December '25 Update - A review

Conan Exiles PC Discussion
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Background:

I’ve been playing Conan Exiles since launch.

This game, since Age of Heroes, has been continuously trashed by the production team and communication has gone from bad to worse to stupid.

After Age of Heroes bombed and made the game nearly unplayable, we were promised that the focus would be on addressing bugs and stabilizing gameplay. That, of course, never happened.

After prolonged radio silence, we got a December update which was long on new features that do not work and short on actual bug fixes.

Build from thrall’s inventory does not work consistently. Craft on bench from player inventory is a friggin’ nightmare that no one who plays the game would want.

The expanded sorcery is meh. While it is nice Sorcerers, finally, have a purpose, their purpose is meh and Funcom introduces multiple new in game currencies for zero good reasons.

Selling thralls and pets includes selling their inventory. The game just got 1000% percent easier. Hard pass, for me.

Unaddressed Bugs that have Been Around for Years Or introduced with This Update

Old - Facing bug
Old - Climbing bug
Old - Thrall pathing
Old - NPC pathing
Old - Player being bound to NPC and thrall mesh
New - Player dodge not matching NPC dodge
Old - NPC thrust exceeding 3 player dodge executions
Old - NPC derendering on death
Old - NPCs falling through the mesh on knockout
Old - Official servers going zombie
Old - Thralls sinking into building pieces
Old - NPCs “stutter step” - they advance - get lag stuck, then teleport to you

I have loved this game for a decade, but Funcom continues to treat it like an annoyance. You would think the hard crash of Dune would open their eyes, but, no, they are as tone deaf as ever,

Crap uput, as usual.

Edit: these are the”major” bug fixes in this update:

Fixed several building-related server crashes.

  • Improved purge spawning:
  • Fixed the purge “owned landclaim” detection so that it cannot spawn the Forward Operating Base on the edge of an unrelated player’s landclaim. This fixes the issue where players could trigger a purge within range of another player’s base and harass them.
  • Significantly increased the density of checked points when searching for a spot to place the Forward Operating Base, making it more likely to find a usable location by being more thorough in the search.
  • Fixed numerous DLC items’ dye functionality and rendering issues.

Wow, how could I NOT be overawed by these?

The game is now 100% better than a kick in the testicles.

EDIT: Things promised in the December Update vs. How they work

Build from Thrall inventory - constantly loses connection, must reopen thrall’s inventory every minute or so

Ten second Taint Lock is actually 2:40 seconds.

For those of you trumpeting, “LOOK AT ALL THE NEW STUFF!”

That’s not what we were promised. we were promised a focus on bug fixes. This did not happen.

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Uh… what?

I reread that several times because it seemed so blatantly dishonest that I assumed I read it wrong.

Did you… miss the major bug fixing patches? Or you just don’t like that they didn’t fix the bugs you wanted them to?

Even if you do not like which bugs they prioritized, they absolutely focused on addressing bugs. And as soon as they did, every bug fixing patch was met with people complaining that the game was in maintenance mode because they weren’t added new content any more.

I think the last update was lacking in bug fixes too, but I can’t have an honest conversation about it with someone who is not interested in being honest.

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Nothing can satisfy people that reject or deny reality (psychosis). @Pugilist is delusional and his lies will continue to be UNHEARD by the people that matter.

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I did not miss major bug fixes, there weren’t any. There were minor bug fixes, and a concentration on new content that, surprise, is broken as well.

That’s an odd classification of a disagreement. If you believe I am wrong, state why, attributing

motive is a choice, but I am unsure why you would make such a choice.

Somehow, I will try to soldier on.

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Cool story, bro.

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My two cents worth.

Does any one else remember the “Producer’s Letter” from January 15th 2025.

Quote:
“Therefore, we’ve taken the decision to hold off on developing new content and features while we focus on improving the game from a technical and quality-of-life standpoint. At this point, we believe we need to put more focus into making the game better, not just bigger.”

We’ve had just two lots of fixes since then.
That statement wasn’t just a little white lie. It was a technicolour extravaganza.

LS still hasn’t been fixed, players are still rubber-banding at login, knocked out NPC’s disappear, Thralls stuck in foundations. In spite of these bugs, we are given ‘new content’.

LS was Funcom’s flagship for AOH. LS killing thralls is a “Major Bug”, yet nearly 14 months later it is still not fixed.

