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  1. #1
    Player
    Payadopa's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Posts
    2,336
    Character
    Payadopa Astraya
    World
    Spriggan
    Main Class
    Conjurer Lv 71
    Why are some people so hell bent on making AST as boring as the other healers? If you don't like RNG there are three other healers that don't have it? I don't want to use Draw 3 times and be guaranteed all 3 seals. I actually like that aspect since it keeps things more interesting. I'm also happy Lord and Lady are back even though I really don't like it's 2 buttons.
    (1)

  2. #2
    Player
    HyoMinPark's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    Lavender Beds, Ward 13, Plot 41
    Posts
    7,339
    Character
    Hyomin Park
    World
    Cactuar
    Main Class
    Sage Lv 92
    Quote Originally Posted by Payadopa View Post
    Why are some people so hell bent on making AST as boring as the other healers? If you don't like RNG there are three other healers that don't have it? I don't want to use Draw 3 times and be guaranteed all 3 seals. I actually like that aspect since it keeps things more interesting. I'm also happy Lord and Lady are back even though I really don't like it's 2 buttons.
    I think you misunderstand. AST RNG has always had some way of managing/mitigating it. In HW, it was Redraw and Royal Road to boost effects of a card in your Spread—take those crappy cards you don’t need and turn them into something better. In SB, they added Minor Arcana so that all those Spires you got that you didn’t need an AOE Royal Road for could be put to something better (a free oGCD heal for the tank or a damage card). ShB gave us 3 Redraw charges to (hopefully) give us the final seal we needed for a 3-seal Diviniation; and, if all else failed, the revamped Lord/Lady at least let you play the card as a single-target buff. With the addition of a second stack of ED, RNG Lady being a single-target heal became less valuable compared to SB, where you didn’t have 2 stacks of, quite frankly, the best healer oGCD in the game.

    Astrodyne doesn’t have any RNG mitigation—Clarifying Draw doesn’t even ensure you can draw a different seal to try and get a 2-seal Astrodyne, and you can only use it once. You get what you get, sorry you’re stuck with a crappy (MP) buff (that you don’t even need anyways because ASTs are a well of bottomless mana unless things are getting REALLY REALLY REEEEEEALLY bad), suck it up buttercup lol. Aside from them putting Astrodyne in the game to just keep the dumb seal mechanic relevant in the first place, it’s a horribly designed skill.

    Unfortunately, with the buff aspect of it being so incredibly negligible that you can almost ignore it won’t help the developers make it more meaningful. Instead the arguments surrounding it will just shift to “well it’s not even that much of a loss if you don’t get 3 seals so why does it matter if it feels like absolute crap to use”. When you have an ability that feels like crap to use or has zero impact when you do use it, it’s bad design. While Astrodyne isn’t nearly as pointless as the SB lily system, I personally put it around that level in terms of design brilliance.
    (8)
    Last edited by HyoMinPark; 01-04-2022 at 12:00 AM. Reason: I forgot to talk about ShB AST RNG mitigation; so I added it.
    Sage | Astrologian | Dancer

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  3. #3
    Player
    RinaShinomiya's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2019
    Location
    Gridania
    Posts
    308
    Character
    Catherine Shinomiya
    World
    Lich
    Main Class
    Sage Lv 90
    Quote Originally Posted by Payadopa View Post
    Why are some people so hell bent on making AST as boring as the other healers? If you don't like RNG there are three other healers that don't have it? I don't want to use Draw 3 times and be guaranteed all 3 seals. I actually like that aspect since it keeps things more interesting. I'm also happy Lord and Lady are back even though I really don't like it's 2 buttons.
    Nobody wants 3 seal after 3 draws but drawing the same seal you already have in your hand with Redraw is just dumb. I wouldnt mind if redraw could give one of the seals i already have i just dont wanna redraw in a Bole from a Balance.
    (3)

