Is there going to be anything done about artifacts/marketplace soon?

Tons. Huge numbers of players capable of completing Elite content without their Artifacts at 200 as the DPS role. In my experience, with DPS it is even easier than it is with Support roles.

Now granted, my definition of successfully completing Elite content is "Entering at the beginning and successfully completing all boss fights, so that rewards are gathered from every encounter without the player consistently being dead and standing outside of the encounter relying solely on the contributions of others."

My definition for successfully completing Elite content is not "ZOMG! You came in second place on the DPS leaderboard! That means you are trash and you don't belong here!" My definition for successfully completing Elite content is also not "This flawless zero-wipe run took 2 minutes longer than the last time I did it! You are all trash and should delete your characters!"

Here are a few shocking facts that many players do not realize about Elite content:

1. Very, very few Elite battles have any sort of a Timer. For the most part, Enrage Timers do not exist like they do in other games. Similarly, there are very few fights that have mechanics built in that cause the likelihood of failure to increase the longer the fight goes (fights like Dark Hawkman and his exploding rocks). With almost every piece of Elite content, the success rate can be improved by going just a little bit slower and playing just a little bit safer. The group does not wipe if the DPS slows down by 10%.

2. Similarly, over the past several Episodes, Elite content (and just all content in general) has pushed away from having excessive numbers of heartier adds. There is rarely a build-up of adds that need a high level of DPS to control to prevent from overwhelming the group. Once upon a time, that was actually a mechanical thing we see. We really don't see that often anymore. Mostly it's about single-target burn on the bosses, with the incidental adds mostly just being a test of the Tank's ability to pick them up quickly, the adds dying to incidental AOE damage without any actual focused effort on killing adds being required. Again, the group does not wipe if the DPS slows down.

In most cases, what you are going to find is that if DPS performs at a slightly lesser level of DPS, it has ZERO impact on the success or failure of the run. It only effects the amount of time the run takes. Success or failure will be dictated by mechanics. Players will not die because their DPS was too low; they will die because they stood in the wrong place, missed a defensive queue, did not watch for the boss prompt, etc. DPS will full 200 Artifacts will still die to those same mechanics if they ignore them. And if a character with lower Artifacts follows the mechanics properly, they will still be successful, even if it takes a minute or two longer.

The only incidental correlation comes in the form of Longer Fights = More Opportunities for Mistakes. And so with players who are good, but not great, about their mechanics, there is an uptick of eventually making a key error that gets you killed. But that gets fixed not by "WTF! Increase DPS so that I don't have to avoid that attack so many times!" and instead by "I need to avoid that attack that killed me."

Elite content is all about mechanics, not gear. A good player who knows the fights can complete the Elite content right at the entrance level CR and with mid-level Artifacts just fine. A character in maxed out gear with OP items and rank 200 Artifacts still cannot be successful unless they learn and follow the mechanics.

Literally there are many groups successfully completing Elite content who sacrifice a whole player worth of DPS by running 2 Tanks or 2 Healers for particularly challenging content, because lesser DPS results in the content being done slower, but has virtually no impact on success or failure. "Let's give up 20% of our overall DPS by having this player slow filled instead by a Support character, because it IMPROVES our ability to succeed." That is overwhelming evidence right there that the total DPS, while always nice and appreciated, does not require to be at the absolute top level in order to make the difference between success and failure.

"Slower but successful" is still a success, not a failure.

Other than seals you can get arts up without spending money by grinding and if you are a member you get free DB cash that you can use to buy seals needed, you can get time cap styles by playing the broker or saving up your stabilizers. Other than your membership you really don't have to spend money on this game to get nice stuff and max out your arts. Yes the option to spend more to get there quicker is there but its not forced.

You know, I didn't want to just quote the whole thing but I can't even find one thing that I don't feel is quite right in your post, which is quite exceptional. You've raised a lot of good points since you started posting in this thread, all of which are good insight into this whole affair.

I'm surprised and relieved at the same time to hear that DCUO has no Enrage timers... Though most of the mechanics for the newer content literally feel like you have a chance of instantly dying at any time, so eeeh... But yeah, no Enrage timers encourages players to take their time which is good...

Likewise, I'm relieved by the whole adds thing too... Ultimately, it sounds like support roles are very important too... I'm starting to look into them and the artifacts involved with them... Also... Are you saying some groups sacrifice the DPS in their group for an extra tank???

I'm sorry but this is basically what I was against. And it's kind of subterfuge to pretend spending money on arts is unnecessary. I just pointed out in my case that I've had artifacts fail at breakthrough rank 40, even... And if I can't have this stuff maxed, it would be helpful to have it at something like 120.

Yea I've beat people with lesser arts on my alt so I know having full ranked isn't always a guarantee, but I will say some of my success came down to certain situations and certain powers shining at the right moment. I was just looking at it from a perspective of having a group of dps with arts ranking from 120-160 and how efficiently are the group beating elite raids.

I play smite and have lived off daily log in rewards for years Same with fortnite battepass

You can get perfectly decent artifacts without spending money. What you can’t get is top end artifacts quickly and without spending money. I think artifacts are fine, clearly they have to make money over and above subscriptions and this all seems fair enough to me.

