So How Do YOU Feel About Artifacts Costing

Discussion in 'Gotham City (General Gameplay)' started by SugarHoneyIcedTeaMix, Sep 10, 2019.

  1. Great Architect Loyal Player

    You don't have to. I haven't spent a penny on levelling my artifacts, and I can run endgame Elite. There's no point in overkill in this game - dead is dead. If you *have* to rely on your artifacts to complete 29E/30E, then the problem is not your artifacts.
    • Like x 1
  2. Critical Massacre Committed Player

    That’s true currently but if the artifacts keep getting stronger and more upgradeable every update then there’s going to end up being a serious divide in players. People will start saying their artifacts levels instead of their sp or cr to choose players to run raids with.
  3. Kal~el Committed Player

    I think it is par for the course for this game. This is no longer a game but WORK!!

    I will get it done when I get it done. If I stick around long enough that is.
  4. Brit Loyal Player

    /shrug. I've got a ton of Source Marks, and I don't need anything else that I can do with them. I guarantee by the time I farm that much Nth metal, I'll have more than enough Source Marks for the catalysts.

    Then they give away a free Seal of Preservation every time they do the Catalyst event. I'll use that for the breakthroughs. Since 160 was already like 10% chance, I'm definitely not tackling some 2-5% chance without a Seal.

    Don't get me wrong. I'm not some cheapskate. I'm a subscriber, and I pay money to the game. But I have a really chill attitude about things. If one $10 purchase would finish up an Artifact, I'd do it. When it costs $100, that's just not happening, so I accept that I will be waiting. By the same token, I don't replay badge like mad in order to get my new set the day that a new Episode comes out; I realize that it's going to be the only thing I've got to do for a while so I don't mind waiting. But I did buy the Batman Emblem in the Marketplace so that I wouldn't have to waist a bunch of Demohedrons on unlocking it for free. I'll make small, reasonably priced purchases, at regular intervals (the sort of purchases that won't be noticed by my wife). I'll never drop $1000 on Stabilizer gambling though; anything that is going to take that type of spending I just write off as unattanable and forget about it.

    So the new artifacts are going to be a slow grind. That's fine. 500 Challenges Feat, and 250 Australia PvP wins were slow grinds too. But once I accept that it's slow, and I no longer feel that pressure to get it done in a timely manner, they will see no Nth Metal purchases and no Seal purchases to speed it up. Once they make it clear that this is going to be slow, then they remove any urgency that might have pressured spending.
    • Like x 1
  5. L T Devoted Player

    See, that's the only problem I have with artifacts and time capsules. I already pay for the game.

    At this point they should just make DCUO completely free to play. Give subscribers 1500 market cash/loyalty points a month and make all the other benefits free to everyone. It's not offensive to have to drop cash to advance fast in an otherwise free to play game, but it's a different story when I've already paid for it.
    • Like x 2
  6. Berza Committed Player

    With the usual reward setup, you can get 200 SM a week. 1482/200=7.41. 3 months for leveling a full artifact? (seeming you are only talking about cats, no nth). Sounds pretty cool for me. My alt's artifacts needed 7 months to go from 120 to 160 and I run elite with her. Artifacts are, as Devs has stated several times, a long term grind.
    So, I'm sorry but I think your thread title should be "Not having 200 artifacts on September 13. How do feel?"
    • Like x 1
  7. myandria Item Storage

    Hmmm...

    Well...

    I have always considered artifacts as a grind; I don't spend much in the Marketplace to rank them up. I don't have a lot of source marks, but the vendor cost of the catalysts isn't a deal breaker, either. I am looking forward to the "no more Matryoshka Doll effect" for opening catalyst caches.:D

    As far as the Seals are concerned, I usually catch them on sale and stock up accordingly, since I have no choice but to buy them from the Marketplace if I want them.:mad: I do use the free one that is given after doing the first Artifact Mission, but that goes away quickly after using it to rank an Artifact past level 80.

    Choice is really the heart of the issue here, in my opinion. You can choose to rank your Artifacts quickly, or not. You can choose to pay real money to rank up your Artifacts, or not. Sometimes, having choices is as frustrating as having no choice.
    • Like x 1
  8. Trexlight Devoted Player

    As others have stated, the game does not require the Artifacts to be at 160 or even 200. Its said to be a "true end gamer" these need to be maxed out but the only way thats truly done is by opening your wallet so really, no one should be a true end gamer lol.

