Astrologian changes feedback

[Kissune]

I like that Draw, Redraw/Undraw, and Minor Arcana are reworked into one action. I like that you get 3 cards (technically 4) every 60 seconds rather than a metered 30 second two charge card draw (with added redraw) plus the Minor Arcana. These are things that make sense to streamline the card mechanic- especially since all of the stuff attached to cards has been removed (Divination seals, royal road, astrodyne, etc). If you're going to make a mechanic more accessible then you might as well cut out the superfluous RNG. Did I like the RNG? Yes, but at the same time it A) made the class overly complicated for people who are just playing the class for the aesthetic and B) annoyed the more hardcore players by forcing them to battle the RNG gods.
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Hot take but we shouldn't design classes about being easy for people who refuse to get better at the game who want to play a class that was already easy to get into (seriously, astro wasn't busy unless you actually started optimizing) just because they like the aesthetic. Because I'm sorry but like... if we keep doing that eventually we are going to have one job in each role and then a bunch of reskins for it. That is the direction we're headed, with AST losing everything that made it unique. I really don't like having cards with unique effects but I'd take a stormblood system over this bc at least with that I still have RNG to play around and react to.

If we keep removing things because it's 'too complicated for casuals' (which is weird bc AST was the second job I ever picked up after white mage and I was completely fine, even as a sprout? I just sucked at the class until I got better, I didn't demand it be changed to be easier) the game is going to die. And btw, I'm a parser. 99s on AST in Asphodelos, and you know what I did when I got a bad pull? I just went on to the next one. I'll never forget my 7 lady 0 lord erich pull, because it was just funny lmao.

I don't care if the kit is 'strong' post rework. I don't care if our tools are like, absolutely crazy and AST is a must pick for the world race because it's just so good. I never played this job because it was the best job. I played it because it had the most fun playstyle. And that playstyle is now gone. The things I loved most about AST, the reacting to draws, the fast paced gameplay, the playing around and setting up the hand I was dealt to be most effective while also planning for if I didn't get the draw I wanted. All gone. Now all I have is 'well my entire healing, mit, and dps plan has been plotted out for the entire fight. Guess it's back to malefic spam for me.' I have a bunch of healing tools I didn't ask for, less dps tools which I didn't ask for, and the death of the identity that has been around since Heavensward. All because people who didn't play this job wanted their white mage with stars. So thanks.

Guess I'll see you all in 8.0 when they fix it.

[Kissune]

The damage slot: basically what we currently have. Draw card, throw on DPS every 60 seconds. Nothing exciting here.

Even less exciting, because you'll bank the 60s card for the 2min window and play two there. But they'll also be the same two cards every time, played on the same two people every time, so there's not thought that goes into it.

The defensive slot: can go on a tank if it helps their CD management for tank busters. Otherwise I'm keeping it as an emergency card for that ONE player who always gets hit during P12S superchains, so he won't die to successive AoEs.

Why not just give us a button that says 'give 10% mit to target' because it's basically the same thing, and leave cards alone

The healing slot: an emergency healing, in case my co-healer dies unexpectedly. Or I just use it instead of another oGCD to have that oGCD ready for emergencies. Or I use it to solo heal mechanics to allow my co-healer to farm parses (something I personally don't care about). I'll find uses for it. I've always found uses for everything, even for the old Spire, back when TP were still a thing.

What, because three stacks of essential dignity aren't enough?

Why not just play white mage if this is the playstyle you like? Or Scholar, with its aetherflow, because that's what this is now. It's just aetherflow that forces you to use it in stricter ways. All this does is make AST identical to the other healers by taking any and all on the fly decision making out of the class in favour of giving us the exact same standardized tools at the exact same time with zero variance as every other healer. If I wanted to play the other healers I would, but instead my main has to die because people want their fourth basic healbot, mechanical skill free.

[Xelanar]

Even less exciting, because you'll bank the 60s card for the 2min window and play two there. But they'll also be the same two cards every time, played on the same two people every time, so there's not thought that goes into it.

Why not just give us a button that says 'give 10% mit to target' because it's basically the same thing, and leave cards alone

What, because three stacks of essential dignity aren't enough?

