Funcom Full Youtube Link (Starts at 10:33): - 10-03-2019 - Written Summary
Anybody getting a sense of *Déjà vu? If you are, it’s because we just had ourselves a Dev Stream just last week! Welcome back to the newest edition of the Written Summary. I’m your host, Mr. Multi. Here is today’s Funcom staff sighting:
- Jens Erik - Community Manager, on stream
- Nicole - Community Manager, walking people to the gallows via admin powers in chat
- Andy B - Community Manager, being his evil self and letting loose his full admin might in chat
Our usual suspects, Tascha and Robert were unavailable today, as they were off doing adventurous things.
If you missed last week’s stream, and have been living under a rock and aren’t already aware of all the big news, check out last week’s summary which can be found below. It also contains links to the Testlive Patch notes, so you can get an early peak at what’s coming down the immediate pipeline.
Today’s stream objective was to go over and showcase all the new fancy stuffs that comes in the next DLC, Debaucheries of Derketo. For this summary, I decided to try something new and seperate things out into sections. I’m hoping this will allow players to find the sections they are most interested in without having to skim through the entire recap. We’ll see how that goes. Onto the summary!
General Stuff
Mounts aren’t being shown today. Don’t worry, as shown in the previous stream and officially announced last Friday, Mounts are coming in December. However, that is not the purpose of today’s stream, so you will want to check back at a later date for all the mount details.
Flying Mounts? No. (21:53):
Flying Mounts will not be introduced into Conan Exiles. This was discussed even as far back as the early days of the Early Access development cycle. Funcom feels they make the map too small. Ground mounts already do enough of that on their own. Jens also said that Horses would be the only mount at rollout with no other animal type available for mounting.
Jens went over a quick recap of what they showed at Twitchcon last weekend, which was Conan Chop Chop, Moons of Madness , and of course Conan Exiles showcasing an early preview of the upcoming Mount system. He also thanked everybody who attended and visited the Funcom booth.
Is the World Breaker Weapon Being Nerfed? (46:39):
Jens didn’t know off hand about any balance changes occurring for the World Breaker weapon. According to the testlive patch notes (the 2nd one), the World Breaker was indeed adjusted. Currently, the damage and armor penetration went from 44 damage and 100% Armor Penetration, down to 41 damage and 47% armor penetration. Those are the numbers as seen currently on Testlive. Bear in mind, since it’s testlive, this could still be subject to change. Thanks to @Wak4863 for grabbing those numbers!
This was also confirmed by Robert in hist post stream Q/A.
Twitch Comment: World Breaker getting nerfed soon?
Robert: Yes, it will be in the next patch.
Any Halloween Event This Year (48:46):
No, there will not be a Halloween event this year. The dev team has been and is currently focused on the next content update. If they were going to do a Halloween type event, they would prefer to tackle it when they had more advanced time to do so.
DLC General Information
Next DLC - Debaucheries of Derketo (13:52):
The Blood and Sands DLC was referred to as the PVP DLC, Riders of Hyboria is of course known as the Mounts DLC, while Debaucheries of Derketo was internally referred to as the RP DLC. It’s known as the RP DLC as they think there is a lot of good stuff they added to the DLC that is great for immersion and RP. It was previously named ‘Mysteries of Acheron’, but was renamed to Debaucheries of Derketo to better reflect what content was contained in the DLC.
When Does the Next DLC and Dungeon Content Come Out? (16:25):
“Very soon” was the ETA given by Jens, with the month of October being the window for release. Such as they did in patch 37, both the DLC and the Dungeon content patch are expected to come out at the same time. At 53:14, Jens said that the goal is to release the DLC (and Dungeon Patch) all at the same time on all platforms. There could be a slight delay between each platform version as they are all rolled out.
As far as Jens knows, this new DLC will cost the same as all the others have previously. Considering that this is part of the Season Pass, this would be logical.
Why All of This Stuff? I Wanted (Insert Thing Here) Instead. (50:49):
Funcom is trying to cater to many different players who all want their area of interest to be the main focus. Many of the players in Conan Exiles are RP centered players, and they have been asking for similar or identical options that this DLC offer for a long time now. This is Funcom listening to that group and responding.
