Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[HyoMinPark]

A huge issue with the old AST cards is that offensive cards and utility cards cannot exist within the same system in a game where damage is valued above all else. Having Bole, Ewer, and Spire exist in an Arcana that contained Balance just made the former three even more unwanted. A lot of that is due to this game making damage king above utility.

I would have rather the old arcana system be split into utility and damage cards, with Balance changed to something not straight damage %. Purely because nothing would ever compete with it (though a Spear on a BRD or MNK during their burst could come close). Instead, the devs saw fit to destroy the old card system instead of listening to feedback on ways to improve it without stripping AST of its gimmick. Now, AST is just a better WHM with a card system that could just as easily be stripped down to a single card. Which the devs are well aware of, since they slapped the Seals and Divination on them in ShB to keep all 6 relevant. And now, they’ve slapped Astrodyne on the Seals to keep them relevant.

A part of me wonders if 7.0 will bring with it removal of all cards except Balance. At this point, the card variety is virtually meaningless.

[Atelier-Bagur]

A huge issue with the old AST cards is that offensive cards and utility cards cannot exist within the same system in a game where damage is valued above all else. Having Bole, Ewer, and Spire exist in an Arcana that contained Balance just made the former three even more unwanted. A lot of that is due to this game making damage king above utility.

I would have rather the old arcana system be split into utility and damage cards, with Balance changed to something not straight damage %. Purely because nothing would ever compete with it (though a Spear on a BRD or MNK during their burst could come close). Instead, the devs saw fit to destroy the old card system instead of listening to feedback on ways to improve it without stripping AST of its gimmick. Now, AST is just a better WHM with a card system that could just as easily be stripped down to a single card. Which the devs are well aware of, since they slapped the Seals and Divination on them in ShB to keep all 6 relevant. And now, they’ve slapped Astrodyne on the Seals to keep them relevant.

A part of me wonders if 7.0 will bring with it removal of all cards except Balance. At this point, the card variety is virtually meaningless.

I feel like the old card systems would have only worked so well if the combat designed was centered around tactical rpg mechanics, where the variety of buffs would benefit the party. This is easily done in a standard turned based system ala FFXI. But since FFXIV's rpg combat design has been simplified to be more focused on straight up DPS and has less emphasis on core rpg systems like elemental resistances, stat buffs etc then yeah there's no need for for the variety of flavors with the cards. Which is why the current AST card system seems lacking since every card has the same effects no matter what.

Now this generally will revolve around people accepting FFXIV's current combat design or not but its the reason for me to believe on their simplification of jobs to be more focused on dealing damage but with no overly complex systems to supplement them. Its why current healer doesnt feel that fun, the lack of having useful supports doesnt cater to its "dps design". Same thing with tanks where they may feel like a second rate dps; because of the lack of having to manage enmity all the time. Although at least with tanks, they are given a set amount of tools for dealing damage and for mitigation but with healers all they got is their various healing abilities but without that robust toolkit for contributing damage.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

[HyoMinPark]

I feel like the old card systems would have only worked so well if the combat designed was centered around tactical rpg mechanics, where the variety of buffs would benefit the party. This is easily done in a standard turned based system ala FFXI. But since FFXIV's rpg combat design has been simplified to be more focused on straight up DPS and has less emphasis on core rpg systems like elemental resistances, stat buffs etc then yeah there's no need for for the variety of flavors with the cards. Which is why the current AST card system seems lacking since every card has the same effects no matter what.

FFXIV’s combat never had elemental resistances after A Realm Reborn came to be. When 1.0 died and 2.0 was launched in its place, there were remnants of the old elemental resistance mechanics that were present in 1.0 (materia, elemental resistance stats on your character, elemental resistances on ARR gear pieces), but they were so watered down that attempting to stack any sort of elemental resistance in the player’s favor was negligible—and all aspects of the resistances have been removed. Combat itself never relied on the old elemental resistances seen in single-player Final Fantasy games—possibly because there were only two classes/jobs at the time that dealt elemental damage (CNJ/WHM and THM/BLM), so it would likely be a system that wouldn’t work for any other class/job when faced with magical opponents.

