Conan Exiles a Niche in the Survival Genre?

I personally see Conan Exiles as it’s own niche catering to a specific community and it keeps me coming back even after spending :speak_no_evil: hours on other survival type games.

Now, I believe that shaping the game to match others (“popular” titles, etc) will just make it another clone. But, I do have some feedback for improvements that may benefit everyone and should not change what this game is about.

Please feel free to add your own suggestions.

In no particular order:

  • Server issue reporting (down/lag/etc) and player reporting improvements. An example is the crash system on PS4, it makes a video, takes screenshots and sends all console logs (most not accessible to the player) directly to the developers. Benefit: An easier to use system that gathers all required information to take action quickly, replaces zendesk.

  • Sever Status Page and Service Status Page. Similar to the PSN Service Status and the Xbox Live Status. Benefit: Better communication and user self service.

  • “Test Live” for consoles. Possibly through the “closed beta” type system that is already present on these systems. Benefit: Get patch feedback to make changes before it is deployed to the affected platform.

  • Major update/Patch schedule, designated “hot fix day”, regular and predictable maintenance window. Benefit: More communication and setting expectations.

  • Public Community Severs. This would be a hybrid of official and private servers, the community contributes monetarily for FC to provide a neutral active admin. [this needs it’s own topic really]

  • LAN play. Self hosted, local server app for both PC and Consoles, without the need for an external connection or service like FCLive, PSN, XBox Live…etc

  • Offline (single player) and LAN Play map travel to/from EL, Siptah, and future maps.
    This would be actual travel and NOT the limited transfer (and loose your stuff) of update 2.5.

Note: I do have game-play related feedback, but it may end up new topic.

Thanks for reading this wall of text.

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Survival has been so over used as a game tag that it’s basically meaningless at this point. Means something along the lines of “your character could die.”

I’ll get off my soap box now.

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The reporting aspect we would definitely benefit from if enabled.

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@h3rb1 , I would volunteer for the test live in consoles, I believe it is very necessary a group of veterans to volunteer for something like this. I don’t know how this works but if it is gaming to find out the problems and report I could easily do it. I like all your suggestions but this one for me is the most necessary.

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That’s certainly how testlive works on PC, so I’d imagine if they could find a way to implement it on consoles as h3rb1 suggests it’d probably work much the same. It can be useful to use in both the obvious ways - either playing the game as normal and seeing what problems you run into, or testing specific issues (and often at that point using more admin commands to set the situations up for testing). It certainly does look like a console version of testlive would be useful, because there are enough differences between PC and console that some bugs will only occur on one and not the other.

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I see it more as a sandbox game with survival, combat, and building mechanics.

It’s much like Mount and Blade to me(not in the gameplay, just game philosophy)

You have some vague goals in either scenario, but the bulk of the game is just doing whatever you want within the system

The survival mechanics are a bit more like many games “hardcore” settings. Where you need to eat and drink but food and water aren’t scarce, so it becomes more about weight management and planning for expeditions than strait survival

Of course the entire concept of genre is blurry at best, for around twenty years Madden has had XP and the ability to level up players in its franchise mode. These were traditionally RPG mechanics inserted into a sports game and it worked great.

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Right! The easier it is to share the information the better we will all be.

Yes, that’s how it works.

I know I am leaving alot of people out but, off the top of my head: You would be a good match based on what I seen of you from on the forum and officials. @sestus2009 is a good match for his multiple private servers and systems. @Croms_Faithful will fit in for his offline experience. cristihan will need to come back out of retirement, for a critical but, fair assessment. @3LiON for building testing.

Exactly what I was thinking.

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What’s really great about these thoughts is that Conan is flexible, and it could be anything.

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Except for stats don’t matter outside of simming games on Madden. Can take a rated 60 TE and lead him to HoF status with the right money plays and nimble fingers. Just saying. 100 lb DT can move a 300 lb OL. yeah rpg.

You’re arguing against a point I never made. I said they added XP and leveling up, which in gaming was traditionally associated with an RPG, I never said Madden was an rpg.

