Yet another AST rant (but a quick one)

[Lelouis]

As it has been said by others, there was, ironically, no useless cards with the introduction of the crowns. Because even that 30s CD rampart- I mean, bole, could be used for a free OGCD heal or DPs boost if you TRULY felt like 10% damage reduction was useless because it would make you cast less heals and leave room for more DPs GCDs... I mean, what?

But then again, for most people, the ancient system was deep, too deep. Not necessarily complex, but deep and there's a difference here.
A complex system requires a lot of time to analyze, memorize, understand and pick a decision.
A deep system means every decision has to be carefully thought trough and can have a deep impact.

You had 6 cards.

Players remember the effects of 20-40 skills, spells and abilities on sometimes only one job. 6 cards wasn't too much.

you had 3 royal roads.

It really only boiled down to how much you knew the card system and how good you were at getting the most out of what you drew. Not complex and deep, the exact thing you aim to achieve with video game systems. Just like chess. 6 pieces. 1 way to move for each. An extremely deep game, yet, not really complex.

And this has all been thrown to garbage for an over-simplified system that has the bad habit of being complex, and for the wrong reasons too.

- Targeting many different people to buff them because all cards are single targets. You were only going for AoEs with the ancient system you never had to worry about targeting which made using it quick and efficient.

- Having 6 "different" cards that are all the same thing in the end when you think about it.

- Still has the RNG frustration even with a simplified system. Yes I'm looking at you "drawing 7 times in a row the same already acquired seal".

- Bad astros will STILL not use cards because they're bad. Maybe they're new, maybe they're stoned, maybe they're not good, maybe they just want to heal. In all cases, simplifying and mainstreaming the system still didn't get them to use the cards so at that point why care?

- Good astros are now the same as master astros. Because of this 120s CD on Divination, anyone above average will ALWAYS have those 3 seals ready by then (thank god its down from 180s). And when you think about it, it's really hard to fuck it up given the amount of draws, sleeve draws and redraws in 120s you basically have 3 or 4 accumulated chances out of 1 to get 3 different seals.

So why play astro anymore? Parties only need 2 healers. I'll just go feel that I master my class playing WHM or SCH (sorry for the performance nerf buddies). Because I'll just be stuck doing what a pre-made script could if I keep playing AST, and that's far from fun.