correction: swaping the 3 'passive' artifacts reduces efficiency for x time

An idle game where you cannot really idle.

A bit off-topic here, but I have observed for my level of artifacts and advancements that regularly drafting armies can get me the same number of armies again that I earned over time from my camps. So, if you nerf passive artifacts in order to get passive and active players closer together, let me just say: active idle players get advantages other than excessive artifact swapping. And if you really wanted this to be an IDLE game, the drafting would be the first thing to become extinct. No-one will deny that active WZC players get more experience (and I don't mean points or such, but the thing that makes you become better) over time, so why should active WZI players be kept down artificially.

Edited 2/9/2021 20:21:12

gularly drafting armies can get me the same number of armies again that I earned over time from my camps.

The drafting works by working towards a target number of armies drafted. That number is dependent on the armies you earned (camps, mercs, caches), so it will keep going up and up. Each time you draft, the drafted armies will be added to a total armies drafted value.

If there is a big difference between your total armies drafted and your target armies to be drafter, you will get bigger drafts. This means that within a few drafts, you will have earned the same amount of armies as someone who was online all the time and collected his drafts.

As someone who checks idle about twice a day, please do not make everything active :p Then you really do turn it into an idle game where you cannot idle. I don't ever really swap, so I don't have much of an opinion on 2/3/4, just please don't use option 1 :p That makes it unbearable haha

Personally, I think there are way too many artefacts (I think I have almost all of them now and I count 38) for way too few slots (3) and I really don't like the switching idea. I know it's more efficient but it's such a timewaster for people who have more important things to do (I know I do) and who play Idle games for the Idle aspect.

So I'd propose a complete different idea. Get rid of the artefacts slots altogether and just have a maximum number of artefacts you can hold (maybe something like 50, a little more than the total number of artefacts in the game so "collectors" like me who want 1 of each can have fun - or even better: start with 20 and allow players to buy unlimited extra slots with AP in steps of 2!).
All artefacts you hold would then be able to work with the same properties as before (i.e. 16h cooldown for active).
Of course, for balancing purposes, they probably should all be about 10 times less powerful than they are now.

This gets rid of the whole switching in - switching out idea and instead allows players to optimize their artefacts in the long game: which one do I upgrade, do I want duplicates of the one I like (e.g. a double rare speedy smelter etc), do I want to keep active ones (now most people seem to throw them away) etc.
This to me looks like more interesting long-term gameplay compared to having to micromanage every single aspect of a game that already requires quite a lot of micromanaging.

Of course, you could still keep the 3 slots for Battles.

first, thanks for asking!
As for changing passives to being activated, that major a change isn't fair to those who have upgraded their passives, so I recommend changing the activated ones, as they are mostly underused due to time. Maybe just simply adding 2 slots for activated only, and add a time penalty to any passive switch outs

One of the main reasons I'm addicted to this game is collecting and upgrading the dozen or so artifacts that I use daily. Any of the 4 changes that you suggested would probably lead me to stop playing, so please don't. The only problem I have is with active artifacts being fairly useless. The answer to this shouldn't be to make the passive ones just as useless, but to make the active ones more useful.

I find this thread terrible depressing as I see it ending a game I love playing.

how about every acquired artifact is just active

All passive artifacts not in the active slots would be usable

Over time, everyone would have a copy of every artifact. I don't like this as it makes it difficult to manage them all and also makes all players similar rather than being specialized. Extra artifacts should be for sacrificing.

make 3 slots for active artifacts + 1 or 2 slots for passive artifacts?

Rather than removing passive artifacts (or limiting their use, giving the instant-sacrifice status the active ones currently have), I suggest you make the active artifacts more useful.

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

Passives are great and awesome

I agree, but I view this as "Passives are overpowered". Put your mind into the frame of a game designer, not a player. The goal is not to make everything go faster, the goal is to design a fun game.

Who wants to change artifacts for discount and wait for it for some time before buying stuff? Really may be frustrating.

Exactly. That's the whole point of this change -- to stop people from changing to a discount, getting the discount, then switching back. If we make it frustrating enough, it will deter people from that behavior.

Is this a problem per se? I mean, it's up to each single player to decide how much time and effort he/she is willing to spend on an idle game. And if min-/maxing the effects of artifacts is their favorite way of playing games, who are we to blame them

It should be possible to min/max and still have the game be fun. If a game requires you to do a bunch of tedious work to min/max, that's the smell of a badly designed game. Some people may be OK with that but it's not ideal in my opinion.

The goal is not to make everything go faster, the goal is to design a fun game.

Oh. Uh, which update will that happen in?

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EDIT: to avoid just leaving a flippant comment that you will ignore and probably warn/suspend me for, here's something more elaborate.

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.

Your users are telling you that the change you're proposing will not be fun. As usual, you respond by dismissing their experience, telling users that they do not understand the game, and doubling-down on something that will make the game more tedious, less enjoyable, and increasingly pay-to-progress (by nerfing features that allow for reasonable progression & idle/passive play in a nominally idle game)... all in the name of "design[ing] a fun game."

Maybe you have access to some other feedback that diverges wildly from the vocal feedback on threads like this. But if not, I guess you and your users just have radically different ideas of what fun is.

Edited 2/9/2021 22:25:42

there are hundreds? of levels. who cares. this game is slow as heck anyways. at least I can spend 5 minutes fiddling around with artifacts to feel like I'm doing something

And id love to know what is actually gained from this. the game goes 20% slower? 10%? It's not a race against others but it's also painful to spend 15 days beating a level. if that went to say 18-20, nah I'm out. keep it as is. Any changes to artifacts should be making them better.

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.