No New Weapons in the Derketo DLC (25:13):
Jens mentioned it very briefly, but there will not be new weapons in this DLC.
Will DLC Buildings Ever be Stronger then Black Ice? (1:01:15):
No, all DLC buildings will remain Tier 3 equivalent. He went on to describe that all the weapons, buildings, and armor will remain on the same level as what’s found in the base game. If they have different stats, there will be balance adjustments to compensate for this. Such as having more damage but less endurance, etc.
Buildings in the DLC
New Buildings - Show and Tell (18:38):
There are 11 new building pieces with the DLC: Tree Top Foundation, 6 rope bridges (2 varients, 3 lengths), and 4 Stage Pieces.
The first shown are the Tree Top platforms. The Tree Top platform (or Tree Top Foundation) is designed to attach to the side of large trees or mountains. They also snap together like one would expect. Along the sides of the Tree Top Foundation, players may also expand further out via the usual wedge or square options available already in the game. In total, there are 6 sides to the Tree Top Foundation, versus the normal 4 with a Square Foundation, or 3 with the Triangle Foundations. Naturally, you will need to support your ceilings with pillars as appropriate for proper stability as well.
At 22:50, it was asked if the Tree Top Foundations can be placed on the ground. Yes, they will work like any other Foundation and allow players to place them on the ground as well. Robert had this to add as well:
Twitch Comment: Can the Tree Top Platforms only be placed on Tree’s?
Robert No. It attaches to anything that is considered a world object (ground, tree, mountain, etc). Of note is also that, while you might not see it in the stream, the attachment point is NOT in the center. This is so that you can rotate the piece into trees much more easily and allows centering the piece quite neatly.
Rope Bridges and Hanging Bridges (23:07):
They come in three sizes, short, medium, and long(er?). Obviously, the stability will change based on which piece you choose. At 26:04, Jens recognized that Rope Bridges in “real life” don’t really need pillars to support them. However, he touched upon the fact that the whole building system was made with the stability system in mind and that they couldn’t just suddenly break the rules and incorporate a building piece that didn’t need stability (balance would also be a huge concern).
Multigun Note: There are a couple of mod options (on PC) where you could build out your Rope Bridges in a way that makes stability far less of a concern. They can be found via Pythagoras Support Beams, and the wonderful Glass Constructions and More mod.
These stage pieces could be described as a half stair option. Jens showed a quick way to make a little “stage” (Drunk Conan Exiles Karokee, make it happen people) using these pieces. Other examples could be things such as a Throne room. Half stair pieces are really versatile though, I have all the confidence in the world the people reading this text right now have already started planning some amazing designs.
Placeables in the DLC
Finally, for the moment a bunch of you have been waiting for. Yes, this DLC has placeables. Much more then any other DLC before it. Jens said there are 29 Placeables in total. They’ll have a proper full list when the DLC is launched.
Bar/Tavern Placeables (32:33):
There are lots of placeables that are all themed around creating a bar or tavern. There are counter pieces, which there are various versions so you can connect them together. Like one long piece, connected by two corner pieces. And by connect, it’s loosely placed, they aren’t snapped together like a building piece would be. Then there are wine barrels or bar barrels that you can place, tables, bowls, wine, wine racks and shelves that can be placed on walls, barrel stools, and etc.
Curtain’s are placed on a wall, like you would a banner or other wall type placeable. The curtain’s are unfortunately, not dyeable. Jens said they know players would like to be able to dye buildings and placeables and have submitted those suggestions to the dev team before. It’s a “we’ll see” if that feature ever comes or not.
Haven’t you ever felt, that after a long day of battling undead and chopping off heads, that you would want to come home, kick off your shoes, and go to sleep in a nice Luxurios bed, fitted for the top Exile of the land? Well, now you can! An example of a fully decked out Luxurious bedrom can be found at 1:03:40.
Defined as the King Board, you can now have your own chest set. And yes, it even comes with chest pieces so you can sit down to a nice, calm, game of chess. Loser loses their head, naturally. To play chest, you simply use the placeable system already in the game and move your pieces as the rules dictate. Best brush up on your chess rules now!
For funsies, you can also see the King Board fully setup at 1:03:15.
