[DISCUSSION] PvE-C+ / PvP-E server concept – constant world PvP without wipe loops

Conan Exiles General Discussion
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:small_blue_diamond: Proposed core settings (idea)

Raiding: 24/7 ON (base attacks enabled)

Player death: Backpack inventory drops

Equipped gear + hotbar: Kept on death

Hunger / thirst: High

Clan size: Solo / Duo (maybe Trio)

Farm rates: x1 (vanilla)

Thrall conversion: Vanilla (speed open for discussion)

Durability loss: None (please argue for or against)

Logout rule:
Player character remains in the world for 1–4 hours after logout (exact duration open for discussion – could be instant or delayed)

:small_blue_diamond: Optional weekly twist (predictable)

One fixed day per week (e.g. Sunday)

  • Raiding: OFF

  • PvP: Full body loot ON

:small_blue_diamond: What this server is actually about

This is not a wipe-focused raid server.

The core idea is simple:

You never lose your character or your ability to fight back – only the value you choose to carry with you.

PvP is about stealing momentum, not deleting weeks of progress.
You don’t win by wiping bases – you win by catching players when they’re stacked with value.

NPC cities, camps, dungeons, chests and world bosses become real hotspots.
The world itself becomes the battleground.

:small_blue_diamond: How it plays

You’re never fully reset.

You keep your gear and hotbar.

What you lose is what you dared to carry.

Inventory management becomes a skill:

  • Extra healing or extra arrows?

  • Carry materials or hide them?

  • Encumbrance build for big hauls – at real risk?

Game knowledge matters more than raw gear:
routes, timing, spawns, layouts.

:small_blue_diamond: Bases, decay and the world

Bases are shelters, not banks.
Big vault bases and foundation spam lose value.

Building decay is intentionally aggressive:
Decay timers are set very low (example: Tier 3 foundations decay in ~1 hour).

The goal is not to delete bases instantly, but to:

  • discourage permanent mega-bases

  • reduce server lag and dead zones

  • prevent the world from being locked down long-term

Progress spreads into the world instead:
hidden stashes, temporary setups, community stations.

Trading matters.
Trust matters.
Movement matters.

:small_blue_diamond: Logout and safety

Logging out is not meant to be stressful.

With a logout timer, you can:

  • plan short or long sessions

  • hide, log out, and keep an edge for next time

  • avoid full progress loss even as a casual player

Your character is still ready to fight when you log back in.
Risk remains – but without wipe anxiety.

:small_blue_diamond: What this tries to solve

  • Less base wiping as the main gameplay loop

  • Less fear of losing everything

  • More constant open-world PvP

  • More reasons to leave your base

  • More interaction, ambushes and decisions

You’re encouraged to fight.
You’re not punished so hard that you quit.

:small_blue_diamond: Interest check

This is not a finished ruleset.
Many values are intentionally open.

  • What sounds fun?

  • What sounds broken?

  • What would you change?

3 Likes
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I want to add a bit of context to why I’m even suggesting something like this.

I’ve played Conan Exiles for years, both in clans and solo, but most of my personal experience comes from solo / solo-duo PvP.

Over time, I noticed a pattern on PvP servers:
wipe loops, refarming the same thralls and gear, and a lot of progress that simply turns into donations for alpha clans or raid goblins.

That loop is fun for some players – but exhausting for others, especially solo players.

This idea comes from asking:
How do we keep PvP constant and exciting without deleting weeks of progress every time?

I’m not trying to replace classic PvP servers.
I’m trying to explore an alternative meta where world PvP, decisions and risk matter more than base wipes.

I’m genuinely interested in hearing why this would not work just as much as why it might.
Brutal feedback is welcome.

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Just to add something that might get lost when we focus on individual settings:

This idea isn’t really about rules – it’s about making the world feel alive again.
Logging in, roaming, running into people by chance.
Catching someone coming out of a dungeon and making small gains instead of wiping weeks of progress.

The “micro MMO” feeling – where progress sticks, but risk is always present – is the core.

24/7 raiding plays into that as well.
It’s not just PvP pressure, but a way to discourage overbuilding, foundation spam and dead worlds, while the loot rules prevent constant wipe loops.

The goal is to sit between PvE-C hoarding and PvP wipe-and-repeat – a world that stays active, performs well, and encourages movement.

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I’m curious as why you think

will have as an effect to :

have you played ark survival evolved on official pvp servers ? fundation spam is the rule over there and raids are up 24/7

the only thing that would effectively help preventing fundation spam and overbuilding would be an offline raid protection , where if you are not online your base can’t be damaged … having a base that can be raided 24/7 demands that or you have enough spam , that nobody can reach the loot you aim to protect until you are back online to defend , or having at least a member of the clan always online to sound the alarm and rally the troops ( I’m not saying that I condone this behavior but that is what happens in reality when you have those types of rules without offline raid protection nothing more nothing less )

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Yeah, this one is honestly on me – I was an idiot yesterday and forgot to re-add two very important points when I cleaned up the post.

