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

Ok, asdgh, I will address some items in your response to me.

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

It is more about the fact that players are exploiting a workaround that is not what the game intended (Fizzer said it himself). As players get an advantage doing the solo levels, they will have advantages in the Battle sections. This leaves other players of the option of going through the headache of micromanaging or falling behind.

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.

I won’t say you are wrong, but that is not correct in all situations and should be evaluated on a case by case basis. I will give you a scenario using real numbers from my game. In the current level I am on, I have made 2.35B total and 2B of that is from Bonuses. I have the Rare Bonus Money Boost (BMB) of 40% and no Tech upgrades currently, so base income from Bonuses would be 1.43B (divide 2 by 1.4). Hypothetically, if I had Uncommon Bonus Money Boost and all the discounts you mentioned, I would be better off sacrificing them to Rare Bonus Money Boost. Let us say that Mine Discount was 10% reduced cost to EVERYTHING (not the 5% to Mines only that it does), and every dime I gets this discount. That means of the 2.35B I have earned, I would save 235M if I switch each time. If my base income would have been 1.43B, then if I had Uncommon BMB it would have been 1.716B, and if I sacrificed my discounts (even that godly discount I mentioned) I would have made the 2B. The extra money I have earned from sacrificing my Discounts for BMB is 284M (2-1.716). Last I checked, 284 > 235.

This can apply to other artifacts and combinations that are harder to measure. I just used this example because it is very easy to quantify money. How do you compare Army Camp Boost to Bonus Money Boost?

Hoarding individual artifacts is generally a bad idea. Swapping them if you don’t have enough for an upgrade does give an advantage though. But if you want to hoard, then you do you.

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?

There is nothing wrong per se, but it is going exploiting a weakness in the system that changes how he intended the game to be played. It is well within his rights to eliminate this workaround.

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.

It isn’t aimed at micromanagers, it is aimed at people exploiting a flaw in the design of the Passive artifact system that Fizzer means to fix. If he wanted people to be able to use all their artifacts, he would have made it that way. This is an exploit he means to fix, nothing more.

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?

It is a bad strategy to hoard, but swapping artifacts that you have before upgrading does give an edge. You essentially have more than 3 Artifacts in use by doing this.

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?

It is designed this way because it is an Idle game. It is supposed to be slow. If people are taking advantage of exploits, Fizzer may make it harder to compensate.

Why does everyone that plays this have to go at the same rate?

I never said that. Smarter players will obviously play faster. Swapping artifacts does give an advantage (assuming you aren’t hoarding) that bypasses a control that Fizzer built into the game which is why he wants to fix it.

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.

They aren’t being punished. It is removing an exploit they were taking advantage of. They will be no worse off than anyone else.

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?

As stated before, Fizzer is trying to eliminate an exploit that subverts his intended design of the game.

Fizzer quote:

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 think this sounds like a reasonable approach.

My only concern is that the timer seems low. 3 minutes or even 8 minutes is nothing for a game that measures time in hours, days, and weeks. If the recast is too short, it'll be ignored as negligible. Or, people will just do all their actions at once after saving them up for the day, and the problem still remains.

Putting a daily limit on swaps does allow flexibility for larger maps though which still needs to exist.

My thought of a variation on this is one swap every eight hours, and reset the timer on new levels. (Similar to actions in WZIB). You cannot get a new artifact faster than that, so whenever you get a new artifact you can swap as you desire. This would also encourage players to specialize into particular artifacts that they find works best for them.

It is more about the fact that players are exploiting a workaround that is not what the game intended (Fizzer said it himself).

I'll give you (and Fizzer) that. He actually said it himself. The only two problems I have with this is, that 1) I would hardly call this an exploit - you make it sound like I was cheating and I am well within the boundaries of the game with my swapping - and 2) it's okay to change/adjust something when it has proven to be out of balance, the issue here is, that he introduced it one way and all players have somewhat adapted to the current situation and he is about to redesign the system from scratch more or less. Ever heard of Speedruns? Sure, some use exploits/cheats/clitches but others just discovered ways the devs haven't intended the players to use. Variety is good!

As players get an advantage doing the solo levels, they will have advantages in the Battle sections. This leaves other players of the option of going through the headache of micromanaging or falling behind.

