Astrologian Card System Feedback

[flowerfairy]

I think the new card system is a good start to address APM issues which I think everyone knew was going to be the main target of the rework for console players, while also keeping cards single target oGCDs. It's also a good base for unique card effects.

However there was no reason to remove all RNG from the kit. When it comes to job complexity I'm a solid believer that, as long as the job can clear MSQ being used by anyone half-sleeping, then there is no reason to simplify it further. Any points of feeling overwhelmed by its mechanics are actually good and encourages you to get better at the job, and feeling like you've become a stronger player over time. I was by no means a good AST player when I started leveling it, and I'm not that good now either, but I can still see how much I've improved! I also think any discussion about balancing RNG is moot seeing they were perfectly okay with Minor Arcana throughout ShB and EW

Instead of rotating through the same 2 sets of 4 cards, every slot could've randomly chosen between 2 cards. From here you can design a wide variety of RNG mitigation and card manipulation actions. I have my own ideas and I see a lot of unique ideas here in the forums, so I know the developers have the ability to make something interesting.

[Merrigan]

I like the rng principle, and ideally I'd like to see it maintained. But the diversity of the cards goes way beyond that for me. So on the face of it, I like DT's new formula, and it seems at least more interesting than Endwalker's.

[Valence]

You know what's cards with no rng that come back up every 60s?

Standard OGCD cooldowns.

[Kamishawe]

You know what's cards with no rng that come back up every 60s?

Standard OGCD cooldowns.

pretty much, it how I suspect they're going to solve Astro's solution to button bloating; migrate a big portion of the current skills into the cards.

[LittleArrow]

You know what's cards with no rng that come back up every 60s?

Standard OGCD cooldowns.

This is my biggest complaint about the card system they're planning.

RANT: I 100% do not envy the devs in trying to find a compromise for those that have their pitchforks over a bunch of useless niche cards that no one ever used except in savage or because yeah definitely the tank needed that little extra buff in that one boss fight that no one remembers that players used in specific situations and other players that enjoy the mini game but don't want to spend 5mins before big pulls for balance / want that nice serotonin rush seeing 3 dps buffed before a pull with the current system.

I really enjoyed the card system as it was. It took the ingame meta of looking for dps and made into a fun little mini game between ranged / melee. It was a bit simple, but it was simple enough I had something fun to do while healing and pressing 1.

FEEDBACK: My biggest concern with this new feature is the 60sec cooldown. This 100% just makes these cards OGCDs. There's nothing special about them. They're just lame OGCDs. It's sad, but I honestly wouldn't even know how to build upon the system they have now without upsetting every other healer with how unbalanced AST is with buffing.

Sadly, that's all I got. Just concerns without solutions. I hope they look at this system again and reconsider the long cooldown and the no rng aspect they've added.

[Valence]

RANT: I 100% do not envy the devs in trying to find a compromise

There is no compromise to be had with players that don't understand that rng is inherently tied to the core identity of a job. I've suffered it with MCH enough already.

Rng generates choices, agency and delinearizes fights to add variety and spice every run. If you're not ready to accept that as a player, then the job is probably not for you. Trying to force the devs into changing it so that you can enjoy it by definition makes you a threat to my very enjoyment of the job that I main. Well, I main MCH, not AST, but you get the idea.

[SieyaM]

This is my biggest complaint about the card system they're planning.

RANT: I 100% do not envy the devs in trying to find a compromise for those that have their pitchforks over a bunch of useless niche cards that no one ever used except in savage or because yeah definitely the tank needed that little extra buff in that one boss fight that no one remembers that players used in specific situations and other players that enjoy the mini game but don't want to spend 5mins before big pulls for balance / want that nice serotonin rush seeing 3 dps buffed before a pull with the current system.

I really enjoyed the card system as it was. It took the ingame meta of looking for dps and made into a fun little mini game between ranged / melee. It was a bit simple, but it was simple enough I had something fun to do while healing and pressing 1.

FEEDBACK: My biggest concern with this new feature is the 60sec cooldown. This 100% just makes these cards OGCDs. There's nothing special about them. They're just lame OGCDs. It's sad, but I honestly wouldn't even know how to build upon the system they have now without upsetting every other healer with how unbalanced AST is with buffing.

Sadly, that's all I got. Just concerns without solutions. I hope they look at this system again and reconsider the long cooldown and the no rng aspect they've added.

I do have fond memories of using an extended Bole card on the tank in a dungeon run and just throwing a regen on them and then it was carefree gravity all day. The reason that was satisfying was that I had aligned the cards correctly to be able to use a spell like gravity without worry, now it's just using gravity all the time because that's all there is to do. During the HW and StB expansions AST had a lot of agency and variety with Royal Road and then with Lord/Lady that gave the cards a great deal of flexibility. People in high end content insisted on the Balance card not to clear content, but to pad parses and give them higher numbers on FF logs.

[Rithy255]

The issue with DT astro is removing RNG, Turns the cards into static cooldowns which ruins the whole point of card varity as they become the same predictable effects (similar to how healer cooldowns work in general). Stormblood astro's issues were very simple, having damage buff cooldowns tied to utility cooldowns being RNG was very frustrating similar with how astrodyne works.

My Ideal Astro would have two set card systems, one for utility, one for buffings certain things such as damage, bonus on if ranged/melee kept, crit rate ect. (obviously balanced out so the effects are pretty similar in value). Both would be random without imposing on one another.

A example of this would be to turn Minor arcana into your "utility cards" which would work similar to your DMG buff cards, but aren't tied to the buff cards, This would place astro into a spot where it both has RNG but also doesn't just lose out on contributed damage because you didn't get the card that buffs damage.

Not saying EW astro didn't have it's issues (it sure had a lot of them), but removing RNG fully wasn't a great idea, I honestly think astro is going to be worse off gameplay wise time will tell, I have to say I reacted pretty upset to these changes, because in general im so upset with how poor support (nondps) design is in general, AST going towards that more samey direction isn't fun. This is also just after removing a big aspect of astro too.. the sects it feels like they want to force astro into a completely different direction then people want it to be.

[SieyaM]

Ok, I can't seem to easily find whatever the LL said about AST changes so can someone just explain exactly what the cards are now?

[Rithy255]

Ok, I can't seem to easily find whatever the LL said about AST changes so can someone just explain exactly what the cards are now?

Removed: Astrodyne, RNG aspects of cards.

Now you press draw once per minute and get 4 cards, one being the lords/ladies (cycles with each minute), 1 damage buff card, 1 healing card and 1 mitigation card.