Even halving Thrall health and damage is not enough to redeem PvE

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I just used a level 7 Cimmerian Berserker to clear every single boss in the Unnamed City. I had him use his standard star metal greatsword and put some generic, random throwaway armors on him that I found from our clan’s chests.

Not once did he go to even half his health. In fact, in some fights, he regenerated so fast that he ended up with only ~300 health lost, or around 5% of his total health.

And he’s only level 7… With suboptimal gear…

Boss fights should be exciting and challenging for the player. Players who aren’t running the absolute top gear should expect to have to expand consumable resources to clear the most central bosses of the game, such as the ones providing end-game items and Fragments of Power.

But right now you just mow through them with an unleveled T4 thrall with mediocre items.

It’s disappointing. I want to feel privileged for having conquered a difficult boss. I want our to group have to figure out new tactics and new approaches to defeat a particularly tricky boss. But nope - if you run to any trouble, all you gotta do is grab the nearest thrall…

The main culprit is really the leveling. It makes thralls way too strong. A level 20 T1 fighter is pretty much the example of what, I imagine, the ultimate combat thrall should be like - having a risk of dying in a boss fight, but a risk you can manage by pulling the thrall away at the right time. Still very powerful in the open world and an useful addition in the boss fights.

As it is, even if the health and damage of named T4 thralls was halved, they would still be powerful enough to solo everything in the game. And that’s way, way too much.

I propose that the bonuses gained from leveling are drastically reduced to the point where a level 20 Cimmerian Berserker would have a third of the damage and health of what they have now. Additionally, I propose that bosses’ health pools are reduced (as in the upcoming patch) and that in singleplayer, the bosses are further weakened compared to playing with a group.

Also, getting proper scaling for the bosses based on player count in their vicinity would be great, but that’s maybe asking a bit much at this time…

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And then it will take 2 players with berserkers together to do same.
Bosses are mere mobs with tons of HP. I wonder if Witch Queen were something different, but now nerfed - she really begins like bosses in Final Fantasy XIV do.

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I play solo clan, so we can’t compare due to clans with more players.

I disagree with any further nerfs on thralls. This is from someone who has had to fight berserkers. I mean I finally got my own berserker, and I have no quarry with previous encounters about berserkers.

If the bosses were instance based, then scaling might be an option. As of now, there is… well, when WoW implemented such scaling, I had a big disinterest in staying. I mean I completed each fight, but the fun went somewhere else.

Anyways, I found Claws are fun, too. They only need the claws, the gear, besides default weapon. I bet my Claws can knock out the beserker besides me. Last time I tanked it.

I’m confused about the redeem part.

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I feel that is the root of the problem.
The bosses are just mobs with a ridiculous health pool.

I solo ran a dungeon with a maxed out T4 Dalinsia in about 30minutes, killing everything and not taking part in the fights myself.

The same dungeon with 4 friends without thralls, all decked out in end game legendaries, took 2h 30min to clear.
I used a bow and burned around 5k+ arrows, I also had to repair my bow twice.
My finger and wrist were killing me after spamming bow attacks for so long.

Shooting a boss in the knee for 15minutes straight while waiting for your friends to run back after they got one shotted, is hardly what I call fun.

As a solution, Thrall damage against PVE content should be reduced by a huge margin while lowering boss HP (or raising player PvE damage). Let players be the ones who deal the damage.
Thralls could mainly be used for debuffs that help the players, make thralls trigger cripple/poison/bleed/sunder more often.

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There’s several bosses with unique mechanics and attack patterns. In that sense, they aren’t just mobs with tons of HP. Witch Queen, Abysmal Remnant, Thag, to name a few, are very distinct from ordinary enemies. Though yes, the tons of HP part does check…

Bosses can still be easily scaled between singleplayer and multiplayer.

Dungeons could be instantiated. And even if they aren’t, instantiating isn’t needed to scale bosses. Boss can be scaled according to e.g. how many players are in the dungeon, or if that’s too prone to abuse by people e.g. going afk in the dungeon to make it harder for others, by how many players are near by the boss.

It’s a small pun :slight_smile: “Player vs Environment” is now “Thrall vs Environment”.

Anyhow, at the moment the thralls make PvE boring. If one opts to not use thralls, then it takes for. friggin. ever. to kill any boss. If one uses thralls, then everything is super easy.

:ok_hand:

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You could just not use a thrall. I know that works.

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It’s probably that I’m just not as good at the game as you are, but I still find it a challenge and enjoyable, I’ve lost a few well kitted T4 thralls and died several times myself. Maybe the answer is for higher skilled players to create the challenge by using lower quality followers so that the less skilled players (me :grin:) can still lean on super thralls when needed? I’m sure we would all appreciate the assistance :+1:

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It’s not a very complete solution.

Firstly, the bosses still have a huge amount of health and seem to be pretty much designed to be taken out by thralls.

