Bring Back Stormblood AST - A Call Out To Everyone

[Valence]

I agree with your feeling but I still think that no matter what you say, the reality is that the meta was royal road fodder for balance and spear cards when balance couldn't be fished. I do think support cards and damage cards need to be detached from each other, but otherwise the system is sound and I do miss it.

I however do not agree with the fact that nobody complained about being fed an arrow card. I played MCH and I can assure you that not only this was a DPS loss for that job (yeah the AST could have fed it to someone else, but sometimes it was AoE), which was indeed a peculiarity in the roster, but I still had to click this shit off my buffs in order not to upset the heat rotation.

[Payadopa]

It literally didn’t though and that’s why they had to change it lol. You had 6 cards, yeah, but in practice you had one (Balance) and two cards that existed to make it aoe (Spire/Ewer).

While your approach is valid, you are seeing the gameplay as a mathematical equation only.

A game can be approached from different angles. And while numerical superiority might be one for people, other reasons do exist.

For me it was using the cards I was dealt (heh) to adapt around a given situation. That's where the fun for me was. It wasn't [damage up] for the sake of it.

And as an aside, the game is fundamentally going in the wrong direction by appeasing only people who look at numbers.

[Teno]

Several JP threads are asking for it back to.

Ah nice, then we have a shot at it.

[Connor]

While your approach is valid, you are seeing the gameplay as a mathematical equation only.

A game can be approached from different angles. And while numerical superiority might be one for people, other reasons do exist.

For me it was using the cards I was dealt (heh) to adapt around a given situation. That's where the fun for me was. It wasn't [damage up] for the sake of it.

And as an aside, the game is fundamentally going in the wrong direction by appeasing only people who look at numbers.

I mean, I understand the point, but simplistic mathematical equation is essentially all ffxiv gameplay is now and the devs have made it abundantly clear they want to keep it this way. Hence the constant removal/reduction of things that may cause dps loss or variations, like standardising ‘support buffs’ into just ‘increases damage up’. Can’t lose dps using the wrong card if there’s only card after all. Look at what they done to Black Mage and Monk because of ‘non-standard rotations’. For the ffxiv developers there simply cannot be ‘more than one way to play’. There is the ‘right way’ and the ‘wrong way’, and they will be extremely vague about which is which (or the times they were literally just wrong like with release Ninja lol).

As I said I’m all for more varied support options for Astrologian (and all ‘support oriented’ jobs like Bard and Dancer). But unfortunately everything in the history of the games design supports the idea that there simply is no space in ffxiv for varied support abilities. Especially not things generally associated with ‘supporters’ like Haste, MP Regen, sub-stat increases over basic damage boosts, etc. Those (when they’re allowed to exist) are consigned to the ‘optional side-content with unique progression system’ like Bozja.

Again I’d love to have interesting support effects, actual control over them and their deployment, rng for AST so you’re constantly having to consider how best to leverage what you have access to.
I mean, my favourite iteration of Bard was still HW, I loved the control and thought you had to put into Bard songs because of the MP cost/Cast times/encounter context. I even liked being able to cast Warden’s Paean as an actual Esuna spell and not yet another boring ‘press here for support and never think about me again’, even if it was completely useless outside of PvP. Current Paean as a gcd-cast song would genuinely make me happy lol.

Sadly, with how both job and encounter design are, I simply to have to accept that these things just aren’t ever going to happen. I’ve already spent every expansion being extremely disappointed in how ffxiv handles ‘support’ in general and I just don’t see that changing anytime soon sadly. I feel like the main message the devs have sent this expansion is ‘if you don’t like you can always leave’

[Canadane]

Not just AST but almost every class was better in SB. The combat in general was at it's best back then.

[Lotus_Greaves]

Just commenting to agree. The class doesn't have to totally go back to the way it was, but I loved the RNG aspect of the class because it kept me thinking on the fly. LOVED what the old Stormblood cards did, but I also loved the addition of things like Astrodyne to make my DPS "rotation" a little more fun and fast. The rework is slow, boring, and I don't use half my cards anymore at all. Just a 111111111 2 bore. And I completely agree with the initial post - I am fine with different classes being more difficult to learn than others, it's why I picked up AST in the first place. If you're struggling with a class, watch some videos and practice!

[BahamutxD]

Somehow they managed to make the card system take even more buttons than before. Playing this job on keyboard already requires a decent level of finger skills - can't even think how stupid must be on gamepad.


We've moved from all +dmg cards to a system where you get fixed draws. I'd much rather have a sorter cooldown on draw and to only draw 1-2 random cards per round than this. It makes no sense to draw cards and know them before pulling them!!! it goes against the nature of any card game lol

[BUNNYisaac]

It didn't work out that way all the time, but when it did, you really felt like a mage grasping fate and making it work for you.

And that's exactly what AST is all about, which many have forgotten or seem to neglect. Thank you for pointing this out!

[Lotus_Greaves]

Somehow they managed to make the card system take even more buttons than before. Playing this job on keyboard already requires a decent level of finger skills - can't even think how stupid must be on gamepad.


We've moved from all +dmg cards to a system where you get fixed draws. I'd much rather have a sorter cooldown on draw and to only draw 1-2 random cards per round than this. It makes no sense to draw cards and know them before pulling them!!! it goes against the nature of any card game lol

omg The extra buttons really threw me off! I use a gaming mouse with TWELVE extra buttons on it, and it doesn't feel like enough now (,:

[SeerValtial]

The RNG of the cards along with the Nocturnal and Diurnal stances were what made AST stand out

This. ^

My main issue is the whole flavour of AST has been removed. The flavour of diving/tarot should mean the cards are random. Cards from any kind of deck are not fixed, so I'm not sure what strange fixed deck the devs are playing with. And looking to the stars, day or night, gave us our sects.

The original lore and flavour of AST is the reason I, and many others, have been maining AST since HW... but now it just feels like a shell of itself, not to mention that the excitement and thinking-on-your-toes gameplay is gone.

I disagree with the approach the developers are taking to make all jobs totally accessible, because they're all getting blander and generic. There should absolutely be different skill levels in different jobs, to suit players of all abilities, but I don't think all jobs should be watered down to be 'equal'.

I'm pushing through to 100 with AST but this xpac I'm struggling to enjoy it.