Why not just play white mage if this is the playstyle you like? Or Scholar, with its aetherflow, because that's what this is now. It's just aetherflow that forces you to use it in stricter ways. All this does is make AST identical to the other healers by taking any and all on the fly decision making out of the class in favour of giving us the exact same standardized tools at the exact same time with zero variance as every other healer. If I wanted to play the other healers I would, but instead my main has to die because people want their fourth basic healbot, mechanical skill free.

I wrote that under the assumption that the cards in each card slot have different effects. If they don't, then I agree with you, and am probably going to quit healing entirely, because I'm not really fond of the other healing jobs either. Specially WHM. I guess I'll have to wait for job adjustment details to make sure what I'm getting into? If the two card sets are different enough to actually matter, then I'm very much on board with the change though.

(On a side note: the current 2 stacks of essential dignity have proven to not be enough on some of my attempts. I take everything that I can get xD)

[Kissune]

I wrote that under the assumption that the cards in each card slot have different effects. If they don't, then I agree with you, and am probably going to quit healing entirely, because I'm not really fond of the other healing jobs either. Specially WHM. I guess I'll have to wait for job adjustment details to make sure what I'm getting into? If the two card sets are different enough to actually matter, then I'm very much on board with the change though.

(On a side note: the current 2 stacks of essential dignity have proven to not be enough on some of my attempts. I take everything that I can get xD)

They do have different effects, but you will always draw the same ones every time. You draw one set at 0s, set two at 60s, and then back to set one at 120s and you repeat. The cards in each set are the exact same 4, every single time, with no variance whatsoever. Even if the effects are different, knowing exactly what you are going to draw ahead of time entirely defeats the purpose of having them be called 'cards' in the first place, because they just do not function like them anymore. They're cards only in name and vfx, not mechanically. EW cards have more in common with SB cards than DT cards will have with any of them. Bc the common thread between AST reworks has always been 'you need to play around what you get, not what you always have'. Now you always have everything.

Like... what difference does it make if the 'curative' card is a flat potency heal on one set, and a nice regen on the other? Even if the sets have different buttons, that doesn't change the fact that there's no real thought that goes into them. You either use them somewhere, or you don't, but there's no way to get rid of a card you don't want like royal road or to mitigate the RNG with redraw or to make do with your draw. It's either the fight needs you to use X tool at X time, or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, you press the drawtherflow button at 60s and just overcap it, or you throw the card into the void. You press your dps button at the same time, on the same people. You'll use your designated mit button at the same time, on the same people. You'll use your designated heal button at the same time, on the same people, or you'll keep it as 'insurance' instead of using your third ED charge and not need it most of the time.

[Xelanar]

They do have different effects, but you will always draw the same ones every time. You draw one set at 0s, set two at 60s, and then back to set one at 120s and you repeat. The cards in each set are the exact same 4, every single time, with no variance whatsoever. Even if the effects are different, knowing exactly what you are going to draw ahead of time entirely defeats the purpose of having them be called 'cards' in the first place, because they just do not function like them anymore. They're cards only in name and vfx, not mechanically. EW cards have more in common with SB cards than DT cards will have with any of them. Bc the common thread between AST reworks has always been 'you need to play around what you get, not what you always have'. Now you always have everything.

Like... what difference does it make if the 'curative' card is a flat potency heal on one set, and a nice regen on the other? Even if the sets have different buttons, that doesn't change the fact that there's no real thought that goes into them. You either use them somewhere, or you don't, but there's no way to get rid of a card you don't want like royal road or to mitigate the RNG with redraw or to make do with your draw. It's either the fight needs you to use X tool at X time, or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, you press the drawtherflow button at 60s and just overcap it, or you throw the card into the void. You press your dps button at the same time, on the same people. You'll use your designated mit button at the same time, on the same people. You'll use your designated heal button at the same time, on the same people, or you'll keep it as 'insurance' instead of using your third ED charge and not need it most of the time.

Ah, now I see what you mean. I guess that's true. The job is completely predictable once the change goes live.
I had not considered that there is only two fixed sets of cards interchanging. For some reason I thought there were more sets to draw than just the two that were shown.

[ForsakenRoe]

Ah, now I see what you mean. I guess that's true. The job is completely predictable once the change goes live.
I had not considered that there is only two fixed sets of cards interchanging. For some reason I thought there were more sets to draw than just the two that were shown.