You’re absolutely right in a traditional 24/7 PvP setup.
ARK official PvP is a good example of what happens when 24/7 raiding stands alone – foundation spam and arms races become the default.

That’s not what I’m trying to recreate.
24/7 raiding here only makes sense together with a few other rules I forgot to include:

1) Aggressive decay – very fast decay so permanent mega bases and foundation spam simply aren’t sustainable long-term.

2) Logout timers – not the usual Funcom-style logout where your character stays in the world for days.
The idea here is a much shorter window (for example 1–4 hours, or even instant), so you don’t need always-online defense or full offline raid protection.

For people who want it extremely hardcore, it could even be “never despawn” (if that’s even possible :joy: ) – but that’s not my personal preference, which is exactly why I want feedback on it.

This idea comes from feedback I’ve gotten from streamers and people I’ve played with over time (maybe a minority, but still worth discussing).

I often get asked: why not just play PvE-C?
Personally, I don’t, because PvE-C mega bases tend to kill both performance and world flow.

Why not PvP then?
Because if I’m offline for two days, I lose everything.
You can body-vault or spread loot around, sure – but at that point the game turns into a mental loot-management exercise instead of actually playing.
And if you die in a random open-world 1v1, 1v2, or worse, re-entering the game can become very time-consuming.

With low base value (no gear storage, backpack-only loot), plus decay and logout rules, the incentive structure changes.
Bases aren’t banks anymore – the world is.

This also shifts how teamplay works.
Even in small clans (solo/duo/trio), players actually have to live-play together to gain an edge.
For example: one encumbrance build carrying value, protected in real time by one or two fighter builds.
Or the encumbrance player goes full stealth, plays risky, and gambles everything if they run into campers, snipers, or another roaming group.

For solo and duo players, stealth, planning and route knowledge become much more important than raw numbers.

The weekly Sunday twist plays into this as well.
It’s meant to be an intense catch-up or gamble day:
you can safely farm thralls, bases, stations and prep for the next week – or you can go full risk and hunt other players under full-loot PvP.
Or you can simply log out and wait a few days with nothing to worry about.

One of the hopes with this setup is also server performance and player count.
If large permanent bases aren’t meta, base-related lag becomes less of an issue.
In theory, that could allow a server to go beyond the usual 40/40 cap – maybe 60–70 players or more – because the danger and interaction come from players, not structures.

The goal is to make this extremely casual for PvP players:
intense when you’re online and playing, but easy to step away from without feeling punished.

The only thing this kind of server really lacks is a proper scoreboard (for example a scoreboard over kills, that resets daily), but that’s not something I want to get into unless the concept actually proves successful first.

If you still think this collapses into the same behavior even with decay + logout rules, I’d genuinely like to hear why.

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24/7 raiding? Hard pass. There’s a little thing called sleep that’ll ruin it for small clans and solo players

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Totally fair concern – that’s usually exactly what 24/7 raiding means.

In this setup though, you don’t lose your equipped gear or hotbar, and bases aren’t meant to store long-term value.

Imagine this instead:
You’ve been roaming the world, killed a few bearer thralls, did some chest runs, grabbed materials for quick respecs, T1 stations, and maybe a few temporary buffs.

You throw down a small shack and your goal suddenly becomes very clear:
defend what you just farmed long enough to turn it into something useful.

If someone attacks and you win, you might loot bombs, arrows, pots – you basically hit the lottery.
If you lose, you’re set back, but not erased.

Once crafting is done, you can log out somewhere safe if you’re out of time – and tomorrow you’re ready to fight again.

Combined with logout timers and aggressive decay, this isn’t about offline wipes, but about small daily progression and real fights over current value, not vaults.

This is meant for an actively admin-run server, not as an official default setting.

If that still sounds unfun, that’s totally fair – it’s not meant to replace traditional PvP servers.

1 Like
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Offline protection sounds good. but decay becomes important. I never played a defense at official pvp, 1.6k hours played at conan exile. ppl always wait until you are offline. honestly play pve-c its the same, but you dont farm buildings.

The thing is…..conan allow players to build amazing structures to play pvp - raid- attack and defend. and ppl go straigt to build somewhere they can hide, i wanna see more cool bases to play and attack. Offline protection will give conan players that. more waterfall pvp bases, hill pvp bases, not only top spot bases. i believe pvp server are cool, 24/7 raid is insane..and clan should be limited to 3. theres no enough population to allow 8 size clan. and mainly everybody plays alone.

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That’s fair feedback, and I agree with parts of it.

