5 Art Slots & Locked Arts- An Alternative

With the announcement of 5 locked artifact slots, it's clear the community has divided itself into two sides- those in favor, and those against. While locking 5 artifacts can initially be seen as a good thing to some, I don't believe it will be good for DC in the long term.

Eliminating art swapping causes players to have to be very selective with the arts they choose to go into an instance with and will likely cause certain swap-only artifacts, such as Dead King or Philosopher's Stone to become completely useless. This is unfortunate for two reasons- players will not be ranking up these artifacts anymore because they are more likely to choose an artifact that will benefit their role more. Also, players who already have these artifacts ranked up will not be able to use them and have already spent the money to rank them up.

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Not all artifact swapping is considered "sweaty", I understand that this is a concern to some. Here are a few situations in which swapping an artifact is beneficial to the whole group:

-Somebody gets knocked out and you go for the pickup. You can swap in Lazarus Pit to proc Rage of Lazarus, where you will not be knocked out for at least 12 seconds. This can even prevent a full group wipe in certain situations.

-Your supply drop is off cooldown mid fight, so you can swap in Philosopher's Stone to call in a supply drop that will benefit all the players in your group, can be done in any role

-Your orbital is off cooldown mid fight, so you can swap in Dead King to proc a higher damage orbital, can be done in any role

There are more artifacts than just those three that can be swapped in, but those are just examples of how a swap can be a beneficial thing. A lot of players already have these artifacts ranked up and use them in this way.
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I understand why a lot of the community wanted this change. There are plenty of people who use art swapping to up their personal damage, which creates a skill gap. Adding two extra artifacts for us to use means that we don't need to swap in pure DPS swap arts such as mercy or flute, which inevitably helps us get our damage numbers up. The important thing to note here is that a lot of the community has spent money and/or time ranking up artifacts that will not be useful for us anymore, or rarely get used.

That is why as a compromise, or a solution that would help, is to have two different options for players:

1. You use 5 artifacts and they are locked
or
2. You have 3 slots, but are allowed to swap them

This benefits both sides of the community, without favoring the other, and without leaving certain artifacts completely useless. At the end of the day, locking artifacts at 5 slots only will cause players to spend less money ranking up their artifacts.

No

Art swap drama is from the dps players that wants top damage and can't get several arts to 200 and hates on those with 200 art swapping.
It's the dps players that wants top damage, that's all it is.
If a controller art swaps, it's not an issue, if healer art swaps, it's not an issue
If DPS a art swaps and other dps can't, it's an issue.

I casual DPS and I don't care if I can't art swap and others do. Because I don't care for top damage and it's a game.

Someone bought a whole tanker of copium.

No amount of rationalizing or debating will make unintended gameplay functions, that are limited to those with a mouse or amazing controller dexterity and inventory organization, a good idea or healthy for the future of a game.

This is the same delusional rationalization that if one person doesn't enjoy the game anymore, the entire thing should shut down.

So, in your opinion, Dead King and Philosopher's Stone were created and added to the game to be a main 3 artifact? How exactly is that unintended? I gave a few scenarios in which artifact swapping isn't entirely about the DPS side of things.

No! means NO!

Well, artifact sales are going to completely tank now. There is no point to leveling more than 5 artifacts for any role. There were some good universal artifacts (ie: Philosopher's Stone, MERCY Amazotron, Dead King's Scepter - all of these used to be worth wolf packing) that are only useful if you swap them in during combat. Now there's no point to leveling them.

Not to mention there was a whole slew of controller artifacts that people swapped in and out for buffs. Say goodbye to the leveling of those.

