Bases decay too fast

Taemien · 2024-03-10T19:12:36.406Z

speartip:

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.

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.

speartip · 2024-03-10T20:01:05.095Z

Kikigirl:

These servers are not meant for casual players.

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.

droch-aon:

Set up a server, turn off decay. Now you can play however you like, as often as you like.

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.

Taemien:

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.

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.

Taemien · 2024-03-10T20:10:08.739Z

speartip:

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.

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.

speartip · 2024-03-10T20:18:02.803Z

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.

Taemien · 2024-03-10T20:45:20.460Z

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.

Kikigirl · 2024-03-10T21:00:37.565Z

speartip:

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.

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.

CodeMage · 2024-03-10T21:01:55.995Z

speartip:

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

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.

speartip:

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.

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.

speartip:

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.

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

speartip:

The decay is certainly driving players away, because it’s driving us away.

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.

speartip:

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.

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.

speartip:

You’re missing the entire point of decay timers, it’s to free up space on servers that are full, but none are.

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.

speartip:

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.

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.

DeaconElie · 2024-03-10T22:31:27.181Z

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

speartip:

In case you’re not aware, most of the servers are empty.

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?

Bathory · 2024-03-11T10:28:01.103Z

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.

DeaconElie · 2024-03-11T11:28:37.280Z

Bathory:

I’ve been visiting official servers for past 2 weeks and they indeed are empty.

Bathory:

On PvP maximum 8 online, just on several on them.

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.

Pugilist · 2024-03-11T12:12:40.203Z

Rust:

Find a private server or BV.

Exactly.

Although it was the November 2021 change in Terms of Service that predicated my move from public servers, it is the ability to set the decay rate to 4 months that will keep me on private servers.

And, for the record, I believe a 10 day decay timer for a public server is 100% okay.

Bathory · 2024-03-11T12:34:19.937Z

On a private server you can even turn off decay completely.
Just like it is on my server, once I see someone is gone for long I remove his stuff manually.

Dinner_for_wolves · 2024-03-11T14:20:04.204Z

There’s nothing wrong with the decay timers. Conform to the community rules or start your own on a private server. You have other options. When I hear something I don’t like on the tv or radio I don’t demand they change format… I just change the station. Your needs are clearly in the minority given the lack of other such relevant posts on the forum. Sorry you lost your stuff, but it’s your unwillingness to follow the ToS that decayed your base.
We all have lives outside Conan. If yours is so busy that you don’t have 5 minutes to log in then you’re playing the wrong game.

Kikigirl · 2024-03-11T15:42:40.940Z

For N/A PVP the most popular servers consistently are 1530, 1540 and 1800.

For 1530 there has been an ongoing serious issue with lag; my friends and I refuse to play there as a result.

All 3 have huge issues with hackers.

They would be 40/40 with queues and others opting to fill up additional servers if it wasn’t for this constant plague.

Generally they are close to that during raid hours though, not sure if you’re looking at the server list at those times. It would be required to take that into consideration.

We do not need another nerf to building damage. It’s already stupidly easy to raid. Most bases, even big ones, can be wiped in an hour or less.

prologue1337 · 2024-03-11T15:52:44.008Z

I think 10 days is more than enough, keeps the majority of re setters away

CodeMage · 2024-03-11T16:30:43.502Z

Kikigirl:

They would be 40/40 with queues and others opting to fill up additional servers if it wasn’t for this constant plague.

This bears repeating: if PVP servers are empty, it’s not because the decay timer is driving people away, it’s because of cheaters/hackers/exploiters and performance problems.

Kikigirl · 2024-03-11T16:58:13.263Z

Absolutely.

There is some dip in pop because of combat but I believe it is across the board.

But even if that is only part of it I know many who would still play if it wasn’t for these problems.

droch-aon · 2024-03-12T01:09:21.785Z

Agree, hackers and cheaters are the reason I’m moving away from official servers.

Vahlok · 2024-03-12T01:31:33.686Z

OP, it would simply be less grievous if you walked away from this.
You’re not going to win your argument.
You don’t have a foot to stand on.

Bathory · 2024-03-12T14:14:26.018Z

Kikigirl:

There is some dip in pop because of combat but I believe it is across the board.

There are also new survival games coming out, with new better graphics and mechanics.
Many of “my” players had short romance with Valheim but eventually returned.
But nowadays I see majority of people switching to refreshed Ark.