I want to whisk everyone back long long ago, during a more civilized time, back when rocknoses, apes, and towns were safer from exile players. The time was November 2019. You used to be able to place a max level thrall and no leveling. Viola. Done.
While I’m enjoying the grind at the moment, adding the leveling and perk features after tasting the game as it was seems like pointless grind that will get tiresome. It was a shiny toy to distract from the thrall cap, a way to keep us busy with thralls without noticing legacy thrallpocalypse. But I’m dealing with it, 4 hours at a time.
Let me put it this way: back when we were voting for our favorite capitals in Conan Exiles, my primary vote was for Unnamed City. That was in that same “civilized” time of November 2019 you mention. It was one of my favorite places in Conan Exiles and certainly my favorite capital, hands down.
Fast forward to today, after leveling 3 thralls to level 20, 1 thrall to level 15 that got “recycled” because of an Eff-U perk, and 1 more thrall to level 15 before taking a break to build a jousting arena. I am sick of Unnamed City. I can’t stand the damn place anymore.
Yeah, you might say that the pointless grind does get a tad tiresome.
I like to make furtive little runs into the UC to familiarize myself with it more. Entrances, exits, points of escape, neat cinematic views. It was Level 17 and 9/10 with my RHTS-F when I called it a day. By the time we were back to the waterfalls she was at 18.
Next day, still curious about some of the UC stuff I’d seen, I went instead to Executioner’s for the cool Heavy +3 STR hood. And I’ll be darned if my follower didn’t get to 20 after twice through the cave. You’d be surprised what parts of the world pay out well for this operation, plus there’s a nifty helmet OR a FoP. And with how useful they are, I could pretty much FoP 'til I drop.
Actually the private server that I run - the multipliers are all default official. I try to make everything match official as much as possible. The only thing that doesn’t is purge score, which I have dropped to 25k so that we get a purge once in a while.
The multipliers annoy me as well. I had a guy blow up on me and leave and unfriend me in facebook (i mean really?) because I felt the multipliers were cheating in a way and kept it at 1x. But you are right in that every private server I have played on has those things jacked way up.
The counter-argument is always (because this is not a job and I don’t want to spend all day leveling and harvesting, I just basically want creative mode)
Which is fine.
But not all private servers are that, keep in mind. Mine has been up for over two years now and I stick to 1x multipliers for everything.
Well, if it was possible to setup auction houses or shops without Pippi or the like, I think there would definitely be some.
Even so, WMHB isn’t wrong. I regularly trade purge thralls for raw materials, especially now that the mining animation hurts my eyes so much. It’s not terribly uncommon for others to barter Archivist Scrolls, fragments of power, armor shards, etc. either, though admittedly there is quite a bit more “pay it forward” charity than outright trading most days…
Well, it certainly doesn’t help that the proposed follower limit methodology actively disincentives clanning-up in any scenario that isn’t a single shared base with maybe a couple outposts. For most PvE players, the whole reason we play is to build castles and cities with some semblance of city life. Going from having 55 followers to yourself to only 30 the moment you clan-up with another person really puts a damper on such plans. As such, a lot of us have been splitting up and merely adding alts to our friends’ clans.
Waaay to grindy with the 1/4 xp PvE penalty, for sure.
@Barnes@darthphysicist Hey instead of rubbing in how easily you guys can rack-up XP in PvP, maybe start an XP collection for us poor, impoverished PvE players.
“For just 15 minutes a day, you can bring an hour’s worth of hope to a struggling PvE player.” – Susan Sarandon
Point taken, once again. I was trying to be inspiring on account of the laid-back environment of PvE. You know, wistful. I only got to take my time on one official server so far.
@WhatMightHaveBeen this is one of the reasons why you need more than 4x time on PvE. You are tired of UC runs.
2 runs to get to level20 is ok. 8runs is a nightmare… You feel burned out. And as I am currently farming for the Chieftain armorer, I need >1 week to get one to lvl20. Yesterday I made warmaker (all bosses) and wine-cellar (also all bosses) and got him from 16.5 to 18.
If there would be new dungeonS, I wouldnt have so much of a problem. But NO NEW content and 4x longer time in PvE is a nightmare for leveling thralls.
Thankyou for thinking me Barnes, and of Zerog too. I had been intentionally avoiding this thread up until now, as I am trying to refrain from being negative or bitter. However for me, having been stuck with the Momentum movement system for over a month now has sapped my enthusiasm for the game. The reality is that I have played the game significantly less than usual since the Mounts update, despite the update coinciding with my longest period of time off in a working year. Rather than hurling abuse and profanities at NPCs because I was killed in battle fair and square, I now instead find myself directing it towards my character when I am attempting to navigate around the hallways and corridors of my base. Ironically at this point I can almost ride a horse better than I can use my own two legs. The very feel of the game has been fundamentally altered for me, and I am just not having fun playing at the moment.
