Astro Card Proposal

[EaMett]

"The most important thing is the fun factor, and a lot of people loved the rng and flavour of the cards."
No they didn't. It may have for a few, but this "lot of people" just kept spamming/throwing away the cards [...]

Both claims are pretty baseless lol.

The fact is. The old card system had its flaws but for 90% of players, RNG was not it. The only people really affected by the RNG aspect were highly optimized players that could use more consistency out of the system. The others who thought they were affected were non-optimized players who assumed that fetching for balance was all that mattered.
For all those in between, it was about using your card skills to decrease your chances of throwing cards away.
IIRC Throwing two draw CDs away (back to back) was a rdps loss compared to card states that were relatively easy to achieve (augmented single target). So you never fetched for too long if you were good. It was pretty easy to get a decent and consistent rdps baseline. Pushing that further was where the RNG could stab you in the back.
Now sure, I agree that even with the above, the system could really have benefited from a couple more good cards (and probably better scaling of the cards) but overall it wasn't half as bad as people make it out to be.

High-level parser and speed kill Astros needed more though, and the current iteration of cards addressed that. Sadly, I know many of these players who disliked the change regardless of it's efficacy.

[Teraluna]

"RNG was not it, RNG could stab you in the back"

Let me say I agree that some people didn't mind the downside of the old system. They obviously enjoyed the challenge and it's fair to say, frustration of dealing with unwanted cards when they turned up.
I still believe, and from first hand conversations with players, that the hit and miss aspect was a major turn off.

Then it got changed.
SE don't change things on the feedback of one person, or even a few people. But they do listen to majorities.
We have just seen that with cutting Ultima in favour of majority content, in the changes to DR after significant feedback, with the increase in relic item drop rates for the same reason.
They will also look at their metrics, of player numbers, of class outputs.

They will have done this with Ast, and the results will have caused them to move away from the old system. That obviously wasn't to everyone's liking - class changes never are - it will however, have been done based on majority feedback & data.

[EaMett]

Placing offensive and non-offensive resources on the same cooldown will always result in offensive resources being favoured. This is an immutable consequence of this game's combat system.

Mitigation tools that cannot be relied upon are worthless. A decent healer will have planned how to complete a fight in advance, making extra RNG mitigation unnecessary. Unless the extra mitigation can save a healing GCD it confers no benefit, and even with a beefy -20% mitigation this is unlikely to happen outside of intense healing checks like J Waves or Terminal Relativity. This stems from how damage in this game tends towards infrequent spikes that must be mitigated to survive. If the game treated HP as a resource that is consistently drained and must be replenished using finite healing resources (like in most other games featuring healers) then RNG mitigation gains value in that it conserves resources. Utility, such as MP regeneration, falls into the same trap unless it can be converted into damage.

Unless you want to make a portion of cards entirely worthless there is no way to implement them as anything more than an offensive tool without either overhauling the entire combat system or splitting AST's cards into offensive and defensive decks that are accessed using two separate resources.

The thing to keep in mind, especially when dealing with game design, is that you don't need to use something often to enjoy having it. Having options allows players to express themselves. And player expression directly correlates to player fun.
One (barely ever used) skill that gets you out of a bad situation once and reflects on how well you know your class will be a thousand times more fun and meaningful to you than a skill you spam all day long. Defensive cards had the potential to, and even sometimes filled, that role.

"RNG was not it, RNG could stab you in the back"

There was an entire post in between those two comments lol. Context is key.
And just to be clear. SE very quickly acknowledged the negative feedback surrounding the new cards. Given how little they acknowledge anything healer, and how much people can be seen complaining about the system here, in-game, Reddit, etc. I think it's safe to say that it was a significant amount of feedback they received. They did state that they weren't going to "change it back" because that would be harmful to the players that did enjoy it so I also assume they at least estimate that a fair amount also enjoys it. But the cards have gotten the most changes this expansion out of all healer skills so they're clearly still trying to fix something.

Given how "hot potato" healers seem to be to the team (feels like they just don't know what to do with the role). I'd assume the current system is here to stay. Besides, they're probably already changing a ton of stuff on AST next expac. It would be shocking if the cards were added on top.

[ForteNightshade]

SE don't change things on the feedback of one person, or even a few people. But they do listen to majorities.
We have just seen that with cutting Ultima in favour of majority content, in the changes to DR after significant feedback, with the increase in relic item drop rates for the same reason.
They will also look at their metrics, of player numbers, of class outputs.

Bard would like a word with you about this. They were unanimously the most popular DPS in the game last expansion yet their entire identity was gutted for no other reason than more casual players didn't understand how it functioned. Said players were not even the majority as, again, Bard was immensely popular. Now it's nearly the least played job. Dark Knights have been complaining about Living Dead for years yet no changes. It took players literally refusing to play Monk for the dev team to finally listen. I could go on but time and again, the dev team hasn't listened. Or they go from one extreme to the other.

As for the rest. They haven't made any adjustments to DR whatsoever and the Castrum drop rates were only buffed because literally no one was doing it.

[Mansion]

Bard would like a word with you about this. They were unanimously they most popular DPS in the entire game last expansion yet their entire identity was gutted for no other reason than more casual players didn't understand how it functioned.

I'm more inclined to say "because they added dancer". Bard was performing so well in late Stormblood that a form of nerf was expected (Crit scaling, DRG synergy). But it was still very popular in a more casual approach I believe.
If anything, adding a new healer job is a bit worrying for me, because it might lead to another identity gutting for the sake of "balance".

