Conan Exiles Dev Stream - Update 3.0
Funcom Full Youtube Link (Starts at 12:11): 08/04/2022 - Written Summary
Important Information
The stream was 2:23:54 long. As the last 2 hour + stream I did back in June took me nearly 3 days to do working on average more then 12 hours a day, and most of the questions have been covered several times already (via the last dev stream or blog posts), I will be focusing strictly on anything that is either new, new information on previously discussed topics, subjects that I feel like need to further explained, or hasn’t been discussed in a while. If you have general questions about the update, it will most likely have been answered in one of the various applicable links below.
If people have follow up questions, I will most likely not be actively looking at the forums. If you have questions you feel I could help answer, your best bet is to reach me is on the Better Builders Bureau discord.
Here are relevant links for this stream.
- Testlive Update 3.0 Patch Notes (Testlive is available only on Steam)
- Developer Stream Recap: June 21st, 2022
- Age of Sorcery Announcement Trailer
- The Age of Sorcery Comes to Conan Exiles - Blog Post
- A Helping Hammer - Building Overhaul in Age of Sorcery - Blog Post
- Sorcery In the Conan Exiles 3.0 Update - Sacrifice and Power - Blog Post
- Battle Pass and Store Comprehensive Details - Wak4863 Interview with Dennis
- Building Unleashed - Creative Mode in Age of Sorcery - Blog Post
- Battle Pass and Bazzar Full Overview in the Age of Sorcery - Blog Post
- Attribute, Perks, and Corruption in the Age of Sorcery Update - Blog Post
- Follower Updates in Age of Sorcery - Blog Post
Special Thanks:
Shout out to Testerle for his usual supply of the Twitch chat logs so that relevant quotes can be included in this recap.
Introduction
As briefly discussed in the Testlive patch notes, access to the Bazaar and Battle Pass systems are disabled for the Testive client. There are differences in their account system in that if a player purchased something on Testlive, they wouldn’t gain access to those things later on live.
Otherwise, everything gameplay wise is available to play and test with. Players are encouraged to test things out and provide their feedback.
No release date at this time, though as the update is on Testlive, it will obviously be soon. They want to give players time to test things out, get certification with consoles squared away, and give mod creators time to update their mods (when the updated dev kit becomes available).
Battle Pass & Bazaar
The Battle Pass will be roughly $10.00 US, and adjusted from there based on region.
Its not meant to be a system similar to a game like Fortnite or Call of Duty in that you start a match and get rewards based on the performance of that match. As a survival game isn’t really tracked based on performance, they didn’t want to measure things like how many kills in the past hour or resources harvested done by the player. The Challenges are aimed at things that a player would encounter normally just by playing the game like they always do.
They also help to give veteran players goals to do. For players who have been playing a long time, the Challenges can offer those players something extra to do should they choose. For those concerned with their time in the Battle Pass, as with other Battle Pass systems in other games, you have the choice of paying extra to unlock all the levels on the Battle Pass.
The system isn’t designed to be super grindy where it requires a ton of time from players to unlock levels (as seen in other games). Dennis says that nobody involved wanted it to be a system where it would require you to login every hour of every day in order to have a chance at fully unlocking all levels (looking at you, a game that shall remain nameless, but was recently released, that all but requires that level of effort). As previously mentioned, the time invested has been designed around a time investment of 1 hour of 2 sessions per week to level it fully.
Finally, anything shown on this or past streams are subject to change. Pricing or position of rewards in the Battle Pass are still being finalized. Nothing is considered final until the patch is released officially to all platforms.
As previously discussed, players will earn 5 bonus EXP multipliers per day for challenges (currently it is a 10x multiplier). After completing those challenges, if no bonus cards remain, players may continue to do challenges indefinitely but at 1x values. Players can passively gain these cards without logging in. The max number of bonus EXP multipliers players can have is 20. That breaks down to 5 for that current day, plus 3 additional days worth of backlog EXP multipliers.
Future releases will cover other ground besides Sorcery. They aren’t able to go into details of what those might be right now. The aim is 2-3 Chapters per Age. After the Age of Sorcery and its storytelling concludes, there will be a new Age with new themes, cosmetics, and mechanical features.
Yes, though you won’t see it in the first Chapter for Age of Sorcery. Changes to the world and map will be expected as new Chapters are introduced. Though when Dennis explained this, he did not clarify if that meant group content specifically, only that the map will see changes over time (something that’s been discussed on previous streams).
