Test Discussion Episode 34: Supercharges, Artifacts, and Balance Changes

I'd love to see proof of 19 160 artifacts assuming you don't have them at 1mil+ xp from the previous exploits and they're just fakes you didn't spend money on considering you're averaging to just 3-4 per toon which is 1 normal 160 you'd have + 2 enchanted coral's. To also say you have $1000+ spend on artifacts but you're complaining about $40-50 is funny. Unless each of your toons was also set up to abuse the gemini.

Anyone has tested yet how much Dash Attack's shield was increased? Or any of the other SC's that were changed from the notes in this topic in terms of damage increase?

The artifact should of simply went through better testing then

At the end of the day this is the product they revealed to us on their live stream, this is the product they released in their game and players liked what they saw and paid money to upgrade it. its not like players are doing some kind of glitch this is what they gave us...and if they felt this was to "cheesey" how are you just now addressing it?

Literally when you type in the eye of gemini on google the very first thing that pops up is the dcuo wiki... and the very first thing it says is...

In theory, a super ability with a lower cost would be more efficient in activating this artifact.

and then it goes on to give you a bunch of 2500 supers that will work the artifact lol

It's not though tell me how it is, tell me without trying to deflect, actually prove it to me. The only way healers can use their supercharge more often than intended is to use the combination of the scrap of the soul cloak and eye of the gemini for max supercharge regen. These changes do nothing to change that, they still earn more SC than they ever could with the artifacts, what changes is to be able to use them every 24 seconds in content that isn't designed to have damage absorption of that nature almost continually. The devs haven't adjusted anything to do with the artifacts so an argument saying they wasted money on levelling them in completely fruitless because they still need them to use supercharge. Also everyone like you wants to conveniently leave out the fact that these 2 artifacts are both dual role.

If I levelled the amulet of rao and then switched to tank do I get a refund box from the devs for my amulet because that is wasted $$ I worked really hard for to pay for the amulet and now its useless because I changed powersets........... how does that argument apply for cloak or EoG? it doesn't cause it works for every possible role.

they are not at 1 million xp or whatever absurd number. I used the 75k stones that I purchased and used them. some I did on the various double xp weekends. some I didn't wait for. I have 21 more 75k stones sitting in my bank to level up the tank artifact for my tank along with the grim for my prec dps. since you are the artifact police I will be happy to log in for you so you can inspect my artfacts, all 19 of them, so you can see they weren't leveled via the mill xp exploit or whatever your calling it. and again, I am not complaining. I am discussing the changes and I am on the side of people who say money spent means something.

I'm on test and on live looking at the damage values at around 24k might and I'm only see'ing barely a 1k jump for both of these. like 16-17 up to 18'ish. Is cooldown not a huge factor in damage calcuation? because that's barely 10% if not less of a damage increase for for 2.5x and 30x the cd.

Just added all your toons on my hero alt. I'll invite when you sign in.

artifacts made switching to powers of different role cost prohibitive. I am not deflecting. if you cant see how this affects healers who have and use those artifacts, nothing I say will change your mind. and I am not necessarily disagreeing with you that these changes need to be made. I just think that it is unfair for people to say other people opinions are invalid. everyone is trying to make the game better

Cool, thanks. Did you try Dash and/or SpeedDrain/Bloom?

This goes back to what proxy said. It's an emotion you're feeling. People like me and Chill are logic driven. We leave emotions out. How you feel, what you think should be important is not factual. It's exactly what you called it, an opinion. Business is not ran on opinions. Balancing video games is not done on opinions. There are people in game that have the opinion they can break ToS and cuss and scam people infinitely because they've been paying customers for years and feels that should carry weight. But it doesn't, factually. Upholding the standards of the community is more important, flat out. Upholding balance and content difficulty across the board is more important than whatever emotion or opinion you have. A more accurate term is maybe insignificant and not invalid.

And at the end, the very implementation got severely taken advantage of by the community in terms they didn't account for, leading to imbalanced, unintended cheese in content.

I don't know where you're getting this "just now"-nonsense from, this has been known feedback for a while now. The Devs are finally adressing it. Those who paid to take full advantage are being extremely vocal and barking loud at the moment in desperate attempts to prevent changes from happening, but as far as balance goes the devs are heading toward the right direction.

I'll test Speed Drain rq. Chill should be getting the Dash attack numbers later.

