Do you consider a thrall only animated at any station, bench or not, as functional though?
They aren’t doing anything else. They are not actually eating, warming their hands, sleeping or actually adding bonuses to benches?
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Not sure what a nonanimating thrall would have to do with cosmetics 
The point that others are making as that they’re really not doing much else except visually, aside from the changes within benches. This is why they’re making the connection that it is cosmetic in nature.
It would be different if the thralls actually ate when sitting instead of “pretend” spooning soup, or allowed the thralls to benefit from temperature changes with warming their hands, or regaining health by sleeping.
In all, the shell I mention, is that this is really no different than what they were doing. If anything, there should have already been the new animations at the respective benches. The animation itself of walking around isn’t “function”.
So again as in another post, I’m going to compare it to Palworld. In that game, the Pals (thralls), have moods. If they’re feeling overworked, they’ll go chill in the hot tub and regain happiness. If they’re tired, they’ll go to sleep in their beds. If they’re hungry, they’ll go eat. This isn’t what is happening here, they’re by and large not actually doing something functional.
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Which is exactly why I made my post — to suggest that Thralls, just like players, should have Food, Water, and Rest bars that need to be filled. Maintaining these bars would keep the Thralls’ Wellness (or percentage of efficiency) at 100%. The idea is for players to supply food and water through a new chest, like a tavern refrigerator. Thralls would eat and drink from this supply, and they should always go to the tavern when they’re hungry or thirsty, automatically managing their needs without players having to fill their inventory manually.
For sleeping, players could assign Thralls to specific beds. It would be great to have a commander table or town hall board to help manage this. Right now, as you said, they only pretend to eat, but it doesn’t actually fill any bar or affect their performance. If their hunger or thirst were to drop too low, they could start showing signs like acting dizzy, staggering, or even dying if left neglected for too long. Without a real consequence, the animations and emotes are purely visual and don’t impact gameplay — which is exactly why changes need to happen to make the system meaningful. Otherwise, this post wouldn’t make much sense at all, right?
@DeaconElie, this is what they mean — the system isn’t affecting anything. Yes, their health will go up if you put food in their inventory, but that’s not part of the eating Thralls do in this system. If they have no food in their inventory and they emote that they’re eating, their health will not recover.
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Maybe the word I should have used was ‘authentic.’ The Thralls aren’t authentically eating when they sit in the chair, pull out food, and emote that they’re eating. This system is completely different from the actual food system we use to give our follower Thralls food or when we put food in their inventory. The Living Settlement system is not tied to the same food mechanics—it’s just an emote system.
This is why I feel the current system lacks depth. The Thralls should be authentically interacting with the world, meaning if they are hungry and sit down to eat, it should actually fulfill a need, like their hunger bar, and affect their health and performance. Right now, it’s just for show and doesn’t impact gameplay.
Also, to try and answer your question, though I’m not sure I can fully do so: You asked, ‘Please tell me why a shirt isn’t a wrestling match, or a paint job isn’t a car, or a green fence isn’t a yard.’ The truth is, it’s because, as humans, we’ve had to make decisions about what to call things and how we define them. I’ve often asked myself the same thing—why do we number things in the order of 1, 2, 3, and so on? Why isn’t 1 called 2, or why couldn’t 1 be called 10, or even ‘dog’? I guess it’s just because that’s what we collectively decided to name it. 
The only answer to those questions is, they simply aren’t. It’s not that complex.
Animations are just eye candy. Nothing more. If you remove them. Nothing is missing from base game mechanics. If you remove all graphics and sounds and replace them with Nethack esthetics. You might even have better working and more functional game. (it just looks crap as…)
Cosmetics, graphics what ever the word. It refers to how the game and objects in it looks like. Not how practical UI is, not how innovative game mechanics are or how captivating the game is. etc
Ofcourse how the game sounds and looks like is very important and thus can be seen as function. But whole point in this debate is what does “living settlement” give us as players (active component of game) except graphical improvements? Bug fixes? New ways to play the game? New content to interact? No. Nothing. → purely cosmetic. Ask yourself how long would you like to just watch thralls to move around? Or would you rather do something else? Or perhaps see bug fixes to characters falling through foundations and more?
In ancient times (before MMORPGs) there where EGA and VGA versions of same game. Functions = same, graphics aka cosmetics completely different.
Word graphics was used instead of cosmetics (etymology: graphics = cosmetics). Some just liked EGA look over cosmetically better VGA if base game functions didn’t change.
So this debate is older than majority of gamers…
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Yup helicopters puppy dogs same thing right?
The is effectively what you are saying.
Graphics: 1: the products of the graphic arts, especially commercial design or illustration.
