Random Cards Were The Only Reason AST Felt Good/Different

[Carighan]

I mean this is what early XIV was like

Yeah but keep in mind there's a reason that all MMORPGs, so they live long enough, slowly reduce class identity and expression and increase instanced content balance in turn. This seems a fairly natural progression, so carving out a space for extra identity in it is not trivial. That required healing is a necessity to create such space, but it is in itself a problem because all MMOs have shown that there aren't many ways to handle high end healing.

[Connor]

in FFXIV's design I just cannot see such a tectonic change in combat encounter design happen. Sorry.

I mean, people said that about caster Bard, and Red Mage Dualcast Raise, and Summoner’s rework, and Dark Knight’s various reworks, Bard’s Shadowbringers release when they tried to make it more like MCH, removal of Cleric Stance, removal of healer DPS abilities…I could probably go on lol. The devs are constantly making decisions that ‘change things up’ beyond what anyone expected, for better and worse. I really don’t think rng cards are that significant a change considering they existed before for several expansions. Again, all they really need to do is change the values to make the cards closer to equal value, either keep Royal Road in the bin so discarding not-Balance cards isn’t 100% priority, make it randomly give the enhanced card effect so AoE balance can’t be fished for.
Hell, they could just delete Balance from the deck and replace it with something actually balance-able? Move the damage buff to Lord/Lady and keep them guaranteed to appear after Draw, now they have free reign to put whatever effects they want on cards because the damage one is consistently applied and thus doesn’t devalue other cards

[BabyYoda]

there is 2 group of people is the reason that we have simplified healer kit:
1- bad players who get stressed and get anxiety if someone HP go below 90%
2- high end raiders who is actually bad at the game and want to simplify jobs so they can clear content.

people in the middle is most FFXIV players they are not high raiders and not as bad as group 1
they want engaging kit and fun gameplay
people in the middle play casual and high end content and enjoy them both for "fun" gameplay

[Ramiee]

Yeah but keep in mind there's a reason that all MMORPGs, so they live long enough, slowly reduce class identity and expression and increase instanced content balance in turn. This seems a fairly natural progression, so carving out a space for extra identity in it is not trivial. That required healing is a necessity to create such space, but it is in itself a problem because all MMOs have shown that there aren't many ways to handle high end healing.

The biggest problem is normally bloat. In XIV we have job bloat and it's getting worse and worse, we don't need any new jobs to be honest but we will still get them. This along with expansion bloat and midmaxing leads to identity getting removed.
Classic wow having classes good at specific niches? Great back then but then ranked PvP came out and suddenly everyone needed CC and defensives and good single target and aoe attacks.

I will say for supports though XIV dropped off way harder than any other MMO I've seen in just one expansion. Like before Shadowbringers Tanks and healers had identities and some problems but after every expansion has had balancing nightmares and all supports homogenised insanely fast. GW2 and WoW had these problems but they didn't happen as fast and they got fixed far quicker than XIV, we are going to have at the very least 6 years of terrible job design.

[Lorika]

I never liked EW RNG on the card.Astrodyne was crap and the RNG on symbol for getting the maxbonus even more.
But i admit i was skeptical about the AST rework at first.... Now i really like it and i have ton of fun with it.

I can now effectly plan on when to use my cards and on who, it's a blast to think about that instead of draw-redraw-discard-draw... etc...

[Carighan]

I never liked EW RNG on the card.Astrodyne was crap and the RNG on symbol for getting the maxbonus even more.
But i admit i was skeptical about the AST rework at first.... Now i really like it and i have ton of fun with it.

Thinking about this, I would put my thoughts on current Astro cards like this?

* I like the idea behind randomization affecting the cards.
* Every single implementation of it so far has been disappointing, lame, laughable or ridiculous.
* Hence, the current non-random system is by far the best version yet, even if on paper I dislike it. Unlike all the other attempts, this one actually works, so it wins by default.

[IDontPetLalas]

Thinking about this, I would put my thoughts on current Astro cards like this?

* I like the idea behind randomization affecting the cards.
* Every single implementation of it so far has been disappointing, lame, laughable or ridiculous.
* Hence, the current non-random system is by far the best version yet, even if on paper I dislike it. Unlike all the other attempts, this one actually works, so it wins by default.

