Astrologian Card System Feedback

[Kamishawe]

If there was ever a point where I could say the dev team desperately needs a healer main, this would be it. And Twelve is this but ONE reason out of many.

Fair, no one is happy and the Devs really do need a variety of healer mains on the Brainstorming Appoval Council. Given how spoiled Sage is in skills, abilities, and up coming presents, I think it's safe to say they at least have a Sage floating around. Though, I don't think that's a very good starting point in judging other healers since it most likely was their first Healer.

I think both you and @ty-taurus have a solid point in bringing back an updated version of HW or STB Cards thou I've only maybe 2 weeks on STB cards before they switched to SHB/EW Cards. I personally like Variety AND rng AND apm so I'm in all camps of unhappy, certified crazy and just living with what ever they decide to do. However, I can live better if instead it was interestingly complex.

I agree with their decision to "group" the cards, it'll make them easier to remember. If they DO return the rng, it'll keep the cards to a lower rng percentage rate brackets by being segmented into groups of 2-3 cards by role.

My understanding of your guys conversation is that card-chaining (one card affecting another or completely changing another cards purpose) would be an interesting addition to complexity in place of removing the rng aspect. Alchemy in card form, feel free in correcting me if I miss understood my interpretation of that part.

My take on this could get interesting if you could chain-activate them over longer periods of time. Think Extended Ninja Mudras. I'm not all that familiar with the ones your speaking of so I'm going to try an Example.

Activate a Defense Card as the first card, but I can change it to something else if I activate Heal Card on the same person before Defense ends, reapplying the duration. Technically a 2 part combo? If you activate Card 3 before THAT duration ended, you get a new different affect.

Yes, I think the closest technical equivalent in the game rn, it Ninja Mudras. In a set of three cards you could have 3 solo different cards affects, a combo of w 1 effect and a solo card, or 1 overarching affect if you combine all three. Maybe it's to much atm to think of "almost" every combo variable having a different effect, just like ninja, but it is a thought and a starting point to an interesting concept.

[Kamishawe]

I can't find back the Utility part of the conversation but....

Utility ideas could get interesting imo, if they decided to break some rules for the sake of a little identity finding.

They have broken their word before in not introducing "Action Mimics" from Bojza and Eureka into the main game; then they went and did it. aka Macrocosmos (which pretty much boils down to a reflect in disguise) and SCH Expedient (Breathtaker and Fleetfoot?). Sorry if Fleetfoot is wrong, I liked Eureka MORE than Bojza. They've also broken their work twice now in parsing down dots and buff because of "Effect-space-occupation-window-bloating" with Sage and Pictomancer. I don't know what they technically call those windows.

So imo, any suggestion is fair game as long as it not toooo over the top. I've posted these 2 examples elsewhere but I might as well share them here too. They both could be EXTREMELY useful or mildly useful.

Name Card: Y% Party Movement Speed + Lost Action Re-raise
Astro Unique: Does not stack with SCH Expedient : Time Stop from the Tower of Zot : re-raise trigger negates death but Freezes that party member for x#s. Party Wipe anyway is all are dead/frozen.

Now before anyone cries "To OP, that can be abused", I put this under Utility because it could be an excellent progging tool. I'd like to point out Lost Re-Raise is a 80% CHANCE. They've also put in none-cheese mechanics in most Boss fights since SHB, meaning no amount of abilities will save you or your party if you do it wrong, not even tank invuls. So you can not use this as a cheap thou those. Besides, no one actually wants to die, there are lots of penalties that should still stay in affect like damage down, Death Debuff Marker, and the Frozen gcd loss even when it's triggered. All bad things. Plus the really short window to activate it; I don't remember Expedient's sprint time is but it's SHORT.

Name Card: Party Debuff Cleanser
Astro Unique aka BRD The Warden's Paean but party-wide
Devs would have to be willing to bend a little on it applying to select enfeeblements that are otherwise not "Esuna-able". Given all the Bleed affects this expansion, I think this would have been a nice one even if you only got it and used it once in a boss fight with bleeds. It's can still be considered a utility style of mitigating Damage.

