Funcom Full Youtube Link (Starts at 10:49): 11/28/19 - Written Summary
Hello everybody. Here is the written recap for the latest stream. As usual, if something during the stream was covered, mentioned, hinted, or any other thing of substance, I will have it written here to the best of my ability.
Today’s Funcom Staff Sightings were:
- Jens - Community Manager, on Stream
- Joel - Chief Creative Officer (new title) - on Stream
- Alex - Lead Designer - on Stream
- Natascha - Community Director - being her awesome self with both her Twitch handle as well as being behind the Funcom tag
- Ignasis - Community Support - Behind the Funcom tag, obviously scheming on who next to send to the Exile Lands
Today’s stream focus was about showcasing the DLC’s, along with discussing subjects brought up last week. An important note is that many people questions asked in chat that weren’t discussed during the live stream. However, many of those questions were already discussed at length during last week’s stream, and that written summary can be found on this link here.
With that, onto today’s summary!
Opening Introduction and Joel Stuff
Joel at one point was working on a Conan Single Player game, which per one of the Financial streams a few months ago, was “put on ice.” Alex also helped out with that project for a time before it was put on indefinite hold. Once the Conan Single Player game was put into stasis, Joel started working on “all projects” currently in development for Funcom behind the scenes. Which of course includes, Conan Exiles and all of it’s recent developments.
Joel’s Statement About Mounts (14:46):
At the end of last year, (2018) as Joel was moving his active Conan Exiles roll more towards other games and assisting Conan Exiles from a distance, mounts were not in the pipeline. As was widely discussed for a long time, there were technical reasons as to why that was.
But the Conan Exiles dev team were insistent that mounts be added for the players. Joel wanted to recognize the Conan Exiles dev team for their persistence, and for “proving him wrong.” He recognized all of the dev team’s optimizations that were done in order to add Mounts to the game and make it work as smoothly as it could.
Joel also set a high bar for the dev team to reach, such as making the mount system as good as the system in Mount and Blade. He feels like the dev team reached those objectives and really wanted to congratulate the team for working so hard to make it happen.
Jens realized that last week, the body proportions of the horses were off in people’s (my own included) screen grabs from last week’s stream. This was largely to do with Jens FOV settings that he used in-game. This week, he adjusted them to default settings so that the appearance would be a bit more normal and what players should expect.
Later in the dev stream, Joel gave a shoutout to ZPX, which is a company that has worked closely with Funcom in making many of the 3D assets seen throughout Conan Exiles (vanilla and DLC). Funcom acquired controlling stake in the company in early January of 2019, which you can read about here in the press release.
Mounts - General
Jens did a quick recap of how the mount mechanics will work during various portions of the stream. Rather then write those out here, I’ll instead point you to last week’s stream summary which talks about mounts and all of it’s upcoming mechanics in-depth there. Anything new that wasn’t talked about or further information that wasn’t available last week, I will provide in this recap.
There isn’t a current release date other then “Early December” being the target window. The plan is to release the update to all platforms simultaneously, but that is subject to change pending any setbacks.
Testlive Release Date? (1:01:14):
There is currently no date for Testlive to receive the update for player testing. Jens indicated that it is possible that this update will bypass Testlive altogether and head straight to Live. They have done a lot of internal testing, and Jens believes there is a lot more internal testing to go still.
However, it sounds like testing is wrapping up as Joel verified that the update is moving its way through the Console verification process at the time of the dev stream.
Testlive is out now
Screencap of the War Horse Saddle Light - Description (19:33):
I didn’t see the need to take two screenshots to capture the last part of the description, I just thought the first half was pretty funny.
A lot of players last week wanted to see the Horse swimming while the player is mounted. Well, here it is. I’ve also included a GIF of the action below.
While idle, the horse floats in place. When moving, the horse kicks its legs.
