The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[ForsakenRoe]

cards idea

Interesting, with the hand thing. My mind wanders in a different direction, of draw X cards, X being decided by balance/how finicky it is for gameplay (maybe 3), and play them in order. But the order you draw them in is random, so you might have eg melee melee ranged, or ranged melee ranged, or whatever, so it's like DNC step RNG? If they're miniGCDs like steps, and had a strong buff effect to make up for the fact they're slightly eating into your GCDs, I wonder if it'd flow well. OFC, you'd 'set' the cards, not immediately play them, with Divination triggering them all. Maybe make it so multiple cards can be applied to one player as long as they're not duplicates, so the optimization is 'ah I have Balance Bole Arrow. The MNK already has Balance set, so I'll Balance the DRG, Bole the BLM, and then the MNK gets the Arrow'. If you had to deal out 3 cards in this manner every 30s like DNC Standard Step, it'd definitely make the rotation feel pretty active. And with the 'Divination activates the cards' thing, you'd not be in any rush necessarily to do the buffs at exact timings. As long as they're out by the time Div comes out, there's versatility on when you actually do the card-dance.

Might need a way to have one set applied before combat, so your first Div isn't horrendously misaligned. Or maybe not, if you went (prepull malefic), Combust at 0s, weave Draw, Play Play Play (5.5s in now), Div, Malefic spam, I think that lines up at 3rd-ish GCD? If there's some other idea for removing the 'malefic spam' part and replacing it with something else, that can be whacked in there in it's place.

Oh, I just meant that it's an AoE around you rather than something that needs to be targeted, but I imagine the range would be something like Standard/Technical Step where you don't need to actually be at close range to use it.

If it were a PBAOE like that, would it decide it's 'primary target' based on what you have targetted at the time, or the same logic as Dances (the closest target is the 'primary target', regardless of what you're actually targetting)? I don't personally mind having to adjust where I'm standing to 'force priority' onto a specific target, but others might want to stand in Narnia. Though I guess some people do stand in Narnia as DNC and miss their Dance AOEs already so /shrug

[ty_taurus]

Interesting, with the hand thing. My mind wanders in a different direction, of draw X cards, X being decided by balance/how finicky it is for gameplay (maybe 3), and play them in order. But the order you draw them in is random, so you might have eg melee melee ranged, or ranged melee ranged, or whatever, so it's like DNC step RNG? If they're miniGCDs like steps, and had a strong buff effect to make up for the fact they're slightly eating into your GCDs, I wonder if it'd flow well. OFC, you'd 'set' the cards, not immediately play them, with Divination triggering them all. Maybe make it so multiple cards can be applied to one player as long as they're not duplicates, so the optimization is 'ah I have Balance Bole Arrow. The MNK already has Balance set, so I'll Balance the DRG, Bole the BLM, and then the MNK gets the Arrow'. If you had to deal out 3 cards in this manner every 30s like DNC Standard Step, it'd definitely make the rotation feel pretty active. And with the 'Divination activates the cards' thing, you'd not be in any rush necessarily to do the buffs at exact timings. As long as they're out by the time Div comes out, there's versatility on when you actually do the card-dance.

Might need a way to have one set applied before combat, so your first Div isn't horrendously misaligned. Or maybe not, if you went (prepull malefic), Combust at 0s, weave Draw, Play Play Play (5.5s in now), Div, Malefic spam, I think that lines up at 3rd-ish GCD? If there's some other idea for removing the 'malefic spam' part and replacing it with something else, that can be whacked in there in it's place.



If it were a PBAOE like that, would it decide it's 'primary target' based on what you have targetted at the time, or the same logic as Dances (the closest target is the 'primary target', regardless of what you're actually targetting)? I don't personally mind having to adjust where I'm standing to 'force priority' onto a specific target, but others might want to stand in Narnia. Though I guess some people do stand in Narnia as DNC and miss their Dance AOEs already so /shrug

AST is currently disliked for a number of reasons. What is very likely the biggest reason is the amount of single targeting you have to do to play cards. I have very little doubt that whatever we get in 7.0 is going to kill playing cards on individual players because it's driving away the common player. The second biggest issue is that Astrodyne is a terrible reward and doesn't feel worth the effort it takes to get all 3 signs. The third reason is the current iteration of every card is the same flavor of nothing is loathed and defeats the entire purpose of having a card system in the first place. It makes the card system a convoluted mess.

