Astrologian changes feedback

[ThorneDynasty]

Again, what is even the point of a class based system if you just make every class play the same? You are supposed to give enough variety that everyone can find something they like, not exclusively cater to one lowest common denominator audience at the expense of everyone else, to the point where the classes become almost entirely an aesthetic choice.

[Kissune]

If you wipe at 1%, I don't think a single boosted balance or 2 more EW's card gonna help you. That's literately the entire party's skill issue and can be easily overcome if 2-3 people did better in their next attempt.
You are scraping the bottom of the barrel, hell, even if that's the case, your precise answer is switching to white mage.

as for your suggestion, you seriously think they gonna implement some elaborate effect and not just recycling some of the pre-existing effect into the new cards? please.

If the problem is 'a bad AST can't contribute enough damage to beat enrage' the answer should not be 'make AST easier so that the bad AST can contribute enough' it should be 'stop being bad'.

DPS checks aren't real until 3/4th floor savage and ultis. If someone fails enrage bc their divination was 1% less than usual or they drew too many range cards I take them about as seriously as the people in TOP that cried 'b-but my hyosho didn't crit!!'. Most of astro's damage comes from malefic/combust, not cards/divi. And if you want more consistent damage you switch to white mage or sage. Same answer I give to people who complain dancer is too inconsistent. Machinist is right there if meta slaving is all you care about. Personally, I play AST for the playstyle, not its balance. I ran nocturnal sect and to quote my favourite ff14 content creator. 'It wasn't optimal, but it sure was viable.' I'm so tired of explaining to people why I play the class, and why these changes completely kill that in favour of a playstyle I could get from any of the other healers. If people weren't good enough to AST at the highest level (because EVERYONE is good enough to play AST at the lowest, bc there's no punishment for not being optimal), they should have gotten better or found a new job.

[Valmaxian]

Again, what is even the point of a class based system if you just make every class play the same? You are supposed to give enough variety that everyone can find something they like, not exclusively cater to one lowest common denominator audience at the expense of everyone else, to the point where the classes become almost entirely an aesthetic choice.

And yet AST is still the only healer that provides ST damage buffs, ST/AoE shield+HoT within one ability, and can solo Ultimates if the player is capable. The job has a lot of power and depth to it regardless of its RNG mechanic. It’s still going to be busy.

I agree that FF14 healers have become more homogenized (I’ve played and maxed all of them - every combat job in fact). But to me each class still possesses subtleties that make them feel unique. I don’t expect everyone to feel the same way.

[Kissune]

And yet AST is still the only healer that provides ST damage buffs, ST/AoE shield+HoT within one ability, and can solo Ultimates if the player is capable. The job has a lot of power and depth to it regardless of its RNG mechanic. It’s still going to be busy.

I agree that FF14 healers have become more homogenized (I’ve played and maxed all of them - every combat job in fact). But to me each class still possesses subtleties that make them feel unique. I don’t expect everyone to feel the same way.

It's not going to be busy. Your burst window will be

Malefic+divination, malefic+play, malefic+draw, malefic+play, malefic+lord, malefic+divi follow up. Your filler will have nothing until 60s, when you press draw. Most of the utility cards will be discarded in 90% of content, and in the content where it matters like... why would I care about single target utility spells on my cards. I already have ED, exalt, CI, A. benefic... Yeah, maybe AST will be very strong bc it'll have so many tools. But I didn't want or care about *strong* I wanted *fun.* And being essentially a white mage with the occasional single target buff and a bunch of boring ass utility spells is not my idea of fun. My rotation, if you can even call it that, can now be done with a macro. The same cards go on the same people, at the same time, every time. They might as well just not exist at all.

[ThorneDynasty]

And yet AST is still the only healer that provides ST damage buffs, ST/AoE shield+HoT within one ability, and can solo Ultimates if the player is capable. The job has a lot of power and depth to it regardless of its RNG mechanic. It’s still going to be busy.

I agree that FF14 healers have become more homogenized (I’ve played and maxed all of them - every combat job in fact). But to me each class still possesses subtleties that make them feel unique. I don’t expect everyone to feel the same way.

They shouldn't be "subtleties" though. They should be entirely different play styles.

[ArtemisSeraphin]

Making the Astro less "sweaty" will make the class more inclusive to everyone- and if that comes at the small expense of a few gamers getting their emotions in a knot

1. Not every class has to be "inclusive" to everyone. No job can be made that will be "inclusive" of every single player. Not all CONTENT has to be inclusive of everyone. I'm one of those photosensitivity people who couldn't handle Paradigm's Breech. Am I whining to SE that the raid isn't inclusive of me, I need the glam pieces from there, so can they just redesign an entire encounter for me? No. Not everything in this game can be for everyone.
2. AST was ALREADY inclusive. If you just wanted to run normal raids/DF, you did not even need cards. Week 1 of EW, I rolled into the lvl90 Trial w another AST. That AST was a sprout. It was their first week playing. They never drew a single card. No Lord, No Lady, No Bole, definitely no Balance. Did we clear on the first try? Yup. You do NOT have to play AST optimally to faceroll through normal content with it. The challenge aspects of AST are entirely optional.
3. Classes can absolutely have a low skill floor. AST already has that. But an MMORPG needs to have at least one class in each roll with a high skill ceiling. Otherwise, players who want a challenge leave. I love challenges. I do blind-prog for on-content, and min ilvl/no echo of old savages. I've been raiding in ffxiv since BCOB & no, we did NOT do the 3-healer enrage strat--we passed that rot like Yoshi-P intended. I find ways to add challenges where I can. One of those ways is to pick the jobs with high skill ceilings & the devs have been eliminating those.
4. You mention buying glams, spending money, and only casuals do that, not sweaty gamers. Us sweaty gamers aren't the ones "actually supporting the game" therefore our voices shouldn't count? I've been paying SE a monthly subscription since 2003 when XI came to NA. I've bought physical CE's every single expac--both XI & XIV. I have an embarrassing number of the carbuncle & fat cat plushies, multiple copies of every volume of Encyclopedia Eorzea. I don't stream those OSTs from Spotify; I got the Blu-ray discs. My alts? I've got plenty. And they all have /playdead. Retainers? I'm paying for a few. I bought the Fairy Tale Princess attire just for the skirt. I have a serious problem with buying Carbuncle mounts. Seriously, they release another one of those and I'm in trouble. "Vast amount are showing off their glam..." Why the heck do you think I got into raiding if it wasn't b/c the Allagan Coat of Healing was cute as heck? Why the heck do you think I kept raiding if it wasn't b/c the High Allagan Coat was even MORE cute?

