Dev Stream - 03-07-2019
Opening Statement
Time for a new written summary for the latest and greatest! Sorry this write-up was so delayed, I’ve been dealing with some health stuff and the usual doggo stuff (for those who have been keeping up with me on that, he’s okay, just needs ever more attention).
Note: There was also a stream on Friday where Jens and Nichole played Conan Exiles Co-Op, but there wasn’t anything unique to that stream that wasn’t already said on Thursday’s stream.
One other thing I want to add is with regards to this latest patch. I know that people were frustrated in waiting for the darn thing to come out, but I really want to give a shout out to the Developers, Community managers and Team members. They have been working insanely long hours, stretching far into the late evening and early, early morning hours and working on weekends. They were doing (and are doing) everything they possibly could to get this patch ready for all of us, and they really deserve more praise then I can possibly give them. Serious shout out to the team and all of their efforts.
Now then, onto the summary. Here are the bulletin summary links if you would rather you had my old way of doing it instead.
Links to Bulletin Summary:
PDF Link - Accessibility Check Ran
The testers, bug reporters, and the community for their help and patience with everything revolving around our latest large monstrous patch.
Will be sent out soon.
Quick Note About Free Weekend Event:
They talked briefly about the Free Weekend Event, but no reason to summarize what they said. Blog post is here.
Tons of stuff were added (do you really need me to tell you that though?). One thing not seen in the patch was the much hyped Building Load time Optimizations. This particular feature would have made buildings load way faster, and in practice it did. But Funcom, thanks to testers and internal testing found errors. Which is why the patch was so delayed for days and weeks. Funcom made the decision to pull the Building Optimizations for now and to add it back into a future patch once they felt it was ready.
If you would like to know all the patches that were added in the past week (there are 4 of them), here are the links.
03-02-2019 Patch
03-04-2019 Hotfix
03-05-2019 Hotfix
03-07-2019 Hotfix
I don’t really see a reason to summarize what they talked about here, at the time there was a lot of uncertainty of what was going on. Since the stream, Funcom has worked with Sony and has a patch that just went through certification.
Showing Off New Patch Stuff (18:00):
There are New NPC’s and Thralls, along with more NPC camps. Difficulty has been adjusted across the board, so now it’s more challenging. While also more challenging, it’s also more rewarding with better loot and more EXP. In addition to human enemies, a chance for elite monsters were also added into the rotation. Harder enemies are visually noticeable by either their UI health bar, or in monsters cases their eyes will glow.
Removed the hunger system (21:17)
Funcom also removed the hunger system for thralls and pets. They now use a decay system like buildings. A clan member must login within 2 weeks, else the Thralls and Pets will die. You may still choose to feed Pets and Thralls if you wish, and by doing so they will gain temporary buffs from being fed.
New RP stuff has been added. A biography button is now located in the Character Stats menu. This allows you to create your characters story. You can limit this so that it’s only viewable to you as the player, or viewable to all. You can also turn off being able to view other players biographies. To view a player biography, simply interact with the character like you would with a chest or loot bag.
Notes were also added to let you write notes and leave for other players. Same character limit as the stats menu. Being able to roll dice was added in as well, though on the Stream Jens couldn’t get it to work. Reason being, he forgot there is a current known bug in single player that makes it so you can’t roll dice. Works fine on a server though. Silly Jens.
New Art on Steam Page (25:18):
Why is that significant you ask? Well for one, it’s cool. But if you are a art geek like myself, Funcom is writing up a new blog post covering all the work and steps that were taken for the new key art on the Steam store page.
He’s doing a lot of stuff. If you haven’t been keeping up with the latest Funcom announcements on up-coming games coming out of the Oslo office in Norway, you should. To summarize, in the works is a single player RPG where the character plays as Conan. And Funcom has entered into an agreement with Legendary to create new games based on the Dune Franchise.
New clothings and armors? - Unnamed City Revamp (27:20):
Note: Spoilers, so skip this section if you want to learn about it on your own.
The Unnamed City has been revamped over to give the player more reason to revisit that location. There are 8 new bosses, along with several new mini-bosses. Legendary armor and weapons, as well as new recipes can also be gained by reward from this location.
The Legendary Armor are slightly different versions of existing armor pieces already in the game. But they have unique names and unique buffs. These can include attribute bonuses, or things like underwater breathing and poison removal. These armors are pieces, not sets. They are also currently the most powerful armors in the game right now. The armor pieces cannot be repaired at this time, and it is intentional. Funcom wants to see how things go from player feedback and balance before adding more of these pieces, and the ability to repair them.