Dennis said later in the stream that there are some restrictions to how they can change the map. They don’t want to destroy a players base so they can add new map content, for example. But when they do make changes, they want it to be something you haven’t seen before.
Private Servers, Single Player, and Account Unlocking (28:20):
Yes, players may unlock the Battle Pass levels on Private Servers and Single Player. They are unlocked on the players account. The Funcom Live Services (FLS for short) are the systems they use for that purpose (among other things that FLS is used for). So long as the player has an internet access to FLS, they can access the Battle Pass and Bazaar. All of the rewards are account bound, with the exception of one use items. Some of the one use items for this age are basically demo versions of the spells found in Sorcery, where the player consumes the potion and gains temporary access to the spell. The one use items are also free for anybody who unlocks that level in the Battle Pass (though subject to change).
The Challenges given to players will be based on the character they login into for the first time that day. They designed the system so that it offers Challenges based on the character and will gate harder challenges for lower level players. Those Challenges will reset every day, so the next round of Challenges will refresh to the next character login for the next day.
However, the unlocks will not be multiplatform wide. Meaning if you play on something like Playstation and PC, the content will not be accessible across both platforms and will be only unlocked on the account it was earned on. If you want something purchased in the Bazaar to be available on both PC and Playstation, you will need to purchase it separately on both accounts. A major reason for this is because they wanted it to be a simple process for players in that they didn’t want players to have to go to a website, create an account, link their credit cards, etc. They just wanted players to be able to hop on and play on the platform of their choice, and make it as simple of a process as possible.
Example of Purchasing Crom Coins and Unlocking the Battle Pass (35:20):
Dennis showed what it looks like to buy the Battle Pass and how things look when they are unlocked. For those interested, click on the above link for the full demonstration. Keep in mind that as per usual, this is subject to change (if you needed evidence of this, it was believed on various Content Creator streams that 1000 Crom Coins would = $10.00. In the below examples, you get 1,200 Crom Coins for $10.00).
So let me repeat that for people in the back, PRICING IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AND IS NOT CONSIDERED FINAL. IT IS STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS. It will be considered final when the official patch for 3.0 launches officially on all platforms.
Icon in orange means the level has been earned, but the Battle Pass not purchased and thus cannot be claimed. Those in blue means not yet unlocked.
Battle Pass Purchase screen. Premium means 15 levels automatically unlocked.
Unlocking the Battle Pass
Rewards that have been unlocked because of the purchase.
Claim Rewards is now available.
Claiming the Reward
Shows unlocked in the “Ancestral Knowledge” tab under “Knowledge” (previously called Feats). This is where anything from earned from Battle Pass or Bazaar will be shown.
Buying Battle Pass Levels if the player wants to instantly unlock Battle Pass levels instead of earning them through challenges (not to be confused with character levels, as you cannot buy character levels).
DLC Tab. While there is a DLC tab in the Bazaar, this will interface with the platform the player is playing on. As an example, accessing this tab on Steam will take the player to the Steam store page. They will continue to be offered on the same platforms as they have been. They did originally want to roll them into the Bazaar and make them available there. But the problem becomes that they cannot easily identify what was purchased on Steam or other platform, then offer discounts or unlocks on the Bazaar. Therefore, the easiest method to address this was to keep the older DLC’s and the newer Bazaar mechanics separate.
They will offer discounts on stuff previously owned. If they release something in a bundle and you already own part of the items in that bundle, the total price will be discounted based on that. There will also be times when things offered in the Bazaar that will go on sale or discounted for a period of time.
As has been discussed, the BP items will not be offered in the Bazaar at a later date. They do intend to offer variations of some of the items at a future date. Dennis made a point to say that when they offer the variation of a BP item in the Bazaar, it will not be something as simple as a “recolor” but will be changes to make it both a version of what was offered in the BP and a unique item too.
Gameplay mechanics will be free for everyone (building changes, Sorcery, etc). The changes to monetization is intended to be able to release more content more frequently. The ability to release free content such as Sorcery is reinforced separately with the changes to monetization in the forms of the Bazaar and Battle Pass.
