said they like them all being of use instead of a maybe they are useful. Those are the issues I see happening with the card system.

1) Meta? You mean the people that have statics full of L80 Savage raiders that avoid every bit of avoidable damage, and have all their gear maximized, so can keep throwing Balance and are bored out of their skulls? That's fine, they can. And those that shame like that can get reported for harassment.

My suggestion plays almost EXACTLY the same as the current method if you just select Balance and only use that. Hell, it's easier because I didn't include the seals and edges, but if you're grown up enough to be running a Savage static you can share your damage buffs or accept where they need to go. Those of us in the other 99% of the game can use Balance and the rest of the toolbox too.

2) This is an issue that was associated with what was drawn being random. If we are choosing which constellation to invoke, what gets used is what you feel is useful when you use it.

Seriously, if SavEx are bored, their L80 skill or a new trait needs to be focused on engaging them, not making them happy at the expense of the people at L1-79...

Originally Posted by Boomsmash

1) Meta? You mean the people that have statics full of L80 Savage raiders that avoid every bit of avoidable damage, and have all their gear maximized, so can keep throwing Balance and are bored out of their skulls? That's fine, they can. And those that shame like that can get reported for harassment.

My suggestion plays almost EXACTLY the same as the current method if you just select Balance and only use that. Hell, it's easier because I didn't include the seals and edges, but if you're grown up enough to be running a Savage static you can share your damage buffs or accept where they need to go. Those of us in the other 99% of the game can use Balance and the rest of the toolbox too.

2) This is an issue that was associated with what was drawn being random. If we are choosing which constellation to invoke, what gets used is what you feel is useful when you use it.

Seriously, if SavEx are bored, their L80 skill or a new trait needs to be focused on engaging them, not making them happy at the expense of the people at L1-79...

No misunderstanding it's a change that might work.. I just have no hope SE would change it to something like that. They NEED too but I'm not betting my air on it. :c

So I really haven't touched Ast since stormblood. I'm getting used to the changes now after I dipped my toes in a bit more.

I like where they went with the cards but.. at the same time it I don't. Like okay it's easy to give a damage buff to everyone now. Healing and dps feel better cause I'm just throwing the cards out this way or that way then using the AOE buff.

I'm kinda disappointed they took away the unique buffs they gave. But Ewer and Spire are both unneeded with how they were.. bole seems pointless now. Balance is the only thing to keep really. And since it's constant damage buffs from every cars. Arrow and spear are not needed. So I guess I understand why they did what they did.

But instead of giving us just that... Couldn't we have gotten different play options? Like we have 6 cards.. that can be easily made into 6 different attacks and different types of support rather than buffs.

Either that split them into different categories kinda like now. Balance=fire dot, Spear=High potency single target, Arrow=Aoe, Ewer=500-1000mp Regen, Bole=Regen or burst heal, Spire.. I wanna say a shield but lol Everytime I get to Spire I can't come up with anything good.

So I dunno. Maybe we don't need the cards to change back really just different ways to play them..

Originally Posted by FIDOISHERE

But Ewer and Spire are both unneeded with how they were.. bole seems pointless now.

Ewer is actually still needed for Noct AST which has MP troubles due to no secondary source of MP, and useful for helping other caster/healers with MP troubles especially outside of optimized content. Not to mention that AST generally winds up doing GCD healing more often especially in large pulls. Old Bole would still be immensely useful for helping mitigate pull damage, the far more prevalent raid wide damage, and helping with TBs as while Tank HP has gone up healing has not gone up nearly as much.

Arrow would still be useful be it for speeding up healing casts, throwing on a BLM/SAM/MCH to speed up their rotation, or using it to double the duration of the next card if we still had royal road. Spear would have been amazing with the improved Monk and let it be even more of a monster then it currently is.

Spire did need a rework, but it is not like the other cards were slouches or did not have a purpose. Spire could have been made Det which would have made it useful in all situations.

Course Balance was a problem, and apparently people only fished for balance because that is what the most optimized players did for savage, so everything was made Balance. Could have not thrown away our utility and just reworked the problem card into being Direct HIt.