Personally, the single targeting aspect never bothered me, even as a controller player. That said, I don't think the system can only function that way either, so I'm entirely open to exploring the avenue of having them be AoE, or not requiring targeting for some other reason somehow. Beyond that though, I have a negative amount of interest in entertaining the current Astrodyne or keeping all the cards in this melee vs ranged disaster we've been stuck with. I don't ultimately have a say of course, but as far as playing around with AST rework ideas is concerned...



As for the AoE factor, I didn't include it having any fall-off, but even if it needs fall-off for balance reasons, it really doesn't matter. AoE is not a thing in this game outside of trash mobs. As long as you're not whiffing enemies, which wouldn't happen with a large circle AoE, you're ultimately dealing with a difference in milliseconds of how quickly things die. Maybe in Deep Dungeons it could matter more, but if you're soloing Deep Dungeons as an AST.... May the Twelve help you.

[Shurrikhan]

AST is currently disliked for a number of reasons. What is very likely the biggest reason is the amount of single targeting you have to do to play cards. I have very little doubt that whatever we get in 7.0 is going to kill playing cards on individual players because it's driving away the common player.

I just want to see if there's any sort of universal design solution that could be helpful here.

In a few other MMOs (mostly recently added on WoW, but GW2 and --though a bit differently-- TERA are probably the most common examples), targeted skills may use soft targeting or preferential targeting rather than necessarily hard targeting. (Preferential targeting is essentially soft-targeting, except in that it can snap to or prefer your hard target when applicable -- i.e., the right type [party|friendly|hostile] and in range when the skill is queued or actuated.)

That soft-targeting is handy because if you have a skill that can, say, only attack enemies, you can just keep your current allied target and the skill will simply target will simply follow your cone-center targeting (admittedly, not super polished in XIV, but workable for all but small AoEs) at the time you give the command.

Most relevantly to most AST concerns, one wouldn't have to worry about tabbing back to the given enemy after selecting an allied Card target, and can generally just use Target of Target to handle the current tank while otherwise leaving one's target among the dps, where they'd only have to tab up or down the party list twice at most per draw in order to appropriately place a Card. (Granted, if we go back to more than a single Card effect, it'd still have some troubles.)

There are a few other other features, too, though, that may typically be bundled with this (at least when one includes addon features):

1. action-specific cone starting points and widths (ally-buffing actions may start further back and/or use a wider cone, as to still be able to tab through or be aimed through allies behind or well to the sides of you),
2. a game might set actions to set their target on button release, while indicating the target while that button is still held down,
3. variable indicator opacity and appearance (e.g., when there are more relevant targets in the cone of detection, the indicator may),
4. automatic deployment at end up uptime period (as not to be potentially punished for releasing the button, and therefore setting the soft-targeting, too late),
5. optionally longer queuing periods (if one wishes to almost all their targeting in this way but wants to be sure also that they've enough time to get their targeting in correctly),
6. skill-specific target interception (an ally-targeting skill cannot be intercepted by enemies), and
7. action-specific target snapping (a no-falloff AoE will prefer targets nearer to the center of the enemy/ally pack, while a skill that increases %damage may snap to the nearest DPS and skill that increases %eHP would snap to whomever highest eHP).

Put those together and even controller-based AST players wouldn't likely struggle with the job regardless of oGCD single-target Cards. And the whole game benefits.

