I’ve played extensively with both decay timers and @Bladesaint is right. I’ve been a serial refresher on a few servers, and there are only three reasons why a serial refresher would let their stuff decay:
They decided to abandon that server permanently and made a decision to let their stuff decay.
Something happened in their real life – e.g. they got hospitalized – and they couldn’t log in.
They just don’t care enough about the whole game anymore, so they stopped keeping track of time and forgot to log in.
None of these reasons are affected by the decay time being 2 weeks instead of 1 week. You would have to cap the decay timer at 24h or so to make the serial refreshers really feel the pressure, and that would make everyone else miserable.
The fewer players playing Conan Exiles, the less buildings on the server, yet we don’t regularly propose to drive people away from the game
Just because some factor can reduce the lag, doesn’t mean it’s automatically a good thing to push for.
I agree with this 100%, that’s why I would like to see some gameplay mechanics to deal with serial refreshers. But that doesn’t mean lower decay timers will help.
If you want to make serial refreshers play more actively, you need an upkeep system that encourages active play.
And BTW, we arent talking about small 5x5 builds, we are talking about fully thralled out 20x20 locations full of chests. That means everytime a more active player renders it, the server takes a hit. So saving that space is being a dbag to the community that is more active on that server.
Scouting always nets 2-3 decays for me on high pops. But I’ve definitely decayed monster bases many a time and it’s like the server ■■■■■ the bed when that happens.
That’s the point, the machines have a quarter of the workload. G-Portal from what I understand isn’t exactly using hardware that is much different than other server hosts or those servers with dedicated machines. They run the same software as everyone else for the actual server itself, only differing in the management interface (they use proprietary instead of tcadmin).
Which tells me that less instances per machine should result in better performance. This means the servers should be fine with over 20 people online, and even 40 people online. Especially unmodded.
In my experience, nothing empties out a server quicker than server performance. If your community is large enough, you’ll keep a core base (if every other aspect is stellar), but you’ll lose hundreds of players to other servers once you see too much of NPCs and players jittering around.
I really like small builds, but Funcom can’t be bothered to give us smaller high tier workbenches and we’re stuck shoving as many large benches into a base that we want to actually make nicer looking than a box. I’d kill for something like that, but sadly, I’m on PS5 with no access to mods and a poorly optimized game to add insult to injury. So yeah… lag is gonna happen. Crashes are gonna happen… until Funcom gives us better stuff to work with.
Yeah, I play on console and there are a whole lot of trash builds in foolish places gumming up the game world. I think it’s due to the game being on Gamepass, which is great, if the servers are monitored in some way. Decay timer is one good passive way of weeding out this stuff.
Players just build in farcical places, blocking (or having their thralls continually kill) bosses, obstructing passes/waterways landmarks etc, building multiple huge bases all over the map with ridiculously extensive walls, littering the land with Map-rooms and Sorcery portals. The maps are over-crowded forcing players to build very close to each-other at times and that often leads to tension among them. It’s amazing selfish, something needs to be done.
Reducing the decay time to one week, won’t solve these problems - and is arguably a poor solution in and of itself - but it would surely help.
A far better option perhaps would be to impose improved restrictions on building, for example limiting a player to 1 base, and one map-room. A clan to n bases and n map-rooms (where n is the number of members in the clan). Make sorcery portals count as 5 thralls in your/your clan’s allocation. So yes you can still build them all over the map if you wish, but there are consequences for your actions; you can’t have 80 thralls standing outside your base don’t nothing. Make it so you can only build X units away from your placed bed. Or perhaps better; the decay time is related to your bed proximity, not foundations. Put this number at a generous value so extensive bases can still be built, but a value that stops the utterly selfish abuse of land-claim some players exhibit.
Just some example off the top of my head, both good and bad ones, but gives an idea of the ‘engineering solutions’ that could be put in place to help curb the problem on official servers without need any constant developer/human policing.
I would prefer an upkeep system over a strict building code. The only thing on PVE that i could agree with rescricting is the Temples/religion altars. 1 clan does not need more than 1 of each religion altar. On my current server there are clans with multiple large bases and at each base (owned by a different clan member i imagine) there are all the altars present. I think starting with limiting 1 of each religion altar per person/per clan would be a start, but harsher restrictions will not be generally accepted.
Limits are a horrible solution for many reasons. One of those reasons is that they try to be a one-size-fits-all solution. The problem isn’t really the build size per se, but the disparity between what you take from the server and what you contribute to the server.
When you build, you take up territory no one else can use while you’re there. Your build burdens the server. So what do you contribute? If you play actively, you’re part of the server community. Other players can interact with you and the server “feels more alive”. If you just refresh your stuff, you’re not contributing anything.
A building limit just sets up a maximum of what anyone can take, without giving any incentives to contribute more. An upkeep system, on the other hand, can incentivize you to play more actively if you want to keep a larger build.
Why not? This sounds like a completely arbitrary restriction to impose on a sandbox game.
EDIT: I didn’t read carefully, it says “more than 1 of each”. I get it.
It’s a public official server. Private/solo servers are for unlimited building. Funcom has said this many times, and it’s in their code of conduct we’re shown every time we log on.
Limits are not a bad thing at all, as long as they are sensible. Are they a perfect solution? Of course not, no one said that, but the servers are not actively monitored. Don’t let ‘perfect get in the way of good’. It sounds like you’ve not read what I wrote above. I’d encourage you to.
Contributing on an official server, is about community. That is the primary difference between it and solo. This extends far beyond ‘what I can build for others’.
It’s an official server, there needs to be a balance, and everyone knows no one can ever expect the community to self regulate themselves in terms of this, restrictions and impositions need to be imposed. This is true for every facet of life. That’s why we have rules.
Again, they’re not a bad thing; just need to be imposed sensibly to stop the players that overtly abuse the system to the determinant of others. Players abuse the system, and there are problems. I said nothing about stopping larger builds. Large great bases should be encouraged.
I crux is; It’s basically about introducing engineered solutions to the game for their rules that they already have in place.
Funny you should mention the code of conduct, because it doesn’t mention anything about the size of your builds. The official server rules are not – and never were – about how much you build, they are about the effect of your build on other players’ gameplay experience:
Furthermore, we’ve already had confirmation from Funcom that the number of bases – one of the things you propose to limit – is not a problem in and of itself:
All in all, you’re proposing a solution to something that isn’t a problem.
If I had a dime for every time someone assumed I didn’t read what they said just because I disagreed with them, I would quit my job and dedicate my time to monetizing other people’s condescension
Exactly. It’s why we have rules. It’s a people problem, and everyone in tech knows that you can’t solve a people problem with tech.
Like I said above, your proposal is a solution in search of a problem. The problem is not a quantifiable aspect of the building system, which is why you can’t solve it with a limit.
