this all really points out to rebalance the effectiveness of passive artifacts, but keep them for more passive players (those that log 1 or 2 times a day) + redo active artifacts so that more active players can cicle them faster and get a more hands on micro management approach. so i'd say 3 passive slots + 1 fast cycle active slot would work.

actives would have to be severely nerfed tho, so their timer would be much, much lower but usuable very often. the time should be in the slot itself tbh

That’s kind of my problem with it as a whole: be it active-only artifacts or the atrocious battle mode design, this game repeatedly punishes you for playing it. It’s a single player idle game. Roadblocking progress to deter people from playing is not the equivalent of “fun.” It is a way to make a lousy game.

Ask yourself: what is an idle game? It isnt a single player campaign. It is an empty engagement to pass time. It is empty achievements that matter to no one else. It is playing with numbers to min/max.

Some levels already take close to a month. That is already bad. Making multilevel upgrades kept me from quitting, but youre sinking your own ship if you drag it out further.

Bring more levels, fix the asinine pvp arena, dont cripple your players who want to play.

I think there is more of a problem of how good Certain artifacts are then Passives vs. Actives. Pretty much everyone who has them will be running both Bonus (i'm actually not too sure about this one since Bonus money got nerfed in the new update) and Army Camp Boosts, with the third one switch up based on the current update meta or if you about to go to sleep.

If you are hard set on making it so people don't switch Artifacts a lot I suggest getting rid of the ones that cause us to switch and replace them with the active counter part.

IMO though you should buff actives more, and don't be afraid to try stuff something and then completely change it the next patch.

Of course, for balancing purposes, they probably should all be about 10 times less powerful than they are now.

As I've already elaborated in this thread:
https://www.warzone.com/Forum/526466-artifact-slots-increase-catagorize
As soon as you start stacking passive artifacts - meaning applying the same effect multiple times - you have to reduce the single effect. But by doing so, the early game gets really frustrating, because having a single common artifact would give you roughly zero benefit (given that everything in WZI is rounded). I'd rather be limited to one artifact per type than be able to utilize several of the same type for this exact reason. Currently, I would "only" need one legendary per type; with stacking, I would need 10 (or more) legendary per type for the same effect.

Doesn't solve the core problem -- swapping the passive ones.

Why do you think this is the core problem? If you would ask the players whether they think: a) "active artifacts are useless" or b) "passive ones are overpowered" they would probably pick the first option. Because of similar reasons as for the stacking artifacts. Every user starts with common artifacts. They are a 16th of the power of a legendary. So, even if each legendary gives you a good amount of benefit, no new player will immediately have access to this, they start with only a tiny bit of advantage. If you lower this advantage even more (by applying any of your four options), so that only legendary artifacts will have a meaningful benefit for the user, I'd advise everyone who asks to never dig for artifacts anymore because the weren't worth the time and money.
And if my common artifact only gives me 5% more of something, who are you to blame me for swapping if you ask for what, 50$, in order to purchase a RANDOM legendary artifact (not even the one I was looking for).

In this thread, you're getting user feedback. You're right that your users cannot tell you how to design the game. But users are at the same time unimpeachable witnesses of their own experience.

And let me add: Players pay your bills! I had a situation were a new idle player asked in world chat how long it would take to gain access to battles. Based on my own progress I answered that this is possible in one to two months, though, it's closer to two and only assuming that you are fairly active. He/She answered (more or less) that this is not appealing to him/her and if I interpreted the answer correctly, you as the developer lost a potential customer this day, because hearing all about idle battles in chat but not being able to participate for several months wasn't enough incentive for him/her to stick to the game.
So, the more you nerf passive artifacts, the more the game gets frustrating for those that visit WarZone mainly because of WZI. And whether you will like it or not, I will not lie to new players about the time and effort they will have to invest, just for you to gain new customers. It's your responsibility as the developer to attract customers and keep them happy. Otherwise, you will lose them. And nerfing the passive artifacts could very well be the first step towards this loss of players.
So, let me end on a paraphrase of your own:
Put your mind into the frame of a player (and customer), not (only) a game designer.

Edited 2/10/2021 01:09:10

The original post speaks of fun, however, the options given seem to be all about either reducing the options given to a player, or making them less good for a player, which in my opinion feels like the opposite of fun. I don't think that switching artifacts in and out is a problem - this is a choice that is made by a player and his play style. Also, at some point there's just nothing to do in the game after you come back to it when the idle time is up. Making some artifacts worse would make this problem worse.