[ForsakenRoe]

AST is currently disliked for a number of reasons. What is very likely the biggest reason is the amount of single targeting you have to do to play cards. I have very little doubt that whatever we get in 7.0 is going to kill playing cards on individual players because it's driving away the common player. The second biggest issue is that Astrodyne is a terrible reward and doesn't feel worth the effort it takes to get all 3 signs. The third reason is the current iteration of every card is the same flavor of nothing is loathed and defeats the entire purpose of having a card system in the first place. It makes the card system a convoluted mess.

Yeh the idea is trying to keep sort of in line with the limitations we have atm, namely 'the design team needs some fresh ideas', but I'd like to think what I posted solves all of those problems in some regard. Singletargetting to play cards is an issue now because how how much you do in such a short window. While I can't really say without it existing and being playable, I think my idea would help alleviate that somewhat, yes you're playing more cards per 2min cycle, but you don't have to play them all at the 2min mark. You could theoretically play one per 10ish seconds. This would also allow for some malleability in not getting screwed by 'I have to play cards, but the mechanics are all going off too' like in eg Manifold Flames.

Second issue, Astrodyne, is part of a larger issue, that is, 'cards dont really feel rewarding to play around'. You do everything right and you get a pretty crummy payout. I think part of the reason for this is SE's apparent allergy to the idea that players can potentially mess up. Every card does the same thing, and has relatively low effect, because that way if a player isn't good at doing the card thing, they don't drag their team down as much. We can adjust the cards to make them both feel more impactful, and also less punishing to mess up. For example, currently if you play a card, it buffs by 3% on the incorrect role and 6% on the correct role. So if a player got every card 'wrong', they'd be losing 50% of the card system's effectiveness. Instead, we could boost that to say, 10% for wrong, and 12% for correct, making the difference just 16%. At the same time, this makes the cards feel way better in a vacuum I think, because their effect is stronger.

Third, having the same effect sucks yes. Having everything as different colors of 'it does the same damage buff' is likely here to stay, so we'll have to work around it. And my idea to throw in the ring would be 'make it so players can get several different cards at once, but not duplicates'. Unfortunately this conflicts with 'make it less punishing to get wrong' from point 2, as playing a Balance on someone who has a Balance set already would be a 100% loss of damage. Maybe a system where 'if a duplicate card is played, it's effect is reduced by 2%' could work. EG, a player who does not care about their performance at all could throw Balance on the MNK 3 times, and no other card. The first is worth 12%, the second 10%, the third 8%. A different player who is peak optimization brained, would throw a Balance, an Arrow and a Spear on the MNK, which gives 12, 12 and 12%, as none of them are duplicates. The 'zero optimization' player would turn a 1000p skill into 1,330.5p, and the super optimal gamer would turn 100p into 1,404.9p, a difference of 74ish potency. That's like, half a Gauss Round.

Since we don't need to remember the effects of the cards (they are all damage), and we don't need to remember which are better on melee/ranged (the job gauge tells us), the thing to watch out for under this system would not be what the cards do, or who they're best on, just who already has that one. We can even remove seals with this, because they're only use atm is to try and get you to use different cards. With this rework, the reason to use different cards is implemented in a different way. One that matches the lore better, IMO. Don't some IRL tarot card readings have 3 cards drawn, to correlate to past, present, future?

edit: having this change, we could also learn a passive trait at 60, in reference to that bad AST who we fight. IIRC he channels power from all 6 cards for a timestopping attack, so we could have similar, where if we have all 6 card effects on ourselves (only on the AST), it increases our damage output not just by the amount for each card, but also by a bonus amount. Not enough to be the optimal way to play in group content, but as a way to make AST's solo experience a bit less crappy.

[IDontPetLalas]

Oh, I just meant that it's an AoE around you rather than something that needs to be targeted, but I imagine the range would be something like Standard/Technical Step where you don't need to actually be at close range to use it.

EDIT: So this is not really what the skill would end up looking like necessarily, but Lisa's elemental skill in Genshin was kinda what was playing in my mind as I was imagining it:

Ah thanks, and boy would I love something like that!

