Bases decay too fast

Conan Exiles General Discussion Feedback
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When my friends and I started playing around Christmas I think bases lasted longer, but now they are decaying in only 10 days. We have had our bases and everything we crafted and collected decay several times now because we didn’t play for a week.

Every time our bases and all our possessions decay it becomes harder and harder for us to return to the game. There’s less and less of a reason to return when there’s nothing to return to and you have to rebuild everything over and over again.

It’s just not fun having to start from scratch over and over again.

We’ve only played on PvP servers and none of them are anywhere near full to capacity and therefore they really don’t need decay to free up space. It may be different on PvE servers, where bases can’t be raided by players but on PvP servers it would definitely help keep more players coming back if their bases did not disappear so quickly. It’s very difficult for a community to grow in a place where everyone’s homes collapse every 10 days.

Once you have lost your base and all your progress it’s very easy to just walk away from the game.

I think a month would be better. Not everyone can nor wants to play every week or even every 10 days. We all like Conan and would like to continuing playing without all our progress decaying so quickly.

If you’re unsure that extending decay times would work, try it out on a couple of empty servers to see how they do.

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It sounds like you need to play on your own server. If you’re not being offline raided over 10 days, then you’re effectively the only ones on the server anyway.

Which server is this?

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No, we prefer PvP. We have been raided multiple times too, but have no issue with that. What sucks is having our bases decay for no reason.

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The decay system is of course there to resolve abandoned buildings. The system is working as intended. It was increased to 10 days from 7 to address players’ chagrin on it being “not enough time”. Decay is increased for holidays both during the winter and summer.

Consider that if you’re playing on an Official server you’re sharing it with others. The expectation is that you actively play on that server and are justifying you having chosen where to build. Otherwise it is quite selfish to claim a spot - even if the server is “dead”.

So if you can’t play there actively or refresh your buildings on schedule, that’s on you.

You were not around when Siptah had it’s decay turned off. It was absolutely terrible. So many bases littered everywhere with players not returning. While sure you could raid them, if you’re familiar with the game you could not remove some pieces enmeshed. Which meant that if you wanted that spot you could not do anything about it.

Everything can be gained again. But if you need a break or become uninterested enough not to log in regularly, consider body vaulting your loot. Pick up your building and log out in a safe place and come back when it’s more convenient for you.

You also have the option of selecting a private server with no decay or starting your own.

I like the decay as it is (actually 7 days was fine).

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The system “working as intended” is driving us away from the game and we’ve just started.

It’s never “selfish” to claim any open spot under any circumstances, short decay or long. Claiming open land is just a part of the gameplay.

In case you’re not aware, most of the servers are empty. Even the most populated server is only half full right now on a Saturday. This fast decay system is certainly driving players away that would return if they had their progress to return to. Most of us can’t or don’t want to spend time logging in to refresh a game when we’ve got so many other things going on, we want to come back and play when we have time.

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You complain about decay being turned off, but that’s totally irrelevant to this suggestion, I never suggested turning it off.

It sounds like you have a lot of time to spend playing this game, which is probably why you like the decay. For most I’m sure it’s just a pain, which is surely part of the reason the servers are empty.

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Gonna have to back up Kiki here.

The absolute nutters I know that PvP are on dang near daily since they removed God bubbles.

Siptah was a f***king nightmare for MONTHS when the decay timers were disabled. The long timers are for holidays.

Find a private server or BV.

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You’re not really playing if you only come around once after 10 days. That’s not really driving away, you’re just wasting your own time.

It absolutely is. Ever scout the “dead” servers? In most cases there’s serial refreshers that have claimed most of the good building spots. They check often but want to hold on to their pixels and are not playing. I’ve joined too many servers to know this behaviour.

I’m fully aware of the state of the game and it isn’t because of decay timers - PVP has been ravaged by “balance” updates, cheaters and report meta.