In my opinion the problem isn't about the passive artifacts being too strong - most of them still are simply nice to have - the problem is the active artifacts being too weak. I think maybe reduction of the cooldown time (say, from 16 to 6 hours) would already make them a lot more viable in comparison to passives.

i think the problem with the active artifacts is that they abilities are only applied once instead of the whole 16 hours. It's why the Field Hospital is the only Active one worth looking at.

Which at that point the only difference is that Actives can't be swapped out.

Edited 2/10/2021 01:54:12

Ok, bringing in my two cents again.

For starters, stop attacking Fizzer. He has a vision for his game and wants feedback, not people telling him that he is wrong in what he wants to do.

The problem is that he intended artifacts to be limited to 3. By swapping passives around, people are bypassing this 3 artifact limitation. It is also frustrating for players who don’t want to have to do such an active artifact shuffle in order to have an advantage.

This problem results in players who try to have a copy of every artifact. This is a bad strategy even now, as artifact potency doubles with each upgrade. You are better off sacrificing to boost your best artifacts.

People holding a range of artifacts are subverting his vision of people working to upgrade their artifacts.

Artifacts need to be able to be switched, but he doesn’t want it to be too easy. An example of why they should be able to be switched (that is not a quick swap to get a discount, then swap out) would be something like Hospital Boost. Early game, it is quite weak, but late game it is quite strong. So halfway through, I’d want to swap it in.

He doesn’t want to make artifacts too powerful. If he does, he would have to make the levels harder. Being able to use too many artifacts, like you can now, causes a problem. Does he make levels harder to balance for the swappers even though it’d punish those who don’t?

But I digress, if we don’t help him with feedback, he won’t bother looking for it in the future.

For the original question at hand, I would say this. Don’t turn the passives into actives as in option 1. That’d be miserable.

I see two reasonable options to reduce swapping:
A- Set it so a Passive is locked into position for X hours. (I would say 16. Puts it in the same realm as Actives.) This allows you to benefit immediately from a new artifact, but prevents you from toggling them. Yes, this can be unfortunate if you put in a wrong artifact without knowing about the restriction, but no worse than using an Active without knowing it is stuck.
B- Disable Passives when they switch out for X (16) hrs. This still allows some toggling, but you get punished for it by preventing use of what you swapped out.

The option of preventing Passive artifact use when it swaps in would punish players who just got a new artifact that they want to use.

I think option A would be the most elegant. Would have similar restrictions as Actives, and would effectively kill off toggling artifacts, but allow people to swap in new artifacts when they get them. Perhaps set the timer to 8 hrs, the time of the shortest Dig Sites.

Players suggesting a time of 15-30 mins are silly for a game that spans days-weeks.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I think they line up with Option 2 that you suggested.

I mentioned my thoughts on Active Artifacts in my other post, but I understand that is a separate problem.

Allow 3 artifacts a game, and allow an option to switch artifacts in the Warlight Idle menu, so there is no switching mid game. Also put in a map that offers no rewards and have it so you can complete it and test all the various artifacts.

I thought of not switching mid game, but what happens if you dig up something good?

Should a person really have to wait until the end?

And id love to know what is actually gained from this. the game goes 20% slower?

This has nothing to do with adjusting the speed of the game. The game speed is adjusted by altering army counts on territories, and cost of upgrading army camps etc. This is only about eliminating the tedium of having to switch artifacts constantly to min/max.

Set it so a Passive is locked into position for X hours. (I would say 16. Puts it in the same realm as Actives.)

This is basically the same as option 1, except that you don't realize it's happening by swapping it in.

Disable Passives when they switch out for X (16) hrs. This still allows some toggling, but you get punished for it by preventing use of what you swapped out.

This is better. But one downside it is rewards you for hoarding a huge number of artifacts. Imagine having 20 copies of an identical artifact and trying to find the one that you haven't used in the last 16 hours.

Allow 3 artifacts a game, and allow an option to switch artifacts in the Warlight Idle menu, so there is no switching mid game.

but what happens if you dig up something good?

You could get an hour of free switching whenever you get a new artifact. That would enable you to try new ones whenever you get them. But my initial reaction is that this is too inflexible, as some levels can take a month and I want to encourage experimentation.

I'm thinking something like this: You get two free passive artifact swaps per day. On your third, the artifact takes 3 minutes before its effect kicks in. on the 4th, it takes 8 minutes to kick in. then the time gets progressively longer for the rest of the day.