The horse doesn’t swim fast, but it will get you across the deep water you are attempting to traverse. If there is a move faster option while mounted in water that would consume stamina, Jens didn’t show it or discuss it on stream.
Also not discussed on stream is whether or not you can engage in combat. However, at one point during the stream as Alex was explaining the Trebuchet changes (more on that below), Jens decided to test to see what would happen if you had a sword equipped and entered the water with the Horse.
What I observed was that Jens character immediately unequipped the sword once the horse began swimming. My hunch would be that this extends to all weapons, including bows. Whether or not this is something they plan on implementing down the road, they didn’t say during this stream.
Horse Speed - Units of Measurement (31:00):
Last week, Vlad gave some units of measurement to how fast a mounted horse could travel in comparison to that of a player. As a reminder, those values were 855 for the player at top sprint speed, and approximately 1300 for a horse at full gallop. However, in real world terms, those numbers weren’t defined. In today’s stream, Joel and Alex clarified that those numbers are Unreal units, and 1300 represents approximately 13 meters per second.
April Fools Joke That Almost Was (46:38):
They almost, or at least thought about, doing an April Fool’s joke for 2019 using the Coconut Monty Python reference back before the mount system was officially teased/announced. They decided that it would be to mean to dangle that in front of the players like that, and ultimately decided against it.
Chat Question: How will a full encumbrance build work with Mounts? (1:01:44):
Alex says that if you are over encumbered, the horse or mount will be unable to sprint. That means that even with full Encumbrance, your character can still be flagged as over Encumbered (which you can observe in the amount of stamina you consume despite being able to walk normally on the ground). Post-stream, Alex also confirmed my analysis of what he meant when he described this situation.
Of course you can also store your goods on the horse to help become unencumbered, and having lots of encumbrance will let you carry more and allow the Horse to sprint when it normally wouldn’t be able to. But you will have to balance out your stats and what to sacrifice in order to do so.
Alex went on to expand on that explanation and said that you can really vary your build, such as having a glass cannon build that lets you hit hard and move fast. But you won’t be able to take much damage either.
Mounts - Future Discussion
In past streams, it was already indicated that Followers would not be on horseback. Spoken only briefly here, Joel confirmed with Alex that there are currently no NPCs at all on horseback as well. Jens asked Alex if this would change in the future, and Alex only said “we will see.”
Horses Pulling Carts/Wagons? Unlikely Says Jens (53:46):
Jens said that it is unlikely that there will be a feature where Horses will pull Carts or Wagons. At this point Alex and Joel contemplated the idea of implementing Stygian styled Chariots. Both of them thought it would be a fun feature to add, and “we should add it in one day.”
Note: That doesn’t mean Funcom will actually for sure add in Chariots, but it certainly sounds like it’s at least on the table for consideration.
Hundreds of Mounts in the Future? Unlikely (55:50):
In reference to somebody asking Funcom to stay true to the lore with mounts, Joel responded by saying that Conan Exiles is not meant to compete with other games that feature hundreds of different mounts. Instead, the focus is to make the mounts that they have interesting, deep in their own way, and a meaningful experience.
As previously discussed in last week’s stream, modders will be able to mod in their own mounts once the mount system is live. The biggest challenge for modders will be adding in the correct animations (whether purchased or handmade) in order to best fit the mount they want to add.
Large Gate Frames - Alex Teases (50:38):
Let the rumors swirl. Alex teased twice that there was “larger gate frames for a reason” in references to the use of mounts. What could that mean? You be the judge, I’ve time stamped both times Alex teased the audience.
Second Tease Reference (59:29):
In the second reference, Joel asked Alex if he was going to “smoke some Camels” after the stream. Another tease? Hmmmmm.
Third Tease - This Time by Joel (1:03:57):
A question was asked in chat if players could have a weight setting to allow players to carry more on mounts. Joel teased that there are probably mounts that will be able to carry more. And those mounts just might be in the pipeline.