The decay system has been in place since the beginning. It is doing as it is intended to do. Increasing the time will harm the servers more. 10 days is too much time. If you can’t be bothered to log in during a generous period of more than a week then you deserve to have your buildings decayed. This is not to insult you, it’s the way the system works.

Then don’t play on Officials, get your own server or join a private as suggested. OR bodyvault. You have options here. I get the want to only play on Officials as that is my preferred choice but you need to accept the general server settings.

I mentioned it because of the impacts it had as it relates to a suggestion of permanent increase in decay timers. By increasing decay timers it causes issues with abandoned buildings remaining longer. This impacts players because the spot is not available to them otherwise.

If you are actively playing on a server and using your spot then it is completely justified. If you’re taking 10+ day breaks in between playing, you’re preventing others’ from taking that spot in favor of you only coming around when it is convenient for you. That’s fine, you have things to deal with. But the system is working as intended and if you want to keep your stuff then you absolutely need to take 5 minutes out of your time in a 10 day period to log in.

Not sure if you are trying to insult me here. After I finish work for the day and the duties in running my household and life, I like to relax on Conan since it is what I enjoy.

The servers are not dead because of a 10 day decay setting. They’re dead because Funcom has ruined Official PVP. Since you’re new to the game spend some time reading the history in the forums.

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Who are you to tell us how we should play or that we’re “not really playing” by doing so every other weekend? I’m sharing the facts about us that you’re in denial of. We like the game, want to play and would even like to play more, but having our bases and all our progress decay for no other reason than an unrealistic decay timer going off several times a month on half full and deserted servers is not fun and makes continuing to play less and less palatable.

The decay is certainly driving players away, because it’s driving us away. Of course, that does not mean it’s the only problem, but it certainly is one for us and you’re denying that fact.

We don’t need to accept anything, which is the point of a feedback forum and why we’re offering feedback about one of the most annoying things about the game and why it’s causing us to not want to play. It’s robbing us of our progress for no good reason. If the servers were all full and a 10 day decay was needed to open up space for more active players then I would agree with you, but that’s not the reality at all.

You’re missing the entire point of decay timers, it’s to free up space on servers that are full, but none are. Therefore, the decay rate is unbalanced and needs to be longer.

You go on to admit yourself that even the current short decay times don’t stop the people you mislabel as “selfish” from claiming and holding on to good spots. If someone is determined to claim land and hold onto it they’re going to do so regardless of the decay time.

Why don’t you raid the good spots of “selfish” people? Maybe you didn’t notice but this feedback is specifically referencing PvP servers.

What the short decay is doing is driving away even more casual players like us that aren’t interested in logging in just hold land, but that are interested in playing without losing our progress due to a pointlessly short decay timer on empty servers.

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I have near to 7k hours primarily PVP Official. I am active in the forums. I report bugs and exploits and contribute as not just a player but as a member of this community. I think that my assertion is correct despite you being a very, very, slightly vocal minority. So go ahead, take your shots.

That’s part of it sure. But the other reason is that it clogs up the server both in physical space and in resource loading.

These servers are not meant for casual players.

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So you play “every other weekend” log in every weekend.
You don’t need to spend much time on those off weeks, just log in and it’ll refresh the decay timer.

Or if that is too much trouble, consider the Dedicated server launcher

Set up a server, turn off decay. Now you can play however you like, as often as you like.
Just one of you will need to host the server, I have an older PC running my private server on my LAN.

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They aren’t telling you how to play. You can load up on a decay disabled server and visit once a century if you so desire.

But the servers you are playing on, the owner believes a base that hasn’t been visited in 10 days is abandoned. This is a setting YOU said, “I will agree to play under these settings.” By you going back on that is on you and you alone.

You need to conform to the server, not the other way around. The server is more important than your whims.

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This shouldn’t have to be said, but official public servers are meant for the public, that means everyone. The current decay rate is obviously imbalanced or the servers would be more full.

