Artifact Swapping (my opinion)

Tbh I can see them making it so that you can only benefit from arts currently equipped. This would mean people can still tac swap things like stone and scepter. But things that have lingering effects don’t stay like tetra/cog buffs and the mini orbitals from scepter or other effects. I know players can remove an art and still have some benefits from it for a few seconds. So something like this could probably be done.

I’m personally (genuinely) curious what players mean by a big gap. Big gaps exist right now even without tac swapping. Mepps even said it. There’s a gap between those that know and those that don’t. Look at loadouts. Having a bad loadout vs having a good loadout makes a difference. Being able to use iconics and movement vs only using pure power set abilities. Even something as simple as using an orbital or sc can be affected by having knowledge about how splitting works.

There’s even a difference between a skilled player effectively tac swapping and someone who heard tac swapping is game breaking so they do it badly. I personally do not tac swap. I’d probably fall into the second group if I tried it. So what is this large gap people like zNot say? That’s why ive asked him throughout many threads to provide some actual testing which he never does

I think you'll probably find the developers didn't really envisage exactly how much people would tac swap their artifacts, but I don't think they were developmentally oblivious to it, because accessing your inventory and changing items, even in battle has always been a thing and artifacts being in your inventory has always been a thing.

So at some point during their development, certainly so early on, whoever was developing them, knew exactly what they were doing, suggesting the opposite, risks bordering on insulting their intelligence.

So to answer that last part, I don't agree at all there's any level of developmental blind spot here being taken advantage of.

That being said as well, the reason I make the comparison to simply tac swapping in orbitals or supplies, tac swapping a neck with a different mod, tac swapping a weapon is because the irrespective of your perception of its impact the premise of the task remains fundamentally exactly the same.

Being upset about one, while accepting the other is an attempt by the end user to have their 'cake an eat it also' creating a double standard within that players viewpoint.

Most players would find tac swapping in home turf mods, trinkets, weapons and the like entirely acceptable but when it comes to artifacts that acceptance level differs and perhaps you're exactly right and its the impact that creates the double standard, everyone has a line in the sand, yes.

If we accept that the line has been crossed and perhaps it has, we have to also acknowledge the applicable double standard created at the fundamental level, so when looking at the solution, the solution cannot become "remove the foundation", but rather, shift the line back.

Leading ultimately to the conclusion that a request to "lock ones inventory" is nothing but nonsense and comes from a place or mentality that has given little real thought to the problem, it's simply a knee jerk response, effectively getting a bee sting and chopping your whole limb off.

The sensible approach is therefore to move the line back which can be done in several ways, create a seperate tab for artifacts like allies or augments to make switching artifacts more cumbersome and only done if absolutely really needed and with some level of risk given the length of time in the inventory (an armory at that point becomes more favorable)

Or alternatively it can be as simple as applying a cool down to the third slot or even locking the third slot in place entirely once in combat, this means to swap a player would have to go in to their inventory and manually drag to slot 1 or 2, again more cumbersome.

There's several solutions that could be employed that are not heavy handed but entirely resolve the issue

I'm not against fixing over heated tac swapping, I'm only against a heavy handed response that removes it including on all casual levels

I mean, that's the other solution right, artifact off, effects stop, end, you can't heavy tac swap if the effects aren't there anymore, the biggest problem is probably an effect persistence after removal.

The gap comes from certain players (for both console and PC) utilizing certain... tools... that provide additional dexterity and may or may not be considered against ToS.

What a weird take.
Nobody is asking you to sacrifice your playstyle so long as the devs don't make content around it yes. Some people just wanna burn stuff faster and they've adapted a new playstyle. This happens in MMO's ALL THE TIME. This shouldn't affect anyone who doesn't do it lol. There are bigger issues in this game than someone switching items in their inventory to do more damage.

It actually does affect everyone when some of our "beloved" testers use this cheese while giving their feedback, wanting to gatekeep content to be as hard as possible. We've already seen what happens when only them are heard: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dc...wapping-my-opinion.323870/page-2#post-4522400

The task may be the same but the end result is not. Is pouring water on an open flame the same as pouring kerosene on an open flame? Does that create a double standard for arsonists and/or fire fighters?