What about pay-to-win features like the SuperCamp, more AP per level or - more on topic - artifacts for coins/money? Aren't they unfair in a similar way? How much time do I have to invest to catch up with a player who uses all three of them? I don't want to pretend that nerfing the passive artifacts is making WZI pay-to-win, but penalizing micromanagers is exactly the same as penalizing players who don't want (or can't) invest real money in some game.

If Fizzer intended to force the players to upgrade their artifacts, then just limit the artifact inventory to five artifacts per tier. If you find a sixth common one, let the system force you to upgrade one of them. To be clear, I don't want this. It's just an alternative approach to still let the players enjoy their micromanagement but limit the extent to which they could do so.

Edited 2/10/2021 13:05:11

1)
Phoenix makes a good point - it's not a discussion about whether this is "fair" based on some players getting advantage by clearing levels faster = more AP quicker = advantage in WZIB. First, more AP doesn't necessarily lead to advantage in WZIB (ask those with high AP, sometimes it gets them targeted more enough instead). Second, if someone micromanage swapping is an "unfair" advantage, then buying Legendary artifacts, buying Powers & Supercamps are also unfair, and clearly nothing will be done to stop that, so let's drop the "fair" aspect.

It's really just a matter that people are clearing levels quicker/more efficiently by doing excessive tedious swapping work than Fizzer intended/wants. So either we (A) convince him out of tweaking it to curb this, (B) give him ideas of how to curb the behaviour in the way that works best to preserve fun in the game for the most players, (C) sit back and casually read, watch the story unravel.

My approach is (A). If that fails, (B). If that fails, (C) it is. (;

But it's not a "fairness" discussion.

2)
I mentioned this earlier, but Thomsenian also commented on it, so I'll recap & provide a recommendation. There are currently only 2 artifact types: Active and Passive, but in reality there are 3 kinds: Active, Passive which have constant effect, Passive which have action-based effects. And Thom added to the thought beyond what I did ... perhaps the problem isn't with limiting swapping, but rather in regards to that the players even need to swap to get such benefit. Thinking realistically, there are many more artifact types than usable slots, thus the game is designed around having players collect artifacts, upgrade/sacrifice them, swap in/out based on the need, but the way the Passives have been implemented actually drives a greater need to swap in/out than there should be because (aside from there not being enough usable slots) many of these are action based, ie: they are designed to have a very small, very finite usable window of benefit. Only when you're capturing a territory - Hospital Boost, or when you're upgrading a mine - Mine Discount, when you're buying mercs - Mercenary Discount, etc. By design, these give you a point on time benefit and then cease to have effect once that action is complete. Let's separate them into a separate class of artifacts and (I'll call them "Functional" in this post) deal with them separately. Instead of nerfing the ability to use them (swap them in/out), instead empower the player to more effectively use them so they don't even need to swap them in/out. The point being made here is that 95% of the time, having these items equipped makes 0 sense. I don't need Alloy Values or Item Values equipped except for the 30-40 seconds I'm selling alloys or items. Same for Hospital Discounts, Mine Discounts, Tech Discount, etc. These just aren't in the same category as Army Camp Boost, Money Boost, Territory Money Boost, Mine Boost, Speedy Smelters, Craft Double, Efficient Crafters, etc. Then consider items like Idle Time - very situational specific ... if you're prevented from swapping this in when you go Idle and out when you come back, what's the point of it at all? By design it provides 0 zero while you're actively playing and only provides value minimally 2 hrs after you've gone idle (more if you have AP idle benefits). Also consider now that the concern with frequent swapping is really with these Functional artifacts. Quickly swapping in/out the Passive artifacts doesn't actually give you any benefit. You swap out Army Camp Boost - ok, fine, you stop generating the benefits of it, and regain them when you put it back in. It's the Functional artifacts that really drive the need for swapping. So add rules to this set of artifacts to govern more effective usage, rather than the tedium of quick swaps. Whether it means making these Active (hopefully with smaller timers than 16 hrs though!) or just using a separate set of rules for them. My recommendation is separate them into a different class, different slots, different rules. So make 3 slots for Passive artifacts with no swap limitations (b/c none are required), 3 slots for Active artifacts (already have swap limitations), 3 slots for Functional artifacts (add some swap limitations for these - and this goes back to Fizzer's original options 1,2,3,4 plus my 5 & 6, and these rules should only apply to these artifacts). Regarding the recommendation for "3 slots for each category" - is 3 for each too many? Imho not really, but I'd also correlate this back to WZ levels & membership & AP upgrades. There are already achievements and thus points for WZI activity = some degree of level increase. Add more level correlation to WZI activity. And as level increases, add slots. Membership adds a couple more slots. And maybe AP upgrades add a few more slots (maybe even helps to reduce swap times for Active and Functional artifacts, etc). Lots of options and opportunity here.