[LuciaMirain]

As someone who loved Stormblood AST and was gutted when they changed it I am honestly a bit excited about these changes. Granted, it isnt like Stormblood AST but my annoyance with EW AST was that it was just too busy. It was either "braindead" WHM or "speedy gonzales" EW I had as a choice. And sure, I will admit *I am just not fast enough or have the brainpower enough to handle AST in its current form, I am old and tired and I* do look forward to not having to through out several cards during bursts while keeping track of astrodyne and so on. I like what Kamishawe is suggesting, that the cards affect eachother, it would be a minigame in itself, like StB AST was.

[AnotherPerson]

Endwalker AST and Shadowbringers AST both suffered from a lack of depth in the card system. By level 50, the card system is done and set in stone. At best, you get minor Arcana and Sleeve Draw, but that's just adding more cards and APM, not adding much depth to the system itself. Levels 80 and 90 have the same issue. The cards are more like an afterthought rather than one of the core systems that supports AST gameplay. I think that is what separates Heavensward AST and Stormblood AST the most from Endwalker AST and Shadowbringers AST version. The Dawntrail AST version from the Job Action trailer returns some of the card effects, but it lacks the depth that Heavensward AST and Stormblood AST offers.

Shadowbringers and Endwalker iterations of AST might even have more depth to Dawntrail AST purely due to having RNG and Divination/seal system/Astrodyne in the card system, but those iterations also lack impact. Astrodyne and Dawntrail AST iteration suffers from the same issue - skills lacks effective impact at higher levels for taking up an action slot. For a level 50 skill, Astrodyne and various card effects can be incredibly impactful on upkeeping your MP and getting full value on your defensive and curative card buffs. As AST goes higher in level, the impact of those cards become marginal after getting more alternative healing skills. Likewise, the impact of Astrodyne's MP recovery becomes less valuable because AST no longer relies on GCD healing as heavily, or if at all. The job's design never get updated to reflect the changes into the toolkit. Heavensward AST and Stormblood AST on the other hand make their gauge the entirety of the gameplay focus.

Dawntrail also looks like it removed APM as well since you're no longer redrawing or need to press Draw -> Play -> Draw -> Play as much.

It's good we have different card effects, but it just lacks more substance. Just adding actions to hold a card you don't want used at that point in time (AST Spread), reroll cards, and turn certain cards into AoE will drastically improve the Dawntrail card system by making that the highlight of its gameplay by returning RNG and introducing some depth in the card system, and for some APM differences for players who enjoy a faster APM healer role.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

Add some card manipulation back and I'm happy with this new iteration over EW one.

[Mecia]

Ill forever miss The Arrow

[ty_taurus]

Unfortunately, I don't think many people would be happy with the suggestion of Role Order Shuffle? Don't get me wrong! I think it's a good idea, I get where you’re coming from. Reshuffling the order would at leave give you SOMETHING to do by rethinking the fight applications with every "re-shuffle". Unfortunately, it's not your suggestion that's the problem, i think. A slower pace gives you WAY to much time to play out where to place 3 cards + Crown. I believe they said the CD was 60s a Draw for 4 cards? Correct me if I'm wrong, 4 cards a minute is the slowest it's EVER been, right? Even compared to HW? You'd have to rethink the Draw Timer to 30s or 40s if you really want to make the Current Card Suggestion viable to anything as subtle as Order Reshuffle. Not that their current freedom of choice is any better, imo. I think the name of DT Astro is "How do I find ways to kill time this Instance?"

If drawing your offensive cards and drawing your utility cards are two separate cooldowns of 60 seconds like I was saying, then that would be up to 8 cards a minute—10 weaves when counting draws. The current system would be 3 cards per minute—6 including draws. Those aren’t literal values because of charging and waiting to play cards, but that could also be a similar case for the new draws too. And we could include Astrodyne in the EW count, but still it seems like the new system would have more cards, unless I’m forgetting something?

The big questions is will you actually need all the utility cards each minute, I think. Which that is hard to gauge right now.

