AST Card, between utility and optimisation

[RobynDaBank]

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.

Fair fair, just sounded kinda clever in the moment to me. Perhaps if I was playing that version of AST I'd think differently.

[Blueyes]

There was an idea that I pitched long ago as a suggestion for how the card system could be revised. It may need to be updated in light of recent changes, but the gist of it was that we would have three cards for offensive support (examples: damage, crit. rate, crit. damage) and three cards for defensive support (examples: damage reduction, healing received, regen). In the event you draw something that you don't want, like a defensive card when you need offense, you can use Minor Arcana which would "flip" defensive cards into Lord of Crowns and offensive cards into Lady of Crowns. The objective behind this proposal was twofold: Bring back variety in card effects while simultaneously achieving consistency with results. If you want every single card to contribute damage, you can do that. If you want every card to assist with healing, you can also do that. Or you can play both and adjust to the situation as needed.

This system would probably not work the best with the existing seal system which, in my honest opinion, should be scrapped. I didn't like it when it was announced and it never grew on me. It feels bad when you draw Balance back-to-back, but you shouldn't play the second Balance because it matches the seal you just received. If they want to keep the seals, I would suggest having cards grant us a seal we don't have regardless of what card was played. Once you play three cards, you'll have one of each seal. Always. No more "fishing for seals."

[Gemina]

This system would probably not work the best with the existing seal system which, in my honest opinion, should be scrapped. I didn't like it when it was announced and it never grew on me. It feels bad when you draw Balance back-to-back, but you shouldn't play the second Balance because it matches the seal you just received. If they want to keep the seals, I would suggest having cards grant us a seal we don't have regardless of what card was played. Once you play three cards, you'll have one of each seal. Always. No more "fishing for seals."

The seal system kind of invalidates the need for six different cards, and would only need three cards to work; but they addressed that by making the AST pay attention to whether your card needs to be given to a ranged or melee player. This is ok, but definitely not as intricate as six different cards, with six different effects. If I am to retort that, I would say that in the old system, three of those six cards all translated to an increase in damage, so this was illusionary. TP was eliminated, and the defense and MP refresh effects were both very niche.

I've tried multiple times to revise a card system that utilizes six different effects. This along with also trying to keep RNG mitigation in the system just had me ending up back on square one. It was insolvable. The only way I have been able to circumvent the issues with having a freakin card deck as a mechanic is to reduce the number of effects it grants and eliminate any and all RNG mitigation. The seal system is actually this mech saving grace. Without it, I don't know how they even keep the Divine Deck in the game, and they would have to redo AST from scratch. The lore and everything.

[Marxam]

if all the cards are the same the only option is their "usage". I would like to see cards utilized in the same way as they used to be pre ShB but expanded. Some examples off the top of my head of how cards can be utilized in different ways while still staying the same dmg buff as it currently is in EW:

-Set: Place currently drawn card face up on the field. AoE buff bubble for those standing in it on a long recast.
-Minor Arcana Set: Place Crown Card face down on the field. AoE that acts like Earthly Star, where the longer it stays the more potent the effect and will flip face up when timer ends. Lord is dmg, Lady is heal.
-Undraw: Return card back to the deck and resets one Draw charge on a long recast.
-Spread: Target player's current card effect is spread to nearby players. Duration is based on current time of the card of target player.

Some of these examples change how you use the cards but the cards themselves are all still dmg up buffs. It's one way of reducing that feeling of homogenization that the cards have become. While I do prefer the pre ShB cards I can understand that the change is needed to bring in newer players and that is always something I can get behind (to an extent). Though you have to admit some of the examples I made would be pretty cool to see.

[Haxaan]

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.

I feel like you're right on one hand with this, but mostly from the perspective of the META, which only really effects people who do the hardest content. A lot of people, if not most who are not hardcore end game players don't care about the META. Yes Balance was the reason AST was top tier for endgame, however the "handful" of niche situations that people cite for uses of the other card abilities is what gave the job flavor. It was exciting to use a perfectly timed Bole, or assist a fellow healer gain mp back with Ewer after a death.