Jobs used to have STR down and INT down mechanics: PLD’s Rage of Halone used to put STR down on bosses, MNK’s Dragon Kick was INT down, and DRK’s original Delerium was also INT down. There also used to be resistance downs such as slashing, blunt, and piercing—but a lot of these caused balance concerns, particularly piercing resistance down. As a former BRD main, I don’t miss the inherent reliance my job used to have on having a DRG present, even if I did like the synergy of SB BRD with DRG’s Battle Litany (and SCH’s Chain Strategem). That a lot of these were removed were due to the balancing issues they caused. Which were partially on the developers, since Yoshida outright admitted that they never balanced BRD or MCH around piercing resistance down, and scratched their heads each expansion when the two were doing far more damage than they anticipated.

None of that was why the old card system didn’t work, though. Cards didn’t affect elemental resistance or offer debuffs or anything like that—they purely buffed the party (either offensively or defensively). I don’t know how familiar you are with the old system, but they were as follows (single-target with no Royal Road enhancements on them):

Balance: +10% damage increased (was momentarily +20% damage from Patch 3.4 when the devs were desperately trying to make players play AST)
Spear: +10% critical hit rate (used to be reduced cooldown duration for buffs used while under the effect, but was changed because Spear was Royal Road fodder)
Arrow: +10% reduced weaponskill speed and cast time (essentially Haste)
Bole: +20% damage taken reduced (I believe it used to be +10%, but was buffed sometime in HW)
Ewer: MP restoration
Spire: TP restoration

The reason the old card system didn’t work was because there was never any choice between damage and utility: damage was always superior in terms of numbers, especially when more and more jobs began to gain mitigative utility or support utility that could make things like Bole, Spire, and Ewer less valuable (old Refresh/Tactician and Palisade to name a couple). Allowing a dual-Spread that let ASTs hold 1 utility card and 1 damage card could have alleviated this in a sense, because now Bole and Ewer would not have to directly compete with Balance and Spear. SB AST didn’t have the best mana economy, and relied heavily on BRD/MCH’s Refresh and optimized Lightspeed and Lucid + old Celestial Opposition to keep from bottoming out—so Ewer was favorable for them in a pinch. Holding a Bole for a tank could also be beneficial, especially in dungeon settings where a tank is mass-pulling. The most useless card was arguably Spire, since TP was not a concern for the most part; but it could have been changed to something else. Arrow could also be controversial, as there were only a handful of jobs that wanted Haste (BLM, for example), and tons that did not (NIN, MCH, PLD, to give a few).

That said, something would have had to be done with Balance, since nothing can compete with flat damage increases. There was a lot of talk about making it increased Direct Hit back in the day, which could have worked to an extent. I think the problem would have likely just shifted to Spear being king, since critical hit has always been the best substat. Spire would have had to be changed as well, since TP was removed after SB. The developers either didn’t want to try and configure a way to maintain card variety or they thought they were doing what ASTs wanted when they made everything crappier Balances. It’s hard to say what they were thinking. I can sympathize to an extent because AST has always been a balancing nightmare, but I would rather the card flavor over the neutered system we have now. Because each individual card clings to staying relevant: be it by Seals or Astrodyne. Remove those two aspects of the cards, and there’s no reason just to not have one.

There likely is no way for the speedkillers to not value the “best” card of the 6. I realize that. Minor Arcana suffers from that now with it being “Get Lord, be happy” or “Get Lady, be sad”. But I do think that the card flavor gave AST a certain charm, and its something that I miss. Even as one who has optimized jobs in the past. I’m not a speedkiller, but I do like to dabble in optimization. I wish that the old system could have been salvaged in some way. I miss the flavor, and I miss the Royal Road aspects of it. I much preferred preparing Expanded Royal Roads over just single-target buffs.

Now this generally will revolve around people accepting FFXIV's current combat design or not but its the reason for me to believe on their simplification of jobs to be more focused on dealing damage but with no overly complex systems to supplement them. Its why current healer doesnt feel that fun, the lack of having useful supports doesnt cater to its "dps design". Same thing with tanks where they may feel like a second rate dps; because of the lack of having to manage enmity all the time. Although at least with tanks, they are given a set amount of tools for dealing damage and for mitigation but with healers all they got is their various healing abilities but without that robust toolkit for contributing damage.