Emotes in the DLC
With the purchase of this DLC comes 12 new emotes. Not all 12 were shown on stream. The default wheel you are used to seeing has expanded. There is a new misc ,relax, expression, and celebrate category. All with the new emotes contained within. Jens said that there are appropriate sound effects to match some of the emotes, but the sound was muted on stream so I wasn’t able to hear them. Here are the emotes shown on stream.
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Chug Beer (41:36):
The character chugs a beer, burps, then throws the mug on the ground, smashing it to pieces. -
Angry Drunk (42:17):
Your character attempts to start a fight, and punches the air in the most drunkly way possible. -
Juggle (43:03):
The avatar begins to juggle. The source of the juggling balls location is unknown. Character is unable to move and juggle at the same time. -
Hands on Hip (44:26):
Place character hand on hip, check your nails as if the conversation that is before you bores you, etc.
To clarify, this part is free, regardless of access to the DLC emotes. By holding down “R” key on the keyboard (PC controls) during an emote, you can cancel the emote. Now you won’t have to move your character or use an action in order to cancel the emote.
Warpaints in the DLC
There are 6 new decorative Warpaints with the DLC. For those not aware, Warpaints decay based on durability. Decorative Warpaints have 14,400 durability, and 3600 durability for Buff Paint (thanks to @Wak4863 for that!) The 6 Warpaints are labeled as: Calm, Passion, Innocence, Emptiness, Lust, and Jealousy. Below are the time stamped Warpaints shown on stream.
- Calm Warpaint (46:25):
- Passion Warpaint (47:14):
- Innocence Warpaint (47:24):
- Emptiness Warpaint (47:35):
- Lust Warpaint (48:00):
- Jealousy Warpaint (48:28):
Outfit and Armor Related Stuff in the DLC
There is jewelry cosmetics in the DLC. They consist of gold and silver variations of the jewelry, which differ in both the actual look and color of the jewelry. There are circlets, earnings, anklets, and bracelets options.
First New Outfit Shown (16:36):
First shown on Jen’s character is the new DLC outfit, the Innkeeper’s Outfit. The outfit consists of chests and leggings. The male version was eventually shown at 1:03:02.
Multigun Note: As a mod option (on PC), this outfit piece, along with the others in the DLC, would work really great with Fashionist, a fantastic mod developed by Testerle.
There are 2 new full armor sets, and a few outfit pieces (there are 10 outfit pieces in total). The Inkeeper’s Outfit that Jen’s has warn throughout the stream would be an example of the outfit pieces that come with the DLC. The jewelry pieces previously shown also go well with these outfit pieces.
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Noble’s Outfit (52:30):
Of note, both the default blue, and Jen’s dyed red colors were shown on the stream. -
Artisan’s Pants (53:36):
Unlike the Inkeeper and Noble’s outfit pieces, this is just a set of pants that is meant to be combined with various other outfit pieces. -
Bejewelled Outfit Set (54:15):
The most Derketo looking outfit of the whole bunch. Entertainers everywhere will likely be spotted sporting this outfit soon, while getting their tan on. The Male version (along with another female) were shown at 1:02:17. -
Armor Sets (55:57):
Much like the Blood and Sand DLCs, the 2 new armor sets are inspired by Age of Conan. This iteration, we have armor sets from the Guardian class, and the Dark Templar class. Both sets are Heavy armors. The attribute bonuses weren’t visible in the build shown on stream, and Jens couldn’t remember what they were off the top of his head. So we’ll have to wait for the release to get the numbers on those.
Will There be a Herald of Xotli Inspired Outfit/Xotli Avatar Skin Someday? (58:54):
Jens didn’t know, stating that it was all up to the designers to decide on what they wanted to do and felt was best. He did state that he knows that many Conan Exiles players would love to have more Age of Conan inspired stuff added into Conan Exiles, so the “door is open” as far as what will be possible in the future.
Conclusion
General Treetop Village Show and Tell (59:45):
This portion of the stream was a show and tell of the various placeables and buildings in the DLC and different options you can do with them.
