AST Cards are boring

[ForsakenRoe]

Revert all the cards to HW/SB effects (bole mit, arrow speed, etc), do NOT bring back Royal Road, add damage effects to cards that do not have them that are thematic to the card (eg bole reflects damage based on max HP), creating a system where you can use any card on any player for it's unique effect (eg throwing bole on a caster to save them from a raidwide that would otherwise kill them), but each card has a 'preferred role' to use it on (with balance being the 'wildcard' that you can throw on anyone)

AOE balance in HW/SB was not an issue because of the balance card, it was because it was AOE. Keep the cards single target and you'll find it's a lot easier to balance their damage output against one another, while keeping their unique flair and thematics intact. If Balance contributes around 18k (as I found while doing some investigating for pitching the idea), then balance the other cards to output roughly 18k with their effect too. If we change Balance from 6% to 10% (so it feels like it has more impact), then that makes it 30k damage. So, making Bole reflect 10% of the target's max HP, with current tank HP values, would be around 36k. No doubt someone will complain that it's not exactly the same damage output, but 6k is less than a single malefic, and at some point we have to accept that, for the sake of fun, we can have small damage variances like this. Doubly so when Crit Variance will contribute more damage swing over the course of the fight

This is SE we're talking about, though, so they'll probably just make every card AOE (to make it so you don't have to target an ally, reducing APM) and call it a day

[Lady_Silvermoon]

The pursuit of absolute balance is what's ruining job diversity. I don't think the old card effects were ever much of an issue. Sure, the triple Spire Sleeve Draw was annoying, but you basically just roll with it, it's like a Monk opener with no Chakra procs. The only time cards were actually horribly imbalanced was the end of HW where Balance was 20%.

AST could comfortably beat every fight back in HW/SB even with the old card system, so the complaints about balancing issues is moot. The real complaints about AST balancing back then was their healing potency being weaker and they have to work much harder for the same results as simply bringing a WHM. I feel that people who complain about not getting the Balance don't actually care about "balancing issues", they actually care about their logs, since the way to get high logs back then was to be catered to with the Balance all fight.

I don't think the cards were changed for balance. I think the cards were changed because people only wanted one card, so they changed every card to the card people wanted which took away the point of having cards...

[Supersnow845]

Revert all the cards to HW/SB effects (bole mit, arrow speed, etc), do NOT bring back Royal Road, add damage effects to cards that do not have them that are thematic to the card (eg bole reflects damage based on max HP), creating a system where you can use any card on any player for it's unique effect (eg throwing bole on a caster to save them from a raidwide that would otherwise kill them), but each card has a 'preferred role' to use it on (with balance being the 'wildcard' that you can throw on anyone)

AOE balance in HW/SB was not an issue because of the balance card, it was because it was AOE. Keep the cards single target and you'll find it's a lot easier to balance their damage output against one another, while keeping their unique flair and thematics intact. If Balance contributes around 18k (as I found while doing some investigating for pitching the idea), then balance the other cards to output roughly 18k with their effect too. If we change Balance from 6% to 10% (so it feels like it has more impact), then that makes it 30k damage. So, making Bole reflect 10% of the target's max HP, with current tank HP values, would be around 36k. No doubt someone will complain that it's not exactly the same damage output, but 6k is less than a single malefic, and at some point we have to accept that, for the sake of fun, we can have small damage variances like this. Doubly so when Crit Variance will contribute more damage swing over the course of the fight

This is SE we're talking about, though, so they'll probably just make every card AOE (to make it so you don't have to target an ally, reducing APM) and call it a day

I like this idea but they have to remove the charges on draw, you currently hold too many cards for the burst window that the APM difference on controller is pretty unfair

It was tolerable when it was 2 cards in the burst window (and often you didn’t use them immediately after each other), now that it’s potentially 4 if you include lord and the addition of trashtrodyne the burst window for current AST is just too unfair to controller players.

I don’t like AOE cards (especially since they will have to be nerfed into the floor to still be balanced unless they instead decide to nerf malefic instead) but I’ll take them over the current system for better balance with controller

[RodP]

The pursuit of absolute balance is what's ruining job diversity. I don't think the old card effects were ever much of an issue. Sure, the triple Spire Sleeve Draw was annoying, but you basically just roll with it, it's like a Monk opener with no Chakra procs. The only time cards were actually horribly imbalanced was the end of HW where Balance was 20%.