In terms of healers, it’s quite literally the developers catering to the lowest common denominator. If they think that baby healers are going to be stressed out having to deal with handing mitigation, then they won’t give healers mitigation (or other support skills). Same thing with increasing the amount of damage healers have to actually heal: they think it will stress out baby healers, therefore it cannot and will not be a thing. There is also the aspect of design philosophy: WHMs have asked repeatedly for a raid buff like Bravery to at least make the job competitive with AST, but the developers are stuck in their philosophy that WHM is the “pure, burst/raw healing healer”, and refuse to let it be anything else. And we can all see how well that is currently working out for it. And how well it’s worked in the past, since AST has utterly annihilated WHM very thoroughly since HW (with the exception of early ShB when AST was bordering on HW-launch levels of bad).

[Atelier-Bagur]

Yes I know that, I was just trying name some examples about rpg combat mechanics. Not necessarily saying that "elemental resistances" were the sole key to keeping it engaging. Please dont make such assumptions.

Im well aware that FFXIV originally had a more robust rpg centric combat system but I was making the point that the devs reasoning behind "simplifying" jobs were due to that change in philosophy over the years. Heck even WoW to an extent started to do that. In fact...a lot of MMOs seem to stray far from the complexities of stat based combat in favor of more action oriented style of combat. Just look at games like Lost Ark and BDO.

Would I prefer if we kept that old school design? Honestly I dont know. Part of me feels like combat looked a lot more interesting and engaging back then but another side of me thinks that there's a general beauty to simplification when it comes to combat. Usually a lot of people in those years were able to nerd about with complexities with rpg combat systems and I still do, its why I love to play single player rpgs that give me that experience but when MMO's started to attract more and more players with different game backgrounds, the mentality shifted less to be hardcore centric and more about making it just "fun".

This is where of course we all keep debating whether current job design is "fun" or not. Some people have arguments about this for both sides but its definitely something to think about when it comes to how modern rpgs play nowadays.

[HyoMinPark]

Yes I know that, I was just trying name some examples about rpg combat mechanics. Not necessarily saying that "elemental resistances" were the sole key to keeping it engaging. Please dont make such assumptions.

I’m responding to the examples you provided. The cards never had anything to do with any of the mechanics you listed—they were purely damage-based, defensive with regards to Bole, or resource management with Spire/Ewer. There’s no assumptions to be made when you are the one who provided these two as examples. I’m merely telling you that neither had any bearing on the cards because the cards never affected any of them. In other words, they’re irrelevant.

Im well aware that FFXIV originally had a more robust rpg centric combat system but I was making the point that the devs reasoning behind "simplifying" jobs were due to that change in philosophy over the years. Heck even WoW to an extent started to do that. In fact...a lot of MMOs seem to stray far from the complexities of stat based combat in favor of more action oriented style of combat. Just look at games like Lost Ark and BDO.

Would I prefer if we kept that old school design? Honestly I dont know. Part of me feels like combat looked a lot more interesting and engaging back then but another side of me thinks that there's a general beauty to simplification when it comes to combat. Usually a lot of people in those years were able to nerd about with complexities with rpg combat systems and I still do, its why I love to play single player rpgs that give me that experience but when MMO's started to attract more and more players with different game backgrounds, the mentality shifted less to be hardcore centric and more about making it just "fun".

This is where of course we all keep debating whether current job design is "fun" or not. Some people have arguments about this for both sides but its definitely something to think about when it comes to how modern rpgs play nowadays.

I don’t find any beauty in simplification. The aspects I found fun about certain jobs in the past all revolved around the complexities that have since been removed. BRD is a perfect example of a job that had complexity and interactivity within its own kit, and now it has neither. I don’t think any true healer main appreciates the simplification the healers have seen since SB—just based on the amount of threads complaining about healer design that have increased in frequency since ShB launch (and have also increased in the amount of salt).