Mounted Combat
Damage Based on Velocity (31:30):
Another topic that was discussed last week is the fact that Lance damage is based on the velocity of both targets in relationship to each other. For example, if two players are charging each other at full gallop, the Lance will do more damage than if a player charges a player who is running away. This only applies to the Lance, currently.
The new bit of information from this stream is that the dev team is thinking about applying that to other weapons, such as the sword. That particular decision didn’t sound like it was finalized in the immediate or further out future, so be prepared for this being subject to change.
This was discussed last week (see previous recap), but it is possible for the player to die while on horseback and the horse to remain alive. On stream, Alex talked about what happens when your horse takes damage. What happens is the Endurance and Health values begin to drop with every hit, with the player being dismounted when the Endurance is gone.
But as far as what can happen to the player, it wasn’t clear on this stream. Vlad talked about that last week and you could kill or target a player directly without targeting the horse. Post stream, Alex added some clarification:
The player can be hit and will take damage to their health pool while mounted. The player and mount have different health pools, and the player can be killed while mounted. If the player is killed while mounted, normal games rules for death take over and the mount reverts to normal pet behavior.
Horse Combat - Gifs
Jens throughout the stream ran around killing everything in sight while on Horseback. Here are just a few Gif examples for your enjoyment of mounted combat while engaging a PvE target.
Trebuchet Changes, God Bubbles, and Avatars
As with much of the mount details, the Trebuchet changes have been outlined in the previous summary.
Why the Trebuchet Changes? (22:20)
Players like to build bases on spires, or lollipop bases. Doing so makes the base very difficult to raid, and costly. Thus, very few players engage those bases. That’s largely the reason for the Trebuchet changes, as this will make spire bases much harder to defend. Alex ended this section with basically recapping what was already revealed last week (and again, is detailed out in last week’s summary).
Arrows and Orbs - Clarification of God Bubble Penetration (23:54):
Jens made a correction (that Tascha was first to point out last week) that while the previous stream indicated that Arrows and Orbs would be able to penetrate god bubbles, that is indeed not the case.
Alex clarified that the confusion occurred because internally, they were testing out various functions, including Arrows and Orbs penetrating god bubbles. They ultimately decided against doing so, for now at least. They are continuing to test different ideas internally, and will look at feedback with regards to where they will eventually land on.
Trebuchet Damage - Repair Info (24:35):
Some other changes to the Trebuchet were discussed. One of those changes was that they decided to remove the stairs from the Siege Foundation so that it was easier to place a Trebuchet on a 4x4 area. The stairs are gone, but the Siege Foundation remains. To clear up any potential confusion, the Trebuchet requires the Siege Foundation, the Base, the Frame, and the Arm to complete the Trebuchet.
The other change is that the Trebuchet no longer requires self-maintenance repair for every shot fired. Instead, the only damage the Trebuchet will take is from opposing enemies via another Trebuchet or other normal damage means. This specific change was done to help encourage players to have siege duels.
Additional Post Stream Info on Trebuchet Changes
Alex had some additional information on other tweaks and changes to Trebuchets that we will see in the upcoming update.
- Removed twine requirement from some of the Trebuchet recipes
- In general, increased wood and stone cost of the Trebuchet
- Increased the stone cost of the Trebuchet boulders
- Increased boulder damage, but it no longer does AOE (discussed in last week’s stream)
Alex’s Comment on this change:
This is to increase the commitment need for out of render range attacks (need a spotter). Also, as the defender, repairing AOE splash is just not fun, so we are gonna try with this approach and see how it goes
Demon fire barrage still has its AoE effect though.
- Increased demon-fire barrage damage to be more inline with its build cost.
- the build time on the Trebuchet Frame and Trebuchet Arm is much more significant. They take 30 minuets each, for a sum of 60 minuets. This is to encourage players to commit to building the Trebuchet, rather than on a whim where they just drop down a Trebuchet and batter through a random base they find while adventuring with little fear of reprisal.