  4. #4
    Player
    Rilifane's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2015
    Posts
    1,580
    Character
    Esther Harper
    World
    Zodiark
    Main Class
    Scholar Lv 90
    Quote Originally Posted by Payadopa View Post
    Why are some people so hell bent on making AST as boring as the other healers? If you don't like RNG there are three other healers that don't have it? I don't want to use Draw 3 times and be guaranteed all 3 seals. I actually like that aspect since it keeps things more interesting. I'm also happy Lord and Lady are back even though I really don't like it's 2 buttons.
    On the contrary: it's not about making AST boring but rewarding and interesting to play.
    Lord/ Lady are two buttons for a boring mini nuke or party heal you'll likely never need because AST is a nuclear heal bomb without it.
    Astrodyne's buffs are so negligible that it's not even noticable if you ignore it because AST is the healer that worries least about MP unless they need to chainress multiple times in a fight and the gigabrain skill to deal with RNG is "reroll and be stuck with whatever you got" while the dps gain at 2 or even the elusive 3 seals is still so low you lose more dps by clipping your dot by tick a few times.
    I found ShB AST with old Sleeve Draw more interesting and rewarding to play because I had more ways to manipulate RNG and had the choice to Lord/ Lady a card I didn't need for seals or that would destroy my seal setup and possibly align it with the burst of a dps. And ShB AST wasn't the pinnacle of healer design either.
    You don't have any halfway decent way to make use of what you got, it's just "press and deal with whatever you got without options, enjoy". ShB already stripped down the options to use cards by a lot and it still had more options than EW AST. That's saying something.
    (3)

  5. #5
    Player
    Liam_Harper's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2018
    Posts
    3,470
    Character
    Liam Harper
    World
    Zodiark
    Main Class
    White Mage Lv 90
    Quote Originally Posted by Payadopa View Post
    Why are some people so hell bent on making AST as boring as the other healers? If you don't like RNG there are three other healers that don't have it? I don't want to use Draw 3 times and be guaranteed all 3 seals. I actually like that aspect since it keeps things more interesting. I'm also happy Lord and Lady are back even though I really don't like it's 2 buttons.
    Because if you have very little influence over something, you can pretty much ignore it. Astrodyne can just be treated as mana + a small self buff. Once or twice a fight it procs a slightly bigger self-buff that has no noticeable impact whatsoever. What you find "interesting" is the visual slot machine flavor even though it doesn't do anything.

    When you have 3 redraw and need to align your seals, the player actually has to interact with the mechanic of their class. By using your toolkit and paying attention to how your class works you're rewarded. You can't just ignore that it exists.

    Sometimes I feel players like Astrodyne and MA because it removes the accountability from their hands. It doesn't matter if they screw up, get lucky, get unlucky, get 1 seal, get 3 seals, roll extra Lady's, it's not their fault, it's RNG's fault and it's of such little consequence anyway it won't impact their performance that much. Then they can wrap themselves in delusion and feel like they're playing well by healing with a Lady instead of their numerous other oGCD's, or landing a 3 seal.

    But I've grumbled about AST cards enough and I honestly don't feel the developers are capable of making an interactive, balanced and rewarding system. At this stage I'd just settle for rolling Draw/Play and MA/Crown play into single buttons.
    (1)

  6. #6
    Player
    TheWise's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Posts
    17
    Character
    Scarlet Wise
    World
    Gilgamesh
    Main Class
    Arcanist Lv 90
    Quote Originally Posted by Payadopa View Post
    Why are some people so hell bent on making AST as boring as the other healers? If you don't like RNG there are three other healers that don't have it? I don't want to use Draw 3 times and be guaranteed all 3 seals. I actually like that aspect since it keeps things more interesting. I'm also happy Lord and Lady are back even though I really don't like it's 2 buttons.
    RNG is not the issue...its juggling symbols, playing yugioh like a mad man (2-3x the speed of shb ast), healing/dpsing, dealing with mechanics, and CLIPPING LIKE A MAD MAN because sometimes just doing offglobals is the better option
    (0)