AST: Optimizing current card system

[Side-Eye]

Current card system is such a failure. A huge amount of work and rewards just too low to accept!

It just sucks having to re-target twice every 15 seconds -- and often times, more. WAY too much work for little reward.

Example: on pull you need to target the mob to get off a combust or malefic (otherwise you risk tossing your first buff too early and not "in combat"). Then you target the tank for AB, then target the first buff recipient, then target the tank again for healing, then target the mob for another nuke, then click Draw then target a DPS for buff, then target tank again for an AB refresh, then target anyone else who might need a heal....

I mean seriously, in the first 30 seconds of the fight you've changed targets more than half a dozen times, all for a TINY damage buff or two that NO ONE is going to notice without a log parser.

The only way the current system would be less hassle would be if every card was a group buff which didn't require special targeting. Sadly, the percentages are so low that they wouldn't even need to be lowered to keep us in balance with other healer dps.

[TankHunter678]

Arrow not being for ranged definitely seems odd, but the logic seems to be elemental/lore-based - if you look at the elemental wheel (in Eureka or the chart shown during MSQ) the elements are grouped in two triangles of three - Wind/Fire/Ice and Earth/Water/Lightning - the corresponding cards being Arrow/Balance/Spear and Bole/Ewer/Spire.

So it makes sense on the larger scale, and you can also memorise it as "attack cards" vs "support cards" in the old system.

The cards were never elemental based, always constellation based and the effects of the cards were always constellation based. The card coloration was to make them easy to identify from each other back when every card had its own unique effect, being able to know at a glance what benefits you just pulled is important.

That being said the melee/range split only exists for the sake of not reducing the number of cards available. If they did not put it in then with the seal system they would have reduced it to just the DPS cards with Bole, Ewer, and Spire tossed out as they no longer have a purpose at all. Of course that would cause even more issues with the class not matching up to the lore and some of the class scenarios calling for particular cards. The seals system also pretty much only exists to prop up card count. So they literally just split it down the middle and made the left be for melee and the right be for ranged without caring if the card choices would actually make sense. The seal choices make a bit more sense at least.

[Iscah]

The cards were never elemental based, always constellation based and the effects of the cards were always constellation based. The card coloration was to make them easy to identify from each other back when every card had its own unique effect, being able to know at a glance what benefits you just pulled is important.

They absolutely are elemental-based - it's spelled out clearly in the lore, in multiple ways.

Each constellation is the gate to an elemental heaven.

The legend of each constellation references the two gods associated with that element (as noted in the character creation where you choose your guardian deity).

The cards themselves are represented not only by 'colours' but their elemental symbols: a tree (earth), sun (fire), lightning-bolt, gust of wind, water-jar, snowflake.

There are unique visual elemental effects as you play each card.

And it's directly written in a table of information about the arcana in the lorebook.

The original card effects also seem directly inspired by the elements, and the constellations probably invented to fit them:
Earth = defence
Fire = attack
Lightning = recharge
Wind = speed
Water = refill/refresh
Ice = ??? (sharp spikes = crit?)

Certainly that's how I learned to associate the cards with their effects.

Of course that would cause even more issues with the class not matching up to the lore and some of the class scenarios calling for particular cards.

Would you like to point out where those issues actually are? Have you actually gone back and reviewed the story, or are you just going from memory?

Nobody answered me the other day in the discussion about AST lore when I asked for specific examples... it fell utterly silent as soon as I posted the actual descriptions for all the cards - as they were both before and after 5.0. Four are unchanged, the Bole minimally, and only the Ewer altered to reflect its new effect on physical ranged fighters.

I've played the story twice, three times for 30-50, and read through it a lot more than that. Besides the initial battle-tutorial text (which has been removed), I can't think of a single instance where we were asked to use a specific card. It's all "cast Aspected Benefic on the injured civilian".

Again, Garland Tools has the entire script. If you think there's a problem, find the quotes and show where the altered lore clashes with them - if they haven't already fixed it.

And I still have the saved text from 4.4 if you're certain there was something that used to be there, and isn't now.