Dev Discussion Development Update: Weapons and Artifacts

Perfected Nth metal is now 75k

Good point.

Hmm. Didn't the dev team double the value of old Nth Metal drops when they raised the cap to 160?

There isn't a 25K Nth Metal piece either, but there is a 12,500 piece. Could they be considering quadrupling the values?

(Too much to hope for, I know )

excuse me, i meant seals, not catalyst

One thing I could think of is the range on all melee weapon attacks needs to be normalized. Some attacks have a 5 meter aoe and others have a 7 meter oae range. I think they should all have a 7 meter range cause it sucks to be fighting a pile of adds and only hitting some of them and it also makes some weapon attacks less viable cause having only a 5 meter range compared to that of others that have a 7 kinda stinks.

Edit: This also goes for abilities to but thats for another time.

Well you want feedback on how to make Artifacts easier to more freely choose between and address their issues so here is some feedback outside the realm of BALANCE.

I see two big UI issues when it comes to Artifacts and both are caused by SPACE.

• We started out with what 5 artifacts in total that we could have but then we got the 3 Assassin, 2 Kryptonian, 1 Death of Superman, 4 Atlantis and 4 JL Dark artifacts ballooning out the number of artifacts that we have sitting in our Vault/Inventory. Most of these are bound to our character so they can't be mailed to an alt for storage and once used even those that could can no longer be.
  • Proposed Solution: Once an Artifact is BOUND to you it needs to be moved into a new UI window similar to the one for Augments. Here all our Artifacts will sit and we can choose which ones we want to slot at a given time. This would remove the Artifacts from our GEAR Window into this new one and remove them from our Inventory and Vault. To accomidate this the Base Item UI tab would be moved out of the Gear section and into the Style section.
• The Second big inventory issue with Artifacts is also shared with Augments and that is the ever increasing space needed for CATALYSTS, NTH METAL and EXOBYTES. Each of these has a pretty simple solution to them.
  • Catalysts reduce the number of Catalyst types that exist. For Artifacts we have 3 Catalyst types for each breakthrough. For Augments we have 3 or 4 Catalyst types for EACH Episode/DLC specific Augment type.
    • Proposed Solution: Reduce Artifact Catalyst Types to ONE since they all come out of Catalyst Caches anyhow there is no need for multiple types.
    • Proposed Solution: Reduce Episodic Augment Catalyst Types to ONE or TWO per Episode. Have one from the Solo/Duo and the other Alert/Raid.
  • Nth Metal comes in so many types we have our Bound to Account and Bound to Character in addition to the EXP Sizes of 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, 1k and 3k.
    • Proposed Solution: I honestly believe that there is no point in having the 10, 20, 50 and 100 sizes. All these do is clog up inventory spaces that we must designate for them. I could see keeping the 100 as the smallest but that is the absolute lowest I would go.
  • Exobytes exist in so many varieties its not even funny, Tiers 1 to 12, then Flawed, Solid and Prestine followed by Normal, Mighty, Precise, Dominating and Restoring, FOLLOWED By Episode Exobytes of Solid, Flawed and Prestine for a total of 189 types. The Tier Exobytes below Tier 10 are generally ignored or immediately consumed by people into any Augment of their choice so we really are dealing with Tiers 10 to 12 and 3 Episodes worth totaling 54 types. While this is an issue the largest problem here is the STACK SIZE of 4!!!!
    • Proposed Solution: This really needs to be increased to 99 like Nth Metal is. The community has suggested this since TT launched the new system and we are told it is this way to prevent hording and things like that which still happens now with the limits. It is time to accept this change needs to happen or you need to remove Episodic Exobytes.

i don't agree with this proposed solution, despite the fact people complain about artifacts being in your inventory this is because they're not thinking outside the box about optimal use.

Artifacts when in your inventory allow you the ability to switch them in and out of being equipped on the fly while in combat.

Moving artifacts to another UI or window seriously prevents this. Artifacts should stay in the inventory like they do now.

The only way a UI would work is if it's laid out on the same way as inventory, definitely not like augments and also has a hot key to directly open and close it with a single press.

What I meant when I said Like Augments is more about having a dedicated Tab where they would be housed instead of in our inventories.

I do see where you are coming from with the quick in combat artifact swaps that people do. That could be addressed with how this tab is created. As you said it could be setup with its own selectable Hot Key to open to option and also be setup similar to our Inventory to allow a quick click and swap out with a specific artifact slot. So if it was setup like this I think everyone could be happy with it.

I was just trying to think of a general solution to the ever growing space issue when it comes to artifacts. And yes you can get rid of artifacts you don't need but I know that some people do like to power swap at times and will save up all the artifacts that fit the powers that they like.

As long as it still allowed the same functionality without any detrimental delay, sure. That was all i wanted to point out, some people don't think about that part

Hell no. Whatever extra XP is in my artifact came from either grinding or the marketplace or both. Just cause a few cheaters got away with crap people like me need to be punished and robbed of our rightfully earned XP??? No...just no. Thankfully the Devs wouldn't implement such a divisive and punishing idea.

He also said millions of XP, the only way you obtained that amount was with the glitch/exploit. Mepps also replied to him that it’s already been taken care of (somewhere around those lines), but the last part indeed doesn’t have to be there, putting a base line for everyone. Even then it it wouldn’t be a big loss, unless you’ve bought the 75k ones from the MP and overleveld yours.

Grinded the nth metal on every single one. I think on one or two occasions I bought the 12K nth metal because I had left over marketplace cash and didn't see anything else to spend it on. And like everybody I buy seals. Everything else is pure grind.

That would be the case if the Venom Wrist Despenser was the single and sole source of your damage. It's not. Not by a long shot.

Sry if it's been said already but if the Venom Wist is at 160 and it gets bumped up to 200, there's probably 2 3* feats (one at 180 and one at 200) that you will get. That's 2 free feats (one skill point). I just don't see where that's right!

what happens if i spend more XP on the Artifact than meeded, for example after i salvaged a 160 artifact for a breakthrough to lvl 80 on the VWD, wich was all i needed, yet decided to not raise the artifact further because i could not affort the catalysts for breaking to 140? will i loose the XP or do you raise the level to 200 even without breaking trough thelower ranks?

What I have not seen mentioned is discussion of increasing Nth Metal drops. Getting up to 160 takes a good bit of time even if you're grinding content at 3-4 hours per evening (they seem to be on timed drops or an increasing % over time rather than a straight % on each kill), if the increase needed for each successive level remains constant then it will take quite a few months to move from 160 to 200 doing a serious, dedicated grind.

If not a straight increase in drops (which would be problematic for blowing through the lower Artifact levels) then how about drop rates enhanced by the levels of equipped artifacts?

Don't pretend that increasing ranks to 200 is part of a balance sweep. You could change the stats without changing the levels, that's just a cash grab.

The rest sounds good. Overdue by at least a year? Oh yes. But good. This is the kind of thing that should have been done before stats revamp, so I am failing to be impressed that you have finally decided to start doing your jobs, after this much time.

It's like you want praise for finally finishing homework that's been overdue for a year.

Anyway, Feedback -- don't go to 200. Period. Don't pretend that increasing levels is "needed". In order to balance racecars they don't all need to go faster, that's ludicrous.

If the NVWD is being nerfed 50% Would it be fair to extend the duration from 6 sec to 12 sec? I feel that would be reasonable. Also will there be any changes to the passive stats on artifacts?

We wont know until these changes until they hit Test Server