Decay Timer at 168?

Game mode: [Online |
Problem: | Misc]
Region: [Here]


So the decay timer max has been rolled back to 168 hours. WTH for? Also, didn’t see any mention of this in the patch notes. Well I guess we have to take our ps4 on vacation with us. PvE decay system should work differently imo. 168 hours is too short of a timer when ppl could have 500-1000 hours invested into their structures. I thought 2 weeks was ok but still… 168 should just cause standing torches to decay, or doors to lose stability, at worst it should cause some types of pets (hyenas, shalebacks, gators) to obscond. 1 week is ridiculous.


Steps on how to reproduce issue:

Hello @CoachDub25, we’ve previously shared this information in the following announcements:

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I was aware of the rollback to 7 day decay but I would concur that PvE servers would serve better with the 2 week decay. I’ve got 3 major bases spread about & find it sometimes frustrating to have to visit all 3 in my few days of play per week.

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I had 3 bases missed it by 1 day everything gone at 2 bases all thralls still there

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I currently have 13 bases I have to visit. Feeling the urge to downsize. But the timer is back to the normal 168. 336 is a gift that we receive from time to time.

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Takes me 30 minutes to run to 5 bases and 2 maps twice a week. I usually do it in the morning before work.

Most of the time I don’t bother to put on armor. You ever run naked from the Black Keep across the frozen lake? I suggest you keep running and don’t stop to fight anything.

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Same for me, but guess what, before I run naked 30mins to bases, I would rather do something meaningful in the game. And no, refreshing a decay timer is not something meaningful (for me).

Hence why a base decayed last week… Was 2 hours to late there.

Thx for a strange mechanism on a game barely played by people. It just drives the last ones away, but maybe that is the goal? To reduce servers in general, so FC can save money?

PS.: And as I have a base in north, where no obelisk is kinda near, I cannot even do that naked. Or keep dying while trying to do it or be mauled to death by some sabertooths on my way to it.

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I can understand you guys doubled the decay timers so ppl could enjoy their summer, but now most ppl are even busier. There’s school, work and other responsibilities ppl have which gives them even less time to play.

When ppl return to your game and there stuff has decayed, they are gonna quit all together.

The only reason you guys have for reverting was; well that’s how it was before? Who gives a s$&@ what it was before?

Now I can’t build anymore because I’m too busy running everywhere refreshing my bases. And it’s getting old.

You guys are killing off your game and killing it fast.

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First of all, the timer is 7 days. SEVEN days! 7 FREAKING DAYS.

Man, that’s almost a whole week.

Now, let me see if I understand your post.

1] Keeping the bases you’ve spent time building by just running to them to touch them isn’t meaningful. Why did you bother to build and stock them then?

2] A mechanism designed to wipe inactive players after a time period is strange. I guess the purge would do it, but you have to be active to trigger the purge, so…

3] This is a game barely played by people. I’ll be sure to tell the 20 or so clans on our server they are no longer considered to be people. Or, maybe they were family pets all along.

4] You think Funcom needs to reduce players in order to reduce servers. As if they just couldn’t do that on their own.

5] You thought building a base in the north away from the obelisk was good idea. I’ve been in this game over a year, and I’ve never had a base in the frozen north. I also have spent enough time up there that I can move around without fear of sabertooths because I learned were they are. And I’ve done it naked. Because I enjoy a challenge called “only wear armor I find”.

In summary, the timer went back to where it was before the Summer started, or before the free month in April for PS4, and those players who were not around prior to that think this is the worst news ever, and “people will stop playing”, or. my personal favorite, “You’re killing your game!”. OK. Stop playing.

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I’m guessing you play on a PVE server correct? Cause if you do, your opinion is diminished. We need multiple bases on pvp servers to act as either dummy bases to distract raiders or multiple real bases to survive getting wiped in one raid hour.

If you think we shouldn’t build beyond a certain point because of the fear of sabretooths then you are clearly a noob when it comes to the real survival.

So yes the two week decay timer is a blessing so I don’t have to run to my dummy bases every week, especially when the player base is WAY down. And to just revert it back because “that’s what it always was” is a dumb argument.

