I can think of one game that completely separates PVE from PVP in the way they are talking about. I wouldn’t call it thriving though.
Which game is it, just for curiosity sake, @Taemien ?
Agreed with that 100%, but we’re talking about these with both, PvE and PvP. Those that are more appreciated mostly have separated PvP. The only thing people complain about when PvP scaling and balance is different is along these lines “I wish this was viable in PvP” - (but it’s often for a reason, because it’d be bonkers in PvP while it works against world bosses).
Sure, even then people complain about the “meta”, so I guess the narrower the “meta” options, the more people will complain.
The benefit is, it doesn’t annoy the other part of the player base if they touch PvP balancing separately.
As someone else mentioned earlier, you can’t have the same conditions and numbers while fighting
1: CE’s slow dumb helpless leashed AI that only has 1 tool and 10.000 health
or
2: a group of cunning players with 400 health and many tools at their disposal.
If you balance for both of those diametrically opposed situations at the same time, both will end up being mediocre at best, even if you do it perfectly.
Guild Wars 2 is one of them. I can’t remember the others right now, but its been long enough that I’m certain they’re probably not even available.
I actually made the suggestion for a PVP mode where it basically just works like Planetside 2. Bases are prebuilt, only parts can be destroyed (doors and what not). There’s no NPCs, there’s no crafting, there’s limited building. Items don’t drop on death. When you start you pick a faction, start in their HQ, pick up a kit, and go to the nearest linked base. You take base control points (like a timed king of the hill type thing) and then the base. Once you take enough bases that your bases link with an enemy base you start fighting over them. No PVE needed.
This kinda got laughed at for being a bit too extreme of a change obviously. But given that Guild Wars 2 kinda does this, and so does ESO, and those games aren’t well known for their PVP. I didn’t really push the suggestion or even bothered to refine it. I don’t think people actually want to play CE like that. A few may try and it might work with a modded server. But the general playerbase, not really.
I won’t say this is wrong. But its a symptom of a bigger issue. Bosses are big and dumb. That’s an issue that needs to be addressed. Followers are dumb. That needs to be addressed. The balancing should come after that. Otherwise its a waste of time.
I’ve been told there is a framework already for smarter NPCs. But I have no clue how well it will work. Its been seen in the devkit, but its not linked up to any NPCs at the moment.
But even if it works amazingly well. NPC < PC. No matter what. So the issue you bring up will be ever present. We can argue on the severity at best I think.
Sounds sweet to me.
I would tottaly go for that, but maybe because that emphacizes what I like most: combat.
However, due to the game design, a great deal of pvp is about farming to raid/defend against raid. That’s where the 90% pve part of pvp comes in.
Learning how to build against raids and learning how to raid a well built base are almost a religion on CE. That’s the part of pvp I don’t like. The type of structures you need to build, the stressful optimized farming of mats, the mechanics of explosives… it all became an aberration, one I suspect FUNCOM didn’t intent or, perhaps, even predict. Most abuses are related to this issue too.
I believe, maybe mistakenly, that FUNCOM wanted people to build more or less like they do on pve, with building destruction available on pvp. Instead, we got ceiling bases, raid pyramids and what have you, structures completely disconnected with reality. But that’s due to game design flaws that allow and finally made necessary to build in such ways if you want to stand a chance.
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Yeah, those are really nice suggestions. I also thought of ESO (which sometimes balances PvP separately, sometimes not - depending on the type of patch), GW2, every Dark Souls game including Elden Ring had separate item effects for PvP including weapon skills, spells, armour effects, ring effects, consumables (not saying DS and ER PvP is perfect, far from it - but it’s fun and polished, and you always have some 50 viable build options since everything is specifically nerfed for PvP, - in CE you have like 1 or 2 every patch).
The base and faction suggestion is really like ESO PvP modes, both Battlegrounds and Cyrodiil with all the siege equipment, but also reminds me of some Quake game modes (yeah, I know, can’t compare this to Quake, but I only know what I play).
It’s probably unfair to compare it with DS or ER’s combat, though, since CE does other things those games don’t - amazing base building, housing, etc. while those are specialized in action and boss fight spectacles, so ESO is probably the closest match.
ESO has more emphasis on story quests and MMO style combat + sieges, with pre-made houses you can kinda furnish, while CE is focused on elaborate base building with quests and combat being serviceable.
“I’ve been told there is a framework already for smarter NPCs. But I have no clue how well it will work. Its been seen in the devkit, but its not linked up to any NPCs at the moment.”
That sounds awesome, I hope they can refine and release it if it exists. It’s in the nature of Conan’s source material to have good roleplaying and combat, so it’s unsurprising people would expect those.
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Hallo, yes, console player here.
New system sucks donkey staff for us as well.
It’s probably not as noticable for those already on the redheaded stepchild platforms, but it is a noticable cluckening/enshittification.
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What’s odd is how it feels OK on a keyboard and mouse, especially with a lot of thumb buttons like my mice have. I went for the Naga Hex, because after leaving the console for PC I found I was missing a lot of the controller’s versatility.
Playing this version on the PC with the controller is actually pretty bad.
Here’s the thing with me: the minute I hear this “system” will be changed or rolled back at the next chapter, I stop playing. It happened with SCUM, and now it’s happened with Conan Exiles. I’m eager to return to the game, and many of the things you’ve mentioned elsewhere seem extremely fun and inviting. Again, if anything, the community is enticing me to play. Yet the game isn’t ready.
In my case, the community won.
I had the most pleasant surprise when I returned. Texture rendering delay is much better, on PS5. That made me stay.