You’re absolutely right that decay becomes critical, and that classic PvP often turns into waiting for people to go offline – that’s one of the main frustrations this idea is trying to move away from.

Where we probably differ is what kind of PvP Conan should lean into.
I agree Conan allows amazing bases and defense gameplay – waterfall bases, hill bases, creative layouts – and offline protection is great if base defense is the main PvP loop.

This concept is intentionally exploring the opposite direction:
less focus on permanent bases as the core of PvP, and more focus on world PvP, movement, timing and small daily progression. Bases aren’t removed, but they’re not meant to be the primary endgame objective either.

That’s also why clan size is suggested as solo/duo/trio – not because larger clans are “bad”, but because population and balance realities make smaller groups more sustainable long-term.

Totally fair if 24/7 raiding sounds insane – it’s not meant to replace traditional PvP servers.
It’s just an alternative meta for players who enjoy fighting more than waiting, and decisions more than wipe cycles.

Thanks for the honest take.

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I don’t think gameplay will follow your vision. Players will still capitilize and exploit the settings and rulesets.

With the stringent “shelter not banks” idea you’re going for to “discourage big bases”, just remove building altogether.

But then its really getting into procedural PVP and we already have several practice/arena servers for that.

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That’s a fair concern – players will always try to optimize any ruleset.

The idea here isn’t to remove optimization, but to shift it away from permanent bases and into movement, timing and inventory decisions in the open world.

Removing building entirely would turn this into arena-style PvP, which isn’t the goal.
Unlike servers like Dogs of the Desert, progression still exists here and players aren’t always fully stocked or meta-ready.

Buildings are de-emphasized, not removed – meant as temporary shelters, not endgame banks.

Totally fair if you still think it wouldn’t work in practice.

1 Like
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I can already see one type of behavior that would dodge this effect , some people staying logged on 24/7 as the decay timmer is based on just being online , some people don’t care to “over cook” their gpu/cpu or their electricity bill if that means they can keep up their castle or fundation spam alive this way. ( they could also have a secondary pc on low graphic settings with another account that would serve as the logged in 24/7 character )

this is the only way to ensure your rules and people playing on your server play the way it is intended… having admin(s) that actively remove spam and unwanted behaviors and ban/timeout the offenders.

Now or you can contest that this is an absolute truth , but I can provide you just by turning on ark ascended ( since official servers went down for ark evolved ) or even conan ( that has a more limited raid time but still “uncontrolled” official pvp servers) and go from official pvp server to server and show you the evidence backing up my claim !

or we can discuss how to prevent this behavior , what drives it and how it all relates to human nature.

for my part I believe that offline raid protection is part of the answer but not only , you need to make sense of what the game offers you as building / crafting / fighting / looting / enthralling / pets / exploration ect… the building part for example , it would have been much more rewarding if making a “real” castle type of structure was the better way of building , having the gates/doors being 1/10th the health of any wall that would themsleves be 1/10th the health of fundations ( but of course not being able to have “walls” of fundations or having to have a door , and the 0 return of materials if a building piece is destroyed in pvp to prevent to an extent people not having any doors or using walls ect to replace doors ) would’ve make relevant building in a “realistic” way. but even then people will push to the limit the system to their advantages and if left unchecked would have the door leading to nowhere while the loot is behind fundations placed over chests which would always contain enough material to rebuild the fundations ect…

Also having the archers being relevant to defend walls through the crenelations or the “tiny windows” ( we called castle windows “meurtrières” in french for a reason as the noun “meurtre” means “murder” ) but now they are only a half decent way to defend against a bat powered air raid ( and I’m being generous ) … but we can’t do anything about it ( without modding it in ) unless funcom reads this and realize their mistakes… ( we can discuss which part of this sentence will never be true )

The best way to have what you want in the end is active moderation cause as @Kikigirl rightly said :

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It won’t but I’d be happy to concede with proof lol

@Kanza1 is explaining why.

So instead of aggressive decay refocus on balancing with the assets you already will employ: admin oversight. Have clear rules about overbuilding with expectations. Enable DBD so that there’s ability to take a break.

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@Kanza1 & @Kikigirl

That’s fair – and honestly, I agree with you more than it might come across.

I’m dealing with the exact same problems you’re describing:
players abusing systems, building things that are practically unraidable, and metas that completely break immersion and accessibility – especially for newer players.
DLC imbalance and years of accumulated build options only make that worse.

That’s actually why I’m trying to think around the problem instead of just tweaking the usual PvP knobs.

I fully agree that no ruleset alone will stop optimization or abuse.
Aggressive decay isn’t a silver bullet – it’s just one pressure tool.

Realistically, something like this only works with active moderation:
clear expectations around overbuilding, spam removal, and admins stepping in when behavior clearly goes against the spirit of the server.

