Apparently it is possible to sacrifice artifacts that are currently upgrading.

If find this rather silly, since it would allow players to effectively waste 4 of their artifacts if they dont pay attention for a second.

Given that WZI does block the artifacts that are currently in use, I would have expected it to block currently upgrading artifacts for sure as well.

What do you guys think about this?

Just to add to JK's post, it counts an upgrading artifact as the level it currently is, not the level it is going to be.

(I got excited when I saw this thread and checked to see if I could skip two days of waiting...)

That's a bug, right? At least it seems so (or I hope so).

Yeah, I think its a bug as well.

Maybe Fizzer will read this forum tho, if he hasnt replied by tomorrow evening i'll mail it to him.

Yikes, makes me wonder if I've ever done that! lol

Don't think so, but anything is possible, I've certainly had multiple upgrades happening at once.

Lol, i should have reported this a while ago, and i still didnt do it.

Just do it!

I don't consider it a bug, but rather a questionable strategy decision. I wouldn't want to block the player from making this choice if they really want to for some reason, but I would be willing to add a warning to prevent against accidents.

It's not a bug anymore than allowing someone to use an ML on the tutorial is (someone did this, but I think Fizz credited the person back the ML). It is however somewhere between the extremes of not having a safety switch on a gun (responsibility of the manufacturer to provide) and having to write "contents may be hot" on a coffee cup (responsibility of the user to not be an idiot). I say "somewhere between" b/c it's partly the fault of the UI that allows this that someone simply not paying attention for a few seconds could inadvertently do AND NOT EVEN REALIZE IT. Like going into Walmart, asking to break a $100 bill into five $20, then only taking the top bill and leaving the other 4 on the counter, and when you next time you look in your wallet, you only see a bunch of $20's and have no idea that you should have 4 more (until you go looking for that artifact you just upgraded... lol).

BUT ... at least in this case it's obvious that no one should ever do this. It would be wiser/nicer to just add a Cancel button to the upgrade process, and if someone tries to sac an artifact currently upgrading, then throw up that warning and then just Cancel the upgrade if someone tries to upgrade it (or maybe permit the upgrade but put the other 4 back in the inventory), b/c at this point it's absolutely clear that they don't know what they're doing and need help (ie: they're either the idiot about to spill scalding hot coffee on their lap while driving, or a person about to shoot themselves in the foot, whichever analogy you prefer).

The problem isn't that someone could want to use an artifact that is currently in its upgrade process to upgrade another artifact, the problem is what happens to the four artifacts that you used for the first upgrade process. If we assign values to each artifact (poor=1, common=5, uncommon=25, ...) then each digging increases the value of your collection by some value (depending on the actual digging site and your luck), so either 1, 5, 25, 125, ... . And each upgrade preserves the value of your collection, it just shifts some values around to accomplish the same overall sum. That is - so far - a given when it comes to artifact upgrading. When we now "cancel" one upgrade to use an artifact-in-upgrade to upgrade another artifact, we decrease the overall value of our collection. If it was an upgrade from poor to common this would mean we lost artifacts in a total value of 4, from common to uncommon the loss would be 20 and so on.

Personally, I'd say that putting a warning there isn't enough. This is nothing that you should have to consider in the first place. The cause of the problem is the rarity that is assigned to an artifact-in-upgrade. Because saying that an artifact that upgrades from common to uncommon is still common, already messes with the overall value of an artifact collection (four other commons vanished before the one common got upgraded). Saying that it is already uncommon would mean that you could abuse the system by sacrificing artifacts-in-upgrade to reduce the overall upgrade time given that you want to upgrade something by at least two stages (considering that you can't upgrade the same artifact two stages, you can only use an artifact-in-upgrade to upgrade OTHER artifacts). Technically, an artifact-in-upgrade is in some intermediate state where it shouldn't be considered either or. So if the before mentioned common-soon-to-be-uncommon artifact would (at least internally) be labeled as such, it wouldn't be available as a sacrifice artifact for other upgrades. And the whole "artifact collection value sum invariant" would be preserved.

Whether or not it would be desirable to add a "Cancel upgrade" option, to me, is a totally different question.

PS: Thanks, krinid, because my post definitely was inspired by your comment and in parts is just a rephrasing. But I felt that this point of view could shed another light on this problem from a different (more mathematical) direction.

PPS: if upgrades wouldn't need any time to pass, the whole problem would vanish. Not to say, that I want to get rid of the upgrade times, just saying, that the overall collection state should be comparable to a variant of the game where there are no upgrade times.

Edited 6/3/2021 13:30:52

Considering that artifacts that are currently upgrading give no effect when equipped, they are in a 0-value state while upgrading (since you cant use them). This same 0-value state should also prevent you from using a currently upgrading artifact to be able to be used in upgrading another.

Either block the artifact when its upgrading, or allow it to function as its current rarity until its upgraded. That would allow users to use upgrading artifacts to upgrade another (with a warning), but it would also allow them use that artifact while its upgrading. Giving the players such a risk but no reward seems of to me.

PS: I'm all up for just removing the upgrade time. You already waited 40 days digging to get enough artifacts together of the right rarity to buy the upgrade, waiting another 2 days for the upgrade to complete feels unnecessary

I also don't want to be able to sacrifice it. It would be nice to be able transfer the upgrade effect (with a restarted upgrade timer).

PS: I'm all up for just removing the upgrade time. You already waited 40 days digging to get enough artifacts together of the right rarity to buy the upgrade, waiting another 2 days for the upgrade to complete feels unnecessary

+1 for that, but just don't see it happening. Tbh, I'm surprised there's not timers on upgrading army camps (but not the SuperCamp, b/c it's Super after all), mines, unlock Techs, etc. When I saw the 2 hour timer on hospital upgrades & artifact upgrading, I expected it to expand through all aspects of WZI.