There's a lot more to this than just "omggg the DPS are swapping artifacts and I can't keep upppp"

This especially, I was hoping people would read my entire post to understand how art swapping extends further beyond a sweaty DPS trying to be top boards. Oh well

This will eventually just tank their artifacts sales even further. Why bother even buying a Wolfpack Token when you can only play with 5 arts tops for each build/role? I'm ok with that though. I never swapped much other than DKS and PS so this won't effect me as much. For Elite + players this might just pigeonhole OP art builds and if you don't have that magical 5 art roster sorry not sorry you ain't running with the big guys if you don't go with the meta. Oh well. It is what it is. Obviously Daybreak/Dimensional Ink know what they're doing they keep veterans online year long and keep getting shiny new players increasing every year so the population is booming. They've also never made drastic mistakes over the 14+ years of the game driving players away in droves so they must be doing something good right? I'm sure we're in good hands. I'm also sure this revolutionary new decision wasn't constantly shouted at the Devs by a small population of the playerbase who will no doubt stay on after said change and also weren't salty about scoreboard damage or anything right? Man it's really crazy when you can see the nails in a coffin literally glare in the light when you can see when a game will finally die. So many baffling decisions made but hey it wouldn't be DCUO without em either I guess?

The art swap thing ppl don't like.
They are forgetting there is still something many ppl do to get top damage 90% of the time and they only use it for a few seconds at a time here and there.
Ppl forgetting about that.

I've never liked repeated art swapping as part of a rotation but I do wish that situational swapping could be retained. A cooldown similar to armory activations would have been a perfect solution IMO.

As someone who never art swapped and never intended to do so, I was always a supporter for those who chose to swap. As it stands the only ones who out dps me are the sweaty swappers. And you know what? Good for them. They took the time to learn how to swap effectively and were willing to spend (support the game) to have the arts to swap.

A lot of players believe that the only reason they get out dpsed is because “they are swapping” or “they are using broken powers”. Fact is, there is a level is skill needed in order to swap EFFECTIVELY. Many players who swap are actually pretty bad at it. And not the players whining that they are never on top believe this change will magically make them better. Truth is that these sweaty dps will still be out performing others. Why? Because they practiced the skill needed to perform well. It’s just that simple.

If anything I’m coming out on top since I was already performing well while not swapping lol. Sooooo yay me?

No thanks

There's a third side, but we're not as vocal about it, because we don't care. Some of us don't care if swapping is blocked or not, because it doesn't affect us. Players like me don't say anything, because we don't have a horse in that race.

Ending swapping has no effect on players like me, either. I don't swap, but my attitude has always been, if another player wants to spend the entire battle in their inventory, who cares, as long as they don't get me killed. If other players don't swap, who cares. The only people who care, either way, are people who swap, or people who can't get into elite runs because they don't swap.

Good, people will have to actually choose what they think will be most beneficial to the team/fight rather than being able to have everything available at all times. And on the point of some artifacts being useless, there is potential to actually buff them now that you are limited and can't just swap them in off cooldown.

(Though if they buff old stuff remains to be seen)

https://media.tenor.com/ct0UIRuFwRcAAAAM/yoda-bad-lip-reading.gif


No thank you what's done is done and good riddance.

I didn't mind the swapping; however, what I did mind was people being jerks about it making it an absolute requirement. Especially for certain roles where they were required to swap up to 9 to 12 different artifacts so scoreboard numbers can be chased in instances where every run(including elite and plus) was an enforced comp no matter the role and intention of even partaking in the comp.

Now if the Devs or management can work on the price of leveling artifacts and allies where it wouldn't practically lock players to certain power sets and roles opening up the variety. Not everyone can afford switching power sets on the whim or run multiple toons where now we have 5 artifact slots to fill. Because let's be honest, would the community run harder content with someone with not all slots filled, or low arts in those slots? History has proven....no, they wouldn't.

The majority of people will use artifacts that only benefit themselves. I don't see very many people choosing to run DK or Stone as a main 5 artifact. Those arts are now going to sit dead in most people's inventory. Whatever buff they may or may not receive likely will not be enough to make players switch to it over another artifact. The two artifacts that I mentioned only really benefit your orbital and your supply drop, which already have long cooldowns. It's just not going to be worth running them unless they are reworked to be massively overpowered, which I completely doubt.

It's not just about "Oh, make smarter artifact decisions"- It's the fact that a lot of these artifacts were made with the idea that a player would swap it in just to use it and then swap back, and are now going to be next to useless.

True. A lot of people have over 5 artifacts already and will not use the rest that they have. If there's a new meta artifact, players can just feed their dead swap-only arts into it and not have to spend money.

I can see this working, it's a good idea for a compromise that still keeps some of those artifacts useful.

The reality is, nobody will ever be 100% satisfied with any type of solution.