Decay time too short!

Conan Exiles General Discussion Feedback
1

Decay Timer WAY TOO SHORT.

…I quit playing this game for about three months last time they set the decay timer to a week. I spent several months building a huge base, believed I had roughly two weeks to /break from the game, and when I came back all my stuff was gone.

Needless to say, putting in months of work, that is often tedious and repetitive, to build a castle to your liking… only to have it all vanish in under a week…is a horrible game mechanic.

Firstly, that is way too short a time span, given the time invested. It is NOT fun to lose all your stuff…and I play this game to have fun.

I can accept a two week timer (though I think even that needs room to grow as the bases do). Basically, if you’re in the hospital or in the military, you might as well not even play. At LEAST on PVE (which funcom KNOWS we like to farm and build) give extended time for tier 3. If blocking off major passage ways is an issue, put in the barbarian horde to bore out those areas in furious fashion. But dang… losing you’re whole base when you normally log in every day because you had to go out of town, were in the hospital, on a military detail…dayum

Regardless, FUNCOM…take advice from someone who has gamed with your company for 17 years. Punishing your player’s for taking a break from the game is a great way to LOSE CUSTOMERS.

Please reconsider, before I do.

I am wasting my free time here, cause I enjoy it. But if even my free time is unfulfilling because all my “work” is for not… I will focus my attention in other games.

3 Likes
4

The timer is more than two weeks presently.

It’s 400 and change hours which is 16 days.

So you either were gone longer than the 2 weeks you claimed or you got purged. Offline purges are a thing.

5

To be honest 144 hours (6 days) is ridiculously short and I don’t see any reason why anyone would want to keep it that way.

I’m pretty sure the bulk of the playerbase are people with jobs and responsabilitites who cannot commit time to the game on a daily basis. No need to explain that many of us - because of work, training, vacation, etc - will not be able to play for more than 6 days in some particular periods of the year.

Now that the game has passed its honey moon phase, I would propose to set decay at 2 weeks.

I’m not asking to casualize the game, just be reasonable and know who the majority of your public is.

4 Likes
6

I am sure he knows the difference.

Loosing your Base to a Game System - like getting attacked PvP, or Purged is a different set back. It is expected and it is part of Gaming.
All we do is check Eventlog and we know if that was the cause. done

I am sure GodisGood probably can deal with such a set back for better then - we removed all because you did not log in in time.

For me - Getting attacked and destroyed is a total different story then getting all my work removed because of decay.

Getting attacked or purged is what i expect in Game. It will cause me to analyse the aftermath of the attack. It will cause me to reimprove my base . Or even consider a counterattack.

Total different story - not a reason to quit the game. it will cause the opposite. it is fun and will get my playing more.

1 Like
7

Yesterday it got changed back on the restarts down to 144 hours → 1 week.
This is probably something you missed.

Also these 3 weeks have been there for a month or so, meaning the decay was already at 1 week prior to the dev-holiday.

1 Like
8

144 hours is 6 days, not 1 week. And its way too short but the only way they can keep people logging on I guess until they quit. Specially considering there is no vacation timer in game. And with the broken clan mechanics someone going on vacation = quit the game. Negative feedback cyclus.

1 Like
9

How long do you need to be logged on and close to your structures to completely refill the decay timer I wonder? Say I was offline for 140 hours, then log on and just stroll around my base - how long until it’s back at the 144 hour countdown? I could test it, of course, but I don’t have the time. Assume officials, since private servers are a world of their own in many ways.

10

It depends, a classic mistake for people is just to run by their structure and expect it to refresh.
Some happens instantly, others may require a minute or 2.

If you first are into the awful circle of a slowly increasing decay timer. Then it increases with 30 minutes per minute or so. So to recover 140 hours you need to be on for 28 minutes at the same area.

11

Wrong as usual. 6 days is perfect. Snooze you lose. If you can’t log in a minimum of once every six days you shouldn’t be playing the game.

1 Like
12

Well, you’re probably trolling, but… you don’t get out much, do you?

2 Likes
13

Not trolling. Don’t get out much. That’s not an insult. 6 days is perfect.