Closing point - imho, putting "swap" restrictions on how usable the artifacts are will detract from the fun of the game, and actually the main draw of artifacts. What's the point of collecting many artifacts if you can't actually effectively use them? It essentially makes most artifacts throw away just to get a handful of them to useful levels, and then everything you encounter from that point on is just Upgrade (sacrifice) fodder for upgrading those, which really dampens the appeal of artifacts. The "dramatic reveal" of brushing off the dust becomes far less dramatic b/c you don't really care what it will be, b/c it's just a means of upgrading your chosen 3. But separating the artifacts into Active, Passive & Functional, and have slots for each re-opens the discussion. Adjust the benefit %'s if you really think it's necessary (I don't btw, tbh, the % benefits are often so low that it's barely worth swapping in/out - but that's another discussion) but having different slots for Active, Passive & Functional will actually go a long way for vastly reducing (if not eliminating) any need to even swap in/out at all most of the time. Using myself as an example, I can easily pick 3 Passives to use most of the time (early to mid-level: Army Camp Boost, Money Boost, Territory Boost, but mid- to end of levels: Mine Boost, Craft Double, Speedy Crafters). I could similar easily pick 3 Actives (Supercharge Mine, Market Raid, Fog Buster). And also easily pick 3 Functionals (Hospital Discount, Merc Discount, Item Values). And each of these choices would likely be useful for days at a time, not requiring micromanaging swaps. It would also preserve the fun of artifacts, knowing that I'm actually getting use of a wide range of artifacts, not just 3, and thus continues to incite me to collect & upgrade them.

Just to add on from a player who started with Warzone Idle, I think it would probably be fine to start with 1 passive,1 active and 1 "funtional" artifact slot and eventually get to 3 passive,3 active and 3 functional slots, it would probably even be fine if it would be like every 10 levels add a slot(so all slots at level 60)
That would go a bit against the "stand alone" Idea of idle, but there is nothing bad about people that want to more actively play idle, actually playing WZClassic.

As to why I would be fine with 1 of each at the start? It gives more personal experience to each player, most of the artifacts that are being used are always the same, but if I only have 1 passive slot I would have to make a decision, and a higher tiered artifact would actually be worth more.
If there are more slots tho, I feel like upgrading maybe should be changed from sacrifice 4 same tier artifacts to sacrifice 3 same tier (maybe also same category?).
Not cause I want upgrades cheaper, more so because tiers get more important if u only have 1 passive slot, so the decision to stick with 1 passive is more important than if u can have every bonus anyway, maybe I just worry to much about not being able to change an artifact that u leveled up later on, so an option to upgrade artifacts with a higher tiered artifact would also work( upgrade 1 common with 1 uncommon artifact) or disassembling 1 artifact into 4 generic artifacts 1 tier lower.

As to giving slots by AP upgrade, I would also like that, right now it seems like AP upgrades are mostly usefull for more armies/production and idlebattle, so there are a lot of options I feel, u also don’t need to treat idle/challenges/idlebattle the same as I would feel disadvantaged if I need to get level 60 in idlebattle to get a fair fight against those old players, and I couldn’t get AP from challenges which those old players could get.

If AP upgrades would change the cooldown on active artifacts I would warn about the time warp artifact as it could get op

Edited 2/10/2021 18:06:48

I think krinid nailed it. The so called functional artifacts are the problem and separating them from others into their own category with its own rules would be a preferable solution.

Coming back to the original post from fizzer, he wanted us to play with the best 3 we have, if I look at a start with 1 passive,1 active and 1 funtional artifact, I feel it would fit quite nicely, u have to decide between
Army/production and money for the passive one(switching could make sense)
Which discounts for the funtional one(rules aren’t clear so no further comment)
Which active one is the best(which u would only use 1 probably as switching is tedious)

Switching would still make some sense, but a situation where I have one of every kind gets eliminated for passive and functional artifacts, because the need for more than 1 (or maybe 2) is lessened, there is more of a feeling that it’s useful to upgrade 1 instead of having 4 unused

It would also get rid of the feeling that passive artifacts are to overpowered, as that might come from the fact that I can have money AND army production AND smelter/crafter production, If I could only have 1 of them early game, a second one mid game and a third late game (as in first 10 maps, 11-20th map,21-30map (assuming there are 30 maps))
Those Boni would be more balanced, it also wouldn’t make the earlier maps more difficult as ur artifacts grow with u anyway, funtional artifacts aren’t really op as far i read the opinions, and actives....would actually get used.