Q/A With Robert - Senior Designer for Conan Exiles
Most dev streams, Robert takes the time to go through Twitch Chat to see if he is able to answer any questions players asked during the stream that may not have been answered. He then sends his responses to me for me to add to my write up. Here are the latest and greatest of the Q/A.
General Feature Questions and Requests
Twitch Comment: When will you add mannequin’s for armors?
Robert: We know many players want this, it’s still on our list but compared to a swathe of other things, it’s fairly low down on the priority list. So “when?” - “not sure”
Twitch Comment: Instead of a bunch of DLC, have you ever talked about a better endgame content?
Robert: We try to continuously put out new and improved end-game content. Dungeons are one way of doing so, other end-game loops like the Unnamed City is another. We will keep improving on the game as much as we can.
Twitch Comment: Can we have a new drawbridge?
Robert: Unlikely
Twitch Comment: Can u make Right Angle (90 Degree) Wedges?
Robert: Not in the plans, sorry.
Twitch Comment: Can you please add in a mirror to customize our hairstyle?
Robert: We want to (and very likely will), but the time is not right juuuust yet.
Twitch Comment: Is there a hide helmet feature yet?
Robert: No, although many people have asked for it, and it makes me think we should do it. I’ll talk to people about it.
Mount Related Questions
Twitch Comment: Are mounts a DLC purchase?
Robert: The Mounts feature is a base-game addition, you don’t have to pay for it. There IS a DLC coming at the same time as we release mounts though. What it contains, I will not say, but it’s called “Riders of Hyboria”.
Twitch Comment: Maybe (in the future), can have skins to make our horses look like other animals?
Robert: It’d be much more efficient to just make new mounts at that point. Never say never.
Twitch Comment:: Will you be allowing us to ride other mounts like elephants in the future?
Robert: Never say never, but if we do, we’ll talk about it then.
General DLC Comments and Questions
Twitch Comment: Will the other textures be added for those building pieces? Aka Yamatai rounded stairs and stuff? Also, will they come in a different material?
Robert: No. The previous DLCs were “cultural” - the Blood and Sands and Debaucheries DLCs are “thematic”; we won’t be updating old DLCs to have every single version of the building pieces in newer DLCs. We would only do something like that if we made a new base game building piece.
Twitch Comment: Are there some ideas or plans to make the voice chat works better?
Robert: It’s in the works.
Twitch Comment: How does the DLC work? If you own it, you can build it, but others that don’t own the DLC can still view/experience it?
Robert: That’s correct. You can even place the items if someone gives them to you, you just can’t craft them.
Twitch Comment: These armor’s aren’t stronger then God Breaker armor right?
Robert: Right. Armors and weapons from dungeons are on a higher tier than DLC armors and weapons.
Debaucheries of Derketo Comments and Questions
Twitch Comment: So the Derketo DLC makes 3 of 4 DLC’s for season 2?
Robert: Debaucheries of Derketo is the third, which makes Riders of Hyboria will be the 4th, yes.
Twitch Comment: Can we get different skins for work station for this DLC? I think it would be cool.
Robert: Good idea. Noted.
Twitch Comment: So the Tree Top Foundations have 6 anchor points, that goes through trees. It has a nice snap feature, I like that a lot. But will we get a square version in the DLC?
Robert: No - if you want a square option, you’ll need to use the regular pieces already in the game.
Twitch Comment: Question. Are the tree foundations lag/memory wise worse then the normal ones or better?
Robert: About the same. I’d also like to comment here and say that what REALLY lags the memory out is a massive amount of placeables, since placeables are not instanced but building pieces are. #pro-tip
Twitch Comment: Do the barriers on the side of the rope bridges actually stop you falling off the bridge (as in do they have collision on them)?
Robert: Yes
Twitch Comment: What about giving bridges more flexible stability? I think pillars kinda breaks the immersion.
Robert: We tried that idea out already, but quickly noticed it was possible to build in really invasive ways that we didn’t want to support (pun intended).
Twitch Comment: Jens can’t seem to get the rope bridge to snap on the ceiling he wanted.
Robert: Jens was using a too long piece and wasn’t angling the camera away far enough
However, that said, we’re working on Quality of Life for placement in general. Such as snapping issues that any builder knows about are super-annoying #Can’t-build-here-until-I-dismantle-another-piece.