    Artifacts just need to be at Rank 120 and players will be fine. Anything over that is nice but the content doesnt require it and until the content requires it, dont waste your time or money. And even then, when and IF the content requires it, in its current state wont work because again, you have to open your wallet. Catalysts should be the gate like they are. The Break Through %s are horrid and need to be gone. The Nth Metal, is the purist reason why these Artifacts are terrible to enjoy. I will never stop bringing it up that the time required is absurd. Which is why getting to 120 is where folks need to stop because the XP gap is too large. There are multiple issues regarding Artifacts and the Content and these need to be hand in hand. Artifacts are here to enhance and encourage playstyles but the playstyles dont mesh with the meta nor the difficulty of the content. If anyone here or in game calls for them to be NEEDED at Rank 200 are a liar and if they even bring up SM, its still not worth it to spend $$$$$$ on a 3 week event that rarely comes and sometimes uncertain to ever return.

    Almost 2 years Artifacts have been out and with the introduction of the final 200 Ranks. I think its time for them to be re-examined and altered for better use. As the Maths of others shown it takes 3 months roughly to buy the Catalysts needed which to me is the proper amount of time to level an Artifact and should be to max level. The issue comes from the need of Nth Metal and in 3 months time you arent getting that very far or even close to maxing out an Artifact. The Xp needed to too great and the XP gained is too small. As others have pointed out too, theyve gotten enough Nth Metal from playing. Well I guess results will vary cause I play 4 hours a day and there's barely anything there to use to get me higher. Nth Metal Detectors are also not a solution because they come from the MP so you're still paying money.

    These are items highly used for in game content that are better leveled through using the marketplace. That is a problem.
  9. Irvynnge Loyal Player

    my artifacts are going to 140, & that's it. I don't care if I "fall behind", I don't care if I'm not one of the gang. maybe, just possibly maybe, I'll continue to gradually dump cr*p into me main's after the 140 mark, but as far as any of me other toons are concerned, no chance. I understand that the company has to make money, of course I do, I understand that the bottom line is all about product & shifting them units, but I don't have to like the way that they go about it, & I don't have to support it.
    • Like x 1
  10. Scarlet Mysty Loyal Player

    Just my two cents. I remember when Extra Credits was all the rage and they popularised 'Bartle's taxonomy of player types'. It's basically a categorisation of gamer motivations. I'm not saying this is definitive btw and I am sure there are flaws people will want to point out, but it is not entirely without merit.
    [IMG]
    With this in mind, I can't help but find the answer "you don't need X, Y or Z" somewhat lacking. While I personally am not motivated to be an 'achiever' I understand that if a game fails to provide 'Achievers' with that sense of achievement / makes that achievement feel too grindy and/or puts that achievement behind a paywall then it risks alienating and perhaps loosing players motivated by achievements.

    For DCUO, it often seems as though the motivations of 'achievers' and while we're at it 'killers' are not sufficiently accounted for leading to complaints. The issue may well be one of choice, but ultimately this is just a game not some real life choice you have to reflect on and can't change, this is just a game, and being a game there is always the silent 'choice'.....not playing the game anymore. So when I see 'you don't need X, Y or Z', I often end up reading it as 'you don't need to play this game anymore as it isn't offering anything that will motivate you to play it.'

    Just to balance, there is something to be said about a lowered bar of achievement and an unreasonable sense of entitlement to achievements that indeed would justify the 'you don't need' response in certain cases.
    • Like x 1
  11. KHALONofOGUN 10000 Post Club

    Wait, who said they're getting upgraded every update??? That has never been explicitly stated nor even implied. A quick search will show that there has been quite a decent amount time between major rank updates, and last word Mepps gave on that was that this was it (it wasn't made definitive if just for now, but nothing was stated for the immediate future).