I'm thinking something like this: You get two free passive artifact swaps per day. On your third, the artifact takes 3 minutes before its effect kicks in. on the 4th, it takes 8 minutes to kick in. then the time gets progressively longer for the rest of the day.

If you were to do this, I think it should be in reverse. Instead of the one swapped in not being usable for X amount of time, the one swapped out can't be swapped back in for X amount of time. This keeps the fun of players trying different setups, but if they think that a previous setup was better, they would still take a time penalty if they too many swaps, and be stuck with a worse, in their eyes, setup for until they can swap their previous setup back in.

Lol

Okay Z I'm going to respond to some of the points you made.

The problem is that he intended artifacts to be limited to 3. By swapping passives around, people are bypassing this 3 artifact limitation. It is also frustrating for players who don’t want to have to do such an active artifact shuffle in order to have an advantage.

It's a single player game, not sure why someone micromanaging would frustrate a person who doesn't micromanage.

This problem results in players who try to have a copy of every artifact. This is a bad strategy even now, as artifact potency doubles with each upgrade. You are better off sacrificing to boost your best artifacts.

Why is this a problem? What's wrong with someone using bad strategy, it's their game play in a single player game? I have Alloy & Item values, and Army Camp, Hospital, & Mine discount all @ uncommon; I guarantee I make/save more money using these 5 than I would sacrificing 4 of them to upgrade one. I think it would be bad strategy to do an upgrade here.

People holding a range of artifacts are subverting his vision of people working to upgrade their artifacts.

This would imply that there is a correct way to play and enjoy this game. Just because someone is playing differently than the creators envisioned doesn't mean its wrong or bad. If someone enjoys micromanaging or being a completionist, why are they wrong for their enjoyment?

Artifacts need to be able to be switched, but he doesn’t want it to be too easy. An example of why they should be able to be switched (that is not a quick swap to get a discount, then swap out) would be something like Hospital Boost. Early game, it is quite weak, but late game it is quite strong. So halfway through, I’d want to swap it in.

Seems like this is aimed against micromanagers. I would bet that micromanagers spend more time playing the game vs those who don't, so why would a creator of a game want to limit the amount of time someone plays, seems counterintuitive.

He doesn’t want to make artifacts too powerful. If he does, he would have to make the levels harder. Being able to use too many artifacts, like you can now, causes a problem. Does he make levels harder to balance for the swappers even though it’d punish those who don’t?

You said above that keeping a bunch of artifacts instead of upgrading is bad strategy, but here you say it makes the game too easy which would be good strategy right? As the game is right now it's going to take at least a half year to beat for micromanagers, why does it need to take longer than that? Why does everyone that plays this have to go at the same rate? Implementing any of those 4 options would punish swappers, why do swappers need to be punished? If the artifacts and levels stay as is, no one gets punished. Again at it's core this is a single player game and I don't see any reason why swappers and non swappers can't both play the game how they want.

Micromanaging take time and effort. It's fine if there are players that don't want to/can't put in that time and effort in, but why stop those that can and enjoy doing it?

But it's become clear that the current implementation rewards excessive switching and therefore rewards a strategy that isn't very fun to execute.

I've fallen prey to this ... micromanage switching up artifacts to get the max benefit, and you're right, it isn't fun some of the time. But sometimes it is. Who decides what's fun for everyone? In the end, if I feel it's tedious and not fun, I stop doing it. Like swapping in the Draft Boot artifact every 6 minutes but a minor bonus ... it's just not worth it, so I've stopped doing it except when I feel that it matters.

Tbh, I think you're overcompensating for something that is only a problem if people let it be. And if they're letting it be a problem, let them let it be a problem. Everyone is their own keeper. Playing too many WZC games is also tedious and ruins the fun of the game, but there's no need to put a limit on that either - let people figure out what works for themselves.

The other issue you mentioned is that Passive Artifacts are overpowered - actually not really. Most of them give 0.5%-2% benefits until you upgrade them to Uncommon, and then most are still only 6-10%. This is hardly overpowered. I'd actually say most of them are severely underpowered. Often times it's really not worth equipping it at all because the benefit is so small, especially the ones that are situational like selling items, drafts, etc - the benefits are both small AND isolated incidents. At least the Army Camps, Bonus Money, etc, are constant, albeit still small - but even these lose their worth as the level progresses b/c of the way the math works (my 40% Money Boost actually works out to a 15% Money Boost at the end of a level b/c of the "additive" not multiplicative factor - yes, I get how it works, but it's misleading to the point where if we saw this is daily life, there would be complaints [imagine seeing "40% more" on a product, then realizing it's 40% more of some initial phase measurement that in the end state is only 15% more).

