Changed my Steam Review to Negative

Coyote0903 · 2023-04-18T03:16:42.074Z

I’m a little confused by this long back and forth going on here. It seems the point the OP was trying to get across was that the game has been broken on Official servers since the most recent update, and Funcom doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it. Sure, they said “unplayable in ANY online environment” and that isn’t 100% true, so? The rest of the back and forth seems a bit pointless in my opinion. “Lost Connection” is a very serious issue on Official servers, and the solution isn’t for everyone to just leave those servers. Either fix the game or don’t, but let us know what you are doing.

Taemien · 2023-04-18T06:15:44.172Z

Coyote0903:

“Lost Connection” is a very serious issue on Official servers, and the solution isn’t for everyone to just leave those servers.

You’re acting like there’s something FC can do that will simply make the problem go away without any sort of compromise or consequence. When there is an issue unique to a single server configuration, then the issue is not with the game, but the server or set of servers in question.

This means the change has to be done on the server(s) themselves. For an unmodded server, there is only one thing you can do. Wipe.

That means years of characters, builds, equipment, and resources start over.

But when you wipe the no-wipe servers. The idea of playing somewhere else gets a bit stronger. I mean most of you stay where you are because you are attached to your characters. If you logged in today, and everything was gone. Would you honestly stay?

A fresh start might be what some of you are actually looking for. But are you going to be tolerant of everyone else also getting a fresh start? That means starting naked in the south, moving north to the noob river and seeing sandstone structures as far as the eye can see.

Do you all really want to go through 2017-18 again with extra steps?

This is the alternative to playing somewhere else. Because I’ll say this right now, this stuff happening on these FC provided servers are not going to get better. There isn’t any sort of real optimization they can do on the development side to fix this. They MIGHT be able to find something to help stave it off. But come July when the next Age hits, and its fubar’d.

If you play on these servers, you play on barrowed and degraded time.

Even before the issue of disconnects, frequent server crashing (according the reports of roll backs increasing in frequency) was on the rise. Degraded server performance that daily restarts weren’t helping with was also common.

Funcom has made some really questionable choices governing those servers. Making a deal with G-portal being the first mistake, though admittedly this is one of hindsight since no one could have predicted this. But like I said earlier, just trying to host their own servers was always doomed to failure. They just could not moderate them the way they would need to. Moderation that would have helped cut down on the bloat, and made the experience 100x better for everyone involved. Then they made way too many servers and spread everyone out.

The final nail in the coffin was the much applauded 10 day decay timer. You’re seeing the results of that here. Its easier than ever to refresh. The benefit of a 7 day timer is the serial refreshers would occasionally get hemmed up and lose their buildings. Of course this occasionally caught non-refreshers too, but as harsh as it sounds, this was a good thing. As it continued to reduce load on the server in addition to everyone else. Now refreshers and non-refreshers both don’t get wrapped up in losing stuff, much applauded as I said, as it slowly kills each and every server. This community applauded its own doom.

I’m not faulting the players for this. This wasn’t their decision. It was on Funcom. But FC screwed each and every one of you when they set that timer to 240 hours. You got screwed, and you all thanked them for it.

There’s some hard decisions that will have to be made going forward, and pleasing the players is something they are going to have to compromise going forward. Having servers with more downtime than uptime is just ridiculous.

Vahlok · 2023-04-18T06:20:05.424Z

Just for the record and your enlightenment …
Fucom Servers are not owned by Funcom.
The unfortunate truth is that Funcom is a “captive” client under obligation to a server host (Namely GPortal) who through one of it’s representatives informed me through an email, that Conan Exiles was not popular. That they are not inclined or motivated to keep their servers up to par.
That’s a damned shame, but it’s the damned truth.
If anyone doesn’t give a damn about this, it’s GPortal.
We can blame Funcom for making a poor decision in choosing that hosting service.
But it’s the server hosting service (GPortal) who carries the burden of the blame for what’s happened to this game over time. They don’t give a damn because as I have already said, One of their representatives informed me through an email that Conan Exiles was not popular and they are not inclined to give it much support.

IF I kept that email instead of deleting it when I quit GPortal, I would have posted it here and now.

That should tell you everything you need to know.

