The Problem with new AST Cards

[Beefslab]

Those new cards, eh? Some players like them, some hate them. Personally I'm okay with this approach, but dislike lack of variety.

Right now, the plan is for all six arcana to increase damage dealt.
I know that some people like the current Bole or Ewer, but others do not. On the other hand, everyone likes Balance. It was perfectly reasonable decision to change all cards to be like Balance.
Melee/Ranged split is a good idea too. I think Square Enix went in the right direction with these.
But homogenizing all cards to do the same made them extremely uninteresting.

I thought of a pretty easy fix and would like to hear what you guys think.
Balance and Bole are fine as they are.
The Arrow used to reduce cast and recast time of weaponskills and spells, and I think this effect should return, and also be given to The Ewer.
Similarly with The Spear - increasing critical hit chance is a good effect that players liked.

But as we all know, crit and haste are not as good as damage. And I'm not good at math, so I can't tell you if 7% or 8% would make them equal. But I believe developers at Square Enix would figure this out.



Now, these small fixes make the cards more interesting. However, because of how poorly the new Seals of Arcana system works, they are still bad.
Seals are used with this cool new skill called Divination. It increases damage of all party members by 6% for 15 seconds if you have all three types of seals.
And it has a 3 minute cooldown. In three minutes, you can play up to NINE cards if you use Sleeve Draw. And every three minutes, you only need THREE seals. This means the seals are literally useless 66% of the time. Remember Lilies? I remember.

So when you don't need the seals, you turn your arcanum into Minor one. And both Lord and Lady of Crowns are better than the Major Arcana. This causes an issue where you don't actually care what you draw most of the time. You just dump it for a stronger buff.
Thanks to this however, making new cards 7% or 8% wouldn't cause them to be broken. Because even then, they would still be weaker than Lord/Lady.
The power level of these cards is not important since you're going to play one and only one of each every three minutes anyway.


I honestly wonder why they even bothered making Redraw have three charges. You're basically guaranteed to get all three seals over three minutes without having to shuffle.

The rather obvious fix would be to add more skills that interact with Seals. But that takes time. Maybe we could see another skill in 5.1, but what until then? Reducing cooldown on Divination could be a temporary solution too.


What does everyone else think? I invite everyone to discussion on how to fix the most defining feature of Astrologian.


tl;dr: In my opinion, the new Seals system is nice, but having only one ability that interacts with it, on a long cooldown to boot, makes the whole system look extremely cheap, uninteresting, and poorly designed.

[Ceasaria]

If we don't get back the ancient system, here my changes :
Royal Road and Spread removed, no changes.

Cards
Balance : 5% damage, grants 1 solar seal
Bole : 10% damage reduction, grants 1 solar seal
Arrow : 5% attack speed, grants 1 lunar seal
Ewer : 30 potency mana regen, grants 1 lunar seal
Spear : 5% critical rate, grants 1 celestial seal
Spire : 10% to all healing actions used, grants 1 celestial seal
Lord of Crown and Lady of Crown keep the same effect granted in Stormblood.

Divination
Activable at least with one seal.
You can cumulate 3 seals max of each type.
1 solar seal : 3% damage
2 solar seals : 6% damage
3 solar seals : 9% damage
----
1 lunar seal : 3% attack speed
2 lunar seals : 6% attack speed
3 lunar seals : 9% attack speed
----
1 celestial seal : 3% critical hit
2 celestial seals : 6% critical hit
3 celestial seals : 9% critical hit
----

When you activate Divination :
- If you have 1 solar + 2 lunar, the team will get 3% damage + 6% attack speed.
- If you have 2 solar + 2 celestial, the team will get 6% damage + 6% critical hit.
- If you have 3 solar + 1 celestial + 1 lunar, the team will get 9% damage + 3% critical hit + 3% attack speed.
- Etc.

So, the best case would be within 10 draws in 180 sec, to have 9 seals = 3 solar seals + 3 lunar seals + 3 celestial seals which would give 9% damage + 9% attack speed + 9% critical hit to all the team.

It would be far more interesting and rewarding playing this and dealing with the rng again than what they are trying to give us for ShB.