Well actually, yes and I'll explain why;

You've created a false analogy in an attempt to suggest you've defeated my point when in reality you have not (effectively you've attempted to create a straw man, a rather bad one I might add.)

If we take your analogy it amounts to this;

A fire fighter doesn't like fire, they hate fire because they're always having to put them out (anti tac swapper), where as an arsonist loves lighting fires (pro tac swapper).

However, within the firefighters home he has a log burner (fire) out in his backyard he has a barbeque, he also lights bonfires every year to celebrate the holidays, but does this in what he/she perceives is a controlled and safe manner.

The arsonist has an open fire in their backyard in a 44 gallon drum and starts festival bon fires with petrol every summer, however despite this fact there has never been any issues.

The fire fighter hears about the arsonist though and becomes horrified and outraged and says "how dare you even light a fire".

The suggestion that the arsonist not be allowed to light the fire in the first place is the exact same double standard that I'm referring too.

The anti tac swapper is quite accepting of "loose tac swapping" but becomes outraged once there's too much fuel and demands the whole thing be shut down, even though they've become a hypocrite through their own engagement in the activity to a lesser extent they deemed acceptable.

It wasn't until too much fuel was present, that they had an issue.

You'll note in my post, this is exactly what I said when I said perhaps there is too much fuel effectively and following that I outright said the presence of a double standard doesn't mean banning fires, it means ensuring fires are done in a more acceptable manner.

Entirely justifying the reasoning behind why I said the solution isn't to just "ban it all" doing so is nonsensical because even the fire fighter still wants fires.

So we agree artifacts are the issue, not everything else laying around in your inventory, and the artifacts should be locked up in some fashion mid-combat.

I mean... that would be a middle ground. Put Artifacts into their own equip tab that requires you to select and confirm like Allies. It would allow for on the fly swapping, but would slow it down a bit to prevent the fast swap. (On PC, it would be I > enter > esc on first slot.)

My personal beliefs:
I do think we should not be able to swap on the fly. It should work like our tray. While in combat, we can't change roles or even a power on our tray. Why are we allowed to change a passive power? Why does the passives stay active the moment we take them off? Artifacts were added WAY later than the game's development. (I think it was around 2017?) Intentions have always been weird, since the original devs that worked on them are no longer here and the devs that were working on them for a big portion are also gone as well. I do like Ranmaru, they are showing that they have a grasp on player side views on artifacts. And a lot of the new artifacts are strong, but not breaking the game strong or they have to be a required on all loadouts.

On a related side note, I’ve wondered why we haven’t had a specific mechanic in boss fights that disable artifacts. The same could apply to allies and augments.

For instance, your artifacts are knocked out of your possession, and you have to collect them back up from around the room before you can use them again. Maybe a boss steals your artifacts from you and starts using them against you. Or when you summon an ally, they are immediately sucked into another plane of existence (like the Queen of Fables book); and you have to release your allies before you can use them again. With augments, our exobytes could be deactivated and we lose those augment abilities and stats until we can “reboot”,

We have such mechanics that disable our load out, our weapon attacks, our movement and even our player control - but nothing yet to disable artifacts, allies and augments.

Person, you're the only player I've seen pull stuff outta no where with no proof. You have multiple toons with artifacts and allies at high levels without spending money.

What does being able to have high arts and Allie’s have anything to do with this? Are implying that because I have a lot of arts it means I must have spent money and therefore I must have lied that I didn’t spend money?

Just because you’re incapable of being able to take advantage of what the game offers doesn’t mean other are. Leveling arts has never been this easy. You can very easily max out 1 artifact from 0-200 every double nth metal event and still have enough for a second art to get from 0-160. With the new changes made this past update you can even get 2 arts to 200 every rotation. So you should ask how to do it instead of assuming it must be impossible because you lack the knowledge to do so.