As for the disconnect issue,
it’s affecting more people than is comfortable sitting on.
That’s on Funcom to resolve and they better do it damned quick.

Taemien · 2023-04-18T06:41:20.284Z

Vahlok:

They don’t give a damn because as I have already said, One of their representatives informed me through an email that Conan Exiles was not popular and they are not inclined to give it much support.

IF I kept that email instead of deleting it when I quit GPortal, I would have posted it here and now.

Forgive me if I find this hard to believe. I’ve got emails archived back to 2007 when I created the current email account I’m using, seems a bit convenient that this one somehow got lost. Also G-portal hosts games that are much much less popular than Conan Exiles. And when you go to their website, they have Conan Exiles listed up at the top and featured:

1768×1229 1.79 MB

Vahlok · 2023-04-18T06:45:03.902Z

I won’t disagree with you on that.
But the email I received from one of their representatives painted a totally different picture.

Frillen · 2023-04-18T07:07:46.895Z

DeaconElie:

You know and can prove this or just really, really want it to be true?

No I cannot prove it and that is also why I said “I think”, also why would I as a pc player (really, really)want it to be true?
However I’ve read several times that Conan Exiles have more console players than pc players, that is not to be considered solid facts though.
Recently there was a thread with a link to some play statistic estimating the daily player count of Conan Exiles to be 121,968, if there was any truth to that then the average of 12,500 steam players are a tiny part of the roughly 122,000 daily players.

Obviously Conan Exiles Player Base is shrinking Feedback

Except, not. It’s a pretty stable player base. I realize these verifiable facts do not fit with some rather strident proclamations and that those who are passionate about opinions over facts will determine I am personally attacking them but, as I am not part of that conversation, I won’t be engaging in it. And I would beg, of those who have a congenital need to attempt to belittle and insult, can you please display some basic competence in the process? For a change of pace, if nothing else…

steamcharts.com

Conan Exiles - Steam Charts

An ongoing analysis of Steam's player numbers, seeing what's been played the most.

Gloatingtomb6:

It is funcom on live stream said console is over half of their players base don’t remember which stream it was one of the age of magic (autocorrect won’t let me put name) stream so yes

That might have been where I have heard that console players is bigger than pc players, thanks for the info

DeaconElie · 2023-04-18T11:12:21.298Z

Let me explain some math to you. That 12500 is number of players on at the same time. That 122000 is number of players on in a day. That is steam accounts.
Now I’m not on a console, I can only assume they bought Conan through steam and are also counted there.

I’m not much on counting hearsay evidence.

darthphysicist · 2023-04-18T11:31:03.077Z

Ive often been curious about the console population. The number of people that own it on consoles would be quite large because it was free with ps plus at one point for playstation. I don’t know what percentage of people who claimed it that play it tho.

erjoh · 2023-04-18T12:35:45.773Z

DeaconElie:

Now I’m not on a console, I can only assume they bought Conan through steam and are also counted there.

Nope. We get our stuff through physical disks or the ps or Ms stores. The consoles are very walled garden approach and won’t let 3rd party directly go into their hardware without their input and their cut.

DeaconElie · 2023-04-18T12:37:52.935Z

I am so glad I picked PC when it was PC or PS3. Couldn’t afford both.
So there is no accurate count of console players?

erjoh · 2023-04-18T12:44:09.660Z

Few websites that contradict each other but ps doesn’t do player counts like that. Can’t blame them. It would limit the small guys trying to get out there if their numbers were just as public as the big boys.

I got into the game after April 2019 when it was free on ps Plus. Xbox has it in their gamepass so it wouldn’t surprise me that there is a 5-10:1 ratio.

biggcane55 · 2023-04-18T13:55:32.147Z

Taemien:

This is the alternative to playing somewhere else. Because I’ll say this right now, this stuff happening on these FC provided servers are not going to get better. There isn’t any sort of real optimization they can do on the development side to fix this.

But this wont help consoles. Here is why.
Consoles have to use the same servers FC uses for thier privates. Gportal. These privates are not that much different and unique to be worth running for many because there are only a few settings to change. So what are console players to do? You have spammed every lag, disconnect, build limit and other threads with private salesmanship, but do you have an answer for that?

