Tetris Bag Ast: A New Card System for Astrologian

[Owlstra]

Hi all! I've had this idea for a long time and it's been kind of stewing inside of me. So I finally made a video you can all! Watch here!.

If you don't want to watch the video, then let me explain through text!

Basically, I think Astrologian would do very well to have a card system similar to Tetris' 7-Bag System.

If this system isn't familiar with you then I'll explain it here. Classic Tetris as a game was completely random which pieces you would get. Sometimes when you want a line piece you would never get one, and other times you would get flooded with S or Z pieces and lose because you got too many. This is a problem because of how random the system is, so Modern Tetris invented what they call the 7-Bag system.

There's 7 unique pieces in Tetris, you can think of them all put into a bag. The player simply pulls pieces out of this bag, and when they finally draw all 7 they get a new bag.

I propose we use this same system for Astrologian, except instead of 7 cards, we have 6. This averages out to 1 card every twenty seconds.

The benefits of this is that we can never go dry and we don't have to fish for damage cards like in Heavensward or Stormblood. No matter what we'll have 1 by the end of our 2 minute cycle. It's also great because now players can plan ahead! When you're partway through the bag, you can infer what cards are remaining and use it to your advantage. The last thing, and the best thing, is that it's random!! Which I think a lot of Astrologians miss about the current iteration of Dawntrail Astrologian.

The 7-bag system is at the heart of my proposed changes, but it needs a little bit more work to become workable. First is that like Tetris, we should have a Swap mechanic. If you don't know, this lets us hold a card for later, and then at any other time swap it back in as our active card. This is so if we get a damage card early, we can simply swap it out and hold it for the burst phase at the end of the cycle.

Swapping a card out isn't enough to limit this RNG however. It would feel bad if we get a damage card early and had to hold it for the rest of the cycle. If this were to happen we'd be forced to play cards as they come, which isn't very fun even if we can infer the remainders. For this reason, I also propose a Shuffle button. This randomly shuffles every card in their own respective bags.

At this point, the system is nearly complete. We have four buttons:
1) A "Deal" button, which enables the cycle. It gives 2 charges of Shuffle, 1 charge of Swap, and 6 charges of Play.
2) A "Shuffle" button, which randomizes every card in its own respective bag
3) A "Swap" button, which allows us to hold a single card to play it later. Maximum of 1 charge.
4) A "Play" button, which activates the current card. Using Play grants another charge of Swap.

(cont. below)

[Owlstra]

There is no cooldown to any of these buttons except Deal which is 2 minutes or so.


It should be mentioned that Deal should always give a new damage card at the start when first used in combat. This way we can use it for our opener but also so we're not short a card if we're holding all the way to the 2 minute burst phase

And finally, to enable us to plan ahead better, a queue system which shows the next two cards.

Anyway, this is basically the whole thing. I would mention though that it's a near-requirement that the new card effects must have interesting uses or mechanics. If every card does the same vague "heals or shields someone" then there's no point in planning anything since every card can fulfill the use of every other card. This is not ultimately necessary, as the card system by itself works now, but I think it would be better if we got cards that gave more interesting effects, like a miniature Expedient or a miniature Lilybell (when we take damage, we heal a little).

I hope you all read this far, and that you like this idea. Or at the very least think about or talk about it, since I genuinely think it's a good system. I see Heavensward/Stormblood Astrologian akin to Classic Tetris. Shadowbringers and Endwalker are okay but the card effects are too plain. I like how Dawntrail is more unique, but I miss the RNG.

With this system this would be akin to Modern Tetris. Or I guess I should say, Modern Astrologian. I think it would solve a lot of the issues: it would give us unique cards but also let us have the RNG. It would make things random yet we can still plan. I think it's the best of both worlds.

It's not that I actually hate Dawntrail Astrologian, or want it gone or anything. I just think it's inevitable a job will be changed the longer time goes on, I simply wish that when Astrologian gets changed again that this 7-bag system will be something they consider and maybe implement in some shape or form. And that's why I hope people talk about this and why I hope making this post will help. Thank you <3



tl;dr Modern Astrologian could take inspirations from Tetris, using a 6-card system with Swap and Shuffle. It allows us to have unique card effects but also keep our RNG. Best of all, we can still ironically plan ahead, unlike previous Astrologian iterations. Please watch the video though!! I think it'll help!