    As useful/impactful as Artifacts are they are not mandatory to complete content... This includes Elite. That players keep erroneously insisting that they're needed doesn't change actual facts...and the sooner people wise up to that the sooner they can stop kevetching about higher level artifacts.
    • Like x 2
  12. SugarHoneyIcedTeaMix Well-Known Player

    No not really I titled the thread this way because after doing a little math to find out I'd need over 1000 marks to get to rank 200 it made me laugh, mainly due to the fact that artifacts are already ridiculous with the high amount of xp needed plus the poor breakthrough percentages where it FORCES you to buy a completion catalyst. Wasn't really concerned too much about having rank 200 artifacts day one, but more so looking to the future where Bathuba(probably spelled that wrong) said they had plans for more artifacts. So yea a real hardcore player might do well when a god tier artifact comes, but casual players whose time no longer revolves around dc are going to suffer further and be pushed to purchase sm off the marketplace as well as nth metal. But good to know you're somewhat ok with the process
    • Like x 1
  13. Berza Committed Player

    Even when I myself had put some real money in the MP for Nth, some cats and SoC, I save them for when they are needed, meaning Events. My main has right now 8 160,and even if I were able to play I wouldn't put a single XP point on them until the next double XP weekend. I feel artifacts like SP. I want all of them, but I needed a handful of years to get to my current 436.
  14. SugarHoneyIcedTeaMix Well-Known Player


    Sadly the content I used to spend hours daily on does require it. Open world pvp. Loved hanging with some heroes and fighting villains for laughs. But artifacts along with other bad pvp related updates, now you have ghost town pvp phase where you can count the amount of players out there. Now solar gets the channeling white mod, orb gets more resist so I might not be able to stun it, Im not stepping outside or toggling my pvp flag because I know that its only gotten worse. But we already know they don't care about how bad it gets I just for some reason still pay attention and chuckle when it gets even worse
  15. Crimson Veil Dedicated Player

    I hate the artifact leveling system (in general) w/ the intensity of 10,000 Suns! :mad: :D
  16. Reinheld Devil's Advocate

    Where I will agree with you on the source marks being an issue is if they purposely brought out new artifacts that were direct upgrades to existing 'top' artifacts. Like something like EOG, that's better....or VWD, which almost everyone will have at 200 after the 140-200 upgrade. Assuming someone was like 'hey, I'll just feed my other 200 into this new one to get another 200, you'd skip a good portion of the Nth farming, but would indeed...need those 1000+ source marks + the at least 20 bucks of SOP/SOC.

    Yeah...in those cases....woof....it will get expensive. But you should never be buying source off the MP to get cats....cats will be sold directly on the MP after the update...the new cats that is. At least that's how it sounded from a few other posts. Except for last weekend when the double XP AND no cats in MP happened at the same time, I'd think no one should ever be buying source to get cats. Nth...for sure....source...no.

    Reinheld
    • Like x 2
  17. Roocck Committed Player

    Not worth putting an extra dime to level up these artifacts. Not worth it.... Made that mistake learning a very expensive and valuable lesson.... This goes the same for thenew OP neck, not worth the collection grinding and cataclyst is specially 375 Dark Metal for vendor collection.... LOL I’ll be a Tanl, Healer, Troll and DPS without the op gear.....
  18. WilderMidnight Steadfast Player


    out of curiosity have any of the math wizards around here figured out exactly how much it would cost to get an artifact from 0 to 200 simply through paying? the whole enchilada~the big nth metal xp thing, catalysts , and seals of both preservation (for the lower level) and preservation (for post 100 level artifacts).

    all i keep coming up with is "a lot".

    outside of that the stat bonuses are nice and all but as usual i hate things in game that take me out of my characters concepts. i hate band aids to actual fixes. thats what got us into the whole VWD mess. I can overlook that none of my main team uses any kind of special weaponry/equipment (except for one) but when my main is summoning demonic pets and my healer is conjuring up mid evil styled clerics all i can think of is my characters aren't supposed to do that. is this game actually set in the dcu?

    as they are in game artifacts encourage cookie cutter loadouts and fotm movements and thats one thing i will always be against.
  19. KHALONofOGUN 10000 Post Club

    Catalysts are coming back to the Marketplace tomorrow...so if someone feels inclined to, they can just buy the catalysts they need for breakthrough if they don't have the patience to grind for it. In other words, only completely fools math impaired players would purchase SM from the MP. Also, his name is Batuba. :)
  20. Roocck Committed Player

    This would’ve really help you on the double xp weekend to max out the artifacts to 160..... No need for it badly now.... Weird how it bugged out before the double xp weekend and back for on the marketplace after......