I think the main problem with Funcom is that it hears too many players. It is like a bus giving each passenger a steering wheel and providing the driver only with a clutch pedal.
And this is not even the first time it happens, or the first time they do it. Conan Exiles EXISTS because it was done before:
A good idea for the next Age - General Discussion / Feedback - Funcom Forums
Like I said in my post a few days back, I had mostly no problems with the game until the solution tried for a problem that does not affect me changed the game in a way that does. Server problems in this game are directly result of trying to make a game relying solely on the Unreal Engine network system. That was not meant to make multiplayer games, that was meant to make solo games that rely on server for data, only. Coop is a very rough use of that system that stretches it to the farther possible use by allowing a second player in the same space.
No game of good performance is ever made using solely the network support of Unreal Engine, and that has a good reason: Unreal Engine is a modular engine that offers hooks for you to put your work on it. Hooking it up on itself is a performance drag that allows for all kinds of exploits and issues, because they are ment to be hooked up on a server that handles the inputs and the distributed networking, and links the clients through a middle manager. What the game does now is create what is essentially “another client that by chance has authority to run server stuff”, and therefore subject to the same problems.
You can scrounge the game code as much as you like, if it is done that way, you will NEVER solve the server problems, no matter how much you try.
How do we know that ? Callum Uptown has a YouTube channel that talks about “Scam Crypto Games”, and why is it relevant ? Scam crypto games are often made the same way because people dont want to pay a network guy like the ones my company employ, or a database guy, like me and other people are for my company, in terms of development, to make stuff run. They just “stuff unreal with assets and stuff” and make the best they can with what they have.
I am pretty sure given the history of funcom, it was a necessity in the early days of Conan Exiles, but it is not anymore. I mean, Tencent money and consulting, experience, a sure source of money from the game itself, it have to be enough to make the COMPLETELY FEASIBLE change to a more stable format, which a correct server software for the game, a reality. You dont need to change the client of the game that much, and it would only make some changes to the style of server run. But it would not be “for the worse”.
I mean, server owners, do you rather have a heavy loaded program to run a server that you cant even use without a ton of third part tools or a ton of skills, or a server that is a server and can be managed even with a web interface on a old pc ? Better yet, with less than 1/10th of the latency.
The problem is they seem to listen to “massive numbers of people telling them what to do” instead of doing what the professionals they have or can have would.