Small AST card rework idea from another game

[Rivna]

While playing the new RPG from mihoyo (genshin impact's creators) Honkai Star Rail, I chanced upon this weapon with effects that made me think of AST's cards.

In this game there are 7 different 'paths' that gacha characters can be, one of them being 'The harmony' that are pure buffers.
'Weapons' in this game give special effects to the character wearing it similar to how they work in genshin impact.

https://imgur.com/rxo7InA

It made me think of an idea for AST's cards.
Obviously the game I mentionned is turn based so it wouldn't work with FFXIV, but the core idea behind it gave me an idea. Also don't pay attention to the part where buffs are for the whole party. The cards would still be single target.

Give AST new cards, all with a different effect, similar to old AST but that would work with the current expansion. It doesn't need to be 6.
Make it so that you cannot draw the same card that you last used along with a redraw. That would make it impossible to fish for balance while also giving you a redraw to pass a card you don't need at the moment.

It's a minimal rework so it wouldn't alter the job's playstyle much while giving the same flavor that old AST cards had (without the fishing for balance bit).
It also gives room to rework Astrodyne into something more interesting that could play around this.

My only worry is that because of the 2 minute meta utility cards would be frowned upon.

[Renathras]

I'm not saying this to be sarcastic:

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobgu...trologian/#pvp

The Balance: Increases damage dealt by self or target and all nearby party members by 10%.
The Bole: Reduces damage taken by self or target and nearby party members by 10%.
The Arrow: Reduces weaponskill cast time and recast time, as well as spell cast time and recast time for self or target and nearby party members by 10%, while also increasing movement speed by 25%.

Not to mention the older AST Cards. We already have all these potential effects, the issue is that AST is built around RNG (divination/tarot theme), and that only a few effects are considered "good". Which is what got us into "Balance fishing" and "every card is now The Balance" in the first place.

The best solution would honestly probably be to break the cards into two effects; damage boosting and utility. The damage boosting can be three simple things - flat damage, crit (slightly more), direct hit (slightly more than that) - so that they produce ROUGHLY the same effect, reward Job knowledge (knowledge of your party member's Jobs, that is; some Jobs benefit extra for having more crits, for example), but where none are considered "bad" or, at least, so bad that drawing them feels terrible. Then the utility ones can be one of three flavors - reduces damage taken, MP restoration, HP restoration (another Regen; it's boring, but unlikely to be imbalanced, and worse case scenario, you can always chunk it onto the Tank when you draw it). These are also each always useful, and if you don't feel like you're sacrificing DPS to use them, don't feel bad to draw or play.

Could call the first half "Solar Draw/Play" and the second half "Lunar Draw/Play", and just have the Lunar replace the current Minor Arcana.

This way, you get all that RNG people love about AST, but with the card effects being different, but not feeling bad to get the "wrong" one at the wrong time, or the utility ones when you want damage ones in almost all situations. All 6 of those effects are also seldom going to be totally useless, and being able to hold cards for up to 30 seconds (or 60?) given the Draw CD and stacks makes it far less problematic than the HW/SB ones if you drew the Bole at a time where no one was taking damage or the like.

They could, of course, keep Minor Arcana as a third time of Draw/Play, but...meh.

[Yeol]

Honestly, HW AST could work with some tweaks:

• Make all cards buff DMG [Crit card, Direct Hit card, & Flat DMG card] but unique to roles [Melee or Ranged]. This makes 6 unique cards.
• Add a condition or a debuff that prevents AST from drawing the same card back to back.
• AST can’t have two of the same card drawn at once. If multiple cards are drawn, all the cards are different.
• Get rid of Redraw since all cards are DMG buffs & there is no seal system. Instead, AST can burn the current card to enhance the next cards’ effect.

The enhanced effects we had:

• Increase card duration.
• Increase card effect.
• Make the card AoE but with half the effect.