2:visual images produced by computer processing.
cosmetic: 1: a product applied to the body, especially the face, to improve its appearance.
2: done or made for the sake of appearance: such as correcting defects especially of the face.
3: visually appealing
Perpetuating wrong is how we end up in an idiocracy.
Without falling again in semántics about what is cosmetic for some and what is not.
You are absolutely right on a practícal level . Eye candy are cosmétics for me. Period.
About the 'no lively Settlement feature" , I can SEE them reverting this change , it’s going to be a shitshow for funcom ,when this is launched. So brace yourself. Get popcorn, this is not going to be pretty for funcom.
Google semantics, not applicable.
And just how many times have you seen funcom roll anything back?
But I’m on the beta client server. This may work for 
but it doesn’t brake anything. The biggest issue isn’t it being broken, the issue is are they going to raise the thrall limit. That is going to be the cluster F if they don’t. Guarantee this is going to be a big surprise to many. Seems a good number of players don’t realize they are about to step in to traffic till they get hit buy the bus.
The main problem with your suggestions is that you go overboard with them. This game is already trying to cater to a wide variety of play styles. When adding new mechanics, care should be taken to not marginalize those play styles or make them nonviable.
The secondary problem with your suggestions is the feasibility of implementation. You don’t seem to have a good grasp on how the game works, so you haven’t thought through whether your suggestions can be implemented without drastic changes to underlying systems, and you haven’t considered the impact on server performance.
As I already explained elsewhere, you can’t use “this is optional” to wave away other players’ concerns. Whatever Funcom devs end up implementing will be part of the vanilla game on official servers. That’s because the official servers are meant to showcase everything the devs have developed. If it’s not “on by default”, it’s not worth their effort to develop.
To put it bluntly, if your suggestions are implemented, they will be imposed on official server players. So when you get feedback from those players, “this is optional” is a non-argument.
Maybe to you, specifically. I’m willing to bet there’s a fair number of people who would be okay with the current system if it wasn’t as buggy as it is.
Your suggestion doesn’t actually explain what the players would need to do to ensure those needs are met. I’m assuming that:
- hunger would require constantly adding or replenishing food to some kind of a container
- thirst would require building a water source (like a well or fountain)
- rest would require placing a bed
If my assumptions are correct, the hunger mechanics could have serious negative impact on server performance. The game used to have a similar hunger system that was removed, according to Funcom staff themselves, because of its effect on server performance.
As for the thirst and rest, forcing players to build and place the necessary sources could have a negative impact on certain PVP players. I’ll leave it up to people like @Kikigirl and @biggcane55 to provide their opinions on whether having to make their base that much bigger would be a problem for PVP or not.
This is where you go totally overboard. This is totally detrimental to every player’s gameplay experience unless they share your personal tastes. In short, you’re trying to force everyone to play like you want to. And the worst is the impact on new players.
Look at it from the perspective of a new character. You start without having any thralls, which means that every time you want to craft something on your crafting stations, you have to stay there until the crafting is done. So if you’ve been outside your base exploring and fighting and gathering, when you come back to your base you will have to stop and wait for the crafting to be done.
Veteran players might find a way to minimize this by power-leveling and prioritizing thrall capture above all, but new players are going to be incredibly frustrated, unless they share your tastes. Are you confident that your personal preference will be shared by the majority?
Again, let’s ask seasoned PVP players like @biggcane55 and @Kikigirl what they think about being forced to add a tavern to every base or outpost where they have crafter thralls.
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And what purpose does the graphics have? Does it give us (players) what do, inspire us with compelling narratives and other points of interest? Or what?
I am wierdo but to me the game graphics gives only:
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improved appearance of the game. Perhaps making it more appealing.
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and it’s done purely because " the sake of appearance". Base meshes are quite ugly before “cosmetics” like textures are applied to hide that fact. Animated stuff are more compelling than still images and so on. All because of visual appeal and to improve visual appeal.
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when graphics are done well they are visually appealing.
Never heard of metaphor or euphemism?
Yes, I use the word cosmetics in a derogatory way to describe unnecessary graphical improvements to hide loads of problems without answers. Like bugs and performance issues. And the fact that Conan Exiles has lost quite a many gameplay aspect after launch. Some animations and move to stuck NPCs doesn’t fix it. Or give me anything.
My question is still valid. Please humble yourself to answer. Does “living settlement” have some other function/purpose than visual appeal at the moment? No one knows what’s to come so stick in the present.
Battlepass?
I ignored your comments for 24 hours and you are still obsessed with this topic ? Your certainly said what you believe , i did the same , you are not going to be right un My mind and i AM not going to be right on yours.
Move on . Please. Why do you keep pushing it ? Nothing you can Say Will make your point more valid.
