Endwalker AST has too many buttons, and other issues

[RinaShinomiya]

What do I say of Technical Step? Literally what I said in my previous comment that you quoted...

The skill has a 120s cooldown, the buff lasts for 20s. Works the same way as Earthly Star.


It's an objectively good defense because merging the buttons without adjusting how the system works would be problematic. I would say that your rebuttal is pretty bad, as you (and the other user) are pretty much attacking a hyperbole instead of attacking the point.

In this iteration, there is a reason for having two buttons. There's no need for two buttons because you can make easy adjustments such as giving cards a timer (this is how Earthly Star works), add a timer to the job gauge or other things. Simply merging the two buttons and calling it a day wouldn't do it. You could hold a card for 56 centuries, for 61 seconds, it doesn't matter. Don't use hyperboles and extremes as your rebuttals. You are proverbially looking at my finger when I'm pointing at the moon.

So your defense is they are separate buttons because the programmers didn't bother making the card system good, and not because there is a gameplay advantage of it being like it is right now.
Which cycles us back to the buttons needing to be consolidated. Just because we don't say cards need timers when asking for it doesn't mean that it's impossible to implement. It's not our job to think of how things are gonna work on a technical level when asking for improvements, we don't work at Business Division 3, we just play their game.

[rewd]

This isn’t a really good defense. Just because the cards no longer have timers doesn’t mean that they can’t still make Minor Arcana (and Draw) function the same way Earthly Star does with regards to resetting its countdown. Just because you can hold a card indefinitely now (theoretically) doesn’t mean that this isn’t possible. I agree with the above post: if you’re holding on to that Lady of Crowns or Ewer the entire fight, then you deserve to lose those casts and have that cooldown drift.

But it can be done. The developers have proven you can program skills this way. And I seriously hope that they consider this in the future. I’m sure they could add onto the job gauge the cooldown/charge timer in some way for those who would like to track it, or may be trying to strategically hold a card for a burst window or something. There’s just no need for Play and Crown Play to exist. And the same can be said for Undraw, to be honest. Even if, during my Astrodyne seal gathering, I want to Undraw out of frustration when Clarifying Draw gives me THE SAME SEAL WHEN I USE IT. (Honestly, that should be hotfixed or something—would be a nice QoL to program Redraw to give you at least a different seal than the one you had Drawn before…)

So your defense is they are separate buttons because the programmers didn't bother making the card system good, and not because there is a gameplay advantage of it being like it is right now.
Which cycles us back to the buttons needing to be consolidated. Just because we don't say cards need timers when asking for it doesn't mean that it's impossible to implement. It's not our job to think of how things are gonna work on a technical level when asking for improvements, we don't work at Business Division 3, we just play their game.

First of all I wouldn't even call it "defense" (I just used the term someone used replying to me), it's an explanation. I'm also agreeing that the buttons can and should be consolidated (as I've already expressed in more than one comment...), so I'm not your enemy.