Claiming content is built around tac swapping is literally pulling stuff out your rear since content is beatable without tac swapping lol

Is there any other harm to swapping apart from this? Because this issue doesn't seem that hard to resolve, and seems more like it's just one extremely vocal player and the devs listening to only them for some reasons. And doesn't seem directly related to swapping. Relatedly,

I agree. Honestly in my experience most players just aren't that good in terms of DPS. Even I'm pretty mediocre (I blame my power xd), but in some of the more struggle groups just for this episode I can have like 50% more damage than the next person, and we still beat it. Whereas in the smoothest runs the top DPS can have 40% more damage than me. There is a huge skill disparity in the population, and while swapping contributes to that, it's not the primary reason most DPS don't have burn.

I can't even think of arguments for why we SHOULDN'T be able to swap, except as OP stated if content starts being designed around lots of swapping. Which it isn't. And like I've said the burn checks in this game don't require swapping to beat. Most DPS just need to optimize their own, non-swap playstyle, and they could do so much more damage. Sure they might be always a bit behind a swap DPS, but top DPS should not be top with 50% more damage then the next person. In my opinion there are some powers which are overperforming, which can make the gap seem bigger than it should be, which is a separate issue. But even weaker powers can do more then decent damage, enough to smoothly beat content.

From experience, a super sweaty tac swapper vs a high end not tac swapper= tac’r “wins” by about 10%. Now that 10% will look small in a duo and large in a long raid, especially if there’s lots of wipes, but percentage wise, I’ve never seen a sweaty beat a great burner by more than that so to most of us, it’s not really worth the effort unless we’re bored or trying a burn/ speed feat. I’m all for letting others do it if it makes the run go faster.

Only thing I hate is that it also has the ability to make the run take much longer because the swapper died while in inventory and the group loses a dps or 2. Or more cuz I’ve run with everyone but my lazy butt swapping and had to burn multiple bosses solo while they hang out outside. Which in turn means I out dps’d all of them by huge amounts so I won any comp happening without swapping.

Troll tac swaps benefit the entire group so not sure what the issue is there other than some groups won’t let you play in their sandbox if you don’t have 10 arts to swap. Nbd, plenty of other groups looking for trolls.

Thats just one dps doing it add to that a troller swaping arts and buffing 5 dpses with 6 buffs worth of arts? You also need to consider people swap scrap in to more frequently spam scs and thereby spam more eog circles which again buffs everyone standing in that circle further.

And? So they get to burn faster. You keep talking about how faster burn means bypassing intended difficulty. Except the opposite is true. Not sure you’ve been in a strong enough burn group to see things like proma non stop stomping because you’re burning her too fast but how is that bypassing difficulty? It’s literally adding it because it’s a non stop one shot. Well it was, I don’t what got nerfed but we don’t even need to block that attack anymore. I was assuming it was nerfed via TSWE+ nerfs. I run scrap/ EoG/ page when I heal. I run 3 greens. You ever tried to solo heal a group in elite like that? Cuz it’s wayyyy harder than when I run orb/page/phr. When I only run one super, hardest content, then I tac swap EoG and phr. So if tac swapping goes away, no big deal. You need to pick which thing you want changed, EoG or tac swapping. Because it probably won’t be both.

Lol, we always did Haha that much was clear in post? Haha

Generally my view on the solution would be to put a cooldown on the third slot of 20 seconds or so to significantly or entirely stop the stacking of passive effects.

It would basically kill the sweaty tac swapping dead in its tracks when they can only realistically swap one and need to keep it on for a bit.

Doing faster damage does mean skipping intented difficulty if you disagree as you just did that should explain enough about the mentality of you art swap protectors.

I don't know about the changes to TSWe+, but I understand it was because you needed 4 tanks with Superman or something which proved that it was too over tuned.

In regards to what I believe several people are saying, that 10% doesn't seem like much, but adds up quickly when you have a full group of sweat. Things melt so fast, that content is basically trivialized (we aren't talking regular or event here, but elite) and fear is the devs starting to take that into account when designing it. Like how almost all skull attacks now go through shields, is a big example of a drastic change because players were doing spamming 8 person shields to keep from having to acknowledge the dangerous mechanic.

I was at SOE Live 2014. I was at a panel that Loche was commenting on how surprised the devs are when players figure out how to do something that was not necessarily intended, but there was nothing against it either.

When they did the stats revamp, I and many others, said that the power creep will still happen. This just reset it again. Well, now we have artifacts that swap and stack on themselves that accelerate the power creep. It's amusing.