Solution to Astrologian problem

[Supersnow845]

Or maybe modern players just enjoy being actually useful to their groups. What a wild, crazy theory that'd be.

AST’s modern “usefulness” has next to nothing to do the its cards anyway, it’s because it has divination which isn’t even linked to the cards anymore

Delete spear and balance out if an average parse and it’s still doing about the same damage as WHM and its other 4 cards amount to pointless single target fluff heals AST is already drowning in

The greatest ratio of consistent contribution of the cards vs total AST contribution was in ShB

[Valence]

Or maybe modern players just enjoy being actually useful to their groups. What a wild, crazy theory that'd be.

Except at the start of its introduction where it was kinda broken (like MCH), AST has after that been the most potent and sought after healer in raiding with little exception. True, SB WhM was garbage, but even then, it was extremely popular and effective in HW as well. The idea that it makes the job useless to a group has been disproved by history ten times and twice more already, no matter the rng sugarcoat on the card system, which was designed as raid buffing first and foremost and mitigating last (only the Bole actually mitigated, half of the cards were doing support like rphys used to, the other half were the desired ones most of the time for actual damage buffs).

The system that doesn't work due to rng and for the reasons you mentioned, was most of the iterations of Minor Arcana, however. That's what doesn't work well for a lot of people, but even in SB where the job was beloved by most, it didn't prevent people to just use them as they came, and pray to get more Lords than Ladies.

[Aravell]

I'll never understand why people are so adamant about wanting all RNG removed from AST, that would just make it WHM with a card flavour.

I don't know about anyone else, but I really don't see the point of having 2 WHMs, we already have 2 SCHs and everyone hates it.

[Carighan]

I'll never understand why people are so adamant about wanting all RNG removed from AST, that would just make it WHM with a card flavour.

Well, we currently have no RNG, do you feel like you're just a White Mage with some card flavor?

I mean, beyond all the general issues, like all healers just spamming a single nuke and having 0 reason to heal outside of oGCD use, of course. That has to be solved at a game level, by dealing actual and constant damage to both the tank and the raid, all the time, so that no oGCD-array can cover that, before long they're all on CD and you got to GCD heal.

Importantly, if you are going to answer "Yes, with randomized cards I'd feel different from WHM, but not without that!", then consider this: Would they then make it a 50/50 coin flip to gain a charge for the Blood Lily on using either Lily heal (essentially adding randomness to the core mechanic of WHM!) would you again feel the same as White Mage, because they now got randomness, too? As in, would the pure downgrade from having to beg your job mechanic to actually work be enough to sort regen healers into two categories, "Works as advertised" vs "Sometimes works as advertised, sometimes you just draw a dud"?

[Supersnow845]

Well, we currently have no RNG, do you feel like you're just a White Mage with some card flavor?

I mean, beyond all the general issues, like all healers just spamming a single nuke and having 0 reason to heal outside of oGCD use, of course. That has to be solved at a game level, by dealing actual and constant damage to both the tank and the raid, all the time, so that no oGCD-array can cover that, before long they're all on CD and you got to GCD heal.

Importantly, if you are going to answer "Yes, with randomized cards I'd feel different from WHM, but not without that!", then consider this: Would they then make it a 50/50 coin flip to gain a charge for the Blood Lily on using either Lily heal (essentially adding randomness to the core mechanic of WHM!) would you again feel the same as White Mage, because they now got randomness, too? As in, would the pure downgrade from having to beg your job mechanic to actually work be enough to sort regen healers into two categories, "Works as advertised" vs "Sometimes works as advertised, sometimes you just draw a dud"?

Except AST didn’t “didnt work” when you drew the wrong card because its entire minigame was around mitigation and playing around the RNG you got, if you were relying on drawing something in particular for a particular mechanic then you were playing AST wrong, what set AST’s gameplay apart was the fact that you were playing something on the side alongside your healing. Current AST just gives you extra charges of useless single target heals you barely use anyway and calls them “cards” despite there being zero minigame around playing them

Modern AST doesn’t “always work as advertised” it just makes the cards to completely pointless and useless with zero feedback on “playing” them well that it just feels like you are playing a generic filler regen healer which is what WHM has felt like for years

[Sylvain]

Except AST didn’t “didnt work” when you drew the wrong card because its entire minigame was around mitigation and playing around the RNG you got, if you were relying on drawing something in particular for a particular mechanic then you were playing AST wrong,

I mean.. sure but on the other hand, can we really say that "every draw but this one is useless" makes for an intertaining gameplay?

I agree that relying on something random for a specific mechanic would mean playing AST wrong. But because if I can't rely on a random utility then when it occurs its just useless because I learned to deal without it.

Lady vs King is a good example of the Lady being systematically useless because you'd simply learn to deal with a mechanic without it. It was also too weak to replace a gcd heal if you were doing one most of the time.
So in any scenario the heal from the lady would be wasted.

So if planning around a random event is wrong, but because the event is random I don't use it, the system might as well simply not exist because it serves no purpose. Wether I would draw a lady had 0 impact on performances.

If playing AST was about dealing with whatever random option the cards would offer you, than old AST was imo a failure because it didn't achieve that. You didn't deal with whatever the card would offer you, you would just do your best to mitigate the RNG to reach your goal which was to get more dps cards. Which resulted in 6 copy carbon cards for two expansions.

