Please Return Randomness to Astrologian's Card System

[velswen]

While the cards all doing different things is exciting, please return some element of randomness to the new system. Maybe instead of giving you the same set of 4 cards, each Draw draws you one of the two alternatives for each category; so we could still have that moment-to-moment decision making on which class to give each buff. It was one of the things that made playing Astrologian so satisfying, and it feels basically entirely lost in the new system.

EDIT: Just wanted to emphasize that while the 7.05 changes to Astro were very good, it does nothing to bring back the job fantasy and moment-to-moment decision making that was integral to the job in every prior iteration. I was considering leveling Astrologian first after leveling it and loving it in Endwalker, but all the snappy decision making that I loved is just gone.

There are already 3 other healers with no random elements to their design, please bring back the ONE alternative for people who loved the split-second decisions it required. Astrologian was the only healer that had these elements, and it sucks to see them go.

The effects on the new cards are cool, but there needs to be some small amount of randomness to them!

EXAMPLE: Instead of always drawing the Balance and then the Spear, every time you draw you'd be offered either the Balance or the Spear; that way you're always getting a "damage" card, but you still have to think about it when you draw instead of just knowing ahead of time and doing the same thing every time. The same could be extended to all the other sets of cards.

[Rithy255]

While the cards all doing different things is exciting, please return some element of randomness to the new system. Maybe instead of giving you the same set of 4 cards, each Draw draws you one of the two alternatives for each category; so we could still have that moment-to-moment decision making on which class to give each damage buff. It was one of the things that made playing Astrologian so satisfying, and it feels basically entirely lost in the new system.

I just mainly want two damage buff cards per draw, to trade off the buffs for weak added healings effects is blah... Honestly Ladies can be our "healing card" Lords really *doesn't* need to be a damaging card. I just really liked the APM buffing aspect of astro and seeing it diminish more for really weak healing effects feels just very bland.

Having more single target healing effects makes no sense for Astro, despite that the card system seems intent on slapping on cards that will not be that useful... the mit is fine... the shield is a bit weak but whatever.

although I would love randomness to astro, I think it can be designed without massive dps spikes, the main issue with SB was that utility and damage cards were mixed not that astro was random, main problem with EW astro was that astrodyne was a really unfun design.

[Zolvolt]

Now that we have the full details on the cards, I don't see why there can't be some randomness in which dps card you get when you draw. or which curative/mitigative card you get. They really don't have to be separate decks.

But also, I don't really care. RNG for the sake of RNG isn't good class design

Having more single target healing effects makes no sense for Astro, despite that the card system seems intent on slapping on cards that will not be that useful... the mit is fine... the shield is a bit weak but whatever.

Astrologian is (and has always been) designed to be a "plethora of single target buffs/casts/skills" Seems like the changes make perfect sensse for how the job is designed, especially since we're losing dps buff cards.

[Iedarus]

Now that we have the full details on the cards, I don't see why there can't be some randomness in which dps card you get when you draw. or which curative/mitigative card you get. They really don't have to be separate decks.

But also, I don't really care. RNG for the sake of RNG isn't good class design

Astrologian is (and has always been) designed to be a "plethora of single target buffs/casts/skills" Seems like the changes make perfect sensse for how the job is designed, especially since we're losing dps buff cards.

It's crazy how Astro had ways of manipulating the RNG with abilities like Sleeve Draw, Redraw, and Royal Road and yet it still came to this. Literally the only thing that was wrong with the kit by Stb was Balance fishing but I'd honestly rather have that than a lobotomized Aetherflow wannabe. All they had to do was adjust that card to something like direct hit rate.

[Zolvolt]

It's crazy how Astro had ways of manipulating the RNG with abilities like Sleeve Draw, Redraw, and Royal Road and yet it still came to this. Literally the only thing that was wrong with the kit by Stb was Balance fishing but I'd honestly rather have that than a lobotomized Aetherflow wannabe. All they had to do was adjust that card to something like direct hit rate.

Nobody ever accused sleeve draw of just being an aetherflow button, people should give that false equivalence a rest already. I do miss my card manipulation abilities though. Theres two aspects of astrologian that made me want to play it, card manipulation and selectively buffing my party members. Rest in peace card manipulation. Hope to see you in 8.x

[Kissune]

Nobody ever accused sleeve draw of just being an aetherflow button, people should give that false equivalence a rest already. I do miss my card manipulation abilities though. Theres two aspects of astrologian that made me want to play it, card manipulation and selectively buffing my party members. Rest in peace card manipulation. Hope to see you in 8.x

No one is accusing sleeve draw of being aetherflow dude, we're accusing Astral/Umbral draw of just being aetherflow. And you're right, it is a false equivalence. Aetherflow is actually more interesting than the demonstration of creative bankruptcy we're getting in 7.0

[velswen]

No one is accusing sleeve draw of being aetherflow dude, we're accusing Astral/Umbral draw of just being aetherflow. And you're right, it is a false equivalence. Aetherflow is actually more interesting than the demonstration of creative bankruptcy we're getting in 7.0

I think calling it creative bankruptcy is a bit harsh, though I'm also not happy with it. I think the randomness is the main element that I think should be returned to Astrologian as at present it does seem rather bland. The core appeal of Astro's cards for me was the moment-to-moment decision making which is gone now.