The artifact leveling in this game is my number one complaint after feats. It is just obnoxious, and not fun at all. There is no other way to put it, sorry for the bluntness. If only it could be made less time consuming somehow by making some changes to the artifact xp drops (make the non-vault ones that drop in open world and instances fully tradeable) or some kind of marketplace or universal currency solution. But I doubt it will happen and the naysayers and forum trolls will ruin any kind of good idea discussion. This game has gotten to the point where the budget concerns and monetization have outweighed the fun in the game. Games are supposed to be fun, and the artifact progression system is definitely not fun. Daybreak could stand to take some cues from Nintendo, their philosophy is on making games fun for players.

My character was end-game ready when I went on hiatus a while back shortly after artifacts came out and randomly popped in here and there to check out seasonals and some episodes. Then started seriously putting in time back in early summer and then from Sept until now, playing for hours most days. I've never really been able to catch up. My CR is still not high enough for most raids and elite is out the window. Out of the three artifacts needed for DPS and three for support, I've only been able to level one DPS artifact to the high 170s. Come to find out the one I've been leveling is not really good enough for end game. Well damn. I've wasted the past few months for nothing. Even if it was good enough, that's still an insane amount of time that I've put into to just level one item.

The amount of time needed is completely ridiculous and very unfriendly to new players and returning players. If you didn't get your artifact progression in when artifacts first launched and have been playing regularly/leveling them up since then, then you're basically S.O.L. unless you pay the extravagant and extremely overly priced fees on the marketplace. I have no idea how people manage to play alts, have different artifact armory builds, or play without membership with the amount of grinding needed in this game. You must not have a full time job, because this game is your full time job. The only way until recently I've been able to make a small dent in the artifact leveling is from buying and selling stuff from the new time capsule, and I still have not made it the 180 milestone breakthrough. For one single artifact out of the three or six needed for end game. The way the end-game has become so largely gated off to new and returning players is just ridiculous. Making the new episodes accessible through event status is largely meaningless, because of how important artifacts are to end-game - you'll never really be able to catch up with your artifacts in any reasonable time. Forget trying to be able to be competitive in elite. You might as well just spend the money. The pay to win factor not only takes the fun out of the game but tarnishes the game's integrity.

That is the problem with this and most other internet forums. Most people are really just there to be obnoxious and push their ideas and viewpoints above others and not actually help or be open to changing or growing their own ideas, viewpoint, or outlook. Most of the time it just devolves into an endless circle of arguing over the delivery of messages instead of the actual messages, miscomprehension of the context, the spelling and grammar police show up, he said she said circle battles, know-it-alls, and the jerks that have to get the last word in or ruin some one else's ideas/thread with a ******** remark. That's the internet for you. And the real world also sadly.

You can buy Nth Metal Detectors off the broker with in-game currency. During this bonus week the detectors drop double caches.

I've been doing that. Overall progression is still horrible.

I’m not trolling you here, but have you considered that getting all 6 of your artifacts to 120, then to 160, might have been a more effective tactic than trying to get one to 180? 180, although a breakthrough rank, is not one of those ranks that unlocks significant news abilities for the artifacts, and the experience needed to get from 160 to 180 is crazy compared to the lower milestones.

So for example it’s better to have 2 x 160 than 1 x 180 & 1 x 140, even though the latter requires more XP.

Yes, I have considered that and will probably be switching to that after I get to 180. I've been using that method for my augments. I'm too close and too late to go back and will be saving it in my sideboard to have some fun in open world/solo activities. But I deliberately chose to level a single artifact because I wanted to see how long it would take. Spreading your gains throughout 3 or 6 artifacts versus 1 is better for the quick/short gains on your progression (and accessibility of the artifact benefits) is the better way to go, but it doesn't change the fact that the amount of xp needed to get each individual artifact to the higher levels is absolutely bonkers and adds to your total progression time regardless. It was done on purpose so they can promote those artifact xp packs and detectors on the marketplace. Not to mention the random losses from breakthroughs, which slows things down even further if you get an unlucky draw and don't use a seal. Before DCUO, I've never played an RPG that had RNG within the level up mechanic, and I hope to never have to run into one ever again and will avoid. It's the opposite of fun.

This is exactly what I did.
I focused on getting 2 artifacts to 120 within barely a week tops, then the 3rd to 120, then when double art xp hit-Boom all 160 artifacts for barely $50. If even that.

New players should rack up on Nth metal detectors (they're very cheap in the marketplace, and even cheaper in game) and focus on 2 main artifacts then when they're both at 120 repeat but for one artifact that time. and double art xp, scrap up atleast $50 and they should be great.

They really need to look into doing something, artifact's truly destroyed any point in alt's.

That depends if you're trying to have multiple mains, then yeah it's not going to be easy, if you're just running casual alts through regular content you don't really need your artifacts past 80

^I support this.^
It's a juggling act just keeping up three mains and you'll want to build up your own personal Legion of Self-Doom. People need to sit down and make some tough choices: play the game to have fun or play the game to go broke.

If you go into elite content with 120 artifacts, you will lose by a 100 million. Anyone who says different not telling the truth. Healers and trolls need 200 artifacts too. Elite runs want buff trolls and healer gemini spam. No one will invite anyone to no elute content with 120 artifact