AST could comfortably beat every fight back in HW/SB even with the old card system, so the complaints about balancing issues is moot. The real complaints about AST balancing back then was their healing potency being weaker and they have to work much harder for the same results as simply bringing a WHM. I feel that people who complain about not getting the Balance don't actually care about "balancing issues", they actually care about their logs, since the way to get high logs back then was to be catered to with the Balance all fight.

Yeah honestly at this point I think jobs are turning too samey, especially healers, I wish they just changed the 2 min meta and just made it so all jobs are viable, even if some are stronger than others.

[IceBlueNinja]

I don't think the cards were changed for balance. I think the cards were changed because people only wanted one card, so they changed every card to the card people wanted which took away the point of having cards...

Yeah.. the job was designed to be hard mode and busy busy and I really loved the rng aspect of it and not just be pressing fic 10million times because of how on the toes with buffs ast had to be in stormblood, you barely would have time on using a fic when it was 2.5 cast and had to manage combus 1 and 2 with shielding/or regens. Idk why those who complained about stormblood ast didnt simply just stick to whm/sch. Whm is design to just be lazy anyways.

[Zanair_Mhairon]

I have played and stayed main AST since its release. I really do miss how healers had more complex playstyles in 2.0 / 3.0. Just stop having our healing be less than other's healing output (remember when Phoenix healed more than we did...?) and give us back our class identity. We used to have the fastest cast / recast, we used to have extending buff effects, we used to have the ability to do some really crazy stuff with a properly played card, etc. I think if we just got rid of balance is king meta, do a similar bard type set up (small percentage damage buff for every card) and the cards buff are back to a similar style of HW cards (bole > less damage, arrow = faster gcd (which people would probably hate, so something else, like small crit buff)) and I think all the at mains would be happy.

[Valence]

Since everything is about damage especially in the current battle system, nobody would ever find reasons to play support cards over damage cards. On top of it, people start complaining whenever rng is involved, especially in their healing and support tools (idk I find it funnier personally to make actual choices each time but heh).

AST is supposed to be about cards. Then give it a proper card deck I say. With many more damage and support cards inside at once, which would eliminate a lot of those problems. A bad AST would manage the deck badly, and run out of some of its resources more than a good AST, be it damage buffs or support cards. And then rng would screw everything up because your horoscope was bad yo.

[Carighan]

The pursuit of absolute balance is what's ruining job diversity. I don't think the old card effects were ever much of an issue. Sure, the triple Spire Sleeve Draw was annoying, but you basically just roll with it, it's like a Monk opener with no Chakra procs. The only time cards were actually horribly imbalanced was the end of HW where Balance was 20%.

Sadly that's a losing fight in any MMORPG. There's a thread in the DPS forum about wanting to remove even Raise from SMN and RDM because "it unbalances casters", as if that's even noteworthy. You can't have any diversity with modern MMORPG players, they won't be happy before the only way jobs differ is in their visuals, mechanics for casters are all Black Mage, for melees all Samurai, etc.

[Supersnow845]

Sadly that's a losing fight in any MMORPG. There's a thread in the DPS forum about wanting to remove even Raise from SMN and RDM because "it unbalances casters", as if that's even noteworthy. You can't have any diversity with modern MMORPG players, they won't be happy before the only way jobs differ is in their visuals, mechanics for casters are all Black Mage, for melees all Samurai, etc.

You are being kinda disingenuous there, raise is a proxy for the fact that this game completely lacks actual useful utility (making someone else do more damage isn’t utility)

If we actually had decent utility that the jobs could be based around people wouldn’t mind damage differences but as it stands now RDM and SMN are in the toilet because square thinks rezzing is a form of utility

[SieyaM]

You are being kinda disingenuous there, raise is a proxy for the fact that this game completely lacks actual useful utility (making someone else do more damage isn’t utility)

If we actually had decent utility that the jobs could be based around people wouldn’t mind damage differences but as it stands now RDM and SMN are in the toilet because square thinks rezzing is a form of utility

Except the only thing that would be gained by removing rez from them is increasing their damage output. That doesn't change anything about the jobs or how they function giving them a more distinct identity. If anything the fact that they have rez while most other DPS jobs do not is giving them more of an identity. This is also not a losing fight in every MMO, again Everquest has plenty of class diversity and identity.