Combat changes don’t affect console players so much.
I hope FUNCOM irons out the worse problems.
Soon I’ll try the new purge.
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Then you can keep this atrocious mess.
Have all the fun with it.
For this one finds it only to be a janky downgrade and impediment to enjoyment. This one finds no merit in it.
If you like it, good for you. You deserve to have fun as much as anyone else.
Meanwhile this one will move on to games that this one finds more enjoyable to actually play and occasionally peak in to see which blocks and dresses for the dolls they have added.
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Idk man, i feel pretty much affected.
Recently i was fighting king scorpion and he did this 360 spin, i dogged and the dodge animation didn’t get interrupted. But AFTERWARDS i got knocked down. 
And when i was fighting him with thralls he did his 2 hit combo. The first hit hit my thralls in front of him, the second hit hit me behind him!?
He turned insanely fast.
But crocodile boss gotta be the worst offender. Simply by moving he pushes you into things, i even ened up standing on top of him! 
Nevermind his jump/bite-attack. Changing direction midair.
I can see how humans and undead bosses could move this fast and change direction. But on bigger monsters it’s just ridiculous.
Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t make it really much more difficult but it’s simply annoying.
And the constant interruptions on top.
Combat flow is just gone.
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I was only referring to the player movement while in combat 
Btw, that lag in being knocked down also happened to me several times. Skeletons were the culprits. You think you dodged, you saw you dodged, but afterwards the game decides you didn’t. On single player! 
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Oh yeah, thx for the reminder. I also got stuck facing into the same direction multiple times.
That was fun!
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I should have been more clear, @UNfun .
Funcom should simply revert the changes. I don’t know what they were trying to accomplish… but the mark was clearly missed.
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It’s a pain with all npcs, but of all the changes, although probably being the most irritating, this one bothers me the least. You can still dodge, but the window is incredibly narrow. Not even fromsoftware games give you such a narrow dodge window and they have a much more polished combat system.
I just started accepting that dmg as part of the fight. On the volcano, against mobs with obsidian weapons, this is harder to swallow. Guys with two handed hamners don’t miss, even when you dodge. I haven’t tried the Volary of Harpies since this change, but if the corrupted ones can do this… I can’t even imagine…
This should be toned down a few notches.
If i should gamble i would say FC wanted enemies to aim better, but they only tested this new system with humanoid npc‘s.
And then they applied it to all enemies, what is nonsensical because boss monsters or animals have completely different moves.
I can’t think of any other halfway plausible explanation. 
But let’s look forward to chapter 4 and what they’re going to break next! 
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Look closer… the enemy npcs now do some thing more immersive, like they now move and turn toward player. Before, they would just pivot in place.
Yes, but also, no.
Please allow this one to explain.
The game does not run smoothly on console. It doesn’t matter how new or shiny the console is. Whoever handled the middleware on the project, especially the last couple of years, has been, as Immortan Joe so eloquently put it, MEDIOCRE.
If you play on console, there is already a high basement level of jank. Sounds and actions desync all the time, frames drop, rendering is… comical if not lethal. Invisible enemies and flying weapons are the norm. NPCs slide while sitting towards you to attack, and assault while still in the napping posture.
Playing on a server isn’t always better because Internet connections can fluctuate in stability and the official servers are… well, we all know how they are. That horse is deader than the Wight Horse, no need to kick it more here. That’s another glue factory thread.
Now, in static camps,this is fine. Use the Skyrim solutions, scout while as sneaky as possible and shoot the enemy, or, already knowing the encounter lay out, pretend you played D&D in the 80s and use some tactical acumen. Once the jank is known, it can be accounted for.
Well, the baked in jank mixes with the new combat system disastrously. Not only do we have the seconds per frames and already baseline jank, but now enemy attacks all work like the giant snake, striking in a full sphere around the npc regardless of facing and any momentum from already started attacks. This one would love to get a video up of an enemy making the single handed sword advancing attack and pulling a 90° turn to home in like a guide clucking missile.
At the same time, our own attacks now have a much smaller hit window and have extremely reduced opportunity for correction. This one literally watches the pixels of their blade go thru the pixels of the enemy to no effect. We become locked in to an attack that was already a long shot due to lag. His is very bad.
Stunlock when enemies are basically teleporting or invisible is bad.
Hyper armour is a completely mess, but it always has been. Now it’s worse
We can use target lock, and probably should given the realities of console performance and the current system. But for whatever clucking reason, target lock prioritizes Fauns and Rabbits over people trying to kill you. Even if said non-hostiles aren’t even rendered in appropriately yet.
This would be manageable…
Except, everything new to do with Age of War involves mass combat. Where these cat @$$ trophies are on full display. The Purge and “Siege” are extremely memory intensive events with a good number of enemies. Just in time for combat to become as unresponsive and janky as possible. They all move with the control and correction of hummingbirds, while we flail around with all the grace of a garbage truck.
This one long ago accepted that our own enslaved minions, concussed into unconsciousness and then tortured into subservience would be, well, derpier than they were in the wild. This one knows a thing or two about both physical and psychological damage and it’s deliberate infliction. It makes sense and is immersive that our victims, if too broken to raise fist against us, are also too broken to function well in battle.
But from a game point of view, our own followers pick their nose or spasm their leg while even mid tier enemies engage in combos and home in like a drone strike on a wedding.
That’s the rub. The combat updates exasperate everything already wrong with the game on consoles, so while the changes aren’t as intense, they bring the whole experience to a wretched state.
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I just love your posts sir! 
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Is that sarcasm?…
… If you play on console it must be sarcasm.