Ast card system change

[Lucky27]

Here's an idea that might satisfy both parties, why not just bring back the old cards? All the cards have their original buffs now except there's no balance. So you have to use the bole for defence buff, spear for crit, etc. The ewer now gives 30 sec mana buff so you can use it on yourself to help with mana regen and give the spire a new effect like it gives a mini regen to a play for 15 seconds or something OR its the old lady of crowns effect.

All of the old effects of ast cards would finally see more use this xpac because of how much more demanding healing is over just dealing dmg as healers. The old cards would be so amazing to use in this content. Think about how useful a bole would be for the tank in dungeons for instance.

Ok so each card you use drops a random seal so you can for example get an arrow with a sun seal vs a spear with a moon seal the next time. You can still use draw how it is now to help with getting the right seals.You can store one card for later usage with a certain seal but no shuffling or royal roading anything those are gone forever and that would help go against preloading stuff for raids too. Now when you get all three seals this way you unlock an aoe balance for 30 seconds!
I think this way we get to keep some of the new card changes, but keep the flavor and originality of the AST card system. What do you all think of this idea?

[Umbraglow]

honestly, the new card system feels really clunky all together, get rid of it, bring the old cards back and with it player choice and decision making. Keep the sect buffs, trash divination nerf balance to somewhere closer to 6-8% bring the potency of celestial opposition up and you will have a fun and engaging class again that feels like your doing something. As it stands now, 15sec duration on huge cd for div and only a 8% buff is just... it's bad. It feels more impactful to just dps.

the cards are... it feels like a shot to the groin, i remember loving every minute of the class quest and seeing how different and useful the cards can be. its nigh on depressing to see the people on reddit making beautiful flashcards for each of the different ones so that people could learn them and have a very pretty tarot card set, and now literally every card says the same thing. class balance be damned there is little to no class left. just a glorified whitemage.

I switched to astro cause it was different and it felt engaging to play, making choices every moment that felt impactful, all of that is gone.

I am still unconvinced that you get more out of playing with the cards than just dpsing yourself. I can understand that it was too much of a buff too frequently, but the solution to the buff class buffing too much shouldent be to take away all the buffs. but honestly im not sure they really grasp how a buff class can be fun, i mean look at dancer and bard, dancer is the only one with a buff and its not party wide, and bard got all of the buffs taken away from what was... well lame (just a crit buff? cmon, its a bard not a whetstone) may as well change the class name back to archer.

sorry got offtopic there, basically, the cards as they are kill class identity, are unfun/klunky to use and feel about as impactful as throwing a kraft cheese square at someone.

the old cards were not, bring them back.

[Haxaan]

Here's an idea that might satisfy both parties, why not just bring back the old cards? All the cards have their original buffs now except there's no balance. So you have to use the bole for defence buff, spear for crit, etc. The ewer now gives 30 sec mana buff so you can use it on yourself to help with mana regen and give the spire a new effect like it gives a mini regen to a play for 15 seconds or something OR its the old lady of crowns effect.

All of the old effects of ast cards would finally see more use this xpac because of how much more demanding healing is over just dealing dmg as healers. The old cards would be so amazing to use in this content. Think about how useful a bole would be for the tank in dungeons for instance.

Ok so each card you use drops a random seal so you can for example get an arrow with a sun seal vs a spear with a moon seal the next time. You can still use draw how it is now to help with getting the right seals.You can store one card for later usage with a certain seal but no shuffling or royal roading anything those are gone forever and that would help go against preloading stuff for raids too. Now when you get all three seals this way you unlock an aoe balance for 30 seconds!
I think this way we get to keep some of the new card changes, but keep the flavor and originality of the AST card system. What do you all think of this idea?

I am 100% ok with this. I was actually thinking the same thing the other day. Since Balance can be so "mandatory", why not make it only available once every Divination cd. This would bring the other cards back, make them useful again, and we would know that no matter what cards we pull, we will be able to do an aoe balance every few minutes. I really hope they fix the card system because it is a mess the way it is and literally spits on the previous job quest lore for the cards.

[Kurando]

I think the problem was Yoshi is trying to reduce the amount of synergy certain jobs provide, ideally making most viable. If you give AST back all the utility in the cards it could suddenly become a must pick in future comps, even without Balance. Definitely AST needs some changes, the cards are lacklustre although other parts of their toolkit are kinda meh as well....

[Haxaan]

He definitely said they wanted to reduce synergy for jobs, but then they made dancer, and looks like it will be the new mandatory job.

[Elamys]

He definitely said they wanted to reduce synergy for jobs, but then they made dancer, and looks like it will be the new mandatory job.

This was a very deliberate choice they made, they wanted to highlight the synergy of dancer and explicitly said as much. The old card system is not coming back, and removing Balance alone will not resolve the problems it had. If you remove Balance but keep Arrow or Spear, they become the new "mandatory" card, because they are still a damage increase, just not as straightforward as Balance was.