Frillen · 2023-04-18T14:08:01.938Z

DeaconElie:

Let me explain some math to you. That 12500 is number of players on at the same time. That 122000 is number of players on in a day. That is steam accounts.

I don’t think that is correct, the steam chart says daily average of 12500 players based on data from last month which I believe is steam players only, not including pc players from Epic game store and MS store.

The 122000 players from the below chart is also a daily average based on the last month, but I think it covers all players(Steam, Epic store, MS store, Xbox and Playstation), now we don’t know if these numbers are accurate and we also don’t know how many players that are in each platform, but we do know that 12500 of them are Steam players(roughly 10%)

That is how I read the numbers

MMO Populations

Conan Exiles - 2025 Server Population & Player Count - MMO Populations

Conan Exiles player count, server population, subscribers and game activity stats, updated daily in 2025 (aka ConanExiles).

CrazyReplicant · 2023-04-18T14:09:58.599Z

MMO-Population.com numbers are essentially made up. Says so right there on the page.

darthphysicist · 2023-04-18T14:24:26.177Z

Actually my old private gportal ps4 server ran just fine. I think there is merit to the “old database” reason. The funcom servers probably could benefit greatly from a good holistic cleanse.

erjoh · 2023-04-18T14:32:02.152Z

darthphysicist:

The funcom servers probably could benefit greatly from a good holistic cleanse.

THIS! 4 years of junk just sitting on a server memory. 4 years of body vaulted players…just wipe it all. Put a shelf life on the body vaults and if not active for 6 months, buh-bye.

SirDaveWolf · 2023-04-18T14:33:23.342Z

darthphysicist:

The funcom servers probably could benefit greatly from a good holistic cleanse.

Yep, database maintenance is needed. Even if it is “only” SQLite. Cleanup scripts are all over github, just pick some, add them to the base game and here you go.

DeaconElie · 2023-04-18T14:41:58.209Z

DAILY PLAYERS 121.97K. That is unique players in a day.

Not sure where you are getting the steam 12500 from unless you think the steam daily peak is the same as unique logins in a day? I’d really like to see some official numbers.

biggcane55 · 2023-04-18T15:25:52.849Z

I am just pointing out to @Taemien his “solution” of always going to privates and eventually closing down officials leaves out a large chunk of playerbase. And he has stated gportal servers are the main culprit many a times on pllag/disconnect/toxic servers (imo ad naseaum). So i want him to explain how those players are to deal with no mod, generic privates where variety does not really exist.

arktara · 2023-04-18T15:27:25.092Z

Xevyr:

90% of the bugs are only present on official servers

This is an overstatement of how bad GPortal is, and how bad overbuilding impacts the game.

I can’t say I’ve tried dozens of private servers, but every single private PvE server I have tried I have not been able to continue playing because of performance issues. They have been as bad or worse than official, and they typicall only have a handful of players online.

Running my own server on my LAN with a gigabit connection should be optimal conditions. No network issues (I connect to local IP), no overbuilding, no overtaxed server (CPU/RAM usage are very low), only a single person playing - I still encounter 90% of the same annoyances I find on official pve servers.

The current game-ruining Funcom feature of “Connection lost” is way less frequent, but it does still happen.

The AI going completely brain-dead and unresponsive until you get within melee range does not happen.

Enemies warping around during combat is significantly reduced but does still happen.

As someone who spends 95% of my playtime fighting (PvE) the same bugs that bother me on official servers are still there in the optimum conditions of running my own server:

follower distance: Lowest (5m) is somehow interpreted as 50m+, it is stupid how much time I spend just waiting for my follower to catch up
the AI is just dumb: my follower will aggro an archer and stand still getting pummeled by 5+ enemies that are blocking it from walking to the archer
the AI is so dumb: my follower will stop fighting because there is a stone/branch/wall/any object next to it
the AI is complete garbage: follower gets blocked by invisible barriers and just won’t move in certain areas (one consistent spot is the first staircase in the frost temple, run down the stairs, engage 1st frost giant, follower stands on stairs confused)
the AI was created by someone who should not write code: npcs walk inside walls and can no longer attack or be attacked

In any case, Funcom desperately needs to fix the game and their hosting situation for official servers. It’s shameful how bad it is right now.