Can we talk? Developer letter June 15th

Conan Exiles General Discussion
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Which Funcom officially stated when they nerfed them into the ground.

They said its just the first step to balance them. But since then nothing has happend. People will hold Funcom accountable for what they are saying and doing.

Most people generally have no problem with overhauls when they are needed in order to balance the game. But when an overhaul is done people expect a professional and complete overhaul. Not nerfing something into ground and then call it a day.

And they are doing it all again with the weapon nerfs and thralls hp.

I am shocked that although Funcom gets massive negative reviews about their new update they still deside to force it upon people.

People will not change their mind about this update. Just to hope that most will su
 it up and play nonetheless is so shortsided. Those updates should help us stay in the game longer not make us want to quit it.

Hope dies last that they do not go through with this update. Because once its out, it will blow.

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42

Yeah, that would have been hard on console. Aiming with the mouse is far more precise than using a thumbstick.
That’s why you never play pvp FPS with cross platforms on.

As Conan is not cross platforms, I guess it would be ok, but it would be A LOT harder using daggers for console players.

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Just a matter of practice. On the non target lock servers I played on, we had some good PvPers that used controllers on PC.

But since it is not cross platform, everyone plays with controllers anyway on consoles. So everyone is the same trashcan at hitting things until they practiced enough.

See, that is exactly what I am talking about: skill difference through practice and game knowledge.

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Well, FUNCOM is way better than most companies who completely ignore what players want for the sake of numbers.
Worst is, they don’t learn until the bcaklash is so massive they start losing serious money and their credit lines become irrelevant. So, we’re very lucky in that aspect.

We also need to realize Conan is an old game. It’s not expected that the player base explodes. So, I assume devs have serious constraints about how deep they can go reworking it.

However, what I think Conan’s investors are missing, is that Conan Exiles is a ONE OF A KIND game.
I don’t know about PC, but on console there’s nothing that comes close. Not ARK, not Rust, not any other survival/ base building/ semi rpg game. Not one.

Some games share similarities with Conan in some aspects, but none comes even close of having the versatility of this game. None has thralls, or anything remotely similar to Conan’s thrall system.

People sometimes think I have a “thrall fetish” because I talk about them often. Well I usually play along with the joke, but it’s nothing of the sort. I’m not a big fan of most JRPG. :wink:
It’s the potential they bring to the game. With a little work, they could be companions “on steroids”. Most companions in games are fixed. They are what they are and as cool as they may be, it’s almost set in stone. Conan, otoh, can always surprise you. You never know who’s gonna be your next “friend”. I guess I look at thralls as what they could be, instead of what they are. If FUNCOM could turnvthe imagined part of thralls into reality, giving them AI interactive behaviors, they would be a blast, as there’s nothing if the sort in the market.

We need a godman settlement system. Otherwise the game becomes too repetitive.

Now, for multiplayer you havel friends. You don’t much need thralls to entertain you, but there’s a MASSIVE number of solo and single players in Conan that would love having a base that felt more ALIVE. Why do you think people are always asking if they can apply emotes to thralls?

This all links to the one of the main problems of the game, besides performance which might be number one: a very limited AI combat and interaction wise.

I believe it could make a difference if they really improved it. An old game could still attract many new players if its AI was redone. The graphics are pretty cool, the design is amazing, the possibilities varied.
This games offers a lot. The new age will emphacize base defense, a very popular genre.
So there’s a lot that can be done if FUNCOM doesn’t get lazzy about it, but that might need a decent presentation of the game to its investors so they get a green light. Without resources, this is just a wet dream and all we can expect are tweaks.

Probably most folks are focused on DUNE, by now. But there are many MMO in the market. Unless DUNE is as unique as CE, it will just be another drop in a very competitive bucked. There are some really great MMO around created by very experienced teams who have insanely deep pockets. So
 we will see what comes of it, but CE already exists and still has a lot of potential to explore if two things are accomplished: better AI and smoother performance. All the rest pales in comparison. And they should leave stamina alone. It was a dumb idea.

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No, no. Lol it’s NOT just a matter of practice. That is not open to discussion.
You can always improve and be better at it, but you’ll never be as good as you could be with a mouse. This is beyond proven, so let’s not have this discussion. :blush:

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But why would you have to? :thinking: There is no cross platform. Everyone plays with controller, so you’d only have to worry about players who are better with a controller than yourself.

But yes, wrong topic for this discussion :slight_smile:

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47

Playability, @SirDaveWolf . That’s the only reason, how much you enjoy doing it, not competitiveness. :blush:

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On the topic of uniqueness

The new build system reminded this one of the raft survival game.
The new stamina system, especially with it’s slavish devotion to rolling, reminds this one (and evidently a few others) of Dark Souls.

Is someone encouraging them to just throw together traits/mechanics from new/popular games that an AI said were the same genre?
Raft was noteworthy in the survival field for awhile.
Dark Souls is the overlord of gritty dark fantasy.
What game will AI-intern-kun direct design alongst next?

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49

You can’t compare both combat systems. Dark Souls series, Bloodborne, Elden Ring have incredibly good combat, @LostBrythunian . Rolling is very important, but there’s a universe beyond it. There are also other forms of dodge and the builds matter a lot. I sank so many hours in those games you wouldn’t imagine, just trying different things.
These are two very different worlds.
I understand your point about the similarity, but there’s so many differences in combat between these games that I’m not sure it applies. Rolling and dodging are very well implemented in the DS and their satelite games.

