Astrologian Card System Feedback

[Gemina]

Sadly XIV's combat system won't really allow for many 'creative' utility effects beyond damage.

I think desired is the more accurate term. Nearly every job in the game carries their own desired utility making previous card effects entirely redundant. The only thing left to give them is dmg boosts. On top of this, if they were to keep the cards random, then anything that could be considered desirable falls victim to RNG so it is almost never on demand unless they add more buttons that allows the AST to mitigate the RNG and/or to hold onto cards. This is why I think that the card mechanic should really just benefit the AST with maybe one or two exceptions such a dmg boost from the balance, and dmg mitigation from the bole, which can be given to other players. These two effects will always benefit the entire party whether directly or indirectly at any given time. The only variable is the amount of effectiveness.

In all honesty, though. I think the dev team boxed themselves in a corner with this mechanic. If they came out with another mmo, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell they would use it again.

[ty_taurus]

I think desired is the more accurate term. Nearly every job in the game carries their own desired utility making previous card effects entirely redundant.

I don’t know if I agree entirely. I think the issue of utility cards differs between the card. The MP refresh was in a good spot where the utility could be helpful when pulled sometimes, and otherwise had a great Royal Road, TP refresh was just a nonexistent issue, and the damage mitigation was the on in a particularly tight spot. Mitigation is useful only right before damage is coming, and being single target greatly limited it’s use while Bole also had the weakest Royal Road effect.

But on the topics of buffs as a whole, I would agree with Raikai that this game just doesn’t allow diverse forms of utility to exist. It’s not that Silence, for example, isn’t a desireable crowd control effect because the effect itself isn’t strong enough or that it’s too situational. It’s that the designers simply refuse to give bosses interruptible actions. The same is true for other crowd control effects as well, and there just aren’t ways you can really provide useful effects that aren’t just more healing or more damage.

Debuff immunity? There are barely any debuffs to prevent. Crowd control? Literally no form of crowd control applies to boss fights. Aggro generation/reduction? Aggro has been reduced to just tank stance and nothing else. Enemy grouping? There are either no enemies to group or they group themselves automatically. Reduced enemy healing? Enemies don’t heal.

This game does not have fertile land to explore unique forms of support. The designers have quite literally uprooted their own soil to prevent anything from even having the possibility of existing.