The top left side of the map, otherwise known to me as “star metal valley”, is not realistic.
The whole place looks to me like a glacial area. The ice chucks up the slope as cliffs and the Eyelet Lake at the bottom. Honestly, an avalanche makes a lot of sense to be in that area. In the Eyelet Lake, there are ghosts under the ice. The position they are in suggests maybe they were picked up by some kind of flood or avalanche? The whole area is one big slope with a lake at the end so it just looks like there was an event in the past. The mountains around the valley are also not very naturally formed. They look eroded. Now I understand this is a GAME and was made with terrain tools but still, why not put in some detail?
If there was an avalanche, it would begin at the very north valley, above even the temple. There is literally a valley perfectly positioned there. The flow would flow over the temple cliff like a waterfall and then turn to start crashing down the star metal valley. It would end just beyond the Eyelet Lake. To hide from the falling ice, you could take shelter inside of the ice chunk areas. There are three areas like that all the way up. The avalanche would do massive damage to anyone caught in it. It would decimate the Frostneedle Forest (if it could without crashing the server) and carry players down with it. Structures inside of an avalanche would be damaged massively. The avalanche might be triggered by an earthquake or explosive OR meteor shower? Earthquakes beings signs (like sandstorm particle fx) that tell you to run.
Tell me what you think in the comments. This is not only lore friendly but adds new dynamics to Conan Exiles.
It sounds like a massive pain in the ■■■ to whoever had to suffer through it.
While it’s realistic in terms of “it could happen in this terrain”, it’s unrealistic in terms of gameplay.
First it’d probably be a beast to script, not to mention adding in the animation on how it would look.
Second, as this is a video game, it wouldn’t work. It becomes unrealistic because the terrain would have to deform to cause the avalanche, and you end up with tons of ice and snow dumped on the ground. The freezing temperatures means this is not going to disappear.
So a single avalanche and the entire landscape is permanently changed. It’s basically a one-off sort of thing. Unless you do a suspension-of-belief fakery to put the terrain back as it was pre-avalanche each time, along with all the snow and ice magically disappearing from the areas it flooded into.
Which, if you do that, puts it firmly back into the category of really just a pain in the ■■■ inclusion, that could destroy bases, kill players, and not really be fun for anyone involved, including those having to make it on the dev team.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d like winter weather in the game. A harsh white-out blizzard that turned visibility into crap, and hit you with stinging ice pellets that damaged you without proper ice gear, the way the sandstorm mask protects you in a sandstorm.
Maybe add in cold temperature affects that bypass the cold protection, going even beyond what the best of cold gear can protect you from, so you absolutely MUST have a sheltering cave or building to get into.
In some locations where you would need to climb and walk on ledges to reach some distances, some sort of rocks falling from above would be a nice touch too. Move too much over the ledge and a rock can damage you or even take you with them, or maybe just have them fall for a show. Either way it would look good. Coding heavy thing to do, but not impossible.
Games are about giving us immersive illusions anyway so the one who has us immersed most wins my money.
This does happen sometimes when near large cliffs or bridges. When me and my friend first played, we were travelling under the shadow of a huge cliff and my friend suddenly got a boulder to the head. It’s safe to say he died instantly.
I like the mechanic.
This is true. I didn’t mention anything about how hard it must be to animate and script. Of course, adding this would come with many issues and bugs, but it would be pretty cool.
Responding to the part where you said it would be a pain, yes it would. For all people involved.
Most of the time I travel up there, there aren’t many bases at all.
I think it’s mostly because of how dangerous the area is in general, meteors, and the wildlife.
But yes, I agree with you. Adding something like an avalanche would be an absolute pain is the ■■■.
It would probably just be easier to script a blizzard. Kind of like the sandstorm. Would still add challenge to the area just the same.
Yeah, the mechanics and coding would largely be the same, with the howling winds, just replacing sand with snow.
I play solo, and honestly? I haven’t been that far north yet. I took a hiatus for Monster Hunter and playing online for Kulve Taroth.
But around Frostkeeper Hollow is where I was plotting to make a base for Black Ice harvesting. Since I don’t have to worry about raids. And then have a mini outpost near the Hidden Way to stockpile Obsidian.
No way!! Really? You’re not talking about the lonely rock that always comes down the cliff somewhere in the middle, between that Sepertemese -whatever city- and the starting location? Every time I travel that path, the rock falls down the cliff and slides down the sand hill. First time I was boggled by it coz I thought it could take me out. Needless to say, I didn’t stop to try find out.