Not wanting to be entirely negative in this post, I have enjoyed riding my Mounts (serious thanks to Funcom for the amount of work they put into bringing them to us), and the thrall levelling has been fairly enjoyable, although they have become really overpowered now. Oh and another positive for me is that I finally managed to get back to and enjoy some other games in my library since I went on hiatus. I have now notched up some S ranks on REmake 2, and am working my way closer to a Platinum. This probably sounds like a negative, but I viewed it as a good thing.
While like @darthphysicist and @CodeMage I am going to show restraint in attributing the cause and effect to any particular variable to the surge in players, I am very heartened to see this. I still love Conan Exiles and am REALLY looking foward to seeing what 2020 has in store for us.
Reality is, Even without the hot fix, i don’t notice the difference anymore. The Dodge is the only thing that affects me, and in a good way. I feel a sense of accomplishment when i time my dodge and counter with a good combo now. Before i sonic rolled until full health, spammed iced tea, then hoped i out-stammed the other guy. As for my clan mates and those that i play with regularly on PVP, the only complaint we have is a bug, the 100% bow damage. But for everything else, we actually like the changes. But then again, the guys i roll with hated the sonic roll and to use meta’s all the time.
Maybe the devs have another understanding of PvP then you, but the most changes are because of PvP player.
I.e.: If some weapon becomes “meta”, most of the PvP community want you have a change (claws, spears, croms sword, etc.).
Me as an PvE player, I go for a weapon that fits my style to play the game.
I don’t “have” to use the “meta” weapon, because I’m not in an direct competition with other players.
Just have a look if someone calls to nerf something. In the most cases it is some PvP player (right now there is a discussion about “horses are meta”).
The next problem is, that also within the PvP community there are different ideas how to play PvP.
Some want higher HP for their buildings, because it is to easy to get offline raided and some are angry because the HP of buildings are to high and they have to invest to much stuff to raid a building (offline).
The devs at all have no really chance to made the “right” decision, because every time they change something there is a group which doesn’t feel happy.
I appreciate that and I didn’t take it that way. In return, please don’t take my response as confrontational, because there are certain points I’d like to argue about
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by PVE content. If we’re talking about DLCs, I’m grateful for them, but I would happily forgo future DLCs in exchange for better quality in general. Bugfixes and rebalancing, both for PVP and PVE, and some real TLC for PVE gameplay
I’m afraid I’ll have to use a rather unsavory metaphor here, so I apologize to everyone beforehand.
I think you and a lot of PVP players mistake lack of indifference for love. If I had a brother and if my mother was an abusive alcoholic who just happened to abuse me less than my brother, it still wouldn’t be what a healthy person would call love.
Things are bad for both PVP and PVE players. I don’t deny that and I never wanted to. But just because Funcom throws PVE players some DLC-shaped bones, it doesn’t mean they care about us properly.
This, I believe, is the crux of the misunderstanding. I think you’re conflating competence and motivation.
My claim is that the devs make PVP-motivated balancing decisions, not that they’re doing a good job
The “evidence” you mention at the end of the post is the evidence of their competence level, not of their motivations. If you want to divine their motivations, look at the dev streams.
Hold on, is this what you were referring to as “the amount of PVE content”? Maybe it’s because I’m not steeped in this genre like you are – I haven’t played ARK or Rust or even WoW – but to me, this logic seems weird.
I’m flabbergasted. To me, this sounds like you want them to fix all the bugs – which I agree with – and then just … stop. That’s it, the game’s good enough, we can fight endlessly and there’s no need to add anything. Perhaps a new recipe for a new weapon or armor that can be crafted, but that’s it. No new content to distract from the combat.
Again, don’t take this as being confrontational. I’m just having a hard time adjusting to such a different point of view.
This is extremely amusing, because my mentality toward the thrall changes is also one of annoyance. I was already unhappy that thralls are so much more powerful than players and that I’m often reduced to being my thrall’s sidekick. Now I have to be my thrall’s servant.
And for what? Our thralls can’t fight each other. We can’t use them for decoration anymore – thanks to the follower cap. It’s literally just so that I could defend myself from the new “zergling rush Purges” and beat the überthug bosses. Both of these things rely on brute force and both are like that because thralls were already overpowered and this was Funcom’s way of trying to ensure they’re not too easy. And why? Because they drop loot that’s going to imbalance PVP if it’s too readily available.
They also reference PVP combat situations (1v5 and 1v10 and “roll poke” and whatnot) quite extensively. I did watch that stream
Wait, what? Maybe we didn’t watch the same stream? I don’t recall anything about roll-kiting bosses into “end game cities” (what cities?) being the motivation for this change. What I’ve heard Alex say is basically that it was too easy for players to escape from combat, so they wanted to force them into it.
Honestly, at this point, I’m not even sure that’s a good idea. That’s a typical “slap a band-aid on it” attitude that has served us so poorly in the past. And by “us”, I mean all of us, PVE and PVP players alike.
It’s thanks to this band-aid slapping, firefighting, reactive attitude that PVP players are constantly frustrated with changes that seem PVE oriented and PVE players are constantly frustrated that their needs are not being met.