Secondly, I can’t really decide these things for the group I play with. If one takes an overpowering thrall, it still trivializes the content.

Thirdly, in a multiplayer situation the use/not use thralls creates a power difference between the players. Players who grind a lot of content with their thralls will ramp up a lot faster on more powerful items than players who choose to limit themselves. In this way, even if you’re now going to dungeons with them without thralls, you may still be weaker than the other players due to the thralls.

Fourthly and finally, I don’t think the onus of balancing the game to be interesting to play is really primarily on the players. Yes, it is affected by player decisions to a reasonable degree, but the primary onus is still on the developer.

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You are correct. However, I thought perhaps you knew that bosses have received quite the nerf in the new testlive.

When I read your post, I was naturally thinking that you were speaking of this experience. I apologize for getting it wrong.

I am waiting for the new patch to see. I know this last patch did increase the damage taken by thralls, based on my testing.

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I’m aware of the test patch yeah. Even the current changes in that aren’t enough tho - thralls still solo everything…

But it does make bosses more doable without thralls, and that’s very very nice. :slight_smile:

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They could, if Conan Exiles wasn’t built on top of an old version of Unreal Engine that provides no support for instances.

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I love the fact that I send my Thrall in and he/she does the work.
Why?
Not because I’m lazy, is because the hit box on the bosses just a joke, If they fix that I’ll participate in fight, until than, hold X/attack

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Followers are already recieving a:

Personally I think this is way MORE than enough for starters; 40% less damage, one third less health…no better to leave the values at this then further adjust them later if necessary. Funcom is well known for over nerfing things. I would prefer that we err on the side of caution here, assuming that is what they have done in the first place.

I already do. In around 90% of instances I defeat them singlehandedly (ie-without the use of a follower). I find this much more rewarding that facing them in group encounters.

I would also add that if you are already fighting bosses in a group with your friends as you said, you do not really need to bring followers in addition to yourselves. And especially not Cimmerian Berserkers, which are among the most powerful on offer.

If it were at all possible, I honestly wouldnt mind if ALL enemies scaled according to our player levels. I know that when I go back to lower tiered areas such as Sinners Refuge and The Summoning Place, or re-battle the Abyssmal Remnant I revert back to an iron weapon, otherwise I tend to kill the enemies way too easily for my tastes.

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This ^ is what I do. And you have great insight Muppetish. I kit my character out according to the job required. This includes weapons and armor too. Many players tend to do this only with attributes and buffs.

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So… we assume player A is level 60. Player B however is lower than 60. Is it possible for B to survive against mobs that are scaled to player A? Hmm.

That’s where WoW implemented “phases” to give both a challenge, Unfortunately, UE4 doesn’t implement such phases.

I vote to let PVE-C have scaled mobs. Leave PvP and PVE alone about it.

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Aye, I had not considered that. Ive not played WoW before, so that does not help me much unfortunately. I would say that at least some level of differential according to biome would need to be maintained. Moreover, another variable is would they level according to player A or according to player B? Also, if player B makes a conscious decision to follow the ‘big boys’ around, especially into higher level biomes such the Unnamed City or Volcano, then that is the risk they take.

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Berserkers and Dalinsias probably need a hefty nerf. However, while determining how weak they should be, I would suggest trying out the weaker thralls we already have available in the game.

I fully leveled an Exile Fighter I. Even kitted in the best possible gear, she’s in a real danger of dying against anything that can make her Bleed because she has only a little over 2000 hitpoints.

I also have a T4 Exile Fighter at level 19 now. She does about the same damage as I do, has over 5000 hitpoints, and I can comfortably take her against easier bosses like the Giant Spider. (With Survival 58 she’s basically immune to poison anyway). Getting cornered and beaten up by something like four Heirs of the North NPCs can still take a serious chunk of her health away. I haven’t tested her in end-game dungeons yet, but based on past experiences I’m afraid that she might not survive the Wine Cellar boss, for example.

Leveling up doesn’t really make a massive difference. The starting tier of the thrall, and especially the Faction, is much more significant.

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I’m pretty much 100% sure this feature is not really dependent on the game engine, when dealing with a game engine that allows a fairly generic approach to development. There’s probably lots of different approaches for how this can be made.

You don’t need specific game-engine support for various scaling schemes.

Well, we’ll see. From videos I’ve seen, people still have their max level named thralls solo every boss in the game on Testlive.

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You don’t play Conan for the PVE.
As someone else said, 90% of the bosses are just bigger mobs with more Health points, the only boss that makes sense is the last one of wine cellar, so imho, bosses being just punch dummies, the faster I kill them, the better is

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Wait, so who doesn’t play for the PVE? Because I certainly, and all of my friends do. There are entire servers dedicated to PVE.

I tried PVP once. Once. It was loathsome, full of gankers and trolls. It was nothing but frustration and it’s especially bad for anyone starting out.

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