Ultimately, they need to be able to pay their developers to continue to add more content and work on making the game better overall. Dennis addressed the comments often see directed at Funcom that they are “just being greedy and want more money.” He says here that it’s not that they want more money, its that they want to make the game better. To do that, they need to be able to properly fund the game and its development. At the end of the day, they want Conan Exiles to be as good as it can be and as fun and engaging as they can make it. Dennis adds (correctly) that no game developer gets into game development because they want to make money. It is not the most lucrative industry to be in as a game developer, they make games because they love doing it.
(Multigun’s Note: Game developers are infamously underpaid and overworked, often leaving the game industry after an average of 5 years for other jobs that pay more or are easier to manage, or both.)
While a percentage of items offered in the Bazaar will be around the current theme of the Age (Sorcery in this case), they will also offer general items that is appealing for anything.
You will not be able to gift Crom Coins or the Battle Pass to other players.
They will not be changing the name of the Battle Pass. Dennis said it was a conversation they had, as he talks to Joel a lot about those types of topics. Joel said that he felt the name resonated with Conan Exiles, as there is a lot of Battle in Conan. Secondly, it helps people identify what type of system it is. If they have used a Battle Pass in another game, they are more familiar with what that means in Conan. They do want to tie their systems into the lore of Conan, but they have to strike a balance between that immersion and the general user experience.
Not at this time. Dennis doesn’t feel as though Character Titles fit Conan Exiles specifically. But its an ongoing conversation and may change in the future.
Other topics around the BP and Bazaar
Other things in the Battle Pass were discussed or discussed more thoroughly. But as mentioned earlier, they have been brought up in a variety of ways already. Refer to the following links for in depth information on those systems.
- Developer Stream Recap: June 21st, 2022
- Battle Pass and Store Comprehensive Details - Wak4863 Interview with Dennis
- Battle Pass and Bazzar Full Overview in the Age of Sorcery - Blog Post
Illusion System
There has been some confusion on what is allowed with the Illusion System, but Dennis offered some clarification points. Regardless if it shows otherwise on Testlive, the current intent is to allow any armor piece to be accessed for this system. Meaning you can make a Light Armor Piece look like a Heavy Armor Piece, as an example. They don’t see a major need to restrict the armor class, so the intent is to be more flexibile in choice. This may have been addressed differently in past streams, but Dennis’s intent from the beginning was to not have a restriction on this, and so he wanted to clarify that part of the Illusion system.
Weapons do require to be the same type, however. You cannot make a greatsword look like a spear, as an example.
Dennis noted the usual criticism to this decision, which is PvP concerns. He said that based on what has been seen in many other games that use similar systems, it doesn’t have a big impact on PvP. If anything, as he points out, it makes a player respect their opponent a bit more and to have them feel out the fight. At worse, the PvP player decides to just engage anybody regardless of how they look.
They are also thinking about taking off the restrictions that the player must know how to craft the item. A big reason for this is legendary items that are found by looting. They are still deciding on a final direction for this, so nothing is considered official on that matter.
Building Changes
You will not be able to share DLC pieces with players who do not already own those pieces with the new system. Dennis addressed the criticism or belief that they implemented the new building system specifically and first to keep players from sharing buildings together. However, that is not the case. They wanted to improve the building system and it is a huge quality of life improvement for most players. While they realized players would lose trading aspects, they felt it was worth in what is gained with the building changes.
Ruined Styled Buildings for Future Updates or Bazaar/BP? (1:25:11):
Dennis says sure, why not. Though I wouldn’t take this as a confirmation that they are currently working on it or intend to. Dennis is meaning that he sees no reason why it couldn’t be discussed or planned should they feel its something they want to task.
What Happens to Previously Created Building Pieces Left In Inventory or Chests? (1:35:59):
Dennis couldn’t remember at the time of the stream what the final decision was for that. As he talks about in the stream, in the past he has stated that they would be converted into resources. It is otherwise to be determined or announced.
There will not be a search bar in the building menu at 3.0 launch. However Dennis said they will probably end up adding it in as they’ve received a lot of feedback to indicate that it is something they should probably add in.
See gif below. Enough said.
Sorcery Changes
Draining a Soul from an NPC will grant a Soul Essence to use for corrupting your perks. Originally the player got 1 soul per NPC, this has been changed to 5 Soul Essences per NPC, making it easier to quickly corrupt the character perks for Sorcery.