Twitch Comment: Do walls snap on the stage pieces ?
Robert: No - but you can build walls around it by putting it on the piece that the stage goes on.
Twitch Comment: Question about the stage piece., can you put a foundation or a pillar on top of them?
Robert: No
Twitch Comment: Am I allowed to play Nickleback from that stage?
Robert: You can play anything you want from the stage. Unless it’s “What does the fox say.” If you play that song, the server automatically bans you.
Twitch Comment: What damage can the chess board deliver?
Robert: The King Board will cause bleed and sunder when thrown at other players, and 50 FunDamage, which is like regular damage, except it’s not real.
Twitch Comment: Pick Up the Board when you are losing! The figures will disapear then heh heh.
Robert: Absolutely true, you can table-flip the board if you want. Now I wish we really had made a specific thing for that… >.<
Twitch Comment: Can people from different clans play chess together?
Robert: The pieces ignore ownership, so yes. This also means (of course) that someone might just steal them. Those dastardly thieves sell those pieces on the black market, I tell you.
Twitch Comment: Can you actually store drinks and stuff in the barrel rack?
Robert: No, they’re only decorative placeables
Twitch Comment: Are all the DLC armors and jewelry dyable?
Robert: Yes
Bugs, Crashes, and Other Fixes.
Twitch Comment: Will the ladders be fixed now?
Robert: Ladders have received a few fixes and improvements, but I don’t know exactly which version of the Ladders are on the latest Testlive, I’m afraid.
Twitch Comment: Any idea when gods will turning back on officials?
Robert: There are a number of exploits we want to fix first . “When we’re ready” is the official answer to this.
Twitch Comment: I would like to use this opportunity to ask if the PvP is going to ever be addressed and not just PvE. PvP lag I feel hasn’t been worked on much and that it should be a priority.
Robert: Very much so - we’re looking into various aspects of PvP, especially lately, but it’s something that takes a little time. We have a lot of it nailed down but most of it is hard to release “piece-meal” so all the work for important changes need to happen at the same time. Having said that, we’re looking to improve upon the PvP experience and so yes, it is very much still a game with PvP in it.
Twitch Comment: Just got in so not sure if this was asked but is there a fix coming for console crashes? We can’t even get in our server sometimes.
Robert: We are always trying to fix crashes, and we have fixed some in the latest upcoming patch, and we will keep trying to nail them down.
Twitch Comment: So there is time to release paid DLC’s that dont fix the important things in the game, but there is no time to address the lag crashes and server optimizations?
Robert: The people that work on the DLC’s are not the same people that fix crashes and optimizations. However, see below.
Robert: - His Comment on Stability and Crashes.
I would like to address something that comes up quite often in the shape of something like this: “Please give us a straight answer about what you’re doing with stability and crashes, and no generic answer please!” and I feel it’s fair to give an honest answer here.
The reason why we give a generic answer to that is because well, the question itself is generic. What are we doing about crashes? Constantly trying to fix them - they are high up on our priority list. If you have a specific crash that happens a lot (for example: “the game crashes when I try to shoot a bow”) it is much easier to give that an answer straight up if it’s a high-profile vanilla caused crash. However, the nature of specific crashes is beyond Jens’ scope of knowledge - he can’t possibly know the entire code-base, the crash-logs for every instance of the game in the world and also what each individual coder is working on.
So then, what are we aaaactually doing about it?
There are some crash-fixes in the latest version, some of them related to inventory management of systems which would cause the game to clog up with too much information about transferring items and crafting them. We also believe we may be hot on the trail for the infamous Xbox “crash on login until you play Single-Player first” issue, and hopefully we can have a fix out for that very soon.
The number of crashes that appear on our crash-reporter have gone down over time - quite significantly - and every patch we make an effort to fix bugs, crashes and exploits. And that is a generic answer, because to answer the question in a detailed way would mean that Jens would have to be all-knowing. I’ve always suspected him of being a little bit of a mutant, but I don’t think he’s achieved that level of power yet. We do love our player-base. Heck, I play Conan myself every single day, and my landlord also plays (on an Xbox PvP server, I should add) and so I get to experience the same things as any other player.