[IDontPetLalas]

Astrodyne isn't the worst, I get more annoyed with the minor arcana actually. The single-targeting - on a PC- hasn't been an issue for a long time thanks to a very easy change to the HUD using a mouse-over macro, but without that it was painful. If we actually had a dedicated healer designer, then rather than lobotomizing the job, then the designer should be able to consider alternatives such as UI improvements.

I'm not saying that it's the right answer- just that our options seem to be limited with the design team that we have at present.

[Shurrikhan]

That's fair, and moving forward, I wouldn't want to just return to that format either. I've spent a lot of time trying to crack the code to the perfect card system because it's just an almost impossible concept to do well in this game's format. Trying to create 6 cards that are both randomized, feature different effects that aren't a burden on the player to remember, and are also somehow perfectly balanced is just a nightmare. I have examples of concepts that I think do well enough, but each features its own flaws.

Same.

Right now, probably the best I've got is simply to either...

• Return to a revitalized version of the Stormblood system (balancing both the Royal Roads effects and the Cards themselves, through uncapping the number of Card buffs active on a target, unnerfing Empower, splitting the power of Expand across recipient count, functional buffs to Bole, tuning buffs to Arrow and Spear, and replacements for Spire and Ewer),
  or
  
• Have every Card have a unique effect (that may synergize with others to create a degree of greater-than-sum value), with no Royal Road necessary.

In both cases, though, it seems like it might be a good idea to both have uncapped holding potential (such as per a no-CD Spread) and perhaps to split the potential outcomes (e.g., into a Northern and Southern deck, each of 3 choices).

Personally, I kind of like the Seal system, in that, per 90- or 120-second period, it gives us further reason to leverage otherwise less obviously useful Cards. It just needs a more decent pay-out, ideally capable of more than just raw damage.

[ty_taurus]

Same.

Right now, probably the best I've got is simply to either...

• Return to a revitalized version of the Stormblood system (balancing both the Royal Roads effects and the Cards themselves, through uncapping the number of Card buffs active on a target, unnerfing Empower, splitting the power of Expand across recipient count, functional buffs to Bole, tuning buffs to Arrow and Spear, and replacements for Spire and Ewer),
  or
  
• Have every Card have a unique effect (that may synergize with others to create a degree of greater-than-sum value), with no Royal Road necessary.

In both cases, though, it seems like it might be a good idea to both have uncapped holding potential (such as per a no-CD Spread) and perhaps to split the potential outcomes (e.g., into a Northern and Southern deck, each of 3 choices).

Personally, I kind of like the Seal system, in that, per 90- or 120-second period, it gives us further reason to leverage otherwise less obviously useful Cards. It just needs a more decent pay-out, ideally capable of more than just raw damage.

The Northern/Southern aspect is something I've thought of before as well (though not with the same name choice. Yours is cooler)

My mind currently is dancing around this area...

- We have 2 "Draw" actions with separate cooldowns. Northern Draw and Southern Draw with using your naming scheme. Northern draws offensive cards and Southern draws defensive cards (or vice versa if I'm off base with the lore). Once you draw a card, that card is 'inactive' until you reshuffle the deck, meaning you can't draw it again.
- We have 3 "Play" actions with separate cooldowns. Solar Play, Lunar Play, and Celestial Play based on the signs. You play all cards to yourself and they do nothing initially when played. You can have up to 3 cards on yourself at a time and this is shown in your gauge UI. When drawing a card, it goes to the associated sign button.
- Celestial Opposition is changed to an action that applies your 3 stored cards to the party. Functionally, one way you might be able to create the concept of distributing these buffs based on recipient count is to have CO in this case apply 8 stacks of each buff divided equally among yourself and all party members in range. So in a light party, everyone would have 2 stacks of Balance.
- Reshuffle would have something like a 60 second cooldown with charges and replenishes your card supply and is essential to keep the card system going.
- After you use a card, a major arcana replaces it in the same associated "Play" action to be used. Which major arcana you get is based on the card you played. I'd like to actually dig into the lore more and have essentially....