While I appreciate your suggestions and favorited the dedicated server link, we do prefer open world PvP games and official servers mainly because they’re always more populated and fun. I’m sure a private server would just make the situation worse. It’s not just the fast decay that is the issue, but recognizing that the fast decay is certainly resulting in less players returning to play after they’ve lost all their progress to it.

As I understand it, the owner of the servers is Funcom and they can change the decay to whatever they want, that’s why I’m sharing this feedback with Funcom.

So, you’re apparently unaware of what feedback is. The point of feedback is to make changes, not merely to “conform” to the way things are. This forum you are replying in is specifically designed for it. Things can be balanced and changed for the better with feedback, which is why I’m here.

Quite simply, the current decay rate is not resulting in a good experience and full servers, it’s too fast.

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You said you want a 30 day decay timer.

Everyone else said 10 days is fine (their feedback as well as mine).

In your words you are correct for making feedback, but everyone else is wrong simply because they do not agree. You want to explain why only your feedback is valid and no one else is?

Why should Funcom adjust their settings for one person’s feedback over a majority?

Maybe it is you that doesn’t understand what public discussion or criticism is. But I’m not going to suggest that you are that naive. I will even suggest you are quite educated and know exactly what public discussion and criticisms are. You’re just not interested in having it, and thus the issue is hypocrisy and insincerity.

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The way to increase your population is to make improvements that accommodate more people, not merely listen to those that are satisfied with the way things are.

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You’re the first person I’ve ever seen that is having issues logging into the game for a few moments every 240 hours. I find it very unlikely there is a subsection of the market population that requires that much passive play to be interested in the game.

I would like to point out that the requirement in place now, only requires logging in. Not active play. A player who made a building in 2018 and hasn’t actively played in 6 years could still have their building available. Literally playing the game once over half a decade ago in order to get the building crafted was the only requirement of active play.

Like literally if your playstyle is play once a decade, or even once a century, you’re still covered by the system lol.

I do take issue with that concept. I would actually like a more robust system that requires a certain amount of challenge experience to refresh decay timers on servers with decay enabled. This would ensure that active players are the only ones taking up space on the map.

Passive and inactive players can still play and enjoy the game (I mean that’s sort of an oxymoron lol), but they simply do not take up space away from active players.

This system is in my opinion a bit more robust and eloquent compared to other systems such as material upkeep systems which can be circumnavigated by binge like periods of material grinding sessions. And requiring only normal gameplay loops.

Your opinion is an interesting one. Only logging in for a few seconds every 720 hours to keep any and all buildings. I’m interested to see how many people agree with this, and what community of players is being targeted.

I mean I am hesitant to call someone who plays .0002% (5 seconds divided by 30 days, and rounded up to the nearest Ten Thousandth of a percent) of the time a Conan Exiles Player. But you have chosen an absolutely fascinating hill to die on my friend. :grin:

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You agree to the EULA and the ToC in order to play on Officials. This means that you have agreed to the current settings. As such, while feedback is welcome and warranted, yours is a request that is extremely unlikely to be granted. It took years for Funcom to even consider a change from 7 to 10 days.

The reasons are what have been described.

I think PVP should go back to x1 instead of the permanent x4 that was implemented. I have suggested as such but I am a minority. It’s not going to change to fit my whim here. I have accepted it.

The servers are not dead because of a decay rate. They’re dead because of the reasons I described above. You can argue with me all you want but decay has been an accepted reality by the community and aims to solve a host of problems that come with buildings existing on a server.

Let’s just be frank here, you’re a casual player that thinks they should be accommodated. Official servers are not for casual players and do not serve to meet your demands. You have options available to you and also a means of not losing your progress. It’s really quite simple.

The people who have taken the time to respond to you are experienced players who have played for years. They know what they are talking about. This feedback to your post is coming from facts and not opinions.

Try not to insult us.

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It might be driving you away from official servers, but those are like public parks: you have to share them responsibly. If the way they’re set up doesn’t suit you, there are plenty of alternatives on private servers.