Sacrificing NPC for Blood
Create Zombie Follower
Stats of the Zombie will be based on the NPC put in. A weaker Thrall will result in a weaker Zombie, and a stronger Thrall will result in a Zombie. The perks are randomized like any other Thrall. Finally, the Zombie is instantly level 20 on creation. The length of time a Zombie will last hasn’t been finalized, but it will probably be around a couple of days so the player doesn’t have to constantly go and get new Zombies.
The Witch Doctor Feat has been removed. The allied Skellies that have previously been gained will remain, but no more can be made. The system is also in place so that mod creators can restore it or add to it further as they desire. They may add certain aspects of the Witch Doctor back into the Sorcery, but it has to follow the established rules of the Sorcery system.
A stream first, is the Summon Zombies area effect. However, it is still a work in progress, as you will see in the timestamp above (Dennis also turned fog off to make things more visible).
Over time the flesh on the Zombies will slowly rot and decay as their timer of existence expires.
Zombies Expiring (Time is sped up for the purpose of the stream)
Dennis said here that players “have no idea how often that gets pitched internally.” Xotli was one of the big contenders for a new religion when they settled on Zath (for Isle of Siptah). They also have a bit of a crossover with the Dagon dungeon. But other then that, those subjects are the only thing that Dennis would discuss on the matter of Xotli.
Yes, the voice acting will change based on if the character casting is male or female. Its also intentional that it isn’t supposed to sound exactly like the character. The spells are ancient and demonic, and is supposed to take on that type of effect.
Teleportation Debuffs and Teleportation Stones in General (1:32:33):
As discussed before, any player can use another person or clans teleportation network. There are two debuffs that come with this though. When using a portal, a player is given a debuff (Dennis said he thinks its about 1-2 minutes long or so. However at the time of the stream, it was only around 30 seconds long, and Dennis said they would probably increase that) to prevent immediate use of another teleport. There is also another debuff where the player gains corruption based on how far they teleport. This corruption cannot be cleansed for a period of time (this can cause a character to go beyond the 50% corruption threshold as well).
Demonstrated live on stream, a player can fully corrupt their entire health and stamina (it stops at 3 health and 1 stamina) if they spam the use of teleports. While the character doesn’t die, this basically makes the character nearly impossible to use with so little health and stamina.
There is no limit to the number of teleportation pads a player can build. However, since the portal points are represented in 3D space, there will come a point at which having too many is detrimental to quickly identifying travel points. Like religious alters, players are restricted on the number of portals that can be placed near each other.
While players cannot physically take their friends along with them, any player can choose to enter a portal at the cost of the previous mentioned debuffs. The one exception would be the Co-Op tether limits. Followers will also teleport with the player.
As has been discussed, you will need a potion to completely wipe out any corrupted perks. One interesting tidbit of information here is that Dennis said he originally planned on having a cleansing ritual involved. But he decided this would be harmful to player gameplay and decided against it.
Technically, no. If a player came in at level 1 and their friend had all the available resources on hand, the player could learn it starting at level 1.
The Magma Wall Spell is not intended to be an offensive spell. It either does no damage, or very little damage to make it clear it is not meant for that use. The important part here is that Dennis said that what is seen on Testlive will be what comes out with 3.0 with this spell, however in the coming Chapters it will see some additional updates.
Mods
While modding remains accessible and unchanged, mod creators will not be able to access the Battle Pass system or Challenges themselves.
Will Builidng Mods Need Updated to be Able to Use the Building Hammer? (1:49:26):
Yes. However the system was designed with mod creators in mind and so it should be fairly easy to do so.
Yes.
PvP
No server wipes for 3.0
Harvest Rates on Official Servers and Tier 2 Buildings (54:18):
Dennis said that they will “probably” change the harvest rates on PvP servers. As for building health, the previously discussed changes to the Tier 2 buildings has been reverted back to the current amounts. They want to see how the harvest rates impact things before deciding on further changes or value to Tier 2.
PvP Concerns and Sorcery. How will Sorcery Affect PvP? (2:01:57):
PvP players with these concerns really should take the time to click on the timestamp and listen to Dennis and Andy talk about it. But to summarize, there are a few specifics to point out.
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The Sorcery system has a lot of counter elements. For example, the bat demon. The player has to be VERY corrupted to summon a bat demon, for example. And the player cannot give the bat demon to another player. The Bat Demon cannot fly forever, and can be shot down instantly by a single arrow.
