2.4 feedback from 7k+ gameplay hour PvP player

[Miethanr]

I’ve played this game for a long time, almost all of that time on pvp with some time dabbled in some of the roleplay conflict servers. I’m in a lot of discords for private servers and talk to a lot of people about the game and the status of PvP. Conan exiles has been my favorite game for the past three years and frankly the recent sleuth of changes has just put a horrible bad taste in my mouth, and a lot of the people I’ve spoken with. I’ve been slowly phasing myself out of the community just due to not really having fun anymore.

I was asked to come to the forums and provide some official feedback rather than just stew in private discords.

Ambrosia nerf.

Ambrosia isn’t the problem. The problem is the janky healing of potions. Its not fun. Ultimately some form of recovery method is necessary. Especially with the addition of sprint attacks. Making people die really fast or just make it so they can’t recover isn’t fun. While I know there is a huge amount of frustration surrounding how hard it is to sometimes kill someone… That isn’t a bad thing. On drop on death servers you lose everything on you so dying is a big punishment. Make dying too easy and its just an unfun cycle. Comparatively on servers that institute no drop on death but are in the roleplay realm, making healing too taxing makes their all important duelling conflict system either feel cheap or a drag. Ambrosia isn’t the problem, the problem is the healing potions and bandage changes from start of siptah expansion. Roll it back. Give us old healing back.

Horse nerfs

Not enough. Horse pvp isn’t interesting. Its boring. I’ve hated mount pvp since day 2 of their launch. Lot of people feel the same way and a lot of people have migrated to private servers for pvp that ban horse combat. Make horses for travel only or maybe with lance only. Spear/bow in particular are cancer. Its unfun gameplay mechanics that doesn’t involve any skill beyond a stat check of who can left/right click better with the better statted horse. It sucks.

Traveling with horses is great.

Combat on them or vs them is the most boring thing I’ve ever done in this game. Rather grind ironstone.

Water pvp moves

Needed years ago. Glad we finally got something. Water bratting is big snooze.

Roll changes
Its better than what we have. Rolls suck. All the old boomer pvpers remember fondly the old rolls and old pvp. I know everyone wore light armor and did the same thing, but the issue with old system wasn’t that light armor was too good, it was that heavy armor was too bad. Or rather that armor penetration was very overpowered. The most balanced pvp ever was, was back in june of 2018 when the khitai dlc launched. Armor penetration kits were nerfed to 5% instead of 15%. There was a true choice between light/medium/heavy. You were actually tanky in heavy armor, and were nimble in light. There was the coolest choice ever for heavy users too in that they could choose between stats in vit and str to try and go for an agility build for medium rolls. It was incredibly well balanced. Its boomer ‘back in my day’ talks. But it was really fun and memories of the fun of those days is what keeps me around. The idea that maybe the game will go back to being that level of fun again.

Having a clear choice between different armor classes that had a very visible, very distinct differences that affected one of the core gameplay mechanics was really fun and created a lot of gameplay variation.

Just managing encumbrance doesn’t really excite me. The roll changes are better than what we had, but frankly its still a step down from older systems.

Animation cancelling
Just increasing the time to draw weapons won’t fix the issue. It will only make it worse and more unfun. Animation cancelling only exists as a viable mechanic as a result of janky animations that root you in place for a long period of time. No one would animation cancel if launching an attack didn’t lock you in place for 1-3 seconds.

That being said please delete offhand animation cancelling of draw redraw for instant attacks. Its not a fun skill based interaction. Its an interaction that sets apart those that macro it, and those who don’t.

Bow nerfs
Good nerf. Bows should only exist for utility in pvp. The second a bow user is out dpsing a melee user why would anyone ever use a sword. Historically speaking a bow should be immensely powerful, but we want a melee game. Not a bow call of duty game.

Short sword buffs
This is good if offhand animation canceling is removed. If not this is toxic buff. The trick with the spear jab → Sword draw → animation cancel of offhand → Instant attack combo when done with a shortsword is much faster than 1h sword and if the damage is increased its going to be a new toxic interaction in my opinion.

I’ll edit or add more feedback as I have it I guess. Not really a big fan of the direction the game has gone or has been going.

My playtime in conan +/- about 400 hours I played on an alt account

[Meramusa]

@Miethanr

Ambrosia isn’t the problem, the problem is the healing potions and bandage changes from start of siptah expansion. Roll it back. Give us old healing back.

I know its always a controversial topic, but i dont think carrying 50 haunch and 50 herbal tea was particularly fun. I think going for a recovery should be a risk, that said, I think that walking while doing it is the issue, disengaging for a heal is fine, i’d like to see it altered so we still moved at full speed, just cant spam it while still actively fighting.

@Miethanr

Horse nerfs

Not enough. Horse pvp isn’t interesting. Its boring. I

To be fair, i think its because of a couple reasons. I think the scout saddle is too good, its far too mobile.

I think horses should not be leveled, i think they should have low hp and should die pretty easily, force a dismount easier.

There is very little counter-play against a mounted combatant, I think there should be a better way to defend yourself, i.e removing the kick animation from the spear and changing it to a brace that deals big damage to ponies

@Miethanr

Roll changes
Its better than what we have. Rolls suck. All the old boomer pvpers remember fondly the old rolls and old pvp.

not everybody fondly remembers yeeting all over the place with the old roll, the new roll is fine, personally i think it needs to be effected by agility not encumbrance, the roll changes being made to armour also make light and medium sets pretty much obsolete.

@Miethanr

That being said please delete offhand animation cancelling of draw redraw for instant attacks.

Amen. Animation canceling meta isn’t a fun way to play. Its also pretty well known people are using scripts to do it automatically.

@Miethanr

Historically speaking a bow should be immensely powerful, but we want a melee game. Not a bow call of duty game.

YOU want a melee only game. Some people actually want bows to be viable, and not just shooting poison arrows and explosive arrows.

[Sir.Henry.Vale]

Typically, you want melee to do more damage since you have to get close to hit the target. Range has the advantage being at a distance and can fire shots before the target can reach them. That is the strength of being a range type. Weakness usually is, you are weak in melee range. Although with this game being able to swap weapons on a fly is not same like Age of Conan rangers for example who mainly used bows exclusively where a good dps melee class was on top of the ranger, the ranger usually was dead and buried.

For Conan Exiles, I have no real opinion on the matter.

[sirvink]

I agree with all your comments except the Archery nerfs. But I am a PvE player. I suppose you could go find servers that ban horse and archery combat? But a hearty “heck no” form me on nerfing archery.

Honestly though, for a while I’ve considered archery as dead and I even run my own servers with mods to improve it. Even then, it isn’t as enjoyable as it once was for me. WIth 2.4, it is embarrasingly pitiful. It is almost as if all the Conan devs just plain hate archery and only keep it in the game because some “C” level exec said it was required.