So if restrictions on swapping are actually used, I'd recommend increasing the effect of passive artifacts tbh, especially the ones which related to isolated situations. Item Value is really only going to give you any value a few times a day at most, so if we're going to be stuck with during durations which aren't the isolated situations where it gives benefit, then that time it gives the benefit needs to be good enough to justify equipping it. Not dissimilar to Active artifacts, really. Another way of looking at the "Passive artifacts are overpowered" (which as I stated above, I disagree with) is actually considering that Active artifacts are underpowered - the downtime penalty is just too big for the short duration benefit they provide. 4% caches, 0.75% inspire mercs, etc ... not even close to being worth 16hrs.

BUT ... to answer the question:

• 1 is a terrible option.
  
• 2 and 3 are somewhat better but still bad. Don't prevent people from switching. There is already enough waiting in the game, it doesn't need more.
  
• 4 is the best of these options. It's a much better option than limiting swaps, that simply makes swapping less beneficial, and thus also addresses your concern. If this is implemented, I would recommend to scale it with increasing delays. So a few minor swaps, don't penalize at all. Then add a 10% penalty for 1 hr, but don't restrict swapping. Next swap is 20% for 2 hrs, etc.

However ... some other options:

• 5. Add timer to when a passive artifact can be reswapped in. So don't limit when it can be swapped out - players should always be able to remove something they no longer have a need for, but if it was recently in a slot, then prevent it from being re-added in for some period of time. It still gives players the option to use different artifacts which may be relevant to the changing scenarios on a level, while still preventing the tedious micromanage swaps. It also maintains a bigger distinction between Passive and Active artifacts, whereas preventing swapping out kind of blends the two together too much.
  
• 6. Make all artifacts both Passive and Active. Many (but not all) Active artifacts have a Passive counterpart already, so those functionalities could be blended, and the ones that don't would need something added (either add Passive benefits to Active Artifacts or Active benefits to Passive artifacts). Using the Active nature of it gives a massive benefit + a timeout that halts both Active & Passive natures for the countdown duration. Then apply limits to the Passive features. This solves the problem with not wanting to waste slots using Active artifacts. Restrictions on swapping would apply to both Active & Passive - but would still recommend option 4 or 5 and not 1, 2 or 3 to go along with this recommendation.
  

Also, others recommended this already - assuming you don't do #6 above, add additional slots for Active Artifacts only. This can be done in conjunction with anything else you're considering doing for the problem at hand BUT encourages the use of Actives. There are of course other ways to do this, such as reduce the timer for them. 16h is still too long - and honestly, why is it the same duration for all artifacts? Shouldn't the countdown timer get lower as the artifacts upgrade? If it goes from Uncommon to Rare, shouldn't a benefit be that the timer is less? Start Poor @ 24h, then put Common @ 16h, Uncommon @ 10h, Rare @ 8h, Epic @ 6h, Legendary @ 4h (only including Legendary here for kicks - does anyone actually have one?).

Also add some WZI benefits for members pls. Maybe an extra Artifact slot? Default higher base idle time? 2-3 things of this nature would be nice, and also encourage WZI players to consider membership.

Btw, whoever said "stop attacking Fizzer" - I'll second that. Give opinions, give feedback, but don't attack (at least don't attack the person, go ahead and attack the idea in a productive manner though, that's the whole point of his asking us for ideas after all); most game designers don't even ask their users, so don't ruin the opportunity when one has come forth and asked. We're not guaranteed that our suggestions will be used, and he owes us nothing. But at least he's asking and presumably listening.

+1 to both Krinid and asdfgh

Though, I kinda already said your option 5, Krinid

@Splat

You're right, you did, I see it now ... which makes it an even better recommendation. 2 geniuses have now weighed in on this.

(Now someone's going to say ... who's the 2nd genius ... Splat and who else?)

And also agree with asdfgh ... it's a single player game, just let people do their thing. To JK's point, this Idle game already kind of isn't Idle with all the smelting/crafting/selling/Techs that goes on, so for those who really want to dig into micro the artifacts, let them. It doesn't hurt anyone else.

Edited 2/10/2021 07:17:08

My idea would be to have a "start-up" time for the artifacts. Something like 1/2h after you placed it before it activates for poor artifacts, 1h for common, ...
You can aways change them then, but the activation time simply discourages from continuous switching.
Also, when a battle starts, they should nevertheless be active.