It is perfectly acceptable to be average at AST. But demanding that AST's ceiling be lowered so that your "average" is now "peak" is ruining the game for others. Yes, others who also pay for the game and have sunk, rough calculation, more than $5,000 on it.

[Kissune]

4. You mention buying glams, spending money, and only casuals do that, not sweaty gamers. Us sweaty gamers aren't the ones "actually supporting the game" therefore our voices shouldn't count? I've been paying SE a monthly subscription since 2003 when XI came to NA. I've bought physical CE's every single expac--both XI & XIV. I have an embarrassing number of the carbuncle & fat cat plushies, multiple copies of every volume of Encyclopedia Eorzea. I don't stream those OSTs from Spotify; I got the Blu-ray discs. My alts? I've got plenty. And they all have /playdead. Retainers? I'm paying for a few. I bought the Fairy Tale Princess attire just for the skirt. I have a serious problem with buying Carbuncle mounts. Seriously, they release another one of those and I'm in trouble. "Vast amount are showing off their glam..." Why the heck do you think I got into raiding if it wasn't b/c the Allagan Coat of Healing was cute as heck? Why the heck do you think I kept raiding if it wasn't b/c the High Allagan Coat was even MORE cute?

It is perfectly acceptable to be average at AST. But demanding that AST's ceiling be lowered so that your "average" is now "peak" is ruining the game for others. Yes, others who also pay for the game and have sunk, rough calculation, more than $5,000 on it.

I bought a several hundred dollar statue just so I had something to use while I was idling in PF or discussing strats with my static in an instance. I have multiple retainers to help me gather the materials to sell so I can buy materials for tincs and food. I have alts for running split clears, all on the same server for ease of access, so I have to pay the more expensive sub. I raid to get dyeable armour and flashy weapons. The entire reason I picked up raiding was because I wanted the TEA weapons! Just bc casuals buy stuff doesn't mean I don't. I'm not running raw with no glams or raid gear. I spend so much time in this game doing other things, and playing AST was a joy I always came back to. And now it's gone and for what? So the casuals have a fourth braindead healer? I pay my damn sub too, why don't I get a say? Why is me wanting to enjoy casual AND hardcore content by having a job that maintains a complexity and path to optimization while being easy to pick up being denied in favour of people who only want a class for an aesthetic?

I don't get these people...

[Cosmosio]

Removing the RNG card pulls entirely is completely destroying the purpose of the job. That’s the entire point of fortune telling / tarot, you don’t know what you’re gonna get.

Just adding my +1 to the voices that as an AST main I am really not pleased with this rework at all, AST gameplay feels busy and I LOVE that, losing so much APM is gonna turn me away from my favourite job.

I’ll try out the rework at first but I’m seriously considering jumping to something else.

[GrimGale]

We Had a system that dealt with RNG. Back to the inception of AST, in HW, you had the amazing ROYAL ROAD ability.

Didn't draw something you wanted to use? Burn it to give your next thing a stronger effect.

You drew something you wanted? Use Hold to save it for later.

Those two skills allowed for RNG to be mitigated, tools that would give you agency over the use of your cards.

What was the problem? You had 1 card that was miles better than any other in most situations. It was so strong in its baseline form that it could make or break pulls on the hardest content in the game. So you always wanted/needed to draw that one. The dreaded Balance card.

In later iterations you could still deal with RNG somewhat. You could burn the cards you didn't want, trading them for an AoE attack, Lord of Thorns, or a AoE heal, Lady of Crowns.

I forgot the point I was trying to make.

[VictorSpoils]

We Had a system that dealt with RNG. Back to the inception of AST, in HW, you had the amazing ROYAL ROAD ability.

Didn't draw something you wanted to use? Burn it to give your next thing a stronger effect.

You drew something you wanted? Use Hold to save it for later.

Those two skills allowed for RNG to be mitigated, tools that would give you agency over the use of your cards.

What was the problem? You had 1 card that was miles better than any other in most situations. It was so strong in its baseline form that it could make or break pulls on the hardest content in the game. So you always wanted/needed to draw that one. The dreaded Balance card.

In later iterations you could still deal with RNG somewhat. You could burn the cards you didn't want, trading them for an AoE attack, Lord of Thorns, or a AoE heal, Lady of Crowns.

I forgot the point I was trying to make.

Probably the strangest job change in the game:

Spread: saves card for later (removed after one expansion)
Royal Road: deletes card but buffs next card (removed after one expansion)
Undraw: deletes card (still exists three expansions later)