Fragments of Power were added as loot drops to the Unnamed City bosses. These Fragments can be consumed to reward the player with 10 feat points. You can do this as many times as you want, meaning you can gain all the recipes in the game if you farm them long enough. Alternatively, you can deliver them to the archivist for a random scroll which will grant one of several new recipes. These recipes include new viable weapon recipes, silly weapons (broken bottles, spatula, etc), and new placeables. There are 19 feats in total, one of which will grant around 20 placeables.
Status on New Thrall Commands? (39:43): and again at (49:20):
It has been worked on a bit, but no current ETA. Funcom knows player really wants this though.
This has been talked about a lot lately, but basically it breaks down weapons, armors, and building pieces to gain some crafting materials. The items can be of any percentage with regards to its state of repair. The return back on materials is 20% of repair cost.
Event Log and the Removal of Player Names (40:48):
Some big news lately was the removal of player names from the event log. This has created a ton of discussion on the pros and cons of this, and Funcom wants to get your feedback on that change with regards to official servers. A poll and thread for that can be found here:
Funcom is planning on adding server settings for private server admins to control this option as they need to.
ETA on Console Parity Patch? (42:57): (and again at 47:21):
No ETA currently, but they are working to get it out as soon as possible.
If you are an avid RPer and have been living under a rock lately, by the way, there is a new VOIP system. It uses VBOX and so far it’s been well received. There are also Lip Sync movements to go along with the VOIP system, but it currently does not work in Single Player/Co-op. It is being looked into though.
Exploits/Glitches Status (45:08):
Funcom is looking into, and if people have noticed lately, fixing several exploits and glitches as reported by the community. Sometimes these exploits are very difficult to fix, but Funcom considers fixing them a high priority for the team and they are working as hard as they can on them.
With that said, as always, if you know a way to get an exploit to occur or repeat, PLEASE, use Exploit Hunters!
Here Funcom shows off the new Black Yeti monster. If you want to check it out, click on the time stamp above. The Black Yeti is a wandering monster, but can also spawn as a Purge Boss. EEEEEP!
Purge Improvements:
I don’t have a time stamp for this because it was just talked about a lot off and on towards the back end of the stream. Basically, there are a ton of improvements for the Purge already thanks to this last patch. There are lots of new enemies to fight and new Purge events. Tons of bug fixes have been added in. But Funcom isn’t done with their plans for the Purge, additional improvements and changes are being worked on and are planned.
They aren’t being worked on, and there are no current plans for mounts.
No plans at all for VR support. Sorcery is currently “on ice” because the focus is and has been improving the core game as asked by the community. The status of Sorcery will be checked on at a later date and any news will be given out when Funcom has news to give out.
Roadmap (56:27):
They want to get the current patch as stable as possible (hence the hotfixes) and out on console. That’s priority one.
The current road map is strengthening the core game: building system, the purges, the AI, Thrall Systems, exploit fixing, more RP stuff, balancing in general, performance improvements. They also want to put back in the new building load system and other performance improvements soon.
After all of that is said and done, there will be more things and they will let us know what those are when the time is right.
Stability and Wanting Better Indicators at Low Stability (59:28):
Well first off, Jens and Tascha both liked this idea (even Robtheswede commented about it earlier in the stream, which as always I have his notes at the bottom). Funcom has discussed a few possible solutions to help players better understand that ultimate question of, “Why can’t I build here?” * What ends up getting implemented in the future is unknown at this time, but it is being discussed and QOL building improvements are coming, soon(™)
Raining Indoors - Causing stuff to be wet (1:10:36):
Well, Funcom is very aware that people really don’t like their stuff getting wet indoors when it rains. They also know a lot of people have voted on it on Trello. Despite how it may look to players, this is something that is very tricky and a very difficult thing to fix. But, they know how important it is to the community, so it’s being looked into and discussed.
Stream Chat Goodies!
The following is courtesy of:
Robtheswede (Conan Exiles Developer):
- Player asks: How about invisibility trait for legendary armor?
- Robtheswede: Hah…I wanted to do that but I didn’t have the time. It would have worked if you stayed still though, like a Predator.
- Robtheswede Notes: Dice works in multiplayer but not singleplayer/coop (it is currently being fixed by one of our coders, Marcin)
Player comments: There is still a (insert glitch here)
Robtheswede: There is indeed and we’re looking into as many exploits as we can - we’re slowly crushing them one by one - of course new ones always pops up so it can be challenging at times, but, yeah…we’re cranking down on them.