As many players are already aware, Avatar’s are currently disabled on official servers due to the widely reported exploited concerns. Alex also talked about (and clarified further Post-Stream) that they also have balance issues to address and observe, especially after many of the combat changes that have been and are being put into place.
With regards to the status of the Avatar’s returning on official servers, there is no current ETA for their return. Private Servers and Single Player can have this enabled as they wish.
A change coming to the Player List feature is the ability to remain hidden from the server Player List. This will make it so that opposing players cannot check the Player List at any time to see if you are online in order to decide whether to offline raid you or not. Players are hidden from the Player List so long as they do not use voice chat or text chat. Once players use one or the other, this will then show their names in the Player List.
There is a cooldown function to this as well. Once a player is added to the Player List via text or voice activity, if they do not speak in “x” amount of minutes, they will return to anonymous status once that threshold of minutes is reached.
This feature can be enabled on Private Servers right now if Server admin’s wish to do so (it actually came out with the Wine Cellar update). The setting can be found or added to the ServerSetting.ini. The default setting is:
VocalVisibilityDurationMinutes = 0
Setting it to anything less than 1 disables the feature. The number is representative of minutes. Therefore, setting it to something such as VocalVisibilityDurationMinutes = 10, will result in a 10 minute cooldown for a player to return to invisible on the Player List.
Admins will of course, see everyone in the Player List so long as they have Admin enabled. The Event Log also will still display events as usual, whether or not players are invisible on the Player List. Meaning, if a player steals from another player while set to invisible, their name will still show up on the Event Log.
As far as official servers receiving this feature update, there isn’t an ETA as of yet, nor is there a given value as of what the server setting will be as far as the invisible cooldown delay. There will be an announcement across normal channels once Funcom is ready to add in this change. (Thank you to Ignasis for the post-stream clarification)
Finally, post-stream, Alex said that this setting will likely remain in the ServerSettings.ini exclusively, and no GUI option is planned at this time.
Can you Shoot Demon-Fire Barrage Through god Bubbles? (1:16:56)
Yes, you are able to do that.
DLC - Riders of Hyboria
The newest DLC, that will launch alongside the next update, is called Riders of Hyboria. It is the last (4th) DLC of the Season 2 Pass.
Buildings: (Buildings and Placeable Showcase starts at 55:40):
Below are screencaps of various Buildings that will be added with the newest DLC. As best as I can tell, there are 22 buildings and doorways/gateways in total being added. From what I can see from the Icon list, here is my best guess of what is added.
- Two Square Foundations (Hay and No Hay)
- Triangle Foundations (Hay?)
- Two Square Ceilings (Hay and No Hay)
- Two Wedge Ceilings (Hay and No Hay)
- 4-5 Gates/Doors
- Two Fences
- Fence Foundation (Maybe, couldn’t tell from the icon)
- Doorframe
- 4-5 Gate Frames
- Pillar
Icons:
Wall, Gateway, and Two Foundations:
Pillar:
Fence (Two Different Versions):
Small Gate (+ Gate Frame):
Lattice Door, Doorway, and Lattice Wall
Large Gate and Gate Frame
Placeables:
Below are screencaps of various Placeables that will be added with the newest DLC. There are 14 different placeables in this DLC. Here is what I was able to gather from the stream:
- Two Piles of Hay
- Two Carts
- A Wheel
- Two Feeding Troughs (Probably Decorative Only)
- Log Pile (Decorative Only)
- Three Weather Vanes
- Two Stonepath Walkways
- Wheelbarrow
Icons:
Wagons and Wheelbarrows: (Just a placeable, not something your horse can actually pull)
Larger Haystack:
Log Pile (Decorative Only):
Weather Vanes x3 (Static, They Don’t Move):
Wheelbarrow and Wagons Again
Feeding Troughs
Smaller Haystack and Wheel
Stonepath (Placeable, not a Building Snapping System):
Two horses come with the DLC
White:
Black:
Six saddles come with the DLC. The stats are the same or on par with the base versions (5 in total in the base game).
