Add a periodic "no climb" debuff to Maelstrom

[Larathiel]

TBH, I’ve done more with the storm since early access began than I ever did during beta.

Like she mentioned, @Narelle and I weren’t exactly fond of the horror stuff and while we farmed enough essence for minor leyshrine surges, we didn’t do much with it – particularly after transitioning from the test server to co-op and single-player. As such, a lot of our leyshrine tests were done by spawning essence to see what the various surges were all about, and (in some cases) griping about the low rate of T4 crafter spawns.

It really wasn’t until I got my own server up and running on Siptah (once we all entered Early Access) that I can recollect dealing with the crazy number of spawns once you’ve been in for a long time.

[CodeMage]

Thanks, @Narelle and @Larathiel. If you guys can think of anyone you could tag here (and think that doing so is appropriate), I really would love to hear about a beta test experience with the Elder Thing swarm and essence farming.

I try to discover things in the game on my own, but I’m not beyond asking for help. At this point, I really would love to hear from someone who dealt with the (???) essence farming successfully.

[Tselem]

“Climbing a rock and shooting arrows is an exploit!”
“Make it impossible to climb, so idiotic AI can hit you”

Are you serious guys?
The solution to stupid AI is to block human creativity?
“An archer should not stay on higher grounds and shoot arrows, it’s not fair!”
Geez tell me I did not read that!

The solution is (would have been) the same since from Exile lands: enemies should be able to climb, to fly, to reach out for you.
Damn freaking spiders are not able to climb, you have to fix that and not nerf your options to fight and face the enemies.
Damn… crocodile should swim and bats should fly… baaah, forget this ^^

[Narelle]

@CodeMage

I try to discover things in the game on my own, but I’m not beyond asking for help.

You should know that a lot has changed as well. Not everything works the way it used to in beta. The storm and surge mechanics were under active development. I know a person or two that could share some more inside on the storm but we agreed to not disclose the names of the beta testers unless they want to reveal themselves.

[Mzlady]

Can u get banned for killing maelstrom with poison arrows? While standing on cliff or pillar?

[CodeMage]

@Tselem

“Climbing a rock and shooting arrows is an exploit!”
“Make it impossible to climb, so idiotic AI can hit you”

Are you serious guys?

Yes, we’re serious. I understand that not everyone spends as much time on these forums as I do, so you might have missed previous discussions about this. If you have, here are the links to them (please don’t blame me for their titles, I didn’t pick them):

• Unfair creature farming method and addition of new servers
• Maelstrom Cheesing issue is a coding fault not player exploit

@Tselem

The solution to stupid AI is to block human creativity?
“An archer should not stay on higher grounds and shoot arrows, it’s not fair!”

It’s not the solution, but it definitely is a solution. And again, you can see from the discussions I linked that nobody is claiming that standing on high ground and shooting arrows isn’t fair.

@Tselem

The solution is (would have been) the same since from Exile lands: enemies should be able to climb, to fly, to reach out for you.
Damn freaking spiders are not able to climb, you have to fix that and not nerf your options to fight and face the enemies.

That would be the best solution. I’d love to see that. Unfortunately, it’s much more complicated than it sounds, and it’s certainly more complicated and costly than other solutions. Only Funcom can tell whether they’ll ever make it happen, but my personal belief is that it’s not likely.

[Narelle]

@Mzlady It depends on how far you go with it.

Maelstrom Cheesing issue is a coding fault not player exploit

Hey there, This issue is being addressed, first with a cap to how many enemies spawn per Maelstrom which is already in place since it was just a server setting change. Second, we’re addressing a couple of issues that allow for players to override that and bring server performance to its knees. While an issue within the code of the game, using and abusing it knowing that it has severe consequences to the performance of a whole server, not only for you but for everyone playing is the definition …

[CodeMage]

@Mzlady

Can u get banned for killing maelstrom with poison arrows? While standing on cliff or pillar?

Yes.

Source:

@Ignasis

To clarify: This is an exploit, it negatively impacts server performance to the point of a crash, which is not unknown to those using and abusing it. Players found using and abusing this exploit will be sanctioned, as they have been in the past. Our team is working on a solution to this exploit, but until then do not abuse this exploit in official servers.

Another:

@Ignasis

We’re working to get this issue addressed. Until then, please do not exploit this game mechanic to create a detrimental gameplay experience for everybody else in the official server you’re playing in.

[Tselem]

in Italy we have a motto that goes somewhat this:
“the bandage is worse than the wound” (but in a more spiced flavour I guaranteee you that)…
Stop looking for bandages, the game NEEDS true solutions, true fixes… I know (I understood a long time ago) that fixes does not produces money but guys come on, gamers demands and needs that things has to be done in the right way.