1 Like
14

Not intended as one really, more an explanation for why you feel the way you do.

15

It is not to short, people are using the decay exploit as it is. People only have to log in once a month they block so many things on pve and nothing we can do. We have changed servers 4 times because of blocking . We have sent in tickets etc and nothing is being done. You spend hundreds of hours building then a tribe comes block everything and then people quit, or they move. We tried a unofficial server and private 100 hours in owner shut down server stopped paying. Don’t understand every game has rule why doesn’t this one. So many servers have 2-3 people that is it.

16

Arbitrarily short decay timers are not the answer to intentional griefing/blocking of resources though. At six days it’s already possible to keep structures around indefinitely if that’s what you want to do.

That said, I’d be fine with six days if I had the option to occasionally extend it to cover longer absences.

1 Like
17

If friends could refresh for you that would fix the issue.

18

I rented a server on this reason and more…

19

It makes no sense for a business to alienate (decay kill) it’s casual player base who are…

  1. The very people they are trying to convince to stay interested and stick around long term… to purchase downloadable content and grow the player base.
  2. The only potentially reliable source of growth, and word of mouth advertising.

To put this in perspective.

If I like this game, I will invite my friends. I am not yet fully committed to this game, so I only play periodically, have not convinced my friends to join me on my server… have not committed to purchasing my own server yet… ect ect. But, the idea is floating around in my head… It’s Sunday night, I play a bit, finish updating my base fully to tier 3, do a little decorating… all is well. I have been grinding all week, finally “accomplished” my goal. I log off for work in the morning…

It’s Monday… Week of work, kids, wife, T.V. and a slight break from Conan Exiles to play other games (Dota 2), WoW, Any number of other games).

Saturday comes around, I am goin to the lake, or maybe grandma’s, whatever… long day. I finally get home, time to veg out and sleep a long sleep. I still don’t feel like grinding an axe in Conan yet, I know my next project is gonna be three hours of beating on trees and rocks. I will do that tomorrow, on Sunday.

…

Two options.

A. I log in and all my shi* is gone. “WTF, THIS IS FUCING STUPID. FUK THIS GAME!” “How am I supposed to know my shi* rots in a week? I don’t read forums or blog posts.” “What’s a repair hammer?” “I though I had longer?” “Not wasting anymore time here.”

B. I log back in, well rested from a short break, happy to have some free time to grind, at the hour of my choosing… Maybe after I get my base finished, I will show it off to my friends and tell them how great this game is.

… So yea, casual player or not. THEY are the one’s that have not bought the Downloadable Content yet. THEY are the one’s that will grow the player base. THEY are the ones that will make your game a bigger success.

The players you have now… have settled for less, and will move on as soon as something better shows up. Please Funcom, BE THE SOMETHING BETTER. I don’t want to move on, but I will if you keep busting my balls with stupid decisions like a 1 week decay timer.

1 Like
20

Nice post.

It made sense to have some 1 week decay on full release. With a peak of almost 50k players.

But now? With only a very few tousand players?
Just rise it up to 10 or 14 days…

I still think the ones who profit the most of the 6 day decay are those who search the map for incoming ruins. Making them wait a few days longer wont hurt them.

2 Likes
21

Not to mention they are the ones who play occasionally, but pay the same as the ones playing 24x7. The ones you can easily fit 200 of in a 40-slot server, because they don’t all play all the time. The ones who don’t build 200x200 foundation mega-structures, destroying server performance, because “ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat!”.

But no, in order to play this game, you must dedicate your every free moment, families, other hobbies or jobs not allowed. Apparently. Boggles the mind, it does.

22

I ended up making my own server because the officials were littered with buildings even when there was only 3 people online during prime time on a pve server. Made it impossible to build my own home so i can see why people want a lower decay timer.

That said why not make the decay timer different depending on the material tier. Sandstone, keep the 6 days, Tier 3 give it 15 days to at least accommodate people going on a vacation. Most of the inactive structures around the map are tier 1 anyways so it will still help keep things clean.

2 Likes