What @Kikigirl called selfish is keeping the spot for yourself without participating in the game often enough. Claiming open land is as much a part of the gameplay as building decay. Serial refreshers are a real problem on official servers and making the decay even longer to accommodate them is not going to be good for them.

For someone who claims to be new to the game, you’re speaking for the whole official server community quite confidently.

I hate to break it to you, but it’s impossible to make a game that won’t “drive away” at least some potential players. Changing one aspect to retain certain players will drive away some others. So as much as every single player feels they’re the special ones, that’s the wrong way to look at it. What matters is striking a balance that appeals to most players, or at least to whatever the devs consider the target demographics.

Another point of the forums is that it’s a place for public discussion: you offer feedback and others offer their replies. If you’re looking for a channel where you can offer feedback to Funcom without having to deal with other players’ opinions, I’m not sure if it exists, but the forums aren’t it.

First of all, no. Nobody ever said that it’s to “free up space on servers that are full”. You came up with that one on your own. So unless you’re one of the devs in disguise, you’re just pushing your own interpretation as if it were a fact.

Second, you keep saying the servers are empty, but offering no support for that.

Third, what makes you think that it’s desirable for the servers to become so full that we have to rely on decay to free up space? What makes you think that’s a positive in-game experience, rather than a potential source of frustration?

Fourth, how do you even envision that the decay would free up space on full servers? The decay doesn’t kick in when the server is “full” (whatever that means), it kicks in when people don’t play the game for long stretches of time.

Nah, it’s driving away casual players who refuse to find an equally casual community. There’s place for everyone in this game, but not necessarily on official servers.

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Y’alls doen such a great job I didn’t want to interrupt but have to point this out.

That screen cap is myopic. It shows one time, servers are up 24/7. There are peaks and down times, but no one is on 24/7. I’m a retired insomniac, I can be on 18 hours a day; maybe. Players come through in shifts, figure 3 a day, peak is usually 3PM to 11PM. Take that peak halve it, multiply it by 3, add 15 for cereal refreshers. That is closer to your servers peak then you see in that screen cap.

Now multiply that by say 5 bases of various sized and you start to see the issue. As it stands cereal refreshers are kind of looked down on for taking up space with out contributing to game play. If you can’t even be bothered to cereal refresh I don’t see you getting any sympathy from any regular players.

I mean really? Is it that hard to log in for 5 minutes every 10 days?

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I’ve been visiting official servers for past 2 weeks and they indeed are empty.
On PvP maximum 8 online, just on several on them.
All the rest, PvE, PvE-C, empty, and these empty bases everywhere like humongous headstones, standing there just to be refreshed every 14 days.

It’s a sad view for a newbie, because it shows the game is dead, and even if there is some life on the server, the lack of balance in the game which allowed huge bases to be built and gigantic resources to be gathered, it all places newbie on a lost position as one can’t compensate years of gathering resources.

So in my opinion, the decay timer should be even less than 7 days.
Either you play or you don’t play, make up your mind.
And on PvP servers further changes to make it easier to take down huge bases.

This community needs a reset, a wipe, and be recreated as more active and dynamic. Also making it easier to get rid of huge builds is going to help with server performance. And also this is why I am pro-return of the actions counter which unleashes the purge.

It’s boring and not engaging at all for a new player to visit several servers and see them filled with sky high bases, yet no living soul around.

Reduce the amount of official servers, reduce decay timers, bring back the purge, make raiding big bases easier.
And this way create living community and servers full of actually active players.

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:ox: :poop:

At what time of day?
For how long?

I mean I just looked out side and it’s dark so it must be dark 24/7 right? That is the logic you are using.

In the past 24 hours there have been 11K people playing Conan; note that is just PCs if I understand right.
There are over 4K playing right now; US AM.

Now I think most know I want land claim flags. I want hard limits to storage, ornaments, and thralls. And I want that new update to come with a server wipe.

But surprising enough a good portion of the Conan player base work for a living, have RL lives, and only get together with friends on the weekends so 10 day decay.