Thread: AST Adjustments 6.2

Originally Posted by ty_taurus

There are other effects that could be more interesting and usable that we continue to not explore, but just like accuracy, skill speed and spell speed should've died years ago.

Especially since Astrodyne feels like such a weak effort to keep the Seals mechanic. SE probably realized in ASTs current design that there isn't actually a need for more than 2 cards and quickly thought of some way to keep 6 cards. Standing VERY far back, the Job still appears to have RNG in card drawing, but when you take a closer look, it's simply the appearance of RNG with no actual quick thinking or decision making.

My favorite line: "All of the cards do the same thing, and somehow you still don't get the ones you want"

Originally Posted by IllyaPrisma

Especially since Astrodyne feels like such a weak effort to keep the Seals mechanic. SE probably realized in ASTs current design that there isn't actually a need for more than 2 cards and quickly thought of some way to keep 6 cards. Standing VERY far back, the Job still appears to have RNG in card drawing, but when you take a closer look, it's simply the appearance of RNG with no actual quick thinking or decision making.

My favorite line: "All of the cards do the same thing, and somehow you still don't get the ones you want"

Well that's kind of the issue from the get-go. Trying to justify 6 different buffs in this game is highly challenging because you're inevitably going to have cards that are weaker and others that are stronger. With the old system, Royal Road helped a lot at creating a counterweight to grant value to the more niche utility cards, especially Spire who's effect was virtually useless but was the best card to burn. This ultimately wasn't enough to make it a fair and balanced mechanic, but there was logic to it.

The seal system was created as a response to this, enabling them to homogenize the cards into 1 repetitive effect, but it's a colossal failure. It actually highlights even more just how unnecessary the 6 different cards aspect is on a functional level and has felt stupidly clunky every step of the way so far. Even though it's been smoothed out since ShB's launch, it still feels like a mess because there's just no reason to have the system at all the way it's currently implemented.

What's more is the Cards are very heavily linked to the lore of job, and while lore-breaking isn't something they're too afraid to shy away from, foundational lore aspects aren't things they're going to eliminate. If we were to ignore the lore, the most sensible thing we could do would be to cut the card system entirely and just replace it with a single button, but that would get a heavy amount of backlash, and I wouldn't be happy with that solution either. What this means is if they really want to make AST enjoyable is they're going to need to bring the cards back to the drawing board once more and figure out a way to justify having 6 cards in a way that doesn't feel like ass and yet retain a level of consistency that inspired the ShB changes to begin with.

Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Well that's kind of the issue from the get-go. Trying to justify 6 different buffs in this game is highly challenging because you're inevitably going to have cards that are weaker and others that are stronger.

i agree with your post. if we lost 1 or even 2 cards for a total of 4 or 5 different effects in exchange for the effects actually being interesting and meaningful i would definitely prefer that. i mean pvp only has 3 cards and its already a lot more fun (tho tbh defensive bole as a 4th card would be great to have too).

Originally Posted by IllyaPrisma

Especially since Astrodyne feels like such a weak effort to keep the Seals mechanic. SE probably realized in ASTs current design that there isn't actually a need for more than 2 cards and quickly thought of some way to keep 6 cards. Standing VERY far back, the Job still appears to have RNG in card drawing, but when you take a closer look, it's simply the appearance of RNG with no actual quick thinking or decision making.

My favorite line: "All of the cards do the same thing, and somehow you still don't get the ones you want"

You know I had the long standing idea that through application of the Eureka Element system you could eliminate the RNG of AST and still kept the other card buffs. You could of turned Redraw and Undraw into Align Left and Align Right. The constellation you were aligned with was the buff you played. You could of then had turned the other card buttons into Extend, Expand, and Empower. Thus achieving the effects of the original HW/SB card system.

You eliminate the RNG so you always have the card buff you want available, while leaving in the utility belt.

Sure Spire would of still needed a rework but changing it to healing received would of kept the card in theme while being useful.

Originally Posted by TankHunter678

You know I had the long standing idea that through application of the Eureka Element system you could eliminate the RNG of AST and still kept the other card buffs. You could of turned Redraw and Undraw into Align Left and Align Right. The constellation you were aligned with was the buff you played. You could of then had turned the other card buttons into Extend, Expand, and Empower. Thus achieving the effects of the original HW/SB card system.

You eliminate the RNG so you always have the card buff you want available, while leaving in the utility belt.

Sure Spire would of still needed a rework but changing it to healing received would of kept the card in theme while being useful.

i love this idea. good for prog and good for farming.



i had a different one for the old card system where instead of drawing a random card every time, you get a spread of all 6 cards in a random order every 180 seconds. redraw would then be "shuffle" and its up to you how to use the spread in the order given. minor arcana instead let you use a card without consuming royal road effect

Originally Posted by Heilstos

I like the old Arrow only on Healer or Caster. I was not so unpoilte person who give it to a Melee. The Arrow could be good for SAGE or SCH aswell. The important thing is that you always have a DPS Up form the Divination trait, that people would love to see. The utility that somepople love is RNG. Thats some ast player like aswell but the dmg for all are important here. It should feel powerfull to use a card and easyer. The melee and range card thing is terrible in my eyes. (#two range dps groups) I hold a lot of place holder for the balance Team. I hope SE could use the Idea. One idea SE take form me haha and that feels good. For the Nosttalgics here The Born of (Pan-) Heima (From 2017)

Exactly its good for healer and bm I would not be insensitive to throw it on no one else to let them clip

what astro (and honestly all healers) needs is the ability to queue macro like actions! mouseover is such a beautiful thing, but u r pretty much guaranteed to clip ur GCD with an in game mouse over macro for cards/single target heals (lets not forget about field aoes either)

only healers need to target friendlies on a regular basis, NOBODY else does ... DRG and tanks can slap a <x> targetting macro on their shareable buffs (dragon sight, nascent flash etc) and it works fine since thay have WHOLE GCDs to work with, for a casting healer this is completely unfair, significantly bloats the amount of APM u need to do that can vary wildly

as for 6.2, im going to give benefit of doubt if they undo the kaiten change, but otherwise wouldnt hold my breath.... cards might be going byebye tbh

Originally Posted by Chopstix

what astro (and honestly all healers) needs is the ability to queue macro like actions! mouseover is such a beautiful thing, but u r pretty much guaranteed to clip ur GCD with an in game mouse over macro for cards/single target heals (lets not forget about field aoes either)

only healers need to target friendlies on a regular basis, NOBODY else does ... DRG and tanks can slap a <x> targetting macro on their shareable buffs (dragon sight, nascent flash etc) and it works fine since thay have WHOLE GCDs to work with, for a casting healer this is completely unfair, significantly bloats the amount of APM u need to do that can vary wildly

as for 6.2, im going to give benefit of doubt if they undo the kaiten change, but otherwise wouldnt hold my breath.... cards might be going byebye tbh

Even better would be to have two targets. One target for enemies and one for party/alliance, such that damage spells will always be cast on non-party target instead of all the back and forth.
You can almost accomplish this with focus target and out of game macros, but not quite. There’s still clunkiness around assigning target party member as focus target