And while it was fun to throw a bunch of cards every 2 mins and you'd never really knew who would get the cards (and boy was it an exciting moment every 2 minutes when some players would litterally be purring hoping to get a card because I'd draw 3melee in a row or 2 range or whatever)

From all the flaw the new card system may have, this isn't one. No matter how useless you believe the cards to be, you can plan around them and use them.
Sure they are no longer proper cards per say. They're not random, they're just cycling buff/heal on a 1min cd. But I don't see that as worse than a system with 6 random buff from which 5 will be ignored.

The card system has never achieved what you portrayed as correctly playing AST, "dealing with the RNG". In SB we never dealt with it, we just waited to get what we wanted. And then we just threw whatever was available in ShB/EW because they were all the same anyway and the gain from having 3 seals over 2 was just.. "there" I guess.

So again, not saying the new system is amazing or anything but I really don't see the old one as especially better. I don't see fishing for an AoE balance more intertaining than fishing for 3 seals over no rng. Unless you're very into fishes.

[Aravell]

Well, we currently have no RNG, do you feel like you're just a White Mage with some card flavor?

Yes, it feels very much like a WHM. In fact, it feels worse than a WHM because the lily system at least works towards something else while the DT card system is so shallow that it could be removed entirely and AST would still play the same

Importantly, if you are going to answer "Yes, with randomized cards I'd feel different from WHM, but not without that!", then consider this: Would they then make it a 50/50 coin flip to gain a charge for the Blood Lily on using either Lily heal (essentially adding randomness to the core mechanic of WHM!) would you again feel the same as White Mage, because they now got randomness, too? As in, would the pure downgrade from having to beg your job mechanic to actually work be enough to sort regen healers into two categories, "Works as advertised" vs "Sometimes works as advertised, sometimes you just draw a dud"?

Except reversing it doesn't work because WHM was never designed to work with RNG, you can clearly see how WHM players rightly complained when the SB lily system put RNG into WHM.

In contrast, AST was always designed to work with RNG, that's why all the cards are just additional bonuses. You never needed Bole to survive or Balance to beat a dps check.

Also, the fact that you have a card manipulation system means there's only a very small chance that you can claim that you drew a dud. Triple Spire Sleeve Draw in SB was a dud, but statistically how often does that even happen?

But however you want to spin it, the fact is that WHM was never designed for RNG while AST was always designed with RNG, if you wanted to play a healer with no RNG, WHM has always been there. Just like anyone who wants to play a barrier healer but hates pets has SGE as an option.

[Valence]

Importantly, if you are going to answer "Yes, with randomized cards I'd feel different from WHM, but not without that!", then consider this: Would they then make it a 50/50 coin flip to gain a charge for the Blood Lily on using either Lily heal (essentially adding randomness to the core mechanic of WHM!) would you again feel the same as White Mage, because they now got randomness, too? As in, would the pure downgrade from having to beg your job mechanic to actually work be enough to sort regen healers into two categories, "Works as advertised" vs "Sometimes works as advertised, sometimes you just draw a dud"?

This relies on a false premise because you're consciously removing the tools to work around the rng in your example, which HW/SB AST had.

[PercibelTheren]

Well, we currently have no RNG, do you feel like you're just a White Mage with some card flavor?

Short answer: yes.
Long answer: I feel like a White Mage who is better at doing White Mage things than actual White Mage. AST is straight up a better healer but that was already the case before the DT changes.

I liked AST because the cards were something unrelated to my healing kit that I got to keep on track of beyond mindlessly spamming Malefic while waiting for the scheduled raidwide attack. It's also a good direction to go if you want to keep the skill floor low and the ceiling high - the newbies can straight up ignore the damage buff cards and be fine while the more experienced people have something to optimise.

I think removing all randomness from the cards is stupid because them being fully predetermined is just not how fortune telling works. If anything, they should lean harder into letting us manipulate the RNG (you know, like AST used to), time magic and delayed heals. A well-timed Macrocosmos and Earthly Star make you feel like a great strategist. I want more of that.

[Carighan]

I liked AST because the cards were something unrelated to my healing kit that I got to keep on track of beyond mindlessly spamming Malefic while waiting for the scheduled raidwide attack. It's also a good direction to go if you want to keep the skill floor low and the ceiling high - the newbies can straight up ignore the damage buff cards and be fine while the more experienced people have something to optimise.

Ah, I get it.

Yeah, I can see that perspective.

I would personally say that while I enjoy randomness in MMORPG class design, FFXIV first needs to solve a handful of underlying deeper issues with the combat and job design system that affect all jobs and how they interact in a fight (120s buff alignment, strict job design around static rotations - dancer excepted curiously, oGCD flooding of all jobs and GCD simplification in turn, GCD healing not being needed, tanking not being an active system, etc).

But assuming these are all solved or at least partially improved, I could see space for a random-based system on a healer that's supplementary. Supplementary on a gameplay level I mean.

I think one big issue holding this all back is that the overall issues I mention above kind of force the job design to all be equal: All based around a 120s burst (which has to be reliable), and all based on a reliable, static, gameplay loop. We have no proc-based combat jobs, we have no pet jobs (and even when we had them, they weren't stuff like a DAoC Necromancer or an old TBC WoW Demo Warlock), we have no true priority-system jobs, we have nothing like that really. We need the rigid combat design massively softened up to make space for "cool stuff", tbh.