Would also go together with an advancement, that reduces activation times by n percent. (Yeah, more AP to spend ... :p )

A bit offtopic here about player's choice of how to play.
People tell absolute truth about the aspect of the game at whole. This is an idle game (yes, with management and lots of clicks/decisions to make, but nevertheless this is idle: you wait for resources to gather and manage how/what to gather next, you don't gather them manually) and it is not a competitive MMO idle game (there are such games on the internet, google for it :D), while still having battles for those players who want to compete. Disabling/altering the nature of swappin will do nothing good or bad to those PvP game aspects, but it will take a huge toll on fun for those noncompetitive players, who just playing idle as it is, prioritizing their AP management for upgrades to gain more benifit from idling, not for going on competitive stage and do battles for points to earn rewards.
In my case, I dropped completing WZC absolutely and visiting WZI regularly, playing it in my own pace. When I feel/want/need, I do those insane swaps for 2-16% benefit, though usually I leave the game idling for days (visiting every 5 hours to reset idle timer). This is an idle game, I don't have to hurry on any map to beat some kind of record or to speed up things or have maximum efficiency in it.
Like, look, why would I care on someone having legendary artifacts swapping left and right every second to gain benefit, when this doesn't affect my own playing world at all. This doesn't matter to me. I love to talk and discuss some staff, but this doesn't mean I get angry/losing fun for someone playing more efficiently and having better results than myself.

I can't say for sure, but I think there are a lot of players who thinks the same way. The play for their own purpose and goals, restrictions tend to bring only hate and angriness, because while not receiving any updates with improvements for active playstyle they will receive punishment for being too active... like, really? I understand, at first it was the idea "wzi is something that you play, while waiting for your turn in wzc", but as it is now, wzi is a game where people spend their hours without even playing wzc. They just loved the concept, pace and such. Why ruin it with not obvious decisions (if you implement any of 4 that were suggested in first post), which will absolutely not be welcomed by players.. Dunno. Really not smart move, better give more options and versatility to play with, then decreases those options. Probably that's all I could formulate with my english :DDD

After sleeping for a night I feel like we fight about nerfing passives, more than about getting rid of a tedious swapping action.

The swapping comes from the fact that we have
1 Group of Artifacts which are always useful and really passive(army production/money boost)
1 Group of Artifacts that Are called passive, but in my mind give somewhat active effects( such as discounts for hospitals and such), which are only used when actively playing, and give no bonus when actually idling.

The tediousness of swapping could be lessened by acknowledging that fact and handling these different groups differently,as I have no idea of all artifacts that exist, I don’t know if I should add a 3rd group that that have active counterparts or what not.

I would honestly be fine if there would be some difference between those 2 groups,
be it extra slots for effects that only matter if one plays actively, or a new feature with multiple decks,so we can just switch in decks for discounts or similar things with 1(or 2) clicks instead of possibly 20.

It would also make the things easier for the option of getting rid of some passive artifacts, as discounts may only be usefull for 1 off actions, so u could change it to give u a discount for the next 5 minutes, as an active artifact.
If u want to change it to an active one, I would actually like the fact that I have to be strategic about it,possible prepare enough money to get all the discounted upgrades I want with one use of an active Item....but then we really should be talking about active artifact slots.

There really is a problem if u are just thinking about active and passive artifacts and don’t talk about discount artifacts and such.
U want to make a big change, because all u can think about doing is a big change if u only see active and passive artifacts, so I think the whole discussion is not complex enough, and maybe needs a new start with more specific groups of Artifacts.

Edited 2/10/2021 11:19:28

Two features:

Artifacts (passive only), 3 slots. Orders (all active artifacts migrate here), 1 slot.

Orders (active): at the start you can issue 1 order per hour. Upgradable with advacements up until 1 order every 2 minutes. This is a tradeoff: you increase the number of orders you can give but reduce the overall order efficiency a set%. So it only pays up to upgrade orders if you are an active player;

Artifacts (passive):
- all current passive artifacts are nerfed 50% (flat nerf on all)
- the 3 equipped artifacts have a 25% boost to efficiency (after the previous nerf, so it's still a 25% nerf even if equipped);
- highest rarity of each non-equiped (no repeatables) artifact still works at 50% of it's described efficiency;
- swaping artifacts voids the 3 slots 25% bonus. You recover it at the rate of 1% bonus per minute.

Hopefully this helps active players engagement via issuing orders fast while keeping stuff interesting to more casual players.
It also adds another strategy layer by making leveling artifacts more challenging, because non-equipped artifacts still contribute.
Numbers given are just exemples. Real values need testing. Cheers