‘Tar and Feather’ me if you wish, but I 100% agree with @Pugilist.

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You hate reality.

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Does anyone know the list of DLC items that have improved dye channels?

This one can confirm it is not the Nemedian heavy armour that looks like it is chrome. Poop.

The purge fixes actually seem to have worked. That is something and a source of consistent vexation for this one as purges are the only end game content.

This update did have a few features added. It is true. But in all likelihood those features were odds and ends that had been in the works for quite some time. Of course, a good chunk of them are buggy or janky. That is unfortunate in the extreme.

Honestly, this one was pleasantly surprised that there was any update other than a sunset date.

Is this one pleased? Meh. They did address a point of annoyance this one had. That does demand that this one offer at least two clapping bunnies. That the fix seems to work… third clapping bunny.

Of course, the new bazaar entries are also amusing

If you thought the turanian tent set was missing roof pieces… wow, whoever did the Pictish set built half a clucking set. At least there are wedges, but there aren’t even corner roofs. Hilarious… and that’s really the crux of it. This update is somewhat meager. What there is of it, when it works, this one approves of, but what isn’t there speaks volumes.

Oh well, back to waiting for more substantial news.

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The update is not a breakthrough, but come on: It’s probably just a very, very small team, possibly one guy. Cut ‘em some slack.

I’m happy the update didn’t break anything major (so far). The changes are not what I, personally, would have prioritized, but hey, it’s some fun little stuff.

Funcom as a whole could - and in my view should - put more energy/people/money into upgrading CE. Despite its age, it’s still quite popular, and I assume cash-positive.

Knocked-out thrall falling through the world, followers getting lost (i. e. not teleporting to you when falling through the world), Telith’s Ghost missing - that’d be the things I’d try to solve in their place. But maybe, it’s just ain’t possible.

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Exactly.

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You’re so cute, but, no, I will not go out with you.

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That’s a fair point. which is why I single out the production team and not the developers.

This is a failure of management.

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I am going to disagree with you a bit here. They have made improvements to the game and those improvements took time to develop. These improvements were to the core of the game, so not everyone will have noticed the changes.

One example is how it is no longer possible to swing the camera around to see inside someone’s base while climbing around the outside. This was something very easy to do in previous years but is now fixed. This is a huge improvement on PVP servers, but if you spend all your time on PVE servers, you would likely never notice this change.

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You make some good points. I don’t play PVP, so I would never see these.

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Why yes, I do remember that.

That is actually false.

We have had TWO major updates, the two that we would have had even if they did not decide to go the rout of bug fixing and “stay the course” of pushing out poorly designed and bug riddled rubbish heaps. We ALSO had additional smaller bug fixing updates, you know, the smaller updates that we WOULD HAVE HAD AS WELL if they decided to “stay the course”. We had the exact same number of update regardless of going the rout of “improving the game from a technical and quality-of-life standpoint” as we would have had they NOT gone that rout. So that statement was, in fact, NOT A LIE AT ALL as you claim, in fact they actually kept their FVCKING WORD FOR ONCE! And yet here you are shyting all over them for doing the one thing everyone loves to complain that they never do. :woman_facepalming:

OK, now go back to that "Producer’s Letter from January 15th and show me where exactly did he state that they would be fixing THOSE SPECIFIC BUGS EXACTLY! You see, just because they did not fix the bugs YOU WANTED FIXED does not mean they have not fixed a whole plethora of bugs, which in fact they have. By all means, go over the patch notes from the last year and count them all. Please, do so and get back here with the total number of bugs that have been fixed over the course of 2025. Then tell me how they have not kept their word and in fact make a “technicolour extravaganza” of lies. I would LOVE to see you contort reality to justify your stance after that.

You’ve done a fair enough job of that one yourself.

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And another thing:

Works as Intended?

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image800×645 562 KB

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After some more testing:

  • Some things not working was indeed mod-related and caused by one or two not that common mods that change summoning.
  • Still happy that the patch didn’t really break (or gets broken by) any of the common mods.
  • Transmutation of materials is much better than I initially thought. The exchange rate gets better with better crafting stations, which I didn’t use in my initial testing. That allows, for example, to battle the silver shortage I often encounter.
  • Interesting fact: Dismantling skulls gives diluted sacrificial blood. Farming skeletons is now a quick way to get semi-rare materials.
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