Turan (Calvary Stats):
Yamatai (Calvary Stats):
Khitan (Scout Stats):
Silent Legion (Warhorse Stats):
Noble (Scout Stats):
Click the timestamp to listen to Jens and Joel lisp their way through the intentionally written description.
Poitain (Warhorse Stats):
Poitain Footman Set
Poitain Cavalier Set
Poitain Campaign Set
All of the stats and screenshots given are for the low level version of the armors.
It looks like all the Poitain armor has heat resistance. Light armor has 16% damge reduction, the medium armor has 34%, and 56% damage reduction. It is hard to tell from the stream, but it looks like at least part of the light armor gives bonus agility.
The medium armor has 134 armor, and the heavy armor has 320. A number wasn’t given for the Light armor.
Bow:
Two Handed Sword:
Two Handed Axe:
Katana:
One Handed Mace:
Two Handed Spear/Pike:
One Handed Longsword:
One Handed Axe:
Two Handed Hammer:
Two Lances (Heavy and Light):
Alex couldn’t recall the differences between the Heavy and the Light Lances in the DLC. The stats, as revealed in the stream, are the same. The stats shown are the following, ( low tier version):
- 11 Damage
- 24% Armor Penetration
Light Lance:
Heavy Lance:
Able to Carry Flags While Mounted? No, But They Tried (46:13):
Joel briefly talked about how they tried to add a feature to where players could carry banners that hung off the lance while mounted. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get the cloth physics to work right. Joel said maybe in the future they would add flags if they could get past the technical hurdles.
General Questions
Chat Question: Will there be a sundial or clock feature? (55:10):
Summarized Answer: Maybe, interesting suggestion.
Chat Question: Is There Colored Lighting? (57:12):
Summarized Answer: Yes, you can add color lighting via the Radium Torches that are already in the game.
Hide Grass When Buildings or Placeables are on Top? (57:39):
Alex wondered out loud if they could hide grass when Buildings or Placeables have been placed down (a highly requested feature from the Conan player community). Joel and Jens said that it was something they have pushed for and tried to do for a very long time. Joel believes they “probably can one day,” but obviously that isn’t a guarantee that it will happen. Still, for those who really have been wanting such a feature, it’s nice to know they have at least tried and are continuing to try.
Chat Question: Can You Have More Than One Follower At a Time, in Particular Single Player? (58:49):
Summarized Answer: No. There is a great deal of balance concerns for starters to implement that. Alex said that there is an argument that having 10 followers (for example) would be interesting, but they would have to sit down and redo all or huge chunks of the game to make it properly work with the right amount of balance.
Multigun’s Note: For PC players who are able to mod their games, look to Testerle’s very good mod called Better Thralls.
Chat Question: Is what is shown today part of the DLC or a free update? (1:00:19)
Summarized Answer: The mount system in general is a free update (along with the trebuchet changes and follower leveling system that have been discussed over the past several weeks). The assets that were identified as DLC throughout today’s stream are of course, part of the paid DLC for Riders of Hyboria.
Chat Question: Any chances of more Age of Conan assets making their way into the game? (1:00:29):
Summarized Answer: It’s certainly possible. They are interested in hearing player suggestions on what else to add if that is something they decide to do again in a future update.
Bug: Missing Combat Sound Effects. When Will it be Fixed? (1:03:14):
Jens for some reason believes that this widely known bug affects consoles only. To clarify that statement, that is incorrect as the bug has and still does affect PC as well.
As far as an ETA, Jens indicated that while they are aware of the issue, they have prioritized other issues over the combat sounds missing. Therefore, there is no current ETA at this time.
Post-Stream, Ignasis added this input for this bug:
Another Update to the Status of this Bug
Testlive has been updated and appears to solve this issue.
