Posts: 6,116
Threads: 467
Joined: Nov 2014
Staff roles: Art Developer
Uhm. Yes. Yes it is the point.
Nomads are beings of pure energy, using crystals as a husk. Those Artifacts will only respond to a specific type of energy, or methods of opening it.
Since Humans are just honkadonk meat and lack these energies, they lack the ability to fully make use of the crystals. They /cannot/ open it without a /key/, a decypher - just like the one in singleplayer, such as the Proteus Tome, which contains the codes to translating the artifacts. Now, that's for activating one, or reading one. But some of them can be damaged and may be missing information within them. All artifacts have different purposes and different 'abilities'.
Finding active ones, by natural cause or whatnot, is extremely rare.
In short, they're a piece of paperweight, but resourceful to the right people... or beings.