Balance summons the Lord of Staves
Bole summons the Lord of Rings (that is a card in the AST's lore)
Arrow summons the Lady of Swords
Ewer summons the Lady of Cups
Spear summons the Knave of Irons
Spire summons the Knave of Crowns

Those are the suits in the AST's deck. That is a pretty complex list though, so I'm not sure how feasible it would be. But one idea is having both Lords be quite similar. Like Lord of Staves is AoE damage as it is currently and also decreases enemy magic damage dealt by 5% while Lord of Rings is the same but with physical damage. And so on so it's still quite easy to follow.

[glamazon]

Same.

Right now, probably the best I've got is simply to either...

• Return to a revitalized version of the Stormblood system (balancing both the Royal Roads effects and the Cards themselves, through uncapping the number of Card buffs active on a target, unnerfing Empower, splitting the power of Expand across recipient count, functional buffs to Bole, tuning buffs to Arrow and Spear, and replacements for Spire and Ewer),
  or
  
• Have every Card have a unique effect (that may synergize with others to create a degree of greater-than-sum value), with no Royal Road necessary.

In both cases, though, it seems like it might be a good idea to both have uncapped holding potential (such as per a no-CD Spread) and perhaps to split the potential outcomes (e.g., into a Northern and Southern deck, each of 3 choices).

Personally, I kind of like the Seal system, in that, per 90- or 120-second period, it gives us further reason to leverage otherwise less obviously useful Cards. It just needs a more decent pay-out, ideally capable of more than just raw damage.

I don't get why people don't like his ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNJGY9B7VW4&t=139s it seems he has a well thought out plan to make ast work

[Shurrikhan]

Gonna clip this here and post these first and keep reading. Good discussion. (I still do think a healer should be left alone, but I like hammering out more specifically WHY some things are felt boring and, more specifically, what WOULD break that up vs what would NOT...and it's also interesting seeing that you guys are also not of the exact same mind on it, with some finding oGCDs interesting vs some not, and some noting it depends on the type and frequency and how they fit into the overall kit.)

Yeah, this is seeming a lot more productive. Taking a bend towards the concrete definitely has seemed helpful.

A couple notes, from snippets of yours above.

In my reply to Askellington, I thought maybe of a metronome. Maybe that's the better way to explain it?

I... think that's a decent analogy, yeah. To me it's the difference between [A] and [B] vs. the difference between [A] and just [A+], but that's not a particularly precise analogy either, so... /shrug.

One thing I've wondered is if giving Assize a 2 charge system would help.

A quick rule of thumb, to me, is that charges only at best free up whatever number of casts per cycle necessarily cannot be buffed by the raid cycle anyways, because, as you said, "people would... put it into buff windows." For a 40s CD like Assize, a second charge offers 40s of freedom.

However, that freedom will also detract from rewards for skillful variance (e.g., for specifically wasting uptime on Assize in order to, to greater net effect, avoid GCD healing), so there's a balance even there. Because this isn't the only way to fill a function (healing), compared to a second charge on a sole gap-closer, a second charge here grants far less to accessibility compared to what it takes from skill ceiling.

As such, I'd really, really like to see oGCD healing tuned down first (which doesn't even necessarily make healing any harder so much as just reduce Glare casts over time --which can be compensated for anyways with bonus potency on offensive casts-- and make MP a little bit less of just a rez meter) such that holding Assize would be rewarded, more so than to simply embrace that "there's no point in holding CDs anyways" failing of context by jumping straight to a second charge and 1 in 3 Assize casts being freely timeable.

If there's something that fails just because of context and a fix for that context would help other areas too and isn't that far a reach, I feel like we should deal with the failing in context first and then see what feels best for each individual skill.

I don't get why people don't like his [Sariex's] ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNJGY9B7VW4&t=139s it seems he has a well thought out plan to make ast work

Not sure why this was given in response to my defense of the Seal system, but... my concerns (8 or 9 of them, iirc) were already listed out right at the top of the comments page.