[KanameYuuki]

I really like the idea of the new seals system, and if they just want to gut all the cards your idea is the best solution, I've seen it everywhere and I thought about it as soon as they revealed the new cards, all of us AST be thinking the same lol.

I will miss the utility from the previous cards but with that simple solution of 3 pairs you can have the illusion of choice
Skill speed card: better for my DRG / BLM
Crit: there you go MNK / BRD
Damage: you are welcome SAM, etc.

[CupidCrux]

They fundamentally changed the job as a whole. It's not like previous 'outrage' changes of losing one or two abilities, or a 'nerf' to dps/heal etc. It's a totally different job now.

Now we are FFXI Bard/whm. Casting Minuet IV/III over and over and over again. If you're unfamiliar with that Bard in XI had a sh-- ton of songs to use for various uses but everyone only shouted for Attk+ nothing else, same with us and Balance.
The AST job was, even by it's lore weaving in random fate cards into battle turning the tide. Now it's just a straight up this is what you get, period. From ALL of your abilities. That's not a 'horoscope' lol that's just stacking the deck and reading what you want. What took skill and even lore wise had a nuance, is now just XI Bard/whm. Doing the exact same attack up moves over and over and over again, only to play a mini seal game, for what? an extra attack up +3% with some healing capabilities? No. Tell any DPS oh btw we changed your class, now you're a support for WHM's, build stacks and buff them only with minimal dps. See how they react. It's a totally different job. I mean tbh i'll still try it out but it went from a totally new job/lore to.....XI Brd/Whm...

[DamianFatale]

If we don't get back the ancient system, here my changes :
Royal Road and Spread removed, no changes.

Cards
Balance : 5% damage, grants 1 solar seal
Bole : 10% damage reduction, grants 1 solar seal
Arrow : 5% attack speed, grants 1 lunar seal
Spear : 5% critical rate, grants 1 lunar seal
Ewer : 30 potency mana regen, grants 1 celestial seal
Spire : 10% to all healing actions used, grants 1 celestial seal

Divination
Activable at least with one seal.
You can cumulate 3 seals max of each type.
1 solar seal : 3% damage
2 solar seals : 6% damage
3 solar seals : 9% damage
----
1 lunar seal : 3% attack speed
2 lunar seals : 6% attack speed
3 lunar seals : 9% attack speed
----
1 celestial seal : 3% critical hit
2 celestial seals : 6% critical hit
3 celestial seals : 9% critical hit
----

When you activate Divination :
- If you have 1 solar + 2 lunar, the team will get 3% damage + 6% attack speed.
- If you have 2 solar + 2 celestial, the team will get 6% damage + 6% critical hit.
- If you have 3 solar + 1 celestial + 1 lunar, the team will get 9% damage + 3% critical hit + 3% attack speed.
- Etc.

So, the best case would be within 10 draws in 180 sec, to have 9 seals = 3 solar seals + 3 lunar seals + 3 celestial seals which would give 9% damage + 9% attack speed + 9% critical hit to all the team.

It would be far more interesting playing this and dealing with the rng again than what they are trying to give us for ShB.

I love this.

[Beefslab]

If we don't get back the ancient system, here my changes :
Royal Road and Spread removed, no changes.

Cards
Balance : 5% damage, grants 1 solar seal
Bole : 10% damage reduction, grants 1 solar seal
Arrow : 5% attack speed, grants 1 lunar seal
Ewer : 30 potency mana regen, grants 1 lunar seal
Spear : 5% critical rate, grants 1 celestial seal
Spire : 10% to all healing actions used, grants 1 celestial seal
Lord of Crown and Lady of Crown keep the same effect granted in Stormblood.

Divination
Activable at least with one seal.
You can cumulate 3 seals max of each type.

I like the Divination idea, but I think many people would not appreciate going back to the old card system.

[Sanghelios]

If we don't get back the ancient system, here my changes :
Royal Road and Spread removed, no changes.

Cards
Balance : 5% damage, grants 1 solar seal
Bole : 10% damage reduction, grants 1 solar seal
Arrow : 5% attack speed, grants 1 lunar seal
Ewer : 30 potency mana regen, grants 1 lunar seal
Spear : 5% critical rate, grants 1 celestial seal
Spire : 10% to all healing actions used, grants 1 celestial seal
Lord of Crown and Lady of Crown keep the same effect granted in Stormblood.