[Post]

Was it ShB that had the Lord/Lady of Crowns being the enhanced Melee/Ranged cards to use to burn without generating a seal? That was always my favorite incarnation of Lord/Lady, probably because they tossed Royal Road with the addition of the seal system, and Royal Road was pretty much the best way you could turn a bad draw into a not so terrible draw.

AST sure as hell didn't need another 1-2 min oGCD aoe heal; it already had Collective Unconscious, Earthly Star, Horoscope and the remains of Celestial Opposition before EW; now we got Macrocosmos and will have even more free oGCD mit with Sun whatever off of Neutral Sect.

Giving you randomness and some ability to control the randomness is what made AST decision making fun. Complaints about the original system were that the best card to aim for was 'the balance' by a long shot, so they tried to just make everything balance and make the decision making who you played what on in ShB, a noble effort that seemingly has built a group of players that enjoyed that incarnation for the APM alone, but it never felt worth it to me by the time they got rid of seals affecting Divination (yes, Astrodyne meant less to me than even 1 or 2% damage), especially in a landscape where job performance largely hinged on getting crits during the 2 minute window.

Hell, even Divination always felt lame compared to Expanded Balance. Maybe that's intentional, but I think AST suffered the most of all healers when played outside of 8 mans, cuz it no longer had any part of its kit aimed at enhancing buffs for fewer players like Enhanced cards or Regens + Super-Bole + Time Dilation.

It's probably some version of them thinking they're protecting players from themselves, like how tanks don't get to position most bosses, nobody but tanks can manage aggro, all the sustain tools tanks (and many more dps) have. The developers felt like it was their fault whenever an AST held a Ewer for the entire alliance raid and then died without ever playing it, or overwrote the co-AST's Expanded Balance with an Expanded Spire, and decided to make that impossible. So, no RNG for players to have to do any thinking about.

[Zaytex]

It's absolutely crazy to me the fortune teller RNG job for 4 expansions got its RNG removed because a couple of people didn't like it, even though it's baked into its identity and lore. An equivalent would be removing dual cast from RDM, or NIN's mudra's, or literally anything else which every job has which makes them unique.

The answer from SE shouldn't have been ''okay let's remove it'' it should have been ''If you don't like RNG then why the fuck are you playing astrologian? You have 18 other jobs and 3 healers to pick instead''.

And on the topic of RNG - other jobs have aspects of RNG to their gameplay loop. RDM's procs for Verfire/stone are 50/50, DNC's feathers are RNG, should we delete those small aspects of uniqueness as well from those jobs?

I'm just so petty and bitter at this point. The amount of ''we hate homogenisation'' from the community yet everyone begged for AST's difficulty and uniqueness in its RNG and gameplay to be removed or toned down. Like damn, y'all complain to hate every job being streamlined to all feeling the same but ironically are also asking for it.

I suppose being an RDM main means I get to enjoy a little bit of RNG on a job, just not to the same degree as AST.

[velswen]

It's absolutely crazy to me the fortune teller RNG job for 4 expansions got its RNG removed because a couple of people didn't like it, even though it's baked into its identity and lore. An equivalent would be removing dual cast from RDM, or NIN's mudra's, or literally anything else which every job has which makes them unique.

The answer from SE shouldn't have been ''okay let's remove it'' it should have been ''If you don't like RNG then why the fuck are you playing astrologian? You have 18 other jobs and 3 healers to pick instead''.

And on the topic of RNG - other jobs have aspects of RNG to their gameplay loop. RDM's procs for Verfire/stone are 50/50, DNC's feathers are RNG, should we delete those small aspects of uniqueness as well from those jobs?

I'm just so petty and bitter at this point. The amount of ''we hate homogenisation'' from the community yet everyone begged for AST's difficulty and uniqueness in its RNG and gameplay to be removed or toned down. Like damn, y'all complain to hate every job being streamlined to all feeling the same but ironically are also asking for it.

I suppose being an RDM main means I get to enjoy a little bit of RNG on a job, just not to the same degree as AST.

I agree with you! I think the main issue is that the job design team (if it even exists) clearly doesn't have a coherent vision for the jobs. It feels like different people are working on every iteration of each job, and like the ideas for how a job should be changed or added to come from perceived issues voiced by often small subsets of the community, instead of a clear developer intent.