So yes – admin oversight + clear rules is the backbone.
Without that, I agree it would collapse into the same behaviors we already see on officials.

This is also why I’m not suggesting this for official servers.
Conan isn’t subscription-based, and expecting active admin presence there just isn’t realistic.

The whole point of floating this idea is simply to see if enough players (say 30+) would even be interested in playing something like this on a well-run private server.
If that interest isn’t there, then the discussion ends there – and that’s fine.

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I get that you’re brainstorming and collecting interest. I assume you’ve posted in this in other spaces, curious to see the reception in those other spaces.

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Just so I’m sure you understand , I’m not trying to undermine your rules or telling you it’s a bad idea.

I’m just trying to point out potential flaws and things that I think will happen given the human nature.

what drives someone to a pvp server ? what drives someone to farm on a pvp server? what drives someone to fight on a pvp server ? what drives someone to build a base on a pvp server ?

why do people use all the exploits they can find especially on pvp servers ? why do people use cheats especially on pvp servers ? why do people quit a pvp server ? what drives the ones that stayed on cheat infested pvp servers ? what private pvp server actually work and what are the rules on them ?

the responses to those questions will bring more insight into what could potentially work as rules for your server.

2 Likes
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i like yhe creative thinking.

  1. 24/7 raiding, offline and body timer to 30 minutes aftrr log off.
  2. Agressive decay when logged off only. Number 1 protects exploiting that by staying logged in but AFK. Base can be raided.
  3. No mats return only on walls and foundation, cielings. It would make it cost somwthing to keep no doors.
  4. No loot hot bar and armor.
  5. Durabilty should stay on because pf number 4. Even be more aggressive ( if PC i have a mod concept that adds a durabilty damage to weapons, so you can chunk down armor when fighting as well)
  6. DP and explosive have an aggressive decay, and block storage in anything that can pause/reduce it. (i have a mod i did for that)
  7. Base thralls–still have normal thrall followers, but special posts that you have high HP thralls that onky guard base, not follow. (I have a mod kind of for that).
  8. Linit 1 t3 chest per player (or 2) that cannot be destroyed (but do decay). Make Vaults the storage choice. Takes more mats to build around them, harder to tuck away.

I am not marketing my mods per se, but the ideas that better lead to actual raid pvp.

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Is this another of His threads where each OP’s answer is formatted using AI, while the discussion itself is more of a show of the Author’s oratory, where the amount of text has the same (if not more) value than the content? :slight_smile:

edit after flagging - I’m wondering who was so offended, since I don’t see anything more inappropriate, then others put in threads around the forum, heck, even OP answered with understanding.

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@Kanza1 @Kikigirl

I think your questions are actually all pointing at the same core issue, so I’ll try to answer them together instead of one by one.

First – if any of my previous replies came across as overly defensive, that’s on me.
This is an uphill discussion by nature, and I probably had my gloves on a bit more than intended.

On PvP servers, a lot of the behaviors we see – extreme overbuilding, system abuse, or people quitting after base wipes – seem to come from how punishing absence and loss currently are, especially when time investment gets erased too easily.

I don’t really know why people cheat.
Sometimes it honestly feels like some players cheat just to disrupt or burn servers down.
When it comes to things like meshing or glitch abuse, it’s often more about avoiding risk or protecting progress than actual PvP.

That’s why active moderation is a hard requirement here.
Cheats, exploits and abuse need clear lines and enforcement – otherwise no ruleset matters.

I’ve shared this idea on Reddit and discussed it directly with an admin team I play under.
The first draft didn’t land particularly well – it was more conceptual and “what if” in tone – and one of the main critiques I got was that it didn’t sound casual-friendly enough for people with jobs, families, or irregular schedules.

That feedback is what led me to rework the thread:
bringing the focus more clearly onto time accessibility, reduced wipe pressure, and why this could function as a more sustainable PvP loop rather than a no-life format.

So instead of defending a specific ruleset, I’m more interested in turning the question around:

For players who already play PvP – or have tried it and bounced off –
what would need to be different for an alternative PvP environment like this to feel worth engaging with long-term, without falling back into wipe-and-repeat or heavy time pressure, and still distinctly set itself apart from normal PvE-C and PvP servers?

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One thing I realized reading the replies is that we might be talking past each other when it comes to why people play PvP at all.

For me, it’s about fights, slower progression, gear imbalance, and experiencing the world under constant risk, not primarily about wiping bases.

I don’t think there’s a single motivation that fits everyone on PvP servers.
Some enjoy raiding, some defending, some open-world fights, and some simply play what fits their schedule.

The goal here isn’t to define a “correct” PvP playstyle, but to see if there are like-minded players who enjoy a different emphasis.

1 Like