I can count on one hand how many times I've used Repose in endgame... 0, that is an ability that has a sure foothold in this game and yet it has an even finer niche than any of the old cards abilities had. At least those were useful periodically throughout the fight. You had to think on your feet and make snap decisions based on what you had in your hand so to speak. You don't just change the rules of Black Jack because you don't always get 21. Sometimes you have to stop being such a slave to "the META" and just have fun.

[Shurrikhan]

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.

This. For the most part.

Yes, the other effects needed some tuning to better compete against Balance and Arrow in optimal conditions (or, by that same token, Balance probably should feel like the "not f'ing now card" or RR-fodder in progging anything particularly difficult but without a hard enrage), but there was nothing conceptually wrong with having cards fit different functions (the best offensive card, Balance, having no curative value, unlike the 2nd and 3rd best, Arrow and Spear, etc.).

Though, I think the change away from all that has been indicative of a broader issue: the devs are unwilling to allow for much variance in role-based outputs in a given moment outside of 'at the ready' oGCDs; using a 20s external buff like Empowered Bole to effectively allow for 20% more tank healing (by not having to deal said healing) just does not seem to be something they're comfortable with these days -- much like defensive stances on tanks.

If I'm correct in that assessment, though, I think one can easily argue that the devs' unwillingness to allow for that flex between more long-term (damage) and short-term (healing, mitigation) throughputs within tank and healer kits has done both job and encounter design no favors. I'd far rather have some moments I finally need to save healing abilities for, so that they feel deliberate rather than mere offensive GCDs saved by using said oGCDs quite nearly on cooldown. Heck, I'd love to see mechanics like Enhanced Benefic finally be of use, in prepping an auto-crit pre-heal to hit between a tankbuster and its trailing auto-attack. I'd love to have reason to Spread a Bole and even to redraw to a Balance/Bole for RR in the moments leading up to a massive tankbuster. (The problem there: we've got two tank personal immunities per ~6 minutes in any given raid party, so how valuable can big healer setup really be without be without seeming to just, far more simply, require a barrier healer?)

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.

As in drawing 2 or 3 per minute instead of just the one per 30s (albeit it now on 2 charges)?

My own wonky suggestion: Two draw piles on a shared cooldown.

Cooldown starts upon draw, not on use, so you'd effectively have 3 charges. It'd essentially work like always having Spread available, since you could just draw from the one, see that you'd like to keep that card, and then just keep drawing from the other instead until you have reason to use the saved one. That said, it'd have a bit of RNG protection, too, as once you've drawn from the one side, the same card can't appear in the other. Redraw, Royal Road, and Minor Arcana would require two presses (to select the deck to use) if both sides had drawn cards at the moment but would require no additional animation lock.

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.

The extent of that "illusion" was itself often overestimated, too. Yes, competitors to Arrow and Balance were undertuned and/or situational but not nearly so greatly as you make out.

[Shurrikhan]

...the gist of it was that we would have three cards for offensive support (examples: damage, crit. rate, crit. damage)...

Without any variance in their RRs or MAs (between the individual cards, not just the offensive set as a whole or defensive set as a whole), though, those are all just... damage, except in that crit rate is wasted on certain jobs at certain times and that damage and crit damage can't affect healing -- making them just objectively worse if not tuned higher than crit rate.

[Grimoire-M]

As in drawing 2 or 3 per minute instead of just the one per 30s (albeit it now on 2 charges)?

In essence, yes. Though it probably averaged to one and a half draws every 30s. You also had Royal Road and a 15s redraw (necessary for proofing) to worry about too and that meant you were somewhat encouraged to riffle your hand to keep it organized for clean setups, so I straight up did the same thing you suggested and allowed you to organize your hand with a bunch of actions that didn’t use GCD or oGCD space ala pets. For that purpose I also basically said ‘screw it’ and made the draw trait give you the optimal starting setup for the two major raid buffs (Reverse + Nocturnal Play, Noct in this case only allowing for DPS cards and Reverse turning Bole into TA, and a regular draw that would give you AoE balance) on job change/instance reset too.

I’d probably key the actual effects off of the Play actions to keep it consistent if I did it over in the name of accessibility. Think how Lord/Lady and the seals absorb a subset of cards and use that for certain effects and just describe those effects on those subsets rather than making them specific to each card and manipulating that accordingly.