I would prefer at least 2 of the prior versions of AST to this version. What would you see as being "lame, laughable or ridiculous" in the prior versions, considering that they were functional as well. I'm not ignoring that SE had to put in a hotfix on at least one occasion.

So I would definitely prefer Stormblood, or Shadowbringers. You're really saying that DT wins out over these because they fall into one or more of the "disappointing, lame, laughable or ridiculous categories?

[Lorika]

I would prefer at least 2 of the prior versions of AST to this version. What would you see as being "lame, laughable or ridiculous" in the prior versions, considering that they were functional as well. I'm not ignoring that SE had to put in a hotfix on at least one occasion.

So I would definitely prefer Stormblood, or Shadowbringers. You're really saying that DT wins out over these because they fall into one or more of the "disappointing, lame, laughable or ridiculous categories?

No RNG = win by default.
Now, i would prefer a mix of the new version with some old version.

Drawing only one card but with no RNG and giving the buff to the entire party.
I don't know how to explain it in english.... but i will try.

Just keep the actual cards with the two different set, but drawing only one of the card (putting all the others on CD) and when you play it, it buff all the party.
When the 3 cards of the current set are played, you can switch to the next set.

[Carighan]

So I would definitely prefer Stormblood, or Shadowbringers. You're really saying that DT wins out over these because they fall into one or more of the "disappointing, lame, laughable or ridiculous categories?

Stormblood was just fishing for damage cards. There was no interactivity with it, if you wanted to be optimal, you either successfully fished for damage cards, or you got a better-luck-next-time ticket.

Shadowbringers was the same but in much less impactful (since you always got 3 damage cards, the only randomized loss of potential was on yourself) and hence even more annoying since the effect even of a bad draw was downright trivial given how low healer DPS was even back in ShB (compared to now in DT I mean).

Basically why I mind both of these systems: Only DPS matters. I enjoy randomness in some regards, but not if it's between a "win" and a "lose" in a slow-cycling situation. If I automatically got a card every second GCD and each was a 50/50 between a damage card and a dud card, it wouldn't matter. If I got a damage card each time and a random utility card, then sure, that's fantastic in fact. It's also remarkably close in most functional regards to what we have now, which hints at why I think the current system works so well.

Assuming no change in drawing options, it would mean that the draw of Arrow/Bole would result in a 50% chance for you to get a DPS cards, which means undesirable outcome half the time.
If we were to chance the system to a 2 buttons, so one drawing Balance/Arrow/Spear and the other Bole/Ewer/Spire then we're kind of back to where we started but actually worse.
You get the same about of damaging cards and your utility also became RNG thus unreliable and useless.

Agreed. If those are random draws between damage and utility that's just a win-vs-dud setup again. Even if we had Redraw, that just means 75% win vs 25% dud. Same underlying problem though. And if it's the second option then like you say, it's like a strictly inferior version of what we have now.

[Silver-Strider]

Stormblood was just fishing for damage cards. There was no interactivity with it, if you wanted to be optimal, you either successfully fished for damage cards, or you got a better-luck-next-time ticket.

As opposed to the current system where I hit draw and just disregard 2 out of 3 cards because they're functionally no different to every other oGCD in the toolkit. While I've never liked AST in any of its past incarnations, to say there wasn't any interactivity is just a blatant lie.

Between Redraw, Minor Arcana and Royal Road giving me ways to adjust my cards, Sleeve Draw to give me a mixed bag, and Time Dilation and CO to extend the duration of my cards (and regens), I had far more interactivity than I currently do, which is 0 now. I draw 4 cards now and that's it. There's no way to enhance the cards in any way, extend their duration, expand their effects to the party, nothing. The new system is probably the worst out of every system thus far because it lacks any interactivity at all, even seals for all their flaws had a goal in mind for their usage. Now, I just toss the 1 DPS card I get a minute on the highest appropriate DPS and the other 2 cards may as well just not even exist since I have other skills that do exactly the same thing they do but better, with the sole exception being Arrow and that's almost entirely because it buffs Addlo for SCH more than anything else of relevance. That 1 interaction between jobs though, is still nothing compared to what AST (and Healers as a whole) have lost.