In addition, the amount of complaints arising about the 6.1 changes to certain DPS jobs also implies that not everyone is so fond of the job changes the developers are coming out with. This is probably the first time where each side of the FFXIV community (NA, EU, and JP) are unified in their questioning of what is happening with NIN and SAM on Tuesday.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I’m responding to the examples you provided. The cards never had anything to do with any of the mechanics you listed—they were purely damage-based, defensive with regards to Bole, or resource management with Spire/Ewer. There’s no assumptions to be made when you are the one who provided these two as examples. I’m merely telling you that neither had anything bearing on the cards because the cards never affected any of them. In other words, they’re irrelevant.



I don’t find any beauty in simplification. The aspects I found fun about certain jobs in the past all revolved around the complexities that have since been removed. BRD is a perfect example of a job that had complexity and interactivity within its own kit, and now it has neither. I don’t think any true healer main appreciates the simplification the healers have seen since SB—just based on the amount of threads complaining about healer design that have increased in frequency since ShB launch (and have also increased in the amount of salt).

oh my goodness....stop making asinine assumptions about what I'm saying. Its like you deliberately ignore the entire point Im trying to make. Again I was just making a pure example on the combat design, not trying to focus on AST cards here.

Other than that, I understand your point. Like I said some people think its too complex for it own good, some people like you embrace it and finds it rewarding. Im in the middle ground with this at the end. At least if FFXIV is going to just be this simplified action tab targeting combat mmorpg as shown with their current job designs, at least allow the healers to have more dps buttons to press to accommodate for it.

[HyoMinPark]

oh my goodness....stop making asinine assumptions about what I'm saying. Its like you deliberately ignore the entire point Im trying to make. Again I was just making a pure example on the combat design, not trying to focus on AST cards here.

Then why are you quoting my posts talking about AST cards? Or mentioning them in your very own response to me?

I feel like the old card systems would have only worked so well if the combat designed was centered around tactical rpg mechanics, where the variety of buffs would benefit the party. This is easily done in a standard turned based system ala FFXI. But since FFXIV's rpg combat design has been simplified to be more focused on straight up DPS and has less emphasis on core rpg systems like elemental resistances, stat buffs etc then yeah there's no need for for the variety of flavors with the cards. Which is why the current AST card system seems lacking since every card has the same effects no matter what.

This doesn’t come off as a generalized statement. It comes off more as a direct response/speculation as to why you think the AST cards didn’t work. Especially since the general conversation prior to your post was about the old card system.


Perhaps if you are only responding to something “in general” instead of about a specific system, do not quote posts that are talking about specific systems.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Then why are you quoting my posts talking about AST cards? Or mentioning them in your very own response to me? Perhaps if you are only responding in general instead of about a specific system, do not quote posts that are talking about specific systems.

I was trying to make an example based on the topic you made! Why are we even arguing semantics here? This is so dumb.

[HyoMinPark]

I was trying to make an example based on the topic you made! Why are we even arguing semantics here? This is so dumb.

I provided responses directly to what you said. You’re the only one who is getting torn up over this, if I’m to be honest.

I explained why the card system didn’t work. I don’t think there was any “missing the point” when I just responded to points you yourself brought up. Be them made “in general” or in response to a specific system. I responded with regards to the system I was already talking about. Your post didn’t seem like it was made “in general” or “generally speaking”.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I provided responses directly to what you said. You’re the only one who is getting torn up over this, if I’m to be honest.

Only because you're arguing over an example I made. All I said first was:

"I feel like the old card systems would have only worked so well if the combat designed was centered around tactical rpg mechanics, where the variety of buffs would benefit the party. This is easily done in a standard turned based system ala FFXI. But since FFXIV's rpg combat design has been simplified to be more focused on straight up DPS and has less emphasis on core rpg systems like elemental resistances, stat buffs etc then yeah there's no need for for the variety of flavors with the cards. Which is why the current AST card system seems lacking since every card has the same effects no matter what."

that comment I made about elemental resistances and stat buffs was just me bringing an example to standard rpg combat systems. NOT Necessarily saying this is what AST cards were. I was making a general view based on what you brought up but then you start assuming that what I'm talking about is AST cards alone and I'm just sitting here like....Yeah I understand, but do you get the words that are coming out of my mouth? Clearly its going into one ear and out the other. And thats whats frustrating.