AST Card, between utility and optimisation

[Sylvain]

So, many AST want the old card system to be back in some fort. The main request is that the current and upcoming card system fail bland as opposed to what we used to have, various effects depending the card we would draw. However in reality all we were doing was fishing for AoE Balance/Spear. ShB addressed the "balance fishing" issue by simply making all cards balance. We instead have to fish for seals for divination which brought its own issues, like crazy weave opener or loosing seals upon death (> no divination). The Divination issue will be fixed as it won't require any more seals and instead the seals will only benefit us (thus loosing them has less of an impact compared to loosing a Divination on the group dps)

But we still have a rather "boring" card system without any depth. As in, everything is balance. The issue with making cards do anything else is that, beside niche situation, mostly during progression, the only relevent buff is "more dps".

So I thought, because balance is mostly effective on DPS, there could be a way to move around that issue, basically offering both optimisation and utility option but as a form of opportunity cost.

This wouldn't need any major rework as the seal system wouldn't be changed, mostly.
Here's the proposal

Cards grant a bonus depending on their seal and to which role they've given.
On DPS, the buff is always the same with the distinction between range and melee, for tank and heal a different buffs occurs because they're part of the same role (however one could imagine buff that would also make a distinction between MT OT and pure/shield, I didn't here but that could be an option)


DPS
Bole/Ewer/Spire : +6% range dps
Balance/Spear/Arrow : +6% melee dps
HEAL
Bole/Ewer/Spire : regen 20% max mp over 15s
Balance/Spear/Arrow : +15% healing done, 15s
TANK
Bole/Ewer/Spire : -15% damage taken, 15s
Balance/Spear/Arrow : +15% healing received, 15s

With this system, the core idea behind card is to support which ever role you're using the card on. DPS get more dps, healer get more heal/mp and tank get more mitigation.

Now, it doesn't change the fact that using card on DPS would still be the optimal thing to do. The thing is, it will always be the optimal thing to do. In the same way we were fishing for balance.

However, this system would bring back some of the flavor of the old card system as in, if you get something different, there's always the option to do something different if the situation calls for it. Basically, every 30s you draw a card and you get to choose what effect would be the most desirable one. DPS would make the cut most of the time but the other two could prove usefull during progression. The other healer died and you got a Ewer? Could help.
You're still struggling healing that part of the fight, a healing bonus won't hurt.
Etc etc

Why are the bonus so strong compared to DPS? For the same reason Clemency has such a high potency or TBN has such a short CD. Because it has an opportunity cost. Using a card on a tank/heal cost you DPS, unlike other raid buff which are free but on a longer CD, these are not free and gated behind RNG. Using them is a DPS loss, therefor the bonus must be consequential.

The goal isn't to make AST want to use their card on tank/heal, because that would never be optimal so there's no point in attempting such a feat. The purpose of this is to give alternative option. Alternative option are only interesting when things don't really go as planned.

The bonus I've proposed are quite generic but feel free to be more creative. Obviously the more original the bonus the more niche it tends to be.


So here's the idea and I'm looking forward feedbacks.




--- Other idea I had for Cards ---
HEAL
Bole/Ewer/Spire : Next healing spell is a critical
Balance/Spear/Arrow : Heal an injured allie for 25% of your damage done, 15s
TANK
Bole/Ewer/Spire : Reduce the CD of your next Raw Intuition, Earth of Stone, The Blackest Night or the gauge cost of Sheltron in half
Balance/Spear/Arrow : Heal yourself for 20% of your damage done.

[Recon1o6]

Not really a good rework as it fails to address one of the problems of the current cards: that being you only ever use the cards on dps players and the mt if no melee dps

One of the fun things of the old card system was you supported the entire party, not just the dps like the current system. Bole on tank blm or twit with vuln stacks, ewer on rdm smn drk pld self or other healer, spear on bard blm or monk, balance on everyone, spire on warrior monk and drk or freshly ressed dps, arrow on nin drk and self, balance on everyone

We weren't constantly fishing as parse users like to think. That was only in raids once you nailed mechanics. You wanted a combo of balance and spire or ewer for the party wide buff. Bole was amazing in parts of A4s and A12s (what with 80k in less than 5 seconds on the mt)

in other content, different cards were more useful. Dungeons got use out of spire, arrow and bole. Ewer was great in alliance raids.

[rewd]

Basically, every 30s you draw a card and you get to choose what effect would be the most desirable one. DPS would make the cut most of the time but the other two could prove usefull during progression. The other healer died and you got a Ewer? Could help.

Playing cards on DPS will always be optimal, which doesn't solve the current issue of omni-balance. You can't plan on RNG buffs and if a card needs a very niche situation to be useful, then it's not the greatest design. A healer needs to die (condition one) and you conveniently need to draw an Ewer (condition two). That's a bit too much.