But again, even if the 'sets' are variable, ie you can draw Balance or Spear to the 'Damage' slot, and you might alternate BSBSBSBS for one pull, but the next might be BBSBSBSS, it does not matter. Because whether you get 'damage up because damage% increased' or 'damage up because crit rate increased', it does not matter. The two effects, despite being different in the appearance of their function, have the same base effect of 'the target does more damage in some way', and as such, regardless of whether you drew Balance or Spear, you'd play the card on the same hard hitting DPS. You literally would not need to look at the card you drew, because if result A means 'use on the SAM' and result B means 'use on the SAM', there's your end result: draw, use damage card on the SAM. No thinking needed.

I suppose, with the border of one set being blue and the other being purple, the cards could still be 'one is better on ranged, one is better on melee' and have at least SOME adaptability required, but if it's Draw Blue at even minutes and Draw Purple at odd minutes (ie it always goes BPBPBPBP in alternation) then it's going to be very stale and predictable

[KanataNanaya]

Now that we are mentioning set, i'm worried now that what's the two sets gonna be different in.
Is one ranged atk up and one melee atk up?

if so that's even more screwed than what we got right now. as for some party we know that half of the attack card is next to useless.

[Kissune]

But again, even if the 'sets' are variable, ie you can draw Balance or Spear to the 'Damage' slot, and you might alternate BSBSBSBS for one pull, but the next might be BBSBSBSS, it does not matter. Because whether you get 'damage up because damage% increased' or 'damage up because crit rate increased', it does not matter. The two effects, despite being different in the appearance of their function, have the same base effect of 'the target does more damage in some way', and as such, regardless of whether you drew Balance or Spear, you'd play the card on the same hard hitting DPS. You literally would not need to look at the card you drew, because if result A means 'use on the SAM' and result B means 'use on the SAM', there's your end result: draw, use damage card on the SAM. No thinking needed.

I suppose, with the border of one set being blue and the other being purple, the cards could still be 'one is better on ranged, one is better on melee' and have at least SOME adaptability required, but if it's Draw Blue at even minutes and Draw Purple at odd minutes (ie it always goes BPBPBPBP in alternation) then it's going to be very stale and predictable

The thing you're missing here is how the 2min meta functions. With a 60s cooldown on draw, you're going to draw and play the dps card in your opener. Then you're going to draw at 60s, and hold that card until the 2min burst, and then play/draw/play. Meaning there's still no adaptability required. It'll be card melee, and then card ranged and melee at the same time every 2 minutes for the rest of the fight.

[flowerfairy]

Wait seriously? It only rotates through 2 sets of 3 cards every other minute? That’s bad that’s really bad…

I was hoping for it to randomly choose 1 of 2 cards for 3 sets of Damage, Defense, and Healing. Then in those sets you’d have unique effects such as Physical Damage Up and Magic Damage Up // Defense Up and MP Regen Up // Regen over Time and Heal Received Up.

Then, another idea I liked was a general Draw ability on a 20s cooldown that would draw any random card from any set, to keep a sense of RNG. So you’d have Triple Draw every 60s and Single Draw every 20s.

For some RNG mitigation you can have an ability that combines Royal Road and Redraw along with an ability like Time Dilation. So first, you’d press Royal Redraw, then your 3 Play buttons turn to Flip buttons. You choose which card you want to change to the other card on the same set, but its duration is halved. If you really want to keep its full duration, then you’d use Time Dilation (it should be a 2-charge 60s oGCD so you can have one for raid buffs) to extend its duration normally.

That’s how I imagined the new cards. But if all RNG is removed there’s really no point to AST. The live letter slides said actions are subject to change, I’m really hoping that’s true this time.

[Aravell]

That’s how I imagined the new cards. But if all RNG is removed there’s really no point to AST. The live letter slides said actions are subject to change, I’m really hoping that’s true this time.

I'm fairly sure they did say they removed the RNG, so we'll very likely just cycle between 2 sets of cards.

Also, the much larger population of hundreds of SAMs couldn't get Kaiten back, so our prospects with our much smaller population of AST players is not looking good. But I heard JP also is pushing for change, so maybe there's hope in patch 7.01?