[Kamishawe]

If drawing your offensive cards and drawing your utility cards are two separate cooldowns of 60 seconds like I was saying, then that would be up to 8 cards a minute—10 weaves when counting draws. The current system would be 3 cards per minute—6 including draws. Those aren’t literal values because of charging and waiting to play cards, but that could also be a similar case for the new draws too. And we could include Astrodyne in the EW count, but still it seems like the new system would have more cards, unless I’m forgetting something?

The big questions is will you actually need all the utility cards each minute, I think. Which that is hard to gauge right now.

I think your some what right? Burst windows kind of skew my perception of counting cards over 120s w the SHB/EW card system but it is around 6 cards every 2 mins (w/o counting pre-draw-openers, redraws or counting Court cards, since court is technical it's own thing despite being a card). The DT system is proposing the same amount (6) in 120s, 1 static set of 3 cards @ 0s (surrounded by blue outlines) and a Different Static set of 3 Cards @ 60s (surrounded by purple outlines). I think I saw the court card on the same draw animation, but I could be miss remembering the demo wrong about the courts. was to busy listening.

I guess from this perspective it's not changing anything, except not being able to Double Burst Astrodyne if that was your style instead of popping it at the 60 and 120s. I think they said they were trashing Astrodyne and Redraw, or at least the current iterations for something else in DT.

It just seems slower because they changed the perception of what your waiting for and when you can play them. If you follow meta practices of apm, your technically unaffected in DT, given boss design have at least 2 of 3 DT card application at every 0, 30, 60, 90, and 120. If you follow sustainability practices, aka just throwing cards as you get them, DT supports that to. Is it a good thing? IDK. How much do you want to play for your own sake verses everyone telling you to follow a specific style? I think it forces the ILLUSION there is a no choice in what camp you have to play in. That's not on the cards system being presented, that's people. It follows the same vein as SHB Diurnal Sect (regen) vs Nocturnal Sect (shields).

A DT 3 card burst really depends on how they choose to utilize Utility. If it's a tank useful card, then it's technically burst playable since there's almost always a buster somewhere close to the 0, 60, 120. Given Astros Vomit of Single Target helpfulness, I can't see Tank Utility being a good thing, unless they're essentially shuffling ogcd skill into the cards, which makes sense from a technical and button bloat stand point. If Utility is just another "pity" card slot, say movement speed, when you won't need it, it still doesn't change it's "playablity". Kind of like even with Redraw you can end up w the wrong sign and a 3% dps card, it's a token card that's still technically playable even thou you might not like it.

The reward system is one demonstration they left out. There obviously is one and I think is the real determining factor behind if people ultimately have to turtle vs rabbit to every 60/120s or if its strictly a personal choice.

Still, I can see why most people aren't happy with it. For all that it "organizes" the current system so you don't have to read and figure out the nuances of SB/EW basic card system, and inserts limited variety; it's not all that interesting in their initial presentation.

Who knows, maybe their presentations and explanation skills just sucked this time around. It's kind of hard to be to the point and concise, when 1. your obviously hiding the bulk of the kit, which fair, this is a "preview" and 2. They probably don't play the class enough to have parse out the fluff that comes with lack of intimacy with a topic. Which kind of go back to having actual class mains on staff to research viable options for their class and offer suggestion and explanations.

I think there's probably quite a bit of "lost-in-translation" at this point.

[Nyxs]

I just dont want rng anymore. I am happy its changed. Sure there is some people who love it but alot do not.

[PyurBlue]

As of right now DT might be my favorite iteration of AST. The randomness of the cards was never appealing to me. While it did make cards slightly more dynamic it made utility cards very hard to use and it just wasn't fun when you were constantly given useless cards. Bole doesn't mean much if everyone is at full health. With three different cards generated at once with different functionality, more cards can be relevant and there is a possibility that more party members are given cards regularly. I'm looking forward to playing AST again, which hasn't been the case for a long time. While the new card system might not be perfect yet I feel like its foundation provides strong base to build further refinements upon.