I like your other suggestion better, mainly because it ties card to healing/mitigation. The main flaw of the current card system is that it is tacked on and has pretty much no connection to your healing kit.

[QooEr]

the way the old card system "forced" you to use dps cards was twofold:
1) you had no guarantee to ever see a dps card if you didnt fish for it
2) using other cards would eat up your rr effects

for the old system to work i have two very simple ideas
1) make all 6 cards appear in randomly ordered cycles*
2) make minor arcana let you use a card without using up royal road effects

it doesnt fully solve the problem of rng mitigation being unreliable, but those 2 changes would guarantee you two AOE balance/spear every 180s AND you can freely use the support cards without feeling like youre shooting yourself in the foot.
*redraw kind of becomes a bit problematic since it could let you cycle through cards faster. the way id make redraw work was either just swapping a card with another one in the sequence, or, since youd see al 6 cards every 6 draws anyways, delete it.

[Liam_Harper]

Sure, I'd be fine with that system. Obviously dps is optimal and nearly all my cards would go to dps, but hey at least you get the option. Something like mana regen on a Raised healer or a bloodbath effect on tanks could be situationally useful.

Far better idea than the Lord/Lady nonsense we got anyway.

[Valmaxian]

I think the big misconception of the old card system is that it was “always fish for AoE Balance.” Back then, yes, you’d definitely want that setup for raids, but we can no longer set that up in advance anyway, so it’s no longer the “issue” it used to be. The reality is that players want VARIETY. AoE Balance doesn’t help when you’ve just rezzed another healer with no MP - in that situation I’d want an extended Ewer. That helped SO many times, and it felt really good. Also, Enhanced Bole for tankbusters, or an extended Arrow for Ninjas, Enhanced Spear for Bards…there was so much we could do, and it fit with the lore of the job. Now we get one flavor of card, which is still a useful effect, but I’m my opinion it’s considerably less satisfying.

[Grimoire-M]

My rework idea for cards awhile back was focused on shifting away from fishing and instead made you manipulate a hand of cards you already had drawn in order to help hedge against RNG. That extra buffer allowed more RNG to be added with another solution I implemented, where Draw was made into a trait and multiple actions would use it automatically whenever you played a card. The key was some of these actions could only provide healing effects, and some could only provide DPS. Hedging against both required each draw to pull a card of a type you didn’t have in hand as another layer of protection, with an excess of charge actions just to function at all.

[RobynDaBank]

I think the big misconception of the old card system is that it was “always fish for AoE Balance.” Back then, yes, you’d definitely want that setup for raids, but we can no longer set that up in advance anyway, so it’s no longer the “issue” it used to be. The reality is that players want VARIETY. AoE Balance doesn’t help when you’ve just rezzed another healer with no MP - in that situation I’d want an extended Ewer. That helped SO many times, and it felt really good. Also, Enhanced Bole for tankbusters, or an extended Arrow for Ninjas, Enhanced Spear for Bards…there was so much we could do, and it fit with the lore of the job. Now we get one flavor of card, which is still a useful effect, but I’m my opinion it’s considerably less satisfying.

Damn, that sounds so clever and fun.

[Gemina]

Damn, that sounds so clever and fun.

It was a disaster. The OP you quoted and other likeminded players look at this version of AST with rose tinted glasses. They fail to mention the illusion of choice, and the ridiculous amount of layers of RNG involved with the card mech back then. They will mention all of this utility they could bring to a party, and how they can heal and shield better than WHM and SCH when nobody couldn't care less. Their spot as a meta healer was and still is firmly solidified by their ability to increase the damage output of their party members. This is their identity. Don't be fooled into thinking anything otherwise. This will continue in EW based off of current tooltips, and both WHM and SGE will keep the bench warm in case one of the starters go down.

What I won't take from those ASTs is the fun they had playing that broken version of AST. Clever job design though? Not even close.

[Liam_Harper]

It was a disaster. The OP you quoted and other likeminded players look at this version of AST with rose tinted glasses. They fail to mention the illusion of choice, and the ridiculous amount of layers of RNG involved with the card mech back then. They will mention all of this utility they could bring to a party

Sadly that's how many players work. They don't care if they're actually useful, they just want to feel useful. They're perfectly happy with an illusion of choice and utility. They can throw out their damage reductions and mp regens and attack speed buffs and whatever else and pretend they're making a difference even when they aren't. They'll endlessly quote rare situations where the utility might have served a purpose while ignoring the fact these are rare situations, where dps is useful nearly all the time. In the end, they don't even want the utility to support the party. They want variety, useless or not, as a feel-good for themselves.