(later when commenting on another glitch) Robtheswede: We are also looking at that one, yeah. It’s a big priority for us - we fix one method it happens, and two other methods of performing that infernal glitch pops up.
(later again when commenting on another glitch) Robtheswede: No the (blank) attacks were not meant to go through indestructible terrain, we’re looking into that one for sure.
- Robtheswede Notes: By the way - we’re not going to be adding a lot more of these “funny” weapons - we happened to have these lying around though, so - “what the hey.”
- Player asks: Any chance on adding a purpose to races? Like having Darfari be able to eat raw meat, or the Hyrkarians have an increase to bow damage
- Robtheswede: Interesting idea. I’ll take note of that one. No guarantees.
- Player asks: Status on Thrall commands being added so we can put thralls on passives and such?
- Robtheswede: It’s in the plans, but not being worked on at this very moment. However, we hope soon(™).
- Player asks: Will there ever be an increase in map size? Would be interesting to explore new lands.
- Robtheswede: Unlikely at this point, I’m afraid.
- Player asks: Can you make it so pieces that snap to low stability places turn red and say “low stability” instead of not being able to place at all?
- Robtheswede: A lot of building stuff has been done lately (up-coming QOL building changes). I’m not actually super-familiar with everything on that, but that is also in the plans. This is another “hopefully soon” item, but right at this moment we have more pressing matters.
- Player asks: At the moment, Black Ice is super cheap in comparison to the other building pieces. Will there be changes there?
- Robtheswede: Black Ice is actually something I want to change - we’ll see when we get to it.
- Player asks: Will we ever see gear (weapons) displayed on our characters when holstered?
- Robtheswede: Probably not, sorry.
- Player asks: Will there be more DLC’s?
- Robtheswede: There will be more DLC’s, yes.
- Player asks: Will you ever do VR support?
- Robtheswede: Probably not, sorry.
- Player asks: Will you be adding placeables to the current Yamatai DLC?
- Robtheswede: Unfortunately no - we won’t be expanding on the current DLC’s.
- Player asks: Would it be possible to give a bigger slider for muscles for females?
- Robtheswede: I don’t think we’ll be touching any more character creation features - at least it’s not in the plans. But I’ve taken note of your idea (als well as another suggestion to add a color slider to male lips, that is also on the list).
- Player asks: Could you guys explain why the Playsation is having lots of lag problems? I love the game, but the lag is tough to deal with. Do you have any tips or tricks?
- Robtheswede: We’re looking at fixing a lot of of performance issues, and there are quite a lot of fixes in the patch that was deployed to PC. I know it sucks to wait but, “its coming.”
- Player suggests: Spiders need a serious buff
- Robtheswede: They will get some luvin shortly
- Player asks: Any new pets planned?
- Robtheswede: There will be more, yes.
- Player asks: Have you thought about making Conan Exiles into a mobile game like Ark?
- Robtheswede: No, sorry.
- Player suggests: Additional armor for cold could use some more variants
- Robtheswede: Noted.
- Player asks: Any plans for a new map?
- Robtheswede: That is not in the plans, I’m afraid.
- Robtheswede (on the subject of building stability options): It would be possible to make a mod that completely removes the need for stability, I believe, but we won’t be doing official option for that.
- Player asks: Do you have any plans to create “future” themed DLC packs?
- Robtheswede: As in “Sci-Fi” themed? No, it needs to fit the world of Conan
- Player asks: Will there be more civilization themed DLC’s based in the Conan Universe?
- Robtheswede: We will have more themed civilization packs, yes.
- Player asks: Will there be more additions added to the combat system? Or new attacks such as sprint or jump attacks?
- Robtheswede: In terms of touching up balances and what not, that is “very likely.” Otherwise, IF we do changes like that, the first thing on the list is “Two-Handed Axes.”
- Player asks: Will there be any additional options in terms of fighting players in PvP when they are running away?
- Robtheswede: There are things we want to change to make it trickier to run away in combat, but it will be a little while before that stuff gets out. I can’t talk about the nature of what we have planned yet.
- Player asks: Will it ever be possible to have multiple single player or co-op save files on consoles?
- Robtheswede: We’ve talked about that internally. Right now, that’s officially an “I dunno.” Sorry.
- Player asks: Will there be any swimming type monsters?
- Robtheswede: It’s being discussed
- Player asks: Will you ever fix where it rains indoors?
- Robtheswede: It’s under investigation