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Ad 1) yeah, just aimless running to bases is(for me) a waste of time.

Ad 2) I never said, remove it. Just bump it up to 10 days. You know, people have a life besides Conan? 1 week is nothing.

Ad 3) Its the truth… you have for every player 2 server… just because your server has many players, doesnt mean the game aint dying. Before the patch I was never alone at the server… now I am most of the times alone (thx for fricking up 2h)

Ad 4) yeah, remove servers while people playing in it… FC will never get them back as customers

Ad 5) I want to get specified purges… Yeah, I want them!! Human ones and not only damn creatures…

In sumary, you have a different playstyle like me and many others and thats completely fine.

But what harm do you have from 10 days decay timer??

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Why yes. I did start in a PvE game. I learned the game mechanics, then we went to a PvP server, played a bit, built up 5 bases, destroyed a few clans, got bored with the incessant whining from the PvP players, and armed the one clan that wasn’t one of the four large clans. They are now the alpha, because they learned how to play.

Show me where I said anything of the sort. Show me where I wasn’t responding to the statement

You can’t. Because I said no such thing.

I agree. Two weeks was a blessing. But now it’s back to the way the game was designed to be played. Deal with it. Perhaps you can explain the absolute necessity of dummy bases when the player base is way down? I mean, we didn’t use them. We dared opponents to come at us. The one time there was a partially successful raid against us was after three days in the game, in a mostly sandstone build.

So, please, once again, complain about the timer. It won’t change, because it wasn’t meant to be two weeks forever.

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Don’t be aimless. Pick 2 days to go to bases you don’t normally use. I won’t ask the obvious question since you already stated the purge desire.

I never said remove it either. Again, take the time to refresh your bases.

The casual players don’t stick around. They never have. don’t think a blanket statement is accurate.

Never said to do it, but, it has been done before in many games. Servers have been merged, and people have gotten angry.

I don’t know if you’ve looked a this page on the wiki, but it notes where each purge will occur. In my opinion, the best one is the Cimmerian Beast Tamer purge. We usually get 6-8 named thralls, wolves, mammoths, and topped with a nice frost dragon. It’s a blast.

The best place for that one is around the Mounds to Asagarth.

Yes, everyone plays differently. It’s a game. I find the 7 day timer a pain in the butt. However, it does help eliminate the abandoned bases faster.

You do what you have to do in these games. Adapt to the rules.

Decay timer is there to clean up the server. If u have so many bases that u cant get to them all once a week then u have too many bases. If u dont like the official decay tiner go fi d a private server

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Well that was fun to read. We shouldn’t diminish the fact that the decay timer is back to 168 hours. I was around before the free month on PS4 as I’m sure many of you were as well. But there are many players that came into CE with a 336 timer and have never known any different. For them this is a huge change.

The decay timer being suitable for everyone is a moving target. Honestly I have no clue what goes on in your life as you wouldn’t know what goes on in mine. So I respect the opinion of a long decay timer as much as I do the shorter decay timer.

168 is tough for sure but doable. Would I welcome another 48 hours, yes. But I’m not going to quit if it doesn’t happen. I also don’t mind seeing bases of inactive people disappear.

In closing the whole you got your PVP in my PVE argument needs to stop. We will never truly effect the game in a positive manner if we’re divided. I’m not saying we all need to agree and sit around a camp fire and sing Kumbaya, but we have to have a civil discussion at the very least, and send a constructive message together.

Good luck out there Exiles.

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Yeah, slave-station bases with a wheel and a map-room… facepalm

I know the purge map… I have bases (even my main base) where human purges can come… But I dont get any.
Only the first ever purge, where we were ~lvl30 and had no clue what todo, was human (at my main base).
The last purge at my main base was spiders… Never saw a single spider within 1hour.

And why do you find the 7day timer a pain in the butt? Do so many people build meaningless things? I had someone blocked my base off - its gone.
I had several bases around me - all gone.