[Jkap_Goat]

Please bring back the old card system SE, Nerf balance ,I don't care. You too out my favorite thing about AST , the Card system and made it into gold fish with every card giving a 6% buff damage. I left AST for good

[Haxaan]

This was a very deliberate choice they made, they wanted to highlight the synergy of dancer and explicitly said as much. The old card system is not coming back, and removing Balance alone will not resolve the problems it had. If you remove Balance but keep Arrow or Spear, they become the new "mandatory" card, because they are still a damage increase, just not as straightforward as Balance was.

The Expansion just came out, we have 2 years for them to adjust things. The old system is definitely not coming back because that would take to long to reformat the job, but they can adjust how the new card system works. Clearly Dancer is supposed to be highlighted, but that can change over the course of time. No one said to remove balance all together, just make it only available with divination. It's just a thought, no need to be a debbie downer about it.

[Elamys]

The Expansion just came out, we have 2 years for them to adjust things. The old system is definitely not coming back because that would take to long to reformat the job, but they can adjust how the new card system works. Clearly Dancer is supposed to be highlighted, but that can change over the course of time. No one said to remove balance all together, just make it only available with divination. It's just a thought, no need to be a debbie downer about it.

I'm not trying to be a debbie downer, but I think we all need to be realistic in our expectations. I personally think the card system now has a lot of potential, but I also think most ASTs are focusing too much on how it used to play instead of looking forward and working with the new design structure and SE's stated design goals when they propose changes. I like the system, I think it needs a few changes to work better and really open up its potential and I anticipate us getting them, and I think we can all agree on the fact that:

1.) Divination and seals aren't going away, and if they are, it won't be until the next expansion.
2.) We're not going to get damage buffs of 10%+ because they don't want AST to feel mandatory and that amount of a buff is too much for AST to bring. Dancer is the new synergy.
3.) They're not just going to "put the old system back in." This is not how game development works.
4.) We're not getting back Time Dilation, and probably not getting back the buff extension on CO.

I strongly believe that any changes to this system are going to come to Divination itself, not to the cards. We're not losing Divination or seals, and yet most proposals I see for "reworks" are just the old system with Divination taped on. Think about it. If you bring back, say, Bole as it was, but with seals, do you really want to find yourself in a position where you're searching specifically for Bole because you need the seal from it for Divination but you also want it for the upcoming tankbuster? Redrawing over and over specifically for Ewer to give to your cohealer you just raised? At least right now you have 2 options for every seal. I strongly believe that we can have either separate effects on each card or we can have Divination, not both.*

*I will note here that my preferred change to Divination is one where the effects, not just numbers, of Divination change based on your spread of seals, so I'm not necessarily against big changes to it.

[Haxaan]

I'm not trying to be a debbie downer, but I think we all need to be realistic in our expectations. I personally think the card system now has a lot of potential, but I also think most ASTs are focusing too much on how it used to play instead of looking forward and working with the new design structure and SE's stated design goals when they propose changes. I like the system, I think it needs a few changes to work better and really open up its potential and I anticipate us getting them, and I think we can all agree on the fact that:

1.) Divination and seals aren't going away, and if they are, it won't be until the next expansion.
2.) We're not going to get damage buffs of 10%+ because they don't want AST to feel mandatory and that amount of a buff is too much for AST to bring. Dancer is the new synergy.
3.) They're not just going to "put the old system back in." This is not how game development works.
4.) We're not getting back Time Dilation, and probably not getting back the buff extension on CO.

I strongly believe that any changes to this system are going to come to Divination itself, not to the cards. We're not losing Divination or seals, and yet most proposals I see for "reworks" are just the old system with Divination taped on. Think about it. If you bring back, say, Bole as it was, but with seals, do you really want to find yourself in a position where you're searching specifically for Bole because you need the seal from it for Divination but you also want it for the upcoming tankbuster? Redrawing over and over specifically for Ewer to give to your cohealer you just raised? At least right now you have 2 options for every seal. I strongly believe that we can have either separate effects on each card or we can have Divination, not both.*

*I will note here that my preferred change to Divination is one where the effects, not just numbers, of Divination change based on your spread of seals, so I'm not necessarily against big changes to it.

I totally understand where you're coming from. I also understand that Divination is one of the new gimmicks for AST right now. So is Horoscope. I do not believe that Time Dilation is coming back, no matter how bad it pains me, but I do believe that CO can be reverted to its old mechanic. We have seen over the years that they have reverted abilities and even brought old ones back before if they felt that they should be brought back. Don't count your chickens before they've hatched. It is to early in the game to know for sure what they plan to do. They won't be doing anything until after the raids drop because they want to see how well things play together and then they will adjust from their. If the jobs are to clunky they will fix them, or at least keep putting band-aids on them until the next expac.