I’m alway in the mood of coming back to Conan but I read the forum (love you guys) and see not only that old issues are not fixed, but new ones add to the list.
A smart AI and functional enemies should NOT be an issue to fix, they should be THE core of the game:reactive enemies that forces you to use the environment, to engage them in more ways, foes that challenge you to find new solutions.
Until this is done the game will always be a mountain of bandages on a bleeding amputated leg!

(By the way, as an offline PS4 player I do not even know if it possibile to me to play Conan anymore!)

[GudAtGaims]

@CodeMage

Okay, so by now we all know that cheesing the Maelstrom causes serious server performance problems

You don’t even have to purposefully cheese the maelstrom, this can happen anyway as a result of you simply not being able to kill the mobs fast enough, then the feedback loop kicks off and buh-bye server FPS…

The mechanic are the heart of the maelstrom spawns is inherently flawed. Just remove it and have a cap of X Maelstrom monsters allowed to spawn at any one time. As the storm progresses the monsters could get more powerful towards the end of the storm, BUT ONLY if players have killed enough for there to be enough free creature cap to spawn larger creatures.

[Chaoruk]

There is no need to even cheese it on some pillar. Just a group of 5 or so players running around in storm does same harm. Should we implement automatic ban to anyone who enters storm?
Sounds like there is a need for acual fix from Funcom than ban of players.

Periodic anti climb won’t do anything. What stops me from getting on pillar way before storm and just waiting there for storm? Bam entire anti climb becomes pointless.
What we really need is decrease of spawn and change from tier 1 npcs spawn to boss npcs spawn with few t1 dogs and everything else that goes with it.
Less mobs= better performance. At same time you can decrease cost of layshires a bit to compensate for less amount of mobs in the storm.
It will remove the main issue with poison arrows farm…ton of bodies lagging server down to PowerPoint presentation performance.

[Chaoruk]

People shouldn’t be banned for EA game issues. Issues should be fixed.
And this fix doesn’t even require creating anything new. Just change of values in datatables.

[WhatMightHaveBeen]

You know during a storm, lightning strikes high areas. Make the lightening have a knock back. AOE area, you will get knocked back (like the elephant stomp). No damage from the strike itself, but the fall damage if you are not off the cliff, and stamina loss (25%???). So you can try and cheese it, but imagine having 10 creatures below in a pit, and you get knocked into it. that would be hilarious.

[DameDuLac]

The best solution is to limit the max number of PNJ on one spot. 200 is too much. If there are 2 clans at the same time, the server crashes

[CodeMage]

@Chaoruk

Just a group of 5 or so players running around in storm does same harm.

I’ve seen absolutely nothing to indicate that 5 players running around in storm, killing the Elder Things and harvesting their corpses, will do the same harm as 1 player standing on an unreachable pillar, killing the Elder Things and letting their corpses pile up.

[WhatMightHaveBeen]

Maybe just make all the maelstorm spawns immune to gas. This way, you can still poison and bleed, but have to use firespark/set/daggers.

[DanQuixote]

That sounds like both a good solution and hilarious I like it

[Chaoruk]

You will stay have hundred mobs issue.
Making storm a content only for big clans that able to fight off those hordes.
Small clans may be able to farm it on the edges for quick grab and run out.
Solo…why you even playing Siptah?

[Chaoruk]

Same issue but players move around.
Storm still spawns a ton of mobs that makes server do a ton of extra work.
The main issue with whole gas farm is high amount of mobs that die in one area. Each have custom drop table aka mob becomes a “chest” with item on death forcing server to load each individual “container” and send data to each player’s client in render area= The more players the more work.
Other possible solution is removing drops from storm npcs and leave only harvestable drops aka everything you can get with tool.
It should cut down lag issue a big but not much.
The main problem with entire storm thing is amount of npcs being spawned.
Just by removing their drop inventories and cutting down numbers at same time upping the tier of monsters spawned should remove some of the lag.
OR you can just make them immune to poison.Making small group/solo farming a living hell.
So players will create new tactics to abuse Storm mechanic.
So what? We should ban them too? Is thing Conan Exiles Prepare to Ban edition?

[Halk]

@Chaoruk

individual “container” and send data to each player’s client in render area

I sometimes think the decay timer is also a big part of the problem. Not only you have to render all those corpses/lootbags but the server has a tick for each of them to keep track on when they should disappear. Doesn’t this make it even harder?