And this all occurred with the 14 days timer. People who dont play the game, dont play it anymore… If you annoy trolls or get annoyed, well thats their “job” and you fell for the trap. Ignore building trolls… As long as you dont “feed em”, they will leave…

1 week is bad but not necessarily the 168. Did you all know that, at least on official PVE, with which I’ve been on since June of 2018, at the 4 day mark your base starts going into decay. Oh its still there of course… but it only takes a swaggering neighbor to walk up and dismantle your stuff. YES at 4 days your decay state starts and in PVE anyone can destroy it. They can’t take anything, but they sure as hell can bring it all down. Back before they made the PVE nice guy change… you COULD take the stuff and oh man did we all have heydays with that. Guess what, its back… 4 days and your base is a target to anyone who wants to destroy it. If you haven’t figured this out… well I am guessing I just created a few more trolls. THIS is why it’s a bad thing. DON’T have decay state be at 4 days and make it so you can tear it down. BTW I just recently dismantled 2 of my 8 bases because that crap is tiring and neither of those bases were necessary anymore.

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I have noticed that bases do decay faster than “intended” figured it might be a one time thing or juss me but 168hrs is indeed the equivalent of 7 days but bases decay faster for some unknown reason n this is a huge problem not to mention false advertising in the sense of we r being sold to 7 days not 4 or faster who knows. Or maybe the in game timer doesn’t run the same as real time n its faster but this needs to be addressed. I usually refreshed my bases twice a week n after 4 days of not being on it should still have 72 hrs left on it n i asked a friend that’s not part of my clan to check n the timer had 12 hrs left on it that’s the timer was off but thought it was a bug one time thing that would go away on server restart. Now I refresh everything 3x a week before it runs down to zero n people destroy it. We should probably open up a thread on that cause if the timer is off it’s a huge problem

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Never fails to see a fanboy come to the defense of a publisher to try and marginalize a valid concern. And as usual, is grandiose enough to point out the obvious to try and be the superior geek in the room. Then also in typical pseudo-patriot fashion, wants to tell everyone “love it or leave it!” Idiot. Go lick the peanut butter out of Trump’s lap and let the decent humans try and help Funcom do themselves, and us, a favor.

@Hugo certainly appreciate you pointing me to the announcements. However, I had gone on hiatus for a few months due to losing my main base and stockpiles of items, etc. because of a decay timer that I didn’t know existed at the time. Well, that and the fact that a clan was building blockades at vital points of travel, and around lorestones and obelisks to deny other players access…which I can understand on a PvP server. But on the Official PvE, that’s griefing just for the sake of being jerks. And shows a real lack of character and NO BALLS.

I reported this to Funcom and received no feedback or rectification on the matter. So, when I lost my base and the vast majority of everything I had acquired from numerous hours upon hours of gameplay, (for not visiting for a few days, cuz I was actively playing the game) I quit playing with the intention to never return. If it were not for the free download, I wouldn’t have returned. I still have the disc btw.

It seems to me that we would all be better served if major announcements were delivered via an in game banner such as the ones concerning avatar summoning and Halloween that tell us to visit the forums. Because not every casual player like myself has time nor desire to visit the forums all the time, much less be expected to go back and read through months of archived announcements.

@thread I’m a casual player that can’t devote my entire life to a game, won’t devote all of my free time to gaming, and certainly won’t devote all of my gaming time to Exiles or any one game. On average I might be able to play Exiles for and hour on a good night, and maybe 3-4 hours on my best weekends. So, like others have mentioned, I find myself having to devote too much of that little time resetting timers at my 4 resource significant bases. I also maintain a couple of outposts and several elevator systems and thoroughfares. This leaves too little time to farm, hunt, explore, and heaven forbid actually progress in the game.

That being said, 168 is the maximum timer placed on large structures. Remember the modest little huts that almost all of us had to start out with. Now ponder how many players with similar time constraints as myself this game has lost right off the bat because a short decay timer kept wiping away what little bit they were able to accomplish.

I discovered this game by renting it. Kept renting it 3 days at a time on weekends, every couple weeks, over about a 6 week period until I finally came across a preowned disc at Gamestop. I had no idea there was a wiki, wasn’t sold on it enough to care about looking online. Every time I went and rented it my meager little shelter and few items were wiped clean and I thought it was being purged. I had no idea that there was a decay timer and that I needed a repair hammer to even see it…