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Sorcery is not designed to be a walking nuke factory. The player cannot go into a base and instantly nuke the whole place. Its about utility, control, and mobility.
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They know the meta is going to change, but as Dennis correctly points out, changing things up is a good thing. You don’t want PvP to always remain the same. While yes, there are things PvPers understandably have concerns or complaints about, fixing those will just reveal new things to be concerned about or complained about. They cannot 100% predict what the meta will be, but as game designers they can help plan for it or try to predict what will happen to avoid ruining the game.
Things will ultimately be different, embrace it for what it is, and have fun with it. Whatever the new meta becomes, it wont be the meta forever. That is the nature of games that receive on going updates.
Health bars are being fixed in 3.0. Health bars are not always visible all the time. Geometry and buildings will hide health bars. Additional information on this can be found in the previous dev stream summary.
Developer Stream Recap: June 21st, 2022
General Subjects
Dennis said that an “absurd” amount of effort went into the 3.0 patch, and optimizations was a part of that throughout its development. It is normal that stability of the game will continue to improve after every major update.
Thrall Nerfs to Existing Thralls or Only New Ones? Thrall Changes in General as Well (1:03:22):
Both new and old thralls will receive the appropriate balancing. Dennis said that he believes that the server checks the stats on Thralls on start up. As far the nerf itself, Dennis said that the Authority Attribute line will restore most or all of the damage back that was taken away from Thralls in the 3.0 update.
Dennis also stated that the changes in 3.0 has made it so that Archer thralls will be almost as good as Melee thralls in melee, and Melee thralls almost as good as Archer thralls in Archery. So while they serve best in their roles intended rolls, they aren’t completely useless when switching weapons in the heat of battle.
Changes or Plans to Player Interaction with UI Elements. Diegetic Interface Strategies: (1:37:02):
Dennis talks about that many things they will be doing going forward in Exiles is to make the experience of interreacting with things more environmental or interacting with things in the world. The term is known as Diegetic Interface. There are cases where they have to use the existing User Interface, but they are trying to avoid using that as much as possible.
Not on Dennis’s radar, and he hasn’t looked into it. Andy thought there might be some publisher (Microsoft/Sony) restrictions there as well, but he wasn’t positive.
Andy says he is working on a little video for a behind the scenes look at the art process. So for those that are interested, stay tuned for that. He mentions a lot of inspiration has been drawn from Age of Conan, Acheronian descriptions in the books, and Mayan and Aztec real world architecture ruins. The two biggest societies in Conan lore that they could use Sorcery with were Acheronian and Stygia. As there were a lot of Acheronian things in the Exile Lands already, that made it an easy tie in.
Dennis has thought about things like this before. With that in mind, they do not have any plans for it right now.
Can Server Admins Turn Off Event System? Can They Enable Map Icons for the Events? (1:58:46):
Server Admins will be able to turn off the Event System entirely if they so choose. For example, if they are playing a custom or heavily modded server and wouldn’t want the events to interfere with that. The Events are preplaced, and are not random. A Content Designer goes in and places the Events by hand.
Map Icons for the Events are disabled. Dennis is unsure where the status is on that if it can be turned on by Server Admins within simple means, if it can be modded back in, or if its just completely disabled.
Dennis says this is on his list. In the same context in terms of promoting a greater sense of community, they are planning on turning the player list back on. He acknowledges the PvP crowd, but he also recognizes this is a really big hindrance to people playing as they have no clue whose out there. The invisible player list encourages people to be silent rather then engage. To circle back to improving the chat box, this falls into the goal of helping people play with others and making the community stronger.
Another point on this subject is proximity chat. Dennis used this as another example of helping community health and it is a system they could look into in the future.
As discussed in past streams, some locomotion changes have been done. Less hunched over and more standing up right. A quick example shown on stream was with the 2 handed great sword.
While server populations do not have to be forced at 40 (as private server owners are aware), the performance concerns really starts to tank the higher the player population is. Dennis said that they got close to 100 players on at one time when the game was first made, but the game did not perform well under those conditions.
Any Plans for More Streams Before 3.0 Officially Launches? (2:07:47):
No, but subject to change.
Andy says that they would love to do it, but is unsure of their current plans for that.
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… Thank God we have the recaps!!!