So please stop trying to think that people who does not share tour point is stupid and you are the one being right.
Thanks
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Yep.
I am not coder of any kind. But one part of problem seems to be how game handles stored items?
Adding too many containers and loads of stuff in them has quite huge impact on fps when you enter area filled with your crap. No impact on cpu or gpu but huge fps drop when game loads your loot. (I have encountered even building pieces having stability problems same time…)
Adding more functions on code base like this is problematic.
I wonder if they change how they chest works , and request stored data upon opening could help performance. ?
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But it doesn’t, it in no way effects how anything looks in game. Does it change the appearance of the thralls involved? No, then it is not a cosmetic. Does it change how thralls act, yes because it adds animations. Animations are not cosmetic.
If it turned all thralls involved in to werehyenas then I’d agree it’s cosmetic. But it does nothing to thrall appearance
Yes and that isn’t what this is.
But that is cosmetic, if it only effects the appearance not the function of what they are being applied to that is cosmetic.
It in no way changes the appearance of anything in game. There for not cosmetic.
I’m on the beta client server right now, I know just what to expect.
I can count the number of times funcom has rolled back on one hand and not drop my joint.
Because you’re not.
But it’s not a point of view. Me calling your shoes shrimp boats isn’t a different opinion, it’s using the wrong term. That is what this amounts to.
Still like
I’d be happy with just adding that part.
While I appreciate the amount of thought you’ve put into this, I have no desire for Conan Exiles to become a Sims game.
In the long ago, if you did not feed your thralls/pets, they abandoned you. I am all for that mechanic to return to the game as it would clear out nests of abandoned thralls with alacrity.
The idea, however, of managing the individual needs of 65 thralls is a hard no for me. It reminds me of the time they inadvertently enabled thrall weapons and armed taking damage and we ended up with a lot of dead guard thralls because they became naked and unarmed.
So, no thanks on adding another overly complicated mechanic to an unstable game client.
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Very salient and detailed response to what I consider a horrible idea.
The Sims Medieval already exists, we don’t need to turn Conan into a worse copy.
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The chair is annoying already, why a chair? You saw the inside of my crafting area for Beta, I had to cram a small bed and chair in there just so they’d stay where I guarded them. Otherwise they teleport every damn where. Really I know now how to make them stop, but that isn’t a functional option, it is a bug.
PVP bases getting big a huge concern and I covered some of why here.
I don’t like the taverns for so many reasons. They don’t make me feel great in any way. That they are optional is perfect; I can retain my playstyle or adopt others that don’t employ it while still respecting the playstyles of others who do like it.
I have the day off and I’ve screwed around on here far too long. Wanna know what I am doing next? That damn tavern, right next to my main -_- can’t wait for the ridiculousness that I’m going to experience. I’m a little afraid of what it is going to do actually.
In terms of getting straight to PVP, the considerations are many. I’ll summarize in that defence, offence, retention of loot and performance will be affected by such complex systems - that is a very basic summary and only touches the very tippy top of the iceberg. I know it doesn’t really say much unless you know what is meant with each, but goddamnit, I am exhausted.
In addition, I also agree with @Pugilist that expanding further on the settlement system, despite my comparisons to the other game, is really diluting the core of being a sandbox survival.
If anyone really wants my opinion in general about the settlement system: I actually like that they provide the crafting bonus through vicinity, there’s much in terms of creativity that can be done here. Such as, I no longer need more than one alchemist or smelter. I do not like: the way they wander if and when it actually works, wonkiness in the bugs presented, that they’re deployed. I don’t care that they sit and pretend eat, lay in a bed or warm their hands, in fact, it is annoying if I’m trying to move the placeable/bench as you can’t since it is in use. I don’t care that I can dress them and now that they’re deployed, I have to make sure they don’t die and they will quite easily. Much of the concerns and possible workarounds to protect them will be employed.
I’ll leave the rest in @biggcane55 's hands because he is a master of getting down to the nitty gritty succinctly.
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So it does nothing then?
And please get over the word “cosmetic”. I tried to explain that I used this “c-word” as metaphor or euphemism to graphical chances what I though didn’t add any substance to game (at this state). I gave my premise and intentions how I used that word. As base of discourse.Therefore I kind of expected that we could speak of same thing and get rid of this petty differences of used language. Neglecting my explanation by simple statement without argument is unnecessary and should act as “do not answer and waste time”. But hey, I am bored at the moment.
Anyway. To me everything that gpu renders on screen is graphics. And just and only graphics if it doesn’t add any other function than frames rendered on screen.
Thus for me, if “living settlements” adds just animations, not anything else it is just, well let’s say “makeup”.