Katana Changes - Post Stream Clarification for November 21st, 2019
Alex sent me a response to an inquiry as what changes Vlad meant last week with regards to the Katana seeing a balance change. This is what he had to say:
We added some HyperArmor on the 1st and 2nd attacks for the Katana. This should make the weapon slightly easier to use, but it is far from our ideal solution to its current playstyle problem.
Dodge Changes
Dodge Change Discussion (1:04:12)
The comment that stirred the discussion of the upcoming changes was that a player wanted to know what sort of considerations were taken into account for Solo and PvE-ers when the largest determination in the change was PvP based.
Alex largely was the one who discussed the dodge changes here, and he had a lot to say. He explained that in solo play, bringing a Follower along to “tank the damage” or to help mitigate the damage done to the player was largely the common thing to do. He also briefly describing tweaking some of the boss battles to accommodate the new dodge mechanics.
In its current state, Alex described the dodge mechanic as largely one dimensional. If you PvP, you bring light armor. If you are PvE-ing, you bring heavy armor. The changes were done at least partially to open up those possibilities so there wasn’t just one playstyle. Also, in the upcoming changes, heavy armor’s dodge becomes more useful than what’s currently on live.
Light armor with 50 full points will allow quick reaction time with light armor that players are used to. That means the playstyle is still there, but the investment of the player has to be taken into account now. Below is a Gif of Jens character in light armor with a full 50 points into agility.
For PvP, Alex described scenarios where there wasn’t any real counter to the current dodge mechanic when players stayed at the maximum range of the collision boxes and then easily dodge out of the way whenever an opponent went to strike. This made it very difficult to deliver a counter move. And it made combat far less risky by being able to quickly stab, then move out of that action and dodge several times out of danger.
Another change implemented is there is a slight delay in direction change, where if you are moving forward, you don’t immediately start moving backwards on player input. There is a slight delay between each command now, as seen in the Gif below.
All of these changes add up to making it so that when a player makes a combat movement decision, they have to commit to that action. There is more consequence for choosing the wrong action, more ability to counter, and reducing the ability for a player to “unchoose” the action they chose. Which of course, doesn’t mean every action cannot be called back, but the window of opportunity for certain attacks will be narrower. You cannot dodge out of a mid-spin of a 2 handed axe, but many 1 handed attacks you can dodge out of, with certain heavy attacks having a smaller window to do so (as just some examples).
Finally, while the dodge mechanics have slowed down, you can queue up your intended action while your dodge is in progress so you don’t have to spam your attacks or wait for the precise micro moment to initiate your next move.
Joel’s Comments About the State of the Combat System (1:10:19):
From Joel’s perspective, he explains that he is “just happy” with the progression of the combat system over time. The combat system has evolved a lot from the early days of EA, and he feels encouraged by the additional steps the dev team continues to make to further tweak and improve on it. He also said he saw a lot of questions in chat on whether or not Funcom listens to the community and feedback, and he said absolutely yes. They spend a lot of time looking at the PvP meta, and how to solve the issues that are currently a problem with it.
Joel goes on to say that he understands when players get frustrated because of change, but asks that players understand that they are still working on improving the combat system and that they haven’t given up on Conan Exiles and that there is a lot more going on and planned.
What About NPC’s? Are They Also Impacted? (1:12:55):
Yes, the NPC’s often use the same mechanics as players. But the Dev Team also has to be careful of how much of the new mechanics to give to the NPC’s and to use a softer hand with NPC’s so that players don’t overly abuse them.
Post-stream, Alex had this to add:
NPC movement for the upcoming patch has not changed, because the risk to AI and the player experience war deemed too high to be rolled into one update.
Does Backflip Still Work With Daggers? Yes (1:13:54):
The Backflip mechanic still works with Daggers. Alex commented that the combination of daggers with heavy armor is interesting in that the dodge will be the slow roll, but the backflip will be fast and crisp.