Thanks, I would love to know as I will have no access to test in the next few days. Cheers.

im out hope you guys figure it out. i personally will support the game regardless as my fun for the game expands beyond what SC/Artifact does what i met some really cool people on here and interacting with them is more than enough for fun for me. nerfs/buffs wont change that but i hope everyones happy with the end results. Looking forward to see how the the rest of the community embraces the changes

have a good one

waiting on that invite

This is what happens when you tie game mechanics to real money.

On one hand, the devs are pretty much asking for trouble by not doing their homework before releasing these artifacts (now they seem to be, which is good.)

On the other hand, people complaining about spending money ... la, la, la. Everyone spends money on the game (well, subs do anyway). That doesn't mean we have the right to demand that the game stays exactly the same over time because of it. LOL. Tell me, does this change affect gameplay more, or did stats revamp by eliminating CR scaling? The devs have the right to modify content at any time they feel like it. This is a good thing. It's called game balance and achieving set goals. See, none of the artifacts have the right to actually break the game, eliminate mechanics completely or get rid of the need for one or more roles. So if you thought that's what you were purchasing, I'm sorry to say you should've read the ToS a little better.

For future reference, understand what you're getting into. Artifacts should have a SMALL IMPACT on gameplay. They are not the end all be all of DCUO. If any artifact becomes it, expect changes.

P.S. - Devs, please stop trying to correct gameplay problems with P2W items.

If by that you mean "people using the artifact in the exact manner in which they advertised it to be used with the exact types of powers they suggested using with it," then yeah... totally. Go watch the announcement stream for it again if you have any doubt they were aware of its potency.

The whole "it had to wait for test" argument you made earlier is bs. If it was broken, it would have been fixed. To suggest otherwise is an insult to the devs when we're talking about something so prevalent and mainstream. This isn't some minor or niche aspect of the game that slipped through the cracks. A 5-6month repair schedule would be completely unprecedented and asinine for an issue that's being called so severe.. They tested it, released it, and let it ride for almost half a year.

They explicitly said that isn't their goal. They stated they want artifacts to be potent and impactful, like combos in TCG (their inspiration, in part). Small impact = Atlantean Seahorse = easy to get. Big impact = max level artifact = very hard/slow or expensive to get. Every artifact has a pretty big impact in and of itself, even the "bad" ones. The stat boost alone is strong af.

(Just Linking and Quoting myself from the Test Discussion Thread Last Year when this was being Tested).

(Test Discussion: Eye Of Gemini - Artifact)

Now others have also addressed their concerns as well. But some times what some can see, others can not. These changes are definitely necessary and the developers can now actually see the effect that this is having on the game.

It would have been better to address this sooner but they are addressing it now before the new episode, Which I think is very important. If this was left alone it would continue to undermine their work they put in for each episode. And it would only have gotten worse with more and more players obtaining and adapting to this so called meta. And abusing an overlooked effect that is now causing problems and is a lot more noticeable since more players are using it.

Either adjusting the artifact's cool down effect or those specific abilities that are below 30 seconds would work. They have chosen to adjust the abilities for their own reasons, Which could be so they didn't have to alter the artifact anymore than they already have and or because they felt the abilities need to be adjusted.

I for one agree with the changes and that the abilities definitely needed a balance pass. This allows them to look at each ability and to finally make the necessary adjustments in order to balance them to be more in line with other similar abilities.

Lets just hope they have the time and are able to do this for each ability when they can so players can have more options, especially within their own power set without having to look outside of their own abilities if they don't want to.

The developers are trying as they do care for the game along with quite a few players who also address their concerns because they want to see the game succeed and continue for years to come. So give the developers some credit. They are a small team and they are trying their best.

It is their game after all and not all of our wishes is the direction or plan they have for the game. But when something isn't working out they usually make the necessary changes, Which is always a good thing.

So give the developers time to do their job and be patient. I am sure what they are doing isn't easy because if it were, we would all be doing it. If you care for the game like most do then you would understand why these changes are necessary. It is only meant to improve the game and our experience within it for the long term.

So enjoy it and be thankful that we actually have developers who care enough to address problems when they can, especially ones like this which actually has a much larger effect on the game than most would like to admit.

It was nice meeting you. talking about things person to person, instead of typing them out on forums makes the discussion much less argumentative. as you can tell from what we discussed we are both in agreement that changes to how EOG green circles work need to be made. And that we both believe that everyone's input is valuable even if they are unable to express it in the best terms. I also agree with the point you made that not changing the EOG and changing the SC affects the users who don't have EOG and that the better way to fix this would be to make changes directly to the EOG