Edited 2/10/2021 19:48:36

Right now I think we can all agree that about half the artifacts are useless. Limiting swapping of artifacts will make all but four or five useless. What's the point of making so many different artifacts if almost all of them aren't worth keeping? Shouldn't the goal of fixing artifacts be making as many as possible useful, not limiting how many are useful?

I still haven't heard a good reason why swapping is bad. Its not about fairness when people can buy artifacts or powers or win them in raffles. Really the only reason for the change is because this isn't how Fizzer envisioned people playing, but that's not a good reason either because he made a game that people enjoy. Fizzer said it's not fun, but it seems that plenty of members do think it's fun, so that's true or a good reason. There are members that wish they had the benefit of micromanaging without having to micromanage, but none of the solutions out there do that, they just get rid of micromanaging and no one gets a benefit.

Also I guess drafting needs to go as well. Someone drafting every 6 minutes gets an advantage over someone doing it only a couple of times a day, plus it isn't fun. That means it needs to go too right?

If Fizzer intended to force the players to upgrade their artifacts, then just limit the artifact inventory to five artifacts per tier. If you find a sixth common one, let the system force you to upgrade one of them. To be clear, I don't want this. It's just an alternative approach to still let the players enjoy their micromanagement but limit the extent to which they could do so.

I love this idea. It prevents hoarding loads of artifacts to swap out left right and center, and makes its more beneficial to upgrade artifacts instead.

As for the limit, 5 is too low to hold both usable artifacts and the garbage ones you need to upgrade them, but leaving the limit to high just makes the limit useless.

To both keep the limit and allow players to upgrade their artifacts, something like a garbage bin should be added, where you can store artifact (but never take them out and use them again) for upgrading only.

Alternatively, all artifacts could be sacrificed and reward the user with upgrade points (UP).
A poor artifact is worth 1 UP, and to upgrade it you need 4 UP, a common artifact would be worth 4 UP and need 16 UP to upgrade, etc

Despite all what is said in this thread, my position still is that active artifacts are the problem and not the passive ones. Just compare (passive) artifacts with advancements: Unlocking an advancement gives you a slight benefit, having a common (or poor) artifact gives you a slight benefit. Maxing some advancement gives you a significant benefit, maxing (upgrading to legendary) an artifact gives you a significant benefit. The only difference being that you can upgrade as many advancements as you like but you can only use three artifacts at a time, so swapping is the only way to make having more than three usable artifacts work. Nerfing passive artifacts in any way makes them not desirable anymore. As I said regarding artifact stacking, new players need to have SOME benefit of spending time and money on digging or there will be no incentive to take notice of digging sites at all. And that would mean, that WZI would just be played without artifacts. But artifacts are an integral part of what makes WZI a new type of idle game for me.

BUT, if we can't convince Fizzer that the passive artifacts are in fact fine, krinid's suggestion is the first and - so far - only one that sounds halfway decent to me. I guess you won't get nine slots in total, but if nothing else, active artifacts would be usable (again - meaning, if your first ever artifact is an active one, you will use this no matter what, until you find decent passives).

EDIT:

they are designed to have a very small, very finite usable window of benefit. Only when you're capturing a territory - Hospital Boost, or when you're upgrading a mine - Mine Discount, when you're buying mercs - Mercenary Discount, etc. By design, these give you a point on time benefit and then cease to have effect once that action is complete.

Those "functional" artifacts are what negatively impacts the way we discuss passive artifacts in general. The only two differences for me between functional and active artifacts are:
- actives need a cool down of currently 16h and block the slot, while functional don't
- actives give (at the same tier, so e.g. common "Mine Discount" (the functional) vs common "Discount Mine" (the active)) a higher benefit.
So, this is the point where seeing these differences, my interpretation clearly was: "So the developer gave me the choice what type I prefer and if I choose the functional one despite the lower effect, I can swap it out after usage". So, if Fizzer now blames me for swapping out functional artifacts, ...

Edited 2/10/2021 22:46:02