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50

This one’s point was more that, someone with a more shallow grasp of the games in question (this one prefers Bloodborne, but that’s purely aesthetics), or an automated scraping of media around those games, would find a surface affection for Rolling based combat.

In short, a poorly trained AI would spit out that Soulsborne combat is about rolling.

A single trait, taken out of context, designated to become the focal combat mechanism in a game without the supporting structure, with the internal framework being rebuilt to specifically support a rolling based combat style.

Someone somewhere said, make it a Soulsborne, those are popular with the kids.
AI-kun then told them Soulsborne is a rapid stamina loss rolling game.

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I agree, @LostBrythunian . Once a friend of mine asked me why did I buy very powerful cars that on the outside don’t look all that different from their day to day versions. I could have the looks without the added costs, he said. Because of their “soul” and because I’m not the type of person who wants a car just for show that I can barely drive outside a private track. They look the same on the outside, but they don’t even play on the same league in terms of performance. Under the hood, everything is different, not just raw power.
It’s like that with Conan and DS games. Under the hood there’s a world of difference. It’s not because roll is important that these games will be similar combat wise, like it’s not just being a Mercedes that makes a car, but being a 64 amg that will make all the difference. You can stick a mercedes star in any car, but the end result won’t be anything close. If that’s their aim, Conan will look as a cheap knock off.

However. I prefer CE to any of the games we just referred, and that’s saying a lot.Why? Because of the enormous variety of things you can do. Conan is probably the game with the biggest potential I ever played. It’s a shame if it isn’t explored more deeply.

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The one thing I was glad to read was the removal of the stun-immunity mechanic.

Everything else leaves me very skeptical :melting_face:

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It’s easier to use daggers without Q lock on console because you can aim in any direction with the left stick to chase your opponent. With WASD you can only turn at right angles, otherwise you have to reorient your camera to aim, which is easy with low mobility weapons are similar to aiming in a shooter, but more difficult and erratic when your character is dashing all over the place.

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i have no words for this patch
 how to destroy pvp in 2 patches
 ask funcom.

the biggest shame is that the pvp players are the ones who want to play the game the most
 and the swings in numbers of players is coming from pvp players
 this game could be and should be similar to Rust in numbers of players. but its easier to not give AF and get some money than make the game actually good and make a lot of money.

whatever


now i want some constructive replies from PVE players

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No, it isn’t. You just got used to a certain behavior and your muscle memory developed around it. I know what I’m talking about here. Anyone that can lock on you with daggers will kill you if you don’t have lock target on, unless we’re talking about a very poor player who can’t use the target lock feature properly, has bad timming and so on. There’s a reason why you can’t use target lock on competitive e-sports while other players have it disabled.
But let’s not get side tracked.

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You should improve your reading skills, @Val0r .

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Blockquote
it actually makes sense to give grit the extrinsic value (thanks for the terminology @CodeMage ) of allowing players to complete combos only with significant investment into grit. (This also gives an interesting interpretation of a hypothetical corrupted grit stat). In that regard the changes make sense.

Pros and Cons on that. Basically it’s totally fine that a new/low level char doesn’t have the “strength” to perform the most dangerous attacks/combos. But since engaging in combat is the only thing you can really do to survive or conquer I don’t like the idea of forcing players to invest into grit.
I like the idea of a corrupted grit stat by the way. Could be used to engage the problems corrupted players have in a nice way.

Blockquote
As far as AI improvement goes, it is quite clear the team is already working on that. If you extrapolate their intentions from the inclusion of golems, and the stated plan to include NPC siege camps, it is quite clear the team is extremely focused on improving AI. Much of the work in Age of War will consist of patching the AI and doing a lot of behind the scenes work on fixing it.

I don’t have much time to read forums or anything else too often. :frowning:
Is that a thought of you or was there an announcement I missed? I can’t remember anything where Funcom said that they will really improve AI. I really hope I missed it somewhere.
It’s a difference if they just implement some “new” AI features to make the PvE sieges work or if they really adress the dumbness of the current AI.

Blockquote
I do think that legendaries should have a “legendary” repair method (like volcanic forge or forge of the first men), we can even include components from legendary items being dismantled (it makes repairing them feel epic).

Great idea with the forge. So you won’t only need dismantled parts from other legendaries but also travel to the forge to repair it. That really makes repairs feel like an epic task. :+1:

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59

And that’s the whole reason why daggers are so successful and “OP” and the most used weapon in Conan PvP.

The whole reason why Funcom did changes to stamina and stamina costs as they claimed in the stream.

People are not happy with these changes, so I proposed another solution, but people are also not happy with this solution, because they’d actually need to get good at the game then.

Just let Funcom train some AI for the combat and then you can turn on AI mode and just watch your character fight.

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I know that. That’s what our partner @Val0r failed to understand, that target lock trumps skill everytime. It’s basically an aimbot. But if you remove it, console playability suffers. I’m talking about playability, not competitiveness. I said so above.

The combat is a bit clunky to use daggers without target lock on consoles. It’s not very aggreable. As I don’t use target lock, I know.
I don’t oppose not having it, mind you, even if it’s very useful to acquire/ unlock. Leaving it on has many problems too.
My point is that you can use daggers without target lock on pc much more agreeably than in console. The combat is not fluid enough to use them on console satisfactorily without target lock on. It can be done, but it suffers quite a bit.

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The thing is that you don’t need combos to survive in combat, strictly speaking. The point I am making there is that the grit stat can be understood as the ability to do full combos. If my understanding is correct, that is.

It is extrapolation. They said they wanted to expand the capability of golems, which will require upgrades to the AI. Further, there are items in the admin panel that point to some of their plans.