Divination
Activable at least with one seal.
You can cumulate 3 seals max of each type.
1 solar seal : 3% damage
2 solar seals : 6% damage
3 solar seals : 9% damage
----
1 lunar seal : 3% attack speed
2 lunar seals : 6% attack speed
3 lunar seals : 9% attack speed
----
1 celestial seal : 3% critical hit
2 celestial seals : 6% critical hit
3 celestial seals : 9% critical hit
----

When you activate Divination :
- If you have 1 solar + 2 lunar, the team will get 3% damage + 6% attack speed.
- If you have 2 solar + 2 celestial, the team will get 6% damage + 6% critical hit.
- If you have 3 solar + 1 celestial + 1 lunar, the team will get 9% damage + 3% critical hit + 3% attack speed.
- Etc.

So, the best case would be within 10 draws in 180 sec, to have 9 seals = 3 solar seals + 3 lunar seals + 3 celestial seals which would give 9% damage + 9% attack speed + 9% critical hit to all the team.

It would be far more interesting and rewarding playing this and dealing with the rng again than what they are trying to give us for ShB.

Thats a great way of putting it. I like it.

[ElZombo]

"Tell me my future Astrologian"
[Hovers hand over cards]
"You will be a great warrior, here's some damage, NEXT!"

"Tell me my futu-"
"Damage for you too, shut the door behind you. Anyone else for damage? Damage anyone? "

[Rahspdoy]

I like the Divination idea, but I think many people would not appreciate going back to the old card system.

The old Card system is what i LIKED about Astro. It kept the class interesting, it kept my mind occupied, it kept playing a healer 'fun'. it gave me 'options' during the fight.

This new coin-flip with a 3-sided dice to roll next to it is just boring as all hell. Especially since, when its all said and done, it makes absolutely 0 difference 'what' you get as its all the exact same thing. The ONLY differences is if you can give the entire group that 1 single buff... or only 1 person.

[tinythinker]

Divination
Activable at least with one seal.
You can cumulate 3 seals max of each type.
1 solar seal : 3% damage
2 solar seals : 6% damage
3 solar seals : 9% damage
----
1 lunar seal : 3% attack speed
2 lunar seals : 6% attack speed
3 lunar seals : 9% attack speed
----
1 celestial seal : 3% critical hit
2 celestial seals : 6% critical hit
3 celestial seals : 9% critical hit
----

When you activate Divination :
- If you have 1 solar + 2 lunar, the team will get 3% damage + 6% attack speed.
- If you have 2 solar + 2 celestial, the team will get 6% damage + 6% critical hit.
- If you have 3 solar + 1 celestial + 1 lunar, the team will get 9% damage + 3% critical hit + 3% attack speed.
- Etc.

So, the best case would be within 10 draws in 180 sec, to have 9 seals = 3 solar seals + 3 lunar seals + 3 celestial seals which would give 9% damage + 9% attack speed + 9% critical hit to all the team.

It would be far more interesting and rewarding playing this and dealing with the rng again than what they are trying to give us for ShB.

I suspect they wanted it simpler (in the sense of things like not having to worry about giving the wrong card to a damage dealer and screwing up their rotation) but also wanted to address the "fishing for Balance" issue. This isn't about whether whichever AST is reading this comment thinks such things were issues in need of fixing, but SE apparently did.

And to that point, anything that gives straight damage will be sought after by many players. Even if the math says some higher value on another buff would technically yield slightly bigger deeps. It's a mentality that's hard to break. Rather than just removing Balance, they made everything Balance.

Would like the new system better if used a mix of things other than a direct % damage buff and you needed particular hands to get longer durations or other enhancements to the buffs. The system would still simpler, have a smaller "risk" for poor card management, and yet let a player try to build a good hand as part of a mini-game.

After drawing you’d have a choice to stick with and “spend” one card (which would always have some appreciated bonus), try to stack a second card (which could add some enhancement of the first card or a new effect but that may not be the best combo, so basically better than just the first card but not by much), or try to stack a third card.