After reading your post, I have a better understanding of why you feel that way, but I still have to disagree. Like I said, their motivations seem to be clearly geared towards balancing PVP. It just happens that: 1) they don’t do it all that well, and 2) you have a much more narrow/extreme definition of PVP than they do
Thank you. I don’t often get the chance to disagree with people and yet have not only a civil, but an informative discussion
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m against DLCs. My comment was made in context of limited development resources. I think we can at least agree that the game really needs some fixing. And if they can do it properly and release DLCs, more power to them. But if they don’t have the capacity to do both, I would prefer quality fixes over new DLCs
Although I agree with what you’re trying to say, there’s a part of me that feels bad about how we’re both phrasing it. I believe that the devs are capable, but don’t have the capacity. Let me explain what I mean by that.
From what I’ve seen so far, I get the impression that the team is hobbled down by a variety of factors, such as tech (e.g. UE4 warts), scheduling (update X has to be released before such-and-such holiday), and business reasons (DLCs have to keep coming out to make more money). These are problems that can’t be solved by throwing more people at them, kinda like a pregnancy can’t be shortened to 1 month by having 9 women work together
As a result, they always have to prioritize the things that are “on fire” and everything else has to wait until it’s also on fire
At least, that’s my impression.
The did state in a dev stream that they actually play the game and I believe they said they do it on official servers, but I’m not 100% sure and, at this time of the day, I’m a bit too lazy to go check
Thanks for explaining this. I was already starting to glimpse that from your previous post, but now I have a much better understanding – both of the state of the genre and of your own personal stance.
I completely agree. This is precisely why I’m saying that I would personally be happy to forget about future DLCs until the game is fixed
I also agree with that, but I would like them to fix both core PVP problems and core PVE problems. I believe it: 1) is doable, 2) isn’t mutually exclusive, and 3) can be done at the same time. Of course, I might be wildly optimistic here
I don’t know if it’s madness or not. I know that I don’t want to play that kind of game myself I hope nobody gets offended by that. Like I said in another thread: I hate eating corn, but that doesn’t mean I think corn shouldn’t exist
So, basically, it sounds like you’re saying that if they would just fix the core PVP gameplay, they could finally have the bandwidth to sit down and fix PVE too. And you know what? I’m totally fine with that. After all, I’m pretty sure most new players come to Conan Exiles because the PVP side of things sparked their curiosity. Maybe I’m wrong, but even if I am, that’s beside the point. I don’t care if who gets the food first, as long as we all get a nice meal
And now that you provided me with a better understanding of PVP mentality, it all makes much more sense. The higher XP multiplier allows PVP players to minimize the pain of leveling.
I feel this validates my hunch: the proper solution is not to increase the XP multiplier for PVE, because that’s just a way to “soft-skip” the whole process. The correct solution would be to make the leveling process not so boring and frustrating. That way PVE players can actually enjoy the process, whereas PVP players can keep it short and focus on what they enjoy.
They did, but as far as I remember, it was because they wanted the combat to feel more like Dark Souls, not because of boss-kiting.
If they ever nerf them, they really have to do it properly and carefully. And I don’t think they absolutely have to delete overpowered thralls. Just like they wrote the code that goes through the whole game database to delete overlapping structures, they can write the code that goes through the whole database to tweak the thralls – if they even need to resort to that kind of thing.
But again, just because it’s theoretically possible, doesn’t mean they’ll have the bandwidth to do it.
Nah, I think I mostly agree with you, now that I understand things better. And by the way, thanks for helping me out with that
Oh, I definitely agree that it would be great if they stopped adding content and fixed what’s already there. But if they do that, I hope they heed their own advice and communicate. Right now, it feels like we’re back to the same old silent treatment and that’s frustrating for everyone.
This right here is more evidence of what @CromAndBiscuits siad baout deveopled for PVE. The nerf comes because the item ws made for PVE, but severely broke something in PVP. Yes we will call that out. You also state meta’s don;t matter to you, as a pve player. That again shows why pvp players must let the devs know when something is beyond meta and OP. Becasue to a PVE player it is just a faster way to beat the NPC, so it doesn’t damage their game, but really makes the grind/harvesting faster.
This is something I don’t understand. Conan Exiles is a game with PVE and PVP game modes. In a game like that, why would any sane developer add a weapon “for PVE”? This is exactly what I was referring to when I said they balance for PVP, because that’s the sane thing to do: whenever you’re adding something, think about how it would affect PVP first. It’s not that PVE doesn’t need weapons or that it cannot be unbalanced, it’s that unbalancing PVP is both easier and more problematic.
So either I’m missing what you wanted to say or we have a very different opinion on how capable the devs are.
Is it so?
How long were spears untouched, because they were craftable, so everyone used them.
But for legendaries you have to farm and then some whiny PvPers will cry for nerf. Because a hard to get legendary weapon, should be the same as something crafted, because bad PvP players dont want to farm legendary weapons…
How long were the Lifeblood spear like it was… Until FC had enough about the crying/whining threads.
Do you really? I dont see that many nerf this or nerf that thread from GOOD PvP players…
I only got to take my time on one official server so far. 