I’m also not sure what point you are trying to make about money plays, if you use certain techniques in a game you can make it laughably easy.

Almost every game has elements that can be exploited and some players will always choose to take the path of least resistance.

I am not arguing, just stating add xp to a game doesn’t make it rpg. Sometimes things are added that have no real value to main mechanics. like 90% of food on Conan. Would it be a cooling game just because we have all those different food recipes?

@biggcane55, the fundamentals that made a game an RPG (started many decades ago w/ D&D), were that your character got stronger and acquired new skills as you played. It allowed you to distribute attribute points as you ‘leveled’ which allowed for full customization and even specializations of characters. This coupled with the ability to change your gear at will made the game extremely immersive and adopted the genre name Roll Playing Game. This all fits with Conan Exiles and I agree that it falls somewhere in the RPG category. This is just my opinion though.

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I am not arguing it is not a role playing game, but that like many games now a days the role playing aspects are not fundamental to playing the game. They are more bells and whistles than true mechanics.

Like I said because we can cook food does it make it a cooking game? No, it is just more bells and whistles that don’t really tie anything into it for true inmersion.

And in reality any game you play is a role playing game, as you assume a role in that games mechanics. How deep or much your means is variable per each player and games needs.

I always thought a “report function” from within the normal game would be best for devs to identify potential issues. A simple button that automatically takes a screenshot and reports other relevant information. I would take it a step further too. Have the devs implement a program that grabs all such reports and compiles them to a map overlay that displays the number of reports and the location. If there is a floating tree, and 100 people report it, there will be a small icon on the devs overlay that shows approximately where that floating tree is and how many reports it has. This would allow them to see where the most impactful issues are sprouting up, but it would also show them where the “rare” occurrences are sprouting up. It might help them weed through some of the weirder bugs.

Additionally put a small limit on the number of reports that can be sent in a given period of time. No need to spam the system with 100 reports from the same player. A 3-5 report per day feature might help.

The “reports” on the dev overlay could fade over a few days times (still maintaining a history of them) but allowing devs to wade through whatever there current patch is reflecting. So as they make a hot fix, that “tree” would fade into non-reporting territory.

Add a search function to find things only marked as floating objects. And a dev can hop around the map replanting trees and bushes pretty seamlessly. Other bugs, like hair or weapons clipping would still display on the map just in case some local gameplay element was causing the chaos. You know, if an odd number of folks stop to report a hair glitch at a flight of stairs at the entrance to a cave, it might be relevant, but maybe not. It would be visible to the devs though.

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I disagree with this. There are many different genres of games, usually containing their own set of goals and objectives to complete. I already mentioned what characteristics define an RPG above. Your comment seems a bit like saying all movies are ‘Action Movies’ simply because they depict people in motion.

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And the list grows…

Yes, yes it does.

On the next episode of
Star Metal Chef: Exiles Edition

Today in Kitchen Stadium, the Star Metal Chef Hyborian takes on a Stygian challenger in battle.

The Star Metal Chef Hyborian, Corms the Faithful comes from the Sinner’s Refuse School of Cooking, and is known for his fusion of Cimmerian influences in traditional Darfar cuisine. And the Stygian Chef, Lone Fisherman, of the Relic Hunter’s island resort is know for the highly valued Spicy Dried Fish Combo.

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This! And, to make sure it’s not faked or tampered with, have the server gather that information (except for the screenshot) and submit it.

image

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Sure I will add one h3rb1. The ability to either disable to NPC camps landclaim radius, or even the ability to adjust the size of the landclaim diameter in the Admin Panel via a slider would be wonderful please.

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I remember in the Diablo 2 Resurrected Beta client they had a bug report button IN-GAME. So you found a bug, press it and type your text and send it immediatly whilst being inside the game to not interrupt your flow.

But in Conan we need to leave the game, go to some special website, start typing personal information and other stuff and then the bug report, take your own pictures and video proof and think about how to provide the evidence to them.

Just no. I want to play the game and if I can submit bugs/exploits inside the game flow it is much easier and more convenient.

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