[Teraluna]

Bard would like a word with you about this. They were unanimously they most popular DPS in the entire game last expansion yet their entire identity was gutted for no other reason than more casual players didn't understand how it functioned. Said players were not even the majority as, again, Bard was immensely popular. Now it's nearly the least played job. Dark Knights have been complaining about Living Dead for years yet no changes. It took players literally refusing to play Monk for the dev team to finally listen. I could go on but time and again, the dev team hasn't listened. Or they go from one extreme to the other.

As for the rest. They haven't made any adjustments to DR whatsoever and the Castrum drop rates were only buffed because literally no one was doing it.

I suggest the overall goal of the development team in regard to classes is to aim for as even a spread as possible. Now a level playing number across all classes is a Utopian condition, whilst also having to contend with the playing styles of different geographical regions.
If the likes of Ast where seen to be at the lower end, then changes could be expected, and that of course is what happened. Similarly, if one or two classes are shown to be outstripping others in terms of player numbers, expect the same.
Now before people jump in, the devs don't always get these adjustments exactly right. I'd expect more adjustments of classes with 6.0 (on top of the announced healer adjustments to accommodate Sage).
Then further tweaks as the new expansion pans out.

[Recon1o6]

I suggest the overall goal of the development team in regard to classes is to aim for as even a spread as possible. Now a level playing number across all classes is a Utopian condition, whilst also having to contend with the playing styles of different geographical regions.
If the likes of Ast where seen to be at the lower end, then changes could be expected, and that of course is what happened. Similarly, if one or two classes are shown to be outstripping others in terms of player numbers, expect the same.
Now before people jump in, the devs don't always get these adjustments exactly right. I'd expect more adjustments of classes with 6.0 (on top of the announced healer adjustments to accommodate Sage).
Then further tweaks as the new expansion pans out.

Sadly your point about player numbers and changes falls flat because of 1. Monk being dead for about 4 years (3.2-5.4) 2. blm having consistently lower than average players yet its always gotten golden treatment because yoshida plays it and 3. warrior has been nowhere to be seen at varies times throughout the game's life span

the sad but unfortunate truth is the devs stopped caring about player fun on a job, and started caring too much about "balance" instead of player numbers or job satisfaction. If they cared about player numbers, they'd make each job equally fun instead of most equally miserable.

[ForteNightshade]

I'm more inclined to say "because they added dancer". Bard was performing so well in late Stormblood that a form of nerf was expected (Crit scaling, DRG synergy). But it was still very popular in a more casual approach I believe.
If anything, adding a new healer job is a bit worrying for me, because it might lead to another identity gutting for the sake of "balance".

It's a mixture of both. They have a weird obsession with fitting jobs into a specific hole with no rhyme or reason. In this case, only one "support" Physical Range. That being said, it hasn't been performing well even in the casual scene based on unofficial censuses. Naturally, we can't know for certain but this same dated denoted the extreme dislike towards Monk, 5.0 Ninja, healers in general and etc. With all of them changed, it's hardly a stretch to claim Bard isn't popular anymore.

I do share your concerns though. Scholar may end up bench warming because they focused everything on making Sage stand out.

I suggest the overall goal of the development team in regard to classes is to aim for as even a spread as possible. Now a level playing number across all classes is a Utopian condition, whilst also having to contend with the playing styles of different geographical regions.
If the likes of Ast where seen to be at the lower end, then changes could be expected, and that of course is what happened. Similarly, if one or two classes are shown to be outstripping others in terms of player numbers, expect the same.
Now before people jump in, the devs don't always get these adjustments exactly right. I'd expect more adjustments of classes with 6.0 (on top of the announced healer adjustments to accommodate Sage).
Then further tweaks as the new expansion pans out.

As Recon noted, this arguments falls flat because of Monk. They were told throughout Stormblood and even at the media tour itself how disliked the slow on Riddle of Fire was; how people were tired of more Grease Lightning management, and how the kit as a whole hasn't changed since HW. Despite that, they released ShB with literally everything players said they disliked; with Yoshida even commented of all the job changes, they were most proud of Monk. In a mere five weeks, they were forced to remove everything and panic buff it because the playerbase effectively said "nope, we're done." The 5.4 rework happened because despite said buffs, Monk remained the least played DPS by a mile. Even Black Mage was more popular at the Savage level. Which speaks volumes.

Simply put, they were incredibly stubborn and only listened when Monk was basically thrown in the trash. If this were a one time occurrence, you'd see far less pushback and criticism. Sadly, it isn't. Healers are practically begging for more to do besides spam Glare/Malefic/Broil. And I already mentioned several others jobs.

[Mansion]

It's a mixture of both. They have a weird obsession with fitting jobs into a specific hole with no rhyme or reason. In this case, only one "support" Physical Range. That being said, it hasn't been performing well even in the casual scene based on unofficial censuses. Naturally, we can't know for certain but this same dated denoted the extreme dislike towards Monk, 5.0 Ninja, healers in general and etc. With all of them changed, it's hardly a stretch to claim Bard isn't popular anymore.

I do share your concerns though. Scholar may end up bench warming because they focused everything on making Sage stand out.

I was talking about 4.X Bard, sorry. I meant that it was performing extremely well in Savage, but it was also quite popular in casual content. So I don't think they changed Bard because it was "too hard" for casual players, but because they didn't know how to make two support jobs.

I agree with what you say about sage, but I'd add a concern for the upcoming WHM / AST duo. If WHM has to compete with AST, rather than bringing WHM up to AST's level of support / utility, they might bring down AST's utility further.
And I'm also quite sceptical about a clean heal / barriers mindset when shields have so little value in healing unless they are oGCDs currently. If they don't change encounter damage, I'm not surprised if healers will boil down again to "which two jobs bring more DPS to the party"